Posted on 11/12/2006 9:18:00 AM PST by 68skylark
Daniel Freedman holds down the fort at the New York Sun's It Shines for All. On Friday Daniel interviewed Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, facing trial and a possible death sentence for "praising Jews and Christians," "spying for Israel," and being "an agent of the Mossad" -- because he advocated relations between Israel and Bangladesh:
He's also accused of being critical of Islamic radicals, which is considered blasphemy. He committed these crimes by writing articles favorable toward Jews and Christians.I missed this devastating story when (as Daniel notes) Bret Stephens devoted his weekly Wall Street Journal column ("Darkness in Dhaka," subscribers only) to it. Daniel notes that America is far from powerless to help Choudhury:
He did so, he says, because while he was born and raised in a Muslim country (Bangladesh) where he was taught a "religion of hatred" and a "religion of Jihad," his father "told from an early age not to listen and to learn for himself." He did and became friends with Jews, realized the lies he had been taught, and wanted to end "the culture of hatred." He says that if "Muslim countries want peace they need relations with Israel."
Mr. Choudhury says he holds no hope of getting a fair trial. The judge, he says, is a radical Islamist who has already made clear his view that Mr. Choudhury is guilty. "In open court ... he made comments that by praising Christians and Jews I have hurt the sentiment of Muslims...which is a crime," the journalist says. Other comments made by the Judge have made it clear, Mr. Choudhury tells me, that the judge's goal is a conviction and a death sentence. Mr. Choudhury describes his judge as a "one man judge and jury," and Mr. Choudhury cannot even present witnesses in his own defense.
While the trial is prejudged and Mr. Choudhury will be given a death sentence, the president of the country can drop the charges if the national interest is at stake. And here's where America comes in. America gives Bangladesh $63 million a year. The American people and government might begin to question what we're getting for our investment.Daniel concludes his column with a plea for us to raise our voices:
When asked what the free world can do to help him, Mr. Choudhury replies, "The more international voices" protesting the case, the better. "We can fight together and we will win." Mr. Choudhury is a man in the mold of such heroes of freedom as Vaclac Havel and Lech Walesa.In "Bangladesh" George Harrison sang, "It's something we can't neglect." The sentiment applies in spades to the fate of Choudhury. The trial commences tomorrow.
The question for the American government and people is, will we stand up for him?
I do believe that the journalist is a dead man walking .
No more merchandise made in Bangladesh, thanks.
stinkin mooselimbs.
now I am targeted.
>>The question for the American government and people is, will we stand up for him? <
If he was a Mexican drug dealer then he'd be in fine shape, journalists aren't on the help list. Sorry Bud.
Many in the American left would convict him too; they aren't fond of Christians and Jews and advocate divestment from Israel.
After 6 years of a Republican White House and Congress, why the heck are we still sending $63 million a year to Bangladesh?
Then this was needed for clarification:Originally Posted by Joe MuslimOk, so here's a problem with Islam (you asked me to cite one, right?) ...
The Gospels are not the same as the New Testament. The Gospels (Injeel) was the direct revelation from Allah to Jesus (pbuh). The New Testament is the collection of books written by the apostles of Jesus (pbuh). They are not the same.
Muhammad clearly STATES that Jesus was a true prophet of Allah.
He even clearly STATES that Jesus was born of a virgin and she is named.
But he clearly implies that such a special prophet was somehow unable to select men to be his closest followers who would faithfully communicate his gospel to the world.
It is not the case that that a Muslim can assert – as many modern scholars attempt to do – that the apostles DID NOT write the New Testament but that it was written later by people "inventing" a religion much in the same way they ascribe the post-exile Jews "inventing" their own sacred history....
No, a Muslim cannot assert that the Jews at the time of Jesus were NOT a people with a literary habit with respect to religious things because the Koran prevents that assertion.
So what is left is that the apostles themselves and their immediate successors were the ones who corrupted the true gospel that Jesus had brought from Allah.
This is a classical dilemma.
Either Jesus is this special prophet AND he was unable to select faithful disciples.
OR
Jesus is this special prophet AND he selected precisely the sorts of disciples he wanted KNOWING that they would do as Muslims assert.
Assume the former and Jesus becomes incompetent. Assume the latter and you may as well assert that Allah wants so many people to be apart from the true gospel.
There is a way to resolve this dilemma by taking neither of the invited means of attack ... but I don't think one could do so and remain a Muslim.
