| Submit your comments on this article |
| Middle East |
| Israel police question Jerusalem Mufti |
| 2002-10-15 |
| Israeli police on Tuesday briefly detained the chief Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, and said they were questioning him about a newspaper interview in which he was quoted as condoning suicide bombings. Sabri, 63, the mufti of Jerusalem, has frequently made comments that have outraged Israelis and has praised Palestinians fighting Israel. Relatives said Sabri was detained at his home at about 9 a.m. Sabri's son Obeidah said police came to the family home in east Jerusalem on Tuesday morning and took his father to a police compound in central Jerusalem. Reporters saw the mufti freed about three hours later. Sabri was being questioned over a June 1 interview in the Palestinian daily Al Ayyam, in which he reportedly said that "Palestinians have the legitimate right to fight Zionist occupation," said police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby. "In addition, the mufti claimed that there is no religious law against suicide actions, rather they are legitimate acts of self defense," Ben-Ruby added. That's the Western dilemma: we believe in freedom of religion and freedom of speech. That belief extends to spittle-spewing "clerics" who use their freedom of speech to call for slaughtering members of other religions because God told them it was okay. Eventually we'll reach the point where we realize that a shot in the head is the best cure for that sort of thing, but being Westerners we're going to feel really bad about it afterwards. The spittle-spewers wouldn't give it a second thought. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |