The Telegraph informs us that Anjem Choudary has plans to “announce a fatwa” on Malala Yousufzai later this year.
What?
Anjem Choudary lives in London on state benefit and issues periodic “announcements” of this and that as if he had an army at his command. What does it mean for some random asshole to say he has plans to “announce a fatwa” on a teenage girl he doesn’t know? I could say I have plans to move into a penthouse on Central Park West, but that wouldn’t make it happen.
Whatever. Choudary has been getting attention from the media by saying ludicrously murderous things for years. It’s a thing.
Later this month, hardliners plan to gather at the notorious Red Mosque in Islamabad to denounce her as an apostate, accusing her of turning her back on Islam.
Anjem Choudary, who lives in East London and is one of the founders of al-Muhajiroun, which was banned in 2010, said the conference would announce the fatwa.
Although apostasy carries the death sentence according to Islamic law, he insisted he was not calling for Malalaﾒs death.
“It’s not a death sentence,” he said. “It’s about what is the reality of what’s taking place and how she is being used as a tool for propaganda by the US and Pakistan, and for the crimes they are committing.”
What if he were “calling for her death”? He’s not a magician, and he’s not even a Taliban soldier. He’s just some schmuck who lives in Ilford.
He’s ludicrous. But he’s also vicious and disgusting. I see that combination a lot.
I plan on announcing a “Fuck that noise” to Anjem Choudary. It will happen, even if none of the trees in the forest are listening.
Yeah right. She’s a woman who has already had one attempt made on her life. Now this arsewipe is going to make a formal fatwa against her. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
So him announcing a fatwa would carry as much authority as my declaring war on jj abrams for that abominable star trek film?
And meanwhile somewhere else in Britain the police are arresting someone for posting a picture of a burning poppy on twitter, or making sick jokes about a murder victim, or wearing a crap T-shirt, or or or…
Anjem Choudary is just as ridiculous and much more vile. He should get exactly the same response: he should be widely mocked, shunned by society and the media and the police should stay the f*ck out of it unless the activity is actually harmful or provably likely to lead to actual harm.
Well, me, I’m just pleased to hear some proper planning is going into this….
I mean, look, he’s planning this thing, see? So clearly this is a ponderous, thoughtful, weighty process. We’ll have none of these seat-of-the-pants/hastily-improvised fatawa here, nosirree…
Not a bit of it. We’re doing this up right. There’s committees, reports, minutes, this whole process to be followed before we can call for the murder of a schoolgirl, see? We’re professionals, here, and we take this seriously.
…Y’know, notwithstanding the fact that to t the untrained eye, we may look like one mouth breathing wanker in his basement.
I don’t understand this, why is it OK for this guy to do this in the UK? They Jail people over there for making rude comments on twitter for fucks sake.
We need to assure that if any one of these assholes who announces a fatwah in a western country and the victim is killed, he will be imprisoned a long time by the appropriate authorities.
They are getting silly protections by crazy “offence to religious sensibilities” laws. The price for this concession to their stupidity is that anyone who announces a fatwah should be charged with conspiracy to commit murder if the victim is harmed.
And this should be enforced retroactively against those who make a fatwah against those who have already been harmed. You want protection against the alleged crime of religious defamation, you gotta face jail time for a fatwah.
And now for some religious defamation: Fuck you Muhammad! You pedophilic scum. I bet little Aiesha was not as good as all those boys you fucked. Muhammad was an illiterate con man and a lot of Koranic scholars understand that the Koran is about the sorriest verse ever written in Arabic, a language which has a pretty awesome poetic tradition, so those dudes should know. Prophet Muhamed, FOAUABUH (feces of all unclean animals be upon his name) was a crank who got lucky, just like Jesus and Joseph Smith.
Brave, brave man! Calling for the murder of a teen aged girl who already been shot in the head once!
Merciful is the tyrant he follows.
*barf*
I’m confused here. Is it ok or legal in Britain to be calling for someone’s murder? Forget ethnicity or religion for a moment. Is there any instance where the British authorities let anyone call for people to go and kill person X? You would hope that if this guy makes his announcement one day, he would be deported 5 minutes later, or thrown into prison. Like you and I would.
So him announcing a fatwa would carry as much authority as my declaring war on jj abrams for that abominable star trek film?
The Orthodox Trekkies have already beat you to it.
(We consider any Trek material other than the original series and the second and fourth movies to be heretical.)
Well Anjem is not going to be declaring a fatwa himself according to the article.. “the conference” will be declaring the fatwa, so presumably it is a joint effort of idiotic islamists in Islamabad. He is trying to get some press as he can afford to fly out there (From his benefits?) and may manage to crash the party. Presumably he can then claim it was all his idea. His Al-Muhajiroun group of a few loons was banned for praising 9/11 so he needs to keep busy I guess.
Sex tourism is illegal here, but I dunno about fatwa tourism. Hopefully it is and a nice police welcoming party will be ready to great him on his return.
Anjem Choudary and the right-wing press have a co-dependent relationship. If they weren’t so keen to publicise his bullshit, no-one would ever have heard of him. He is, in a sense, their creation.
However, as a qualified solicitor, he is smart enough to avoid issuing legally actionable threats. He’s like the Fred Phelps of British Islam.
“Is it ok or legal in Britain to be calling for someone’s murder?”
Yes, just don’t burn anything inanimate.
In which it is demonstrated that Oliver Wendell Holmes’ comment on jurisprudence applies to Britain as well.
I live near Detroit, which is kind of like London if you really use your imagination, and after my current contract gig is up I will also be on state (unemployment) benefits, at least for awhile. Being thus qualified, I hereby announce my plans to convene the FTB Hive Mind(tm) in order to declare the opening of a can of whoop-ass on Anjem Choudary.
“What if he were “calling for her death”? He’s not a magician, and he’s not even a Taliban soldier. He’s just some schmuck who lives in Ilford.
”
And who can may get some other basement dwelling snaggle toothed loser to do the deed.
Yeh. I just wanted to poke fun at the idea that he or anybody gets to “call for” the death of people in that authoritative-sounding way.
For the record, no it is not legal in the UK to call for someone to be murdered. Abu Hamza was eventually convicted on six counts of soliciting murder.
Hence Choudary’s insistence that he is not calling for her death. of course, if people in Islamabad call for her death, there is not much we can do about it. Meanwhile Choudary has drawn his supporters’ attention to the impending fatwa.
Groan! When jihad was a novel concept for the UK, Chowderhead or Chuddies (Hindi term for underpants as in “kiss my chuddies”) was all over the BBC. The Daily Telegraph was going through a spate of running pieces about jihadists as typical British Muslims. Chuddies is great at making the kind of pronouncement most likely to infuriate the British , or turning up at soldiers’ parades and the like. As Dunc says he’s the British Phelps.
However I thought Chuddies had been dropped from the media of late as when he calls for a demo he musters about 50 followers maximum. It’s very irritating that the Telegraph has resurrected him. The tabloid press, maybe, but the Telegraph should know better.
If mainstream Muslim clerics want to do a good dead for the day, they can issue a fatwa calling for this girl to be left the fuck alone. Just a suggestion. Not a demand. Not a “calling for” anything…
Just for the record, a fatwa is not necessarily calling for someone’s death, but a religious “ruling” or “expert opinion” on some matter.
So at least in theory, they could be issuing a fatwa saying that shooting girls is horribly wrong, giving all children a good education is important, and everybody should be allowed to voice their opinions.
Given their track record, that’s almost certainly not what these people are going to end up with. Then again, it’s just a pompous way of stating their opinion and trying to make it seem authoritative.