Recently in human rights Category

The world's foremost foe of the freedom of speech, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, recently invoked the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam -- a fact that should reassure no one who wants to see the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights of all people before the law protected. "It’s Time to Revise The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam," by Turan Kayaoğlu for Brookings, April 23 (thanks to David):

To the surprise of many, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has shown a new commitment to advancing human rights by establishing an Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission within the organization. In the Commission’s first meeting in Jakarta, Secretary General Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu asked the 18-member Commission in his opening address to “review and update OIC instruments, including the Cairo Declaration [of Human Rights in Islam]…” If the Commission intends to indeed advance human rights, then the Cairo Declaration is the first among these instruments in need of serious revision. In 1990, the OIC approved a document that is now referred to as the Cairo Declaration in an attempt reconcile the concept of human rights and Islam. The Declaration protects many of the universal human rights: it forbids discrimination; supports the preservation of human life, supports the protection of one’s honor, family, and property; and affirms the human right to education, medical and social care, and a clean environment.

From an international human rights perspective, the controversial nature of the Cairo Declaration lies in its claim of adherence to Shari’ah. Its preamble affirms that“fundamental rights and universal freedoms are an integral part of [Islam]” and these rights and freedoms are “binding divine commandments” revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran. The central role of Shari’ah can be clearly seen in the Declaration’s articles. Article 22 states that “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to principles of Shari’ah.” Article 12, affirms that “every man shall have the right, within the framework of Shari’ah, to free movement” (nothing is said about every woman). Articles 24 and 25 further makes Shari’ah supreme by asserting that Shari’ah is the Declaration’s “only source of reference.”

Such shorthand and cursory use of Shari’ah gives rise to four important shortcomings. The first is that it renders the document too restrictive. Shari’ah represents an extensive moral and legal code, and limiting rights such as free speech to a Shari’ah compatible framework of values would essentially render free-speech meaningless. Furthermore, the document is rendered ambiguous., as it does not specify what constitutes Shari’ah. Given the diversity of opinions on the subject across time and between and within madhabs (schools of Islamic law), it is impossible to know what rights are protected.

Interestingly, the declaration empowers states, not individuals. In the modern world, Shari’ah has increasingly become integrated in states’ domestic legal systems. In the absence of any international authority to decide on Shari’ah, the Cairo Declaration effectively diminishes the universality of human rights by relegating them to the discretion of governments.

Finally, the declaration conflicts with international human rights. The document provides only a subordinated status to religious minorities and also prohibits conversion from Islam. It also presents glaring evidence of discrimination against women, as it provides the right to freedom of movement or marriage only to men.

These shortcomings render the Declaration useless at best and at worst harmful for human rights.

She had just given birth to twins, and her father shot her.

Yes, murders happen everywhere, and cases of parents killing their children exist across the world, but the crucial difference here is how the killings are rationalized and often praised, and how often they fail to be punished on a level that fits the crime. Under Sharia, a parent may face no penalty at all for killing a child.

After prior attempts at reform were quashed under protests that they violated "religious traditions," it is now more possible in Jordan for perpetrators of honor killings to receive longer sentences. But how much time this man is actually sentenced to, and actually serves, bears watching. "Jordan woman killed in hospital over pregnancy," from Agence France Presse, September 4:

A Jordanian man was charged on Sunday with killing his 24-year-old widowed daughter in hospital after she gave birth to twins, a judicial official said.

"Amman's criminal court prosecutor charged the man with premeditated murder after he confessed to shooting dead his daughter on Saturday," in Deir Alla in the Jordan Valley, the official told AFP.

The official quoted the suspect as saying "I was shocked that she was pregnant. I was enraged and shot her dead because she did something shameful."

The woman has been a widow for four years.

"The man claimed he wanted to check on the condition of his daughter ... then he shot her in the head," said Ahmad Hwarat, head of the hospital where the killing took place.

Murder is punishable by death in Jordan but in so-called "honour killings" courts can commute or reduce sentences, particularly if the victim's family asks for leniency.

Between 15 and 20 women died in such murders each year in the Arab kingdom, despite government efforts to curb such crimes.

