This board has been a little to quiet for while.

Is it time that Bush and Blair who is a close friend and confidant of Bush were tried for War Crimes?

Do you think the use by the American Administrations of renditions are War Crimes and committed with full knowledge of American and British leaders ie. Blair and Bush and they are ultimately responsible?

Also in the aftermath of the illegal invasion of Iraq are should their action seen to be as the provocation for the rising toll of British, American and Iraqi deaths.

As a result of the military intervention in Iraq do you think you are safer in Britain to-day?

Do you think one should expect government leaders and ministers who have been responsible for massive foreseeable casualties should visit the hospitals to meet the casualties they have produced directly or indirectly by their actions?

Will Iran learn an important lesson from Saddam?
World stability cannot be threatened nor held to ransom.

and conversly America should have learnt A LESSON from korea/vietnam/somalia/iraq1/iraq2 etc.
(only playing devils advocate)

You can't predict the actions of people who are baarking mad as in the nutters running iran/N KOrea etc

Or are Bush and Blair barking mad. They have denied reality and dreamt up figments of their own imagination.

Blair even now is once again deluded in his thinking (beliefs) that he is a positive attribute to the labour party and this country while the majority of party members and the public (other than the Tories) are saying resign.

I think there is as much madness in America and Britain as the Middle East.

Some are decrying the standards of the Middle East but at the same time supporting America and British imprisonment on false grounds and torture, perhaps even murder of those imprisoned.

Is this the supposed standards that democracies wish to export to the world.
Perhaps we should examine our own records more carefully and correct some our own actions.

To be fair, fred, I don't know what part of the world you live in, but my kids don't go to bed at night, frightened of the knock on the door and mummy getting dragged away because she wore lipstick, or daddy being forced to drink petrol and then being shot to see if he'd explode, for disagreeing with someone over religion.
Once again, we are in great danger of allowing massive and intolerable atrocities because we are not perfect ourselves.
To suggest that we do nothing until we are free from sin ourselves is to absolve ourselves of any responsibility around the world, and allow carnage on a grand scale anywhere a Saddam or a Gadaffi or a Mugabe can rule with fear.
I cannot morally or politically subscribe to that view point. We can take it as far as not allowing a policeman to arrest for a crime, because he once got a speeding ticket. None of us are perfect, but you cannot begin to compare the lands of the UK and USA with those of iraq, iran etc.
Alan

TV program last night on this subject.

If it was accurate the U.S had Osma Bin Laden in thier sights but couldnt get authority to get him, this was well before 9/11. The operation was set with troops in place to arrest him.
No one wanted to take responsibility is case things went wrong. The final reason for not going ahead was the fact that women and children were in the area. Remember this was a troops on the ground operation not a bombing mission.
This is typical of the modern governments. Although I dont want to see woman and children hurt in any way, sometimes you have to take a chance.

Watched the program. have to agree. Got the distinct impression, tackling terrorism was very low on agenda. Looking good in public and shagging secretary was further up agenda than world peace. When did respond was botched and made to look even less competent. Made Bin laden into a 'folk' hero and left Northern alliance dead in water.
Politicians want shooting.

too true

The kids in Iraq must be wondering if they are going to killed by an American weapon or "terrorist's". While the Lebanese whether they were being killed by American WMD or Israels

It is nice to be able to wash the blood off your hands and called it a success.

It is not your families or your countries which are being torn apart by a British and American success stories.

Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People?
Islamist Ideology
by Denis MacEoin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006

While often ignored in the Western media, human rights abuses in the Islamic world are a daily occurrence. Both Muslim states and ad hoc religious courts order mutilation and execution, not only of criminals but also of individualsmainly womenwho have not committed anything which would be considered a crime in other societies. In some cases, Sharia (Islamic law) tribunals issue death sentences for those acquitted in regular courts.[1] In other cases, religious leaders invoke religion to sanction non-Islamic practices such as honor killings and female genital mutilation.

Original Islamic jurisprudence, however, does not necessarily mandate such severe punishments. In the early twentieth century, it even seemed that the introduction of modern legal codes in Muslim majority countries might ameliorate regular Sharia punishments, but in recent decades, traditionalists have pushed a back-to-basics program which has augmented application of Sharia punishment. Rather than modifying Islamic practice, many self-described Islamist reformers make matters worse by advocating retrenchment rather than reform.

Unjust Punishment
Many of the crimes for which death is mandated involve sex or honor. While capricious application of Sharia punishment is common throughout Muslim majority countries and communities, since the fall of the Taliban and because of the activity of Iranian journalists and bloggers, many of the specific examples which are known in the West come from Iran.

