The irony to this story is that Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno wants her punishment to be carried out as soon as possible and that it be carried out in public.

Even  though she wants the punishment to be carried out in public, I think the real reason for wanting that is not to deter other Muslims from consuming alcohol but to SHAME the Islamic laws and the court that meted out that punishment.

After all what is drinking beer in a hotel bar compared to the real crimes committed by fellow Malaysian Muslims?  Especially the corruption that is rampant among the ruling elites in the country?

Malaysia prides itself as being a modern and progressive Muslim country but if Kartika’s punishment is not retracted, Malaysia is nothing but another backward and barbaric Muslim country.

PETALING JAYA: The spying and reporting by the two Al-Islam journalists were offensive and contrary to the Malaysian culture of peace, harmony and tolerance, the MCA NGO Liaison Bureau said Saturday.

Its chairman Datuk Ti Lian Ker called on the Home Minister to act against individuals, institutions or publications that acted in a manner deemed “provocative or sensitive to another religion.”

He said this when supporting the statement by Executive committee chairman of Christian Federation of Malaysia Rev Ng Moon Ling that it was a breach of the spirit of the guarantee of freedom of religion in the Constitution when the journalists spied on Christians and participated in their Holy Communion.

Source: thestar.com.my

Imagine if the tables had been turned, that a couple of Malaysian Christian jounalists had spied on Muslims and participated in their Islamic rituals at their mosques.

Can you imagine the outcry, the outrage, the teeth gnashing, the protests in the streets complete with banners containing racial and religious slurs against the perpetrators?

In Malaysia, cultural and religious sensitivity is a one way street. The demand for respect and tolerance only applies to Islam, the official religion of the country.

The catholic church, the MCA, and all other religious groups in Malaysia can complain about this outrage, but there will be no action taken against the two journalists by the police for their offensive behaviour, behaviour that broke the law (Section 298A (1) of the Penal Code) protecting religious and racial harmony in Malaysia.

Further Reading:

Al Islam totally insensitive to Catholics

Two Malaysian Muslim Journalists Spark Anger With Church Article

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 (Bernama) — The Western media’s generally biased reporting on Islam and the Muslim community and how it has affected the Muslim world will be the main topic of discussion at next week’s international conference on representation of Islam and Muslims in the media.

The two-day conference entitled, ‘Representation of Islam and Muslim in Media’ and attended by communication scholars, is held at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) here on Tuesday.

Organised by the Department of Communication Kuliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), the conference will look into various aspects of how Islam and Muslims are represented in the media.

Head of IIUM Department of Communication, Dr Azmuddin Ibrahim said among areas to be looked into included the reporting on war and conflicts in Muslim countries and Islam in non-main stream media in Muslim and Western societies.

He said the conference would also touch on Islam in the orientalist literature (past and present), fictional representation of Muslims, Islam and the new media, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Islam, Representation of Islam as a Civilization and Media Framing of Islam.

“From this conference, we hope to see whether there is really biasness in media reporting on Islam and Muslims…from there, we hope to get ideas on how to put things in place (proper perspective).

“Probably, we could suggest more studies be done so that we can get the true picture of what is happening. Otherwise, it is not fair for Islam and the Muslims,” he told Bernama here today.

Dr Azmuddin said the generally negative reporting on Islam and Muslim by the Western media worsened, particularly after the 2001 Sept 11 incident, whereby Islam and Muslims were usually associated with backwardness, extremist and fundamentalists, threatening and other negative images, thus putting Muslims under scrutiny by others.

Is reporting the truth on what goes on with Islam and Muslims bias? Take for example the following stories.

Muslims storm Protestant school in Jakarta, injuring 265 students

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Police evacuated the Christian Theological Arastamar Institute (STT SETIA) which is located in an eastern district of the Indonesian capital after it suffered damages during clashes between Christians and Muslims over the week-end. At least 1,500 students were moved to nearby police headquarters and a local Christian-based political party. The situation remains critical and further violence between opposite factions cannot be ruled out.

