Author: Mick Hartley

egum the right to manifest her religion in refusing to allow her to wear a jilbab.

But in a unanimous ruling, judges at the House of Lords overturned that.

They said the school had “taken immense pains to devise a uniform policy which respected Muslim beliefs”.

It had done so “in an inclusive, unthreatening and uncompetitive way”.

They said: “The rules laid down were as far from being mindless as uniform rules could ever be.”

They added: “It appeared the rules were acceptable to mainstream Muslim opinion.”

Shabina Begum had chosen a school which “went to unusual lengths to inform parents of its uniform policy.”

They ruled there was no interference with her right to manifest her religion as she had chosen a school where such a policy existed.

There were three other schools in the area which permitted the jilbab, they noted, although one was oversubscribed.

Miss Begum eventually attended another local school where she wore the jilbab.

Lord Bingham ruled that the two-year interruption of her schooling was the result of her “unwillingness to comply with a rule to which the school was entitled to adhere”.

Not good news for Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Cherie Blair.

Update: Ophelia Benson points to this interesting paragraph in the judgement given by the Lords:

On 3 September 2002, the first day of the autumn term, the respondent (then aged nearly 14) went to the school with her brother and another young man. They asked to speak to the head teacher, who was not available, and they spoke to the assistant head teacher, Mr Moore. They insisted that the respondent be allowed to attend the school wearing the long garment she had on that day, which was a long coat-like garment known as a jilbab. They talked of human rights and legal proceedings. Mr Moore felt that their approach was unreasonable and he felt threatened. He decided that the respondent should wear the correct school uniform and told her to go home, change and return wearing school uniform. His previous experience in such situations, with one exception, was that pupils always complied. He did not believe he was excluding the respondent, which he had no authority to do, but did not allow her to enter the school dressed as she was, this being (it was said) the only garment which met her religious requirements because it concealed, to a greater extent than the shalwar kameeze, the contours of the female body, and was said to be appropriate for maturing girls. The respondent then left with her brother and the other young man. The young men said they were not prepared to compromise over this issue.

Rather chilling. Of course it was the young men (Shabina’s brother and a mysterious “other young man” – presumably a Hizb ut-Tahrir heavy) who “were not prepared to compromise over this issue”. Shabina was 13 at the time.

Brussels Journal are quoting a special UN report, not yet officially released, on the cartoons affair. The conclusions should be no surprise to anyone familiar with that organisation, and comes just after they’ve published their new anti-racism poster with the lego brick:

The Danish government’s first reaction – refusing to take an official position on the nature and publication of the cartoons while referring to Freedom of Speech as well as refusing to meet with the ambassadors from the Muslim countries – is symptomatic not only of the political trivialisation of Islamophobia but also, due to its consequences, of the central role those politically responsible have for the national extent and the international consequences in the shape of demonstrations and expressions of Islamophobia.

Details here.

What happens to gurus once their followers desert them? According to this article (via Japundit) Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult whose believers unleashed toxic sarin gas into the Tokyo subway system 11 years ago on Monday, has been reduced to, um, self-ministration:

Death cult guru Shoko Asahara is merely trying to pull the wool over authorities’ eyes to avoid the death sentence against him from being carried out, psychiatrists claimed in a report filed to the Tokyo High Court last month to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial. Friday (3/17), however, says what the swami’s actually pulling is something entirely different. […]

Media outlets across Japan quickly reported how Asahara had been deemed competent, but failed, the weekly notes, to pick up on some episodes recounted in the Nishiyama file about Asahara’s behavior in his solitary confinement cell. It’s these incidents, according to the weekly, that Asahara showed he was pulling more than other people’s legs.

“He took off his trousers and diapers, exposed his genitalia and masturbated. He repeated the same action frequently. Whenever he acts like that, he drops his trousers, his diaper and diaper cover to his knees, finishes the act, then raises his trousers up to his waist again,” Friday quotes the Nishiyama Report as saying.

The weekly goes on to note that Asahara does not restrain his self-ministrations to times when he’s alone in his cell at the Tokyo Detention Center.

“In April 2005, just before the accused’s lawyer entered a visiting room, the accused exposed his penis and began masturbating, continuing until he had finished while the lawyer stood before him the entire time. He has repeated this act of masturbation in the visiting room, as well as in his solitary confinement cell since being placed under observation in May. He also performed the act in front of his daughters when they came to visit him in August of the same year,” the Nishiyama Report says.

More cartoon horror:

The Church in Wales has appealed to 500 subscribers to its magazine to return copies after it printed a cartoon caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad.

The editor has resigned after the cartoon was published in the Church’s Welsh-language magazine Y Llan.

Some see the cartoons as an attack on Islam and there have been violent demos after they appeared in European papers.

The Archbishop of Wales apologised to the Muslim Council of Wales, which accepted the “unfortunate mistake”.

International protests over cartoons, first published in a Danish paper last autumn, escalated after the images were republished in Norway, France, Germany, Italy and Spain earlier this year, despite complaints by ambassadors from Islamic countries.

You have to read the article carefully to realise that the published cartoon wasn’t one of the original Danish twelve, but a later one, printed in response to the furore:

The drawing – which was from the French magazine France Soir – shows the Prophet Muhammad sitting on a heavenly cloud with Buddha, and Christian and Jewish deities.

He is being told “don’t complain…we’ve all been caricatured here”.

Danish or not though, it’s clearly a horrendous insult to all Muslims, and one can only imagine what torments they must be going through. Luckily the authorities are suitably contrite:

The Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan wrote to Y Llan’s approximately 500 subscribers asking them to return their copies, which he said would be reprinted without the cartoon. Dr Morgan also personally contacted Saleem Kidwai, the Muslim Council of Wales’ general secretary, to apologise and to assure him that no offence had been intended.

In a statement, the Church said it was “thoroughly investigating” how the cartoon came to be reproduced.

It looks like Prince Charles’ message of tolerance is sorely needed. Faintly humourous depictions of the Prophet (pbuh) on one side, the death penalty for apostasy on the other….

Hitchens imagines what should have happened in response to Bush’s Sept 2002 UN speech:

Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam’s deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here’s what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.

Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations’ secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.

Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.

City planners have given the green light to Santiago Calatrava’s new twisting design for Fordham Spires in Chicago. On completion in 2010, it’ll be the tallest building in the US at 609.7m, dwarfing Sears Tower at 442.3m, and higher than New York’s planned Freedom Tower.

It won’t top Burj Dubai though. They’re keeping the height secret, but it’s estimated it’ll be 705m.

, Ansarullah Mawlavezada, said in Kabul yesterday.

During a hearing last Thursday, Mr Rahman is said to have confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

“We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law,” the judge said. “It is an attack on Islam.”

Mr Mawlavezada said he would rule on the case within two months.

The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said he had offered to drop the charges if Mr Rahman converted back to Islam, but he refused.

He went on: “He would have been forgiven if he changed back. But he said he was a Christian and would always remain one. We are Muslims and becoming a Christian is against our laws. He must get the death penalty.”

ear-old brother, and Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2003 for her defence of the rights of women and children in fundamentalist Muslim Iran.

Death threats against these women are commonplace. Irshad Manji has had to install bullet-proof windows in her home. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to travel everywhere with bodyguards after the threats against her and the death the film maker Theo van Gogh, her friend and collaborator. […]

Sultan has no intention of stopping her attacks on Islam even though she and her family in Syria have been threatened. Two of her brothers have been interrogated by the Syrian secret police, she says, since the Al-Jazeera broadcasts. In fact, Sultan’s long intellectual journey has brought her to a radical conclusion: that reform of Islam is impossible.

“Muslims have been hostages of their beliefs and their teachings for 14 centuries,” she says. “I believe the time has come and the truth should be spoken. I know that I am waging a very difficult war. It is going to take years. I might not be able to see it in my life, but I am strongly sure that the next generation will see the fruits of my writing and my message.”

verting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about restoring the dignity of atheism, one of Europe’s greatest legacies and perhaps our only chance for peace? […]

This argument couldn’t have been more wrong: the lesson of today’s terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted — at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations. In short, fundamentalists have become no different than the “godless” Stalinist Communists, to whom everything was permitted since they perceived themselves as direct instruments of their divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress Toward Communism.

Atheism is a European legacy worth fighting for, not least because it creates a safe public space for believers….. While a true atheist has no need to boost his own stance by provoking believers with blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect for other’s beliefs. Respect for other’s beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple “regimes of truth,” disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth.

What, however, about submitting Islam — together with all other religions — to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.

It’s a confusing world out there, so it’s a good thing there are people willing to take it upon themselves to tell others what to do. One of them, more willing than most, is our old friend – and Ken’s old friend – Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi. Here he lays down the four conditions for when a Muslim (that’s a Muslim man, of course) can marry a Christian or a Jew:

The first condition is that she is, in fact, of the People of the Book. In other words, she must not be a heretic – for example, a communist or a Bahai. She must be a believing woman from among the People of the Book.

Some people say a woman is Christian because her father is Christian, while she does not believe in any religion whatsoever. She doesn’t believe in God, in the prophet, in Judgment Day, in any values, or in worshipping God. Such a woman is not Christian, even if she is regarded as Christian. We have to make sure that she’s really of the People of the Book.

The second condition is that she must be chaste, in other words, honorable and pure – not a woman who sells her body to any man.

Which is a tough one for a start: you know what Western women are like!

Is there a single honorable, chaste woman left in these countries? Don’t they reprimand a girl who is still a virgin at the age of 14? They say: How can this be? She becomes undesirable. Where are her boyfriends?

The third condition is that she must not belong to those who are hostile to Islam. That is why I say a Muslim is not allowed to marry a Jewish woman from Israel, or from among the Jews who support Israel. […]

Therefore, [one must not] marry a Jewish woman, unless she belongs to the Jews who are hostile to Israel.

In London, I have seen Jews who say Israel will annihilate the Jews. They believe that [Israel] runs counter to God’s desire to disperse the Jews, as punishment for their sins.

With the exception of these, a Muslim is not allowed, these days, to marry a Jewish woman, because he would be marrying a spy. He would be bringing a spy into his home.

So, it’s Neturei Karta or nothing.

The fourth condition is that this marriage would not cause harm to him, to his children, or to Muslim men and women. Sometimes, he is personally harmed, because she influences him. If one is weak in his faith, he might agree to have alcohol in his home, to have pork eaten there, to have moral depravity there, and then he might be affected without realizing it. This is dangerous for him.

Sometimes it is his children who are at risk. His children receive a non-Islamic upbringing, especially if he is preoccupied with his work or studies, and returns home only at the end of the day, and the wife does what she wants with the children. In this case, the children are lost, their faith is lost. They are not brought up as Muslims. This is dangerous.

Dangerous indeed. They might decide they can manage without a constant stream of imprecations and prohibitions from their imams, and that would never do.