Writers slam Islamic 'totalitarianism'

[Colorado Blue]

The recent violence surrounding the publication in the West of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad illustrate the danger of religious "totalitarianism," Salman Rushdie and a group of other writers have said in a statement.

Rushdie, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen were among those putting their names to the statement, to be published on Wednesday in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, one of several French newspapers which reprinted the controversial cartoons.

"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism," they wrote.

...

The others who signed the statement were: Somali-born Dutch feminist, writer and filmmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Iranian writer Chahla Chafiq, who is exiled in France; French writer Caroline Fourest; Irshad Manji, a Ugandan refugee and writer living in Canada; Mehdi Mozaffari, an Iranian academic exiled in Denmark; Maryam Namazie, an Iranian writer living in Britain; Antoine Sfeir, director of a French review examining the Middle East; Charlie Hebdo, director Philippe Val; and Ibn Warraq, a US academic of Indian and Pakistani origin who wrote a book titled Why I Am not a Muslim.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9F873D63-8FE0-4789-8292-BB3623E86995.htm