09-23-2004, 11:39 AM
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#27 (permalink)
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undead
Location: Duisburg, Germany
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Quote:
Yusuf Islam publicly stated that Rushdie was indeed guilty of blasphemy against Islam, and Rushdie deserved to be killed. This led to a public outcry, and a drop in record sales. In response to this criticism, Yusuf Islam has since clarified that he believes that a death sentence can only be carried out by the authority of a court in an Islamic society, and that he is opposed to anyone taking the law into their own hands by murdering Rushdie.
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On September 22, 2004, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration denied him entrance to the U.S., saying that he was registered on a watchlist. The Guardian Unlimited reported "American officials diverted a transatlantic flight 600 miles in the belief that the presence of Yusuf Islam, the charity worker and pop star formerly known as Cat Stevens, posed an imminent threat to national security... United Airlines flight 919 from London to Washington was diverted to Bangor, Maine, on Tuesday night after US customs officers told the TSA that Mr Islam was on board. Airline officials had failed to spot his name earlier."
Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse stated, "Yusuf Islam has been placed on government watch lists because of concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities. More recently, the intelligence community has received information that further heightens this concern. Our job at Homeland Security is to act upon the information we receive through the intelligence community in order to keep those that might be of harm to national security out of our country." According to the Guardian, an unnamed U.S. government source stated concerns that Yusuf Islam had financially supported Hamas.
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It should be kept in mind in this context that every Muslim who can afford it has a religious obligation to give a certain percentage of their income to charity. This is called Zakat. [1] (http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/pillars.shtml) [2] (http://www.themodernreligion.com/charity.htm) [3] (http://www.themodernreligion.com/mis..._zakat10b.html) Various very lage (though often—by Western standards—informal) financial networks exist which receive and distribute many of these contributions. [4] (http://www.zpub.com/aaa/zakat.html) (They also sometimes help calculating them. On the other hand, Muslims can also give individually, outside of such networks.) It has happened in the past that monies from such networks have been illicitly tapped and abused by illicit/terrorist organizations and this is still a concern. Some Muslims would compare this to the abuse of tax revenues, which is no less frequent in non-Muslim societies, and question whether it is reasonable to thus criminalize contributors (instead of those who misappropriate/abuse Zakat monies). Relatively affluent faithful Muslims like Yusuf Islam are frequently large contributors to the said donation networks. As of 2004, no evidence has been made public that would suggest that Yusuf Islam's alleged Hamas support (if at all existent) was anything more direct than potential abuse of Zakat funds by Hamas without Islam's knowledge or endorsement.
Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the denial of entry to internationally-respected Islamic figures "sends the disturbing message that even moderate and mainstream Muslims will now be treated like terrorists".
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens
It seems that the USA becomes more and more paranoid.
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"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein
Last edited by Pacifier; 09-23-2004 at 11:41 AM..
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