Ehsan Jami knew he was making himself a target for radical Islamists when he decided to launch a Dutch organization for Muslims who renounce their religion.
Five months and three physical assaults later, his "Committee for Ex-Muslims" was to be launched yesterday, joining similar groups that have sprung up around Europe.
These groups hope to add a new voice to the debate about -- and within -- Europe's Muslim communities, presenting themselves as diametrically different to the disenchanted and sometimes violent youth who grab headlines, or to immigrants who live cloistered among their own.
Instead, they seek recognition from the Muslim mainstream for "freethinkers," empowered Muslim women, homosexuals and those who want to renounce their religion without fear.
Under some fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, apostasy is forbidden, or is a heresy punishable by death.
"We want to support people who want to change their religion, but their parents, their society have them clasped in it and won't let them out," Jami, 22, said in an interview on Monday.
The latest attack on Jami last month, when he was struck and pushed to the ground at a shopping center by three youths, was widely publicized in the Netherlands. The assailants were arrested, but Jami was forced into hiding, and receives police protection.
Leaders of ex-Muslim groups from Germany and England were to attend yesterday's launch, before meeting the European Commission in Brussels today.
"Very clearly our intent is to break the taboo" in Islam against renouncing religion, said Maryam Namazie, who in June founded the British Council of Ex-Muslims.
"The first step is making it easier to do that. You could compare it to when the first gays came out of the closet," she said.
Other groups have formed in the Scandinavian countries. Altogether, the European groups have total membership of no more than several hundred.
But the ex-Muslims say they are determined to show that "not all people from Muslim countries are religious," said Arzu Toker, vice president of Germany's Council of Ex-Muslims, the first and largest of the organizations.
"If we don't show it, many people will think `all these people are just the same,' and that's simply not true," she said.
Toker, a Turkish-born journalist, says membership in Germany has grown to more than 100 from 18 founders in January. Hundreds more have written to show their support, but are unwilling, unable or afraid to join.
Akbar Ahmed, who chairs the Islamic Studies department at American University in Washington, said the advent of such groups is not surprising.
He said it is wrong to say Islam endorses killing apostates, though some of the Hadith, or sayings of Mohammed, appear to endorse it -- when taken out of context.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS