Several Muslim Brotherhood organizations have joined their international counterparts in issuing condemnations of actions by Islamic governments that have resulted in worldwide controversy. A Saudi court recently issued a ruling which punished the victim of a gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail while a female English teacher in Sudan was convicted of blasphemy for allowing her school children to name a teddy-bear Muhammed. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a statement condemning the Sudanese action stating that:
The complaint brought against Gillian Gibbons was an inappropriate use of Sudan’s legal system to deal with what was in essence a disagreement between parents and a teacher. Ms. Gibbons should never have been charged.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), which recently criticized the Saudi court ruling, issue a statement which “expressed its disgust with the Sudanese court decision”:
Jailing Ms. Gibbons is the real insult to Islam in this case,” said MPAC Communications Director Edina Lekovic. “Invoking Islamic law to jail and deport her for this insignificant class project is absurd and appalling.
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Minaret of Freedom Institute called on the Saudis to “side with Aisha and the Qur’an, and with the Girl of Qatif and her attorney, against the gossips and the perverters of Islamic law”:
Any lawyer will tell you that there is great latitude for debating the law in any legal system. The Islamic legal system in no exception. However, certain interpretations of the law are an embarrassing absurdity, and the case of the woman known only as the Girl of Qatif is made all the more disgraceful in that the interpretation is made by the self-appointed guardians of the shariah.
Finally, U.K. media reported that the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) called for the release of the English teacher complaining that the arrest “underlines the influence of hardliners within both the judiciary and the security forces.”
This is an usual chorus of condemnations from Muslim Brotherhood organization directed at Islamic governments and likely reflects the degree of pressure felt by these same organizations as they seek to justify the notion of “Islamic democracy.”