68 Responses to The BBC explain Sharia

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  1. Mr Anon says:
    February 17, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    He asks why “Why is Sharia mentioned in the same breath as public executions? ” and compares public beheadings to the Chair in America and then moots can ” Muslims can be executed for converting? (Well we all know the answer to that one)

    Theres the difference, its not the method of execution, just the reason why one would lose ones head

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  2. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    Here is an article which can usefully serve as a ‘HYS’ for the BBC:-

    ” Does Sharia Promote Human Rights?”

    http://www.islam-watch.org/Others/Does-Sharia-Promote-Human-Rights.htm

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  3. Angry Young Alex says:
    February 17, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    You know dhimmis under Islamic law have far more rights and protections than religious minorities under Judeo-Christian law? Also adulteresses receive a more lenient punishment.

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  4. Barry Wood says:
    February 17, 2008 at 1:35 pm

    The Danish media have shown other countries the meaning of solidarity. They have stood shoulder to shoulder with their cartoonists against intimidation.
    And then this is how the BBC chose to cover the story.
    “.. now young Danish student Anders Boetter says he has decided to start a Facebook site called Sorry Muhammad to apologise to Muslims on behalf of ordinary Danes and also give them a voice in the controversy over the row.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7247286.stm
    It is almost like a parody of B-BBC

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  5. Martin says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    Angry Young Alex: Tosser.

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  6. Miv Tucker says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:20 pm

    Martin:
    Angry Young Alex: Tosser.
    Martin | 17.02.08 – 1:13 pm | #

    —————————-

    No, tosser yourself. Don’t recognize IRONY when it slaps you in the face?

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  7. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    The excellent, original writer BAT YE’OR, indicates the subjugated position of non-Muslims, i.e., dhimmis, under Sharia law in Islamic societies. The BBC would do well to study this:-

    ” Non-Muslims are protected only if they submit to Islamic domination by a ‘Pact’ – or Dhimma – which imposes degrading and discriminatory regulations. In my books, I have provided documents from Islamic sources and from the vanquished peoples, establishing a sort of classification so that the origins, development and aims of these regulations can be recognized when they are revived nowadays. I am only referring to Christians and Jews, because they share the same Islamic theological and legal category, referred to in the Koran as ‘People of the Book’ – the word ‘people’ is in the singular. If they accept to submit to a Muslim ruler, they then become ‘protected dhimmi peoples’ – tributaries, since their protection is linked to an obligatory payment of a koranic poll-tax (the jizya) to the Islamic community (the umma).

    “This protection is abolished: – if the dhimmis should rebel against Islamic law; give allegiance to non-Muslim power; refuse to pay the koranic jizya; entice a Muslim from his faith; harm a Muslim or his property; commit blasphemy. Blasphemy includes denigration of the Prophet Muhammad, the Koran, the Muslim faith, the shari’a by suggesting that it has a defect, and by refusing the decision of the ijma – which is the consensus of the Islamic community or umma (Koran III: 106). The moment the ‘pact of protection’ is abolished, the jihad resumes, which means that the lives of the dhimmis and their property are forfeited. Those Islamists in Egypt who kill and pillage Copts consider that these Christians – or dhimmis – have forfeited their ‘protection’ because they do not pay the jizya.

    “In other words, this ‘protector-protected’ relationship is typical of a war-treaty between the conqueror and the vanquished, and this situation remains valid for Islamists because it is fixed in theological texts.”

    http://www.dhimmi.org/LectureE3.html

    For other stimulating works of Bat Ye’Or, who had/has British citizenship, see:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Ye'or

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  8. Natty Dreadlocks says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    You know dhimmis under Islamic law have far more rights and protections than religious minorities under Judeo-Christian law? Also adulteresses receive a more lenient punishment. – Angry Young Alex

    OK Alex, name me one “Judeo(sic)-Christian” state, in 2008, where adulteresses are actually punished by law. I’m interested.

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  9. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    The Wikipedia info on Bat Ye’Or is
    out there, but needs separate link:
    or ‘google’ her name.

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  10. Anti-Aunty says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Alex – why don’t you also name one Islamic State that allows Christians and Jews free worship. Remember, Buddhists and Hindus, as non-monoatheistic religions, don’t get any “rights”. Never mind the rights of the non-religious.

    Where can they freely practice, build their churches or temples? Can Christians try and convert Muslims?

    I see that in the west, under Judeo-Christian law, mosques proliferate, Muslims preach and are allowed to practice their religion without prejudice.

    What punishment does an adultress suffer in the west?

    Really, you are an idiot.

    Miv Tucker – Irony? What are you on?

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  11. Lurker in a Burqua says:
    February 17, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    The Author has previous form:

    This, from Dominic Casciani, a man for whom Britain’s Muslim community (leastways those not serving in the Armed Forces) are forever traumatised by the very suggestion that terrorists might be lurking among their number.

    We have, of course, been through all this with Dominic before. Straight after 7/7, he was fretting over ‘impressionable kids’. A year on from that episode, and, to listen to Dominic tell it, Leeds’ Muslims were being cowed by ‘a legacy of fear and suspicion’. Today, in Birmingham, it’s communitywide ’shock’.

    http://rottypup.com/?p=802

    another day, another BBC apologist for Fascism. What else is new?

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  12. Rob says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    “You know dhimmis under Islamic law have far more rights and protections than religious minorities under Judeo-Christian law? Also adulteresses receive a more lenient punishment.”

    Laughably credulous, incredibly ignorant and just plain, 100%, wrong.

    It really is amazing the amount of this tripe which the Left are happy to swallow. Even the most timorous of enquiring minds can, with the minimum of effort, discover the reality of Dhimmitude, and the contrasting tolerance and openness of Western Judeo-Christian societies.

    The only conclusion I can come to is that Alex shunned such knowledge as crimethink.

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  13. Alan says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    You know dhimmis under Islamic law have far more rights and protections than religious minorities under Judeo-Christian law? Also adulteresses receive a more lenient punishment.
    Angry Young Alex | Homepage | 17.02.08 – 12:38 pm |

    Even if there were some truth to your statement, your argument is irrelevant for the present day events.
    Moreover, it is not as if the status of dhimmis in the Islamic world was something to brag about even centuries ago.

    I would suggest you read a bit more about the real status of dhimmis under Islamic rule, and not accept everything Guardian pushes on you. You don’t have to go too far, you can start in the Balkans – maybe read a book or two:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_Drina
    or follow the links from this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews#Muslim_and_Arab_antisemitism

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  14. Rob says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    Regarding the women’s rights under Sharia bit (giggle), for some unaccountable reason our Beeboid forgot to add the part about their testimony being worth half that of a man. I can’t think why he would have left that bit out. Deadline pressure, I imagine.

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  15. Alan says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    Also, Angry, the West prospers because of the separation of church and state.

    If any cult was to start implementing Biblical laws that contradict the law of the land (like stoning of adulterers), police would storm their premises.

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  16. WoAD says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:16 pm

    You’ve been trolled you over sensitive girls.

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  17. Angry Young Alex says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    “Alex – why don’t you also name one Islamic State that allows Christians and Jews free worship.”

    Morocco.

    “OK Alex, name me one “Judeo(sic)-Christian” state, in 2008, where adulteresses are actually punished by law. I’m interested.”

    There are no Judeo-Christian states in 2008. See Alan’s quote.

    “Also, Angry, the West prospers because of the separation of church and state. If any cult was to start implementing Biblical laws that contradict the law of the land (like stoning of adulterers), police would storm their premises.”

    Now this is my point. “Judeo-Christian” societies lost our brutality only when we lost our insistence on God’s Law. You seem to be focusing on Sharia when theocracy and dictatorship in general is the problem.

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  18. pounce says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    Q&A: Sharia law explained
    Has any western nation allowed Sharia to be used in full?
    Not at all. Canada is widely reported to have come close – leading to protests in 2005. But in reality the proposals were little different from the existing religious arbitration rules here in the UK. Experts considered establishing Sharia-related family courts to ease the burden on civil courts – but said these would have to observe the basic human rights guarantees of Canadian law.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7234870.stm

    The above BBC history lesson kind of differs somewhat from this weeks Economist;
    “The Canadian province of Ontario is the clearest case of an English-speaking place where fear of Islam made religious arbitration untenable. An uproar began in 2003 when Syed Mumtaz Ali, a retired Ontario lawyer, said he was setting up a sharia court to settle family law disputes for Muslims. Such arrangements were allowed by the province’s 1991 Arbitration Act and could carry the force of law. The proposal caused an instant backlash, right across the religious and political spectrum; many Muslim groups were opposed too. Marion Boyd, a retired attorney-general, investigated the matter and initially recommended that the Arbitration Act should continue to allow disputes to be adjudicated by religious bodies—subject to stricter regulation by the state. But that turned out not to be good enough for Ontarians who were nervous of sharia. In September 2005 the province’s premier, Dalton McGuinty, decided to prohibit all settlement of family matters based on religious principles under the Arbitration Act. Religious arbitrators could still offer services in the settlement of disputes, but their rulings would not have legal effect or be enforceable by the courts. The province’s laws were duly changed.”
    http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10696111

    The BBC, sharia law in Canada and half the story.

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  19. WoAD says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    “Now this is my point. “Judeo-Christian” societies lost our brutality only when we lost our insistence on God’s Law. You seem to be focusing on Sharia when theocracy and dictatorship in general is the problem.”

    There’s a logical contradiction that I’ve come to expect from the cognitively impaired liberals.

    A. Sharia law is an essential part of Islam. It is “Theocratic” which roughly means rule with theology.

    B. By railing against Theocracy you are technically asking the practitioners of Sharia (an essential part of Islam) to stop being Muslims.

    B2. You do not define yourself as anti-Islam, that would be illiberal, but as anti-dictatorship, ergo:

    C. You expect Muslims to practice the religion of Islam whilst not acting on Islamic aspects of Islam.

    This is the incoherent brutality of liberalism which simultaneously condemns us to Islamification whilst railing agains the Islamic aspects of Islam which are not defined as Islam but as “Theocratic Dictatorship.”

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  20. pounce says:
    February 17, 2008 at 3:56 pm

    The BBC, sharia law explained and half the story.

    Q&A: Sharia law explained

    The BBC, sharia law in Canada and half the story.
    “The most famous Muslim thinker in Europe, Tariq Ramadan, has called for a moratorium on these penalties in the Muslim world. He argues that the conditions under which such penalties would be legal are almost impossible to re-establish in today’s world.”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7234870.stm

    Taken from that most famous Muslim thinkers. (Shouldn’t that be Islamic thinker?) web site;
    “The majority of the ulamâ’, historically and today, are of the opinion that these penalties are on the whole Islamic but that the conditions under which they should be implemented are nearly impossible to reestablish. These penalties, therefore, are “almost never applicable”.The hudûd would, therefore, serve as a “deterrent,” the objective of which would be to stir the conscience of the believer to the gravity of an action warranting such a punishment.”
    http://www.tariqramadan.com/call.php3?id_article=264?lang=en

    So just who is Mr (most famous) Ramadan. Well he is the son of a Egyptian Muslim brotherhood member who had to do a runner to Europe as he was wanted for trying to take over the country) and here is a little something about Tariqs brother (Also a teacher) which the BBC doesn’t inform you about;
    “A Swiss court annulled a government decision to sack a Muslim from his job as a high school French language teacher in Geneva for publicly defending the Islamic punishment for adultery. The Geneva Administrative Court reinstated Hani Ramadan, deeming the State Council’s decision of February 5, 2003, as null and void and ordering it to pay 5,000 Swiss Francs in compensation, Swiss daily Le Matin reported Saturday, April 3. Ramadan, who is also the head of the Geneva Islamic Center, had defended the stoning punishment for adulterous men and women in an article published by French daily Le Monde late 2002. He wrote that the stoning punishment is meant to help curb the “moral degradation” in societies and put the what he saw as “divine curse” (AIDS/HIV) under control.
    http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-04/04/article03.shtml

    It appears that you may be able to take the thinker out of the mosque, but you can never take the mosque out of the tinker.
    On that note,I wonder if the BBC would refer to Hani as a most famous muslim thinker?

    The BBC, sharia law explained and half the story.

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  21. pounce (correction) says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    The BBC, sharia law explained and half the story.

    Q&A: Sharia law explained

    The BBC, sharia law in Canada and half the story.
    “The most famous Muslim thinker in Europe, Tariq Ramadan, has called for a moratorium on these penalties in the Muslim world. He argues that the conditions under which such penalties would be legal are almost impossible to re-establish in today’s world.”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7234870.stm

    Taken from that most famous Muslim thinkers. (Shouldn’t that be Islamic thinker?) web site;
    “The majority of the ulamâ’, historically and today, are of the opinion that these penalties are on the whole Islamic but that the conditions under which they should be implemented are nearly impossible to reestablish. These penalties, therefore, are “almost never applicable”.The hudûd would, therefore, serve as a “deterrent,” the objective of which would be to stir the conscience of the believer to the gravity of an action warranting such a punishment.”
    http://www.tariqramadan.com/call.php3?id_article=264?lang=en

    Ah so there you have it. The chopping off of limbs, stoning of women and the hanging of people isn’t actually carried out. No according to that most famous Islamic thinker , its just a threat which is meant to prick the conscience of the person before he/she commits a crime. (How many dead in Iran this year so far?)

    So just who is Mr (most famous) Ramadan. Well he is the son of a Egyptian Muslim brotherhood member who had to do a runner to Europe as he was wanted for trying to take over the country) and here is a little something about Tariqs brother (Also a teacher) which the BBC doesn’t inform you about;
    “A Swiss court annulled a government decision to sack a Muslim from his job as a high school French language teacher in Geneva for publicly defending the Islamic punishment for adultery. The Geneva Administrative Court reinstated Hani Ramadan, deeming the State Council’s decision of February 5, 2003, as null and void and ordering it to pay 5,000 Swiss Francs in compensation, Swiss daily Le Matin reported Saturday, April 3. Ramadan, who is also the head of the Geneva Islamic Center, had defended the stoning punishment for adulterous men and women in an article published by French daily Le Monde late 2002. Ramadan said – in his article – God has initiated the stoning punishment for “His love of mankind, because AIDS came out of nothing but from promiscuousness”. Adultery in Islam is one of the most heinous and deadliest of sins. Its enormity can be gauged from the fact that it has often been conjoined in the Qur’an with the gravest of all sins..
    http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-04/04/article03.shtml

    It appears that you may be able to take the thinker out of the mosque, but you can never take the mosque out of the tinker.
    On that note,I wonder if the BBC would refer to Hani as a most famous muslim thinker?

    The BBC, sharia law explained and half the story.

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  22. Angry Young Alex says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    “B. By railing against Theocracy you are technically asking the practitioners of Sharia (an essential part of Islam) to stop being Muslims.”

    Muslims who are not in government do not have to obey the parts of Sharia law that apply to governments, for example the lashings and stonings that hit British headlines so often. Therefore, it is possible to be a Muslim without enforcing Sharia law. Every Muslim in history who was not in government has managed to do it.

    Slot that into your schoolboy flow-chart and it makes sense.

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  23. Angry Young Alex says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    “The BBC, sharia law explained and half the story.”

    No, it gives you the full story and omits bits about Tariq’s family, because they are not his actions and therefore not relevant.

    Guilt by association might be the norm for B-BBC but for proper journalists it’s just not the way things are done.

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  24. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    As even the BBC and its extensive Asian network staff, and the associated BBC Arabic TV service, operating from Broadcasting House must know, in Morocco too, the practice of Islam leads to this:

    “Behind the Moroccan Terrorist Connection: State Policies and Saudi Wahhabism”

    http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/469.asp

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  25. pounce says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    Alex my young man, thank you for commenting on my post. I did wonder when you would gravitate towards my direction and as predicable as the brainwashing in today’s learning establishments that sucking your mentors prick will get you an ‘A’
    (In your case that would be your Mullah) you come on board and find little old pounce a suitable target for your left wing pro Islamic stance. (Supported no less in your case by your mullah’s internal back support).
    Err Alex my child, the only reason you come on board is to disrupt the usual board postings from that of exposing the bias found on the hallowed pages of the BBC to that of discussing the inflammatory hand grenades you lob in. I’ll even say that your so called journal was written not from the depth of your heart but rather a ploy in which to add substance to your angry young persona.(Seen more substance between the ears of a blond) So the question I have to ask to you is;
    Why don’t you admit that you are one of the BBC clones and get it over with. Now if you say I am wrong, by all means contact me I am more than happy to let you visit and see my Art collection. Why I would even offer you a glass of champagne. I even promise not to bite. Come on you big baby?
    In other words Richard Edward you are nothing more than a cheap trick, do us all a favour and take your head for a shit.
    By all means reply, I for that matter won’t.
    Merchant banker.

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  26. Peter says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    “You seem to be focusing on Sharia when theocracy and dictatorship in general is the problem.”

    Sharia is the religious law of Islam,to live under such a law is to live under a theocracy.

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  27. Anonymous says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    “Muslims who are not in government do not have to obey the parts of Sharia law that apply to governments, for example the lashings and stonings that hit British headlines so often. Therefore, it is possible to be a Muslim without enforcing Sharia law. Every Muslim in history who was not in government has managed to do it.”

    Angry Young Alex [above]

    I read this and re-read it. I then read it again. And again.

    Sorry, AYA. I am not trying to be confrontational, but I simply haven’t a scooby what you’re on about here. This paragraph makes absolutely no sense.

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  28. Sproggett says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    Sorry. 3:52 pm was me.

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  29. Joe (The Netherlands) says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    Northern Rock is to be nationalised, top news on SKY, yet on the BBC………..nothing!!.

    You would have thought that something as important as this which ties up 100 bn pounds of taxpayers money would be something the BBC would at least highlight.

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  30. WoAD says:
    February 17, 2008 at 4:53 pm

    Alex all you do is validate and strengthen my utterly irrefutable flow-chart.

    You blame government. Law is government. You are against government but not against law?

    Islam and Sharia are unchanging. Muslims can opt for an unprincipled exception to Islamic law, but this brings us to Brother Tariq Ramadan.

    Analogy: Lets give the Police the right to arrest and internally search anyone they want without giving a reason, and hope that they will only use this power responsibly. That’s Tariq Ramadan and his reformed version of Islam.

    A. Sharia law is an essential part of Islam. It is “Theocratic” which roughly means government with theology.

    B. By railing against Theocracy and government you are technically asking the practitioners of Sharia (an essential part of Islam) to stop being Muslims.

    B2. You do not define yourself as anti-Islam, that would be illiberal, but as anti-dictatorship and anti-government, ergo:

    C. You expect Muslims to practice the religion of Islam whilst not acting on Islamic aspects of Islam, such as the enforcing of Islamic law.

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  31. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    For Beeboids, and ex-Beeboids at the pro-Islamic, al Jazeera English,TV station*. (*This station once described by A.A.Gill as having ‘more spin than a team of dervishes in a centrifuge’.)

    Global Islamic censorship by Arab states is increasing:

    “Jazeera slams TV crackdown”

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d67c4546-da8b-11dc-9bb9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

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  32. Chuffer says:
    February 17, 2008 at 5:25 pm

    Hey, Sprogett, if you think that AYAlex’s postings here are nothing but cod-intellectual pretentious adolescent ramblings, you should try his website!!

