Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  34. “Somalia: Christian in Kenya Refugee Camp Attacked, Shot,” Compass Direct News, December 10, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5724&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Somalia&rowcur=0.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Assyrian International News Agency, “Muslims Behead Four Christian Orphanage Workers in Somalia,” August 11, 2009, http://www.aina.org/news/20090811144715.htm; “Somali Islamist Hardliners Behead 7 ‘Spies,’ ” Reuters, July 10, 2009, http://af.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=AFJOE5690BW20090710; “Convert from Islam Shot Dead,” Compass Direct News, July 20, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/4496/.

  37. “Muslim Militants Slay Long-Time Christian in Somalia,” Compass Direct News, September 18, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/9494/.

  38. “Islamic Extremists Kill Another Church Leader,” Compass Direct News, October 1, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/10010/.

  39. “Christian in Somalia Who Refused to Wear Veil Is Killed,” Compass Direct News, October 27, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/11061/. For other incidents, see “Convert from Islam Shot Dead”; “Somali Christian Shot Dead Near Kenya Border,” Compass Direct News, August 22, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/4893/; “Somali Christian Flees Refugee Camp Under Death Threat,” Compass Direct News, December 9, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/12417/.

  40. “Islamic Extremists Execute Young Convert,” Compass Direct News, November 23, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/11836/.

  41. “Islamic Militants Murder Christian Leader,” Compass Direct News, January 26, 2010, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/14479/.

  42. “Al Shabaab Militants Execute Christian Leader,” Compass Direct News, May 5, 2010, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/18721/.

  43. “Islamic Extremists in Somalia Kill Church Leader, Torch Home,” Compass Direct News, March 24, 2010, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/16692/.

  44. For background, see Hamouda Fathelrahman Bello, “Shari’a in Sudan,” in Marshall, Radical Islam’s Rules, 87–112.

  45. Bello, “Shari’a in Sudan.”

  46. Hayder Ibrahim Ali, The Crisis of Political Islam: The Example of the National Islamic Front in the Sudan (Cairo: The Centre of Sudanese Studies, 1991); John O. Voll, Sudan: State and Society in Crisis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=r4ar4LLzIr0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=John+O.+Voll+Sudan:+State+and+Society+in+Crisis,+(Bloomington:+Indiana+University+Press,+1991),+Available+at:&ots=RlC7TUCVD0&sig=T1lo3Dpb0vlFFkjac1sZXFVCris#PPA4,M1. On the politics of this period, see J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist State, 1989–2000 (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Mansour Khalid, War and Peace in Sudan: A Tale of Two Countries (London: Kegan Paul International, 2003); Peter Woodward, Sudan after Nimeiri (London: Routledge, 1991); “Religion and Human Rights: The Case of Sudan,” Proceedings of Conference Convened by the Sudan Human Rights Organization, May 30, 1992.

  47. Section 126 of the Sudan penal code of 1992 expressly imposes the death penalty for apostasy, but the death penalty had been used earlier, even when the penal code did not expressly provide for it. See Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, “The Islamic Law of Apostasy and Its Modern Applicability: A Case from the Sudan,” Religion 16 (1986): 197–223.

  48. Gisle Tangenes, “The Islamic Gandhi,” Bit of News, September 11, 2006, http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/3856/42. There is a Web site devoted to Taha’s ideas: www.alfikra.org.

  49. Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, The Second Message of Islam (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 137. For an elaboration of his approach in constitutional, human rights and international law terms, see Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990).

  50. George Packer, “The Moderate Martyr,” The New Yorker, September 11, 2006, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/11/060911fa_fact1.

  51. USCIRF 2009 Annual Report, 99, http://www.uscirf.gov/images/AR2009/final%20ar2009%20with%20cover.pdf.

  52. “Sudan: Sudanese Convert to Christianity Forced into Hiding,” Compass Direct News, February 7, 2002, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=1136&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Sudan&rowcur=0; Barbara G. Baker, “Police Launch Manhunt to Find Christian,” Compass Direct News, March 15, 2002, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=1169&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Sudan&rowcur=0.

