Twenty-five Muslim men, including three teenagers, are facing the death penalty in Sudan after being charged with apostasy for following the wrong version of Islam.
The men were released on bail on Monday after being arrested in Khartoum in November while listening to religious teachings and imprisoned for more than five weeks.
The men, aged between 15 and 51, belong to the minority Hausa ethnicity, many of whom follow a different interpretation of Islam to the one sanctioned by Omar al-Bashir’s government.
They are accused of “rejecting the prophet Muhammad’s teachings”, rejecting the Hadith and taking the Qur’an as the sole source of religious legitimacy – a crime punishable by death in Sudan. [469 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT 98 votes] All of the countries to criminalize apostasy as of 2014 were majority Islamic nations [...] no country with Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, agnostic or atheist majority had any criminal or civil laws forbidding or encouraging apostasy, or had laws restricting an individual's right to convert from one religion to another.
No further comment.
[2ND 85] It is puzzling that the world targets ISIS for following a literal interpretation of Sharia but turns a blind eye to a dozen or so other states which apply exactly the same interpretation and derive the same outcome for those with non-conformist religious views. Somehow it would be more satisfying if there was one principle for all.
[3RD 80] The sad reality which the West refuses to acknowledge is that apostasy is considered a serious crime by moderate Muslims. It tells you that religious freedom in the ranks of the 'good' faithful is far more fascist then it pretends to be.
Muslims can 'tolerate' that other people are not born in the Islamic faith but the ones who leave it are very often seriously castigated by their own communities. There are examples of this happening in Europe but these news story are quickly swept under the rug. An inconvenient truth which cannot be let out. The radicals go one step further by sentencing them to death. I don't know why Western liberals are so obsessed in defending the indefensible. [The Guardian] Read more