       0 likes

  33. Rob says:
    February 17, 2008 at 5:31 pm

    Our fleet-footed behemoth has finally cought up:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7249575.stm

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  34. Rob says:
    February 17, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    From that article:

    “Northern Rock is to be nationalised, the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston has learned.”

    About an hour after everyone else, it seems.

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  35. Rob says:
    February 17, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    Oops

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  36. Peter says:
    February 17, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    ”
    Muslims who are not in government do not have to obey the parts of Sharia law that apply to governments, for example the lashings and stonings that hit British headlines so often.”

    I have read some shite al X,but that one takes the raisin.

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  37. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    As Labour nationalises the Northern Rock bank today, a suggested BBC ‘HYS’question:

    ‘Should the newly nationalised National Rock bank be Sharia law compliant, given the Labour vote of Muslims, and given Labour’s support for Islamic bonds?’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515248&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

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  38. lurker says:
    February 17, 2008 at 6:05 pm

    Joe (The Netherlands):
    “Northern Rock is to be nationalised, top news on SKY, yet on the BBC………..nothing!!.

    The Beeb doesn’t seem to think that seven nights of Muslim riots in Copenhagen and other Danish cities is worth mentioning either.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL17504319

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  39. George R says:
    February 17, 2008 at 6:34 pm

    The BBC is generally complacent on Sharia law.

    Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund isn’t:-

    http://www.barnabasfund.org/News/archives/text.php?ID_news_items=386

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  40. Susan says:
    February 17, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    Morocco

    Not true. Morocco forbids proseltyization of Christianity and recently announced a huge crackdown on evangelical Christians in the country. You can go to jail for up to three years in Morocco for proselytizing Christianity or any other religion besides Islam. Not exactly Saudi Arabia, but it isn’t “free” either, as Young Alex erroneously insists.

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  41. Susan says:
    February 17, 2008 at 7:00 pm

    From Dhimmiwatch, quoting from an AFP story on Muslim converts to Christianity in Morocco:

    RABAT (AFP) – They might have Islamic names like Mohammed or Ali, but every Sunday these Moroccan converts to Christianity go discreetly to “church” – to the ire of Islamic militants and under the suspicious eye of police.

    “There are about a thousand of us in around 50 independent churches across the big cities of the kingdom,” explained Abdelhalim, who coordinate these evangelical Protestant groups in Morocco.

    “As we are tolerated, but not recognised (by the state) we must, for security reasons, conduct ourselves as a clandestine organisation,” said the 57-year-old, who preferred to use a pseudonym.

    “As soon as a church has 20 worshippers it splits in two,” said Abdelhalim, a doctor who converted to Christianity 16 years ago when he was living abroad.

    Islam is the state religion in Morocco, a country of 30 million people that counts only 5,000 Jews and 1,000 Christians, according to figures given by the two groupings.
    Although you cannot be sentenced if you convert to Christianity, it is illegal to proselytize under Moroccan law.

    And while official Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches are recognized by Morocco, they are only for foreigners living in the country.

    Moroccan Christians have no right to pray in these churches.

    However when Abdelhalim returned home seven years ago, he said he was astonished by the growing number of converts to Christianity.

    “At the beginning of the 1990s there were 400 of us, four years ago around 700 and today more than 1,000,” he said.
    […]
    As for Morocco’s main cities, seven of these “free churches” — not linked to any international Protestant church — are in Marrakesh, six in Casablanca, five in Rabat and even one in El Ayoun, the regional capital of the western Sahara.

    “Television and the Internet are very efficient methods and in our church a soldier became Christian through the Al Hayat channel,” said 30-year-old Youssef, who also preferred to use a pseudonym.

    “For many of us, Islam is perceived as a social straitjacket and not as a real faith, and Christianity as a religion of tolerance and love,” said the businessman, who converted at the age of 19 and was later followed by his family.

    Yet in the eyes of the state they remain Muslim.

    “Officially, my son and I are Muslim,” said Abdelhalim. “We hold Christian marriages and bless the young couple but this is not recognized by the state. They must go before the Muslim clergy and marry according to Sharia (Islamic law). If they don’t do this, they can be charged with adultery.”