  53. “The Application of the Apostasy Law in the World Today,” Barnabas Fund, July 3, 2007, http://www.barnabasfund.org/US/News/Articles-research/The-Application-of-theApostasy-Law-in-the-World-Today.html?&quicksearch=The+Application+of+the+Apostas.

  54. Barbara G. Baker, “Sudanese Police Torture Convert Student,” Compass Direct News, October 8, 2001, http://www.comeandsee.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=191.

  55. “Converts from Islam Struggle to Survive,” Compass Direct News, April 14, 2009, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=5878&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Sudan&rowcur=0.

  56. Rob Crilly and Lucy Bannerman, “Sudan Police Throw Teacher in Jail for Teddy Bear Named Muhammad,” The Times, 27 November 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2951262.ece; Jeffrey Gettleman, “Calls in Sudan for Execution of British Teacher,” New York Times, December 1, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/world/africa/01sudan.html; “Teddy Row Teacher Freed from Jail,” BBC News, December 3, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7124447.stm.

  57. “U.N. Aide and Sudan Clash on Islamic Laws,” New York Times, March 8, 1994, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04EFDA1F3AF93BA35750C0A962958260; Situation of human rights in the Sudan—Report of the Special Rapporteur, Mr. Gaspar Biro, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/60, UN Commission on Human Rights, 50th session, February 1, 1994, E/CN.4/1994/48, 15–16. See also Ken Ringle, “The Next Rushdie?” Washington Post, March 26, 1994, and “Human Rights and Islam; Sudan Cites Higher Authority,” The Economist, March 5, 1994.

  58. Ken Ringle, “The Next Rushdie?”; “U.N. Aide and Sudan Clash on Islamic Laws”; Edward Luce, “Sudan Criticizes the Author of a Rights Survey for Blasphemy,” The Guardian, March 3, 1994.

  59. As quoted in Report of the Secretary-General submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1995/75, UN Commission on Human Rights, 52nd session, February 22, 1996, E/CN.4/1996/57, http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/TestFrame/e2f2cb75181e115b802566da0040304c?Opendocument.

  60. Africa Watch (now incorporated into Human Rights Watch), “Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Secret War Against the Nuba,” News from Africa Watch 3, no. 15 (December 10, 1991): http://www.swrtc.ca/docs/DESTROYING%20ETHNIC%20IDENTITY%20.PDF; Alex De Waal and Yoanes Ajawin, “Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan” (London: African Rights, 1995), http://www.justiceafrica.org/publishing/online-books/facing-genocide-the-nuba-of-sudan/; Hunud Abia Kadouf, “Marginalization and Resistance: The Plight of the Nuba People,” New Political Science 23, no. 1 (2001): http://web.ebscohost.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/ehost/pdf?vid=4&hid=3&sid=5ab7726f-b98c-42d2-975d-2d615961328a%40sessionmgr14.

  61. Mohamed Suliman, “The Nuba Mountains of Sudan: Resource Access, Violent Conflict, and Identity,” Sudan Tribune, September 2, 2003, http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article252.

  62. De Waal, “Averting Genocide in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan”; see also O’Ballance, Sudan, Civil War and Terrorism: 1956–99.

  63. One person who continues this tradition, though now in the United States, is Taha’s student, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, who teaches at Emory Unive
rsity. His latest work is Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

  64. International Federation of Journalists, “IFJ Condemns Brutal Murder of Sudanese Journalist,” September 7, 2006, http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article17482; “Kidnapped Sudan Editor Beheaded,” BBC News, September 6, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5321368.stm.

  65. “Sudan SPLM Official Receives Death Threats over Adultery Bill,” Sudan Tribune, April 24, 2009, http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article30975.

  66. Michael Hoebink, “The Dark Side of Liberal Islam,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, April 26, 2006, http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/turabi060426-redirected; “Sudan’s Turabi Considered Apostate,” Sudan Tribune, April 24, 2006, http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15219.

