Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide
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Silenced
Silenced
How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide
PAUL MARSHALL AND NINA SHEA
with a Foreword by
KYAI HAJI ABDURRAHMAN WAHID
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Copyright © 2011 by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marshall, Paul.
Silenced : how apostasy and blasphemy codes are choking freedom worldwide / Paul Marshall and Nina Shea.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–981226–4; 978–0–19–981228–8 (pbk.)
1. Censorship—Religious aspects—Islam. 2. Blasphemy (Islam) 3. Apostasy—Islam. I. Shea, Nina. II. Title.
Z658.I77M37 2011
364.1’88—dc22 2011004600
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Shahbaz Bhatti, our friend and a lifelong champion of religious freedom, and to Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab, both murdered in 2011, for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws; and to the late Abdurrahman Wahid and Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, who devoted their lives to an Islam of religious freedom.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Authors and Contributors
Foreword
PART I INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
PART II MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES
Introduction to Muslim-Majority Countries
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Iran
4. Egypt
5. Pakistan
6. Afghanistan
7. The Greater Middle East
8. Africa
9. South and Southeast Asia
PART III THE GLOBALIZATION OF BLASPHEMY
Introduction to Western Countries and International Blasphemy
10. Islam and Blasphemy on the International Stage, 1989–2011
11. Legitimizing Repression: Blasphemy Restrictions in the United Nations
12. Religiously Incorrect: Islam, Blasphemy, and Hate Speech in Western Domestic Law
13. Enforcement by Violence and Intimidation
PART IV MUSLIM CRITICISM OF APOSTASY AND BLASPHEMY LAWS
Introduction
14. Renewing Qur’anic Studies in the Contemporary World by Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd
15. Rethinking Classical Muslim Law of Apostasy and the Death Penalty by Abdullah Saeed
PART V CONCLUSIONS
16. Conclusions
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide is a project of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. The Center is deeply grateful for the generosity of the Fieldstead Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and donors who wish to remain anonymous.
This large book would not have been possible without the assistance, criticism, and advice of a large number of people, including Omolade Adunubi, Reza Afshari, Mohsine el Ahmadi, Fouad Ajami, Mustafa Akyol, Ali Alyami, Barbara Baker, Rev. Justo Lacunza Balda, Maarten G. Barends, Hamouda Fathelrahman Bella, Cheryl Benard, Peter Berger, Peter Berkowitz, Ladan and Roya Boroumand, Jennifer Bryson, Ann Buwalda, Christopher Catherwood, Felix Corley, Paul Diamond, Saidu Dogo, Khalid Duran, Cole Durham, Imam Talal Eid, Aaron Emmel, Tom Farr, Willy Fautre, Steve Ferguson, Roger Finke, Arne Fjeldstad, Felice Gaer, Fatima Gailani, Most Rev. Macram Gassis, Robert George, Joseph Ghougassian, Brian Grim, Rev. Marcel Guarnizo, Wisnu Hanggoro, Kristanto Hartadi, Tom Holland, the late Samuel Huntington, Ed Husain, Mujeeb Ijaz, Emeka Izeze, Zuhdi Jasser, Philip Jenkins, Rebiya Kadeer, Mehrangiz Kar, Joseph Kassab, Firuz Kazemzadeh, Magdi Khalil, Amjad Khan, Leonard Leo, Natan Lerner, James D. Le Sueur, Bernard Lewis, David Little, Habib Malik, Ted Malloch, Salim Mansur, Walter Russell Mead, Mariam Memarsadeghi, Kevian Milani, Hedieh Mirahmadi, Douglas Murray, Azar Nafisi, Asra Nomani, Ugochukwu Okezie, Mary Okosun, Abdul Oroh, Lekan Otufodunrin, Nadia Oweidat, Marcello Pera, Ruud Peters, Dan Philpott, Anthony Picarello, Elizabeth H. Prodromou, Tina Ramirez, Peter Riddell, Michael Rubin, Vinay Samuel, Lamin Sanneh, Jonathan Schanzer, Stephen Schwartz, Roger Severino, Timothy Samuel Shah, the late M. L. Shahani, Peter Skerry, Zainab Al-Suwaij, Amir Taheri, Jenny Taylor, Frank Vogel, Kam Weng, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Atilla Yayla.
We also received valuable assistance from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, the American Center for Law and Justice, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Compass Direct, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the Federalist Society, Forum 18, Human Rights Without Frontiers, Institute for Gulf Affairs, the Nigerian Civil Liberties Organization, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and the Sudan Human Rights Organization.
