Wow, you honestly think there have only been a ‘handfull’ of honour killings? Without trying to sound arrogant i really do suggest you research a bit on the subject,to assist i provide you with this;

“The overwhelming majority of Muslim societies are free from such practices, although they do endure in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 2000 there are approximately 5,000 deaths annually from “honor” killings.”

From this page : http://www.newislamicdirections.com/…onor_killings/

Ok I used the wrong word, Handful does not sound right, lets use the 5000 figure which is horrific nevertheless. Let me again quote what I wrote with regards to honour killings

this has happened with people who take on cultural practices and are not with the time. Lack of education if you will. The actions of a few should not tarnish the majority.

if you can find a quranic verse that supports Honor killings I will change my stance on this subject. Also read the first line that you have quoted.

From the link you provided:

This practice has absolutely no sanction in the Qur’an, the Prophetic practice, or in the evolved systems of Islamic law.

Nice to see you trying to play the moral equivilence game but you’ve failed. Your answer would have been appropriate centurys ago, perhaps several decades ago even but as it stands right now the Catholic church is leagues ahead in terms of tolarence toward them then Islam, you may now dig up some cases that highlight the churches ‘unfairness’ or whatever to the groups you mention but thats a far cry from the daily horrors that women and gays have to face in Islamic societies, women and gays getting stoned to death etc is not something that the Catholic Church approves of yet it is common place in certain Islamic states. Your a women thats been brutaly raped by a bunch of men in an Islamic country, well thats a stoning to death for you unfortuanatly

I dont understand how people can generalise so much to brand a whole religion over the actions of governments who dont represent their people (let alone a religion) and over cases that have happened in a handful. No woman was flogged for being raped this has been totally taken out of context. Yes the saudi law was extreme and was dropped nevertheless, and that law has nothing to do with Islamic teaching which many clerics use to push forward their own agenda’s. 20million saudis dont represent 1.2 billion muslims nor does 60 millions persians represent 1.2 billion muslims and thats generalising all the people in the same boat which is a far exageration.

I wonder how many muslim majority countries you have visited to make a general assumption that women in the islamic societies face “horrors”. This is gross exaggerations on your part. its like me saying all catholic priests are pedophiles because of the numerous cases that have come out over the years. i find that a very narrow minded way to look at the world. Iv been to numerous muslim countries, Muslim women in Indonesia, Malaysia, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, India, syria, lebanon, dont face horrors, they are empowered to work and be apart of society. These countries account around 800 million muslim people. There have been handful of cases where “honour killings” and other abuses have happened, this has happened with people who take on cultural practices and are not with the time. Lack of education if you will. The actions of a few should not tarnish the majority.

another point most people overlook is islam gave rights to women when the west was still in the dark ages. Most countries today who are predominantly muslim (there is not an islamic state in the world) are around 60 years old, quite young nations if you ask me. Most were carved out after the second world war, how can one compare those countries with western countries like britain, america, france, germany ect who have had a strong democratic and integral setup and been around for centuries in some cases.

Now touching on the gays issue, yes that is a big taboo in the muslim world and gays are likly to be mistreated more so than in the west. But one should not turn a blind eye to what religious leaders say who are not muslim regarding gays in the west. Some have gone as far to call them a cancer to society.

And whats funny is, we hear how “Christian” the US is, all us nut jobs and our crosses…..however, some sick idiots using the name of God to rail against gays at a military person’s funeral have now been shut up…..not because we care what they say, but because we have some respect for the dead and families in this country. Quite frankly i think its absurd to have to pass a law in order to curtail this… these idiots could quickly be rounded up, ran over, whatever and dealt with by, ehmmmmmm, personal means. As a matter of fact, there was a group of bikers (motorcyclist) that were going to go to the funerals to make sure these people were kept away thank god, and quite frankly, i don’t care how they did it.

The word in that whole paragraph that came out to me was “Respect”, for the simple reason to have some high moral standards and respect for families of those dead these fanatical people if you wish are being silenced. When one looks at other issues the same methods should apply to have “Rspect” with ones beliefs and oneself. There is no harm in criticizing something you have a problem with but to link it with freedom of expression and then blatantly curb other freedoms (as the ones I have listed happening in Europe) is plain hypocrasy.

