Showing posts with label apostasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apostasy. Show all posts
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Ex-Muslim Defends Right to Asylum, Renounces Islam by Desecrating Quran (2016)
What's the Penalty for Apostasy in Islam?
Monday, August 01, 2016
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Ex-Muslim: Leaving Islam - BBC News
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Women Who Reject the Hijab Are ‘Stupid, Naïve and Ignorant’ Says Top Islamic Scholar
On live television, Sheikh Gomaa not only reaffirmed that headscarves (Hijab) are mandatory in Islam; he labeled any woman who disputes this interpretation as an infidel. Moreover, he said women who reject the Hijab are “stupid, naive and ignorant.”
His comments have raised fears among non-Islamist Egyptians that supposedly moderate mainstream scholars are now giving their blessing to new institutionalized Islamism.
In Egypt, the dress code for women has been controversial for nearly 100 years. The controversy started in 1919, when many women took off their veils as a gesture of support for Egypt’s freedom from British occupation. Political Islamist groups, however, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have always campaigned for a strict Islamic dress code that includes covering the head as a minimum requirement for Muslim women. The group’s supporters resorted to social coercion to spread their message, using fear tactics (such as threats of punishment in the afterlife) to ensure adherence to the dress code. Salafists have opted for an even blunter approach, with a sharper dose of social coercion against women in their social circles. » | Nervana Mahmoud | Doctor, Commentator and Writer on Middle East Issues | Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Ex-Muslims: Three Stories of Losing Faith in Islam (Newsnight, November 29, 2013)
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Monday, March 09, 2015
Saudi Man Faces Death for Ripping Up Koran, Renouncing Islam
The Saudi Gazette reported the unnamed man in his 20s posted a video online on the social networking site, Keek, where he ripped up a copy of the Koran, hit it with a shoe and cursed Allah and the Islamic Prophet Mohammad – all considered crimes in the Saudi Kingdom. Under Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi system of Islamic Sharia law, those convicted of crimes of apostasy receive the death penalty, often carried out by public beheading.
One of the United States’ key allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has received a criticism over lack of transparency in its legal proceedings and utilization of beheadings as the main method of execution. Last August, NBC reported that the Kingdom’s rate of executions had increased to one per day and, last month, a top Saudi official protested over comparisons between the county and ISIS. However, Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki, told NBC News that Saudi criminal punishments were legitimate because they are based on "a decision made by a court" as opposed to ISIS' "arbitrary" killings. " » | FoxNews.com | Monday, March 09, 2015
Monday, March 02, 2015
Family Fear Saudi Blogger Could Face Execution By Beheading
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| Raif Badawi received the first 50 of his lashes in January |
Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes after being convicted of insulting Islam, could face death by beheading, according to his family.
The case attracted worldwide condemnation when he was publicly flogged in January.
Now his family say they have been told he is to be tried for apostasy.
"Apostasy charge is punishable under Saudi law with the death penalty by beheading," they said in a message posted on Facebook.
"We also received confirmed information that the Supreme Court has referred Raif case to the same judge, who sentenced Raif with flogging and 10 years imprisonment. » | Rob Crilly, New York | Sunday, March 01, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Saudi Court Gives Death Penalty to Man Who Renounced His Muslim Faith
The man, in his 20s, posted an online video ripping up a copy of Islam's holy book, the Koran, and hitting it with a shoe, the newspaper reported.
Saudi Arabia, the United States' top Arab ally and birthplace of Islam, follows the strict Wahhabi Sunni Muslim school and gives the clergy control over its justice system.
Under the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia Islamic law, apostasy demands the death penalty, as do some other religious offences like sorcery, while blasphemy and criticism of senior Muslim clerics have incurred jail terms and corporal punishment.
Executions in Saudi Arabia are usually carried out by public beheading. » | Reuters | Riyadh | Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Monday, November 10, 2014
Book on Apostasy in Islam Earns Writer the Moniker ‘Somalia’s Salman Rushdie’
Now, he is being branded as “Somalia’s Salman Rushdie” a reference to the British–Indian novelist whose book, “The Satanic Verses,” provoked worldwide Muslims protests and a fatwa from Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.
Abdisaid Abdi Ismail’s book, “The Rule of Apostasy In Islam: Is it True?” was published in Kenya in September.
