🚀 go-pugleaf

Irshad Manji (author of "The Trouble with Islam Today),  Salman
Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasrin and others have  received a
serious death threat from a chat thread on ummah.com, an Islamic
website in Britain and are asking for support.

For details see:
http://www.muslim-refusenik.com

The above web page also carries the following manifesto.
 
THE MANIFESTO OF 12:

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now
faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.

We -- writers, journalists and public intellectuals -- call for
resistance to religious totalitarianism.

Instead, we call for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and
secular values worldwide.

The necessity of these universal values has been revealed by events
since the publication of the Muhammad drawings in European newspapers.
This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the arena of ideas. What
we are witnessing is not a clash of civilizations, nor an antagonism
of West versus East, but a global struggle between democrats and
theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and
frustrations. The preachers of hate bet on these feelings in order to
form battalions destined to impose a world of inequality. But we
clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the
choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred.

Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and
secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a
world of greater power imbalances: man�s domination of woman, the
Islamists� domination of all others.

To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed people.
For that reason, we reject �cultural relativism,� which consists of
accepting that Muslim men and women should be deprived of their right
to equality and freedom in the name of their cultural traditions.

We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused
of �Islamophobia,� an unfortunate concept that confuses criticism of
Islamic practices with the stigmatization of Muslims themselves.

We plead for the universality of free expression, so that a critical
spirit may be exercised on every continent, against every abuse and
dogma.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our
century should be one of enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

Signed,

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq , Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri L�vy,
Irshad Manji , Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen,
Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq