Party-Hoppers Ought to be Hanged, Drawn and Quatered

“What is worrying is that the fall-out of this crisis is sullying the reputation and credibility of many legal and constitutional institutions while the root cause – the despicable phenomenon of party hopping – remains unaddressed.” - Dr Shad Faruqi

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Dr Shad Faruqi (read his article below) gives his opinion on what many now perceive as a Constitutional Crisis in Perak. Call it a constitutional crisis or a political crisis if you want, but Perak is not the only state that is going to fall to Barisan Nasional. Kedah and Selangor may be next on the cards.

Five Pakatan Rakyat State Assemblypersons from Kedah have already met the higher echelons of Umno and have given their undertaking to cross over en bloc once the numbers enable Barisan Nasional to form the new government in Kedah. RM100 million has been allocated to the Kedah exercise and those crossing over are going to be well rewarded.

In Selangor, Hassan Ali has been promised the post of Menteri Besar if he can convince enough of his people to join him in crossing over. This is of course further to the millions he and his gang are going to receive. So far he has only two from PAS and another two or so from PKR who have agreed to join him. So he will need a couple more to finalise the plan.

Rest assured it is all about power and money. Hassan Ali wanted to be the Menteri Besar of Selangor way back in 1999. The only problem is that in 1999 the opposition did not win Selangor. He still wants to be Menteri Besar. And if crossing over to Barisan Nasional with enough of his supporters to enable Barisan Nasional to form the new Selangor government is what it takes, then that is how he will do it as long as he can become Menteri Besar.

Even Hee Yit Fong, the State Assemblywoman who had been with DAP for 20 years, crossed over for money. She has thus far received RM15 million from Vincent Tan of Berjaya fame. She will probably be paid another RM10 million once the dust settles. It seems she needed the money to bail out her husband who was heavily in debt. This was the same situation with Lee Lam Thye who was forced to leave DAP so that he could bail out his wife from her gambling debts. Barisan Nasional, of course, helped settle all his wife’s debts once he ‘abandoned his cause’ and turned pro-establishment.

When we told Pakatan Rakyat that Perak was going to fall, they replied they have things under control. Now we are telling them that Kedah and Selangor too are in a precarious situation and they had better do something about it. Please don’t tell us you have everything under control and then, a few weeks down the road, we see these two states go the way of Perak. 

Anyway, while Pakatan Rakyat figures out how to defend Kedah and Selangor from the RM200 million onslaught by Barisan Nasional, read Dr Shad Faruqi’s take on the Perak crisis.

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Legal turmoil over Perak defections
Reflecting On The Law
By SHAD SALEEM FARUQI, The Star

THERE is a constitutional impasse in Perak. The descent into naked and unprincipled struggle for power was triggered by the defection of a Barisan Nasional Assemblyman to Pakatan Rakyat and an immediate four-stroke counter-punch by the BN.

What is worrying is that the fall-out of this crisis is sullying the reputation and credibility of many legal and constitutional institutions – the Sultanate, the Election Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the public prosecutor and the police. Despite this damage, the root cause – the despicable phenomenon of party hopping – remains unaddressed. Let’s examine some of these issues.

Defections: The “right” to switch parties in midstream is based on Article 10(1)(c) of the Federal Constitution which guarantees freedom of association.

However Article 10(2)(c) permits Parliament to restrict this freedom in the interest of security, public order and “morality”.

In the 80s the governments of Kelantan and Sabah passed anti-hopping laws to curb this right on the ground of morality.

However, in the Nordin Salleh (1992) case, the Federal Court declared that the anti-hopping law was unconstitutional on two grounds. First it was passed by the wrong legislature. Second – and this was most unconvincing – that the term “morality” does not cover political morality.

I believe that party hopping by an Assemblyman after his election on a party ticket amounts to a fraud on the electorate.

There are three possible ways of taming this turpitude. First, a constitutional amendment to Article 10 by a bi-partisan two-thirds majority should be attempted.

A second way could be for Parliament to enact an ordinary Anti-Defection Law and to enforce it immediately.

If and when the law is challenged on the Nordin Salleh precedent, vigorous arguments could be proffered to invite the Federal Court to overrule its prior, indefensible ruling.

One possible way of expediting the overruling of this bizarre decision is for the King to refer the issue to the Federal Court under Article 130 to seek an advisory opinion on the interpretation of the word “morality” in Article 10(2)(c).

