I don’t know what ‘never ceases to amaze me more’ in interviews like this?
Is it how Ibrahim continuously avoids the direct question of whether in principle it’s ok to stone homosexuals and cut off hands of thieves?
Or is it that the interviewer doesn’t bring him to back to answer those questions directly?
I would have thought we needed to get fundamentally clear on that?
Some excerpts:
Ibrahim: Obviously I would like to live under Sharia…
Maajid: You would condone stoning of adulterers for example?
Ibrahim: No not necessarily. It’s a far bigger issue than this…
Maajid: If we can’t sit on Newsnight and say that in principle we don’t condone the stoning of homosexuals or the chopping off of the hands of thieves…
Interviewer: You do condemn that don’t you?
Ibrahim: If it’s not according to a due process of law…
I assume here that if it’s by due process of Sharia law that it’s OK with Ibrahim. But he effectively avoids that and isn’t called to clarify.
Ibrahim: These things have no place in schools because children don’t understand these things. You know as well as I do that it’s a very, very complex issue, not black and white.
I would have thought that it indeed was a black and white issue. Indeed a very simple one. Does he condone the stoning of homesexuals and the chopping off of hands of thieves or not? And I believe children can understand that very well.
Sounds to me like Ibrahim squirms from direct questions and obfuscates.
What do you think?