One Law for All

A demand was made:

“I demand that in the spirit of the time, [] here should be a free people, permitted to live privately and publicly under their own leadership and having their own administration.

In these conditions they must be permitted to work and prosper so that from the ruins of today a new life may be shaped for the two peoples living in these old cultural lands.

[] must be allowed their own [] outlook, their own [] laws, their own [] habits, and their own [] justice.”

He called the historical importance of [] influence in the country and urged that there should be a return to the days when [] kings and princes accorded full rights to [] to live “according to the laws and justice of [].”

“It is high time that these things were done,” he concluded. “History does not wait.

“We, however, march on with the history of the new era, for our leader is []. His will and his [] will from today dictate all the plans and arrangements of this [] and will dictate every activity of the [].”

The ancient privileges referred to by [] were granted to the [] in [] by [] in the 11th century and confirmed by [] a century later. []’s decree declared that “the [] just as they differ in character from the [], should also be divided from them in their laws and customs, and I decree that they shall live according to their own laws as free human beings.”

When the demand was met:

If the demand were met:

Please visit ShariaPetition.com and sign the Global Statement Against Sharia. Thanks.

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Cruel and Usual Punishment

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder of Bridge TV, a television station launched to prevent stereotyping of Islam as an oppressive religion. Last week, he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, after police found the decapitated body of his estranged wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, 37, in her home in Buffalo, New York. After several incidents of reported domestic violence, the couple had separated recently. Aasia had filed for divorce earlier this month. She had also sought and obtained a restraining order against Mr. Hassan. The police are investigating possible motives for the murder, including honor killing.

Predictably, the apologists for Islam have sought to isolate this beheading from the religion of peace and compassion. Nazim Mangera, the Imam of the Islamic Society of the Niagara Frontier, is among those who are upset about tying the two:

“We’re all shocked. We’re all grieving,” said Mangera... “To compound that, we have to face the difficulty of the religion of Islam being blamed for [the killer’s] personal actions. It was an individual person who did this act, for whatever reason. We don’t find any justification in the Islamic religion for any such violence.”

“Beheading has more to do with culture and country of origin [than religion],” Mangera stated. “It has nothing to do with Islam. We abhor domestic violence, and we categorically denounce it in all forms.”

Yes, it is true that there have been honor killings of women in several countries around the world. I have pointed to some of these in my previous post. If we went over all of the 552 cases reported at the website for the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women, however, we find that an overwhelming majority of these have taken place within the confines of the religion of Islam. Does this in itself mean that Islam sanctions these killings? Perhaps, as Mr. Mangera says, "'honor killing' comes from an extreme right-wing Islamic faction that uses the Quran for its own purposes"?

Cruel punishments for what the civilized world views as frailties of the human flesh, don't seem to be unusual at all in Islam. Here is how Muhammad punished a woman for adultery:

The Ghamidi woman came and said, “O Messenger of Allah, I have committed adultery, so purify me.”... then the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered that a chest-deep hole be dug for her, and that she be stoned. Khalid ibn Al-Waleed picked up a stone and threw it at her head. Blood spurted out onto his face and he swore at her. The Prophet of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) heard what he said, and told him: “Take it easy, O Khalid! By Him in Whose hand is my soul, she has repented in such a way that if the tax-gatherer had done so, he would have been forgiven.” (Muslim). Then he gave orders that the (funeral) prayer should be offered for her, and she was buried.

Lest this be dismissed as an obscure command given under special circumstances eons ago, it was the law in Afghanistan just a few years ago. In Nigeria, circa 2004... This in Iran, just last year:

Lucky women in SWAT, Pakistan, may look forward to being "purified", Islamist-style, now that a deal has been struck to impose Sharia in these Taliban controlled areas.

So, please, Mr. Mangera, spare us this nonsense about brutal and inhuman punishments as having nothing to do with Islam or Quaran.

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Love is... to be Killed

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, there were 636 honour killings in 2007 in Pakistan alone. At least 61 of these victims were 16 or less. Almost everyone of them was female. And, this is merely a fraction of women and men killed in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Their crime? Daring to exercise their inalienable right to love a partner of their choice, not the one forced upon them by their families. For daring to be different.

On this Valentine's Day, I list below those who lost their lives for loving, one per month, since the previous Valentine's Day. Please read their stories via the links included. Then, please observe a moment of silence for each one of them.

• Rand Abdel-Qader (17), Basra, Iraq, March, 2008
• Rekha Gokavi (18), Hubli, India, April, 2008
• Farzaneh (17), Isfahan, Iran, May, 2008
• Muqadas (25), Bano (8), Sumaira (7), and Humaira (4), Multan, Pakistan, June, 2008
• Sandeela Kanwal (25), Atlanta, Georgia, USA, July,2008
• Hala (24), Khan Yunis, Gaza, August, 2008
• Fatima, Fauzia, and Jannat Bibi (16-18), Babakot, Pakistan, September, 2008
• Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow (13), Kismayu, Somalia, October, 2008
• Lidia Motylska (19), London, U.K., November, 2008
• Morsal (16), Hamburg, Germany, December, 2008
• Ravinder Pal Kaur (19) and Balkar Singh (30), Punjab, India, January, 2009
• Kanchan Kumari (18) and Ratan Mandal (21), Bihar, India, February, 2009

Now, please visit the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women. Read the stories behind the 552 cases presented there, and observe a minute of silence for each one those victims. Finished? Well, I suppose your weekend is pretty much over. A small price to pay compared to the years these brave women and men lost in the lives that they never lived.

