<http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1
741>
There Are Many Excuses for Islamic Death Sentences
By: Laina Farhat-Holzman
An Afghan journalism student was sentenced to death for distributing an
article about Islam and women¹s rights that ³insulted² Islam. He was
sentenced January 23rd by a three-judge panel in ultra-religious
Mazar-e-Sharif because he distributed an Internet re****t to his fellow
journalism students that asks why men can have four wives but women
cannot have multiple husbands. No jokes are permitted in Islam.
€ Insulting Islam. ³Insulting² Islam has long been a good reason for
executing someone in the Muslim world. Now that Muslims have spilled
out into the Western world, there are many who would like to extend
these death sentences to non-Muslims as well, such as Pope Benedict,
Danish cartoonists, and an assortment of novelists.
€ Insulting Warlords. Some people think that the real target of ire is
not this student, but rather his brother, who has done some
hard-hitting pieces outlining abuses by some powerful warlords. If the
Karzai government does not intervene or the student does not secure
asylum elsewhere, he will be the first of the three journalists
executed in the six years since we ejected the Taliban in Afghanistan.
€ Attending School. Another reason for a death sentence in Afghanistan
is attending school. So far, in the southern (Taliban-infested) part of
the country, there is an active campaign to close schools and force
teenage boys to join the Islamic militia. In the past year, students
driven out of school have increased from 200,000 to 300,000 while
students and teachers killed have gone from 46 to 147. The most
ferocious attacks have been on girls¹ schools and their teachers, of
course. Unless the international community (or NATO) does something
about this, Afghanistan will once more decline to its miserable
backwardness under the Taliban.
€ Murderous Female Islamists. Just as we have become accustomed to
thinking of Muslim women as murder victims (the notorious ³honor²
killings, which are on the increase in the Western world), a new
movement is beginning to flourish in Great Britain. According to an NPR
week-long re****t on Muslims in Europe, the British have a serious new
problem: the radicalization of Muslim women whose parents and
grandparents came from India and Pakistan. It seems that radicalization
is gaining over the desire to integrate into British society. One young
woman was arrested when she published a poem that described how easy it
is to decapitate someone. ³You tilt the fool¹s head to the left and
then saw and saw,² she wrote. The judge put her on probation but did
confess that he found her very puzzling. How is that for British
understatement?
This movement in the UK represents considerable threat to the society
at large in that when even women militantly refuse integration, their
society will be increasingly isolated separate, and far from equal.
In addition, there will be much more reason for looking upon veiled
women as potential terrorists. This has already been noted in the
increase in women suicide bombers in the Arab world. What is most
unfortunate is that the young radicals, both men and women, are
actively radicalizing their hitherto integrated parents and
grandparents. Not only are headscarves on the increase, but the full
burka and its rationale are as well.
€ One hopeful trend. The first sign of resistance to the growth
industry of Islamic radicalization is a women¹s organization in
Germany, started by an Iranian German, attracting those who want to
flee Islam altogether. There are more of them than one would suspect
considering the death threats that greet apostates from Islam. The
organizer of this group is a young woman who broke with her
conservative family herself and who believes that there are many who
would and should do the same.
At the moment, reform of Islam is looking pretty dim. Leaving it
altogether may be a desperate but reasonable option for those who want
to join a Europe that is resolutely secular. More power to them!
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