Former Muslims United is being formally launched at a press conference even as I write this, in Hearing Room 1334 of the Longworth House Office Building in Washington D.C.:
Former Muslims United will be formally launched at a press conference Thursday, September 24, to announce the start of their national campaign to educate the American public and policymakers about the threat from authoritative Shariah— Islamic law— to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims.
At the press conference, FMU has just now released the text of letters that it sent to Gerald A. Reynolds, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States. The two letters are similar, so I’ll reproduce the text of the one that was sent to Gerald Reynolds:
Dear Mr. Reynolds:- - - - - - - - -
We, as founders of Former Muslims United, respectfully request that your office inform us of your policies, programs and plans to protect and support former Muslims who because of authoritative Shariah doctrine, are the targets of discrimination, intimidation, assault, and the threat of execution. Your organization’s stated mission is “to study and collect information relating to discrimination or a denial of equal protection of the laws under the Constitution” and “to appraise federal laws and policies with respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws.” Please inform us how you apply this mission to former Muslims, the only group in the U.S. whose persecution and execution is permitted by a consensus of leading authorities of all schools of Shariah.
Please describe current and planned investigations on the Shariah doctrine concerning former Muslims, and on specific cases of civil rights abuses against former Muslims. Please describe as well the statistics and research processes in place for gathering information on civil rights abuses against former Muslims, and provide copies of any reports, speeches or press releases indicating the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights policies and programs protecting the rights of former Muslims.
The Commission’s powers include the right to hold hearings and issue subpoenas (within the state in which the hearing is being held and within a 100-mile radius of the site) for the production of documents and the attendance of witnesses at such hearings. The Commission also consults with representatives of federal, state, and local governments, and private organizations. We ask that you direct these powers to hold hearings, issue subpoenas and consult with such representatives concerning the immediate threats to civil rights of apostates from Islam in the United States. We are all aware of incidents of intimidation and threats of violence against former Muslims.
The recent case showing the lack of professionalism in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation of the possible Shariah doctrinal threat against former Muslim Rifqa Bary, demonstrates the need for national policies and programs to educate law enforcement and other government officials officials about the threat to apostates from Shariah. We request that you review the possible civil rights abuses of Ms. Bary throughout the FDLE investigation. Of particular note was the fact that the FDLE interviewed Ms. Bary’s Muslim family, whom she had identified as a threat to her safety, in the presence of Mr. Babak Darvish and Mr. Romin Iqbal of the Council on American Islamic Relations, an organization named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial by the U.S. Department of Justice, and from which the FBI has distanced their relations.
CAIR supports Shariah doctrine as “the ongoing consensus of Islamic scholars” and CAIR’s former legal director singled out as “one of the most famous Muslim scholars” the Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars. In 2006, Qaradawi issued an influential ruling on death for former Muslims, stating “the Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-‘ashriyyah, Al-Ja‘fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”
The FDLE investigation and its involvement with CAIR may be representative of a lack of knowledge throughout the law enforcement and social services communities about Shariah doctrine. If investigations of possible death threats against apostates from Islam are influenced by organizations, such as CAIR, that support Shariah scholars who endorse death threats against apostates, we think that is a serious problem worthy of your immediate attention.
We look forward to learning about your efforts in protecting the civil rights of former Muslims, and particularly of Ms. Bary. Our organization is launching a national campaign to ask Muslim leaders to sign “The Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims.” We enclose a copy of that pledge, and a representative cover letter, for your reference.
The civil rights establishment — under both Republican and Democratic administrations — has danced for too long around the issue of sharia. Islamic law, according to all the interpretations of the mainstream schools of Muslim jurisprudence, explicitly contradicts the right to religious freedom as guaranteed to all Americans by the U.S. Constitution.
Up until now our government has been willing to accept the misleading bromides about sharia issued by CAIR and other similar organizations. But apostates from Islam know all too well that such explanations are taqiyya, religiously sanctioned Islamic disinformation. The truth about sharia is not hard to discover, but it won’t come from CAIR.
It’s about time that somebody held the federal government’s feet to the fire, and Former Muslims United is doing exactly that.
8 comments:
This is an excellent starting point. Islam's intolerant and violent nature must be brought to the fore. One possible outcome is that anyone who approves of shari'a law should be denied entrance into the United States due to them representing a corporeal threat to all Former Muslims living within our borders.
Furthermore, there should be ongoing investigations into all Islamic leaders whereby they must be made to go on public record regarding their support or opposition to capital punishment of apostasy. Such statements should be taken under oath as sworn testimony in a court of law.
These public records should then be broadcast back into all Muslim majority countries so that death fatwan can be sworn out on this entire group of new apostates. It must be realized that anyone who denies even a minuscule fraction of shari'a law automatically becomes an apostate.
This would create an entire class of immigrant Islamic clerics who could no longer return to Muslim majority countries for fear of death due to apostasy. It would also provide a platform whereby those individuals who foreswore capital punishment for apostasy under oath and later retracted that position in order to ingratiate themselves into Muslim societies overseas could, upon return to American soil, then be subject to contempt of court proceedings and possible perjury charges for having provided false testimony in a court of law.
In this way, a subtle erosive force could be applied to Islam's stranglehold upon American Muslims. I'm confident that the authors of this letter had exactly that in mind.
This is a very good tactic, because it will appeal to all liberty seeking individualists, whether on the right or the left. I was brainstorming with myself how to make Islam less fashionable (rap video? street theatre?), because, history is usually the result of fleeting fashion, from the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Islam is currently super trendy, bordering on mainstream. Ready for MTV exploitation. Zeitgeist, you know?
On the other hand, acting the victim is always fashionable, and I applaud these brave signers for their cleverness. Of course, I am well aware that they face very real death sentences, but identifying themselves as an oppositional movement should gain the sympathy of the mainstream, who loves the underdog.
Funny the way fashion works. Nonetheless, consider me to be steadfast in their corner.
Baron
This development has been a long time coming. We discussed the way to subvert Islam, as well as the Liberal paradigm in 2005
The Freedom of the Burqa
Zenster
Rev Patrick Sookhdeo has been campaigning for several years against the Islamic punishment for Apostasy. In a major conference chaired by Prince Charles some years back, on this issue, Muslim leaders got away with it by stating that "the time was not right", as well as pleading "it would alienate a lot of Muslims".
They will try the same excuses, as well as accuse all and sundry of "Islamophobia". Then there are the usual excuses
1. It has nothing to do with Islam
2. The practice is cultural
3. There is no compulsion in Islam- backed with the appropriate sura.
4. These apostates are full of hatred for Islam . Islam is a RoP and has 1.5 billion followers, and they couldn't all be wrong.
5. Threats that the youth are angry and alienated, and will resort to violence. For dhimmi politicians, intent on a peaceful tenure of office, this is a very powerful argument.
The Barnabus Fund has made several petitions on this issue so far. Its time will come.
These people are very brave, having the courage to reject this savage religion called islam but it is a shame we cannot bring something like this to all tv-news or headlines in MSM.
May I also suggest "Muslims Against Sharia".
I'm Jewish and have posting privileges there.
BTW I want to apologize for anything intemperate I said during your dust up with LGF. You were right and I was wrong. I signed on to the banned from LGF list yesterday. I'm not sure I was banned but I'm not going to give CJ even one click to find out.
And D.,
Thanks for the comment on the Sarah Palin post. I'm honored.
Simon
Mr. Simon--
Nice to see you!
I didn't even know you *had* sided with Charles. Or rather, the whole thing was so traumatic that I don't remember details like that now. Those standing up for us usually didn't reside within our borders. Some US bloggers disagreed with us out of principle, but most just didn't want to ruffle any feathers.
What I learned: the blogosphere isn't any different than the MSM.
Nonetheless, your apology is most welcome. It can take a long time for the truth to emerge...
...and the ill wind that emerged from that blowhard, CJ, generated some good. It made us see how ignorant Americans were about Europe. It even caused several blogs to be established by transplanted Europeans who were alarmed by the appalling lack of knowledge among Americans -- e.g., one of our critics seemed to think Europe was a country.
Unfortunately, I do remember the ones who attacked us personally. Those were hard times, but quite a few of them have since left blogging entirely.
The best gift I've gotten since starting our blog was to watch Daily Kos welcome Chazzer to the fold. At last he could return to his roots...and coincidentally raise his traffic levels again with the links from the Left. His metamorphosis has saved him from oblivion, though why his new friends would find him trustworthy is beyond my ken.
I didn't know there was a "Banned from LGF" list. It must be a long one! I believe we were the first ones banned, almost immediately after the Brussels Conference.
BTW, I'm glad you're posting on Palin. Her speech in Hong Kong put her in the contender's ring for office later on. Let the bashing begin...
OT, but what the heck:
Here is the post M. Simon refers to about S. Palin:
She is Bright and They are Stuck on Stupid
If you have some ideas on the trajectory of Mrs. Palin or her recent speech in Hong Kong, I suggest you put them in his thread. I plan to write about her eventually, but for the moment I’ll have to confine myself to comments on other blogs who are featuring her.
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