If you're going to insult Islam, better to try to do REAL harm than just bad mouth it. This was my attempt to just that.Originally Posted by marcrodzActually, it is only nonsense if one accepts this premise of Islam, that the truth was perverted and lost.
This is such no-sense!!! It is like questioning God why he created Eve knowing that she could be tempted...or asking God why he gave us free will so that we could deny God and then punish us for using that power.
Here's the issue: Jews were a literate people with a habit of writing on such matters as religion. The apostles were no different. Luke even states that numerous early Christians writers had set out to make a faithful recording of what had happened ... further, Luke clearly indicates that he used first person references for his text (even including Mary who is repeatedly described as storing up these things in her heart – or committing them to memory).
The point of writing something down is not to bring it to life but rather to cause it to become FIXED and IMMUTABLE ... to be what it is.
Thus for Islam to be respected one must ignore the dilemma imposed because Muhammad sought to give Jesus His props even as he insisted that His disciples somehow corrupted His teachings.
It is not nonsense to point out that Islam has, at its core, so glaring an inconsistency.
The disciples of the Rabbis don't have this problem because, recognizing Moses, they refuse to recognize Yeshua (His Jewish name transliterated in Greek as "Jesus").
The disciples of Jesus don't have this problem because, recognizing both Moses and Yeshua, they have the whole ball of wax (especially if they are physically children of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob).
It is the disciples of Muhammad who have this problem. First because it was imposed upon them from the start, also because they are in a poor position to refute the antiquity of either Jewish or Christian text SINCE THEIR'S ARE MORE RECENT, and thirdly because they must allow that God was somehow incapable of preserving His revealed truth from human mendacity not once – but twice – even as they then turn around and claim that they have not lost or perverted the truth.
Neither Christians nor Rabbinical Jews have these problems because they do not claim that those whom they accept have ever had their teachings corrupted as Muhammad did.
This is really the crux of the issue: it is not that Muhammad came later that puts his disciples in this bind ... it is that Muhammad imposed a dilemma on them that they must ignore.
Only by closing their eyes and pretending that the dilemma isn't there does the appearance of the dilemma go away.
And these are the horns of the dilemma:
EITHER Jesus was incompetent and incapable of choosing faithful disciples.
OR Jesus was culpable in His selection of those disciples knowing, as a true prophet should, their character.
The NT clearly says that He knew the hearts of men and needed no one to tell Him what men were truly like. He announced even before hand that one of His disciples, one of the 12, was a devil. But in the context of the NT, THAT disciple was a necessary evil to deliver Him to a Roman cross at the appointed time. Please realize what He said about the one who betrayed Him, that it would have been better for him that he not be born. There is no stronger condemnation possible.
If Muhammad's teachings are so obviously flawed with respect to something as important as those who previously received the truth then why should anyone trust anything that he was reputed to have said?
As far as I can see the only possible solution to the dilemma (to avoid its horns) is to refute Muhammad's claims about Jesus and the Jews, which would probably lead to one of four courses of theological action:
1) Join the Islamic equivalent of a liberal church or synagogue where even though the proper words or on the door it's a theological free for all once inside. That wouldn't make them necessarily peaceful, only apostate.
2) Become a Christian.
3) Seek to convert to Judaism.
4) Simply cease to be a Muslim by becoming secular or else by adopting some other religious or theological tradition not mentioned by Muhammad.
They are not "Citizens of the World" as they like to pretend. They are anti-Western and anti-freedom.
What should we do to help him?
HA!!
Hear-hear!!
"...journalists aren't on the help list."
No they're not, & justly so.
This one had better make peace to whatever he prays to (the Journalism God?) because he's about -- in accordance with the Koran, no less -- lose his head.
"Sorry Bud."
You're a kind person.
...I'm not. ;^)
That's a great question. I guess a short note to your senator or US representative would be the most powerful gesture -- especially if any of them are on a foreign relations committee.
I'm afraid you're right. I guess it's up to those of us on the right to speak up in his favor.
Thanks, for the idea, 68skylark.
There are Freepers who believe that when the likes of Steve Centanni are kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, that the conversion sticks. I have always been of the opinion that Centanni would keep his own counsel and believe in God as he wishes to. I do not believe that he is a Muslim, today.
That being said, this writer, Choudhury, was influenced by his father, from a very young age. His father taught him to find the fallacies in Islam. He kept his beliefs inside his heart, where only God can find them. He truly is a brave soul. And I will pray for him.
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