Against the Fatwa, In Defense of Freedom

Communiqué about the Death Threat against Gunter Wallraff

The Islamists have threatened Gunter Wallraff, the German writer and critique, to death. In an Internet site that supports al-Qaeda and exhibits videos about beheadings it is said: “This person (Gunter Wallraff) has launched a new attack against Islam. He wants to recite a part of the Satanic Verses in a mosque in Koln.” Recently Wallraff has announced that he had hidden Salman Rushdie in his house for three months. He has also said that he has read parts of the Satanic Verses to his Muslim friends and they have laughed in response; he also wants to recite the book for Muslims in a mosque. Wallraff has said that dogmatism, threats, and fatwas are made by organized Islamic groups and not by ordinary Muslims. Since being threatened, police has started safeguarding Wallraff.

This is the second fatwa by Islamists within recent weeks. A few weeks ago Al-Bahgdadi, the head of al-Qaeda in Bahgdad, made a fatwa for killing Lars Vilks, the Swede artist and cartoonist, and Ulf Johansson, chief editor of Nerikes Allehanda daily newspaper. Fatwa for killing Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin, and killing Van Gogh in Netherlands are well-known examples of Islamic fatwas in the past. Nevertheless, the real number of fatwas that are practiced on a daily basis by Islamic groups and governments against the people, especially against women, in Islam-ridden countries is extremely higher.

Islamic terrorism has become a nightmare of the people of the world. We should oppose this Islamic gangsterism. The method of opposing political Islamic terrorism is not flirting with its so-called moderate factions. “Moderate” or “fundamentalist”, these are parts of the same movement. Whenever acquiring enough power, this movement starts to oppress, to kill, and to make fatwas. Those who plan to oppose Islamic terrorism through flirting with “moderate” or “conservative” Islam in fact prefer the persistence of political Islam. They need the Islamic atrocity against the left and libertarianism; they justify their own anti-human state terrorism using political Islam. The only way to fight against political Islam is to decipher any kind of flirting with the mafia of religion in general and to sweep away political Islam by popular, secularist, socialist, and libertarian movements.

The Worker-communist Party of Iran strongly condemns the threat to kill Gunter Wallraff and calls upon all libertarians of the world to struggle against Islamist movements and to unconditionally defend freedom of expression. We should appear on the scene massively to push back Islamic groups. The WPI also calls on libertarian people in Germany, Sweden, and all around the world to actively support the libertarian movement of the people of Iran against the Islamic Republic which is the backbone of political Islam. The Party also calls on libertarians to support libertarian, secularist, and socialist movements in Islam-ridden countries.

Worker-communist Party of Iran
September 25, 2007