Here is my debate last night on ABN with Sheikh Mohamed El-Hassan of the Texas Islamic Center on the question, "Does Islam respect human rights?"

The first half hour of the show is an interview with Walid Phares; the debate starts after that.

Tonight on ABN TV. Tune in here.

It's almost as if the UN has a secret agenda of seeing how far it can go into dhimmitude and idiocy before the U.S. pulls the plug. And no, this won't be the limit, either. "UN set to adopt report that praises Libya's human-rights record," by Steven Edwards for Postmedia News, February 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

UNITED NATIONS — The UN Human Rights Council is set to adopt a major report hailing Libya’s human rights record — despite moving to suspend the Arab country’s council membership amid an international outcry over attacks on civilians.

The report shows countries applauding and commending Libya as they note “with appreciation the country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the ground.”

Even Canada “welcomed improvements” Libya made “in its respect for human rights,” according to the report, which is scheduled for a vote before the Geneva-based 47-member council March 18.

But the Canadian government also made a number of critically framed recommendations to the Gaddafi regime, including one calling for reinforced measures aimed at fully investigating torture claims.

The 23-page report was compiled as part of the council’s “Universal Periodic Review” — a process the UN bills as a rigorous scrutiny of the human rights records of each UN member state every four years.

Highlighting what it called the council’s “hypocrisy,” UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, on Monday called on the body’s president to withdraw the report.

“It’s now clear that the session on Libya was largely a fraud,” said Hillel Neuer of Montreal, UN Watch executive director....

No kidding, really?

One consistent hallmark of abusive laws is how often they lend themselves to being used to settle scores, to frighten a subjugated class into continued submission, or to pile on additional punishments out of sheer contempt. Sharia is replete with such examples.

Pakistan's blasphemy law is one such law, and here is another illustration of the cavernous gap between Sharia as advertised for Western consumption (where, for example, the hijab is always portrayed as a personal choice) and Sharia as implemented in Islamic societies. Funny how the same human rights abuses keep turning up, from Aceh to Tehran, to Chechnya, and beyond. "Iran: Leading human rights lawyer 'jailed for 11 years'," from AdnKronos International, January 10:

Tehran, 10 Jan. (AKI) - Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 11 years in jail, according to her family. She was also banned from practising law and travelling abroad for 20 years, her family said.

The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran deplored Sotoudeh's sentence as a "gross miscarriage of justice" and said that it should be overturned by an appeals court.

The judge sentenced her to five years in prison on charge of "acting against national security," another five years for "not wearing hijab (the face-covering Islamic veil) during a videotaped message," and one year for "propaganda against the regime," The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said.

Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh's husband, said she was also found guilty of membership of the Human Rights Defenders' Centre, a group headed by Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh's husband, in an interview with the Campaign described the ruling as "highly strange and unjust."

The accusations were levelled against Sotoudeh, mainly over interviews with foreign-based media about her clients jailed after Iran's disputed June 2009 presidential election, Khandan said.

Sotoudeh has defended Iranian opposition activists and politicians and has defended many of those arrested during and after the 2009 presidential polls. The Iranian opposition alleges the polls were rigged to ensure hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Ebadi, is one of Sotoudeh's clients and has campaigned strenuously for due process to be observed in her case. Ebadi is reported to have organised a sit-in at the UN Human Rights Council to raise awareness about the case and to plead for more international support.

Sotoudeh, a 45-year-old mother of two, was arrested on 4 September 2010, accused of acting against national security. Detained for long periods in solitary confinement, and denied contact with her family and lawyer, she nearly died after three dry hunger strikes to protest her prison conditions and violations of due process, according to the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

She has reportedly been tortured in prison in order to force her to confess to crimes. Her physical condition had deteriorated to the point that her children cried in shock when they were finally allowed to see her, the group said....