On August 15, 2004, 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi, was hanged in public in the northern Iranian town of Neka. Her crime was to have sex with her boyfriend. She had no lawyer, nor could her family find one willing to defend her. The capriciousness of the judge rather than a strict interpretation of the Qur'an contributed to her death. She had talked back to the judge, Haji Reza'i, who later remarked that he would not have ordered her execution had it not been for her "sharp tongue."[2]

In December 2004, Leyla, a 19-year-old girl with a mental age of eight, was sentenced to death for "acts contrary to chastity." The sentencing judge ordered her to be flogged before execution. Her situation was lamentable. When she was eight, her mother forced her into prostitution, letting her be raped repeatedly. She was later sold as a temporary wife (mut'a, sigha), legal in Twelver Shiite law which allows temporary wives to be contracted for set periods ranging from one hour to ninety-nine years. Thirteen-year-old Zhila Izadi also received a death sentencelater commutedafter being impregnated by her older brother.

Other examples abound. In July 2005, Iranian authorities publicly hanged two boys, 18-year-old Ayaz Marhoni and 16-year-old Mahmud Asghari, in the shrine city of Mashhad for homosexual acts. Photographs of the boys with nooses round their necks just before their execution are available online,[3] but never appeared in Western newspapers or on television.

On January 7, 2006, an Islamic court in Tehran passed a death sentence on an 18-year old girl, identified only by her first name, Nazanin. She had stabbed an assailant while fighting off three men who attempted to rape her and her 16-year-old niece.[4] Reports suggested their attackers were members of the Basij, a radical militia charged with upholding the Islamic Republic's revolutionary principles. Nazanin was aged seventeen at the time of her offence, too young for a death sentence even under Iranian law that states that such sentences for minors should be commuted to five years' imprisonment. In Nazanin's case, the judge ignored extenuating circumstances and applied rigidly the law of retaliation (qisas). Under such a system, a life must be paid for by a life, an eye for an eye, except where the family of the victim is willing to accept blood money or compensation (diya) for lost body parts and organs.[5]

Iran is not the only Islamic country practicing spurious punishment. On April 21, 2005, in Spingul, a valley near Faizabad in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, family members and villagers executed 25-year-old Bibi Amin after she was found in the company of a man to whom she was not married. She was buried to her neck and, for two hours, stoned.[6] There have been similar cases in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and other Muslim countries. Even in Egypt, where Sharia law has been modified, men and women are still imprisoned unequally for adultery.[7] That the application of such punishments is widespread and that its perpetrators justify their actions in Islam neither means that a consensus exists among theologians or that such interpretations have been consistent through time.

Qur'anic Attitudes toward Punishment
With only one exception, every chapter of the Qur'an begins with the words Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim, "In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate." While such compassion is lacking in modern application of Sharia law, this has not always been the case. Many traditional sources argue for limited punishment. The Sunan of Ibn Maja, one of the six canonical collections, cites a saying by Muhammad that reads, "Do not carry out punishments if you can find a way to avoid them."[8]

This example is echoed by another tradition from the Sunan of Tirmidhi: "Wherever possible, do not inflict punishments (hudud; singular hadd) on Muslims; if there is a way out for someone, let him go. It is better for the ruler (al-imam) to err in forgiveness than for him to err in punishment."[9] According to the twelfth-century jurist and philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes), "hadd punishments are suspended in doubtful cases," echoing another hadith to that effect.[10]

Still, in traditional Islam, adultery and fornication (both termed zina') are considered criminal acts worthy of a hadd punishment, which the Qur'an sets at 100 lashes.[11] Adultery itself is a difficult charge to bring under Sharia: it requires four adult male witnesses to the penetration; in contrast, only two males (or four females) need witness murder for the charges to stick. Nor is circumstantial evidence sufficient. Pregnancy is not enough to prove that adultery occurred since the law considers that a woman may have been penetrated in her sleep or, according to some scholars, the possibility that an embryo could have gestated for up to five years. The penalty for false accusation of adultery is seventy-five lashes.