“The school foundation urged us to intervene to protect people,” said East Jakarta District Police Chief Senior Superintendent. “For this reason we moved everyone out.”

Last night hundreds of residents from the village of Kampung Pulo had taken up arms threatening to storm the school after being instigated by an imam at a local mosque who claimed that a bunch of Christian gangsters were coming to “protect” the school after it was attacked on Saturday by a Muslim mob, causing damage to the building and hurting hundreds.

Full story here.

Bali terrorist: “For Islam, dying by decapitation is a blessing”
Jakarta (AsiaNews) – According to Islamic law, it is better “to die by decapitation than by gunshot”, and no “repentance or regret” must be shown over violence committed “in the name of holy war”. This is the “spiritual testament” of Imam Samudra, one of the three people responsible for the massacre in Bali in 2002, in which more than 200 people died. The three are awaiting judgment from the Indonesian authorities.

“Until I die, I will show no repentance for my actions”, the terrorist is believed to have said to his brother Lulu Jamaluddin during a recent conversation at the maximum-security prison on the island of Nusakambangan, in central Java. He also added that a holy war, conducted through “the use of bombs” and suicide bombing attacks, is “blessed by God”, for which reason he will never make “appeals to clemency” to avoid the death penalty.

Full story here.

How do folks participating in the international conference propose the western media report these stories? Pretend that the people who storm the Protestant school were not Muslims? That their actions were not religiously motivated?

How about the Bali terrorist’s remorselessness? Should the media pretend that his heinous act had nothing to do with his faith?

The media’s reporting of Islam will only change if there are less violence perpetrated by Muslims especially on non-Muslims.

I say, good for him for exercising his right to free speech!

KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 (Bernama) — The key to ensure better relations between the Muslim world and western nations is by correcting the foreign media’s perception of Islam as a religion of terror synonymous with the Al-Qaeda movement, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said Monday.

“One of the stumbling blocks is the power of the media in the West that doesn’t seem to give a margin for us to come in into understanding Islam more objectively.

“The coverage they give is more about sensational news about terror, about captivity, about war and not on the other side of Islam which I have always been stressing — the life of Muslims.

“Therefore, the tenets of Islam urging us to be calm and be appreciative of beauty and the world have never been put forward in a manner that is coercive enough or effective enough. There lies the problem,” he said in his welcoming remarks at the “Third International Conference On the Muslim World and The West: Bridging the Gap”.

Rais stressed this point owing to rising Islamophobia among westerners.

Rais said even the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and other Islamic organisations and associations had never taken steps to correct this wrong point of view painted by the western media which equates Muslims and Islam with the Al-Qaeda.

“Actually, this is not the reality, it is a political movement by the Al-Qaeda. Islam is not Al-Qaeda. This notion has not been dispelled by any group, be it the OIC or regional Islamic organisations in the world.

“As such, every time when the Al-Qaeda issue crops up in Britain, it is equated with Islam. This is the wrong perception which we need to address.

“How do you do this?. I think it is only with the concerted efforts of our own Islamic media to project the truth. We have to have the forum, we have to have the media treatment and we have to have the political will among OIC members to project this sort of idea and image,” he said.

“Therefore, the tenets of Islam urging us to be calm and be appreciative of beauty and the world have never been put forward in a manner that is coercive enough or effective enough. There lies the problem.”

Huh.

Maybe Rais Yatim should begin by addressing Malaysia’s response to the movie, Fitna. Public protests and boycott, anyone?

Should the west be blamed for their perception of Islam when they see the following images? Should they be blamed for thinking that Islam’s adherents are easily provoked and prone to violence?

Rais Yatim, tell these people that “the tenets of Islam urging us to be calm and be appreciative of beauty”! If they listen to you, the West might be inclined to change their perception of Islam.

But to call Schism an “intellectual response”? There is nothing intellectual about the film! Only the gullible, the ill-informed, and the Muslims who desperately need to feel good again after Fitna, might find this movie a good response!

Saeed Al-Saeed said, “It is easy to take parts of any Holy (sic) book that are out of context (sic) and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written. That is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology. To create schism.” but his movie still can’t deny the fact that the 9/11 hijackers, the bombers in Spain, London, Bali and Beslan did their heinous crimes because of their religion.

The following are among the last words of Muhammad Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers.

You should feel complete tranquility, because the time between you and your marriage [in heaven] is very short. Afterwards begins the happy life, where God is satisfied with you, and eternal bliss ‘in the company of the prophets, the companions, the martyrs and the good people, who are all good company’. Ask God for his mercy and be optimistic, because [the Prophet], peace be upon him, used to prefer optimism in all his affairs.

When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers. God said: ‘Strike above the neck, and strike at all of their extremities.’ Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty, and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, ‘Come hither, friend of God.’ They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing.

Geert Wilders took the verses of the Koran out of context in Fitna? Tell me again.

One blogger even asked if the decision to allow Siti Fatimah Tan to renounce Islam as tantamount to legalizing apostasy in Malaysia! If only these worried Muslims knew the real number of Malay Muslims who had secretly renounced Islam and became Christians! There would most certainly be a great uproar and would cause a great strain in ethnic and religious relations in the country!

Here is CBN news report on how people who were formerly Muslims have come to know Jesus Christ through visions, and are being baptised in droves. This original news story is found here.

Muslims who do not like to hear news of this sort will, as indicated by some of the comments left on YouTube, call them lies.

CBNNews.com – JERUSALEM – The Muslim call to prayer resounds through a large part of the Earth, where more than one billion people call themselves Muslims.

Throughout the Islamic world, many Muslims from Gaza to London are also responding to the call to global jihad, where the goal is to take over the world for Islam. It’s a clash of civilizations with the Christian faith in the middle.

Throughout the nearly 1,400 year history of Islam, Muslims have resisted the Christian Gospel. Many Christians tried to reach them with the good news, but with little success.

But according to many reports from the Middle East and around the world, that history is changing.

“I see many, many Arabic-speaking people turning to Christ, accepting Him as Lord and Savior,” said Nizar Shaheen, host of Light for the Nations, a Christian program seen throughout the Muslim world. “It’s happening all over the Arab world. It’s happening in North Africa. It’s happening in the Middle East. It’s happening in the Gulf countries. It’s happening in Europe and Canada and the United States-in the Arabic-speaking world. Everywhere, people are accepting Jesus.”

“What’s happening nowadays in the Muslim world has never happened before,” said Father Zakaria Boutros, an Egyptian Coptic priest who is one of the foremost evangelists to the Muslim world. He says a cross-section of Muslims are accepting Jesus Christ. “Young and old, educated and not educated, males and females, even those who are fanatic.”

One fanatic Muslim who came to faith in Jesus Christ is Samer Achmad Muhammed. He studied for years to become a Wahhabi sheik, one of the most virulent forms of Islam. He hated Christians and the church, but his heart changed when he heard the Gospel.

“I dedicated my life to Jesus Christ, Jesus forgave me for my sins,” he said. “He gave me eternal life and peace. And the second thing, I really suffered in my daily life, but I had peace, I had joy because Jesus entered my heart.”

Muhammed is just one of many who are coming to Jesus. Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries sees thousands of African Muslims receiving Jesus and getting baptized.

“It’s probably the only place in the world where they are coming so quickly,” she said. “Many people are having dreams. They see Jesus appear to them. Probably half our pastors were leaders, imams in Moslem mosques. They were leaders in these mosques, now they’re pastors.”

Another significant evangelistic movement among Muslims links China and Jerusalem. Chinese house churches plan to send at least 100,000 evangelists from China through many predominantly Muslim nations all the back here to Jerusalem.

This quiet but powerful movement of itinerant evangelists is bringing the story of Jesus Christ into the heart of the Muslim world. Technologies like satellite television and the Internet also penetrate the world of Islam.

