Just under a month ago a story emerged that appeared to me to have a relatively happy ending. A Muslim man who had been filmed ranting in a taxi about those who reject Islam and choose Christianity, issued an apology for his behaviour.
The rant, which included calls for converts from Islam to Christianity to be raped, was to my mind a threat of violence that may have been put into action by radical Muslims. Because of this fear that this rant would encourage violence, some Christians were quite rightly upset by the words of Zaheer Hussain. The video of Hussain’s rant went somewhat viral and there appears to have been pressure both from within and outside of the Islamic community in Lancashire where the incident occurred.
Zaheer Hussain, when faced with the criticism that he was facing, appeared to step up and show contrition for his actions. Because in his apology Mr Hussain appeared to understand that issuing what could be seen by some observers as credible incitement to violence, I gave Mr Hussain the benefit of the doubt. I welcomed his apology as it sounded to me like he had been forced to confront the danger of inciting violence which calling for converts to be raped, may be taken as incitement to carry out such an act. I may be wrong in accepting Mr Hussain’s apology, he may just be mouthing the right words written for him by someone else, but we can only go by what we see in front of us. What I saw in the case of Zaheer Hussain was an example of someone who had behaved stupidly and had been subjected to enough social pressure to get him to see the error of his ways.
However not everyone is as willing as I have been to give Mr Hussain the benefit of any doubt. The British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) has stepped into the fray and accused Mr Hussain of uttering words that were hollow and which did not constitute a proper apology. The BPCA called Mr Hussain’s public act of contrition ‘a so called apology ‘ using words that were ‘carefully crafted’.
BPCA have put out a very strongly worded Press Release about the issue of Mr Hussain’s rant which puts over BPCA’s position on this matter. I shall excerpt the relevant parts from this Press Release below. As is usual policy for this blog the original text is in italics whereas my comments are in plain text. There are some aspects of the BPCA’s Press Release that I agree with and others with which I do not agree, which will be made plain later. But what is interesting to me is that a couple of high profile Christian converts from Islam have waded into this argument and who are pushing for Zaheer Hussain to be prosecuted and they are using this case to highlight the plight of ex Muslims who convert to Christianity.
BPCA said:
Converts from Islam call out Zaheer Hussain on his carefully phrased apology. Profanity-laced threats directed at apostates via a social media video caused great hurt yet in his follow-up he did not apologise to his actual victims! The targets of hate fear an apostasy backlash in the current environment of impunity.
The use of the term ‘carefully phrased’ does look as if the BPCA is accusing Mr Hussain of not being entirely truthful when it came to his apology. The BPCA is correct however in highlighting the issue of apostates from Islam who fear violence from believing Muslims. I can see why the BPCA believe that Mr Hussain did not properly apologise to the individual targets of this abuse and can certainly understand their position that the sort of threat of violence made by Mr Hussain may have deserved much more of a detailed and specific apology. Whether people agree with the BPCA on this issue is a moot point, but that is their opinion.
Apostacy-related hate crimes must be qualified – the threat is real!
Whilst any reasonable and informed person will be able to agree with the BPCA on the issue of the threats that come from the Muslim community towards apostates I am not sure that I wholly agree with the BPCA’s suggestion that anti-apostate comments like Mr Hussain’s rant should be treated as ‘hate crimes’.
Two prominent converts from Islam to Christianity have asked for Zaheer Hussain the man implicated in a profanity-filled rant against Christians who have quit Islam, to be prosecuted under the strictest measures available under existing hate-crime laws.
Although I believe that Mr Hussain’s words crossed the line morally and such rape threats have no place in a free and democratic society, I cannot agree that this is a ‘hate crime’ issue. I take this view because I despise the whole concept of ‘hate crimes’. I believe that they are corrosive to the idea that all should be treated equal by the criminal law. ‘Hate crime’ laws have created classes of people that get more attention and help from the criminal justice system than others do. The situation as currently exists with ‘hate crimes’ where an insult is aimed at one group then it is a crime whilst aiming a similar insult at an other group would not be considered as a crime is an affront to the idea of equal justice.
Both men feel that a sense of impunity has begun to fester amongst radical Islamic elements in the UK intent on dividing communities based on hard religious lines and that this had led to bolder campaigns designed to instil fear into those who might contemplate quitting Islam, while espousing violence against apostates.
On this issue I can agree with those quoted by the BPCA. There is growing sense of impunity among radical Muslims and those on the periphery of this scene. It is my belief that this sense of impunity has been fed to a large extent by the pandering to Islam by those in authority. When bullies, and Islamic radicals are bullies, are not confronted and slapped down, it doesn’t make the bullying go away, it just makes them worse. A culture of deference towards minorities, a deference that has gone far beyond a generalised tolerance of differing beliefs, is not being taken by Islamic radicals and those in their orbit as an act of goodwill and tolerance, but as a sign of weakness. It is very similar to the situation between Israel and the so called ‘Palestinians’. Whilst we in the West, including Israelis, may see things like peace initiatives and ‘land for peace’ swaps as part and parcel of compromise, the Arabs don’t see it like that, they see such initiatives as weaknesses in their enemy that should and must be exploited.
Preston Taxi driver Mr Z. Hussain called for the rape of quitters of Islam during a video shared prior to Christmas after he was offended by a former Muslim who shared a video of himself being baptised.
This is yet another example of how too many Muslims are offended by everything that is against Islam but are not ashamed of the by now obvious faults of Islam
The question I feel that needs to be answered here is does this constitute a threat that those who had been targetted by it would not only perceive as credible but which would pass the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ test? I believe that it might pass such a criminal test at least for threatening behaviour and malicious communication,especially if there was more than one message about this issue. It also looks to me as if this threat would meet the standard for an Osman Warning which means the converts targetted by Mr Hussain should be warned by the police about the threat, if those threatened are in the UK. The reason I say this is because of where the threat has come from and the context of it. The use of violence and the threat of violence is sadly all too common in Islamic communities and converts from Islam face a very real danger of violence from the more extreme and conservative elements in the British Muslim community. If this sort of rape threat had been issued by a non Muslim random person and was aimed at other non Muslim random then this threat, although very nasty and morally reprehensible, may not represent such a credible threat. Such a threat coming from a Muslim and aimed at ex Muslims would, because of Islam’s record of violence and intolerance, would I believe be a credible threat and should be dealt with accordingly.
Although I see little value in ex Muslim Christians making use of the flawed, inequitable and increasingly hated ‘hate crime’ laws over this issue and that maybe other legal avenues should be pursued, it does show the dire problems that face those who leave Islam. It is one of the basic tenets of a free and open society that adults be free to choose whatever peaceful faith path that they choose to follow. It is a baleful indictment of British society that our fellow subjects who choose to leave Islam are faced with not just appalling threats like these but also actual violence as well.
