Yet many current regimes in the Middle East have been practicing this doctrine. According to reports, the state of Saudi Arabia practices the notorious guardian system, under which a woman must have a male relative’s permission to marry, procure a passport or travel. She cannot drive. Even today just about 16 per cent of all women in the Kingdom work. The state has several draconian laws for men as well. It has recently enacted a new counter-terrorism law to include even an atheist. This law authorizes the authorities to imprison anyone for up to a year without any charge just on suspicion of planning terrorism.
Riyadh is exporting Wahhabism byvspending billions of dollars in patronizing mosques, madrassas, journals and cleric training programs for this purpose. Together with Abu Dhabi, Riyadh today pumps into certain Ahle Hadith and Deobandi Madrassas an estimated $100 million annually to spread Wahhabism the world over. In the Gaza Strip, the Islamists have “imposed strict rules on women, discouraged activities commonly associated with Western or Christian culture, oppressed non-Muslim minorities, imposed Sharia law, and deployed religious police to enforce these laws.”
In Pakistan, the Council of Islamic Ideology has recently dared to dub the laws related to minimum marriage age as un-Islamic. In its 192nd meeting held in Islamabad in March this year, the Council ruled that women are un-Islamic. Their mere existence contradicts Sharia and the will of Allah. In Malaysia the government has increasingly banned the practice of Shia Islam within the country. The persecution of Shia followers has escalated in the past few years.
KHOMEINISM
Yet another doctrine detrimental to human rights is Khomeinism in the once secular Persia (Iran). When Hassan Rouhani took over presidency in Tehran last August, one thought there would be improvement in its despicable human rights record. There has, however, been a surge in executions. According to verified reports, at least 537 people have been executed in the past eight months, nearly 200 of them since the beginning of this year. A total for 2013 is 624, according to the data gathered by the United Nations. There has been a rash of executions of Kurdish prisoners. A recent Wall Street Journal article stated that the Rouhani regime has banned Twitter (except for public officials) . It is setting modern records for the number of public executions. Tehran’s Evin prison today houses some of Iran’s most prominent dissidents, including human-rights lawyers, labour leaders and opposition bloggers.
All such rights violations have to be stopped . At this stage of civilization no state can be allowed to play with the rights and freedoms of its own people under the pretext of national sovereignty. A common feeling across the informed world community is that the United States and close allies do not care for rights violations unless the concerned violator-nations are not detrimental to their strategic or economic interests. Objectively speaking, there is lot of substance in this observation. The political leaderships in the liberal democracies must take to self-introspection and do what the foundational principles of their states demand in the interest of democracy and freedom the world over.