Thai Muslims told to destroy jihad manual

[gottaB]

Islamic clerics have urged Muslims in southern Thailand to destroy copies of an Islamist propaganda manual entitled Jihad for Pattani, which claims that the region's Malay-speaking Muslims have a religious duty to fight for an independent state.

As Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, ordered Thai security forces to go on a "fierce and forceful" offensive to suppress a wave of violence blamed on Muslim separatists, Islamic clerics and community leaders warned that the polemic tract could influence susceptible Muslim youth and should be destroyed.

"In general there are a lot of mistakes and distortions of Islamic principles," Ismaee Alee, director of the College of Islamic Studies at Prince of Songkhla University, said of the booklet. "We should not let young people read it, or even adults, if those people have not enough knowledge of Islam."

Thai Muslims told to destroy jihad manual....

[demosincebirth]

1. OK with me

[gottaB]

2. Me, I'm not so sanguine

Ran accross an editorial, Religious Freedom: The Best Counter to Religions Extremism. It's mostly about religious freedom and tyranny in Uzbekistan. Frankly it's not the most eloquent exposition of its kind, but it's interesting, and I agree with the basic thesis. Brute force and repression are weak responses to dangerous ideas, and ultimately counterproductive for society. Better to have open debate.

[demosincebirth]

3. Seems like the majority of

the muslim countrys in the world live under these contitions. I wonder why?