Criticizing sharia? What a bunch of bigots. My latest in PJ Media:
“We should have an Iranian republic, not an Islamic republic,” said one Iranian protester. “Islam cannot address our needs.”
The protesters chanted: “We don’t want an Islamic republic! … Clerics, shame on you, let go of our country!” Some even chanted: “Reza Shah, bless your soul!”, referring to the former Shah of Iran who had set the nation on a secularizing, pro-Western course.
All of this raises the question: in the U.S., we are constantly told that opposition to Sharia constitutes bigotry and “Islamophobia.” So how did Iran come to be filled with bigoted “Islamophobes”?
The answer is simple. What turned many Iranians against Sharia was having to live under it since 1979.
Julie Lenarz of Britain’s Human Security Center observed in December 2015: “It is astonishing that the West cultivates an ever-closer alliance with a theocratic regime widely known for its abysmal human rights record and aggressive behavior in the region. They hang men for the ‘crime’ of writing poems; or engaging in peaceful protest; or loving someone of the same sex. Women are stoned for being raped and Iranian law even allows for juvenile executions. Iran is averaging three hangings per day at the moment and remains a pariah state with no regard for human life. In a despicable form of moral myopia, the gold rush for business, as the international sanctions regime begins to unravel, has made Western governments blind to the suffering of ordinary Iranians at the hands of the Ayatollahs.”
The savage punishment of death by stoning remains alive and well in the Islamic Republic. One woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, gained international attention after she was sentenced in 2006 to be stoned to death for adultery and conspiracy to murder her husband. After a great deal of media pressure on the Islamic Republic, she was ultimately pardoned and freed in 2014.
The Iranians continue, however, to sentence others to be stoned to death: in December 2015, a woman identified only by her initials, “A. Kh.,” was sentenced to be stoned to death for aiding in the murder of her husband.
Maryam Nayeb Yazdi, a Canadian-Iranian human rights activist, noted: “The rate of executions in Iran has not decreased in the last few years, it has increased. Although stoning has become more rare in Iran, such sentences are still being issued by Iranian judges. The probability of a stoning sentence to be carried out is slim due to the international sensitivity of the issue, there is a great chance her sentence may be ‘converted’ to death by hanging.”
Mohammad-Javad Larijani, chief of the Islamic Republic’s Human Rights Council, had no patience with those who charged that stoning people to death was barbaric. He said in April 2014: “We are not ashamed of stoning or any of the Islamic decrees. No one has the right to tell a judge to avert some sentences because the United Nations gets upset. We should firmly and seriously defend the sentence of stoning.” To those who charged that such punishments violated the human rights of the victim, Larijani said: “Retaliation and punishment are beautiful and necessary things. It’s a form of protection for the individual and civil rights of the people in a society. The executioner or the person administering the sentence is in fact very much a defender of human rights. One can say that there is humanity in the act of retaliation.”
Given such attitudes, it is not surprising that other punishments common in Iran are similarly draconian. According to Iranian dissident group National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in August 2015 an Iranian court sentenced a 27-year-old man, identified only by his first name, Hamed, to be blinded. This sentence came after Hamed admitted that in March 2011, he accidentally injured the eye of another man. “It was around midnight,” he recounted, “and I was sitting at home when my mother called me and said that my father had gotten into a car accident. I rushed to the scene to help my dad, but I really didn’t intend to injure anyone’s eye.”…
This has been life in the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979. So it is small wonder that the Iranian people are a good deal more clear-eyed than Western Leftists when it comes to understanding the reality of what it means to live under Sharia.
Read the rest here.
Walter Sieruk says
Just for the sake of interest, in the book entitled HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD, by William Wagner on page 208 the reader is informed that “The creation of the Islamic republic in Iran has had the effect that many from that country have become disillusioned with Islam and are looking to leave.” This is a point worth pondering.
Raja says
Walter,
Most will agree with you and won’t be surprised at Wagner’s observation. This is one of the reasons why states like Saudi Arabia is run by draconian laws and religious Kangaroo courts. To keep their people in good humour there is supremacist sermons and lies 24X7: that Islam is better, Sharia is better, Sharia ensures zero crime., bible is corrupted, Christians worship 3 gods,namely God the Father, God the son and Mary and so on.
If You counter the Islamic propaganda and abolish death sentence for Islamic apostasy half of Islam will lose its tentacles. It is high time the civilized world goes on the offensive instead of defense viz a viz Islam.
Walter Sieruk says
To Rajja, regarding the claim that “The Bible has been corrupted and the Christian s worship three gods” First, about the claim that” “The Bible is corrupted” That claim about the “corruption of the Bible” very much underestimates the supreme power of Almighty God to preserve is Word through time and to keep it safe and intact though the ages and keep it away from corruption by evil. men.
Second , the other claim that Christian worship three gods is actually known as straw-man augments and an old one it that . For real Christians don’t believe and worship three gods . The Biblical way to describe the doctrine of the Trinity is that “Within the essence of the One True God are Three Distinct Persons..God the Father. God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,. Three distinct Persons in One God. otherwise known as the Triune existence of God . Which is also known as the Trinity.
gravenimage says
Walter, Raja was just pointing out what Muslims think–not saying that he agrees.
common sense says
And “death to Germany?”
https://youtu.be/kYmTFL9nbRQ
Matthieu Baudin says
“… What turned many Iranians against Sharia was having to live under it since 1979…”
The Theocracy lost no time exporting it’s ‘piety’ to other Muslim majority lands that had become non compliant with Islamic dress codes and other sharia restrictions. One of the first to be sermonised were Muslim Malays and many of their womenfolk have been trapped in ‘tents’ ever since in the unending sweltering tropical heat. If the women of Iran win themselves the freedom to dress sensibly then it may not be long before Malays, Indonesians and other ‘captive communities’ follow suit.
Lydia Church says
In their mind, disliking islam is ‘islamophobic’!
Opposing sharia is many things. It is:
1. Common sense
2. Good
3. Democratic
4. Standing up for human rights and dignity
5. Rational thinking
6. Reasonable, logical, intelligent
7. Justice
8. Liberty
9. Equality
It is many things, but one thing it is not is: islamophobic or bigotry!
That is just them twisting the narrative with use of propaganda and mind control verbiage to prod and usher the masses into compliance.
mummymovie says
Pishaw!
The leftist liberal elite, college students, antifa, and media over here in America know better than you all AND the Iranian protestors.
After all, they’re part of the “Resistance”!
(Oops… Did I forget a hashtag?)
Mark says
Phrases such as, slandering Islam, or un Islamic, was replaced with Islamaphobia.
Ray Jarman says
I think that Jimmy the peanut farmer and Zbigniew Brzezinski (in absentia) should be tried for the deaths of all those slaughtered by the mullahs in Iran. Had he not pulled the rug from Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi’s feet, none of this would have occurred. Iran was on the path to a bright future and was a friend of the West. I contend that none of the miseries of the Middle East to include Egypt and Libya would be happening were it not for this single historical incident.