That does not mean that Islamic law does not embrace the death penalty for adultery. At some pointoften said to have occurred during the rule of the second caliph Umar (r. 634-44)jurists began to set the punishment for married people as stoning to death based on a verse that had allegedly been dropped from the Qur'an.[12] Stoning is also mentioned in the Hadith, and there is no doubt that Muhammad sanctioned the punishment. However, strict conditions are determined for accusation and punishment. A distinction is made between unmarried and married offenders; inebriation, force, and errors such as intercourse with a woman mistaken for a man's wife or slave girl are mitigating factors while the demand for four eyewitnesses to sexual penetration makes it almost impossible to bring an accusation. It is because of the difficulties of formal adultery charges that many Islamic societies embrace honor killing.

Historically, there were significant differences in the treatment of free men and slaves. Modern Iranian law discriminates even further against religious minorities. The Islamic Republic might execute a non-Muslim man accused of having sexual relations with a Muslim woman, whereas a Muslim man who has sex with a non-Muslim woman is not subject to any penalty.[13]

Despite the potential for leniency in the application of Islamic rules, states acting in the name of religion have applied harsher penalties than traditional religious jurists. The Islamic Republic of Iran ordered Ateqeh Rajabi hanged even though Sharia only permits the execution of married adulterers, whereas she was single. At most, she should have received 100 lashesand, according to many interpretations, these should not be laid on hard.

The hadith literature is not silent on two of the factors relevant to many of the recent applications of capital punishment in the name of Islam for crimes of honor. Tirmidhi relates an incident when a woman was brought to the Prophet, accused of adultery. It transpired that the man had forced her to have intercourse in acknowledgment of which Muhammad refused to have her punished.[14] Young age can also be cause for leniency. Ibn Maja records a statement by a boy who survived the massacre of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza in 627, saying he had been spared the fate of the tribe's men because he had not yet grown pubic hair.[15]

What about a case such as Nazanin's, in which a person was killed? In Islamic law, offenses against the person come under the law of qisas. These offenses amount to five crimes: murder, voluntary manslaughtersuch as when an offender sets out to beat a victim but kills him or her in the process, involuntary killing, intentional physical injury, and unintentional injury.

Retaliationa life for a lifeis permissible in the two instances of intentional killing or injury, but even in these cases, the victim's family may waive retribution in return for a set financial payment. In all other cases, only blood money may be demanded. If correct Sharia rules were applied, Nazanin would not face a death sentence for an involuntary killing, especially when she had acted in defense of her honor.

Theological Impediments to Reform
So why is there a growing discrepancy between the penalties justified in Islamic jurisprudence and the far more serious punishments applied? Traditional Muslims believe that the Qur'an is immutable. It is not just a sacred text like the Torah or the New Testament but a direct copy of God's word imprinted on the mind of Muhammad via recitation from the Archangel Gabriel. It cannot be rewritten. Indeed, a hadith attributes to Muhammad the saying, "Whosoever disputes a single verse of the Qur'an, strike off his head."[16]

This doctrine has become pernicious for all who attempt a modern understanding of the scripture. Whereas progressive Jewish and Christian scholars and clerics have devised forms of higher criticism that tackle issues of context and period, all efforts to do the same thing with the Qur'an have met with fierce resistance. Several Muslim reformersnotably Pakistani academic Fazlur Rahman (1911-88), Iranian cleric Muhammad Mujtahid-i Shabestari (b. 1936), Iranian philosopher Abd al-Karim Soroush (b. 1945), and the Syrian Muhammad Shahrur (b. 1938)have tried to develop ways to account for the social, linguistic, and religious environment at the time of the Qur'an's revelation when adjudicating and legislating on matters relevant to the modern world, such as women's rights. Their efforts have pushed the debate in a positive direction, but they are both better understood and better liked in the West than in the Muslim world.[17]

Muslim reactions to such reformist initiatives have been largely hostile and even violent. In the 1960s, a Pakistani religious court sentenced Fazlur Rahman to death.[18] Vigilantes have attacked Souroush on numerous occasions,[19] and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born ex-member of the Dutch parliament;[20] Canadian writer Irshad Manji;[21] and Los Angeles-based psychologist Wafa Sultan, [22] all outspoken critics of Islamic social practice, are in hiding or under guard.

The pressure to reject contextualization of the Qur'an is illustrated by two cases, occurring more than sixty years apart in Egypt. In 1930, a cleric named Muhammad Abu Zayd, published a book of Qur'an exegesis titled Al-Hidaya wa'l-'Irfan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an bi'l-Qur'an, in which he treated concepts such as paradise as metaphors. Other clerics at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, the central seat of religious learning and authority in Sunni Islam, condemned him. Rashid Rida' issued a more forceful condemnation, accused the author of being an apostate, and called for his forcible divorce. All copies of the tafsir were collected by the police and destroyed. Clerics who had read it were dismissed from their posts.[23]

In 1992, history repeated itself. Egyptian academic Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd presented research in application for a full professorship at Cairo University. His work argued that the Qur'an had been written in a human language so that men could understand it. Since it was in a specific language, he argued, it was legitimate to read it with reference to our knowledge of seventh-century Arabic and the human world to which it was directed. His arguments created an uproar. Al-Azhar University condemned him. Leaflets and the popular press accused him of heresy. The Egyptian government tried him before a secular court on charges of apostasy. He was declared a heretic (mulhid) and an apostate (murtadd) and became the object of death threats from radical Islamists throughout the country. An Egyptian court ordered that he and his wife be divorced on the grounds that a Muslim woman cannot be married to a non-Muslim, even as he denied ever abandoning his faith. He now teaches at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.[24] That parallel situations would occur sixty years apart illustrates how stifled scholarly discourse is at Al-Azhar.

A particularly flagrant example of academic suppression in a modern Shiite context may be seen in the case of Abdulaziz Sachedina, a prominent Shiite academic, professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, and coauthor of Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty.[25] In August 1998, Sachedina, who had received complaints from his local Muslim community about his teaching and writing about Islam, held a meeting in Najaf, Iraq, with grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. In the course of this interview, as recorded in detail by Sachedina, Sistani demanded that he could no longer "express any opinions in matters dealing with Islam, its religion, and its teachings." Prominent among the many theological errors of which Sachedina was accused was his promotion of an irenic, pluralist approach to Judaism and Christianity, which he saw as equals of Islam.[26]

The net result of such incidents is discouragement of serious revisionist work on the Qur'an and the Hadith. Fear for one's life, the safety of one's family, or one's livelihood are powerful disincentives to saying or writing anything controversial. The only arena in which open debate on such matters takes place is in Western academe, but it is likely here that some Muslim academics living in the West and, indeed, some Western scholars of Islam have chosen safer areas in which to carry out research, knowing the risks they now run from a single accusation of defamation.

Qur'anic Challenges
The problem is that, despite the belief that the Qur'an is the immutable word of God, in its current form the book was compiled only during the reign of the Caliph Uthman (644-56) and organized into suras, ranging in length from a few verses to many pages. While the Qur'an was revealed over a period of twenty-two years, the order of compilation was curious: with the exception of the first sura (al-Fatiha), the longest suras come first and the shortest last. Early scholars debated when particular suras, verses, or groups of verses were "sent down." Determining chronology was often basic, all suras being labeled either Meccan or Medinan, based on in which of these two Arabian cities Muhammad had received a particular revelation. Sometimes it was possible to attribute certain passages to a particular incident, such as the Battle of Uhud or a dispute with the Prophet's wives. These asbab an-nuzul (occasions of revelation), insofar as they are reliable, permit a more nuanced picture of how the text developed during Muhammad's lifetime.

One thing is clear: later verses often express a position contrary to earlier ones. For example, earlymainly Meccanverses express a positive view of Jews and Christians, whereas late onesall Medinanfollow the souring of relations between the Prophet and both Jews and Christians. By this reckoning, there are late verses that abrogate (termed nasikh) and early verses which are abrogated (termed mansukh).

Verses commanding jihad against non-believers abrogate those of an ecumenical nature, moving from a position of "There is no compulsion in religion"[27] to "Fight those who do not believe in God or the last day, who do not forbid what God and his Prophet forbid, who do not believe in the religion of truth among those who were given the Book [Jews and Christians] until they pay the poll tax (jizya) by their own hands, having been brought low."[28]

The problem is that earlier sections of the Qur'an tend to be more amenable to a modernist interpretation than later ones. Where modern Muslims emphasize the verse decreeing that there is no compulsion in matters of faith, more radical or orthodox scholars trump such citations with nasikh verses overriding moderate interpretations.

What impact does this have on punishment? Qur'anic verses that mention punishments are invariably late but not very detailed. Although the Qur'an always carries greater weight than the hadiths, it is not uncommon to see a hadith cited to support a harsher legal position. Thus, the verse, "There is no compulsion in religion" is outweighed by the tradition according to which the Prophet said, "Whosoever changes his religion, kill him,"[29] which forms a basis for the law of apostasy as it still stands.[30]

The Emergence of Islamic Neo-radicalism
What happened to some strains of Islam to favor the past over the present and glorify black-and-white interpretations of the Qur'an over more nuanced approaches? While the exact answer varies across regions, certain common factors emerge.

In several cases, a puritan form of Islam has either allied itself with a military or political forcefor example the Salafi-Wahhabi movement's alliance with the Saud family in Saudi Arabiaor has itself taken political power, as with the early nineteenth-century Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa or, more recently, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's followers in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or, perhaps, the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. In all such cases, the resulting political systems have applied Sharia in a harsher form than usual.

In addition, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, there has been a broader struggle between traditionalist and modernizing influences and movements. Growing European influence in Middle Eastern states led to demands for the introduction of Western-style constitutions, educational systems, and laws. Many regional countries adopted modern legal codes modeled on the French, Italian, Swiss, British, or other systems. This represented a great step forward in respect to areas such as family law, tangential women's rights, legal clarity, and modes of punishment.

There were, however, two drawbacks to this brand of modernization. The first was the alienation of the clerical class. Religious leaders are "the learned" (ulema), men who have undergone training as jurists within Sharia. Marginalized by the introduction of European criminal codes and the establishment of Western-style courts, divested in many places of their role as educators, and alienated by the overt secularization of many Muslim societies and cultures, the ulema dreamed of a return to basics. They were backed by like-minded lay thinkers, such as Hasan al-Banna (1906-49), a schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood, an influential and radicalizing force in several countries in the Middle East and Europe.[31]

The reaction against modernization might have been muted had there been a loose movement for reformation of Sharia itself. Mainstream scholars held that it was impossible for modern jurists to challenge or alter the legal precepts set down in the early tenth century by the four main Sunni law schoolsHanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali. The classical formulation of this precept is that the gates of ijtihad, independent reasoning in matters of religious law, had been closed. The Qur'anas the immutable word of Godcould not be rewritten nor could the records of the Prophet's life and sayingsthe other source from which Islamic law derivedbe edited or reconsidered.

However, beginning in the late nineteenth century, a number of thinkers argued that, even if the sacred texts could not be altered, it was legitimate to exercise reasoning in order to bring the laws more in line with modern ways of thought and practice. At that time, Muslim attitudes to the West were generally positive. Arab, Iranian, and Turkish political reformers sought to emulate European political systems, science, technology, military know-how, schools, universities, and laws. They argued that Islam could advance by re-configuring itself along Western lines.

Despite this, a small number of intellectuals developed a countervailing trend that emphasized the religious and legal thought of the first three generations of the faith. This became the Salafi movement, derived from the Arabic term salaf (predecessors).[32] Salafi thinkers such as Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905)[33] reexamined the two basic texts, the Qur'an and the body of traditions or hadiths that make up the Sunna, the living record of how the Prophet and his companions behaved and thought. From this emerged a belief that, far from needing to be modernized, Islamic law and, by extension, Muslim life in general, had to return to how it was at the time of the Salaf. Most of the movements Western commentators term "fundamentalist" are Salafi.

While the first modern Salafi thinkers sought reform, later Salafi theoreticians narrowed the debate. Egyptian cleric Muhammad Rashid Rida' (1865-1935) published a periodical, Al-Manar (The Lighthouse), which influenced intellectuals across the Islamic world. His ideas formed a bridge between Salafi reformers and more radical movements such as Banna's Muslim Brotherhood.[34]

These new Salafists focused on improving Muslim morals and what has come to be known as "Sharia-mindedness." Sayyid Qutb (1906-66),[35] probably the most influential Islamist thinker of the twentieth century, took this moral emphasis and extended it to include violent action against both non-believers and unfaithful Muslim rulers. He argued that the term al-jahiliya, which had normally been used to define the "Age of Ignorance" that preceded Islam, should now be applied to the present day to the extent that modern societyincluding Muslim societyhad distanced itself from Islam. Just as Muhammad fought a holy war against the forces of paganism in seventh-century Arabia, so, too, true Muslims should fight the barbarism of the modern age. Qutb outlined these ideas in a short book, Ma'alim fi' t-Tariq (Milestones on the Road), based on notes he kept in prison.[36] The text launched the new, radicalized, jihadist style of Salafi thought and activism.

It is this world-view that is echoed today by theorists such as Osama bin Laden and groups such as the Afghan Taliban. They argue that Islam cannot adapt to the changes imposed by history but must remain rigidly faithful to the existing interpretations of scripture, the models laid down by the Prophet and his companions, and the legal rulings developed from these sources by the first generations of legal scholars.

