Sharia’s Global Reach: A Liberal Muslim Extradited to Possible Beheading
Muhammad Najeeb Kashgari, better known as Hamza Kashgari, is a 23-year-old Saudi writer and the first victim of the global enforcement of radical Sharia by international legal authorities.
After writing several tweets that presented a liberal interpretation of Islam well within the normative boundaries of that religion, Kashgari was proclaimed a heretic by Saudi clerics. Fleeing to Malaysia he was captured with the reported help of an Interpol system and extradited back to Saudi Arabia to face a grim fate. The charge? Apostasy.
For an analysis of his tweets, see Barry Rubin, “Manufacturing Heresy.”
Almost immediately, he faced a social media backlash. In the 24 hours following his posts, around 30,000 responses were received by his Twitter account. By February 17, over 26,000 people joined a Facebook group titled “The Saudi people demand retribution from Hamza Kashgari.” Kashgari apologized online, and deleted his own tweets.
The apology and deletions weren’t enough for Riyadh’s Wahhabist religious establishment. Sheikh Nasser Omar went so far as to cry out on television about Kashgari’s “cursing of the prophet,” saying his apology was “cold” and demanding that he be executed.
Saudi Arabia’s Information Minister Abdul-Aziz Khoja announced, “I have given instructions to ban him from writing for any Saudi newspaper or magazine, and there will be legal measures to guarantee that.” Kashgari recognized the danger and planned to flee to New Zealand.
But Kashgari was arrested in Muslim-majority Malaysia while boarding his flight to New Zealand. According to some reports, Kashgari attempted to seek asylum in Malaysia. Despite this request, without a hearing, and refused any chance to meet with a local lawyer, Kashgari was held incommunicado. He was quickly shuttled aboard a private Saudi jet and sent back to Saudi Arabia where he is now awaiting trial with a probable death sentence as the verdict.
For radical groups, Islamic conservatives, and Islamist regimes, Muslim liberals pose a great threat, especially their modernist interpretations of Islam. Many of these regimes have jailed, exiled, or even killed those who’ve offered dissenting views.
With quickly expanding technological advances in the Islamic world, liberals can now bypass censorship by publishing on the Internet and social media. Yet this in no way protects them from the most severe punishment. Now, even a 120-character comment can win someone a date with the chopping block.
The Saudis are not the only ones moving to censor the Internet and social media.
Earlier in February, a man was arrested in Pakistan’s Sindh province for “spreading derogatory electronic messages” about the four caliphs that succeeded Muhammad. In Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, one can be prosecuted and jailed for 7 to 12 years for using the Internet (including Twitter accounts) for “blasphemy.”
In 2008, Kuwaiti parliamentarians and the director of censorship at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Communication banned YouTube so they could “protect” Kuwaitis from those who “blasphemed” against Muhammed. Egypt’s blasphemy laws were used to go after Coptic Christian businessman and liberal politician Naguib Sawiris after he tweeted a cartoon of a bearded Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse wearing the clothing prescribed by Islamists as properly Muslim.
When Western journalists praised the tweeting revolutionaries of Libya, Egypt, and Syria, they missed a key element. As tech-savvy as many in the Islamic world appear, it is still an extremely closed environment. The normal Western paradigm of technological and social advances going hand-in-hand is hardly the case in the Islamic world. The same blogging sites that appeared to offer an outlet for religious dissenters can just as quickly be turned against them. With a new wave of Sunni Islamist regimes sprouting up in the post-Arab Spring landscape, cases like Kashgari’s may soon become the norm.
Wake up People!!! This is the true face of our enemy. These people will tell any lie, do any deed to enslave the whole world with this primitive way of life or more to the point; way of death.
Duke Masters
“these people’…to me that would include obama, and the liberals of the world..
ALSO, Hamza Kashgari is a man to be pitied…he’s obviously not very smart…running to a predominatly muslim nation trying to hide?? Hello!
New Zealand is predominantly Muslim?
Did you read the part where he was arrested in Malaysia, a Muslim nation? Or that he may have sought asylum there?
But Kashgari was arrested in Muslim-majority Malaysia while boarding his flight to New Zealand. According to some reports, Kashgari attempted to seek asylum in Malaysia.
his mistake was taking a flight to New Zealand without checking where that flight would make an intermediate stop.
As I rather doubt it is possible to fly direct from Saudi Arabia to New Zealand without passing through a Muslim nation (Indonesia, Pakistan, or Malaysia) I doubt he had much choice in the matter (but I don’t know the entire airline networks in the region, he may possibly have chosen a connecting flight in Singapore, Mumbai, or Delhi).
Were I the President of the United States, come hell or high oil prices I’d close the consulates in both Malaysia and Saudi Arabia to tell them the time of the Salem Witch hunts are over.
Obama wants to lead, let him speak out forcefully on this abuse of international law and human decency. No one will seize officials from Iran who are terrorists and send them to America or Israel but they’ll do this.
Indeed Obama does want to lead us !…to the nearest prayer rug store and sharia court.
Obama lead on human rights and decency?
“The Saudis are not the only ones moving to censor the Internet and social media.”
I had to laugh at the above sentence because “not the only ones” reminded me of the current crop of fools in the WH and in congress actively courting Islam and the Sharia.
Terrible as this story is, the most horrific part is that Interpol did the enforcing of these abysmal laws across international lines.
I wish you could give us a little more on the background of laws … whose international laws? … that allowed such an atrocity.
I think few people are aware that they even exist.
Was it from the OIC at the UN? Was it a law that our own government approved? Was it approved by the Security Council?
I did read that Obama has given Interpol “immunity” in the U.S.
Does that mean that what was done in Malaysia could happen here?
It would be good if someone at PJMedia would be interested enough
to do an article about this.
I agree. I do not personally have time to research the treaties or agreements under which Interpol operates. I and several posters below would like to see more investigation.
Terrible as this story is, the most horrific part is that Interpol did the enforcing of these abysmal laws across international lines.
I wish you could give us a little more on the background of laws … whose international laws? … that allowed such an atrocity.
I think few people are aware that they even exist.
Was it from the OIC at the UN? Was it a law that our own government approved? Was it approved by the Security Council?
I did read that Obama has given Interpol “immunity” in the U.S.
Does that mean that what was done in Malaysia could happen here?
It would be good if someone at PJMedia would be interested enough
to do an article about this.
Good thing Islam is the Religion of Peace, otherwise Hamza Kashgari might be in real trouble.
One is never more peacful than when dead.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
———————————–
The words of Pastor Martin Niemöller are as apt today as they were when he first wrote them. How long will the Leftists/Statists remain silent regarding the actions of the extreme islamics of the world? Too few it seems are able or capable of speaking out. How long will it be before I will be sought out for speaking out against these world class criminals?
19 muslim (I refuse to capitalize a small time ‘religion’) flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Centers Twin Towers – killing nearly 3000. Our reaction? We strip-search Grandma and Grandpa trying to take a trip to see the grandkids. Crap o dear – we even strip search the kiddies on their way to see the Grandparents. But we do nothing when some idiot with a towel on his head and an obvious mental problem in Saudi Arabia who calls himself an imam or whatever it is they go by orders a death warrant for a few words expressing his God Given right to call his religion as he sees fit. It doesn’t jive with that sick imam’s idea of islam and thats all that needs be said – in their opinion.
I wonder how long it’ll be before our words on pages such as these will be taken as heretical and a death warrant issued for the author? Will my country protect me – you – any of us? I’m of the opinion that the day will come when they will look the other way so as not to ‘offend’ islam. I’m certain that the leftards in this country would not miss the likes of me.
The world has always been a dangerous place. Its become just a little bit more so for muslims wishing to express their opinion. Funny thing – I haven’t seen any death threats for ANY of the extreme islamic positions or those who espouse those extreme positions.
Well said KT… well said.
Those of us born into this “ideology” know all too well the “red lines” and this poor fellow was an absolute fool: first to write what he did (many of us understand only too well he was applying reason and actually thinking…but aloud is like watching a train wreck) and then to flee to Malaysia!
