by Uzay Bulut • June 2nd
- According to the Koran and the recorded sayings (hadith) and biographies (sira) of Islam's founder, "To leave Islam, to insult Muhammad or Allah, to deny the existence of Allah, to be sarcastic about Allah's name, to deny any verse of the Koran" or to commit other acts of blasphemy are all punishable by death.
- More alarming is that these pressures and bans come not only from governments. Many of the people in the countries mentioned above also appear enthusiastically to support strict or even deadly blasphemy and apostasy laws.
- According to a 2013 Pew survey, overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many regions -- Southeast Asia (84%), South Asia (78%), the Middle East and North Africa (78%), and Central Asia (62%) -- favor making sharia, or Islamic law, the official law of the land. According to sharia, blasphemy and apostasy are punishable by death.
Critics of Turkey's government and Islam continue being targeting by the country's authorities.
On May 17, Turkish photographer Fırat Erez, a former supporter of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party, was arrested in the city of Antalya after saying "Islam is immoral" on his Twitter account.
"This is not hate. It is a decision," he wrote. "Islam is immoral. His Prophet, Allah, his disciples could not protect it. Islam has not overcome the moral barrier. It cannot. You cannot find the truth by bending over five times a day. Plain, clear and painful."
Erez was detained by Antalya police for "insulting religious values" and "provoking hatred or hostility in one section of the public against another section".
Twitter has since suspended Erez's account, and those who visit his Twitter feed today only see the following notification: "Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules".
No comments:
Post a Comment