An Afghan journalism student was sentenced to death for distributing an article about Islam and women’s rights that “insulted” Islam. He was sentenced January 23rd by a three-judge panel in ultra-religious Mazar-e-Sharif because he distributed an Internet report to his fellow journalism students that asks why men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands. No jokes are permitted in Islam.

1. Insulting Islam. “Insulting” Islam has long been a good reason for executing someone in the Muslim world. Now that Muslims have spilled out into the Western world, there are many who would like to extend these death sentences to non-Muslims as well, such as Pope Benedict, Danish cartoonists, and an assortment of novelists.
2. Insulting Warlords. Some people think that the real target of ire is not this student, but rather his brother, who has done some hard-hitting pieces outlining abuses by some powerful warlords. If the Karzai government does not intervene or the student does not secure asylum elsewhere, he will be the first of the three journalists executed in the six years since we ejected the Taliban in Afghanistan.
3. Attending School. Another reason for a death sentence in Afghanistan is attending school. So far, in the southern (Taliban-infested) part of the country, there is an active campaign to close schools and force teenage boys to join the Islamic militia. In the past year, students driven out of school have increased from 200,000 to 300,000 while students and teachers killed have gone from 46 to 147. The most ferocious attacks have been on girls’ schools and their teachers, of course. Unless the international community (or NATO) does something about this, Afghanistan will once more decline to its miserable backwardness under the Taliban.
4. Murderous Female Islamists. Just as we have become accustomed to thinking of Muslim women as murder victims (the notorious “honor” killings, which are on the increase in the Western world), a new movement is beginning to flourish in Great Britain. According to an NPR week-long report on Muslims in Europe, the British have a serious new problem: the radicalization of Muslim women whose parents and grandparents came from India and Pakistan. It seems that radicalization is gaining over the desire to integrate into British society. One young woman was arrested when she published a poem that described how easy it is to decapitate someone. “You tilt the fool’s head to the left and then saw and saw,” she wrote. The judge put her on probation – but did confess that he found her very puzzling. How is that for British understatement?

This movement in the UK represents considerable threat to the society at large in that when even women militantly refuse integration, their society will be increasingly isolated – separate, and far from equal. In addition, there will be much more reason for looking upon veiled women as potential terrorists. This has already been noted in the increase in women suicide bombers in the Arab world. What is most unfortunate is that the young radicals, both men and women, are actively radicalizing their hitherto integrated parents and grandparents. Not only are headscarves on the increase, but the full burka and its rationale are as well.

One hopeful trend. The first sign of resistance to the growth industry of Islamic radicalization is a women’s organization in Germany, started by an Iranian German, attracting those who want to flee Islam altogether. There are more of them than one would suspect considering the death threats that greet apostates from Islam. The organizer of this group is a young woman who broke with her conservative family herself and who believes that there are many who would – and should – do the same.

At the moment, reform of Islam is looking pretty dim. Leaving it altogether may be a desperate but reasonable option for those who want to join a Europe that is resolutely secular. More power to them!

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