The places around the world where celebrating Valentine's Day is banned, have been revealed in this piece.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
Pakistani men protest against Valentine’s Day celebrations in Karachi on February 12, 2017 (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
Whether you think Valentine’s Day is a fun way to show your partner
you love them, or a pointless drain on your wallet (Scrooge), at least
you have a choice as to whether or not you celebrate it.
Not so in many places, where the idea of a holiday celebrating
romantic relationships – particularly those outside of marriage – is
still highly controversial. Some states have gone as far as to enforce
an outright ban on Valentine’s Day, whereas others discourage people
from celebrating it by using force or intimidation.
As a result, celebrating Valentine’s Day – a holiday synonymous
with twee sentimentality and commercialism in the UK – becomes a form of
rebellion and political activism. For example, this is the second year
in a row that Pakistan has banned Valentine’s – as well as any media
coverage of the day – since an Islamabad court ruled that the holiday
was un-Islamic.
More than 60% of the Pakistani population is under the age of 30,
and generally in recent years people have embraced the showier side of
the day with hearts, flowers and chocolates.
But the country has also been subjected to an onslaught of
ultra-religious political activism from a relatively small, yet very
vocal minority, which has branded such celebrations immoral and
irreligious.
As Valentines’ popularity grew, parties such as the Taliban-linked
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam held rallies denouncing the day. In 2016, President
Mamnoon Hussain urged Pakistanis to ignore Valentine’s, declaring: ‘Valentine’s Day has no connection with our culture and it should be avoided.’
Eventually, Islamabad High Court introduced the ban last year after
a citizen, Abdul Waheed, filed a petition arguing that the holiday was a
western cultural import, and went ‘against Islamic teachings and should
be banned immediately’. In his petition, Waheed had added: ‘In cover of
spreading love, in fact, immorality, nudity and indecency is being
promoted –which is against our rich culture.’
As a result Pemra (the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory
Authority) sent out an advisory last week warning TV and radio stations
not to broadcast anything that could be seen as a celebration of
Valentine’s Day.
‘No event shall be held at the official level or at any public place,’ Pemra said, including special deals offered by shops on gifts or tickets for things.
Some citizens agree, arguing that Valentine’s is ultimately a
western holiday that goes against their strong religious beliefs. ‘We’re
Muslims,’ Taufeeq Leghari, from Rawalpindi, told Reuters recently. ‘Our religion forbids things like Valentine’s Day.’
But Salman Mahmod, a flower seller, disagreed: ‘I don’t know
what danger these Islamists would face if I earn a little more from
selling flowers and someone can have a chance to celebrate something.’
And Abid Ansari, a 21-year-old university student in Islamabad,
added: ‘I will celebrate. This is my choice.’ In other countries,
Valentine’s Day bans aren’t necessarily enshrined in law – but
unofficial restrictions are enforced by local and federal agencies,
through intimidation tactics or raids.
In Iran, celebrating Valentine’s itself isn’t officially banned –
but a lot of the activity associated with it is. Iranian shop owners
aren’t allowed to manufacture or sell Valentine’s paraphernalia, such as
boxes and cards adorned with hearts, special heart-shaped balloons, or
red roses.
Plus, under the country’s strict religious laws, unmarried couples
are forbidden from mingling with each other. But even for many
hardliners, it’s not the idea of romantic love that is off-putting –
this is the country that gave the world Rumi, after all. Instead, it’s
primarily because Valentine’s specifically is seen as a western import.
‘Honouring foreign celebrations is the spread of western culture,’ Ali Nikou Sokhan, head of the printing works owners’ union, said in 2011 of the ban on special heart-printed cards and boxes.
‘Our country has an ancient civilisation and various days to honour kindness, love and affection.’
Because of this, nationalists have previously suggested replacing
Valentine’s Day with a festival called ‘Mehregan’, an Iranian holiday
that has been celebrated since before the introduction of Islam to the
country.
Mehr can mean friendship, affection or love. Despite all of this,
Valentine’s continues to be popular among young people in Iran, where
70% of the population is under the age of 30 and therefore grew up with
no recollection of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Many, particularly
younger citizens, have defied officials to mark the day with their
significant others.
It’s a similar story in Indonesia. There is no official law against
the holiday, but some pockets of the country, ruled by hardliners,
enforce small-scale bans and employ intimidation tactics.
Last year for example, police in the city of Makassar raided
minimarts and seized all of the condoms, claiming that they were being
sold ‘in an unregulated way’ on February 14th to encourage people –
particularly teenagers – to be sexually promiscuous on Valentine’s.