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Down the Slippery Slope

• The editor and the publisher of a leading newspaper, The Statesman, from the Communist ruled state of West Bengal, India, are arrested and arraigned for republishing a commentary that is critical of the same fellow who was criticized by Mr. Wilders.
• A pastor in Victoria, Australia, blamed the devastating bush fires in the region on legalizing abortion. God's protection for Victoria, he contended is no longer guaranteed, unless the mafioso is paid the ransom of curbs on a woman's freedom to choose.
• A Dutch Parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, is barred from entry into the United Kingdom for producing and distributing a film, Fitna, critical of the founder of Islam, who has been dead for a millennium and a half.
• A girl, 16, in Mangalore, India, publicly humiliated for being caught in a "compromising situation" with a man 10 years older than her, commits suicide. Possibly unrelated, the incident follows threats from a conservative Hindu politician to forcibly marry young girls to their dates, if found together on Valentine's Day.
• The Supreme Court of the United States will be hearing on March 5, a plea to uphold Proposition 8 [California] and nullify the marriages of gay and lesbian couples who are still in love and would like to remain married.

The societies that are involved in these sordid attempts to curb freedom of expression and basic human rights are among the leading democracies of the world.

In three of these five events that have all happened within days of each other, the state is actively involved in muzzling freedom of expression. Although the state is not directly involved in the other two, the transgressors are nonetheless institutions of immense power and influence over both the society and the state. And, these are not isolated events; they are dots in a disturbing pattern of intimidation of free thinkers for daring to think outside the box. For exercising their inalienable right to live their lives according to their preferences, without prejudice to anyone else's life.

Far more consequential than the economic malaise that the world is struggling with today, these events portend a threat to the core values that civilization has been founded on, and nurtured by humanity over centuries. Liberty, equality before law, and the pursuit of reason, are today in mortal danger being overwhelmed by the forces of misogyny, bigotry, and ignorance. Sane voices that admonish the states for abdicating their constitutional responsibility to safeguard these values are silenced in the name of maintaining peace and harmony, an unfortunate euphemism for political expediency. Quoting from Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia,

Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error and of error only. Had not the Roman Government permitted free enquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free enquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now the present corruptions will be protected and new ones encouraged.

The claim that a woman is worth only half a man, the religions that sanction killing in the name of honor, and the belief that the earth, the quasars and everything that lay in and between them were created by an unseen, unproved, and supernatural teacup, are nothing but gross errors in human judgment. The states that allow themselves to be blackmailed by a vocal, and often violent, minority into persisting these errors are as much, if not more so, failed states. They measure no better than those that are organized around the principles that are the anti-theses of freedom of thought and progress.

Nothing gives me greater pleasure and pride than republishing the following excerpts from Mr. Johann Hari's commentary, "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?" that appeared in The Independent:

Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of "prejudice" – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him.

I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice" or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.

Predictably, these writings evoked violent protests from several Muslims in Kolkata, India. After all, this is the city in which Taslima Nasreen paid dearly for writing similar passages criticizing Muhammad, in her Dwikhandito. What is worse is the shameful conduct of the Government of West Bengal, in arresting the editor and the publisher of the Statesman, Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha, for republishing Mr. Hari's commentary in their newspaper. What is even more shameful is that Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, under which Mr. Kumar and Mr. Sinha were arrested, continues to remain in the statutes, despite this admonition from Justices H. K. Sema & Markandey Katju of the Supreme Court of India:

These days unfortunately some people seem to be perpetually on a short fuse, and are willing to protest often violently, about anything under the sun on the ground that a book or painting or film etc. has hurt the sentiments of their community. These are dangerous tendencies and must be curbed with an iron hand.

When a bunch of bigoted politicians and thugs (am I repeating myself?) threaten violence against teenage girls and boys having a good time together on Valentine's Day, that'd be criminal. When the state itself threatens incarceration against a pair of journalists for reproducing (with permission) ideas expressed elsewhere in the free world, what should we call it?

The economic mess that much of the world finds itself in is not because Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Adam Smith were all wrong. It is the result of many uninformed buyers and sellers mindlessly joining in the bandwagon, mistaking the collective hubris of a few for competence. The social abyss that we are being led into is once again the result of entrusting our lives and liberties with a few who profess to know what is best for the rest of us. Only the camouflages are different, not the characters underneath them. Just as less regulation, and not more regulation, is the remedy for a sick free market, "the answer to the problems of free speech is always more free speech", as Johaan Hari concisely puts it, and not less.

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