Islamism v Human Rights

From NTPI.org:

Islamic misgivings about the incompatibility of the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] with Islam have led to a number of alternative formulations of human rights in Islam while at the same time attempting to demonstrate the compatibility of Islamic law with Human Rights.

Ann Elizabeth Meyer, in her book Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics discusses the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights of 1981 and compares its provisions with those of the UDHR. The UIDHR has been published in two versions: in Arabic and in English. We are told in the English version that the Arabic text is definitive. What is not at all evident is that the Arabic version is actually different from the English in several respects, with the Arabic version being substantially more conservative in tone. In no sense would the English version be acceptable as a certified translation of the Arabic. One is left with the impression that the wording of the English version has been watered down for western consumption.

In other articles we compare the rights of women as they exist in Islamic countries with the rights supposedly guaranteed under the UDHR; show how the rights of non-Muslims are limited in many Islamic states; how freedom of expression is severely curtailed and how freedom of religion and belief are practically nonexistent.

Central to the fair and equitable administration of justice is a codified system of law. The absence of a formal written criminal code in Saudi Arabia, for example, leaves the authorities virtually a free hand in defining what is illegal. In 1996, a Syrian national, Abd al-Naqshabandi was executed for witchcraft, a crime against which no Saudi law exists. (See Victims of Political Islam).

It is not only women and non-Muslims but Muslim men too that deserve the protection of a modern, fair and equitable system of justice based on internationally accepted standards, and a respect for human rights as enshrined in the UDHR.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to human rights under Political Islam is its strong adherence to the Sharia. Many aspects of the Sharia are inimical to the ideas enshrined in the UDHR. In an Islamist state no individual or group of people can have any rights that do not conform to the tenets of the Sharia. Oppression, intimidation, lack of freedom, and ferocious censorship and public executions are the undeniable facts of life in many Islamic societies. The UDHR enumerates the rights of the individual that governments are obliged to protect. But Political Islam is opposed to any concept of individual freedom that is not subordinate to its brutal interpretation of the Sharia.