Ismail was following the Meriam Yahya Ibrahim case before starting work on the book. She is the Sudanese woman sentenced to death for converting to Christianity, but later freed. Her case outraged the world and drew attention to the growing abuse of apostasy in Islam. (Ibrahim said she has always been a Christian.)
The book, written in the Somali language, is being read in Western cities such as London, Toronto and Minneapolis, where there are large populations of ethnic Somalis.
Ismail said the book furthers the growing voice of Muslim scholars, intellectuals and prominent clerics worldwide who are increasingly rejecting the abuse of Islam by extremist groups such as the Islamic State, Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Somalia’s Al-Shabab.
“What we need are secular states where there is democracy, justice and equality for all,” he said. “Not theocratic ones where leaders rule by the name of God.”
Ismail’s concern is that Somali Islamic militants, clerics and other extremist groups in Muslim-majority countries are applying apostasy as a political tool, branding those with contrary opinions as apostates who need to be killed. He has watched Al-Shabab justify the deaths of those who oppose their hard-line interpretation of the Quran by branding them apostates. Somali civil servants, national army officers, local or international nongovernmental organization officials, are considered devil’s spies who deserve death, he added.
“I wanted to explain to my people the true meaning of apostasy in Islam,” he said. » | Frederick Nzwili | Friday, November 07, 2014
SOMALIA ONLINE: Abdisaid Abdi Ismail, a professor at East Africa University in Bosaso, recieves death threats after writing a controversial book on Islam »
Monday, June 23, 2014
Sudanese Woman Meriam Ibrahim Walks Free from Prison
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Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy, has finally walked out of prison - after six months behind bars.
"Meriam was released just about an hour ago," said Mohanad [sic] Mustafa, one of her lawyers.
"She's now out of prison," he told AFP, but said authorities will not issue the reasons for her release until Tuesday.
She has been transferred, he said, "to an unknown house to stay at for her protection and security."
"Her family had been threatened before and we are worried that someone might try to harm her," he told Reuters. » | Harriet Alexander | Monday, June 23, 2014
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Meriam Ibrahim 'Should Be Executed,' Her Brother Says
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| Al Samani Al Hadi said his sister should be put to death if she does not 'return' to Islam |
Meriam Ibrahim, the woman sentenced to death in Sudan for apostasy, was “given a magic potion” to bewitch her into leaving Islam – and should be executed for doing so, her brother has said.
Al Samani Al Hadi Mohamed Abdullah said that he denounced his sister to the authorities because his family are “Muslim people.” He claimed that Ms Ibrahim, 27, was born as Abrar Al Hadi but changed her name when she was drugged by her husband, Daniel Wani. And he said that, if she did not return to the devout family fold, she should be hanged.
“It’s one of two; if she repents and returns to our Islamic faith and to the embrace of our family, then we are her family and she is ours,” he said.
"But if she refuses she should be executed," he told CNN.
His comments will fuel speculation that the denouncing of Ms Ibrahim was part of a family feud. An American NGO which is paying for the legal costs has claimed that Ms Ibrahim was targeted by jealous relatives who wanted to gain control of her clutch of successful small businesses - a supermarket, farm and beauty salon. » | Harriet Alexander | Thursday, June 05, 2014
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Sudan Backtracks on Pledge to Free Woman Sentenced to Death for Apostasy
Sudan’s foreign ministry on Sunday repudiated a pladge the government would order the release of Meriam Ibrahim, the mother sentenced to death for apostasy, warning only the country’s courts could order her freedom.
Western nations including Britain have expressed outrage that Ms Ibrahim, who gave birth to her daughter Maya in prison last week, had been convicted of changing her faith from Islam to Christianity.
Sudanese officials suggested late on Saturday that the 27-year-old was to be released and her death sentence annulled.
But Abu Bakr al-Sideeg, spokesman for the foreign ministry in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, said on Sunday that only the courts had such powers and foreign ministry officials would have no power over Ms Ibrahim’s case.
“[I am] not aware that any release is imminent”, he added. » | Mike Pflanz, Nairobi | Sunday, June 01, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Sudanese Woman Meriam Ibrahim Sentenced to Death for Apostasy 'To Be Freed'
Sudan appeared to be bowing to international pressure on Saturday night to free a woman sentenced to death for apostasy. A foreign ministry spokesman said that Meriam Ibrahim would be released and not face further charges.
