Tag: Religious coercion

  • Heed the warning of the Holy Father

    LeftSidePositive pointed out yesterday that when Catholic archbishops prate of freedom of conscience they are bullshitting, because they don’t believe in or promote other people’s freedom of conscience to have nothing to do with Catholic rules.

    This needs to be mentioned more often.

    The US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on religious freedom last April. It is of course that kind of bullshit from beginning to end. They don’t mean religious freedom in general at all; they mean only “freedom” for them to coerce everyone else, including non-Catholics.

    We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith which is ours as Christian disciples, and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other. Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be complementary. That is the teaching of our Catholic faith, which obliges us to work together with fellow citizens for the common good of all who live in this land.

    No it doesn’t. Their Catholic faith obliges them to obey rules laid out by the Vatican. It obliges them to obey what they pretend are commands from god. That’s a different kind of thing from working together with fellow citizens for the common good of fellow citizens. (And how about working for the common good of all people?) Obeying god is god-centered; working with people for the common good is human-centered. The Catholic church is god-centered. It tries to elbow its way into secular matters in the hope that we won’t hate it so much, but it doesn’t mean a word of it. It does not work for the common good of people. It says it does, but it doesn’t.

    Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance, fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now. We are stewards of this gift, not only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free. Catholics in America have discharged this duty of guarding freedom admirably for many generations.

    Some Catholics have, no doubt. The Catholic church and its hierarchy have not.

    Catholics in America have been advocates for religious liberty, and the landmark teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty was influenced by the American experience. It is among the proudest boasts of the Church on these shores. We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn duty to discharge that duty today.

    No. No, no, no. You don’t let your own nuns have religious liberty – you monitor them and call them in for a scolding and do your best to force them to obey you. You excommunicate a nun who approved a life-saving abortion. You browbeat healthcare administrators who refuse to sign an agreement never to save a woman’s life via an abortion even when the fetus is doomed anyway. You don’t believe in religious liberty at all. You believe in liberty for yourselves to coerce everyone else.

    We need, therefore, to speak frankly with each other when our freedoms are threatened. Now is such a time. As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we address an urgent summons to our fellow Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad.

    This has been noticed both near and far. Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke about his worry that religious liberty in the United States is being weakened. He called it the “most cherished of American freedoms”—and indeed it is. All the more reason to heed the warning of the Holy Father, a friend of America and an ally in the defense of freedom, in his recent address to American bishops:

    Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

    There it is, you see – “liberty” understood as the unfettered ability to hinder other people’s access to medical treatment and contraception. “Liberty” to take away the liberty of other people.

    Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples

    Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:

    …

    Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.

    Their cherished freedom to interfere with other people.

    They are such operators.

  • Come back a different person

    So clearly the guilty verdict on Nechemya Weberman, unlicensed “therapist” to rebellious young girls, presents a problem for people who need to control rebellious young girls. What to do, what to do. Export them!

    Embarrassed by the sex abuse trial of a Hasidic counselor, leaders of Williamsburg’s pious Satmar sect are considering a different way to deal with rebellious teens: shipping them out of the country for treatment.

    For “treatment”? Rebellion isn’t an illness.

    Without addressing the allegations against Weberman, a Satmar official told the Daily News that leaders are considering ways to avoid similar accusations by victims.

    “This was a wakeup call; nobody denies that,” said Gary Schlesinger, who heads a nonprofit tied to Satmar leader Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum.

    “Maybe we will send them to an Israeli program or a European program, and the kid will come back a different person.”

    A different, non-rebellious, submissive, compliant, obedient, conformist person. Not an autonomous, thinking, choosing, deciding person who gets to shape her own life according to her own hopes and plans. That’s what “kids” are for: to be robotic clones of their elders.

     

     

  • Pakistan tells the world

    Via Paul Fidalgo’s Morning Heresy – the Prime Minister of Pakistan says the UN “should frame laws to stop blasphemous acts.”

    Oh, yes, absolutely, because that kind of thing is working out so well in Pakistan. Asia Bibi for instance, accused of “blasphemy” by a petulant neighbor. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, murdered for attempting to help Asia Bibi. A homeless man beaten to death by a mob after he was accused of “blasphemy” and arrested. A Christian girl arrested for “blasphemy” and a few days later an imam arrested and charged with framing the girl for a “blasphemy” that never happened, and a whole neighborhood full of Christians in Islamabad is emptied as a result.

