Sharia law is being openly practiced in Austria and Germany, an Austrian former Muslim has said. Sabatina James has called on the west to expel recognised Islamists in its midst, saying there can be no place for Muslims who refuse to integrate.
In an interview with Austrian news outlet Krone, James said: “there are democratic Muslims, no question. They are not the problem. Someone following a religion is one thing. The teachings of Mohammed are another. He has been proven to have taught and practiced violence. He called for the beating of woman and stoning of adulteresses, the execution of apostates, of people like me.
“If all this violence, of which I speak, has nothing to do with Islam, then Mohammed has nothing to do with Islam. The established theology of Islam must deal with [these problems]. But it lacks critical debate.”
James – not her real name – has first hand experience of the violence that Islam can inspire. She moved from Pakistan to Austria as a child, but in her early twenties her parents, alarmed by her integration into western society, ordered her to marry a cousin. She refused – and her family sentenced her to death in an honour killing.
James fled to Vienna with the help of friends where she converted to Catholicism in 2003. Over the next decade she wrote a number of books about her experiences as a Catholic convert from Islam, for which she receives regular death threats. She now lives under police protection in Germany, forced to change location regularly to keep one step ahead of those who would kill her.
Her latest book, Only the Truth Sets Us Free, deals with the reality faced by thousands of women living under a death sentence imposed under Sharia law in the west, many of whom she has helped through her organisation Sabatina e.V. She argues that the tendency of the west to hide behind false tolerance is resulting in a loss of freedom for these women.
“Sharia is now finally with us,” she said. “And the victims are primarily women. A parallel justice system is being practiced, one which maintains the mantra: either women submit to systematic violence, or they will be liquidated.
“In the midst of Europe we’re talking about thousands of women living under a death sentence. Even within my family.”
She continued: “The religion that causes the most bloodshed is being protected the most. I find that totally paradoxical. And sometimes by those who carry the banner of gender equality, multiculturalism and the right to sexual self-determination. But if Islamists set the tone, freedom of expression, homosexuality and women’s rights will soon be finished.
“I wonder what makes these people tick. Total naivety? Or are they afraid of the truth?”
The German Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said earlier this year that he would like to see penalties introduced for Muslims who are unwilling to integrate into the German way of life. James responds “I agree with him, but all of our integration efforts are useless if people who come to our country believe that they can remain here even when they commit human rights violations.”
She’s dismissive of the suggestion that if they do, the penalty will be jail. “Then what?” she asks. “Do we want to punish people here but let them still live here? In doing so, we give the violent, anti-democratic, Islamist scene a home.
“Those who are unwilling to deport anti-democratic Islamists should not be surprised if more attacks to come. In other words, return recognized Islamists! Otherwise, they will undermine us while we are trying to win the war against the Islamic State.”
Following the attacks in Paris, a French Muslim blogger released a home made video urging his fellow Muslims “who believe in values of the Republic” to “rise up” against the Islamists in their midst. James is similarly convicted that western Muslim communities have a part to play – and share a portion of blame for the attacks on western targets. “As long as the Islamic community teaches as an official representation of Islam that women are not equal and non-Muslims are not real people in a legally full sense, they cannot be absolved of responsibility” she says.
But that’s only part of the problem. Westerners who defend the ability of Islamists to remain within the West must also shoulder the blame: “These offenders don’t randomly fall from the sky!”