Human Rights Approach

At the first conference of the CEMB, there was two things underlying the talks: that human rights require that people are protected, rather than groups or religions. The other was that political Islam is different from many other religions because it rejects the distinction between private and public aspects of modern life – and rejects the secular notion that your faith should do no harm to others. Ideas are protected by blood, whether by the death of Apostates, or threats to the life of those that speak out against Islam.

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we really are. – Don Miguel Ruiz

In Conway Hall, where the conference took place, above the stage by the celling emblazoned on the wall is To thine Own Self Be True. In a pluralistic society that should not be difficult – where more then one idea can be accepted. A.C Grayling made the point that tolerance should not be easy, while you should not move to the point that you tolerate the intolerant. Sharia Law does not treat women and men equally before the court, and many women do not speak English – to claim that the whole process is voluntary when British law has rights for women from dividing estates to custody of children is absurd when there is in reality no access to the law of the land in Muslim communities for women.

Ahadi made the point though that how the left and the right of politics deal with this issue is wrong. The right that it is a threat to the British way of life, while on the left that different cultures need to be accommodated. In practise the question is do we want a European ideal or a human rights ideal? The dutch politician Ehsan Jami seemed to be of the former notion, requiring an end to dual citizenship with an Islamic country. As Ahadi mentioned, the debate had changed since 9/11 from foreigners as they were called to being called Muslim – even though she had renounced Islam and many refugees were escaping political Islam.

Apostasy by its nature rejects free expression – the penalty being death in some countries, though whether the Koran itself advocates such punishment is disputed. In that sense one would hope that one day those that view the afterlife as being the judgement would prevail. However Sharia Law is gaining acceptance in Muslim countries, and even in Britain is established supposedly on a voluntary basis for civil matters but legal sanction given to the outcome of cases. Sharai Law was likened to a Trojan Horse that political Islam uses to take on the apparatus of the state.

in that use of free expression we have to make the distinction that we are against Islamophobia. This is a struggle of ideology on the nature of the relationship between the state and citizens. It may be argued that the only logical consequence is that you have to allow all forms of speech to allow criticism and guard freedom, with Pooya arguing that it should unlimited, unconditional. A.C. Grayling made the point that you had to be very specific about the limitations – which namely should be on what you cannot choose as a person. For example: gender, age, race but religious belief is free game because you consciously choose that.

One video that was shown was Fitna Remade which outlines the case rather well (without the Islamophoba immigration bashing of the original documentary).

Islamic Penal Code

President Ahmadinejad has been supporting efforts to have the death penalty for Apostasy judicially sanctioned once again. Iran needs to know that the world is watching – the Islamic Penal Code would allow men to be executed for abandoning Islam, with women serving life imprisonment. The Iranian Parliament voted 196 in favour with 7 against. This goes against the existing constitution in Iran.

On one subject, however, sharia law is unequivocal: men who change their religion from Islam must be punished with death. So when the judge heard the case of Rashid’s father, he could refer to sharia and reach a straightforward decision: the death penalty. There was no procedure for appeal.

Nevertheless, in the 18 years since Hossein Soodmand’s execution, there have been no judicially sanctioned killings of apostates in Iran, although there have been many reports of disappearances and even murders. “As the number of converts from Islam grows,” notes Ms Papadouris, “apostasy has again become a serious concern for the Iranian government.” In addition to 10,000 Christian converts living in Iran, there are several hundred thousand Baha’is who are deemed apostates.

There is another factor: President Ahmadinejad. “The President didn’t initiate the law mandating the death penalty for apostates,” says Papadouris, “but he has been lobbying for it. It is an effective form of playing populist politics. The Iranian economy is doing very badly, and the country is in a mess: Ahmadinejad may be calculating that he can gain support, and deflect attention from Iran’s problems, by persecuting apostates.”

The new law is not yet in force in Iran: it requires another vote in parliament, and then the signature of the Ayatollah. But that could happen within a matter of weeks. “Or,” says Papadouris, “it could conceivably be allowed to drop, were there a powerful enough international outcry”.

Time may be running out for Rashin’s brother. She believes that the new law will be applied in an arbitrary fashion, with individuals selected for death being chosen to frighten others into submission. That is why she fears for her brother. “We just don’t know what will happen to him. We only know that if they want to kill him, they will.” [Daily Telegraph]

Ex Muslims that have renounced religion

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain presents its first international conference titled:

Political Islam, Sharia Law, And Civil Society

On Friday 10 October 2008 International day against the Death Penalty.

There are still ticekts available for the conference (have just purchased one for myself) which are just £10 and among the speakers are Richard Dawkins, A.C. Grayling, Hanne Stinson and Keith Porteous Wood.

More on the event can be found here.

If you are going give a shout.

Despite compelling his children to flog themselves with a five bladed whip during the Ashura ceremony, Syed Mustafa Zaidi was handed a suspended sentence. He claimed that it was his religion, and that he believed he was doing nothing wrong encouraging his children to flog themselves.

Judge Robert Atherton stated:

“I reject the suggestion that they were forced to participate, although I consider it likely that the fervour of events is also likely to have affected their wish to participate.”

The father handed his 15 and 13 year old son the zanjeer whip. How on earth a child can be said to voluntarily, under his father’s direction and instruction, commit self flagellation is a mystery. This was not just a lack of parental care. Religious fervour does not excuse such encouraged acts of brutality by a father done by a minor to themselves. This was child abuse in the name of faith.

The judge further commented:

“You must realise that the law recognises that children and young persons may wish to take part in some activities which it considers they should not.

“It is sometimes expressed as protecting themselves from themselves.

“Your wrongful act was providing the means by which they were able to participate.”

I hope that the sentence provokes an out cry. His wrongful act was not just supplying the means, but encouraging his children to partake in an act of violence that they could not reason for themselves. This is a shameful verdict, given that this was an unprecedented case brought by the Crown Prosecution Service.

All quotes from BBC News.

Jordan has asked Interpol to hand over the editors and cartoonists who in 2005 published illustrations of the Prophet Mohamed, including both the original publication and those that showed solidarity in re printing them during the mass hysteria. The request also includes Geert Wilders for his film “Fitna” on the link between the Koran and Islamic terrorism.

[WARNING A PHOTO OF A MODERN EROTIC SCULPUTURE BY TERENCE KOHL OF JESUS FOLLOWS IN THIS BLOG. IF PUBLICITY SEEKING ART OFFENDS YOU IGNORE.] 

While the request will be denied there is a worrying trend in silencing those that would criticize religion. The United Nations passing a Resolution on Combating Defamation of Religion last December misses the point that the emphasis on rights is on people, not religions. Otherwise the right to have a dissenting opinion, or even change your mind about a belief comes into question if we place religion above the rights of people as individuals. That resolution only mentioned Islam by name.

The Resolution reads:

Draft resolution VI on Combating defamation of religions (document A/C.3/62/L.35), approved as orally revised by a recorded vote of 95 in favour to 52 against, with 30 abstentions, on 20 November, would have the Assembly express deep concern about the negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief, still in evidence in some regions of the world. The Assembly would emphasize that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which should be exercised with responsibility and may therefore be subject to limitations, according to law and necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others; protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals; and respect for religions and beliefs.

This was adopted by 108 with 51 opposed including EU countries and the USA. Though not legally binding on countries, this together with the latest attempts in Jordon for extraterritorial reach to suppress free speech suggests that the wind is moving against values we take for granted.

Often it is missed that the critics of religion are concerned for the rights of individuals themselves. Religion does not grant you the right to put adulteries to death. It does not grant you the right to kill apostates or blasphemers, whether within your shores or outside your boundaries. There is a natural right for people to believe what they will believe. As such both the religious and the infidel are protected as individuals – not on the basis of a religion. Criticism may cause offense, but to base law on offense rather than an objective measure of discrimination or incitement to violence is a trend that society had best avoid.

Not exactly a homage to Greek Sculpture

While the blasphemy law has been abolished in the UK, there was an attempt to ban an art exhibition which featured ET, Mickey Mouse and Jesus with their phallus fully erect. There were signs at the gallery about what the exhibition contained (police decided no case to answer), but a private prosecution is being brought supported by the Christian Legal Center. To be honest I find the sculpture rather pointless, and the fuss over the exhibit gives the artist Terence Koh free publicity.

The critics made the point that they would not dare do a sculpture of the Prophet Mohamed with his tackle out. Which does not appreciate that Jesus was the number two prophet in Islam, and that depictions of Jesus are offensive to Muslims. Indeed it is offensive to suggest that god would have children or that Jesus is God in the theology of Islam.

How do we deal with offense as a society? Well we say whether something is in good or bad taste. But subjective views of what makes art good, bad, inspired or shocking is not something left to the courts to enforce. Where exhibitions are of an adult nature, or likely to cause distress to certain sensibilities (like nudity), then a warning seems appropriate.

As I have mentioned in a previous blog we have a right to hear what other people want to say to us. We can decide if it is distasteful, wrong or false and should have the ability to criticize. Banning our right to hear or see a work of art is the wrong reaction – and using religion to make the case does not correct that.

Attempts to disrupt the Dawkins website and other atheist sites, and of course what happened on this day seven years ago in the 9/11 attacks are all a part of censoring and controlling how we react to religion. The only way civilisation can respond is to focus on people, and protecting their rights and freedoms. It may mean we give offense; but to live in a world where sensibilities rule out criticism or free debate is to export a different form of rules to which Western Society has developed.

The father, after whipping himself with a five bladed whip, hands it to his 15 year old son and demands he do the same, followed by his 13 year old brother. However, in court the father claims that he had done nothing wrong. For it is his religion, the Ashura Ceremony. Had he known the law would have been against him would he have spared his children the ceremony.

People sometimes tell me that only through faith can you know what is right and wrong. I wonder if they could do that while looking at the photo of the whip with five curved blades that was used, below reposted from BBC News. There has to be more to what you do then saying it is my religion.

UP DATE 24 September 2008:

new blog on sentencing

Zaidi had denied child cruelty

A devout Shia Muslim has been convicted of child cruelty after forcing two boys to beat themselves during a religious ceremony, in an unprecedented case.

The jury at Manchester Crown Court found 44-year-old Syed Mustafa Zaidi guilty of two counts of child cruelty.

The boys, aged 13 and 15, were forced to beat themselves with a zanjeer whip, with five curved blades.

Zaidi, of Station Road, Eccles, Salford, also flogged himself during the ceremony in January.

The court heard the boys admit that they had wanted to beat themselves, but not under duress and not with the whip.

This is a part of our religion Syed Mustafa Zaidi How a Shia ritual ended in court

The Ashura ceremony takes place during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar and commemorates the death of Husayn, a central figure in the Shia faith.

Zaidi admitted he allowed them to use the bladed whip, but denied his actions were wrong, saying: “This is a part of our religion.”

A local Muslim leader Safdar Zia has said the community was now working with police and the Crown Prosecution Service on a code of practice for the Ashura practice.

“We cannot eliminate this practice, but we can and will work to a code of practice so that the children don’t get hurt, the law isn’t broken, and the people who do want to take part don’t get prosecuted,” he said.

“We have to take into account people’s beliefs and their rights, and we will respect them.

“But we are not above the law and we never will be and working with the authorities is the best chance we’ve got to prevent any harm being brought against any children.”

The boys suffered cuts from the zanjeer five-bladed whip

During the trial the 14-year-old boy, who was 13 at the time, said that during the ceremony Zaidi told them both: “Start doing it, start doing it.”

The child told the court: “We said ‘we don’t want to do it’.”

He said he saw Zaidi flogging himself before washing blood from the whip and handing it to the 15-year-old boy.

The boy said Zaidi continued to pressure the older teenager to whip himself.

He said the 15-year-old boy “swung it once or twice and said ‘I don’t want to do it anymore’.”

Zaidi told the court: “It was an emotional time and the children were happy, they asked for it. No one forced anyone.

“If I’d known this would be the result of breaking the law I would never have done it.”

This is a very unusual case and the first of its kind to be prosecuted by the CPS in England and Wales Carol Jackson, CPS

The boys both received multiple lacerations to their backs, mainly superficial, with several deeper cuts.

Supt Nadeem Butt, of Greater Manchester Police, said: Zaidi had “abused the vulnerability” of the children, gone against the wishes of his own community and broken the law.

Carol Jackson, of the Greater Manchester Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said the prosecution “was not an attack upon the practices or ceremonies of Shia Muslims”.

“Indeed, the prosecution relied as part of its evidence upon the president of the local Shia community centre,” Ms Jackson said.

“We are satisfied that, given the age of the children involved, the coercion employed by Syed Mustafa Zaidi, who did not accept that he was wrong, and the possibility of such an incident occurring again, the decision to prosecute by the Crown Prosecution Service was the correct one.

“This is a very unusual case and the first of its kind to be prosecuted by the CPS in England and Wales.”

Zaidi will be sentenced on 24 September.

Sam Harris said of the Koran after quoting numerous passages:

But there is no substitute for confronting the text itself. I cannot judge the quality of the Arabic; perhaps it is sublime. But the book’s contents are not. On almost every page, the Koran instructs observant Muslims to despise nonbelievers. On almost every page, it prepares the ground for religious conflict. Anyone who can read passages like those quoted above and still not see a link between Muslim faith and Muslim violence should probably consult a neurologist.

With many quotes from the Koran in the link above that make you think that, should you wish to commit violence in the name of Allah, you will find references for such actions that you do so on behalf of god. While there are Muslims that do not believe in using violence and are secularist – not less the Bangladeshi community in my town who fled fundamentalism – the question of how we take away the oxygen that make people feel the Koran is a book that orders Jihad rather than one of metaphor, poetry and a history of a people living in a superstitious supernatural world is one that needs answering with fearing to ask the question.

I still remember when Ayaan Hirsi Ali was receiving death threats at a conference in Washington DC that they did think about cancelling her talk, but she went ahead. I am so glad that we got to hear what she had to say.

The treading on egg shells when a teacher allows her class to name a teddy bear Mohammad faces a murderous mob, a journalist student suffering imprisonment and the threat of the death penalty for starting a debate on feminism and the Prophet, the drawing of cartoons and over the top reaction to when people say that Islam is wrong need challenging.

This can be done without concern for sensitivities or treating people like they need wrapping up in cotton wool for fear that they cannot cope with rational debate without strapping explosives to themselves in response to have the last word. We do not help moderate Muslims that keep their faith in the private sphere if we fear making such criticism or scrutinizing what the text and belief are of Islam. That forgets how Christianity developed to where it is now in the UK.

To this end we need more articles like that of Johann Hari, from The Independent which I re post below:

Johann Hari: We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Thursday, 14 August 2008

Johann Hari

This is a column condemning cowardice – including my own. It begins with the story of a novel you cannot read. The Jewel of Medina was written by a journalist called Sherry Jones. It recounts the life of Aisha, a girl who was married off at the age of six to a 50-year-old man called Mohamed ibn Abdallah. On her wedding day, Aisha was playing on a see-saw outside her home. Inside, she was being betrothed. The first she knew of it was when she was banned from playing out in the street with the other children. When she was nine, she was taken to live with her husband, now 53. He had sex with her. When she was 14, she was accused of adultery with a man closer to her own age. Not long after, Mohamed decreed that his wives must cover their faces and bodies, even though no other women in Arabia did.

You cannot read this story today – except in the Koran and the Hadith. The man Mohamed ibn Abdallah became known to Muslims as “the Prophet Mohamed”, so our ability to explore this story is stunted. The Jewel of Medina was bought by Random House and primed to be a best-seller – before a University of Texas teacher saw proofs and declared it “a national security issue”. Random House had visions of a re-run of the Rushdie or the Danish cartoons affairs. Sherry Jones’s publisher has pulped the book. It’s gone.

In Europe, we are finally abolishing the lingering blasphemy laws that hinder criticism of Christianity. But they are being succeeded by a new blasphemy law preventing criticism of Islam – enforced not by the state, but by jihadis. I seriously considered not writing this column, but the right to criticise religion is as precious – and hard-won – as the right to criticise government. We have to use it or lose it.

Some people will instantly ask: why bother criticising religion if it causes so much hassle? The answer is: look back at our history. How did Christianity lose its ability to terrorise people with phantasms of sin and Hell? How did it stop spreading shame about natural urges – pre-marital sex, masturbation or homosexuality? Because critics pored over the religion’s stories and found gaping holes of logic or morality in them. They asked questions. How could an angel inseminate a virgin? Why does the Old Testament God command his followers to commit genocide? How can a man survive inside a whale?

Reinterpretation and ridicule crow-barred Christianity open. Ask enough tough questions and faith is inevitably pushed farther and farther back into the misty realm of metaphor – where it is less likely to inspire people to kill and die for it. But doubtful Muslims, and the atheists who support them, are being prevented from following this path. They cannot ask: what does it reveal about Mohamed that he married a young girl, or that he massacred a village of Jews who refused to follow him? You don’t have to murder many Theo Van Goghs or pulp many Sherry Joneses to intimidate the rest. The greatest censorship is internal: it is in all the books that will never be written and all the films that will never be shot, because we are afraid.

We need to acknowledge the double-standard – and that it will cost Muslims in the end. Insulating a religion from criticism – surrounding it with an electric fence called “respect” – keeps it stunted at its most infantile and fundamentalist stage. The smart, questioning and instinctively moral Muslims – the majority – learn to be silent, or are shunned (at best). What would Christianity be like today if George Eliot, Mark Twain and Bertrand Russell had all been pulped? Take the most revolting rural Alabama church, and metastasise it.

Since Jones has brought it up, let us look at Mohamed’s marriage to Aisha as a model for how we can conduct this conversation. It is true those were different times, and it may have been normal for grown men to have sex with prepubescent girls. The sources are not clear on this point. But whatever culture you live in, having sex when your body is not physically developed can be an excruciatingly painful experience. Among Vikings, it was more normal than today to have your arm chopped off, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t agony. If anything, Jones’s book whitewashes this, suggesting that Mohamed’s “gentleness” meant Aisha enjoyed it.

The story of Aisha also prompts another fundamentalist-busting discussion. You cannot say that Mohamed’s decision to marry a young girl has to be judged by the standards of his time, and then demand that we follow his moral standards to the letter. Either we should follow his example literally, or we should critically evaluate it and choose for ourselves. Discussing this contradiction inevitably injects doubt – the mortal enemy of fanaticism (on The Independent’s Open House blog later today, I’ll be discussing how Aisha has become the central issue in a debate in Yemen about children and forced marriage).

So why do many people who cheer The Life Of Brian and Jerry Springer: The Opera turn into clucking Mary Whitehouses when it comes to Islam? If a book about Christ was being dumped because fanatics in Mississippi might object, we would be enraged. I feel this too. I am ashamed to say I would be more scathing if I was discussing Christianity. One reason is fear: the image of Theo Van Gogh lying on a pavement crying “Can’t we just talk about this?” Of course we rationalise it, by asking: does one joke, one column, one novel make much difference? No. But cumulatively? Absolutely.

The other reason is more honourable, if flawed. There is very real and rising prejudice against Muslims across the West. The BBC recently sent out identically-qualified CVs to hundreds of employers. Those with Muslim names were 50 per cent less likely to get interviews. Criticisms of Islamic texts are sometimes used to justify US or Israeli military atrocities. Some critics of Muslims – Geert Wilders or Martin Amis – moot mass human rights abuses here in Europe. So some secularists reason: I have plenty of criticisms of Judaism, but I wouldn’t choose to articulate them in Germany in 1933. Why try to question Islam now, when Muslims are being attacked by bigots?

But I live in the Muslim majority East End of London, and this isn’t Weimar Germany. Muslims are secure enough to deal with some tough questions. It is condescending to treat Muslims like excitable children who cannot cope with the probing, mocking treatment we hand out to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. It is perfectly consistent to protect Muslims from bigotry while challenging the bigotries and absurdities within their holy texts.

There is now a pincer movement trying to silence critical discussion of Islam. To one side, fanatics threaten to kill you; to the other, critics call you “Islamophobic”. But consistent atheism is not racism. On the contrary: it treats all people as mature adults who can cope with rational questions. When we pulp books out of fear of fundamentalism, we are decapitating the most precious freedom we have.

The Pope has announced that there will be a Catholic/Muslim summit between 24 scholars and religious leaders of each side. This will happen just over a year from when the Pope made his speech in Regensburg, Germany where he mentioned that Islam spread across the Arab world not so much by winning hearts and minds but through the sword.

This brings me to the question of whether it is worth having such inter faith dialogues, and in particular when humanists become involved. I have attended Christian atheist ones – I have to say that for some of the Christians that attended it was the first time not only that they had really examined what they personally believed, but had their faith scrutinized.

The issue for me is what the purpose of the meeting is meant to be. If it is just a public relations exercise then it seems pointless. If on the other hand real concerns are being debated, for example where religious hatred is manifesting itself in society and people are stirring up violence, such dialogue may help people to appreciate what is happening in their community.

The thing is in a pluralistic democracy, such meetings of civic groups can be a good thing. Citizens talking about differences, common accord and areas where they can work together for the benefit of society is one that can be endorsed.

However in a truly pluralistic society this is not about a cartel of groups making decisions – all interested citizens and groups have a level playing field inputting into the decision making process. That is where of course you get the issue of the political process acting as gate keepers to the policy making process. But the idea is a bedrock of democracy that you can make representations and the policy process is accountable.

Because the concept of what actually entails the public good does differ.

The joint statement promised that the Pope would be talking about critical issues facing humankind:

It said the Pope would address the meeting on the themes of “Love of God, Love of Neighbour”, “Theological and Spiritual Foundation” and “Human Dignity and Mutual Respect”.

Public relations and theological fencing exercises seem to be the order of the day. Will they talk about such issues as:

• human rights for women
• freedom of expression
• freedom of choice
• the right to disagree
• stewardship of the planet (physical rather than spiritual)

Perhaps they could proclaim that those who use violence and intimidation, rather than try to win hearts and minds by rational argument, are the enemies of reason. Perhaps they could even condemn those that use faith as a means to condone such activity that brings rent-a-mob to the streets. Instead of indulgences for fragile sensibilities to excuse such behaviour.

I am sure they could find time for that. When we see the worst humanitarian crisis in Gaza since 1967, the need to understand that we need peace rather than division in the world, dialogue rather than discord is one that all those leaders – self proclaimed or otherwise – need to embrace if we are to wake up to the fact that it is not the planet that needs rescuing.

We need to save humanity from itself. Reason and science are there waiting to be heard and acted on. Are we going to heed the call or believe only what we want to believe?

Quote taken from BBC News report here.

In the USA there is I think something that may unite the Religious Right and the Secularist community – a fear that Europe is being swallowed up by Islam. The Archbishop’s comments that Sharia Law should have an accommodation in UK law, and other examples do seem to add to that perception – and it is one played on in Europe by anti immigration parties.

One such Dutch politician is Wilders who has spoken about making a film that will depict him decimating the Koran. Which if he did it would be nothing new – youtube has plenty of films of people doing that. How analytical such a film about the Koran will be I am not sure, but the background of course is that four years ago the Dutch film “Submission” was shown on Dutch TV and the director of the film Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death with a letter between his dead body and blade stating that the screenplay writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be next.

Now I am concerned with how some people want to accommodate Islam. That women are given less human rights due to their cultural tradition (a German court ruled that a woman was correctly beaten according to cultural custom but thankfully that decision was overturned). If this is multiculturalism, then it needs to be defeated because it allows people to be treated differently, against the notion of justice as fairness, and leads to the treatment of people that would not be allowed by law on other citizens.

However there is a fight back – witness the condemnation that met the very surprised Bishop of Canterbury (as parts of the Anglican community may refer to him when the schism is complete). Then there is Ayaan herself who though her life is under threat while she lives in the USA, speaks out but with authority because she has has lived it. Sam Harris in “End of Faith” in a chapter talks about the concerns of a literalistic interpretation of Islam.

Tolerance is a wonderful thing, but it does not cover everything. Some things will be beyond a society to accept, the question is only if there is a moral basis. Ethical consideration would be to do with harm and suffering, and the welfare of people. As such, for example, decisions based on divorce and financial arrangements which did not consider genders to be equal parties would be a cause for concern.

However, the xenophobia that exists is out of proportion to the threat posed, which is more within their own community then to wider society. That of genital mutilation, less likely for women to be educated or fluent in the native tongue, and customs such as honour killings which do not deserve the adjective. 7/7 happened, but much of that is ignoring what was happening within a community until it was too late.

In a global communication network, it will be difficult to censor the message of hate that Islamic fundamentalists use. Yet we can perhaps counter their message of hate, with rational passionate discourse about the benefits of human rights and liberal democracy. Hate crimes that encourage harm and the breaking of the law require zero tolerance.

Because it seems the key opponents in politics of Islam are the xenophobic politicians. The other politicians in power seem keen to move public policy to an accommodation with “moderate” faith groups in an attempt to take the sting out of the tail of extremist belief – based on fear. Few of political standing seem able to create a vision of an open country that will stand up for liberal values with a veer and vigour. They seem prepared to sacrifice these values for a better nights sleep after an election, reducing liberties and allowing values out of step with a modern state.

If I am wrong, by all means link them here in the comments – I would like to hear such politicians who will stand up for such values. I doubt that it will be popular with the electorate though it may be correct. But the case has yet to be made in the manner like below:

We live but a brief existence on this earth. We want the best for ourselves and our children. It is part of the human identity to better ourselves. By education. By hard work. The will to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Much do we owe to those that came before us and may we strive that the future generation will say the same of us.

When people overcome obstacles and hardship to come here to make such a better life for themselves, to become a productive member of society that they become as one with us – this is a cause of celebration that the liberty and opportunity that we have created attracts such people that add to both commercial wealth and spirit in the land.

This does not mean that the light of liberty, freedom and opportunity that attracts so many to our shores should be dimmed on the say so of those that would replace our ancestors hard won rights with customs and beliefs that go against enlightenment values. Nor should we let mistrust and hatred allow us equally to do away those same values that allow us the freedoms to be who we are. Let us not sleep walk into thinking these rights are everlasting; may we ever be watchful of the demagogue that will promise us something with one hand while taking away the rights that gave us everything we love and appreciate. Rights that make our country great.

All equal before the law, the right to be tried by your peers, the right to a fair trial, the freedom to religious belief and none, that your private life is yours, the freedom to speak your mind and be challenged in that opinion, that all have the liberty to make their own way in this life and that by doing so shall the greater good be best served within such laws that are in accordance to the common good.

It seems that not content with trying to deal with a fractious Anglican world community that Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, has given a lecture talking about religious rights within a secular state. The title of the first lecture given on the 7 February was “Islam in English Law: Civil and Religious Law in England” which can be read here. What follows is my response which is important to those that think the Church of England is a benign organisation – because in the lecture Williams challenges and threatens the secular state, enlightenment values, and the separation of public and private spheres of religion. This lecture has thankfully been condemned by all parties in the UK Parliament.

In the lecture Williams is keen to suggest that there needs to be an accommodation between State law and religious law:

Even when some of the more dramatic fears are set aside, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about what degree of accommodation the law of the land can and should give to minority communities with their own strongly entrenched legal and moral codes. (Page 1)

Yet Sharia law is about applying the will of Allah as it applies to human affairs. How should the state examine what claims divine providence in rulings regarding marriage and financial arrangements? There can be in the dealings between citizens and state only one law of the land on such matters.

Williams tries to allow for a distinction between being a member of the umma and being a citizen:

There has therefore to be some concept of common good that is not prescribed solely in terms of revealed Law, however provisional or imperfect such a situation is thought to be. And this implies in turn that the Muslim, even in a predominantly Muslim state, has something of a dual identity, as citizen and as believer within the community of the faithful. (Page 2)

Yet the point is that the law, as it stands with regards to marriage and financial arrangements, is codified and enforceable irrespective of the religion or none of the parties concerned. The secular government does not see religious courts as a threat to its monopoly. Rather there can be no different laws in operation for different citizens based on what particular super natural deity they believe or do not believe in. It is the opportunity for unfairness and unequal treatment.Without apparent irony Williams tries to use that argument about how one law of the land makes it unfair to people of religious belief:

In general, when there is a robust affirmation that the law of the land should protect individuals on the grounds of their corporate religious identity and secure their freedom to fulfil religious duties, a number of queries are regularly raised. (Page 3)

When there are marriage difficulties, and a matter needs resolving, why does Sharia Law need to be enacted between the two parties? The law is clear about the legal rights and obligations. That there may be an Islamic way does not need to have the force of law – the secular state is only concerned that the law is not broken with regard to the rights of both parties. These rights are given to all citizens and the law enforced on all – there is no special disposition necessary, and Williams fails to show why there needs to be, let alone that British Law should recognise religious law as on a par with it or to run alongside it.The issue becomes whose religious law and interpretation counts, and why the law of the land on an issue should take a back seat because the clergy of a religion wish it to in such matters. What is it that Williams wants – there is no injustice being done here, though it seems that the Catholic adoption agencies not having an opt out on giving children to gay couples is a sensibility and conscience that he wants taken into account (page 1).

It therefore looks like Williams is after allies in a stand off between the secular state and religious faith.  They make strange bed fellows, as the actress said to the bishop. Why does the secular lawyer need to be sensitive with the interpretation of the law to a religious group? Why would he have to look to the authority of a religious body when also looking at the authority of the law?

The secular lawyer needs to know where the potential conflict is real, legally and religiously serious, and where it is grounded in either nuisance or ignorance. (Page 4)

It only amounts to whether religious views of human affairs need to be taken into account on a par, above or below the rule of law. The archbishop makes no way of knowing how this could be enacted. He does note the problem:

The problem here is that recognising the authority of a communal religious court to decide finally and authoritatively about such a question would in effect not merely allow an additional layer of legal routes for resolving conflicts and ordering behaviour but would actually deprive members of the minority community of rights and liberties that they were entitled to enjoy as citizens; and while a legal system might properly admit structures or protocols that embody the diversity of moral reasoning in a plural society by allowing scope for a minority group to administer its affairs according to its own convictions, it can hardly admit or ‘license’ protocols that effectively take away the rights it acknowledges as generally valid. (Page 4)

The answer is simple my Lord Bishop – do not give religious law legal force. There is a reason why the law book of England is not the Bible. The law has developed based on tradition, culture, legal practise and Parliamentary Democracy within a liberal pluralist political system. Because a sub group feel passionate in their way of living does not make them a special case when it comes to temporal matters.His answer however is that the believer would have the right of appeal based on secular rights – that the jurisdiction of British law would trump Sharia law. The question then becomes why give legal weight to Sharia Law which under certain circumstances could be superseded? It becomes not only a recipe for conflict and legal wrangling but is ceding the rule of law to a religious body. It is a step back to the dark ages.

Rather than helping believers and none to live together in harmony this is something that would if enacted like Williams suggests tear the nation apart. The rule of law would not apply equally. Under what circumstances would someone accept less than their full rights that secular law gives them? Do we imagine such circumstances are done out of respect for the law of Allah, or fear of the community that they live in? What Williams promotes for harden the lines that already separate towns and cities across this nation. Many Muslims are in this country because their descendants were secularists fleeing the cruel imposition of religious law. He may not be advocating it, but the principle is the same – the law of the land applies to one and all, and is not based on supposed divine text and bodies with authority to interpret the mind of God.

It is ludicrous to even suppose that anyone even knows the mind of God. Frankly no one can know the mind of God and anyone that does or claims such authority should be outside any rational discussion of how we as human beings need to coordinate and live our lives together. Next Williams will be attacking the enlightenment. Thus did the servant of God (which one I am unsure of now):

So much of our thinking in the modern world, dominated by European assumptions about universal rights, rests, surely, on the basis that the law is the law; that everyone stands before the public tribunal on exactly equal terms, so that recognition of corporate identities or, more seriously, of supplementary jurisdictions is simply incoherent if we want to preserve the great political and social advances of Western legality.There is a bit of a risk here in the way we sometimes talk about the universal vision of post-Enlightenment politics. (Page 5)

Apparently the law recognising us all as equal cannot cope with complex social realities. But then Williams makes it clear that the real battle is between the public and private sphere:

But if the reality of society is plural – as many political theorists have pointed out – this is a damagingly inadequate account of common life, in which certain kinds of affiliation are marginalised or privatised to the extent that what is produced is a ghettoised pattern of social life, in which particular sorts of interest and of reasoning are tolerated as private matters but never granted legitimacy in public as part of a continuing debate about shared goods and priorities.

But this means that we have to think a little harder about the role and rule of law in a plural society of overlapping identities. Perhaps it helps to see the universalist vision of law as guaranteeing equal accountability and access primarily in a negative rather than a positive sense – that is, to see it as a mechanism whereby any human participant in a society is protected against the loss of certain elementary liberties of self-determination and guaranteed the freedom to demand reasons for any actions on the part of others for actions and policies that infringe self-determination. (Page 6)

Williams misunderstands the political concept of pluralism. It denotes that because of overlapping membership of interest groups it should be possible for a liberal democracy to come to equilibrium in policy out comes. The private life of citizens, for example their religious belief and practises are theirs alone. They cannot be binding on other parties whether believers or not with anything like the force of law – for that is to enter into the public sphere and to have a hold on another citizen which denies them their right to liberty and to pursue their own belief system. It is the principle of the freedom of religious belief and none.The public sphere is concerned with the interaction of citizens. As such the rule of law is how people shall conduct themselves, and addresses their grievances about each other and the rights that they want enforced. As such these rights have negative and positive aspects of liberty. The Archbishop should be more careful when trying to talk about post enlightenment politics. Perhaps he should stick to faith, and even then may be the Christian one which is in his job description.

Here too is cause for concern:

I’d add in passing that this is arguably a place where more reflection is needed about the theology of law; if my analysis is right, the sort of foundation I have sketched for a universal principle of legal right requires both a certain valuation of the human as such and a conviction that the human subject is always endowed with some degree of freedom over against any and every actual system of human social life; both of these things are historically rooted in Christian theology, even when they have acquired a life of their own in isolation from that theology. (Page 7)

What we have here is effectively Williams suggesting that freedom means that people can appeal beyond the law of the land to a higher power – namely God. Sharia Law represents the mind of Allah Williams tells us early in his lecture. The consequences is that if you believe that God calls for you to do something then you may have a freedom given by God that no human society can take away from you. This is probably how the Taliban feel in Afghanistan.The Archbishop is talking about multiculturalism, all be it is a very narrow spectrum of things:

it might be possible to think in terms of what she calls ‘transformative accommodation’: a scheme in which individuals retain the liberty to choose the jurisdiction under which they will seek to resolve certain carefully specified matters, so that ‘power-holders are forced to compete for the loyalty of their shared constituents’ (122). This may include aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions and authorised structures of mediation and conflict resolution – the main areas that have been in question where supplementary jurisdictions have been tried, with native American communities in Canada as well as with religious groups like Islamic minority communities in certain contexts. In such schemes, both jurisdictional stakeholders may need to examine the way they operate; a communal/religious nomos, to borrow Shachar’s vocabulary, has to think through the risks of alienating its people by inflexible or over-restrictive applications of traditional law, and a universalist Enlightenment system has to weigh the possible consequences of ghettoising and effectively disenfranchising a minority, at real cost to overall social cohesion and creativity. Hence ‘transformative accommodation’: both jurisdictional parties may be changed by their encounter over time, and we avoid the sterility of mutually exclusive monopolies. (Page 7-8)

The question though is why another law on issues covered by existing law should be given precedence? One must remember that this is not a tribe or nation that we have invaded and we are putting illegitimately our laws over them as conquerors. Some would uncharitably claim quite the reverse – people from another culture and tradition have come to our shores and demand that our rules should not take precedence over what they believe is better. Williams would like them to appeal to our laws should they wish. A sort of pick and mix of laws to go with the modern religious menu a la carte of what part of the faith you believe or do not believe.

I can think of no better reason than this lecture to show why theologians should be kept out of the legislative chamber. For the sake of the law of the land giving justice as fairness to all let the unelected Bishops go from the Upper Chamber of Parliament if this is the way they think!

Much has been sacrificed by the armed forces of America, the United Kingdom and others to give the people of Afghanistan a better future than the one the Taliban offered. However, six years on after the Taliban were over thrown it seems that hopes of freedom of expression, and the right to debate religion without threat or intimidation has not been won out right.

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has been sentenced by a religious court to death for downloading and circulating a tract that criticised interpreting that the Koran supported the suppression of women. He did this at his university where he is studying journalism. Despite the widespread international condemnation the Afghan Senate has rejected non Islamic views on the matter – and expressed that the secular supreme court should not intervene in the matter though constitutionally he has the right of appeal.

Aminuddin Muzafari, the first secretary of the houses of parliament, said: “People should realise that as we are representatives of an Islamic country therefore we can never tolerate insults to reverences of Islamic religion.”

I want us to support fellow secularists who risk so much to question as free thinkers the way we live our lives. It is draconian that anyone should fear for their lives from the State for expressing an opinion or even wanting a debate. Other journalists have been warned not to show solidarity for Sayed Pervez Kambaksh.

I supported the invasion of Afghanistan, much for our own self interest but also to remove a diabolical regime that threatened international security and human rights. In the case of Iraq I could not support the invasion on the false premise we were given, but on the other hand could support the over throw of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein – I just wanted public support for those reasons, not a misrepresentation of the threat he posed.

Now after six years my concern is that we have not far advanced the rule of law that protects the liberty of people from their governments. Of course the Afghan people have a right to their own constitution and the law that they wish to be governed by.

But they do not have the right to expect our troops to die to defend such a constitution, or protect such a government that would allow this punishment on it’s citizens for blasphemy. Either we help build a democratic regime through investment and the blood of our fellow citizens – if that help is not appreciated or the ruling government that holds sway does not appreciate these values we hold dear, then we have no moral obligation towards them.

They have become the enemies of reason, showing an intolerance that Al Qaeda wrought on an international stage. May the international community send a clear signal that in this case human rights matter – and the Afghan government can expect no favours should it allow this student’s execution.

How you can save Pervez

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh’s imminent execution is an affront to civilised values. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion. If enough international pressure is brought to bear on President Karzai’s government, his sentence may yet be overturned. Add your weight to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to demand that his life be spared. Sign our e-petition at www.independent.co.uk/petition

All quotes from “The Independent” article can be found here.