    And Raja Pervez Ashraf wants that kind of thing all over the world. Brilliant.

    The Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has called upon the world community to declare blasphemy despicable and a criminal act.

    Addressing Ishq-e-Mustafa Conference held at the Prime Minister House, he said denial of holocaust is met with punishment but Muslims’ sentiments are absolutely disregarded, adding it is incumbent upon all as a Muslim to protest against any insult to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

    No, it isn’t. An insult to the prophet is not comparable to Holocaust denial.

    Non-Muslims are not required to be polite to the prophet.

    He said if denying Holocaust is a crime then demonizing holiest personalities is not less a crime. Prime Minister Pervez Ashraf said an attack on the Prophet Hazrat Mohammad [Peace Be upon Him] is an attack on the core belief of 1.5 billion Muslims.

    This is something that is unacceptable. Our faith remains incomplete without total devotion and reverence to the holy Prophet (PBUH).

    No. That’s wrong. The Holocaust has nothing to do with “holiest personalities”; it’s a matter of human body counts. [Expressing skepticism about an evidence-laden]* genocide is not equivalent to an attack on the core belief of no matter how many people. It is not unacceptable to dispute or contradict or mock a core belief. You are free to give total devotion and reverence to the prophet if you want to, but nobody else is required to. (You shouldn’t be required to yourselves. It should be an option, not a mandate. It’s slavish to make it a mandate. If your religion makes it a mandate then it’s a slavish religion. Sorry, but it is.)

    The PM Raja demanded disrespect to the prophet hood be declared as an international offence, adding Pakistan seeks resolution of this issue in concert with the international community.

    But, again, that’s your religion, it’s not everyone’s religion. It’s not legitimate to attempt to force all people to obey the rules of your religion. And as I hinted at the beginning…your country doesn’t present a very attractive model of this. We don’t look at Pakistan and envy its way with people accused of “blasphemy.” So, in short –

    No.

    *Amended in response to comment.

  • Giles Fraser versus human rights

    Giles Fraser strongly disapproves of the idea (and the judicial finding) that non-medical circumcision is what it is: genital cutting of an infant for religious reasons.

    Generally, the logic behind these moves is that circumcision is an act of unnecessary violence against a child and that it is imposing a belief system against a child’s will. If an adult wants to be circumcised, so be it.

    But child circumcision violates the rights of the child over his body. I recently defended circumcision in the Guardian and was inundated with letters telling me I was a child abuser, that male circumcision was like female genital mutilation. But mostly, the arguments against were all about choice.

    That’s surprisingly clumsy – it would be much easier to follow if the last sentence of the first para and first sentence of the second were one sentence –

     If an adult wants to be circumcised, so be it, but child circumcision violates the rights of the child over his body.

    So I’ll do him a favor and re-write it, so that we can follow.

    Generally, the logic behind these moves is that circumcision is an act of unnecessary violence against a child and that it is imposing a belief system against a child’s will. If an adult wants to be circumcised, so be it, but child circumcision violates the rights of the child over his body.

    I recently defended circumcision in the Guardian and was inundated with letters telling me I was a child abuser, that male circumcision was like female genital mutilation. But mostly, the arguments against were all about choice.

    Apparently, only choice makes it ok.

    There; at least now we know where we are.

    Choice doesn’t exactly make it ok, but it certainly (and obviously) does take the act out of the hands of the parents, and that certainly (and obviously) does make a difference. Doing something to someone is different from doing something to yourself. So yes – in that sense, choice does make it a hell of a lot more ok than the total absence of choice does.

    Obviously this doesn’t apply to everything. It doesn’t mean don’t feed an infant, or don’t provide an infant with shelter from rain and cold, or don’t take an infant to the doctor. It does mean don’t cut bits off the infant unless it’s medically necessary.

    But Giles Fraser doesn’t see it that way. He wants to do a reductio, instead, so he tells us to imagine parents not teaching their child a language, on the grounds of choice.