Officials in Indonesia’s second-largest city, Surabaya, also ordered
schools to enforce institutional bans on pupils celebrating the holiday.
And in Banda Aceh, one of Indonesia’s most religiously radical cities,
an outright Valentine’s ban was put in place in 2016.
The country’s contentious relationship with the holiday stems from a
ruling by the country’s highest Islamic clerical council in 2012,
declaring that Valentine’s was contradictory to Muslim culture and
teachings.
However, although it is a Muslim-majority country, Indonesia is a
secular nation in which religious diversity is enshrined within its
state ideology. There are more than 220 million Muslims in Indonesia,
but the vast majority follow a moderate form of the religion – and the
country has sizeable Hindu and Christian minority communities too. So,
despite intimidation in some cities, Valentine’s does continue to be
popular in the rest of the country – particularly in the capital
Jakarta.
In Malaysia, the country’s Islamic authorities seem to hit out at
Valentine’s Day every February – to the point where it has become an
annual tradition. In the past the Malaysian Islamic Development
Department (JAKIM) blamed the holiday for everything from abortion to
alcoholism – and have even suggested that celebrating Valentine’s can
lead people to commit fraud, or abandon their newborn babies.
The holiday, it has said, is linked to ‘negative ills that can
invite disaster and moral decay among youths’. This stems from a fatwa
issued in 2005, which ruled that Valentine’s encourages promiscuity and
other immoral activity.
Although the annual anti-Valentine’s campaign is now seen as par
for the course, religious conservatives are becoming increasingly
outspoken in the traditionally moderate country. In 2011, officials
arrested almost 100 Muslims in a major crackdown on Valentine’s Day.
They were detained for ‘khalwat’ – or ‘close proximity’ – which is
the crime of being alone with a member of the opposite sex, who isn’t
one’s close relative or spouse. Then, in 2014, 80 Muslims were arrested
by Islamic morality police for the same reason after raids on budget
hotels in Kuala Lumpur and the central state of Selangor. Any unmarried
Muslim couples who were sharing rooms were detained. Muslims make up
just under two-thirds of Malaysia’s total population of 28 million.
Saudi Arabia’s religious police don’t look too favourably upon
Valentine’s Day either. Many public places in the kingdom still
segregate people by gender (although this is slowly changing), and
public displays of affection remain a huge taboo.
However, that doesn’t mean that people don’t celebrate.
Valentine’s gifts and flowers are still sold in droves, albeit
under-the-counter. As with most things sold on the black market, prices
are sky-high, and people wanting to place orders are encouraged to do so
over the phone in order to avoid detection. But it doesn’t always work,
sadly. In 2014 five Saudi men were sentenced to a total of 39 years in
prison, as well as 4,500 lashes collectively, after they were found
dancing with six women they weren’t related to on February 14th.
Officers also seized alcohol and red roses.
But it’s not just Muslim-majority countries that have
anti-Valentine’s laws or restrictions. In 2010, the Russian region of
Belgorod enforced a ban on Valentine’s Day after the local governor,
Yevgeny Savchenko, claimed it went against Russian cultural traditions.
‘The society has to think about the consequences’ of celebrating
the holiday, the governor’s spokesman Grigory Bolotnov told Ioann news
agency. He didn’t specify what these consequences were, but he did
rather confusingly add: ‘We could just as well have introduced a Vodka
Day.’ As a result of the ban the local zoo had to cancel promotional
couples’ discounts. And a small number of far-right political parties in
India have tried to enforce state-specific Valentine’s bans over the
years.
In 2015, the Hindu nationalist group Mahasabha warned that any
unmarried couples found celebrating the ‘foreign festival’ in public in
western Uttar Pradesh would face a range of punishments – including
being married on the spot.
Chandra Prakash Kaushik told the Times of India at the time: ‘We
are not against love, but if a couple is in love then they must get
married. In case if the couples claim that they need time to think about
marriage, we will tell them that if they are not certain, they should
belittle love by openly going around together. We will also inform their
parents.’
And in 2009, the far-right group Shiv Sena employed moral police to
intimidate women in the southern state of Karnataka into dressing
modestly and avoiding pubs and bars.
The group’s leader, Pramod Muthalik, promised to marry any
unmarried couples seen out together on Valentine’s Day – and even
threatened violence for those seen celebrating what he argued was a
western import into the country.
In response, women’s rights activists sent Muthalik a Valentine’s
Day present of more than 2,000 pairs of pink underpants – known as
‘chaddis’ in India, which is also slang for a right-wing hardliner. It
was known as the Pink Chaddi Campaign.
***
Source: Metro UK
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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