Pakistan Senate Backs Rape Reform Law

[SteveGrenard]

Devout muslims such as the below named Khurshid Ahmed oppose this action. Hopefully they will not prevail.

Pakistan senate backs rape bill

Gen Musharraf has said women need to be better protected

The upper house of Pakistan's parliament has backed a bill amending an Islamic law on rape and adultery.

Until now rape cases have been dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - or else face prosecution for adultery. The new law, which must be approved by Pakistani leader Gen Pervez Musharraf, allows civil courts to try rape cases.

The senate rejected objections to the bill put forward by Islamist MPs who boycotted last week's lower house vote. Khurshid Ahmed, a leader of an opposition coalition of religious parties, described the bill as "an attempt to promote an alien culture and secularism in Pakistan", according to the Associated Press news agency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6178214.stm

 

[Darth Rotor]

Devout muslims such as the below named Khurshid Ahmed oppose this action. Hopefully they will not prevail.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6178214.stm

Steve, wouldn't the term "reactionary" (versus "progressive") be a more accurate descriptive than "devout?"

The Emir of Qatar (home nation of Al Jazeera) is a progressive Muslim, and he is also devout. What he isn't is reactionary, like the Wahabi sorts in Saudi.

DR

 

[SteveGrenard]

Devout muslims are orthodox muslims. They follow the quaran, the hadith and support Shari'a. I agree and have always agreed that those opposed to blindly following islamic dictates are (obviously) not devout. I think you are right calling them progressives.

To date the problem is numbers. There are a billion muslims but how many of these are opposed to their quaran, shari'a and the hadith? How many are progressive? I keep hearing from the apologists (def: defenders of the faith such as Claus Larsen, Zep, Darat, Cleon and a few others) that not all muslims are terrorists and I agree with that. But this terrorist ploy is propagandizing by one person and his homeboys/-girls. What we don't know is that what % of the billion or more muslims extant in the world today support the shari'a, the hadith and follow quaranic scripture literally or not. Even small numbers of devout muslims (e.g. tens of thousands?) following the hadith, quaran and Shari'a system faithfully can cause big problems: look no further than the greater horn of Africa as Ethiopia yesterday announced again they were ready to repel to the death the muslim/Arab militias massing on their borders. Or explain how a handful of progressives will stem the muslim/Arab militias that have been killing innocents and sabotaging relief efforts in places like the Darfur? Uganda and Kenya expect to be next as the
islamization of sub-Saharan Africa by the muslim sword continues. What's happening in Africa makes all other islamic anachronisms minor by comparison.
How will the progressives stop elements in Syria from assasinating Christian politicians in Lebanon?
How will the progressives put a stop to the President of Iran's ambition to wipe Israel off the map and start a nuclear holocaust in his own backyard?

(cross posted to additional thread on this subject)

 

[Beerina]

Steve, wouldn't the term "reactionary" (versus "progressive") be a more accurate descriptive than "devout?"

The Emir of Qatar (home nation of Al Jazeera) is a progressive Muslim, and he is also devout. What he isn't is reactionary, like the Wahabi sorts in Saudi.

DR

Is it in their holy book? After all, devout Christians might legitimately support the execution of gay men. Only non-devout ones don't.

 

[SteveGrenard]

The death penalty is prescribed under Shari'a for homosexuality. If Christians have done this, they have done it hundreds of years ago and insofar as anyone could possibly be aware they don't do it now. Islam per se rejects modernity. This is the problem. However, Christianity, particularly Catholicism, still has a lot to answer for in modern times such as banning the use of condoms, helping to spread STDS and fatal diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Orthodox Judaism (Hasidic) which boasts strict adherence to "hygienic" laws calls for ritual circumcision including the practice of the rabbi performing the procedure of sucking away the baby's blood using his mouth. A recent case in New York resulted in a number of babies contracting genital herpes from one particular rabbi; at least one baby died. Nobody knows how many babies throughout the world who are subjected to this may've become infected or died as a result of this anachronistic and decidedly unhygienic practice dating back several thousand years.

Hasidic circumcision rite debated
By GARY STERN
THE JOURNAL NEWS (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 02.06.05)




The suctioning of blood by mouth during ritual circumcisions has long been dropped as a common practice by most of the Jewish world, but many Jews and non-Jews alike were shocked to learn in recent days that the practice remains standard in many Hasidic communities.

The largely unknown practice, which has been used during the Jewish circumcision ritual for thousands of years, came to public attention last week when New York City health officials said that a Hasidic rabbi and mohel from Monsey was suspected of transmitting the herpes virus to three New York City infants he had circumcised. One of the infants died in October.

Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, a prominent Hasidic mohel, suctions blood orally during the circumcision ritual, known as a bris, in order to remove impurities. He is suspected of passing the oral herpes virus, which generally produces cold sores but can be passed to another person's genital area.

Rockland County health officials said they would do their own investigation.

It is now quite some time and no further news on this "investigation." I wonder why, then again, no I don't.

from:

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060619/NEWS12/606190401/1028

 

[Darth Rotor]

Is it in their holy book? After all, devout Christians might legitimately support the execution of gay men. Only non-devout ones don't.

No, not only non devout don't, as the problem of interpreting the detail of meaning is a source of continual debate. I hardly call an Episcopalean less devout than a Catholic, or a Southern Baptist, but the doctrinal approach to homosexuals differs among those sects.

You make a gross, and for my money, inaccurate generalization about Christians, which you are obviously not. Way to set up a strawman, painted with a tar brush.

I think devout is the wrong descriptive. Being devout is a far more personal thing, in terms of how deeply one immerses oneself into one's Faith. You can be devout without being a busybody.

As I see it, Orthodox, doctrinaire, activist, or reactionary are far better descriptives for those unwilling to improve the fit between Faith, and material setting as modernity continues to accelerate the pace of the pysical change of our surroundings.

I realize I am splitting hairs over word selection.

DR

 

[Polaris]

The death penalty is prescribed under Shari'a for homosexuality. If Christians have done this, they have done it hundreds of years ago and insofar as anyone could possibly be aware they don't do it now. Islam per se rejects modernity. This is the problem. However, Christianity, particularly Catholicism, still has a lot to answer for in modern times such as banning the use of condoms, helping to spread STDS and fatal diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Orthodox Judaism (Hasidic) which boasts strict adherence to "hygienic" laws calls for ritual circumcision including the practice of the rabbi performing the procedure of sucking away the baby's blood using his mouth. A recent case in New York resulted in a number of babies contracting genital herpes from one particular rabbi; at least one baby died. Nobody knows how many babies throughout the world who are subjected to this may've become infected or died as a result of this anachronistic and decidedly unhygienic practice dating back several thousand years.




It is now quite some time and no further news on this "investigation." I wonder why, then again, no I don't.

from:

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060619/NEWS12/606190401/1028

Makes me wonder how something like that would be okay but eating pork - eeeeeeeeeew, no, it's not clean!