    See above. Don’t play silly buggers.

    I offer this bonkers experiment as a reductio ad absurdum of the sort of thing that is often said about imposing religion on children.

    It is a rubbish argument because to be inducted into a community of values is a precondition for making sense of the world in a moral way — it is even a precondition of the very freedom that the mad liberal parents are after, a precondition of the child deciding that he or she is going to believe something different.

    But this particular issue is not about imposing religion on children. It’s about not imposing genital cutting on infants for non-medical reasons, including religious reasons. The core of it is not the religion but the cutting.

    Fraser is apparently simply taking for granted the idea that the religion and the cutting are inseparable; that if the cutting is delayed until adulthood, the infant/child is therefore not in the religion – is denied the religion, excluded from the religion.

    How ugly. How ugly not to give the religion the chance to grow up a little and decide that cutting can be both optional and delayed. How ugly to insist that snipping infant penises is somehow mandatory for a particular religion, and that it’s “mad” to think otherwise.

    Choice has become a cuckoo value in our society — driving out other values like fairness and community.

    Fairness? Driving out fairness? What about the unfairness of snipping penises without consent? And how on earth is it “cuckoo” to think that people should have a right to choose whether or not to modify their genitals?

    And the same goes for community. That too should be a matter of choice. It’s not for Giles Fraser to decide that all children should be drafted into one “community” or another from birth via genital branding.

  • Bishop Paglia blamed the pursuit of individual rights

    Surprise surprise – the Vatican says French bishops are totally right to hate Teh Gayz.

    The French Catholic Church is right to defend traditional family values, a top bishop told Vatican Radio yesterday, a day after rights groups criticised a prayer focused on families and children as homophobic.

    The prayer, read out in French churches to mark the Assumption holiday, said children should “fully benefit from the love of a father and mother”, underscoring the Church’s opposition to a commitment by French President Francois Hollande to allow gay couples to marry and adopt children.

    “French bishops are right to insist that children ‘grow up with a father and a mother’,” Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Vatican’s families committee, told Vatican Radio.

    So that they will understand that one sex is inferior, and subordinate to the other. You can’t get that with same-sex parents. It’s seriously important.

    Bishop Paglia blamed the pursuit of individual rights on a “cultural trend that idolises the rights of the individual”.

    Because that interferes with the Vatican’s ability to tell everyone what to do.

     

  • He battered her about the head

    A squalid little story out of Manchester Crown Court.

    A Muslim preacher who tried to strangle his 16-year old daughter after she refused to enter into an arranged marriage with her cousin has escaped jail.

    Abid Hussain, 56, grabbed the neck of Rabiyah Abid and said: ‘If you don’t follow my rules I will kill you’ after she rejected his plans for her to wed.

    Hussain also left the teenager in fear of her life as he battered her about the head at the family home above the mosque he runs at Longsight, Manchester.

    A man of 56 assaulted a girl of 16. A father assaulted his daughter, after trying to force her to marry someone she didn’t want to marry.

    At Manchester Crown Court yesterday Hussain was convicted of assault and making threats to kill. He admitted his daughter’s conduct had ‘brought shame’ on his family and caused him ‘mental torture’ but denied wrongdoing.

    His two sons Nawab Uddin, 23, and Bahaud Uddin, 21 were also convicted of assaulting the teen.

    Henry Blackshaw, prosecuting said Rabiyah lived in a ‘very male dominated, patriarchal household’ where she was left ‘exhausted’ by cooking and cleaning.

    In accordance with Islamic tradition she had been ‘betrothed’ by her father to his sister’s son in Pakistan at just 15 years old.

    In other words, “in accordance with Islamic tradition” her father had attempted to lay out the rest of his daughter’s life according to what he wanted, without consulting her or allowing her the right of refusal.

    Her two brother knocked her around some too.

    Abid Hussain received a suspended sentence of nine months suspended for 12 months, with 100 hours unpaid work.

    Nawab Uddin received a suspended sentence of three months suspended for 12 months, with 100 hours unpaid work and a supervision order for 12 months.

    Bahaud Uddin received three months suspended for 12 months, with 200 hours unpaid work.

    All via the Daily Mail. Sorry to cite the Daily Mail, but I couldn’t find a single other source.