But what frightens those of us who must use stealth and extreme caution although we know we’re still targeted for death for defying certain rules and airing dirty laundry,is how this case serves to illuminate how close to the precipice we really are even if we live in the west. That INTERPOL (of all entities) readily without question implemented the saudi request has had the desired (chilling) effect for many muslims who really do want to think and ponder facts related to the faith they were born into. Can’t say the same applies for the converts…obviously.
We know there is no safety…those who are quick to condemn us for not “saying more or doing more” perhaps are beginning to understand aspects of our dilemma. We are trusted by none( or almost none) and either despised or hated by many for our silence. Like to walk in our egg shell filled shoes sometime??
Until and unless, the non-muslims stand up for human rights across the globe and not the psuedo crap that passes as HR concerns (like Gaza and flotillas), we cannot trust that our children wont be slaughtered if we speak out more and publicly. Believe me we know the “red lines” and we also know how to deal w/the threat from within Islam. But we don’t want to be sacrificial lambs either, especially when our children’s lives are threatened as well.
Start mobilizing before its too late and you will see unexpected support from within…the slaves will rise against the tyrants. But don’t expect huge numbers as most muslims have been well indoctrinated to hate anyone “different” I’m sorry to say.
Even w/all the indoctrination over there to hate hate hate the other (this is our religious studies), there are those who have brains and a conscience to understand/discern right from wrong; evil from good but feel very very alone.Kind of like Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia, where there were some who realized they lived in societies where evil was the norm.
I’m not a racist (that is just a tactic to defame) but I do believe you’ve got to batten down the hatches vis-a-vis immigration policy until this threat within is also dealt with. This won’t be pretty or easy but there are ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. The alternative is camps and deportation and I’m afraid such action can always be justified and there is the Japanese precedent. This is the very painful truth but if/when this civilizational crisis leads to camps in my lifetime (I will understand completely) I just hope deportation isn’t carte blanche for those of us who know what awaits us back in our ancetral homes.
We (americans) have a much much bigger problem under our very noses here that no foreign intervention is ever going to solve.
Nicely stated.
How about a Facebook page called “The Saudi People Can B— Me?”
How many “liberal” Muslims have risen up to defend him? Pretty quiet out there. Most sects of Islam are savage. The Wahhabis are all animals. Wait a minute we let the Saudi pays to send them to our prisons the teach Islam or animal behavior if you can distinguish between Islam and savages.
“How many “liberal” Muslims have risen up to defend him?”
If they had they would be next in line for the axe on account of “blasphemy” or “apostasy”.
Witness the assassination of Salman Taseer, the warm reception the assassin received from all levels of Pakistani establishment (including clerics), the flight of the judge who convicted said assassin and the kidnapping of the judge’s children to ensure such an unislamic sentence is never carried out in the shariah sh*t hole, Pakistan.
Nothing! will be done about anything until Obama is removed from office. Oughta, shoulda coulda are just words until then. A regime that sells guns to Mexican drug cartels does not care about Muslim apostates.
We really need to publicise the name of “Hamza Kashgari”. He has done no-one any harm. While law-courts in Britain, Scandinavia, Canada and the United States find any old reason to prop up islam, here is a man who is genuinely Islamic, but has never attempted either to kill his neighbours, or to persuade his neighbours to kill others.
Why is Interpol involved in this? Now I’m really afraid. Remember one of Barry’s first acts was to sign an Executive Order which allowed Interpol to operate on U.S. soil outside of U.S. laws. Is this being used to inforce Sharia?
The real questions;
Why we continue to sell Saudi Arabia tens of Billions in advanced weaponry
Why we turn a Blind eye to their Wahhabi system of promoting global sharia even within the USA
Why we cannot recognize the problem in ME has always been Saudi Arabia, funding Hamas and terrorist training schools while manipulating US military actions and politics
Why we invaded Iraq when it was Saudi Arabia that should be punished for its global terrorist actions.
This has been going on since President Nixon bent USA over a barrel and gave Saudi Arabia control of America’s Petro dollar System. Maybe one day we will have a President with Backbone.