But lawyers for 27-year-old Ms Ibrahim expressed scepticism that she would be freed so quickly.
“It’s a statement to silence the international media,” said Elshareef Ali Mohammed. “This is what the government does. We will not believe that she is being freed until she walks out of the prison."
He said he had even heard reports that the spokesman was in the UK on medical leave when he told the BBC she would soon be freed.
“If they were to release her, the announcement would come from the appeal court, and not from the ministry of foreign affairs. But at least it shows our campaign to free Meriam is rattling them. We must keep up the pressure.” » | Harriet Alexander | Saturday, May 31, 2014
Related »
World Leaders Back Campaign to Drop Sudanese Woman's Death Sentence
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| Daniel Wani married his wife Meriam in 2011 but the court ruled the union invalid and found Ibrahim guilty of adultery. |
World leaders have added their voices to the campaign to lift the death sentence given to Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy. They join her husband, Daniel Wani, in calling for the sentence to be dropped.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, and the US civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson were among those to speak out after Wani appealed for international support to free his wife from death row, where she is being held with her two young children after giving birth in shackles this week.
Cameron said he was "absolutely appalled" when he heard of the decision. "The way she is being treated is barbaric and has no place in today's world. Religious freedom is an absolute, fundamental human right."
His words were echoed by the Labour and Lib Dem leaders, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, and the former prime minister Tony Blair described the sentence as a "brutal and sickening distortion of faith". » | Harriet Sgerwood | Saturday, May 31, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Sudanese Woman Sentenced to Death for Apostasy Gives Birth
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| Meriam Ibrahim and husband Daniel Wani |
The Sudanese woman who has been sentenced to hang for refusing to renounce Christianity has given birth to a baby girl named Maya, her lawyers told The Telegraph.
Meriam Ibrahim, 27, gave birth to the girl – her second child – in the early hours of Tuesday morning, in the hospital wing of the prison.
"They didn't even take Meriam to a hospital - she just delivered inside a prison clinic," As Elshareef Ali Elshareef Mohammed, her lawyer, told The Telegraph.
"But neither her husband nor I have been allowed to see them yet."
Mr Elshareef said he and Daniel Wani, Ms Ibrahim's husband, were still waiting outside the prison at 2pm in Khartoum (12.00 in the UK). » | Harriet Alexander | Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Sunday, May 25, 2014
I Renounced Islam, So My family Think I Should Die
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| Amal Farah, above, said the case of Meriam Ibrahim prompted her to speak out |
If Amal Farah were not living in Britain, she believes she might well be dead.
For the 33-year-old financial manager had carried out an act so heinous, her family felt she deserved to die.
Her crime? She had renounced her Islamic faith – “and within my community, that’s a capital offence,” she said. “They believe you deserve to die.”
Mrs Farah, who was born in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, but now lives in Britain, has never told her story before.
She was too afraid; told that, even in the UK, it was safer for her to keep a low profile.
But when earlier this month the case of Meriam Ibrahim came to light – an eight-month pregnant Sudanese woman, sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christian faith – Mrs Farah felt she had to speak out.
“I had to do something,” she said. “I am so fortunate to be here, and I am in a position to be able to shout and scream and say this is wrong.” » | Harriet Alexander | Sunday, May 25, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Apostasy Case: Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey Calls on British Muslim Leaders to Back the Right to Convert from Islam
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| Lord Carey said some ex-Muslims in the UK were forced to 'almost go underground' |
The peer said it was “accepted doctrine” that Muslim converts should face the death penalty. He also said there were examples of ex-Muslims in Britain who had been forced to “almost go underground”.
“Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with Islam at its core that it cannot allow people to change their religion?” he told The Sunday Times.
“It is accepted doctrine in Islam [that] you don’t convert and if you do the penalty may be death.” He added: “I want to hear Muslim leaders say ‘we allow Muslims to become Christians if they wish to’.” » | Ian Johnston | Sunday, May 18, 2014
Apostasy: What you need to know »
Global outcry as Sudanese woman sentenced to death for renouncing Islam »
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