Religious Freedom

That's Not What We Meant At All . . .

This event in Sydney reads like a scene out of Monty Python, except that it is not.  A thirty year old man converts to Wahhabism--the form of Islam that is regnant in Saudi Arabia.  He apparently doesn't take the tee-totalling fetish of Wahhabism seriously and has a bit of a tipple.  His new brothers-in-the-faith enter his flat at night and administer a thorough lashing to the backslider--over 40 corrective stripes.


The chap gets out of his flat, calls the police, and they arrest (one) twenty year old who is indicted with "aggravated break and enter and commit serious indictable offence (sic)."  So far, the Sydney Morning Herald account. 

Assuming this account is true and accurate, it raises interesting questions.  Will the accused be defended on the grounds of religious liberty?  After all, the Wahhabi sect is well known for its faith commitment to zero alcohol and to the punishments of Sharia law--which includes whipping.  The whipped chap was a willing convert--so he must have have had a faith commitment to teetotalism, and to the religious rectitude of the whipping.  What folk do in the privacy of their own religious commitments has nothing to do with the state and the public square, right. 

Will an unruly mob of Wahhabites congregate outside the court and utter blood threats to all who insult the prophet and the holy Koran, like those  Islamics who protested the recent lifting of a woman's veil by a police officer to attain a clear identification?  Will the civil rights academics call for tolerance and an inclusive embrace of  the rights and cultures of minorities?  Will the Sado-masochist Society issue a press release praising the enlightened practices of this branch of Islam?  Will the Human Rights Commission prosecute any who speak against the whipping, indicting them for "hate-speech", because many Wahhabis complain of being offended and deeply hurt?  Will the arresting police officer be reprimanded and sent for enhanced sensitivity training? 

We await developments with interest as secular humanism commences its end-game.