Muhammad would have approved. Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Islamic Republic: "Iran Parliament Passes Death Penalty for Apostasy Bill," from the Christian Post, September 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The Iranian Parliament voted in favor of a bill Tuesday that would punish apostasy with the death penalty, a human rights group reported.Lawmakers approved the bill with 196 votes in favor, seven against, and two abstentions, according to U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The draft bill seeks to add several crimes to the list of acts that would result in execution, including “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution, and apostasy.”
CSW advocacy director Alexa Papadouris commented, “It is deeply worrying to hear that just days after Matin-Azad and Basirat have been charged with apostasy at a court in Shiraz, the Iranian Parliament is debating a bill that could codify the death penalty for someone choosing their own religion.”
Mahmoud Mohammad Matin-Azad, 53, and Arash Ahmad-Ali Basirat, 40, are Christian-converts from Islam who were charged with apostasy last week at the Public and Revolutionary Court in Shiraz, Iran. They are currently awaiting the court’s verdict and have been detained since May 15.
In August, there were five known arrests of Iranian Christians in three cities by authorities, according to the persecution watchdog agency Compass Direct News. Among those arrested was Ramtin Soodmand, who is the son of the last Christian convert to be executed for leaving Islam, on Aug. 21.
Soodmand’s father, Hossein Soodmand, was an Assemblies of God pastor who was executed by the state in 1990 under the false charge of working as an American spy. Since Soodmand’s death, six other Protestant pastors have been assassinated by unknown assailants....
What can you say but "Utter and Complete Barbarians?"
I think Neanderthal Man was more intelligent than Mohammedans.
Wait a minute . . .first the Islamists rail against man made laws because in their view, all knowing Allah is perfect and all laws are already divinely decreed.
But here we are, reading how impotent Allah needs man made laws written by the Iranian Parliament.
Dualism of Islam - believe it or else!
As unfortunate as it is, this development is instructive for the uninitiated...still further exposition of the incompatibility of Islam with Western values.
To those who keep insisting that the Islam of Iran and Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with the real thing (they are all over Left-wing European blogs), remind them that communists argued similarly for decades that all the ugly earthly manifestations of communism were not the real thing...that there was another version, ethereal, pristine and pure, that had yet to be realized.
It was the classic disconnect between theory and practice. Just as there could be no "other" communism, there is no "other" Islam. All attempts at constructing it will inevitably devolve into 7th-century barbarism. It's all in the fine print.
Hello, lemmings, this is Tonya Greipenweiner, and I just want to point out, once again, how unfair you are. Don't you sheeple realize how difficult it is to pass laws today? The Iranian Congress, which is like, way more bi-partisan than Joanna McPalin ever could be, yeah, in her DREAMS, duh. And together they PASSED a law that everyone can agree on. If we could see this kind of unity at the united Nations, we would have world peace.
Cornelius - excellent point.
Paging all Christian posters and lurkers: on All Saints Day, let those of us who are Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Catholics, make sure that we remember with honour the Saints, Confessors and Martyrs of the Church in Persia.
Good luck with that, Iran. Now you have to kill off 95% of the people in your country under the age of 50, including all your best and brightest. All the young Mohammedans are in Lebanon working for Hizbolah these days. Those AARP members with the Mohammedan 'work ethic' will no doubt prove to be fantastic laborers at the death-camps you'll need to pull it off. Like Iran wouldn't have another revolution if they ever enforced it.