iamfm

(Source: iamfiras, via iamfm)

“I have repeatedly declared my view that the September 1983 laws violate Islamic sharia ’a and Islam itself. Moreover, these laws have distorted Islamic sharia ‘a law and Islam and made them repugnant. Furthermore, these laws were enacted and utilized to terrorize the people and humiliate them into submission. These laws also jeopardized the national unity of the country. These are my abjections from the theoretical point of view.

At the practical level, the judges enforcing these laws lack the necessary technical qualifications. They have also morally failed to resist placing themselves under the control of the executive authorities which exploited them in violating the rights of citizens, humiliating the people, distorting Islam, insulting intellect and intellectuals, and humiliating political opponents.

For all these reasons, I am not prepared to cooperate with any court that has betrayed the independence of the judiciary and allowed itself to be used as a tool for humiliating the people, insulting free thought, and persecuting political opponents.”

The statement of the Sudanese thinker, Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, during his trial in January 7th, 1985. After the speedy and mockery trial Mahmoud and four of his followers were sentenced to death for distributing a one page pamphlet criticizing the government of Sudan and its so-called Islamic Sharia laws. The ruling was then modified by the appeal court (which no one appealed to it) to become an apostasy charge, and was approved by the president of Sudan, Jaafar Nimeiri. Mahmoud Muhammad Taha was executed in public in Koper prison (Khartoum North) in January 18, 1985.

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