Glimpses of radical Islam from around the world

Iran Exonerates Six Who Killed in Islam’s Name
Tehran, Iran, April 18, 2007 (news)

The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered “morally corrupt.” The reversal, in an infamous five-year-old case from Kerman, in central Iran, has produced anger and controversy, with lawyers calling it corrupt and newspapers giving it prominence… Three lower court rulings found all the men guilty of murder. Their cases had been appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the guilty verdicts. The latest decision, made public this week, reaffirms that reversal.

Iran’s Islamic penal code, which is a parallel system to its civic code, says murder charges can be dropped if the accused can prove the killing was carried out because the victim was morally corrupt. This is true even if the killer identified the victim mistakenly as corrupt. In that case, the law requires “blood money” to be paid to the family. Every year in Iran, a senior cleric determines the amount of blood money required in such cases. This year it is $40,000 if the victim is a Muslim man, and half that for a Muslim woman or a non-Muslim.

“All Women Should Wear A Veil”
Brussels, Belgium, April 15, 2007 (interview and commentary)

According to Mostafa Chendid of the Danish Islamic Society (Islamisk Trossamfund), not only Muslim women but other women too should wear a veil. Why? Because five up to ten percent of all men cannot control themselves when they see a woman without a veil. Mostafa Chendid is considered to be the successor of Ahmad Abu Laban, one of the imams who was involved in the affair around the notorious Danish cartoons. Ahmad Abu Laban was one of the leaders of the delegation that traveled around the Middle East and that had added three drawings to the original cartoons in its report to “give a clearer picture of the climate against Muslims in Denmark…”

According to him the veil also serves as a signal: women with a veil are ‘not for sale’. Moreover, the veil protects against rapes, he says: in the US for example, every half minute a woman is raped, and according to him that is because women continuously tempt men by going onto the streets without a veil. Maybe not all men have a problem to control themselves when they see a woman without a veil, and perhaps there is only a problem with five to ten per cent of the men, but he says that is nevertheless enough for all women to wear the veil.

Raped ‘for reading Holy Bible’
Sydney, Australia April 17, 2007 (news)

AN Iraqi Muslim man allegedly raped a Muslim woman as “punishment” for her reading the Bible. Campbelltown District Court in Sydney’s west yesterday heard Abdul Reda Al Shawany twice sexually assaulted the woman, a practising Muslim, and then said to her: “Let your Jesus help you.” Al Shawany, 52, has plead not guilty to two counts of having sexual intercourse without consent between September 1 and 27, 2002, at a unit in Warwick Farm.

“The complainant was born a Muslim and raised a Muslim and was a Muslim all her life,” Mr O’Brien said. He said when the woman came to Australia from the Middle East she began listening to Christian teachers and reading the Bible. He said the woman – who wears the Muslim hijab – had received threats from members of her faith for reading the Bible but had not converted to Christianity… Al Shawany allegedly raped the woman and later allegedly said: “Let your Jesus help you.”

Salafist Islam spawns Islamic terrorism
Beirut (AsiaNews), April 12, 2007 (commentary by Samir Khalil Samir)

The Islamist current basis itself on the Salafist interpretation of Islam and it radicalizes it, turning it into a concrete application, through intense propaganda and presenting it as authentic Islam. It renders Salafism extreme, by prescribing precise rules applied to the actions of daily living… Islamist thought forms people who have renounced their right to think or make personal judgements, to blindly follow teachings of those who indoctrinate them. It reduces the believer to the state of a docile follower, incapable of critical thought. In the end this docile follower can easily become a terrorist: he only needs to be convinced that what he is about to do is a religious duty, which pleases God and will save the Islamic community (ummah).

It is important not to confuse or identify Islam with Islamism, but is also necessary that we push Muslims to reject Islamism as an alteration of authentic Islam and to fight against this spreading tendency. Western society must defend Muslims from Islamism. For this reason, giving even minimal credence to the demands of the Islamists is a regression which only serves to open new terrorist fronts.

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