A letter from David G. Littman, representative to the UN-Geneva for the World Union for Progressive Judaism, to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay:

WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM

* * * * *

THE MARTYRED CHRISTIANS OF IRAQ
RENEWED APPEAL (2008, 2009, 2010)... for the New Year 2011

To the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay
31 December 2010
Your Excellency,

Having suffered a serious brain haemorrhage on 27 November - and now being treated for acute leukaemia - it seems highly unlikely that I shall be allowed by my doctors to return to the Palais des Nations - without a mask, if at all - to defend universal human rights as I have endeavoured to do for the past 25 years. Hopefully, I shall remain in shape to prepare an 'Appeal' now and again - and perhaps more, if providence should allow.

Our 1st intervention on 3 February 1986 was a written Appeal - on behalf of the WUPJ - to the Chairman of the CHR's 42nd session, condemning the nomination of ex-Nazi Byelorussian, Dr. Hermann Klenner, as one of three vice-chairmen. Our 1st oral statement (12 February) condemned the ongoing Orwellian UN General Assembly Resolution 3377, voted on 10 November 1975 (37 years after the evil 1938 Kristallnacht), equating Zionism with Racism. Our 2rd oral statement (3 March) dealt with the question of "fanatical fundamentalists preaching jihad actions of international terrorism against their sworn enemies: either Muslims, referred to as 'heretics'; or non-Muslims, referred to as 'infidels'." Our 3rd oral statement (7 March), inter alia, dealt with the situation of dhimmis (Jews and Christians in Arab-Muslim lands), providing full details on this historical phenomenon, which slowly emptied 'Arab lands' of their ancient Jewish populations - from time immemorial - numbering over 900,000 in 1948 - under 20,000 by 1986; today they are less than 5,000 (barely ½ of 1%).

Madam High Commissioner, we are providing these 'details' (*), in order to stress that for 25 years we have reminded the CHR (and since 2006 the HRC), to no avail, of that commonplace saying: "after Saturday comes Sunday": i.e. after the dhimmi Jews will have been expelled from Arab lands, it will be the time of the dhimmi Christians. Alas, the 'international community' has shown no interest in "Jewish refugees" from Arab-Muslim lands (representing about ½ of Israel's Jewish population of 5.5 million) - only in "Arab-Palestinian refugees" from UN mandated Palestine, whose tragic plight resulted from the Arab League's 1947 "no!" to international legality and its military attack to destroy Israel. This refusal then to recognise a Jewish State continues today.

The grave human tragedy of the Christians in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, has worsened dramatically since our joint 2008 and 2009 Christmas Day Appeals to you, UNSRs, and at UN bodies. We are enclosing again our last year's joint Appeal and a recent article by a Qatari liberal, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: "The Perpetrators of the Massacre at the Baghdad Church are 'the Children of the Culture of Hate." [Al-Jarida-Kuwait, 15 Nov. 2010, tr. by MEMRI, Special Dispatch 3473, 27 Dec. 2010].

This 'writing on the wall' has been evident for decades to all with eyes to see and ears to hear. On the eve of the New Year, we call on you as HCHR, on concerned SRs, and UN bodies to strongly condemn this atrocious martyrdom of a religious-ethnic community, dating from the birth of Christianity in the Middle East. There are less than 10 Jews in Iraq from over 140,000 in 1948. If the UN does not act decisively, the 1¼ million or so Iraqi Christians a decade ago (now under ¼ million) will be reduced to mere thousands or hundreds and all their possessions confiscated, as happened to the dhimmi Jews. The plight of Egypt's Copts for decades is another neglected tragedy, totally ignored by the OIC, itself. The HRC is following the CHR - and the UN is suffering irreparable damage to its reputation in all fields: "for yielding pacifies great offences." NOW is the "time to speak" - and not "a time to keep silence."

Respectfully,
David G. Littman - Representative to the UNO-Geneva (Case Postale 205, 1196 Gland - Suisse)
----------
* WUPJ, Human Rights and Human Wrongs, No 1 (1986), pp.1-17 (UN Public Library, NY/Geneva). For historical documentation, see Paul B. Fenton & David G. Littman, L'Exile au Maghreb: La condition juive sous l'Islam : 1148 - 1912 (800 p.), Paris-Sorbonne, Nov. 2010
----------
cc. Ms. Asma Jahangir, SR : Freedom of Religion & belief ; Mr. Githu Muigai, SR: Racism...; Mr James Anava, SR: HR and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples; Ms. Gay J. Mc Dougall, Independent Expert on minority issues; Pr. Walter Kälin, Rep. of S-G- HR of IDP.