The Center for Religious Freedom has profited from the able research of a number of very talented interns. We would like to thank Bonnie Alldredge, Harry Baumgarten, Alex Benard, Justine Desmond, Stephanie Ferguson, Jean Marie Hoffman, Katelyn Jones, Soumaya Lkoundi, Andy Marshall, Jeff Pan, Adam Parker, Karen Rupprecht, Amanda Smith, Samuel Trihus, and John Wasaff, for their diligent and excellent work as research interns.
Anisa Afshar, Maneeza Hossein, and Samuel Tadros provided invaluable research for several chapters, and Daniel Huff and Aaron Meyer of the Middle East Forum provided analyses of U.S. and international legal standards. Dwight Bashir, Kit Bigelow, Janet Epp Buckingham, Elizabeth Cassidy, Jamsheed K. Choksy, Mark Durie, David Forte, Darara Gubo, Matius Ho, Ziya Meral, Shastri Purushotma, Flemming Rose, Steven Snow, and Angela Wu read and commented on portions of the manuscript.
We also benefited from the assistance of several Hudson colleagues, including Alex Alexiev, Shmuel Bar, Zeyno Baran, Anne Bayefsky, Eric Brown, John Fonte, Hillel Fradkin, Herb London, Hassan Mneimneh, Katherine Smyth, Grace Terzian, and Richard Weitz.
Ulil Abshar-Abdallah, Governor Al Haji Sani Ahmed, Ali Al-Ahmed, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Essam El Eryan, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Carsten Juste, Amjad Mahmood Khan, Jytte Klausen, Ahmad Syafii Maarif, the late Nurcholish Madjid, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, Festus Okoye, Din Syamsuddin, Prince El-Hassan bin Talaal, and the late Sheikh Al-Azhar Tantawi patiently answered our questions.
Our special thanks to Abdullah Saeed for kindly agreeing to provide an essay arguing on the basis of Islam that there should not be civil penalties for blasphemy and apostasy. Abdullah Saeed’s essay is adapted from his Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam, published by Ashgate Publishing.
We are grateful to Abdurrahman Wahid and Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd for their contributions—the foreword and “Renewing Qur’anic Studies in the Contemporary World”—that we commissioned; and we are greatly saddened by their deaths during the book’s production. C. Holland Taylor of LibForAll gave valuable advice and assistance and permission to publish these two pieces. Wahid, “Gus Dur,” was cofounder and senior advisor of LibForAll, while Abu-Zayd was the Academic Director of its International Institute of Qur’anic Studies. LibforAll’s Kyai Haji Hodri Ariev also gave editorial advice.
We are especially grateful to Lela Gilbert and Elizabeth Kerley, who provided major assistance in writing, editing, and in all phases of this book. Cameron Wybrow did excellent work on copyediting. Cynthia Read of Oxford University Press was, as always, careful, patient, and encouraging.
We thank Allen Tesler, Chairman of the Board of the Hudson Institute, and the directors, as well as Hudson President Ken Weinstein, and Center Advisory Board Chairman Chair James R. Woolsey, for their belief in the work of the Center for Religious Freedom.
We would like to thank all the above for their work, assistance, and patience, and we emphasize that the above are not responsible for any errors in the book; nor should it be assumed that they agree with all of its contents.
This book is a project of the Center for Religious Freedom, a privately funded research center of the Hudson Institute. The Center promotes religious freedom as a component of U.S. foreign policy. For further information contact: Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, 1015 15th St NW, Washington DC 20005; http://crf.hudson.org/.
AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Authors
Paul Marshall
Paul Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and the author and editor of more than twenty books on religion and politics, especially religious freedom, including, more recently Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion (2009), Religious Freedom in the World (2008), Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law (2005), The Rise of Hindu Extremism (2003), Islam at the Crossroads (2002), God and the Constitution (2002), The Talibanization of Nigeria (2002), Massacre at the Millennium (2001), Religious Freedom in the World (2000), Egypt’s Endangered Christians (1999), Just Politics (1998), Heaven Is Not My Home (1998), A Kind of Life Imposed on Man (1996), and the best-selling, award-winning survey of religious persecution worldwide Their Blood Cries Out (1997). He is the author of several hundred articles, and his writings have been translated into Russian, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Danish, Albanian, Japanese, Malay, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese. He is in frequent demand for lectures and media appearances, including interviews on ABC Evening News; CNN; PBS; Fox; the British, Australian, Canadian, South African, and Japanese Broadcasting Corporations; and Al Jazeera. His work has been published in, or is the subject of, articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, First Things, New Republic, Weekly Standard, Reader’s Digest, and many other newspapers and magazines.
