"First They Came for Asia Bibi"
Is Britain becoming a Nazi state? It would seem unlikely, but to listen to some of the critics of the Conservative government in recent days it would appear that we are only moments away from become a racist despotism.
Last week the convener of the Scottish Parliament's Equalities and Human Rights Committee, one Christina McKelvie, pronounced that the Conservative party is displaying "some of the most right-wing reactionary politics that I've heard in my lifetime" and claimed that the Conservative party's recent conference showed what will happen in Britain "if we become bystanders and do not speak out against discrimination." She said that some recent Conservative proposals were "reminiscent of the rise of Nazism in the 1930s." Higher up the Scottish Nationalist Party food-chain, one of their MPs, Mhairi Black last weekalso compared the recent Conservative party conference to the Nazi party. She wrote without irony that she was vexed by its alleged "nationalism', all the more "when that "nationalism" is used as a motivation or an excuse for racist, bigoted and small minded policy." The policies of the Conservative party, she claimed, were increasingly "reminiscent of early 1930s Nazi Germany." As though to demonstrate how sparse her knowledge of that period is, she concluded her piece by citing -- as though no one could possibly have come across the quotation before -- Pastor Martin Niemoller. "First they came for the Jews." Having sparked some criticism, other nationalists soon came to the aid of Ms Black. Notable among them was Humza Yousaf, one of the ministers of the SNP and himself a member of the Scottish Parliament. While many people on social media criticised Ms Black's absurd rhetoric, he chose to back her up. "Those criticising, I have friends/family who have applied for dual nationality with Pakistan. Feel UK will be unbearable for Muslims in future." This gained headlines of its own. But nobody pointed out the twin outrages of this grotesque nonsense.
First, although it should be obvious, a country the citizens of which elected a Muslim (Sadiq Khan) as the mayor of their capital city, is highly unlikely to become a place where pogroms against Muslims are imminent. Second, in making this comparison, Mr Yousaf unwittingly pointed to one of the greatest outrages of our time. While the Conservative party in Westminster is portrayed by these supposed defenders of human rights as some kind of Nazi offshoot, life is, in fact, unequalled in Britain for being good for people of any faith or background. It would be hard to find a society anywhere that has been more tolerant of mass immigration or tried to make life good for the immigrants who arrive, whatever background they are from. Pakistan, on the other hand, is a country which could hardly have a worse record on all of these matters. It is a country where racism and ethnic and religious hatred are rife. People of the "wrong" background, caste, or ethnicity experience infinitely more racism in Pakistan than in any country in Europe. Even people who are the "wrong" type of Muslim, such as Ahmadiyya Muslims, are the subject of constant and routine persecution and bigotry. The persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims is so rife in Pakistan that this July, it even spilled out onto the streets of Glasgow in the murder of an Ahmadiyyan shopkeeper, Asad Shah. There is also almost no country in the world today (Saudi Arabia and Iran perhaps aside) that is more intolerant of people of other faiths. The same week that Mr Yousaf was extolling the idea that Britain is a proto-Nazi state and Pakistan a potential safe-haven, the Pakistani authorities saw the latest round of the interminable and unforgivable saga of Asia Bibi. This is the woman who has been on death-row in Pakistan for no crime other than the crime of being a Christian. Bibi has been awaiting execution for five years, purely because a neighbour claimed that Bibi had insulted Mohammed during an argument. As it happens, the case of Asia Bibi has now been delayed yet again because the judge has removed himself from the case. He has done so because he knows that if he were to release Asia Bibi, he will himself be assassinated in the manner of the late Punjab governor Salman Taseer. While last week's hearing was going on, hundreds of riot police had to be deployed outside the courthouse in Islamabad. This was because everything about Asia Bibi and her case brings out mobs in Pakistan; thousands of Pakistani nationals have said that if Asia Bibi were ever released, they would kill her. So this is the situation the ridiculous nationalists of the SNP and others who are like-minded find themselves in. They attack the Conservative government of the UK for Nazism while not merely praising, but lauding as a safe haven, a state which actually persecutes and murders people because of their religion. If Black, Yousaf and company were merely ignorant that would be one thing. But they cannot possibly be so ignorant -- or at least Yousaf cannot be. He must know enough about Pakistan to know the prejudice and ignorance that goes right through Pakistani society. Which means that he is doing what many other people today are doing, which is knowingly to cover for a racist despotism, so long as it is despotism with an Islamic face. As for the colleague whose rescue he ran to, perhaps the next time Ms Black ponders the lessons of Pastor Niemoller she could tell her readers, "First they came for Asia Bibi. But I did not speak up, for I had never heard of her." That, at least, would be honest. Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
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Showing posts with label Asia Bibi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asia Bibi. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2016
When The Left Starts After Those Who Disagree., Very Quickly They Come After Everyone.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
The Greatest Appeasement Ever. The West Bans Free Speech
The Death of Free Speech: The West Veils Itself
Last week, Nazimuddin Samad sat at his computer at home and penned a few critical lines against the Islamist drift of his country, Bangladesh. The day after, Samad was approached by four men shouting "Allahu Akbar!" ("Allah is great!") and hacked him to death with machetes.
These killings have become routine in Bangladesh, where many bloggers, journalists and publishers are being killed in broad daylight because of their criticism of Islam. There is a hit list with 84 names of "satanic bloggers." A wave of terrorism against journalists reminiscent of that in Algeria, where 60 journalists were killed by Islamist armed groups between 1993 and 1997. But these shocking killings have not been worth of a single line in Europe's newspapers. Is it because these bloggers are less famous than the cartoonists murdered at Charlie Hebdo? Is it because their stories did not come from the City of Light, Paris, but from one of the poorest and darkest cities in the world, Dhaka? No, it is because the West has capitulated on freedom of expression. Nobody in the West launched the motto "Je Suis Avijit Roy," the name of the first of these bloggers butchered last year. From Bangladesh, we now receive photos of writers in pools of blood, laptops seized by police looking for "evidence" and keyboards burned by the Islamists. We receive images reminiscent of the riots in Bradford, England, over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in 1989, ten years after the Ayatollah Khomeini had revolutionized Iran into a stronghold of Islamic extremism. Yet the stories of these bloggers from outside Europe remain shrouded by a ghastly transparency, as if their death has been only virtual, as if the internet had become their grave, as if these fallen bloggers did not deserve the virality of social networks. There is also the case of Raif Badawi, in Saudi Arabia, sentenced to 1,000 lashes, ten years in jail and a fine of $270,000 for blogging thoughts such as, "My commitment is...to reject any repression in the name of religion...a goal that we will reach in a peaceful and law-abiding way." The lashing order added that he should be "lashed very severely." In addition to that, Badawi's human rights lawyer, Walid Abu al-Khayr, was sentenced on July 6, 2014, to 10 years in prison. He was accused of: "inciting public opinion," "disobedience in matters of the sovereign," "lack of respect in dealings with the authorities," "offense of the judicial system," "inciting international organizations against the Saudi kingdom" and, finally, for having founded illegally, or without authorization, his association "Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia." He was also forbidden to travel for fifteen years after his release, and fined 200,000 riyals ($53,000)according to Abdullah al-Shihri of the Associated Press. Also in Saudi Arabia, in a clear violation of international law, according to Amnesty International, on March 24, the journalist Alaa Brinji was sentenced to five years in prison, an eight year travel ban and a fine of $13,000 for a few tweets allegedly "insulting the rulers," inciting public opinion," and "accusing security officers of killing protestors in Awamiyya," the kingdom's eastern province where the oil fields and the Shiites are. Unfortunately, Western governments never raise Badawi's case when they visit Saudi Arabia's rulers, and turn a blind eye to the way this country treats its own citizens. Look also at what happened not in the poor and Islamic Bangladesh, but in the wealthy and secularized Germany, where a comedian named Jan Böhmermann mocked and insulted Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a television show. The prosecutor of Mainz just opened a case against Böhmermann under paragraph 103 of the German Penal Code, which provides up to five years in prison for insulting a foreign head of state. Chancellor Angela Merkel sided with the Turks. She condemned the comedian's poem, called it a "deliberate insult," then approved the prosecution against him. Meanwhile, the German public television station, Zdf, removed the video from their website, and Böhmermann raised the white flag by suspending his show. The comedian, after Islamist death threats, got police protection. The West is veiling its freedom of speech in the confrontation with the Islamic world: this is the story of Salman Rushdie, of the Danish cartoons, of Theo van Gogh, of Charlie Hebdo.