  67. Lee Smith, “Sudan’s Osama,” Slate, August 5, 2004, http://www.slate.com/id/2104814; “Profile: Sudan’s Islamist leader,” BBC News, January 15, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3190770.stm; “Sudan Frees Opposition Leader Hassan al-Turabi,” The Times, March 9, 2009, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5872347.ece.

  Chapter 9

  1. Mathias Hariyadi, “Clashes in Maluku, 45 Houses and a Church Set on Fire,” AsiaNews.it, December 10, 2008, http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13974; Elizabeth Kendal, “Maluku, Eastern Indonesia: ‘Blasphemy’ Triggers Pogrom,” World Evangelical Alliance press release, December 12, 2008, http://www.worldevangelicals.org/news/article.htm?id=2274.

  2. “Raja Petra Arrested under ISA,” Malaysiakini, September 12, 2008, http://www1.malaysiakini.com/news/89544; “Malaysia Detains ‘Dissent’ Writer,” BBC News, September 23, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7630789.stm; “Malaysia Blogger Goes on Trial,” Aljazeera News, October 6, 2008, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/10/20081067323419616.html; “Malaysia Blogger’s Joy at Release,” BBC News, November 7, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7714696.stm; “Religious Department to Act Against any Blogger Who Insults Islam,” New Straits Times, December 12, 2008.

  3. Another religiously repressive state in the area is Brunei. All groups except Shafi’i Islam must register with the government and provide a list of their members, and the government prohibits propagating any view except Shafi’i Islam and has banned many groups (including Silat Lintau, Tariqat Mufarridiyyah, Qadiyania, al-Arqam, Abdul Razak Mohammad, al-Ma’unah, Saihoni Taispan, and the Baha’is). It also prohibits the sale of Bibles. Anyone who “publicly teaches or promotes any deviant beliefs or practices” may be charged under the Islamic Religious Council Act and imprisoned for three months and fined approximately $1,400. In December 2000, three Christians—Malai Taufick, Freddie Chong, and Yunus Murang—were imprisoned for “cult” activities. Amnesty International reports that they were coerced into confessing. As of March 2008, the Internal Security Department had questioned twenty-five Christians for alleged attempts to convert Muslims. See “Institute on Religion and Public Policy: Religious Freedom in Brunei Darussalam,” January 19, 2009, http://religionandpolicy.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=2260.

  4. Human Rights Watch, Breach of Faith: Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh 17, no. 6(C) (June 2005). For background on the rise of more radical forms of Islam in Bangladesh, see Maneeza Hossein, The Road to a Shariah State: Cultural Radicalization in Bangladesh, Hudson Institute White Paper, November 2006, http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/Maneeza.pdf, and “Bangladesh,” International Religious Freedom Report 2008, U.S. State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, http://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2008/108498.htm.

  5. Paul Marshall, ed., Religious Freedom in the World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 153.

  6. “Hasina Wins Bangladesh Landslide,” BBC News, December 30, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7803785.stm; Thaindian News, “Bangladesh Islamist Party Pledges Military Training in Seminaries,” Thaindian News, December 12, 2008, http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/bangladesh-islamist-party-pledges-military-training-in-seminaries_100130003.html.

  7. “Govt to Ensure Minority Rights, CHT Peace Treaty: PM,” The Daily Star, April 30, 2009, http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=86226.

  8. Marshall, Religious Freedom in the World, 153. In 2008, a seventy-year-old woman, Rahima Beoa, was burned to death after a mob reportedly set fire to her house in Cinatuly village in the Rangpur district as punishment for her converting to Christianity; in 2006, many Christian homes in the area were vandalized. See “Elderly Burned Convert Dies in Bangladesh,” BosNewsLife, February 5, 2008, http://www.bosnewslife.com/3416-3416-news-alert-elderly-burned-convert-dies-in.

  9. “Bangladesh Islamist Party Pledges Military Training in Seminaries.”

  10. “Arrest Warrant Against Cartoonist for ‘Blasphemous’ Caricature,” Zee News: India Edition, September 18, 2007, http://www.zeenews.com/news395742.html.

