>From The Times
September 11, 2007
Young Muslims begin dangerous fight for the right to abandon faith
undefined
David Charter in The Hague
A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to
renounce Islam.
The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists
and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance.
The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of
religion but has already upset the Islamic and political
Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim
community in the Netherlands.
Ehsan Jami, the committee's founder, who rejected Islam after the
attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about
public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after
a series of death threats and a recent attack.
Related Links
* 'Whoever changes religion kill him'
The threats are taken seriously after the murder in 2002 of Pim
Fortuyn, an antiimmigration politician, and in 2004 of Theo Van Gogh,
an antiIslam film-maker.
Speaking to The Times at a secret location before the committee's
launch today, the Labour Party councillor said that the movement would
declare war on radical Islam. Similar organisations campaigning for
reform of the religion have sprung up across Europe and
representatives from Britain and Germany will join the launch in The
Hague today.
"Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In
the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten
up," Mr Jami said. "In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even
choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free
to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in."
Mr Jami, 22, who has abandoned his studies as his political career has
taken off, denied that the choice of September 11 was deliberately
provocative towards the Islamic Establishment. "We chose the date
because we want to make a clear statement that we no longer tolerate
the intolerence of Islam, the terrorist attacks," he said.
"In 1965 the Church in Holland made a declaration that freedom of
conscience is above hanging on to religion, so you can choose whether
you are going to be a Christian or not. What we are seeking is the
same thing for Islam."
Mr Jami, who has compared the rise of radical Islam to the threat from
Nazism in the 1930s, is receiving only lukewarm support from his party
which traditionally relies upon Muslim votes. His outspoken attack on
radical Islam has led to a prelaunch walk-out from fellow committee
founder Loubna Berrada, who herself rejected Islam.
She said: "I don't wish to confront Islam itself. I only want to
spread the message that Muslims should be allowed to leave Islam
behind without being threatened."
There have been suggestions that Mr Jami might defect to the
right-wing Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, the most outspoken
politician in the Netherlands, who has called for the Koran to be
banned. But Mr Jami said: "I have respect for Wilders but we do not
have the same ideology. I am for the freedom of religion.
"Banning something is not going to help. I am the opposite everyone
should read the Koran." Mr Jami is being compared to Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
the Somali refugee who became a prominent Dutch politician campaigning
for the reform of Islam but who left eventually for an academic career
in the United States.
Jannie Groen, a writer for De Volksrant newspaper, said: "[Among
Muslims] he is getting the same reaction as Ayaan Hirsi Ali that he is
too confrontational but you are seeing other former Muslims now coming
forward. So he has been able to put this issue of apostasy on the
agenda, even though they do not want to be in the same room as him and
he has had to pay a price."
By the Book
14 passages in the Koran refer to apostasy
According to Baidhawi's commentary, Sura 4: 88-89 reads: "Whosoever
turns back from his belief, openly or secretly, take him and kill him
wheresoever ye find him, like any other infidel. Separate yourself
from him altogether. Do not accept intercession in his regard."
The hadith, tradition and legend about Muhammad and his followers
used as a basis of Sharia, tells of some atheists who were brought to
"'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this reached Ibn Abbas who said:
`If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's
Apostate forbade it . . . I would have killed them according to the
statement of Allah's Apostate, `Whoever changed his [Islamic]
religion, then kill him'."
According to hadith, a special reward in Paradise is reserved for
the killer of apostates
Source: Times archives; Barnabas Fund
Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
