The "liberals" here are more precisely "reformers." These refromers evidently think of violent jihadists as "conservatives," a nomenclature that is commonly used by the mainstream media, which picked it up motivated more by political intentions in America than by the realities of the Islamic world. These reformers "petition the U.N. to establish an international tribunal for the prosecution of terrorists." From MEMRI:
On October 24, 2004, the liberal Arab websites www.elaph.com and www.metransparent.com published a manifesto written by Arab liberals, in which they petition the U.N. to establish an international tribunal which would prosecute terrorists, as well as people and institutions, primarily religious clerics, that incite terrorism. [1]The idea to petition the U.N. with this request was raised by the Jordanian writer and researcher Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi in early September 2004, in response to the fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi – one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and one of the most important religious authorities in Islamist circles – which called for the abduction and killing of U.S. citizens in Iraq. [2] The idea was developed and written up by Al-Nabulsi, Tunisian intellectual Al-'Afif Al-Akhdhar, and former Iraqi Minister of Planning Dr. Jawad Hashem.
During the first 24 hours since the manifesto was published on the Internet, it was signed by approximately 2,000 people worldwide, including intellectuals, authors, poets, and journalists. The authors of the manifesto hope that within a week the number of signatures will reach 10,000, at which point it will be presented to the U.N. [3] The following are excerpts from the original English translation of the manifesto, as published by the authors:
Fatwas Are a Primary Cause of Terrorism
"Their Excellencies President and members of the UN-Security Council - His Excellency, The Secretary-General of the U.N.:
[...]"As you are deliberating to recommend practical measures to be imposed on individuals, groups, or entities involved in or associated with terrorist activities pursuant to Resolution 1566, we, the signatories of this letter, a group of Arab and Muslim liberals, would like to draw your attention to an extremely dangerous source of terrorism. This source is the purported religious pronouncements fatwa s issued by some psychotic members of dogmatic Muslims encouraging the commission of terrorist acts in the name of and under the banner of Islam.
"It is not enough for the Security Council to adopt resolutions 'condemning' terrorism. What will be more effective is the establishment of an International Tribunal affiliated to the UN organization for the prosecution of individuals, groups, or entities involved, directly or indirectly, with terrorist activities including, but not limited to, fatwa s issued by religious clerics in the name of Islam calling upon Muslims to commit terrorist acts.
"By these fatwa s all terrorists have died, or will die, fully convinced that they will immediately enter Paradise. Of course, we are not excluding other causes for committing terrorist acts, such as the ticking-bomb of population explosion with its resultant illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, backwardness in education systems, reactionary religious teaching, and, above all, living under dictatorial systems of governments in almost all Arab countries. But despite the above causes, certain religious fatwa s remain the pivotal cause of terrorist acts - fatwa s which clothe such terrorist acts with legitimacy as being one of the sacred tenets of Muslim faith."
Examples of Fatwas
"We can provide you with an exhaustive lists of fatwa s which incite terrorist acts, but the following few may suffice:· "When the presiding judge of the Egyptian Court asked Sheikh Mohamed Al-Ghazali (a leader in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement) to opine about the murder of Faraj Foda (an Egyptian secular intellectual) in 1992, Sheikh Al-Ghazali's opinion was, 'The killing of Faraj Foda was in fact the implementation of the punishment against an apostate which the imam (the state) has failed to implement (undertake).' When the defendant heard Al-Ghazali's opinion he shouted, 'Now I will die with a clear conscience(for murdering Mr. Foda).'
· "On February 13, 2002, the London-based Al-Hayat newspapers published a fatwa issued by the Saudi Sheikh Ali Bin Khodair Al-Khodhari approving and condoning Al-Qa'ida's 9/11 terrorist acts in New York and Washington. In his fatwa, the Sheikh said, 'It is astonishing to mourn the [American] victims as being innocents. Those victims may be classified as infidel Americans which do not deserve being mourned, because each American, as to his relation to American government, is a warrior, or supporter, in money or opinion. It is legitimate to kill all of them as combatant; or non-combatant, such as the old, the blind, or non-Muslims…'
· "On February 13, 2002, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper also published another fatwa issued by the Saudi Sheikh Safar Bin Abdulrahman Al-Hawali in which he described the 9/11 attacks as an equivalent given in return for President Clinton missile attack on Al-Qa'ida's training camps after the terrorists attach on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. He went on to condone the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon describing them as centers for money laundering, devil's nest, spying cell, and a mafia retreat.