I especially like you last statement…..Are you trying to say because the Muslim world hasn’t championed freedom of speech, they can not be hypocritical…..only the west can? Please, Ive heard this same argument over and over again, such as minorities cant be racist because they don’t have the power to institute their racism……and with all due respect this/these ideas are just hogwash.

No im not trying to say that at all, im pointing out what the media in the west is trying to portray but its very different in reality. Muslim countries are not on the freedom to express bandwagon most of the west are they make a point to highlight this like in cartoon episode and others. Hypocrisy is not isolated to any one region.

Im not on some crusade to descredit the west and demonise it, I have lived in the west my whole life I have seen the good and bad parts and Im expressing how I feel on this subject.

And, when you will all like to condemn the US for incarcerating people who haven’t done anything, just planning or doing something stupid…….ill agree to a very fine line, this is a debate within the US not just on one side, but also on the hard right side, because we question the “power of the government”. However, I once heard a very interesting quote…”The Constitution is not a suicide pact”….and ill leave it at that.

Americans and every other nation in the world need to question the power of their governments, many civil liberties have been curbed in the name of security. Everyone needs to remember they govern to serve us not the other way around.

You are a very tiresome individual. Just admit that there is nothing wrong with the Danish cartoons and stop ranting about hypocrisy. I am utterly fed up with you using criticism of the west as a smoke screen to justify the violent, barbaric and oppressive nature of large strands of Islam.

The issue is simple, people should have every right to create and distribute cartoons like the Danish ones, agree or disagree.

The western media is biased and the laws are full of hypocrasy, let me again give you a quick list of contradictions refute them if you can:

1) If you deny the holocaust or question the full historical account you go to jail for a very long time. Where is the free speach in that?,

2)The Iranians produced some distasteful pictures about the holocaust if European press is so upbeat about free speach why did they not show them?.

3) Two years ago the Catholic church won a court injunction to ban a fashion ad based on the Last Supper. The judge said the ad was “a gratuitous … act of intrusion on people’s innermost beliefs.” Why did the law rule in favour of religion?

4) In sweden a clergyman told his congregation that homosexuality was a “deep cancer tumour” on society. He was soon after rushed to the court. Hes conviction was overturned by swedish courts they ruled that his comments were protected by free speech laws. the clergyman said “I wanted to spark a debate and I’ve done that” the same thing the newspapers say about the cartoons today. again Why did the law rule in favour of religion?

5) Lastest news these days about 5 muslim guys were jails for downloading, viewing and sharing extremist propaganda, where is the freedom in speach in that. They have now been released as no connections to any terrorism was linked to them, they were jailed because of curiosity.

6) A muslim woman was given a suspended sentence for writing poetry glorifying terrorism/violence.

7) In the US several states have restricted funeral protests from anti-gay christian protesters who have said the soldiers killed in recent conflicts such as in Iraq died because they were gay. The states gives “a constitutional right to state their opinion” but have curbed these nevertheless.

8) The spanish royal family intervened and had sex cartoons of them removed from publications, what happened to freedom to express there.

if the above examples arnt good enough for you Il get anothr 8 if you really want to compare the hyporasy. Muslim countries never have championed supporting freedom to express, the west has.

Now the Danish cartoon, it won’t kill anyone (unless poisoned ink arghh) ,its not telling anyone to kill anyone else, its not the instrctions how to blow something or someone up, infact its not actually doing anything physically harmfull at all (unless you count the poor trees whom donated the paper toward it). the only ‘harm’ its doing is wind people up really, and lets face it, those who get wound up by a cartoon or to use another example a Jerry Springer Christian mocking play (remember that one lolz) need to, to use my fave expression ‘Man-up’ a bit. Edit: arghh i don’t mean you man-up, just to make that clear incase it looked like that! Edit#2: Mod Man, my avatar? i havnt uploaded anything offense and i made sure of that, i wonder did the cat pic look like something else?? Whats wrong with my angry American dude avatar? please tell incase he’s some mass murderer or stalker or something!