  • Women are told to sit in back

    Theocrats at it again – in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) this time.

    Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of  stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines  from their aisles. It’s only the latest example of the Hasidic community trying  to enforce their strict religious laws for everyone who lives near their New  York enclave.

    “No Shorts, No Barefoot, No Sleeveless, No Low Cut Neckline Allowed in the  Store,” declare the English/Spanish signs that appear in stores throughout the  Hasidic section of the hipster haven. The retailers do not just serve Jews — they include stores for hardware, clothes and electronics.

    …

    “We’re not concerned about the way women dress in Manhattan — but we are  concerned with bringing 42nd Street to this neighborhood,” said Mark Halpern,  who is Orthodox and lives in Williamsburg.

    Some called the policy un-American.

    “It’s further evidence of this era’s move toward Balkanization in the United  States,” said Marci Hamilton, a First Amendment scholar at Cardozo School of  Law. “It’s no longer sufficient that they have shared norms among themselves,  they are increasingly trying to impose their norms on the rest of the  culture.”

    Theocracy, in fact.

    The dress code appears to be the latest effort by the Hasidic community to  separate itself from the greater population.

    There’s an Orthodox ambulance service and a private police force called the  Shomrim.

    On the B110, a privately operated public bus line that runs through Orthodox  Williamsburg and Borough Park, women are told to sit in back, also in accordance with Orthodox customs.

    The neighborhood embarked on a successful 2009 crusade to remove bike lanes  from a 14-block stretch of Bedford Avenue — fearful of the scantily clad gals  who would pedal through.

    Talibanesque – for real this time.

  • The ministry of truth

    Kausik Datta has an incisive post on Ayesha Nusrat’s op-ed in the New York Times about how liberating it is to submit to a religious obligation to wrap your head and neck in a large bandage.

    Clearly, to Ms. Nusrat, the hijab is merely a few yards of cloth. For far too many women in far too many countries (for instance, the Middle East, North Africa, Far East and the Southeast of Asia, not to mention, Europe), the hijab is an obligatory article of indenturement that permits no choice, but is to be worn on pain of punishment and/or death; to them, it is a symbol of systematic oppression.

    A symbol and the reality, which is why it’s so infuriating when people try to dress it up as the opposite. A putative religious obligation can’t be liberating.

    Has Ms. Nusrat ever considered how/why Islamic fundamentalists (be it Taliban, or Boko Haram, or the regime in Iran) ALWAYS impose the hijab, burqa or niqab on women at the first opportunity? Why does she think that is?

    Because Islamic fundamentalists want to liberate women! Wait…

    I find it odd that it seems to have never struck Ms. Nusrat that these inviolable mandates to cover up reflect the bleak reality of so many women’s lives. She glibly talks about a ‘misconception that Muslim women lack the strength, passion and power to strive for their own rights’; she frames it wrongly. As women, the Muslim women lack nothing; they are just as strong and passionate about striving for their own rights as women anywhere else. But Islam is something else. Islam, especially fundamentalist Islam, actively denies them the power, and would rather beat the women into submission than relinquish control – and that is not a misconception, judging by the experience of many, many women in the world. If Ms. Nusrat continues to dismiss their experience because of her beliefs, she is being dishonest.

    Read the whole thing. It’s admirably indignant.

  • Marry the nice rapist, dear

    Oh, human beings, sometimes I despair of you. The arrangements you come up with! Do you just get shit-faced drunk one night and decide all the rules, or what?

    There’s this idea that letting a rapist avoid jail by “marrying” the young girl he repeatedly raped, for instance – that’s a real dud. I’ll tell you why. You forgot the girl!! It’s about the man who did the raping, and the men who own the girl. This means a shit life for the girl! Did you just not notice that, or what? Pay attention, ffs.

    In April, the unidentified girl was shopping in the northern city of Zarqa when a 19-year-old man kidnapped her, took her to the desert where he had a pitched a tent and raped her for three consecutive days, judicial sources said.

    She’s 14.

    Police found the girl during a routine patrol, drove her back to her family home and arrested the man.

    Within days news emerged that the boy had agreed to marry the girl, while all charges against him have been dropped.