  11. The following examples of persecution of Ahmadis are from Human Rights Watch, Breach of Faith: Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Community in Bangladesh. For more recent incidents, see: “Attacks on Ahmadiyyas: US Envoy to Report Soon to State Dept,” The Daily Star, April 24, 2005; “Stop Persecution of the Ahmadiyyas,” editorial, New Age (Dhaka), October 7, 2006, http://www.newagebd.com/2006/oct/07/edit.html#1; “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community,” http://www.alislam.org/introduction/index.html. For background on the Ahmadis, see chapter 5.

  12. “Bangladesh: Christian Convert’s Life Threatened,” Compass Direct News, October 16, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/english/country/bangladesh/2008/newsarticle_5634.html.

  13. “Bangladesh: Christian Convert’s Life Threatened.” For a similar case—converts Ishmael Sheikh and his wife Rahima Khatun—see “Bangladesh: Muslims Drive Christian Grandparents from Home,” Compass Direct News, January 14, 2009, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5760&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Bangladesh&rowcur=0.

  14. “Christian Family Beaten, Cut—and Faces Charges.” Compass Direct News, December 8, 2008, http://archive.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&idelement=5722&lang=en&length=short&backpage=archives&critere=&countryname=Bangladesh&rowcur=0.

  15. “Christian Convert from Islam and Family Threatened with Death,” AsiaNews.it, September, 30, 2009, http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16456&size=A. See also the case of Ahsan Ali, “Bangladesh: Christian Convert’s Life Threatened.”

  16. Taslima Nasreen maintains a Web site at http://taslimanasrin.com/.

  17. Nupar Banerjee, “Muslim Cleric Targets Feminist Writer,” Associated Press (AP), January 16, 2004.

  18. Ashling O’Connor, “Feminist Author Rewrites Novel after Death Threats from Muslim Extremists,” The Times, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2978120.ece; Banerjee, “Muslim Cleric Targets Feminist Writer”; “Taslima Nasreen Removes Comment,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7120473.stm; “Taslima Nasreen: Controversy’s Child,” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7108880.stm.

  19. “Protesters Attack Author Nasreen,” BBC News, September 8, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6938887.stm; Asghar Ali Engineer, “Attack on Taslima: Love of Islam or Love of Power,” August 14, 2007, http://indianmuslims.in/attack-on-taslima-love-of-islam-or-love-of-power/; Syed Amin Jafri, “Hyderabad Police Lodge Case Against Taslima Nasreen,” Rediff India Abroad, August 11, 2007, http://www.rediff.com///news/2007/aug/11taslima.htm.

  20. “Taslima Nasreen’s Visa Extended,” BBC News, February 15, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7246129.stm; “Another Storm Brews Around Taslima Visa Extension,” February 15, 2008, http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Another-storm-brews-around-Taslima-visa-extension/273633/; “Banished Within & Without,” Times of India, February 10, 2008, http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/article-show/2770240.cms; see als
o “Taslima Hopes for Timely Visa Renewal,” February 8, 2008, http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080040765. On March 1, 2010, two people died in riots in Shimoga and Hassan reacting to an article by Nasreen on Muslim women wearing burkas. See “2 Killed in Shimoga, Hassan Violence,” The Hindu, March 2, 2010, http://www.thehindu.com/2010/03/02/stories/2010030258380100.htm.

  21. “Abiding Shame,” February 11, 2008, http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080211&fname=taslima&sid=1; Engineer, “Attack on Taslima: Love of Islam or Love of Power.”

  22. “Journalist Detained,” The Committee to Protect Journalists, December 3, 2003. http://cpj.org/2003/12/journalist-detained.php; Bret Stephens, “Darkness in Dhaka,” The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2006, http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-391.htm; “The Risks of Journalism in Bangladesh,” New York Times, December 14, 2003, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E6DF123CF937A25751C1A9659C8B63

  23. “Man with ‘Mosad Links’ Held at ZIA,” The Daily Star, November 30, 2003, http://www.thedailystar.net/2003/11/30/d3113001088.htm.