A third way of enacting an anti-defection law would be to promulgate an Emergency Ordinance under Article 150. In the case of Stephen Kalong Ningkan (1968), the Privy Council ruled that “emergency” includes “collapse of civil government”.

Without doubt, defections bring about the collapse of civil government and an Emergency Ordinance would be legally, morally and politically justifiable.

Resignation letters: The legality of the undated resignation letters from the two Pakatan Rakyat defectors is at the heart of the constitutional imbroglio in Perak.

The Speaker of the Perak Assembly accepted the validity of the letters and issued a notice to the Election Commission. In favour of the Speaker’s view, it can be stated that in the UK it is part of the privileges of parliament to determine questions relating to casual vacancies in the House.

The decision of the House is generally regarded as final. Also, Article 35 of the Perak Constitution permits a member of the Assembly to resign “by writing under his hand addressed to the Speaker”.

The problem is that the two hoppers denied that they wrote to the Speaker. There is also a relevant judicial decision. In 1982 the validity of open-dated resignation letters was rejected by the High Court in the Sarawak case of Datuk Ong Kee Hui v Sinyium Mutit.

In the light of this decision and the denial by the two defectors, the Election Commission had some basis to make up its own mind and to declare that the seats had not fallen vacant.

Perhaps the safest thing was to seek a quick Federal Court decision on the interpretation of the Perak Constitution. The Perak Constitution in Articles 63-64 admirably provides for such a course of action. Regrettably, the parties to the dispute and the Sultan did not adopt this course of action.

Dissolution: Under the Federal and state Constitutions, the Sultan has an undoubted discretion, guided by his own wisdom and the broader interest of the state, to refuse a request for premature dissolution. We have examples from Kelantan and Sabah where such requests have been refused.

Confidence of the Assembly: Having been appraised that Pakatan Rakyat had lost the confidence of the Assembly, Tuanku Sultan was faced with many difficult choices. First, he could have prorogued the Assembly pending a court decision on the validity of the hoppers’ resignation letters and the question of vacancies.

Second, he could have asked the antagonists to face the Assembly and prove their support in accordance with usual parliamentary traditions. I am of the view that if an Assembly is in session, or can be quickly brought to session, it is its right to determine the question of confidence and no one should usurp this power nor should factors outside the Assembly be taken into consideration in determining the question of confidence.

Article 16(6) of the Perak Constitution is not crystal clear as to how it is to be determined whether the Mentri Besar has ceased to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the Assembly but there is a 1966 Sarawak judicial decision in Stephen Kalong Ningkan v Tun Abang Hj Openg Tawi Sli that the Governor cannot dismiss a Chief Minister unless he is voted out by the Assembly.

In Perak, however, Tuanku took it upon himself to shoulder the lonely burden of determining who commanded confidence of the assembly. He took pains to interview all four defectors and to hear out the Mentri Besar and Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak more than once.

The Sultan paid heed to the EC decision that there were no vacancies. Undoubtedly he was also influenced by the Speaker’s threat that the Speaker would not allow the defectors to enter the Assembly to participate in the confidence vote.

Dismissal of Mentri Besar: The Constitution of Perak in Article 16(7) states that a member of the Executive Council other than the MB shall hold office at the Sultan’s pleasure. This implies that an MB cannot be dismissed except by a vote of no confidence in the assembly.

The problem is Article 16(6) states that if an MB loses confidence then he has two choices. First, advise dissolution and second, if that request is denied, then resign. There is a lacuna in the law. What if an MB loses the confidence of the Assembly, is denied dissolution, but refuses to step down?

Can the Sultan dismiss him? It is submitted that life is always larger than the law. There are always unchartered territories. If an MB who has lost confidence, and is refused dissolution, is shameless enough not to walk away, then the Sultan would be justified in dismissing him, Article 16(7) notwithstanding.

But in Perak this was not the case. The question of losing confidence was not constitutionally investigated. There are many triable issues and the courts must accept the gauntlet.

Treason: Opinions are being expressed that to defy the Sultan and to threaten to go to court for defence of one’s legal rights amount to treason and a ground for deprivation of citizenship. There are fundamental misunderstandings here.

From day one of Merdeka, the King and the Sultans were open to civil suit for their official actions. They were only immune personally. In 1993 even the personal immunity was taken away.

In sum it is not a violation of the Constitution to resort to the courts to seek an authoritative opinion on one’s rights and duties. Where else does one go, what else does one do, if one has a claim?

Dr Shad Faruqi is Professor of Law at UiTM.

It is with a heavy heart that I comment on this piece of news....It has been gnawing at my heart for the past 2 weeks and I have held off commenting until now..........the fact that the Ruler of Perak, a man that I have had the deepest respect for (he was after all a person worthy of his position), a man who was after all the youngest Lord-President of the Malaysian Judiciary, and who delivered some of the best judgements in the history of this nation....that such a man who upheld the consicence of the nation in its darkest hours, and who continues to represent an enlightened monarchy which is sympathetic to its people and unabashed in its support of democracy...that such a man would allow such an unrelenting assault on the only freedom malaysians have...that of the ballot box, and to deny them the government that they chose.....there is nothig more worse than a Ruler abandoning his subjects...A Ruler is answerable to his people, NOT to the ruling federal government of the day. What has happened in Perak is a shame, a blot on the conscience of the King, and a further taste of Najib's ruling style. Witness now, as you would, the dying embers of democracy and free speech in Malaysia, witness how money, corruption, and the naked ambition for power has lead a man to condemn his country to the deepest pits of dictatorial hell. When Najib comes to power, be prepared for a return to the times of darkness, a time when we criticised the governemt in hushed whispers, from behind the comfort of locked doors, when children were always warned never to speak ill of the government outside of the home, when we censored our facial expressions and our thoughts, when we lived in mortal fear of the police (they were bigger rogues than the most hardened of criminals), when even our cell-phone conversations were censored for fear or electronic tapping.....this is what might pass when that man becomes Prime Minister.........Good luck to all malaysians......if you wish to prosper you have but 2 choices: leave and leave at once your country, or stay back and fight till end. For if you do neither, you may lose everything, 

How to make a case against vegetarianism... (no offence to vegetarians: this is just in the spirit of debate) :P

This was just a kind of an intellectual response to all those people who kept bugging me with all sorts of reasons of why non-veg is bad, evil, heartless, and impure; nothing personal here,just light hearted jousting but my take on this is this: each to his/her tastes; one man's meat is another man's posion. (pun intended). Most of the arguments I get against non-veg is pretty ridiculous, not very well thought-out, and can be defeated in debate. This is how to defend yourself when confronted by guilt-inducing activist-vegans/PETA-ans:

Warning: Do respect other people's beliefs and restrictions: Just as you have a right to eat meat, so do they have not to. My take on this is this: Moderation at all levels in the right way. A vegetarian diet can be just as healthy or unhealthy as a non-veg diet. There are many non-vegans who are just as healthy as vegans, and just as happy. It all boils down to having a healthy balanced diet which provides all the necessary nutrition for you to stay healthy, with plenty of exercise as well. 

Please do feel free to engage in creative and friendly debate in this: I love a passionate debate, well-fought and argued, with the opponents parting as friends, not enemies.

How to defend yourself against activist-vegans' seemingly iron-clad arguments:

1. Question its effectiveness: One popular Utilitarian argument is that even if I, a single individual, were to stop eating meat, this would not reduce the number of animals killed at all. The meat market is far too large for the meat producers to register a single person's consumption or lack thereof.
2. Don't let emotional appeals sidetrack you. A vegetarian might ask 'Well, how would you feel if you were slaughtered and eaten?' How you would feel may not be comparable to how a lower life form feels. Similarly, using excessively graphic descriptions ('misleading vividness') to evoke a negative reaction is a fallacy.
3. Don't let overly-broad generalisations stand. You may be forced to admit that some farms or slaughterhouses treat the animals with unnecessary cruelty. But not all do. There are plenty of ways to make sure you eat well treated animals. What if you just ate free-range chickens? Why isn't that okay?
4. Consider less extreme measures. This is related to previous step. Consider: It's widely accepted that most Americans eat more meat than is healthful, but this does not mean the best option is to eat no meat at all. What if we just ate half as much? Or a third? Having too much of something doesn't mean you should have none; just that you should have less.
5. Attack tenuous hypotheticals. Consider the point that the grain it takes to feed one cow can feed a hundred people. With all the starving people on the planet, it would make sense to have them eat grain and not meat. The problem with this statement is that those people aren't starving because there isn't enough food--they're starving because they don't have access to the food. When the vegetarian says 'We could feed all the starving people with the ', respond with 'but would we?' One recent study found that half of all food in America goes to waste. If we had twice as much, wouldn't we simply waste the increase too?
6. Use the 'circle of life" argument. When you get down to it, most animals, including humans, are naturally suited for eating other animals. It is clearly possible to have a healthy diet without any meat, but it's often a lot harder.
7. Blow apart the animal rights argument. When a vegetarian claims that you're violating animal rights, remember them that many researches can prove us that plants have some level of awareness of their environments. How can one argue about animal rights without knowing how much does a single plant can feel(or how much is a plant aware of what it feels) at all?
8. Point out their use of other animal products. Most vegetarians still use animal products in things like leather, glue, gelatin, and some pharmaceutic capsules. Question their hypocrisy in using some animal products despite claims to the contrary
9. Describe the biological case for eating meat. If we were made to eat only plants, wouldn't we have multiple stomachs, like cows? Our stomach's production of hydrochloric acid, something not found in herbivores. HCL activates protein-splitting enzymes. Further, the human pancreas manufactures a full range of digestive enzymes to handle a wide variety of foods, both animal and vegetable.

• One argument is that being a vegetarian is healthier than eating meat (all things being considered). This requires proof; beef is packed with B12 and tons of healthy stuff. The key is not to eat it all the time and preferably not in cheeseburger and fries form. Further, chicken is not all that fattening. Now if you deep fry it in trans fat and smother it with sweet and sour sauce (essentially a tablespoon of sugar mixed with a tablespoon of salt with BHT to preserve freshness) then you might not be reaping any benefits.
• Anyone who has studied anthropology would know that early hominids that had meat in their diet had larger brains than the early hominids that had an exclusively vegetarian diet. There are a lot of theories about this finding, one of which is that meat provides more calories than vegetarian fare which allowed our ancestors to spend more time thinking and less time foraging. The ones that had the larger brains and could fuel those brains with meat survived better and passed those brains on to the next generation. On a side note, it's been hypothesized that early humans weren't necessary hunters, they were scavengers, so saying it is natural for us to eat meat might not be accurate but it may have helped make us smarter.

'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous: The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas. By Christopher Hitchens

I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:

Money's scarce
Times are hard
Here's your fucking
Xmas card
I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?

The late Art Buchwald made himself additionally famous by reprinting a spoof Thanksgiving column that ran unchanged for many decades after its first appearance in the Herald Tribune, setting a high threshold of reader tolerance. My own wish is more ambitious: to write an anti-Christmas column that becomes fiercer every year while remaining, in essence, the same. The core objection, which I restate every December at about this time, is that for almost a whole month, the United States—a country constitutionally based on a separation between church and state—turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state.
As in such dismal banana republics, the dreary, sinister thing is that the official propaganda is inescapable. You go to a train station or an airport, and the image and the music of the Dear Leader are everywhere. You go to a more private place, such as a doctor's office or a store or a restaurant, and the identical tinny, maddening, repetitive ululations are to be heard. So, unless you are fortunate, are the same cheap and mass-produced images and pictures, from snowmen to cribs to reindeer. It becomes more than usually odious to switch on the radio and the television, because certain officially determined "themes" have been programmed into the system. Most objectionable of all, the fanatics force your children to observe the Dear Leader's birthday, and so (this being the especial hallmark of the totalitarian state) you cannot bar your own private door to the hectoring, incessant noise, but must have it literally brought home to you by your offspring. Time that is supposed to be devoted to education is devoted instead to the celebration of mythical events. Originally Christian, this devotional set-aside can now be joined by any other sectarian group with a plausible claim—Hanukkah or Kwanzaa—to a holy day that occurs near enough to the pagan winter solstice.

I have just flung aside my copy of the Weekly Standard, a magazine with a generally hardheaded and humorous approach to matters. It contains two seasonal articles that would probably not have made print were it not for the proximity to the said solstice. (To be fair, the same can be said of the article that you are reading, but I claim exemption under the terms of the "to hell with all that" amendment.) In the first example, the gifted Joseph Bottum complains that it's hard to write a new Christmas carol lyric because—well, because the existing model is composed of songs of such illiterate banality! But he presses on heroically with an attempt to compose a fresh carol, while fully admitting that the recently invented tradition of such songs creates an almost oppressive weight of kitsch. (He also complains of the doggerel-like mystifications of carols like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" while not daring to state the case at its most damning—as in ridiculous and nasty lines such as "This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface." Believe me when I say that I know my stuff here and have paid my dues.)
The second essay is a review by Mark Tooley of a terrible-sounding book called Jesus for President by a terrible-sounding person named Shane Claiborne. You know the sort of thing very well: Jesus would have been a "human shield" in Baghdad in 2003; the United States is the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire. It's the usual "liberation theology" drivel, whereby everybody except the inhabitants of the democratic West is supposed to abjure violence. (To the question of whether the plan to kill Hitler was moral or not, Claiborne cites no less an authority than the Führer's own secretary to claim that "all hopes for peace were lost" after the 1944 attempt. That, as should be obvious even to the most flickering intelligence, was chiefly because the attempt was a failure. What an idiot!)
But why is a magazine of the intelligentsia doing this to us, and to itself, this month? Tooley wants to prove that the legendary Jesus would have been more judicious and perhaps more neoconservative on these points. How can he hope to know that, or even to guess at it? Suppose we put the question like this: Imagine that conclusive archaeological and textual evidence emerged to prove that the whole story of the birth, life, and death of Jesus of Nazareth was either a delusion or a fabrication? Suppose the mother had admitted shyly that, in fact, she had fallen pregnant for predictable reasons? Suppose we found the post-Calvary body?
Serious Christians, of the sort I have been debating lately, would have no choice but to consider such news as absolutely calamitous. The light of the world would have gone out; the hope of humanity would have been extinguished. (The same obviously would apply to Muslims who couldn't bear the shock of finding that their prophet was fictional or fraudulent.) But I invite you to consider things more lucidly. If all the official stories of monotheism, from Moses to Mormonism, were to be utterly and finally discredited, we would be exactly where we are now. All the agonizing questions that we face, from the idea of the good life and our duties to each other to the concept of justice and the enigma of existence itself, would be just as difficult and also just as fascinating. It takes a totalitarian mind-set to claim that only one Bronze Age Palestinian revelation or prophecy or text can be our guide through this labyrinth. If the totalitarians cannot bear to abandon their adoration of their various Dear Leaders, can they not at least arrange to hold their ceremonies in private? Either that or give up the tax-exempt status that must remind them so painfully of the things of this material world.

Growing rift threatens to tear India apart

Hindu-Muslim tensions will rise further

Aatish Taseer

Barely a couple of weeks ago my stepsister, Shalaka, got married at the Taj hotel in Mumbai. Last Wednesday night my stepfather, Ajit, called to pay the bill. When he arrived home 10 minutes later he realised he had left his mobile phone charger behind, so he called Mandira, the Taj banquet manager.

“I can’t speak now, sir,” she said. “We’re under attack.”

Ajit lives in a building next door to Mumbai’s other big hotel, the Oberoi. Within a few moments, he heard gunshots from there too.

In the 48 hours that followed, his neighbourhood was sealed off and his building came under attack. In the windows of the Oberoi he saw deserted rooms, half-drawn curtains, fires, brown smoke and gunmen moving from floor to floor.

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By Friday, he knew that three chefs who had worked at his daughter’s wedding and the family of the Taj’s general manager were dead. Friends of his sisters had also been killed. As terrorist attacks went — and Mumbai has known several in the past few years — it didn’t come much closer to home than this.

My stepfather’s reaction came in the form of a text message the next day. It read: “Pardon Afzal [Muhammad Afzal, accused of attacking the Indian parliament in 2001], hang Sadhvi [a woman accused of participating in the only act of Hindu terrorism in a Muslim neighbourhood], Ban the Bajrang Dal [a Hindu extremist organisation], talk to Simi [a Muslim student organisation of which the Indian mujaheddin, responsible for a string of attacks in Indian cities, is said to be a part], restrict the Amarnath pilgrimage [a Hindu pilgrimage that led to upheavals in the Kashmir valley last summer] fund the Haj. Wow! Truly, my India is great! Fwd 2all Hindus.”

This message, steeped in irony, read like a roll call of the issues and violence that have divided Hindu and Muslim India over the past year. Almost a call to arms, it contained the great, twofold rage that has grown in Hindu India: the feeling that Islamic terrorism seeks to destroy the vigorous “new India” and the suspicion that the state is either unable or unwilling to defend itself — for cynical reasons, such as shoring up the Muslim vote for the government.

The attacks on Mumbai — a city that, in its prosperity, its hybridity and openness to the world, stands as a symbol of the new and energised India — confirmed to many what they had long feared.