    The same goes for death. “I cannot be buried in a Christian cemetery, only in a Muslim one,” he said.
    […]
    Discretion is the order of the day for Morocco’s Christians, with the faithful holding services in their homes, against a background of suspicion from the Islamic world.
    “We have to be careful because ordinary people cannot understand that we can be Arabs without being Muslim. For us the biggest danger is ignorance,” Abdelhalim said.

    The Christian converts also have article 220 of the penal code hanging over their heads, which provides for prison sentences of between six months and three years for anyone who tries to undermine a Muslim’s faith or to convert him to another religion.

    “I have been summoned to the police station dozens of times,” said Youssef. He nonetheless says that Morocco is considered more tolerant than other Muslim countries thanks to King Mohammed VI, who has encouraged reforms to fight poverty, boost women’s rights and thwart any slide towards Islamic extremism in the kingdom.

    Radouan Benchekroun, the president of the council of Muslim scholars in Casablanca is, however, unaccommodating.

    “To deny one’s religion, it is the biggest sin that a Muslim can commit,” he said.

    Islamic militants insist these conversions “are not accepted by the population,” according to Lahcen Daoudi, a deputy for the Islamist Justice and Development Party.

    “As long as it remains at the individual level we can turn a blind eye. The problem is on the social level. If there is proselytism or if children or teachers come to school with the Crucifix, we cannot tolerate that,” Daoudi said.

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  42. Steve Edwards says:
    February 17, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    Letter to the BBC, regarding their File on Four programme.

    =============================
    I would like to complain about the BBC’s treatment of the BNP, in this programme specifically, and the BBC generally.

    I believe that the BBC has a vendetta against the BNP, and is ideologically biased against it. I believe that the BBC has become a political activist organisation in respect of the BNP, and has used licence fee payers money to activate against it. I believe that the BBC has transparently transgressed its mandate to report impartially, in both the matter of what it chooses to report and the way it chooses to report it.

    Today’s File on Four constituted a handful of trumped up allegations and a lot of hyperbole. For example, late filing of tax returns is not exactly a criminal offence. Shredding documents is routine in modern organisations with data protection concerns.

    Furthermore, I note this BBC website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/programmes/2001/bnp_special/default.stm), which is essentially an attack on the BNP, laden with pejorative terms and emotive language.

    How many times do the BBC have to be told that they do NOT have a mandate to promote one political or ideological view over another? When will you STOP doing this?
    =============================

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  43. WoAD says:
    February 17, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    “we can be Arabs without being Muslim”

    I wonder if some of this religious mania we have been seeing is in part motivated by that strange netherworld where religion and tribal concerns cross over. Erdogan after all believes assimilation is a crime against humanity. It’s not clear what he means by this, do he mean that Turks who become compeletly Germanized lose their humanity in his eyes? A sort of: “I don’t want my daughter marrying a dirty German”?

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  44. HSLD says:
    February 17, 2008 at 8:09 pm

    [b] Muslims who are not in government do not have to obey the parts of Sharia law that apply to governments, for example the lashings and stonings that hit British headlines so often [/b]

    I think you’ll find in many parts of the world it’s a fun day out for all the family. All the male members of the family at least.

    I’ll have two big flat ones, five little sharp ones and a bag of gravel.

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  45. Alan says:
    February 17, 2008 at 8:40 pm

    Angry,
    “Alex – why don’t you also name one Islamic State that allows Christians and Jews free worship.”

    Morocco.

    Not fully, as you can see from Susan’s post.
    Besides Marocco and Jordan are not Islamic states, even though they have Muslim majority. Due to a measure of enlightened absolutism that rules them, Sharia is not the law of the land. This is on par with Habsburgs, e.g. Maria Theresia of Austria cca 19th century (e.g. first introduction of civil marriage in the West).
    Turkey is another example of army supported nationalist secularism that is *still* preventing it from turning into theocracy.

