Pakistani satire site fools Fox News: "Islamic ban on padded bras"?

By Salman Hameed

Okay - this is hilarious and serves Fox News perfectly. They are so fixated on demonizing Muslims that they fell for an Onion-style Pakistani satire site, Roznama Jawani (tip from Zakir Thaver). From Salon:

Fox News website has picked up a hoax story about an Islamic council in Pakistan protesting the use of padded and colorful bras and presented it as fact.

The story, which is still featured on Fox News' Fox Nation website, was illustrated with a picture of a woman's mid-section and carried the headline "Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as 'Devil’s Cushions.'" (UPDATE 9:30: Fox has now pulled the story. See the original here.) The lead of the Fox Nation story, which sources the piece to the Indian news website sify.com, reads:

The Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan has protested the use of padded and colourful bras by Muslim women, and recommended that Pakistani Muslim researchers should try to invent an innerwear that makes female assets unnoticeable.

The problem is, if one takes the time to track the story back to its source, the whole thing is an obvious Onion-style satire -- a fact first pointed out by Arif Rafiq of the Pakistan Policy Blog.

The sify.com story linked by Fox cites a "report" from yet another site called Roznama Jawani.

Roznama Jawani, in turn, appears to be a Pakistani version of the Onion, featuring such stories as "Karachi Preparing a Huge Ass Bat to Beat the Shit Out of Kamran Akmal," "Altaf Hussain Challenges Imran Khan to a Rap Battle to Settle Differences," and "Man From Peshawar Sues Red Bull. Says he has no wings!"

The bra story on Roznama Jawani features a crudely photoshopped image of an Islamic council meeting with a large sign that says, "Future of Padded Bras." The story quotes an anti-padded bra protester saying that "Padded bras are evil as they make the breasts look bigger and perky ... Only devil women show off private parts."

Read the full story on Salon here, read the original story on Roznama Jawani here: "Padded Bras are Devil's Cushions" says Council of Islamic Ideology. By the way, Roznama Jawani are claiming that they are now "Fox News' authentic news source".

[P.S. Some Saudi fatwas are indeed beyond parody: For example this one where Saudi clerics advocate adult breast feeding. Fantastically, this fatwa was also used by women in their bid to get driving rights: Women threaten to breastfeed drivers if they aren't allowed to drive. Brilliant - and this serves these clerics right].