· "The fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi permitting the killing of 'fetuses' (unborn) Jews, because (according to him) when Jews are born and grown-up they will join the Israeli army. Furthermore, on September 3, 2004, (at the Egyptian Journalist Union) Al-Qardhawi issued a fatwa to kill all American civilians working in Iraq.
· "And on July 3, 2004, he issued another fatwa (published in Al-Ahram Al-Arabi ) permitting the killing of Muslim intellectuals as being apostates, claiming that Islam justify the killing of such apostates. The fatwa issued by Rashid Al-Ghannoushi (Tunisian) according to which he permits killing all civilians in Israel, because (according to his fatwa ) 'these are no civilians in Israel. The population — males, females, and children — is the army reserve soldiers, thus could be killed."
'Fatwas Issued by the Extremist Muslims Clerics Encourage the Commission of Terrorist Acts'
"As it is difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute these extremists in their native Arab or Islamic countries, they continue to issue and publish their fatwa s inciting acts of terror under the false umbrella of Islam. As the fatwa s issued by the extremist Muslims clerics encourage the commission of terrorist acts to provoke a state of terror, and, due to the importance of combating terrorism as a matter of urgency, we, the signatories of this letter, respectfully submit to your excellencies and to the Working Group Constituted pursuant to Article-9 of Resolution 1566 to create an International Tribunal to prosecute all terrorists, whether individuals, groups, or entities, including individuals who incite terrorism through the issuance of fatwa s in the name of religion."
Reading the excerpts provided in this report leave me highly skeptical of the eventual 'application' of the spirit of this manifesto.
History reveals the rabid interpretations such statements reflect in favor of Arab or Muslim interests around the globe.
They are addressing the (anti US) UN aren't they?
For instance this manifesto states:
"What will be more effective is the establishment of an International Tribunal affiliated to the UN organization for the prosecution of individuals, groups, or entities involved, . . . "
"directly or indirectly,
with terrorist activities . . .,
including, but not limited to, fatwas . . .
. . ..Of course, we are not excluding other causes for committing terrorist acts. . ."
Of course NOT!
Terrorism has yet to be adequately defined . . . as recent media spin re: reports of Israeli or US (coalition) retaliatory strikes are also considered "terrorism" against muslim interests.
Simply google search mid east terrorism to expose the duplicity of the media, Arab and Palestinian propaganda of recent history.
I do, however, laud the effort. It is important to expose that a 'Moderate' voice to Islam exists. It's not the panacea but certainly a beginning. Once the dialog begins, the wholesale exposure of the fallacy of islam can begin in ernest.
Justamom:
I believe if you read the full post on MEMRI.org, this initiative is being presented as one of human rights being trampled upon by Islamist preachers issuing fatwahs, which are clad in some quasi-legal effect where they issued.
I think the point here, is if a body of the UN -- the International Court of Justice -- can be asked to make pronounciations about Israel's Security barrier, then maybe it is appropriate for the UN to intervene.
This is not to say that I don't agree with what you have to say about the UN. Perhaps this is also a hint of recognition at the way the UN has been hijacked by the Arab and other non-aligned states and that maybe some balance can be introduced.
Just one issue...
"The "liberals" here are more precisely "reformers." These refromers evidently think of violent jihadists as "conservatives," a nomenclature that is commonly used by the mainstream media"
This is true... Whereas in the West Liberals condone and Conservatives condemn fundamentalist Muslim clerics, in Muslim countries it is the opposite. I know an Iranian (liberal) who exclusively used these terms. And one must not forget that even in Westernised Australia the Prime Minister John Howard (an ally of GWB), leads the LIBERAL party! These terms have different meanings around the World...
The "liberals" here are more precisely "reformers."
I know it's fun to pretend that "liberal" means "bad" but let's not forget that that these would-be reformers certainly ARE liberal. As are the desparate secularists of Iran that wish to take the mullahs out of Tehran and send them back to the church where they belong.... as were the scientists of the Reformation who told the Pope to but out of non-religious affairs ... and as were the Enlightenment thinkers of the American Revolution that told King George to go piss up a rope.
Liberal, liberal, liberal... all through history when anyone was trying to change thing for the better, it was liberals fighting the conservatives. The "decadent" Weimar Republic versus the Nazis... the early Christians versus the Romans...the Union organizers versus the Feds... the civil rights activists versus the KKK southerners... the secular reformers of Islam versus the crusty old mullahs and crazy suicidal jihadis. "The more things change..."
Here's the text of Security Council Resolution 1566 (introduced by Russia following the Beslan massacre):
http://www.mideastweb.org/1566.htm
http://www.ukun.org/articles_show.asp?SarticleType=17&Article_ID=785
As I've pointed out in previous posts, these fatwas are ALREADY prohibited in Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:
1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.
The problem isn't outlawing incitement, it's enforcing the prohibition, and that requires the cooperation of the local governments. As long as mechanisms are not established to arrest and punish those guilty of incitement, and local governments continue not to cooperate, this is just a meaningless gesture. I really don't give this effort much credence.
kj, will you Never get it? The word 'liberal' is not bad in itself- it is HOW those under that rubric choose to DO things that make it bad. Guess what, kj? The guys who wrote the Constitution were liberals.
"...all through history when anyone was trying to change thing for the better, it was liberals fighting the conservatives..."
Yes, but the liberals weren't always on the right side of the fight, were they? It was the "conservative" USA and NATO that defeated the "liberal" USSR and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. We could also look at the inverse here - the victory of "liberals" in Vietnam produced not a better society, but one far worse. Ask Father Thadeus Ly, a Catholic Priest who's serving a 15 year prison sentence in Vietnam for standing up to the "liberal" Vietnamese government to defend the right to practice his "conservative" religion. Here's what he had to say about the wonderful socialist utopia Vietnam has become since the United States pulled out off Indochina:
"As a matter of fact, Ho Chi Minh has :
contributed to regaining independence for Vietnam from French colonialism, but this achievement was not the work of the communists alone. It has actually come about through contributions by a great number of Vietnamese, dedicated people, other political parties which have been destroyed by the communists who then robbed their merits as if the communists alone had been capable to bring about this achievement;
committed the great mistake by introducing communism and socialism to Vietnam, which has moved the nation a century backward in terms of backwardness to become one of the poorest countries in the world today;
committed criminal acts by using every perfidious methods to destroy other patriotic forces fighting for independence for Vietnam under French colonialism;
proceeded Land Reform in the North during the fifties and sixties of the 20th century in the most brutal and macabre manner which killed more than 300,000 innocent Vietnamese;
proceeded the war of invasion against the South from 1960 to 1975 to impose at all costs communism over the entire country, causing the tragic deaths of more than 2 million young people in both the North and the South, while treacherously deceiving the world public that it was a war against the Americans to save the country and to liberate the South; most brutally violent of all was the massacres of hundreds of thousands of civilians during the Tet Offensive at Hue in 1968 in which most of the victims were buried alive or killed in the most cruel and barbaric manner, and the responsibility in the use of howitzers by the communists for mass killings causing deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians during the invasion of Quang Tri in 1972 on the stretch Quang Tri-Dien Sanh, dubbed Stretch of Terror.
brutally suppressed and cruelly killed tens of thousands of opponents throughout the country, especially in hundreds of concentration camps from North to South since 1930 until today.
sowed a mentality which promotes dishonesty, perfidy which destroys the moral values cultivated and preserved generations after generations by the religions in such a degree that in today’s Vietnam, those who do not lie cannot live normally. Even prominent people in Churches‘ Congregations must know how to lie to get things done. Just by writing something to the authorities, one has to lie by commencing to write the required slogan "Liberty, Happiness", even though everybody is aware that Liberty and Happiness exist nowhere in the country.
sowed a mentality which promotes denunciations and pillorying, hatred, in such a manner that even dissenting Party’s members are not capable to bear the hatred of former comrades!"
Ah, the triumph of the Left!
Father Ly's address to the US Congress
http://www.tudotgvn.org/English/testaments_of_father_thadeus_ngu.htm
Background info:
http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=127
Amnesty International campaign:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2277
Mike,
if you call totalitarian regimes like the USSR liberal, even in quotation marks, you must have got something terribly wrong.
Scandie-
I refer to "liberal" here in the Leftist sense. As Gary pointed out, and you know, "liberal" is a very elastic term.