I think we should send a bunch of nukes along with those arms shipments. Seeing as how they may need them in a hurry, why don’t we send them the fastest way possible!
Mecca and Medina would make such nice glass punchbowls. Perhaps Riyadh would make a nice bidet.
Alex Iran support Hamas with money. Than other nation got than drug dealer sent back from Mexico by not assueing him of drug dealing but of rapeing than small girl which he did. Saudic Arabric most likely accue him of haveing sex with than under aged female.
Weird, we’re exploring other solar systems and these people still think it’s 700 AD. In another generation the Muzzies will give up fire as un-Islamic.
This poor chap is a true extremist within Islam. He will get his head cut off for not following a murderer. The religion of peace will not stand for this extremism. It is the will of Allah. One of 360 gods at the kaaba.
Now, back to the really important news. Whittney Houston’s last ride.
And, just as important Michelle Obama is on vacation.
Wow, I wonder what the French would do if the poor chap had been vacationing in Paris? Would the French have served the Interpol warrant and deported him? After all, he’s no Roman Polanski wanted in LA for sodomizing a teenager, and the French do get their oil from middle east, which is not the same as getting your movies from Hollywood–a town most grateful that Roman wasn’t extradited to face the music. What’s a little beheading of a Saudi national for violating his admittedly backward cultural traditions?
I wrote a post
http://stonefree2rant.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/hamza-kashgari%E2%80%A6e-21st-century/
which has some links you can email protests. If anyone has ideas about which congressmen might be sympathetic, I’d like to know.
Why is Interpol now hunting down innocents instead of criminals and terrorists? If he is executed, Interpol will have innocent blood on their hands. Thanks to Interpol, innocent Kashgari’s suffering will be enormous.
DOES ISLAM NOW RULE THE WORLD?
Interpol has now joined in the Hunt Against People who make negative comments about Mohammad or Islam? Is Interpol’s next step to hunt down people in non-Muslim countries? Obama/Clinton met with the OIC seeking to criminalize negative speech about Islam. The EU plans to do the same thing. It is NOT only Muslims who believe that Islam is the ONLY acceptable religion on earth. Islam adorers – non-Muslim ruling elites also believe that. They make a mockery of the many brave heroes who fought and died in the Second World War so that we could live in freedom and safety.
Interpol will bear Responsibility if he’s put to Death for speaking mere words. Words that did NOT incite to hate or violence. Every Muslim apostate and every non-Muslim should be concerned. Have the world’s non-Muslim ruling elites totally abandoned all belief in freedom and human rights?
Thousands of Saudis are outraged over words? Hundreds of millions of us are outraged that we are losing our freedom. We should all be in the world’s city streets in mass protests.
Islamic supremism is now incorporated into the progressive agenda.Obama will never defend the rights of other religions in Muslim ruled countries,nor will any American Muslim leader.
“Law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” Thomas Jefferson
Since Mr. Kashgari possesses a natural unalienable God-given right to his own life, and since Islamic Sharia Law (as opposed to the peaceful practice of Islamic prayer and worship) violates his right to life, we see that Islamic Sharia Law is but the tyrant’s will.
It is horrifying to learn that Hamza Kashgari may face the death penalty for blasphemy. Laws against blasphemy imply that the Creator of the heavens and the earth is so poor and helpless that He needs protection so that His feelings won’t be hurt. The existence of such laws is in itself an example of blasphemy.
President Obama should publicly appeal to the rulers of Saudi Arabia calling for the release of Mr. Kashgari.
Saudi Arabia has been committing terrorism on a global scale for decades…if it takes one man’s murder to shed light on their atrocities then great, but it speaks great injustice to thousands murdered by Saudi Arabia in past decades while Europe and America looked the other way
The price of access to Petroleum.
Well, I’ll tell you one thing…from now on I’m going to be very careful not to blaspheme the Holy Prophet Muhammad (shit be upon him).
It is not clear at this time if Interpol was used. It seems doubtful given Interpol’s protocols.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION…to save Hamza Kashgari’s life.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/death-calls-for-saudi-poet-and-blogger/
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