Reform without Reformation
There have been and are a number of reformers working to bring Islam into closer harmony with universal standards of justice, tolerance, pluralism, and human rights. These include Nurcholish Madjid (1939-2005), the founder of a school of Islamic neo-modernism in Indonesia, in which contextualized, independent reasoning in matters of religious law, ijtihad, is put forward as a path to renovation, and radicalism is understood as an obstacle to progress because of its authoritarian and intolerant nature; Mohammed Arkoun, an Algerian thinker, who teaches at the University of Paris III, for whom secularization and modernization are essential elements of Islamic progress; and feminists such as Asra Q. Nomani who have called for major liberalization in the sphere of women's rights.

Others present a liberalizing face to the Western media and academia but retain an essentially conservative position on everything from hijab (veiling) to jihad. This charismatic but, essentially, two-faced trend promotes an image of Islam as protective of human rights while sticking to an agenda in favor of strict Sharia limitations to such rights. Two notable figures in this context are Tariq Ramadan and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Ramadan is the Swiss-born grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna. With a broad academic background including Swiss doctorates in philosophy and Islamic studies, and Arabic and Islamic studies qualifications from Al-Azhar University, he has taught at several Western universities, including the University of Fribourg and St. Anthony's College, Oxford. While he is banned from the United States,[37] he has been accepted in Europe as a Muslim intellectual with a reputation for moderation. That said, many French intellectuals describe him as "The Master of Doubletalk" and regard him as an intriste or fundamentalist. He has argued, for example, that Muslims should enter into mainstream society only to move it closer to Islam; that he accepts Western laws but only so long as they do not oblige him to do something against his religion; that stoning for adultery should be subject only to a moratorium until Muslim clerics discuss the matter; that Muslim women should insist on wearing the veil; that swimming pools should be segregated, and so on.[38] His support for radicals such as Yahya Michot, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, or Sayyid Qutb lays bare an agenda far from that of the moderate he likes to pass himself off to be.

Qaradawi (b. 1926) is another Azharite with an international following. Considered by most Muslims as a "moderate conservative" and lionized by London mayor Ken Livingstone, Qaradawi's moderation on issues such as elections and women's enfranchisement is a thin disguise for radicalism. He has issued fatwas and commented in lectures, television broadcasts, and on the Internet that wives should submit to their husbands; men may beat their wives "lightly;" men and women should mix only to a very limited degree; and women must wear hijab. He has deemed female genital mutilation, flogging of adulterers, and execution of homosexuals and apostates permissible and has endorsed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians or U.S. soldiers and civilians in Iraq. He has also condemned liberal democracies and urged Muslims to vent their anger publicly on issues such as the Danish cartoon controversy.[39]

Some Western governments have relied upon Ramadan, Qaradawi, and others to develop appropriate policies towards Islam and Muslims. Western media have painted them as authorities on Islam, enabling them to speak without an explicit mandate on behalf of Muslims. By drawing media and government attention to themselves while keeping their agendas hidden, they come to overshadow more authentically reformist figures. This problem is compounded by the numerous self-appointed bodies claiming to represent Muslims in Western countries, such as the Council for American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Council of Britain.

None of these individuals have used their prominence to speak out about harsh punishments, the execution of minors, or the stoning of those whom most modern cultures would call innocent women. It is probable that many self-described reformers practice a form of taqiya or religious dissimulation in order to show a moderate face to the West and quite a different perspective to their constituents in the Muslim world.

Indeed, when challenged about the harshness of Sharia penalties, many Muslim writers and Islamist politicians state their dislike for the alternativehuman rights as defined by the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"on the grounds that such agreements are of Western origin, that they will undermine the norms of Islamic societies, and that they are not themselves based on Sharia rulings. Some Muslim intellectuals have even argued that human rights do not exist in Islam. In 1985, Sa'id Raja'i-Khurasani, the permanent Iranian delegate to the United Nations, stated that the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which represented secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition, could not be implemented by Muslims and did not accord with the system of values recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran his country would, therefore, not hesitate to violate its prescriptions."[40] According to Ayatollah Muhammad-Taqi Misbah-Yazdi, a contender for the role of Iranian supreme leader upon the demise or removal of Ali Khamene'i, "Islamic human rights differ from the Declaration of Human Rights.' Human rights must be Islamic human rights."[41]

Conclusion
There are, then, several reasons why severe punishments and unreasonable judgments continue in parts of the Islamic world and why certain human rightsthe freedom to change one's religion, to convert Muslims to another faith, to enjoy full civil rights as a Baha'i, Zoroastrian, Armenian, or Jew, to marry by free choice, to write about controversial religious issuesare nowhere recognized. In the absence of fully secularized educational systems and with the increasing political involvement of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, the day when genuine reform arrives in most Muslim countries seems to be as far off as ever.