Questioning historical facts shouldn’t kill anyone either, nor should protesting about being anti-gay, nor should downloading material of jihadis propaganda for whatever reasons (minus the intent on violence), nor should putting up cartoons (spanish royal family satire that was quickly removed) but as you can see all the above have been curbed. The cartoon issue incites hatred and violence as may the examples I gave too minus the spanish royal family one. So its a morality issue, something here in europe is lacking with the inconsistent laws of freedom of expression.

well the fact those five guys were released without charge is says to me they’re in the clear, but the fact is that they decided to download such material – which they did not deny doing, now if i were to go over now to some fundamentalist website or whatever and start downloading PDF’s on how to make things go boom i would certainly expect a prompt raid at my house and a vacation in jail. If these guys were downloading the material they did and were observed doing so by the security services but then the security services did nothing, that would be a far greater problem and one that potentially endangered the lives of hundreds of innocent people.Edit: in short they were extremely stupid and very lucky to walk out of court as free citizens! It mighta hurt there feelings but tough luck when the lives of fellow citizens and guests to our country are in danger.

See again you are jumping to your own conclusion and laying out the law here. Lets look at what the court said in this case, they apparently downloaded material because of curiosity and obsession with Jihad, the presecution was saying they were plotting to carry out terrorist attacks but no plans had been brought forward or shown. So the case was thrown out the window, its like me going into a fertiliser shop and buying pottasium nitrate for my vegatables in my garden, now can the law prosecute me on the pretence I may use this to make a bomb? and it just so happens I have some youtube videos of attacks on american soldiers in Iraq so the presecution adds the dots and makes up a story.

My point being there is no real ground here. Now coming back to the civil liberties question so we are not alowed to download, distribute jihadi propaganda? again it may be morally wrong but what happened to freedom to express? if newspapers can show propaganda and get away with it what is wrong in a bunch of people doing the same?

i do see where your coming from but i think some of your examples are rather iffy, the 5 guys jailed for downloading, viewing and sharing extremist propaganda for example – i wouldnt for one second believe they did it because they were curious and heck if i were in law enforcement i’d have rounded them up too as people that download that kind of stuff are damned dangerous. The women who wrote poetry about terrorism too commited a clear offence, i would have prefered a far tougher sentancing myself as what she did is encouraging murder. i do however agree with you about the laws surrounding the holocaust but as far as i’m aware i can oly think of that one guy, David Irvine i think is his name who has been jailed for it. As for the Fred Phelps supporters in America at the funerals of the soldiers, damn good thing they’re banned too as there nothing but a lunatic group and honestly who in thier right mind thinks its morally acceptable to protest at some poor guys funeral, i for one am glad such stupid ‘free speech’ exercises such as that can be halted before people start getting hurt.

From your reaction I can see you have a view on a number of points I highlighted, note though how all points showed how people were reflecting their freedom to express the very thing your talking against now whether right or wrong morally, what gives you the right to say yes those peoples views should be quashed?. None of the people involved carried out any crime as such, even the 5 guys arrested in the UK which was a first of its case the case has now been dismissed. While morally its wrong to do all these things as it hurts feelings one can say even cartoons or anything else of its kind has the same affect. So why the double standards?.

hhmm part of the point of my post was to show the glaring hypocracy of certain middle east nations regarding thier cartoons which may i remind you are printed almost daily and as i say far more shocking then any picture of the prophet, please if you do not believe me head to google and do a google image search for ‘anti semitic cartoons’ ,many of the results you will see are straight from the printing presses of middle eastern newspapers. ps you’ll need safe search option on google set too off’ .

The hypocrasy of a number of middle eastern countries are not in question here, all of them are not democrasies that talk about guarding freedom of expression. The west unlike allot of the middle eastern countries is not in a state of war with israel so you can expect this kind of behaviour although its wrong nevertheless. One could argue the west is in a state of war with islam maybe that is why islamaphobia is on the rise.

The west has long championed freedom of expression the middle eastern countries havnt. The hypocrasy and irony lies in some of the examples I have highlighted. This is what makes european law look like a joke.