But beyond technology, many say a supernatural dimension is at work throughout the Islamic world.

“There is an end-time phenomenon that is happening through dreams and visions,” said Christine Darg, author of The Jesus Visions: Signs and Wonders in the Muslim World. “He is going into the Muslim world and revealing, particularly, the last 24 hours of His life – how He died on the cross, which Islam does not teach – how He was raised from the dead, which Islam also does not teach – and how He is the Son of God, risen in power.”

“We receive lots of letters about people who have had dreams about the Lord, visions, even miracles,” Shaheen said. “When they watch the program, they say yes, we had a dream or a vision, and they accept Jesus as Lord.”

But Muslims who accept Jesus face persecution, discrimination or even death. Despite the dangers, many continue to live out their faith and lead others to Jesus Christ.

“Jesus loves all people, Jesus changes all people and Jesus is the One who places love and peace,” Shaheen said. “I was not like this but Jesus changed my life and I am not scared to talk about Jesus because praise is unto Him.”

Some believe the Church’s response to jihad must be a fearless proclamation of the Gospel to Muslims. Through prayer and evangelism, many see an unparalleled opportunity for the Gospel.

“I anticipate that very soon – perhaps within two or three years-we are going to see the greatest harvest in history,” Shaheen said.

The following is Singaporean Malay Christian blog:

1 Flock 1 Shepherd

The second one called Schism, available on Metacafe, quotes a few Old Testament verses where God told the Jews to kill and annihilate the Amalakites followed by a video of what appeared to be American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers beating up on their prisoners. That video was followed by another video showing a Christian woman declaring “This is war!” to a group of people and an interview of a couple of children from that same group of Christians explaining why they were not afraid to fight this war.

This attempt to equate the Bible passages and certain acts by soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan and a Christian group’s call to war, is pathetic! First of all there are no Amalekites today, whereas there are still infidels that the Koran teaches to kill. Secondly, how convenient to use an excerpt of a Christian meeting calling the believers to take up their shield and go to war, and taken totally out of context!

Rightly or wrongly the American military is in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the country’s policy on the war on terror. They are not there because they believe they have to annihilate a group of people because God had told them so. If that was the case, Iraq and Afghanistan would have been blown up to smithereens and back to the Stone Age in the early days of the war.

As to the featured Christian group’s call to war, it has nothing to do with going to battle against anybody. Whoever came up with this video thinks that he can mislead ignorant people into thinking that Christians are violent and should be feared. That is so laughable! The battle cry called by Christian group is a battle cry against the “principalities of the air”, the “prince of darkness” etc. The Christian’s journey is a constant battle and struggle against the flesh and against temptations.

Only an ignorant person who is already anti-Christian, and of course the Muslims who needed to feel good again about themselves after being “insulted” by Geert Wilder, would believe that the two films proved that the West and Christians in particular are evil and out to destroy Islam and Muslims.

The one thing that is proven from the barely known production of these two videos (there could be more out there) is that the West and Christians will not riot and kill because they felt insulted or were offended.

That contrast in itself should be cause for reflection.

One blogger even compared the Syariah Court’s decision to legalizing apostasy! If only that was true! People like Lina Joy will no longer have to go into hiding. This particular blogger went on to quote a fatwa that called on the apostate to be executed if he/she does not repent in three days after being brought in front of a Qadi. This blogger also blamed the Malay Muslim political parties and Muslim politicians for failing to speak out against this apostasy case.

Another blogger is frustrated and blamed everyone especially Penang’s Islamic Council and Siti Fatimah’s ex-husband for failing to ground her in the Islamic faith. One blogger even called the decision a dark and tragic day for Islam.

Others wonder if this decision will bring a deluge of such cases. What if indeed it resulted in a deluge? The non-Malay who is longer practicing Islam should be able to leave Islam without being forced to “rehabilitate” or even punished for apostatizing.

Datuk Ahmad Zahid, minister in charge of religious affairs in the Prime Minister’s Department said “there was no law at the federal level to bar a convert from renouncing Islam”. Since that is the case presently, one hopes that it will stay that way.

