The US-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has announced what it calls a rejection of state intervention in personal religious matters regarding a recent Sudanese court decision to sentence a woman to death for renouncing Islam. According to the announcement:
May 15, 2014 Washington, D.C. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today reiterated its rejection of state intervention in personal religious matters after a Sudanese court reportedly sentenced a woman to death for renouncing Islam.
CAIR’s position statement on ‘Islam and Apostasy,’ which was first issued in 2009, states:
Islamic scholars say the original rulings on apostasy were similar to those for treasonous acts in legal systems worldwide and do not apply to an individual’s choice of religion. Islam advocates both freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, a position supported by verses in the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, such as: ‘If it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you then compel mankind against their will to believe?’ (10:99) ‘(O Prophet Muhammad) proclaim:
Read the rest here.
The statement goes on to say that CAIR consulted with the Fiqh Council of North America, a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) describes itself as “a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group and as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.” CAIR was founded in 1994 by three officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine, part of the U.S. Hamas infrastructure at that time. Documents discovered in the course of the terrorism trial of the Holy Land Foundation confirmed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood and that CAIR itself is part of the US. Muslim Brotherhood. In 2008, the then Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood acknowledged a relationship between the Egyptian Brotherhood and CAIR. In 2009, a US federal judge ruled “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” CAIR and its leaders have had a long history of defending individuals accused of terrorism by the US. government, often labeling such prosecutions a “war on Islam”, and have also been associated with Islamic fundamentalism and antisemitism. The organization is led by Nihad Awad, its longstanding Executive Director and one of the three original founders.