Press Release
The French government boasts about holding onto the highest values and freedoms while permitting insults and criminalizing Muslim women for dressing modestly

On Wednesday 19th September, the French magazine "Charlie Hebdo" published perverse, offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (saw). Last year, the magazine published insulting caricatures of the Messenger (saw) in an edition that it announced mockingly would be guest-edited by the Prophet (saw). Earlier this week, the women from the Ukranian feminist group Femen celebrated the opening of their office in Paris by parading half-naked through a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of the city, with phrases such as "No to Shariah" written over their bodies to express their opposition to Islam and their ignorant view of how it treats women. There was no intervention or arrests from the French authorities. All this has had full acceptance by the French government and legal system that enshrines the degenerate right to insult and express lewdness as part of its constitution. Indeed, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault re-enforced this corrupt ideal in his response to Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet (saw), when he stated, "we live in a country where freedom of expression is guaranteed, including the freedom to caricature." Femen-activists have gained notoriety for exposing their bodies in similar protests across the world but despite this, the French state has no qualms in giving the organization a license to open headquarters and operate in the country.

This is against a background of the continuing hijab ban in French schools that have stripped girls of a good education simply for expressing their virtuous religious beliefs as well as the niqab ban enforced within its society which has led to arrests and fines imposed upon women wearing the face-veil for the crime of modesty!

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz, Central Media Representative, Hizb ut-Tahrir commented, "What kind of morally bankrupt ideology celebrates the depraved right to defame, insult, and parade the streets naked, while condemning Muslim women for exemplifying the honourable ideal of modesty? This long historical tradition of secular extremism and fanatical liberalism that forms a fundamental principle of the French Republic is nothing to be proud of! It is not a mark of a civilized society but an immoral, disrespectful one that will never be able to secure the dignity of women, achieve harmony between its communities, nor be a model internationally for how to establish a healthy relationship between those of different faith."

"The freedom to vilify, demonise, or ridicule is not indicative of a mature society. It is symbolic of a flawed, immature ideology and system that is unable to distinguish between the right to debate and discuss ideas openly, express opposition to oppression, or account those in power - all integral to the health of any civilized society - from the childish bully-boy playground culture of insults and slander. These perverse representations of the Prophet (saw) are mirrored by the perverse logic of the secular liberal system which embraces the absurd belief that the defamation of the sacred entities and deeply held religious beliefs of people can generate a positive atmosphere of discussion of ideas. This blind worship of freedom of expression is not the means to progress; it is the recipe for chaos! It follows the same thread of secular irrationality that fails to recognize that all human beings have particular sensitivities, including religious ones which if not respected or protected leads to injustice, anger, and at times violence."

"Furthermore, the sheer hypocrisy of the French system that endorses the right of the Duchess of Cambridge to take legal action against a French magazine for printing indecent images that she views as a violation of her modesty, yet at the same time this hypocritical system strips Muslim women of their right to cover their head according to their views. Such entitlements clearly vanish when it becomes applicable to Islam and Muslims.

"It is therefore shameful that Muslim governments, including those that have enjoyed the Arab Spring, are so eager to embrace the intellectually flawed, morally deficient secular liberal system when it is Islam and the Khilafah "Caliphate" that represents the intellectually sound, morally elevated, and sublime ideals and values for humanity. It is a disgrace that they admire an ideology that celebrates insult, pornography and the devaluing of women under freedom of expression while turning their backs on a system that rejects such depraved values, a system that embodies virtue, praises modesty, and sanctifies women's dignity! O Muslim women, we call you to reject this corrupt secular liberal system and rush towards the implementation of the Khilafah "Caliphate" that is the only state that will raise women to the elevated status they deserve. We say to the French government, that you may feel free to provide shade for insults against our beloved Prophet, or violate the dignity of Muslim women in your state, but take heed, it will not be for much longer. For as you banned a play in the 19th century that ridiculed the Prophet (saw), succumbing to the pressures of the political international heavy-weight of the time - the Khilafah "Caliphate", you will soon be faced by the unrivalled power of such a state again through its imminent re-birth, where those daring to defile Islam will shiver at the mere thought!"

{ مَنْ كَانَ يُرِيدُ الْعِزَّةَ فَلِلَّهِ الْعِزَّةُ جَمِيعًا إِلَيْهِ يَصْعَدُ الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ وَالْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْفَعُهُ وَالَّذِينَ يَمْكُرُونَ السَّيِّئَاتِ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ وَمَكْرُ أُولَئِكَ هُوَ يَبُورُ }

"Whoever desires honour, power, and glory, then to Allah belongs all honour, power, and glory (and one can get them only by obeying and worshipping Allah alone). To Him ascends all the goodly words, and the righteous deeds exalt it, but those who plot evils, theirs will be severe torment. And the plotting of such will perish." [TMQ Fatir: 10]

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Central Media Representative, Hizb ut-Tahrir