Video courtesy Voice of the Copts.

Video courtesy Voice of the Copts.

Timmerman, Geller, Stern, Ramelah, Spencer, Alyami

Last Thursday I spoke in Washington for the human rights group Voice of the Copts, along with Pamela Geller, Kenneth Timmerman, and others. The talks were filmed, so if video becomes available online I will post it.

Here is a message from Dottore Architetto Ashraf Ramelah, the founder and president of Voice of the Copts:

Human Rights Conference: Thank you for Participating

Voice of the Copts thanks all who participated in the December 16, 2010 Human Rights Conference in Washington, DC:

Pamela Geller,

Faith McDonnell,

Sara N. Stern

Robert Spencer,

Ali Alyami,

Jordan Sekulow

Nazir Bahatti,

Kenneth Timmerman

We extend special thanks to Senator Robert Casey and his staff for providing a room on very short notice.

We deeply appreciate and thank our friend, Bernice Lipkin, for her help and advice.

Last, but not least, we thank Mr. Mark Tenelley for his generosity in photographing the event.

No kidding, really?

"Indonesia's Islamic laws are 'abusive', report says," from the BBC, November 30 (thanks to Glynn):

Two Islamic laws applied in the Indonesian province of Aceh violate people's rights and are implemented abusively, a new report has concluded.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says two of five local laws based on the Sharia legal code discriminate against women.

It says the laws against "seclusion" - association by unmarried individuals of the opposite sex - and dress codes are also not applied to wealthy people.

Islamic law applies only in Aceh in the secular state of Indonesia.

The report by New York-based HRW, Policing Morality: Abuses in the Application of Sharia in Aceh, Indonesia, notes that the rights group takes no position on Sharia law as a whole - a system its supporters say provides a comprehensive guide to behaviour.

However, it says the "seclusion" law, which makes association by unmarried individuals of the opposite sex a criminal offence in some circumstances, and laws on dress requirements, are discriminatory.

"These two laws deny people's right to make their own decisions about who they meet and what they wear," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"The laws, and their selective enforcement, are an invitation to abuse," she said.
Abuse

The prohibition of men and women who are not blood relatives or married to one another from being together in an isolated place has been used to bar people simply meeting and talking in a quiet place, the report says.

Abuses include aggressive interrogations and attempts to force people to marry.

At least one case of rape of a woman in detention by Sharia police officers has occurred, the report says.

HRW says Sharia police officers have told investigators that they sometimes force women and girls to submit to virginity exams as part of the investigation....

He said it. And Khomeini would add: no fun. "No place for democracy and human rights in Islam, says Qom theologian," from AsiaNews, September 8:

Tehran (AsiaNews) - As the world mobilises against the stoning of Sakineh, a 43-year-old woman convicted for adultery and killing her husband, Iranian police continue to threaten and arrest journalists and human rights lawyers. Dozens of university professors are fired and pro-reform students are beaten. The reason is simple. "Democracy, freedom, and human rights have no place" in Islam, said Mesbah Yazdi, who heads Shia Taliban, in a speech reprinted in Rooz, an online Iranian news website.

Speaking before members of paramilitary groups, soldiers and his followers, the cleric said that Iran "is not a place to back down for cultural reasons against people who promote corruption."

In a veiled reference to Sakineh and others, he added, "sexual or moral deviants or promoters of any other kind of corruption must be suppressed."

Mesbah Yadzi is a member of the Association of Teachers of Qom Theological Centre (Jame Modaresin Hoze Elmie Qom) and a great supporter of Ahmadinejad. In fact, "When the president received the supreme leader's confirmation, obeying him is like obeying God," he said.

A similar extremist vision explains recent events in Iran, where dozens of students, followers of pro-reform Ayatollah Dastgheib, who was against to Ahmadinejad's re-election, were beaten in Shiraz's Qoba Mosque.