Nina Shea
An international human-rights lawyer for thirty years, Nina Shea is Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute, where she directs the Center for Religious Freedom, a foreign-policy center she helped found in 1986. For seven years ending in 2005, she helped organize and lead a coalition of churches and religious groups that worked to end a religious war in South Sudan against Christians and traditional African believers, which led to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and culminated in a vote for South Sudan to secede and become an independent country in 2011; she is a long-time advocate for persecuted religious minorities around the world; and she has authored and edited three widely acclaimed reports on Saudi Arabia, which translate and provide original analysis on official Saudi textbooks and educational materials. She regularly presents testimony before Congress, delivers public lectures, organizes briefings and conferences, and writes frequently on issues pertaining to religious freedom in American foreign policy. Her best-selling 1997 book on anti-Christian persecution, In the Lion’s Den, remains a standard in the field. Her writings and articles about her advocacy have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Weekly Standard, and Huffington Post, among others, and she is a frequent contributor to National Review Online. Since 1999, Shea has served as a congressionally appointed Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal agency. She previously served as a U.S. public delegate to the United Nation’s main human rights body, appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and currently serves as a commissioner on the U.S. National Commission to UNESCO.
Contributors
Abdurrahman Wahid
The late Abdurrahman Wahid was President of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, and head of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization. An outspoken critic of radical Islam, he has been recognized by members of all religions throughout the world for his defense of religious and ethnic minorities and promotion of religious liberty for all. Among the many positions he has held are cofounder and senior advisor of LibForAll, which generously arranged for his foreword to this book.
Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd
The late Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd was Academic Director of the International Institute of Qur’anic Studies (IIQS), a branch of LibForAll Foundation. He is the author of numerous scholarly works on Islam in both Arabic and English and is known for developing a humanistic interpretation of the Qur’an. Formerly Professor of Arabic Literature at Cairo University, he left when Egypt’s highest court ruled that, because of his views, he was an apostate and must be forcibly divorced from his Muslim wife. He also received death threats from Ayman Al Zawahiri of Al-Qaeda. Abu-Zayd held the Ibn Rushd Chair of Humanism and Islam at the University for Humanistics in the Netherlands and was awarded the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2005. He died in Cairo on July 5, 2010.
Abdullah Saeed
Abdullah Saeed, originally from the Maldives, is Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. He obtained his B.A. in Arab/Islamic Studies in Saudi Arabia in 1986 and his doctorate at the University of Melbourne in 1992. He has written on the interpretation of Islamic texts, Islam and human rights, and religious freedom, among other areas. Together with his brother Hassan Saeed, former Attorney General of the Maldives, he authored the book Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam (2004), which is currently banned in the Maldives.
FOREWORD
God Needs No Defense
KYAI HAJI ABDURRAHMAN WAHID
Nothing could possibly threaten God who is Omnipotent and existing as absolute and eternal Truth. And as ar-Rahman (the Merciful) and ar-Rahim (the Compassionate), God has no enemies.
As revered Muslim intellectual K. H. Mustofa Bisri1 wrote in his poem “Allahu Akbar”: “If all of the 6 billion human inhabitants of this earth, which is no greater than a speck of dust, were blasphemous … or pious … it would not have the slightest effect upon His greatness.”
Those who claim to defend God, Islam, or the Prophet are thus either deluding themselves or manipulating religion for their own mundane and political purposes. We witnessed this in the carefully manufactured outrage that swept the Muslim world several years ago, claiming hundreds of lives, in response to cartoons published in Denmark. Those who presume to fully grasp God’s will, and dare to impose by force their own limited understanding of this upon others, are essentially equating themselves with God and are unwittingly engaged in blasphemy.
As Muslims, rather than harshly condemning others’ speech or beliefs and employing threats or violence to constrain these, we should ask: Why is there so little freedom of expression and freedom of religion in the so-called Muslim world? Exactly whose interests are served by laws such as Section 295-C of the Pakistani lega
l code, “Defiling the Name of Muhammad,” which mandates the death penalty for “blasphemy”? Pakistan’s Federal Shari’a Court has effectively defined this law as:
reviling or insulting the Prophet in writing or speech; speaking profanely or contemptuously about him or his family; attacking the Prophet’s dignity and honor in an abusive manner; vilifying him or making an ugly face when his name is mentioned; showing enmity or hatred towards him, his family, his companions, and the Muslims; accusing, or slandering the Prophet and his family, including spreading evil reports about him or his family; defaming the Prophet; refusing the Prophet’s jurisdiction or judgment in any manner; rejecting the Sunnah; showing disrespect, contempt for or rejection of the rights of Allah and His Prophet or rebelling against Allah and His Prophet.2
Rather than serve to protect God, Islam, or Muhammad, such deliberately vague and repressive laws merely empower those with a worldly (i.e., political) agenda and act as a “sword of Damocles” threatening not only religious minorities, but also the right of mainstream Muslims to speak freely about their own religion without being threatened by the wrath of fundamentalists—exercised through the power of government or mobs—whose claims of “defending religion” are little more than a pretext for self-aggrandizement.