Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch), an authority on Islam, writing today at Frontpage magazine reports that a discussion about practices sanctioned by Sharia law, such as female genital mutilation, child marriage and stoning as punishment for adultery, was squelched at a recent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.
As more Muslim immigrants enter the US through refugee resettlement and other immigration programs we have been fearful that brutal practices such as these may creep into America—indeed may already be here!
We have written often about polygamy and honor killings being practiced among immigrants from Islamic countries as well. See our categories, health issues and women’s issues, for more on all these affronts to human dignity.
Spencer begins:
The war against free speech is advancing rapidly: Associated Press reported Thursday that “Muslim countries have won a battle to prevent Islam from being criticised during debates by the UN Human Rights Council.” Council President Doru-Romulus Costea explained that religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it.” Henceforth only religious scholars would be permitted to broach them.
“While Costea’s ban applies to all religions,” AP explained, “it was prompted by Muslim countries complaining about references to Islam.” The ban came after a heated session on Monday, when the representative of the Association for World Education (AWE), in a joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, denounced female genital mutilation, the penalty of stoning for adultery and child marriage as sanctioned by Islamic law. Egypt, Pakistan and Iran angrily protested, interrupting the AWE speaker, David Littman, with no less than 16 points of order, and succeeding in getting the Council’s proceedings suspended for over half an hour. In the course of this contentious discussion, the representatives from the Islamic countries made numerous revealing statements – statements that are well worth examining as Islamic nations and organizations call with increasing insistence for restrictions on free speech in the West.
Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, the representative from Pakistan, echoed the ever-echoing refrain of all Islamic apologists in the West, when he complained that Littman’s initiative on genital mutilation, stoning and child marriage amounted to an “out-of-context, selective discussion on the Sharia law.”
Read the whole Frontpage article here.