Pro-democracy activists are also concerned about the firing of 40 professors from Tehran University since March. The activists have slammed the professors' removal, calling it a case of "political cleansing" of the faculties that led the Green Wave movement that came out against the results in last year's presidential election. Indeed, Science Minister Kamran Daneshjoo said repeatedly that the universities would not tolerate professors who are not "in tune with the Islamic Republic regime."

For Mesbah Yazdi, anyone who opposes the Islamic Republic of Iran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in fact an "enemy of God" (Mohareb).

Human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari (pictured), who is the editor of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters website, has recently found out what that means. Arrested on 14 July 2009, a month after Ahmadinejad's re-election, she was released on bail on 23 September of the same year. Re-arrested on 20 December and charged with a "mohareb", a very serious crime in Iran, she is still waiting to go to a trial, expected very soon.

Badrolssadat Mofidi, secretary general of the Iranian Journalists Association, is another prominent figure accused of being a "mohareb". He was recently sentenced to six years in prison and five years without the right to work as a journalist.

The penalties for "waging war against Allah" and "striving after corruption in the land" are, per Qur'an 5:33: "execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land."

Both, of course, are awfully flexible accusations to level, made-to-order for a reign of terror through Sharia.

In Human Events today, I discuss the denial and obfuscation of Islamic spokesmen regarding human rights abuses within their own communities:

As Muslims around the world continue to deny basic human rights to women and non-Muslims, Muslim spokesmen maintain a pattern of denial and deception.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian woman, is facing death by stoning this week for adultery, a capital crime in Iran. Yet when the redoubtable human rights activist David G. Littman, asserted at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2008 that "the stoning of women for alleged adultery still occurs regularly in Iran," Iran's spokesman declared that this was "not true, it is completely false and is out of the question."

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani would beg to differ, and she's not the only one: according to another human rights activist, Mina Ahadi, "at least 40 to 50 other women are waiting for the same destiny in Iran right now."

Meanwhile, in Indonesia this week, Christians in the city of Bekasi are facing an escalating persecution from Muslims. On Saturday, members of a group called the Islamic Defender Front hung outside a mosque a picture of Christian leader Andreas Sanau with a noose around his neck and the inscription, "This man deserves the death penalty!" Sanau's crime? He is falsely accused of organizing mass baptism of Muslims in Christianity, in violation of Islam's prohibition against conversion to another religion (another capital crime in Islamic law).

"In the first months of 2010," according to Asia News, "radical Islamic groups have interrupted Christian religious services, prevented Christians from entering their churches and blocked the building of new churches."

This is in accord with traditional Islamic law for non-Muslims in an Islamic state, which forbids these subject peoples to build new houses of worship or repair old ones. One of the Muslims involved in this persecution explained: "We are doing this because we want to strike fear in the hearts of Christians." This echoes the Koran, which commands Muslims to "strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies" (8:60).

Yet it was with a straight face in 2009 that the Imam Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., restated a very common assertion of Muslim spokesmen in the West: "Most Americans do not know that Islam respects Christians and Jews." All too many Muslims, in Indonesia and elsewhere, don't seem to know it either....

Read it all.

David Littman, whose writings and heroic battles against Islamic supremacists at the UN in Geneva we have featured here many times, is interviewed Sunday by Pamela Geller.

After speaking at the Vienna Forum in Austria on May 8, I traveled to Geneva, where through the kind offices of the Association for World Education and human rights activist David G. Littman, I was able to get into the Belly of the Beast and witness some of the proceedings.

It was the same day that Kuwait delivered its national report to the UN General Assembly Human Rights Council's Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review. This amounted to a report delivered by the country in question (Belarus was also up for this examination on that day), followed by comments by various other national representatives on the human rights situation in the country up for review.

This created some ghastly ironies, with Sudan, for example, commenting and making recommendations about the human rights situation in Belarus, but what I found most interesting was Kuwait's initial report, which contains a number of statements indicating that Sharia is supreme in Kuwait -- resulting in a precarious human rights situation for women and non-Muslims. But the wording was subtle, and of course none of the other state representatives picked up on any of this.