I don’t think there is anyone who might see this case as a light at the end of the tunnel, as one blogger puts it, for cases involving Malay Muslims who have left Islam. That is , however, not to say that there have not been cases of Malay Muslims who have successfully renounced Islam in the past. But then again, those cases were before the requirement to state one’s religious status in one’s identity card. Nobody had to go to that unnecessary hurdle.

Nowadays people like Lina Joy have to either live a double life or in hiding for fear of some zealot taking it upon himself to execute them for apostasy.

Good luck to Tan Ean Huang on her new life free of the burden of being called a Muslim when she has never been one.

*******

Submitted by Tawfik Hamid, Dec 30, 2005 19:35

It is time to admit it
Dr.Tawfik Hamid

www.thamid.com

I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam.

After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Muslim and as a human being, to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations.

I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward Non-Muslims. We Muslims are the ones who need to change.

Until now we have accepted polygamy, the beating of women by men, and killing those who convert from Islam to other religions.

We have never had a clear and strong stand against the concept of slavery or wars, to spread our religion and to subjugate others to Islam and force them to pay a humiliating tax called Jizia.

We ask others to respect our religion while all the time we curse non-Muslims loudly (in Arabic) in our Friday prayers in the Mosques.

What message do we convey to our children when we call the Jews “Descendants of the pigs and monkeys”…. Is this a message of love and peace, or a message of hate?

I have been into churches and synagogues where they were praying for Muslims. While all the time we curse them, and teach our generations to call them infidels, and to hate them.

We immediately jump in a ‘knee jerk reflex’ to defend Prophet Mohammed when someone accuses him of being a pedophile while, at the same time, we are proud with the story in our Islamic books, that he married a young girl seven years old (Aisha) when he was above 50 years old.

I am sad to say that many, if not most of us, rejoiced in happiness after September 11th and after many other terror attacks.

Muslims denounce these attacks to look good in front of the media, but we condone the Islamic terrorists and sympathise with their cause. Till now our ‘reputable’ top religious authorities have never issued a Fatwa or religious statement to proclaim Bin Laden as an apostate, while an author, like Rushdie, was declared an apostate who should be killed according to Islamic Shariia law just for writing a book criticizing Islam.

Muslims demonstrated to get more religious rights as we did in France to stop the ban on the Hejab (Head Scarf), while we did not demonstrate with such passion and in such numbers against the terrorist murders.

It is our absolute silence against the terrorists that gives the energy to these terrorists to continue doing their evil acts.

We Muslims need to stop blaming our problems on others or on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

As a matter of honesty, Israel is the only light of democracy, civilization, and human rights in the whole Middle East.

We kicked out the Jews with no compensation or mercy from most of the Arab countries to make them “Jews-Free countries” while Israel accepted more than a million Arabs to live there, have its nationality, and enjoy their rights as human beings. In Israel, women can not be beaten legally by men, and any person can change his/her belief system with no fear of being killed by the Islamic law of ‘Apostasy,’ while in our Islamic world people do not enjoy any of these rights.

I agree that the ‘Palestinians’ suffer, but they suffer because of their corrupt leaders and not because of Israel.

It is not common to see Arabs who live in Israel leaving to live in the Arab world. On the other hand, we used to see thousands of Palestinians going to work with happiness in Israel, its ‘enemy’. If Israel treats Arabs badly as some people claim, surely we would have seen the opposite happening.

We Muslims need to admit our problems and face them. Only then we can treat them and start a new era to live in harmony with human mankind.

Our religious leaders have to show a clear and very strong stand against polygamy, pedophilia, slavery, killing those who convert from Islam to other religions, beating of women by men, and declaring wars on non-Muslims to spread Islam. Then, and only then, do we have the right to ask others to respect our religion.

The time has come to stop our hypocrisy and say it openly: ‘We Muslims have to Change’.
Tawfik Hamid
www.thamid.com