International: Fundamentalist Muslim clerics in Afghanistan and a radical American Muslim group have called for the assassination of an Afghan academic exiled in the United States for being openly gay.
The “Islame Americaye” Facebook page from April 20, calls for his murder and says that it “is permissible to kill (Sadat) in Afghanistan” and that killing him is not “a sin.”
It tells all Muslims that it is a “blessing” to kill Sadat because he “promotes homosexuality,” according to the post’s Google translation from Persian.
“(They) have placed a fatwa on my head and have ordered Muslims to assassinate me. My crime: being an out and proud homosexual and campaigning for LGBT rights in my beloved homeland,” said Nemat Sadat former professor at the American University of Afghanistan.
Sadat was fired past July and forced to flee to the US after the Afghan government threatened to criminalize him for “promoting homosexuality” and “subverting Islam.”
He said his apparent crime was speaking publically about anti-gay prejudices in Islamic societies.
“When you look at Muslim majority countries, LGBT can be fined, imprisoned, sentenced to life or receive the death penalty for simply being a homosexual or having a gender identity that doesn’t conform with the dominant group,” Sadat told gayasianews.com by email.
“Islamic (society) is plagued with misery and violence. Gays, infidels and women are the greatest victims of Islam,” he added in the email.
Sadat does not consider himself anti-Muslim or anti-Islam. “I grew up being in a secular household… was drilled with messages about Islam standing for peace,” he told gayasianews.com.
Nonetheless he learned about the “darkness” of Islam. “When I was eight, I was told how homosexual men who committed sodomy will be flogged with endless toppling of walls for an eternity in hell,” he said.
“I have learned that the Mullahs of Afghanistan and the American Islam group have placed a fatwa on my head and ordered Muslims to assassinate me. Most of the comments are calling for my beheading including many Muslims who lives in the West,” he said.
“Why is Islam so insecure, homophobic and ugly that it cannot tolerate a gay guy who speaks with creativity, knowledge, reason, science and wisdom?” he asks in his blog.
“Humanists like me champion a culture of love, enlightenment, inclusion, self-empowerment and respect for all. In life or in death, I am the victor in this cultural war,” he writes.
Sadat was born in Kabul in 1979, the year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and a year later his family resettled in California.
Later, he moved back to his homeland to be a professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan.
Sadat said he has received thousands of death threats from angry Afghans who are flabbergasted about his insistence that he is both a proud homosexual and a Muslim.