The BBC reports the utterly barbaric death of a 14 year old girl in Bangladesh.
Can you possibly guess why? Yep, no surprise or shock, its what we expect. Just one single word sums it all up … “islam”. (Yes, I’ve not used upper-case, I refuse to do so)
She was accused of having an affair, so a village court consisting of elders and clerics passed the sentence. When challenged, they claim that the punishment was given under Islamic Sharia law. She was sentenced and then given 80 lashes. She was then later admitted to a hospital after the incident and died there six days later.
The authorities have (quite rightly) stepped in, so far four people have been arrested and another 14 are still wanted.
“What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice,” Mosammet’s father, Dorbesh Khan, 60, told the BBC.
Here are a couple of links that give you a lot more information about all this. First we have the BBC report on it here, then we also have the Newspaper report in the UK’s Guardian here.
Check out the Guardian page, some of the folks writing comments there have been removed, some of the others still in place are more or less dancing on her grave. These are (as you might expect), the islamic believers doing the, “Oh thats not ‘real’ islam dance that they always do when faced with such incidents. It becomes a “them” and “us” song about how islam is really all about peace and that true muslims would never do this … er no, sorry but you don’t get to play that card … period.
Choosing to believe in a made up supernatural entity and claiming that it has given you a book of bizarre rules for you to impose on others is at the root of all this. The truth is that lots of smart folks do truly believe many weird things, and I’m OK with that. However, the moment you start to impose anything on others you have crossed a line. islam (as do many other beliefs) crosses that line and must be robustly challenged and told, “believe whatever bullshit you like, but you don’t get to dictate to others”. If not, then this is where it will lead you.
When faced with the claim that religion is a forced for good in the world, be skeptical. The evidence does not support that claim.
Brilliantly written, David. Both angry yet controlled and reasoned.
This is truly appalling. In any civilised society if intercourse had taken place it would constitute statutory rape, and Mosammet would be regarded as a victim. From reading the Guardian report it is unclear if intercourse did take place, and it seems that the evidence of wrongdoing was provided by the wife of the man involved. Of course, Mohammed clearly did not understand the concept of underage sex himself, so what chance is there for a women’s rights in his religion.
All this is bad enough, but to then blame the child and flog her to death is so barbaric as to beggar belief in the 21st century.