    The boy had agreed to marry the girl. Well that’s nice, but he had also agreed to rape her – he agreed with himself – so why is his agreement so crucial while hers is left entirely out of the picture? What, in short, is the difference between her life in that tent and her life “married” to the man who grabbed her, abducted her, and raped her for three days? “Oh noez, he raped you! Well we’ll fix that: now he gets to rape you legally forever. You’re welcome.”

    Israa Tawalbeh, the country’s first woman coroner, sees “nothing wrong in Article 308 as such”.

    “The problem is how some local and international human rights groups interpret the law,” she said.

    …

    “Accepting marriage under Article 308 is better than leaving girls to be killed by their parents or relatives,” she said. “I think the law fits our society and reality. It protects the girls by forcing attackers to marry them.”

    Ah but there’s a third possibility: the girls’ parents or relatives don’t kill them anyway. Didn’t think of that, didja!

     

  • Delusions of choice

    And now I’ll spell out exactly why I think the Collective Response is so wrong and bad.

    The hijab is a statement of female subordination, and it’s also a statement of loyalty or obedience to a ferociously misogynist and coercive religion. Some people are “offended” to be told that. It doesn’t follow that it’s not true.

    Women who wear the hijab without being forced are making a mistake, just as nuns are making a mistake in being nuns. Both sets of women are endorsing a religion that systematically and explicitly bars them from leadership positions in the religion and declares them subordinate and inferior overall. That’s a mistake. It’s not “racist” to say that.

    The Collective Response claims that wearing the hijab is a matter of choice.

    What we do find deeply problematic, however, is the questioning of women’s choice to wear the niqab and the presumption that this decision is rooted in a “false consciousness.”

    …

    To us, it is deeply troubling to be patronized by a person who insists the hijab is never a choice made of free will.

    Note that in the first mention they say “niqab” – which takes their wrongness to a whole new level. They said in a comment that this was a slip of the tongue (some slip!) but they decided to leave it “in hopes of sparking a multilayered discussion that engages understandings of the hijab as well as the niqab.” This just underlines their fundamental frivolity and callousness. Yes let’s also spark a multilayered discussion that engages understandings of stoning to death and girls married off at age 9 and girls’ genitalia carved up like a roasted duck and girls and women murdered for saying No. Let’s treat it all as a “site” for “multilayered discussion” of “intersectionality” and perhaps another publication in The Journal of Pious Horseshit. Yes let’s have a fun detached multilayered chat about women wearing cloth bags over their heads with only a tiny slit in front of the eyes.

    Moving on…They find it problematic that Wilde-Blavatsky questions women’s “choice” to wear the niqab and the hijab. Really? It’s clear from their use of jargon that they consider themselves highly sophisticated, but what is sophisticated about taking the notion of choice and free will as transparent and unproblematic? What do they think they mean? How would it be possible to make a free choice to wear the hijab? Free how, free in what sense? Free of influence of any kind?

    The idea is ridiculous. We don’t do anything social that way. We certainly don’t wear clothes free of influence – our “choices” are shaped by what’s available and by what’s “normal” – no matter what choices we make, they’re shaped by constraints of that kind. If we “choose” to wear a leopard-pattern loincloth, that choice is shaped by various influences just as a choice to wear jeans and a sweatshirt is – and just as a choice to wear the hijab is.

    And the hijab is what it is and not something else. It’s not a baseball cap or a scrunchie. It’s not secular. It has the meaning it has, and there is no “choice” that women can make that alters that fact. It’s a religious garment, with an extensive history of coercion and even violence – a lot of violence – that can’t be erased just by calling it a choice. Imagine a Jew in Amsterdam or Paris in 1946 making a “choice” to wear a yellow star. No “choice” could have erased the meaning of the yellow star. No “choice” can erase the meaning of the hijab now.

  • The Women’s Ministry should exist to improve the lives of women

    Houzan Mahmoud will soon have a statement on Iraq’s Women’s Minister Ibtihal Kasid Alzaidi, who thinks and says that women are not equal to men. Not a good thing for a Women’s Minister to think.

  • Lawyers for Liberty are pissed

    At Malaysia’s Home Minister, for one.