A hardening of sentiment against the West and an increasing tendency to fall back on conspiracy theories to explain Islamic problems seem to make insistence on tough Sharia -mindedness a desirable option for many if only as a weapon to use against perceived Western weaknesses. Desperate not to offend, the West has done little to make issue of abuses such as those promoted by judges like Haji Reza'i. While crimes such as his go unpunished, the continued stoning, hanging, flogging, and even beheading all serve to intimidate Western critics and are, therefore, encouraged by Islamic states and groups.

On a wider scale, a major debate needs to take place between advocates of Islamic or other relativist human rights agendas and supporters of the principle that such rights are, by their very nature, universal and applicable to all people at all times and in all places. Unfortunately, that debate cannot take place openly while there is a threat of violence from those who oppose the notion of human rights as a Western or Zionist evil.

What are the policy implications of this situation for Western countries, the U.N., and international human rights organizations? One is that they should give more genuine support to Muslim reformers, their conferences and publications, and, where appropriate, their teaching positions. Another is to pressure Islamic governments to make arrests when death threats and similar menaces are used instead of open argument. A recent Saudi doctoral thesis listed two hundred names of intellectuals who must be killed while, in May 2006, Osama bin Laden declared open season on all Muslim freethinkers. Neither the Saudi government nor the Islamic establishment elsewhere have moved to counter such provocations.[42]

Human rights issues must be linked more firmly to trade and other agreements. The multiculturalist notion that Muslims may not be criticized for the use of unjust and cruel punishments must be countered. The stigma of political incorrectness is counterproductive. Islamic countries and ordinary Muslims must be given incentives to observe human rights norms within their borders and disincentives to apply the Sharia in harsh and unjust ways.

The case of Egyptian democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim is instructive and suggests that outside pressure can work. In 2000, following his criticism of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's anointing of son Gamal as his successor, an Egyptian court arrested Ibrahim on spurious charges involving finance of his nongovernmental organization, the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies. The Bush administration responded by withholding nearly $200 million in aid pending Ibrahim's release. The Egyptian government responded by setting him free.

The payoff from support given to positive reform is potentially enormous. If genuinely reformist thinkers are enabled to have an impact within Muslim societies, violence, unjust punishments, and abuse of human rights in the name of religion will decline. In the end, a space for dialogue can only be opened up when intellectual debate joins forces with a determined war on terrornot only terror against Western interests but also against all violence done to Muslims themselves in the name of religion.

Denis MacEoin holds a Ph.D. in Persian studies from the University of Cambridge. He taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University and was for many years an honorary fellow at Durham University. He is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University.

Oh please spare me the bleeding heart liberalism. That really is the very bottom of the debate barrel. Almost underneath it in fact.
Tell you what Fred, if you ever get into serious trouble at the hands of a violent criminal I hope for your sake the local coppers don't answer the phone saying "Love to send a bobby to sort it, but the only 2 we have, well, one nicked a few sweets when he was a kid and the other was caught playing truant at school so we don't think they have the moral fibre to come to your aid".
Its what you are advocating!!! Nobody, who has ever done anything wrong ever, should be able to take any action or stand against any current wrongdoer.
Welcome to freds anarchic state of the world.
Alan

Holy shit!!

What a load of drivel.
No ones a saint - but liberals will one day realize that we the normal people will have to make a stand and yes some people will be upset.

What really upsets me, Marc, is the way this country of ours has got into some kind of counselling mode.
At the hands of a liberal education and government system, we have slowly been brainwashed into believing we are a sordid little country with a regrettable past and no national identity or culture beyond yobbishness and alcohol.
We have done some terrible things in our history, when judged by the standards of today, but we have been, and are, world leaders.
We need, now more than ever, self belief and pride, a clear sense of morality and justice.
I know this sounds like the worst kind of political rhetoric, and it probably is, but our national identity is under attack, and we risk being relegated to the also rans unless we move on from the cathartic cleansing of the liberals, stop trying to appease the hand wringers and get on with the things that made us the envy of an entire planet.
I will never understand how anyone can focus on us running a slave trade or stealing land from aborigional peoples several hundred years ago, then choose to ignore that we have twice rescued an entire continent from oppression in just the last hundred years. Don't even get me started on health, education, industry, transport, justice and all the other things that we planted in other countries.
It beggars belief that people actually choose to wallow in their own shame, rather than look to how we can improve the future. not just for ourselves, for as we improve our lot, we will improve everyones. History has taught us that if nothing else.
Alan

Alan,

It is with deep regret that I read your last post. Regret only because the words were from your mouth and not mine.
It is very easy to look at the past. Its the future that matters.

