A newspaper editor has been kicked out in Sarawak, Malaysia for reprinting the famous prophet Muhammed cartoon. He was asked to resign. It is deemed a major offence to tarnish the islamic value. I was under the impression that Malaysia is a democratic country and secular. However, anything to do with islam is the rule now. You can even sack an editor for a cartoon.
Honestly I am worried about the editor’s life. Why? We can see from the past..
In 1989, Indian born British author Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death for blasphemy by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini for Rushdie’s depiction of Muhammad as a businessman in his novel The Satanic Verses. Khomeini offered a $3 million reward to anyone carrying out the sentence against Rushdie. Other Islamic scholars follow suit, providing similar fatwa.
Hitoshi Igarashi, the book’s Japanese translator was murdered at the university where he taught in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 60 kilometres north of Tokyo.
The book’s Italian translator was beaten and stabbed in Milan.
William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher was shot in 1993.
37 people, who had come to listen to a speech by the translator and publisher (of some parts of the book) Aziz Nesin, a well-known satirist, perished in a tragic escalation of events when the hotel where they had gathered was torched in Sivas, Turkey.
In May 1994, a fatwa on Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin came after she was quoted in The Statesman that “…the Koran should be revised thoroughly.” This follows attacks and persecution of Taslima for her 1993 book Lajja (Bangla word for ‘shame’)
In 1998, Ghulam Akbar, a Shi’a Muslim, was convicted, in a Rahimyar Khan court, of uttering derogatory remarks against Muhammad in 1995 and sentenced to death. He was the first to receive such a sentence under Section 295(c) of the Pakistani penal code.
In August 2000, a Lahore court sentenced Abdul Hasnain Muhammad Yusuf Ali to death and 35 years’ imprisonment for “defiling the name of Muhammad” under Section 295(a), 295(c), and 298.
In 2001, prior to 9/11, American magazine Time printed an illustration of Muhammad along with the Archangel Gabriel waiting for a message from God. The magazine apologized for printing the illustration after widespread protests in Kashmir.
In June 2002, Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari gave a speech that challenged Muslims to refrain from blindly following their clergy. His speech provoked international outcry, and, in November 2002, he was sentenced to death for “blasphemy against Muhammad.”
In November 2002, an article in the Nigerian ThisDay newspaper prior to the upcoming Miss World pageant, suggesting Muhammad would have chosen one of the contestants as his bride, sparked riots that eventually claimed over 200 lives.
In December 2002, Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Marlette published a drawing that showed Muhammad driving a Ryder truck, with a nuclear rocket attached. He received more than 4,500 e-mails from angry Muslims, some with threats of death and mutilation.
In 2004, Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali created the 10-minute movie Submission. The film is about violence against women in Islamic societies. It shows four abused naked women, wearing see-through dresses. Qur’anic verses allegedly unfavourable to women in Arabic are painted on their bodies. After the movie was released, both van Gogh and Hirsi Ali received death threats. Van Gogh was stabbed and shot dead on November 2, 2004, in Amsterdam by Mohammed Bouyeri. A note he left impaled on Van Gogh’s chest threatened Western governments, Jews and Hirsi Ali (who went into hiding).
In September 2005 the Tate Britain gallery decided not to display a work by John Latham entitled God Is Great #2, made ten years previously, which consisted in part of a Koran, a Bible and a Talmud that had been disassembled. The exhibition was close to the time of the July 7 2005 London bombings which influenced the Tate’s decision.
In Malaysia one can sell any number of books against Christianity(walk around Masjid India area and you can see). I have even seen a book with the title” Sex in the bible” sold openly. A hindu man’s dead body was snatched and given islamic last rights, for he has purpotedly converted to islam. The worst,,the wonderful religious authorities let the hindu wife know abt the conversion when the man was already in coma( 3 months after the conversion, and too late to verify). That says something about how open the islamic religious authority is. It took 23 years for the Catholic church to build a single church in Shah Alam. What is odd is while my muslim brethren is vehemently protesting and destroying the public property all for the reason of a cartoon that depicted their prophet, the rest of the non muslims in Malaysia is silent.. They don’t have much choice. One member of parliament told the rest of the non muslims, “if you are not happy in Malaysia, then leave”.
When you see the anger of all the muslims all over the world, all for one cartoon, I wonder, where was the same anger, when a muslim woman was sentenced to death in Nigeria, for carrying a baby out of wedlock( didn’t matter at all that she was raped by her brother in law???)? Or when the court freed the criminals who gang raped a muslim women in Pakistan? Where was the anger, when China invaded Tibet? Where was the anger when 6 million Jews perished in the holocaust? Where was the anger when there was ethnic cleansing in Rwanda? Where was the anger, when Arab militia went on a cleansing spree in Sudan?

When JFK was negotiating with the Russians in the cold war era, he said this abt the Russians. They think” What is mine is mine, what is yours we negotiate”. How true it is now for the muslims. Somehow I don’t see any justice or equality anywhere.. Just anger and superiority and what is mine is mine and it is superior to yours philosophy.
The world is ours, we live here for a shortwhile, what happens after our death is not proven till this day. Yet we forget to live now and think of the heaven and redemption. Pity us..who kill and and hurt in the name of religion.