Here is a key example of that, from Kuwait's report:

Freedom of religion and belief

Article 2 of the Constitution of Kuwait states: "The State religion is Islam and the sharia is the main source of legislation. Laws are enacted in conformity with the sharia." Article 35 of the Constitution stipulates: "Freedom of belief is absolute. The State protects the freedom to practise religion in accordance with established customs and without prejudice to public order and public morals."

Based on this premise, the State grants the followers of all denominations of the revealed religions the freedom to practise their religion and to establish their own places of worship without any interference or restrictions, subject only to the maintenance of public order.

Subject only to the maintenance of public order is the key phrase here, for under that rubric enter in all of Sharia's restrictions on non-Muslim religious expression. Consequently we read in the 2009 International Religious Freedom Report for Kuwait that "religious minorities experienced some discrimination as a result of governmental policies and non-Sunni Muslims continued to find it difficult or impossible to obtain legal permission to establish new places of worship." Prohibiting non-Muslims to establish new places of worship is entirely in accord with Sharia.

And so it was just another day at the UN in Geneva, where unreality generally prevails:

Dhimmitude, cowardice, craven opportunism, and blind Leftist America-hatred. An update on this story. "Embattled Gender Analyst Leaves Post at Amnesty," from Women's eNews, n.d. (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

Gita Sahgal calls her entry into the world of journalism "sort of accidental," but her most recent news appearances have been entirely on purpose.

On Feb. 7, the Sunday Times of London published her sharp critique of Amnesty International's support for former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg. She went public, the article says, because her internal warnings had been ignored.

Amnesty, the nearly 50-year-old rights group founded to speak on behalf of prisoners of conscience, has hailed Begg as a human rights defender, hosted him on speaking tours and included him in a meeting with politicians at Downing Street.

Sahgal has called him "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban." She points to passages in his 2006 autobiography, Enemy Combatant, where he describes moving to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to "live in an Islamic state--one that was free from the corruption and despotism of the rest of the Muslim world." He also ran a bookstore in Birmingham, England, that sold works by known al-Qaida mentor Abdullah Azzam.

Hours later she was suspended, with pay but without explanation, from her job.

On April 9, she and the organization parted ways. In a statement released that day, the organization cited "irreconcilable differences."

Sahgal served as Amnesty International's top gender specialist since 2002. Two days before her suspension, the organization had promoted her to the newly-created position of interim head of the Gender, Sexuality and Identity division.

"It tells you a lot about where women's rights stand at Amnesty International," Sahgal said in a phone interview in March. "When they had to make the choice between Begg and their most senior discrimination expert who also has researched fundamentalism, they chose Begg."...

Why is it that the most avowedly Islamic parties seem to be made up of Misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace and Tolerance?

"Study finds Islamist parties least concerned with human rights," by Hani Hazaimeh for the Jordan Times, December 21 (thanks to Twostellas):

AMMAN - The Kingdom's Islamist parties are the least concerned with human rights among other political parties in the country, according to a study revealed on Sunday.

The study, which was conducted by the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), categorised the country's 15 political parties into four groups - Islamists, nationalists, leftists and moderates....

Barakat said the study classified human rights into four sub-categories: equality; civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; and any relevant articles in the parties' charters concerned with human rights in general.

The 102-page study showed that Islamic parties' charters made the least mention of equality, accounting for only 13.64 per cent of all references to equality in party charters. In comparison, moderate parties accounted for 33.64 per cent of such references.

According to the study, which was compiled through direct questionnaires and interviews with the founders of each party, Islamic parties' charters focus more heavily on socio-economic, cultural, civil and political rights, as well as on power sharing.

All parties' charters call for freedom of expression, the study noted, while 13 out of 15, or all except one Islamist and one nationalist party, mention the right to a fair trial.

Barakat explained that the founding documents of leftist and Islamic parties do not include any references to the right to life, freedom of movement or freedom from torture and cruel treatment, whereas moderate and nationalist parties stress these rights in their agendas....