Within hours of the attacks, groups gathered in the streets of Mumbai, chanting “Bharat Mata ki Jai” (Victory to Mother India) and singing “Vande Mataram” (Bow to you Mother), a patriotic song that Muslims had objected to as the choice for the national anthem because it implied obeisance to gods other than Allah.

Many British commentators have asked in surprise why India is being targeted. There is no confusion among Indians themselves. When the terrorists say on their websites that they seek to break up India and reclaim it for Islam, they speak a language many Hindu Indians understand. And India has proved to be the softest of soft targets.

More than 4,000 Indians have died in terrorist attacks — the country is the second biggest victim of terror after Iraq and virtually every one of its big cities has faced a terrorist attack. Yet the government has no centralised terrorist database, its intelligence is abysmal and there is little evidence that the state knows who it is fighting.

In dragging its feet, the Indian state does nobody a greater disservice than Indian Muslims. When there are no real suspects, arrests or trials, everyone becomes a suspect. Already an underclass, with low literacy rates, low incomes and poor representation in government jobs, Indian Muslims are increasingly alienated. There is also great pressure on them.

Nobody wants to listen to genuine grievances about poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in the face of a real threat to the country. Many Hindus want Muslims to come clean on the issue of the jihad and to make clear whose side they’re on.

Far from responding positively to this pressure, some Indian Muslims are simply beginning to see their grievances as part of a global conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim.

India’s position in this is unique. It has the largest Muslim minority population in the world (13.4% of the population, or about 150m) but unlike Muslims in western Europe, they are not immigrants.

They have been part of India for centuries.

This is why all Indians — Muslims and Hindu alike — know that the deepening divide threatens the country’s existence.

Many years ago, a divide like this re-energised the Hindu nationalist BJP. Today who knows who it might throw up? The hour of men like Narendra Modi, who oversaw a pogrom of Indian Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, might have come at last.

Aatish Taseer is the author of Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands, to be published in March by Canongate.

Malaysia Muslim body issues fatwa against tomboys

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters Life!) - Malaysia's top Islamic council has decreed that tomboyish behavior and lesbian sex are forbidden in Islam, a newspaper said on Friday.

The National Fatwa Council issued the edict following what it said a spate of cases involving young women behaving like men and indulging in lesbian sex, the Malay language Berita Harian daily said.

"There are teenage girls who prefer the male lifestyle including dressing up in men's clothes," it quoted council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin as saying. "More worryingly, they have started to engage in sexual activities."

He gave no other details.

Mainly Muslim Malaysia frowns on oral and gay sex, describing them as against the order of nature. Under the civil law, offenders -- both males or females -- can be jailed for up to 20 years, caned or fined.

Just over half of Malaysia's 27 million people are Malay Muslims, practicing the moderate brand of Islam.




LOL, I really don't know where to start; either on the absolute ignorance of a religious official who obviously has not bothered to learn more about the true nature of yoga before dismissing it; or the obvious insecurity of a person who clings so tightly to his faith but is SO worried that even the slightest deviation from it will cause him to convert!! This is absolutely the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of-and by the way, who are these people to tell other muslims what to do? Did we elect him? NO! Has he done ANYTHING to benefit his fellow citizens besides extorting them to close their minds to everything else but their religion? NO! Has he contributed to the collective knowledge of mankind? Of course not...he's spent waay too much time looking for imaginary temptations, imaginary nymphs to distract his precious flock from their beliefs, never mind the fact that the "flock" never actually chose him as their shepherd....And this applies to everyone else; who are we to legislate taste? Does it matter to you if someone is a lesbian? Would a lesbian be a threat to you? We have more dangerous threats coming from terrorists who claim their religion as justification for their deeds-however deluded they may be-shouldn't they be issuing fatwas against them? have lesbians threatened your family or general society? I think there is a more serious issue at hand here-that we as a society, whether muslim or not, have let these pompous religious know-it-alls tell us how to think, and what we can or cannot do-if you want to ban something, put it through the democratic process, debate it in Parliament, and enact a Law. Religion is there to guide our actions, and its a personal thing-no one has the right to tell another person what to wear, what to eat, what music to listen to, what exercise regime to follow, what books to read, etc etc etc. Unless we throw off the chains of these fatwa issuing morons and them to the ranks of real life clowns, only then will this country progress.

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