A few weeks ago, at Rome's Capitoline Museum, a famous repository of Western antiquities, the government of Italy called for "respect" for the sensibilities of Iran's President Rouhani and placed large boxes over nude sculptures. Iran's foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, just released an interview with Italy's largest newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, where he suggested a kind of grand bargain: We Iranians will discuss with you our human rights situation, if you Europeans suppress freedom of expression on Islam: "Human rights are reason for concern for everyone," Zarif said. "We are ready to dialogue. We shall make our observations on alienation of the Muslim communities in many European societies, or how freedom of expression is abused to desecrate the symbols of Islam." And that is exactly what is happening right now -- of course with no mention of how freedom of speech or human rights are abused in "many Muslim societies." Or how violent repression there "is abused to desecrate the symbols of the free world." The Iranian ayatollahs recently added to the bounty on the head of Salman Rushdie. And as it happened with Saudi Arabia's or Bangladesh's bloggers, nobody in Europe protested and Mrs. Merkel has been willing to abandon the German comedian to the autocratic Turkish Islamists. In Pakistan, a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, is now fighting for her life in prison, where, condemned to death for "blasphemy," she awaits her fate. European public opinion, which is always generous in rallying against "the persecution of minorities," did not fill the streets and the squares to protest Asia Bibi's imprisonment. Further, for Europe's journalists and writers, it has become increasingly difficult to find publishers. This is true of, for instance, Caroline Fourest, author of the French book Eloge du blasphème. "The treatment of her work by the publishing industry shows how much has been lost" wrote the British journalist, Nick Cohen. "No Anglo-Saxon publisher would touch it, and only fear can explain the rejection letters." "No American or British publisher has been willing to publish the book" Mrs. Fourest told this author. "'There is no market for this book', I was repeatedly told, to justify their desire not to touch something explosive. It was an important project which Salman Rushdie tried to sponsor with his own publishing houses. It is alarming because more and more I see that my colleagues behave as useful idiots." Europe is also suppressing freedom of expression for the very few moderate Islamic voices. On January 31, 2016, an Algerian writer named Kamel Daoud published an article in the French newspaper Le Monde on the events of New Year's Eve in Cologne, Germany. What Cologne showed, says Daoud, is how sex is "the greatest misery in the world of Allah." A few days later, Le Monde ran a response by sociologists, historians and anthropologists who accused Daoud of being an "Islamophobe," Jeanne Favret-Saada, an orientalist at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, wrote that Daoud "spoke as the European far-right." Daoud has been defended only by a few other Arab writers exiled in Europe. The affair is the mirror of Europe's forsaking freedom of expression: a great Arab writer expresses precious truths and the mainstream European media and intellectuals, instead of protecting Daoud while Islamists threatened him with death, press the novelist to choose silence. Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
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Sunday, December 29, 2013
Islamic Freedom Of Speech And Religion Shown In Pakistan. Wrong!
Pakistani Christian Mom Spends Fifth Christmas on Death Row
Asia Bibi, a 46-year-old Christian mother of five, spent her fifth consecutive Christmas on death row in Pakistan due to a conviction for "blaspheming" the prophet Mohammed.
She is one of at least 17 Pakistanis on death row after being convicted under the country's blasphemy laws, and at least 20 more are serving life sentences for the same offense.
"Asia has been abandoned, her plight mostly forgotten or ignored," said Patrick Sookhdeo, international director of the Barnabas Fund, which works among minority Christians in Islamic nations.
Back in the summer of 2009, Asia was among a group of agricultural workers taking a drink from a communal well during a rest break.
When Asia, the only non-Muslim in the group, dipped her cup in the well, co-workers accused her of defiling the water because she is a Christian.
Asia replied, "I don't believe Mohammed would share the same view as you," according to CNS News.
According to other reports, the Muslim women claimed Bibi said: "I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind?"
She was arrested for insulting Mohammed, convicted, and in November 2010 was sentenced to death by hanging.
"Although it is widely recognized that Asia, a simple and uneducated woman, did not blaspheme against Mohammed, she remains languishing on death row," Sookhdeo said.
Her husband and children have been forced to go into hiding for fear of retribution by radical Islamists.
Two officials who championed her case, the liberal governor of Punjab province and a federal cabinet minister, were both assassinated three years ago.
Asia's appeal is not expected to be heard until at least 2015. Meanwhile, a radical cleric has offered a reward for her murder.
French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who has followed Bibi's case closely, said recently: "I'm afraid she'll be killed very soon if nothing happens."
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