The Saudi scholar Muhammad Abu Omar al-Seif confirms the incompatibility of Islam with democracy. From the SITE Institute:

[S]overeignty is reserved for Allah alone, replacing shari’a with democratic elections is considered “an appeal to the devil and destruction of Allah’s rule,” democracy considers all people equal, “knowledgeable and the ignorant and Muslim and “infidel” alike, which is deemed anathema. Further, according to the speech, jihad is the solution, justified in its course because it means to defend Islam, “which the enemies are aiming to remove from the hearts of the Muslims and from their lives.”

Mr. al-Seif issued this statement on September 26th of 2005 and allegations of his affiliation with "al-Qaeda leadership in Chechnya" are well known.

What isn't common knowledge is this November, 2003 Jihad Watch posting which was prophetic in its confirmation that Saudia Arabia doesn't deserve the certification which President Bush so generously granted.

Further proof shows that Saudi Arabia is still the same country she was prior to 9/11.

From the Guardian:

Liberal Democrats yesterday warned that the government's counter-terrorism proposals would inflame community tensions and alienate young Muslims, as they unanimously passed a motion urging the party to defend civil liberties and oppose any move to water down human rights legislation. The emergency motion warned that many of the measures included in last week's draft anti-terrorism bill, or suggested by ministers elsewhere, would "undermine traditional civil liberties, risk alienating minority communities and [would be] open to abuse".

Speakers expressed particular concern about extradition to countries where torture and other human rights abuses occurred, and about proposals to allow police up to three months to detain suspects before charging them. The proscribing of political parties which had not been linked to violence was also a worry. They warned that the new powers were likely to be invoked disproportionately on ethnic and religious minorities.

Very few people want to mistreat ethnic or religious minorities, but many wonder what causes Muslims, in particular, to feel alienated. The onus of integrating into British society begins with the Muslims themselves. A task they seem to take lightly considering the fact that as many as 150 independent Muslim schools "offer a religion-dominated education little different to the madrassas of Pakistan, and do little to encourage integration." It appears that a disconnect with British society is what they really desire. Have liberal democrats considered Sura [5.51] - "O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends" - as a possible factor behind self-imposed Muslim alienation?

Moving the motion, an activist, Tim Nichols, said: "Three months' detention without charge is internment. We know that internment in Ireland contributed to the recruitment of terrorists, the worsening of conflict, more lives lost and more lives damaged. If the government wants to radicalise a generation of young British Muslims, it is going about it the right way."

Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West, added: "These measures will inflame tension and increase the same resentment which led to four young men from West Yorkshire bombing their own capital city."

Nasser Butt, a Mole Valley councillor and chair of the Liberal Democrats' Muslim Forum, urged activists: "Let's not forget that the terrorism brought to this country is also related to Iraq. To deal with it by coming up with authoritarian laws restricting civil liberties [Tony Blair] is getting away from his responsibility for what he's done to this country."

Alienated by society, inflamed by anti-terrorism legislation and outraged by Britain's involvement in Iraq are explanations liberal democrats have given as motivating factors behind Islamic terrorism. The desire amongst the Muslim faithful to "fight for the sake of Allah" and to die for his cause is virtually ignored. This underestimation has proven to be fatal, as the London bombings have shown.

Update on this story from the ASSIST News Service, with thanks to LA:

JAKARTA (ANS) -- The three women charged with violating Indonesia's 2002 Child Protection Act by Christianizing Muslim children were found guilty today of all charges in an Indonesian court charged with anti-Christian radicals.

Jeff Hammond, director of Bless Indonesia Today, told ANS Dr. Rebecca Laonita, Mrs. Ratna Mala Bangun, and Mrs. Ety Pangesti, who conducted a “Happy Week” (or “Happy Sunday”) program in their homes in early May, were found “guilty of all charges” and given a sentence of three years.

Hammond pointed out that the guilty verdict was pronounced, even though the children had their parents’ permission to attend, and none of them had changed their religion.

He said the verdict may actually have spared the three a worse fate, as the witnesses and judges were “constantly under the threats of violence from hundreds of Islamic radicals, who threatened to kill the three ladies, witnesses, pastors, missionaries--and even the judges--if the women were acquitted.”