    “Judeo-Christian” societies lost our brutality only when we lost our insistence on God’s Law. You seem to be focusing on Sharia when theocracy and dictatorship in general is the problem.
    Angry Young Alex | Homepage | 17.02.08 – 2:26 pm |

    No Angry, we are focusing on attempts to reintroduce Sharia as a God’s Law into Western societies via a backdoor of multiculturalism.
    And, in particular we are focusing on the helping hand BBC seems to be giving to radical Islam on almost every occasion in a misguided attempt at social cohesion.

    There can be no social cohesion unless all subgroups agree to have something in common. And NO, we cannot take the lowest common denominator and submit certain subgroups to medieval rulings of oil-drenched mullahs.

    Also we live in a day and age when the law of the land in the West can intervene and take an abused child from its parents to protect it. The law can intervene to protect a battered wife. We have fought hard to reach this point.

    It is very disturbing to see self-proclaimed “progressive” elements like the BBC aligning with what basically is an extremely reactionary force in their support of Sharia.

    The entire rhetoric you use to excuse today’s Islamic countries on the basis that other cultures were equally bad if not worse at some point is totally irrelevant to the present discussion.

    To proceed directly ad hitlerum, it is like excusing the acts of WW2 Germany based on the fact that 100 years earlier, colonial Britain was committing crimes and Germany was a country of Goethe.

    This is wrong on 2 accounts:

    1. You are presenting the best of Germany (Goethe) and the worst of (colonial) England. In your argument you do the same with Islam vs. Christianity. This is straight from Tariq Ramadan’s and Edward Said’s playbook. If you compared the worse of Islamic atrocities (staking alive entire Ortodox Christian villages, building towers made of kafir skulls, etc.) with the worst of the Crusades, you will get a very similar picture of brutality. And if you want and go back 3000 years, you will find similar brutality committed by the Jews.

    2. What we are discussing is here and NOW, not 100 years ago and in some galaxy long long ago and far far away. Brits and in particular Churchill had to make difficult decisions in 1940 not in 1840. Reading Goethe’s poetry was almost completely irrelevant to Churchill’s decision making process. And nowadays it is irrelevant what went on during the Crusades, except for maybe counter-propaganda purposes.

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  46. Alan says:
    February 17, 2008 at 8:56 pm

    BTW, clear example of BBC bias by omission:

    BBC reports on UN John Holmes’ visit to Gaza:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7247786.stm

    But absolutely nothing on the Holmes’ visit to Israel/Sderot and condemnation of Qassam attacks:
    http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/955015.html

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  47. Anonymous says:
    February 17, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    Discussing the Rowan Williams affair on this week’s Newswatch the editor of Newsnight admitted that 99% of the emails received by the BBC expressed views similar to those of Douglas Murray.

    What response will the BBC have to this unprecedented outpouring of anger at the very suggestion of any formalisation of sharia law? Will it a) reflect the feelings of the majority of licence payers, or b) use its vast resources to convince the public that it is wrong to fear the Islamisation of Britain?

    I’m thinking ‘b’.

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  48. Anonymous says:
    February 17, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    If anyone needs a good laugh, take a look at Angry Alex’s explanation for the Twin Towers collapse, the entry for Sept 12th 2007:

    http://angryyoungalex.livejournal.com/

    Didn’t you know? Planes were insufficient to topple them, someone in the nasty US government must have brought them down by way of controlled explosions.

    Alex states that he was “struck by the vague plausibility” and also thinks it was “not too implausible” – in other words he believes this shit hook, line and sinker. Chortle!

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  49. The People's Front of Judea says:
    February 17, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    Angry Young Alex, you seriously need a girlfriend mate. Drop the “Hitler Youth” routine and you might actually find one.

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  50. Miv Tucker says:
    February 17, 2008 at 11:36 pm

    Martin + Anti-Aunty –

    Apologies: I really thought Angry Young Alex _was_ being ironic, thereby crediting him with far more subtlety than his subsequent posts warranted.

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