Sounds like a one liner from American dross film.

Better than the one liner used in places like Iraq;
"Any last requests?"

23rd August 2006
My MBE
The followiing is a statement I made in returning my MBE:

"AS A LIFE-LONG SUPPORTER OF THE LABOUR PARTY I AM SO APPALLED AT THE GOVERNMENT'S FOREIGN POLICY THAT I HAVE DECIDED TO RETURN THE MBE I WAS AWARDED FOR "SERVICES TO FOLK MUSIC". I CAN THINK OF NO BETTER WAY, LAWFULLY, TO EXPRESS MY HORROR AND OPPOSITION TO OUR FAILURE TO CALL FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE IN THE LEBANON AND TO OUR COMPLICITY WITH THE USA'S POLICY OF SUPPORTING ISRAEL'S ACTIONS IN PALESTINE.

TONY BLAIR'S SUPPORT FOR THESE POLICIES IS FOR ME A BETRAYAL OF ALL I TOOK THE LABOUR PARTY TO STAND FOR. THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION ON ALL SIDES AND THE CHAOS IN BOTH IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN IS THE RESULT OF SUCH DECISIONS. THE PARLIAMENTARY PARTY AND THE CONSTITUENCY PARTIES, BY REMAINING SUPPORTIVE OF THESE POLICIES, ARE DISCREDITED AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED.

I AM NOT SO FOOLISH AS TO EXPECT ANY GOVERNMENT TO BE ABLE TO DELIVER ALL ITS MANIFESTO PROMISES. I UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THAT COMPROMISES HAVE TO BE MADE. HOWEVER, WHEN IT COMES TO WAGING AN ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ, THE KILLING OF INNOCENT PEOPLE IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ AND NOW, THE LEBANON, I CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT AS AN "HONOUR" A RECOMMENDATION SUPPORTED BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THAT I BE AWARDED THE MBE.

TONY BLAIR INSISTS HIS DECISIONS ARE IN SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY. WE CANNOT BOMB PEOPLE INTO ACCEPTING DEMOCRACY ANY MORE THAN WE COULD SLAUGHTER PEOPLE INTO ACCEPTING CHRISTIANITY.

I UNDERSTAND MANY PEOPLE WITHIN THE FOLK MUSIC COMMUNITY HAVE APPLAUDED SUCH AWARDS AS A WELCOMED RECOGNITION FOLK MUSIC MAKES TO OUR COMMON CULTURE. I TRUST THEY WILL UNDERSTAND MY REASONS FOR NOW REJECTING AND RETURNING THAT AWARD.
Roy Bailey."

Would be nice to see a few more people with honours doing the same thing, I won't hold my breath thought.

Good post Stan! Must say also agree with post 792 made by Alan, its not all bad and about time we started to remember all the good this country has done, well done alan. At last a well rounded post rather than just war, war, war gloom!!

I understand Mr Baileys view and i admire his decision. I cannot however agree with the "facts" as he states them. His actions, while honourable, are misguided!!
The war was legal. End of. The greatest legal minds in the world have been hired to pick through and find illegality. They have failed.
Nobody is bombing anyone to accept anything, with the esception of Muslims bombing anyone they see fit to accept their twisted view of Islam. The chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a result of foreign policy. It is a result of those same extremem muslims!! It really is very simple. Stop blowing innocent people to smithereens and we will leave. We will not leave for you to make the place as bad as it was before.
Israel has been a major headache for every leader in the world since its inception almost 60 years ago. Whatever any politician does or says on that issue, they will be wrong, as they have been in the past. Support Israel and you are bombing Palestinians. Support Palestine and you are supporting suicide bombers and terrorists. Call for a cease fire and you are an appeasor. Don't call for one and you are a war monger. No win.
Alan

Everything is legal until 'tried' and found illegal. Just because its seen as legal doesn't make it right!

H6, however many times you repeat the war was legal, the majority of people in this country, Europe and the UN in general do not and will not agree with you.

I wonder why Goldsmith would not publish his full opinion.

It was illegal and unnecessary and catastrophe.

The hope is that it may prevent similar maverick intervention without the support of the UN.