Friday, December 02, 2011

Sharia in Action

Here's yet another horror story from free and democratic Afghanistan. According to CNN:

Gunmen Spray Afghan Woman With Acid After Refusing Marriage

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — Gunmen attacked and sprayed an Afghan family with acid in their home after the father rejected a man’s bid to marry his teenage daughter, authorities said Thursday.

The gunmen broke into their home and attacked the 18-year-old daughter, her two sisters and their parents, according to authorities in Kunduz province.

All five received medical treatment, with the mother and two daughters later discharged, medical officials said.

The teenager is in intensive care and her father is still hospitalized, said Abdul Shokoor Rahimi, a doctor at the provincial hospital.

The attack came on the heels of her family’s refusal to marry off the teen to another local gunman.

A month ago, a gunman tried to marry the teenager, but her family turned him down and instead got her engaged to a relative, said Nadera Geya, head of women’s affairs in the province.

“A few nights back, a group of armed men … poured acid over her, on her two young sisters and her parents after beating up her father,” Geya said.

The whole family was brought to the hospital Monday, local hospital officials said.

An unrelated news item from Libya arrived in our inbox at about the same time. According to ANSAmed:

“The West should not fear Islamic law because it brings peace, justice and rights,” National Transitional Council (NTC) Youth Minister and well-known human rights defender in Libya Fathi Terbil told ANSA. Terbil made his remark in response to a question about the possibility of introducing the Sharia in Libya’s new Constitution.

These are reassuring words. But if you want to see the practical effects of the imposition of Islamic law, Afghanistan is an example of sharia in action. The Afghan constitution has officially enshrined sharia since 2004:

Article 2 [Religions]:

(1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam.

Article 3 [Law and Religion]:

In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.

The CNN article doesn’t mention Islam, but Islam is very much an issue where “honor” violence is concerned. If the suspects in this case are ever apprehended, the judge will examine Islamic law as it applies to the attack. Throwing acid onto members of that family may be a violation of sharia, but it may not — we will have to wait and see. The precedents are not encouraging.

And sharia has now come to Libya. We are enjoined not to worry about that — Islamic law is alleged to be a force for good, bringing “peace, justice, and rights.” And so it does — as those words are defined under Islamic law:

  • “Peace” means submission to Allah.
  • “Justice” means the full implementation of sharia, whose jurisdiction is to include Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Since non-Muslims have very few rights under Islamic law, this form of “justice” should be viewed with trepidation by Christians, Jews, etc.
  • “Rights” are defined by the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, and not by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In other words, all human rights which Libyans enjoy will flow from sharia, and cannot contradict sharia.

It’s worth noting that the United States and NATO have now installed sharia-based constitutions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. When the Muslim Brotherhood takes the reins in Cairo, we can expect to see a full-sharia constitution voted in for Egypt.

It pains me to point this out again, but the United States remains the most powerful agent in the world backing the implementation of sharia. This was true under the Bush administration, and it is even more true under the Obama administration.

Keep that fact in mind during next year’s election. If you think that voting in an establishment Republican president will bring a change of sharia-enforcement policy, you’ve got another think coming.


Hat tips: Insubria, J-PD.

2 comments:

George Pal said...

It occurs to me that the objects of our disdain, even hatred, are most always of a dyadic nature - the thing itself and that which cultivates it. Which to detest more? I am at a loss. We, the West, are well equipped to take the fight to such monstrous behavior but will not – it must be the oil.

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations, in its Charter adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which...

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 16
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 26
(2)... It [education] shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

... are violated every second of every day in islamic/sharia countries, denying such freedoms as often as not with intimidation and violence. Until such time as the UN block of OIC islamic/sharia countries comply with Articles 1, 5, 16, 18, 26, de facto and de jure, they should be expelled from the UN (more than this, utter segregation from the world community – but first a shot across the bow).

Concepts valued by the West only in the abstract are certain to be contemptuously defied, especially in the particular instance of islamic practice. Either stand up to Islam or dump the UN – either way a win/win proposition. How absurd must the world look, the West in particular, invoking, in all these Articles, righteousness as if from on high but timorously disregarding them in the face of Islamic contempt. Pathetic!

Anonymous said...

ChristianInfidel says:

George Pal, thank you for this beautifully to-the-point articulation of the UN UDHR's jarring rejection by Islam, which is further demonstrated by the very existence of the despicable Cairo Declaration of (so-called) Human Rights.

This message seems to me to be one of the key points that we should relentlessly bring to the general public.

The UN and the European Court of Human Rights cannot be dismissed as far-right extremists, and both of them have shown (even if only inadvertently and indirectly in the UN's case) that sharia is incompatible with basic human rights and, therefore, with any acceptable version of democracy.

Individual Muslims, too, need to be confronted with Islam's enslavement of them as well as of non-Muslims. I like to ask any Muslim apologist some version of the question, "Are you free to leave Islam if you ever cease to believe in it?" I hope it can make them think, and perhaps feel the longing for freedom.