Robert says,

"There can be no free society without the freedom to refuse a religion."

EXACTLY! And, that is why Islam and democracy can never be reconciled. If shariah is the law of the land, then dissent is stifled and detractors are muted or killed.

Posted by: Skeet Street at April 21, 2005 8:45 AM

I find it most remarkable that our trolls never post on this kind of thing. Shurki, are you there? Come on, taquiyya is better than sleep.

Geoff

Posted by: Geoff at April 21, 2005 10:36 AM

This is bibliolatry at its finest. So much for islamic monotheism. The koran, allah and muhammed: the unholy trinity of islam.

Posted by: Silvester at April 21, 2005 10:50 AM

The sickest part of this, Robert, is that al-Reuters published this on the net under its "Oddly Enough" rubric, normally the home of the humorous or merely strange.

Oddly enough? The layers of irony (and cultural blindness) are staggering.

Perhaps the good folks at Reuters will find this kind of thing a bit more than odd when it starts happening at Charing Cross.

Posted by: Cato the Elder at April 21, 2005 10:57 AM

"Human rights activists want the blasphemy law to be struck off the books saying it is often abused by people to settle personal disputes or religious rivalry."

Just claim someone said something ugly about the very ugly book and they are murdered. What a "religion".

I heard over at LGF that a little child tore a page of the qur'an and was beaten to death in a mosque. I do not know when it was, but if it happened.. that is just ...islamic.

Posted by: Carolyn2 at April 21, 2005 12:35 PM

Maybe the saddest is that it is not even surprising anymore.

Posted by: Ernst at April 21, 2005 3:52 PM

/sarcasm

Now, now, I'm sure it was an accident. They were only "shooting to convert". Maybe they were trying to snipe a Bible or a copy of Marx's manifesto out of his hand.

/sarcasm off

Geoff

Posted by: Geoff at April 21, 2005 4:25 PM

I don't know if this belongs here or at JW, but I'm going to post it all. More islamic justice.

Court awards hand of girl aged two to 40-year-old

Declan Walsh in Kutcha Chohan, Pakistan
Wednesday April 20, 2005
The Guardian

Chewing on a biscuit and gurgling with laughter, two-year-old Rabia plays with her elder brothers outside their mud-walled farmhouse, amid a sea of green wheat. The barefoot toddler flashes a smile as her first words tumble out.
But that innocence will be shortlived if local elders have their way, because Rabia is already promised in marriage - to a man 38 years her senior.

A village court determined her fate after her uncle, Muhammad Akmal, was accused of sleeping with another man's wife. After an hour-long deliberation, the elders found him guilty and fined him 230,000 rupees (£2,070). They also ordered him to marry his niece to the wronged man, 40-year-old Altaf Hussain, once she passed her 14th birthday.

Rabia's mother, Maqsood Mai, who is separated from her husband, had no say in the matter. But her other uncles were furious.
"This is a terrible crime," said Muhammad Nawaz, sitting outside the house near the Indus river in southern Punjab. He vowed to move the family before Rabia could be taken away.

"This is the first time in the history of our tribe such a thing happened," he said.

But Mr Nawaz is wrong. Although village courts are illegal, they still hold a powerful sway in rural Pakistan, and verdicts that target the innocent - particularly women - are common.

Poor farmers still turn to informal justice systems, known variously as jirgas or panchayats, to settle disputes about land, honour and money. The courts have many attractions. In contrast with the plodding, expensive and often corrupt public courts, a panchayat can be convened at a few hours' notice in a house or under a tree. The gathered elders act quickly, cost little, and are unequivocal in their judgments.

But the justice rendered is often rough, say human rights activists, who say panchayats favour the rich, fuel old notions of bloody revenge, and perpetuate feudal inequalities.

"They nearly always decide in favour of the most powerful," said Rashid Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in the southern city of Multan. "In these areas the people are living in the 16th century. And still the state is sleeping. Why?"

Panchayat decisions can be as bizarre as they are cruel. A panchayat in Lodhran district last year ordered seven women to divorce their husbands, in an effort to end a feud between two clans with marriage ties. Their 25 children were handed over to the fathers.

In another case, a woman claimed by two rival men had her fate decided by the flip of a coin. Panchayats are also central to the phenomenon of karo kari, or honour killings.

Oxfam estimates that between 1,200 and 1,800 women are murdered by their relatives every year in the name of preserving family honour. Many killings are sanctioned by village courts.

The most notorious "honour" case of recent years concerned Mukhtaran Bibi, a 29-year-old Punjabi woman who in 2002 was gangraped on the orders of her local panchayat.

She became an international human rights heroine when, in defiance of local custom, she confronted her attackers in court and had six men sentenced to death.

But an appeal court sparked a national outcry by freeing the convicted men, citing flaws in the original prosecution. Now the supreme court has said it will decide the matter.

But Mukhtaran Bibi's is an exceptional case - most panchayats go entirely unscrutinised. The weak writ of government in remote rural areas allows rough justice to thrive, according to Mr Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

"It's a story of two countries. People in towns can access modern institutions, but those in the countryside live in a semi-tribal system."

In Kutcha Chohan, the nearest police station is 25 miles away and the nearest lawyer's office 60 miles distant. Overstretched police patrols pass by only once a fortnight, residents say, and legal fees are too expensive for poor labourers.

"If a person wants speedy justice, the courts are a waste of time and money," said Muhammad Hussain Tahir, a neighbour of two-year-old Rabia. In contrast, he said panchayats were decisive and could avert violence between sparring families.

"Their verdicts are mostly good. Maybe they make a mistake 5% of the time," he said.

Rabia's case has provoked a storm of controversy in Kutcha Chohan. The district police officer, Maqsood ul Hassan, said the marriage deal had taken place. But it was a simple case of arranged marriage, he said, "so no law has been broken".

Addressing rallies in several towns this month, President Pervez Musharraf repeated his message of "enlightened moderation" to curb Islamist and tribal extremism. But critics say he has failed to introduce real reform. "Despite their tall claims, the government has not done one iota," said Hina Jilani, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist.

Hopes were raised last year when a high court in Sindh province declared that jirgas were illegal, and ordered police to prevent them being convened. But the order has been widely flouted.

Posted by: Carolyn2 at April 21, 2005 6:59 PM

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,1463610,00.html

Posted by: Carolyn2 at April 21, 2005 7:12 PM

In solidarity with this poor guy, I just tore to shreds and burned one of my copies of the Koran*.

Saving the page with Sura 9:5 for last.

It curled like a spider as the flames caused the page to shrink and blacken.

And, funnily enough, it makes more sense now than it did before.

(*A newer, more p.c. version, naturally... rather than let it fall into naive hands and lure them away from the hard truth in the older, more exacting translations.)

Posted by: BigSleep at April 22, 2005 12:51 AM