    Lawyers for Liberty is simply astonished and outraged at Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein and PDRM’s continuing attempt to spin further lies and deceit over the illegal and unconstitutional detention and deportation of Hamza Kashgari by now alleging or insinuating that he is a “criminal” or “terrorist” wanted by his home country.

    The truth is Hamza had sent a few tweets on the Prophet Muhammad which he has since deleted and apologized. It must be noted a similar poem on the prophet was published on his blog a year ago but did not receive any negative reaction from anybody. More importantly, he belongs to a group of emerging young pro-democracy activists which among others had supported the Arab Spring. Just days before he fled Saudi Arabia, the police stopped him and his group of young activists from organizing a series of forums to show solidarity with the Syrian uprising. He has also been said to have been monitored by the Saudi Intelligence more than 8 months ago.

    …

    The cold hard truth is that Malaysia has bent over backwards to please Saudi Arabia, breached international law by not allowing Hamza to seek asylum and instead handed him on a silver platter to his persecutors and condemned him to torture and near certain death.

    Keep the pressure on. Make it hot for them.

     

  • Interpol as theocracies’ little helper

    Interpol has said it had nothing to do with the extradition of Hamza Kashgari, but Dennis McShane MP apparently didn’t get the memo – or got the memo and didn’t believe it.

    The charge of apostasy was maintained, his home was attacked and, again, sensibly enough, Kashgari decided it was time to leave Saudi Arabia. The response of the Saudis was to approach Interpol and ask them to issue an international search and arrest warrant.

    Interpol is meant to be tackle serious crime, not act as the little helper for régimes that want to kill journalists.

    Maryam too finds the memo not entirely convincing:

    If it says so – though I am skeptical especially since its has done this before.

    In 2009, a number of us wrote to its office complaining about Iranian opposition leaders being included on its wanted list at the request of the Islamic regime of Iran!

    McShane has suggestions:

    Pressure is important. This time last year the Egyptian military police arrested an Egyptian blogger. Maikel Nabil. He was jubilant about the fall of Mubarak but as he saw the increasing role of the military he criticised the soldiers. A military tribunal sentenced him to three years in prison but an effective international campaign got under way and on Saturday I got a letter from the Egyptian ambassador announcing that Nabil has been freed and pardoned.

    So once again it is time to write to the Saudi Ambassador, and to William Hague so that our Ambassador in Riyadh can make protest. The Commonwealth Secretary General should get involved to as it is to Malaysia’s shame that they send this harmless young man to the possibility of a dusty public square and the executioner’s sword. The Home Secretary too should ask why Interpol is acting as an agent for the most blood-thirsty and cruel of régimes. Might Twitter pay for his legal defence. And when of our Royals takes tea with one of their Royals perhaps a few whispered words might be muttered about why in the 21st century Royals — Muslim, Christian, whatever —  should not chop off heads because of a tweet.

  • Known for his reformist views

    PEN International on Kashgari.

    PEN demands his immediate and unconditional release, in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also calls upon the Saudi authorities to provide him with immediate and effective protection.

    According to PEN’s information, Kashgari, a 23-year-old writer from Jeddah, tweeted a series of messages addressed to the Prophet Mohammed on the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth on 4 February 2012, some of which conveyed questions about his faith. Twitter registered more than 30,000 responses to his tweets, many of which accused him of blasphemy and called for his death. On 5 February 2012 Nasser al-Omar, an influential cleric, called for Kashgari to be tried in a Sharia court for apostasy, which is punishable by death, and the Saudi King Abdullah called for his arrest, vowing to seek extradition if Kashgari left the country. On 6 February Kashgari issued an apology and deleted his feed, but to no avail. Someone posted his home address in a YouTube video, and people searched for him at his local mosque. On 7 February 2012, Kashgari fled to Malaysia. He was arrested two days later in Kuala Lumpur on 9 February as he was trying to continue his journey to New Zealand, where he planned to request asylum. He was deported to Saudi Arabia on 12 February 2012.

    Note especially that King Abdullah called for his arrest and swore to seek extradition if he escaped the country. “Reformist” King Abdullah.

    It’s a great pity that Kashgari didn’t get a flight directly to New Zealand or at least to some secular country. It’s a great pity that he went first to Malaysia. I wonder if he had to for some reason – perhaps because he would have needed a visa for other countries.

    Kashgari is a poet and former columnist with the daily newspaper Al Bilad, and he is known for his reformist views. On 7 February 2012 Al-Bilad issued statement saying that they had fired Kashgari five weeks earlier “because of the inadequacy of his general views for the approach of the newspaper.”

    Yes because we can’t be having reformist views. All reform was accomplished by the prophet, so anything done after that is anti-the prophet and blasphemous and evil. Stasis is the only way to go.

  • Those who are wanted by their countries of origin

    Malaysia today is defending its extradition of Hamza Kashgari back to Saudi Arabia where he could easily be executed for saying he has questions about Mohammed.

    International rights groups have slammed the deportation but Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia was not a safe haven for fugitives.

    Jiddah-based newspaper columnist Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained Thursday at the Malaysian airport while in transit to New Zealand. He was deported Sunday despite fears from rights groups that he may face the death penalty if charged with blasphemy over remarks he tweeted that many considered offensive.

    “I will not allow Malaysia to be seen as a safe country for terrorists and those who are wanted by their countries of origin, and also be seen as a transit county,” Hishammuddin said.

    “Those who are wanted by their countries of origin” is it. What if they are ”wanted” by their countries of origin for being gay? For being critical of their government? For leaving the religion of their parents? For marrying without the permission of their parents? For not wearing the hijab? For using an electrical switch on “the sabbath”? For laughing at the wrong moment? For not bowing low enough?

    Is there any reason too stupid, too vicious, too trivial, for a country to “want” people and Malaysia to obey that “want”?

    Probably not, given the profound triviality and viciousness and stupidity of Saudi Arabia’s reasons for “wanting” Kashgari.

    He said the deportation followed a request from the Saudi government. Allegations that Kashgari could be tortured and killed if he was sent back home are “ridiculous” because Saudi Arabia is a respectable country, he said.

    Oh is it. Is it really. Tell that to foreign domestic workers there. Tell it to people executed for “adultery.” Tell it to women arrested for driving cars. Tell it to convicts sentenced to having their hands and feet amputated. Tell it to everyone who has been hassled by the Mutawwa’in.

    Local rights group Lawyers for Liberty said Kashgari arrived in Malaysia on Feb. 7 from Jordan and was leaving the country two days later to New Zealand to seek asylum when he was detained.

    “The cold hard truth is that Malaysia has bent over backwards to please Saudi Arabia, breached international law by not allowing (Kashgari) to seek asylum and instead handed him on a silver platter to his persecutors,” it said.

    For shame, Malaysia.

  • Free Hamza Kashgari

    You know the drill – same old same old. Join this Facebook group. You know the media report it when causes get big support on Facebook, so join. I added a few people, because you can’t just invite any more – but I’m shy about adding because it seems so presumptuous, so if I neglected to add you, add yourself. And all your friends. Don’t be shy!

    And sign the petition.

    And say harsh things about Malaysia as well as Saudi Arabia.

  • At Maryam’s place

    Maryam’s post on the Free Expression Rally is up.

    So is her post on Malaysia’s outrageous deportation of Hamza Kashgari.

    Malaysia’s home ministry has said that ‘The nature of the charges against the individual in this case are a matter for the Saudi Arabian authorities’. Which basically means that any asylum seeker or refugee must be returned as it is a case for the government in question!?

    Maryam is kept very busy by all these attacks on our right to say what we think.

  • Your personal freedom? You must be joking

    A candidate for Egypt’s presidency by the name of Hazim Abu Ismail, “with affiliations to both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis,” says how things are.

    Host: You have already begun to try to impose a particular dress code for us.

    Abu Ismail:  I’ve begun to? It’s the Lord of the Worlds [Allah] who said so. I have nothing to do with it!

    Host: Allah left it for me to decide as a personal freedom.

    Abu Ismail: Who said that?  Where’d you get that from. See, that’s the whole point: If you claim that Allah considers it your personal freedom, show me your reference? Nobody has ever said that – except for people have no understanding of Sharia.

    Admirably blunt. Makes it very clear what is wrong with theocracy. It’s not the clerics or “scholars” who make these rules, it’s “the Lord of the Worlds” – who is not currently available, so the rules can’t be amended – nor, of course, can they be ignored. They can only be obeyed.

    Host: So when He says “today I have perfected your religion for you” [Koran 5:3], He is only talking about the “creed.”

    Abu Ismail:  Yes; for example, when you say “no coercion to join the Military Academy,” it means that you are free to join or not—but if you do join, then you are obliged to wear their uniform, to attend their classes, to attend the training with them, and to obey their leader.

    Host: There is a problem here—shall I say to the unveiled woman who wants to avoid hijab that she should change her creed?

    Abu Ismail: Exactly, bravo.  If she is a Muslim. You see, this is the difficulty; this is Islam.  Does she want to be a Muslim and not obey Allah’s rules? Let them say so; that’s all I ask; let them be honorable and just speak up.

    What does he mean “Does she want to be a Muslim and not obey Allah’s rules?” What does wanting have to do with it? Most Muslims are simply born as such, and they are never given the opportunity to say they don’t want to be a Muslim and are therefore going to stop being one. It’s an incredibly obnoxious, taunting question. It’s like kidnapping someone and then asking, “Does she want to be kidnapped and not obey the kidnapper’s orders?”

    What a joke: in one breath saying that order are orders, and they come from the Lord of the Worlds so they are absolute and permanent, and that people “want” to belong to this authoritarian system.

  • Behold, theocracy in action

    Ann Marie Waters on last night at Queen Mary College.

    This week I was due to give a talk to students at Queen Mary College, London on sharia law and human rights. Rather fittingly – and as if to prove my point – my human rights were quashed by a person demonstrating one of the effects of sharia law; the threat of violence for criticising religion.

    Or to put it another way, both are instantiations of theocracy. Both are what you get when you have theocracy. You get god-centered everything, with humans expected to obey the imagined god slavishly and harsh punishments if someone thinks god is being defied.

    Just before I was due to start, a young man entered the lecture theatre, stood at the front of the room with a camera and proceeded to film everyone in the audience. That done, he informed us that he knew who we were, where we lived and if he heard a single negative word about the Prophet, he would track us down. (I am told he made further threats as he left the building).

    The young man is a theocrat, who thinks god is everything and people are nothing.

    I am left wondering what exactly we could have done. I would love to say that we stood up to him and carried on bravely in a valiant defence of free speech, but it was a frightening experience and I know that people felt genuinely threatened and upset. In any case, is it the role of speakers and students to face off against potentially violent Islamists in defence of our free speech, risking our safety in the process? Just whose job is it to defend freedom of speech and can we be expected to fight for it when the state and other powers refuse to back us up?

    Hell no. The choice may be forced on us, but it’s not our job. We shouldn’t have to ask theocrats for permission to speak.

    Freedom of speech needs to be defended from above. We need prosecution and punishment of those intent on frightening people into staying silent. Until the state speaks out and makes it clear to the likes of this guy that this behaviour is not acceptable – no excuses, no apologies – these things will continue to happen and more and more people will be frightened in to shutting up. We can then say goodbye to freedom for good.

    So we have to keep speaking out to make that point, whenever possible without any threatening young men interrupting.

  • 1 shut up. 2 shut up. 3 shut up.

    Damn. Things have gone crazy – so crazy that it’s hard to keep up. Just to give you the bare list –

    Salman Rushdie

    will miss the opening day of the Jaipur literary festival, organisers say, after protests by influential Muslim clerics in India.

    A talk on sharia and human rights

    organised by the Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society at Queen Mary, University London, had to be cancelled after threats of violence. The talk was due to be given by Anne Marie Waters of the One Law For All campaign, which campaigns against the use of Sharia in the UK.

    Rhys Morgan was

    called into a meeting with his head of year at his sixth form college, about the Jesus and Mo cartoon. He reports being harassed at school and being ostracized for posting the cartoon. He was later called in again to be told that they were considering expelling him if he didn’t take the cartoon down.

    According to Rhys on Twitter a few minutes ago, they weren’t considering it; it was a certainty: take it down or you’re out.

    Details to follow.