Re: the wonderfulness of Islamic Senegal:
1) 4-year old Koranic student Harouna Balde has to beg on the streets and if he doesn't bring back money to the religious teacher will beat him
"Balde is one of an estimated 100,000 children begging on the streets of Senegal, according to U.N. officials -- most of them sent out by their religious teachers."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/06/16/senegal.children.reut/index.html2) A year ago Senegal hosted a summit of Muslim African nations -- did they talk about the genocide in Darfur? the hell that jihad has brought to Somalians? No: they were there to talk about (besides of course the evil Jews of Israel) what Muslims can do againsts those horrible CARTOONISTS of Denmark, as well as the supposed rise around the world of "anti-Islamic" speech and actions.
Not to mention from the same link we learn that Senegal's president (Abdoulaye Wade) is the chairman of the OIC, which represents all Muslim nations in the world, and which still refuses to endorse the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, but instead insists on Muslim nations abiding by a separate declaration, the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights" -- which among other unacceptable things specifically grants loopholes for the unjust treatment of minorities and women, as well as for the punishment of "blasphemy" and apostasy.
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/964418.htmlQuoted at the time of the conference, Wade, the President of Senegal and chairman of the OIC, said: ?I don?t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy. There can be no freedom without limits.?
3) More pertinent to the preposterous claims about miraculously low incidence of AIDS in Senegal:
This story indicates a high degree of homophobia in Senegalese society and laws --
http://www.afrol.com/articles/28112From the linked story, a covert gay wedding was held in Senegal, and it convulsed the nation after it was published by local news:
"The publication has flared tempers in the predominantly Muslim nation, resulting to arrest and detention of homosexuals and all those who graced the wedding, including musicians."
And this:
"Senegalese authorities have been under local religious pressures to avoid tolerating homosexuality in the country, especially as the country prepares to host a major international Islamic summit on 12 March.
Led by an influential Muslim cleric and lawmaker, Imam Mbaye Niang, hundreds of people took to the streets of Dakar to protest against the government's failure to prosecute the gay suspects.
Chanting Allahu Akbar [God is great], the protesters later turned violent, burning rubbish and blockading roads close to the central mosque in Dakar."
Also, under Senegalese law, it is a crime to engage in homosexual acts at all. In this story, men charged were sentenced to 8 years in prison -- which is better, I guess, than throwing them off a tall building or cliff as classical Islam requires... (While Senegal recently finally got around to making female genital mutilation a crime, the penalty is 5 years in prison -- three years less than if you engage in homosexual act. Their priorities are grievously, but not surprisingly, misplaced.)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6600835With this much homophobia in a society, we are supposed to believe that they are going to honestly report incidence of AIDS ? Give me a break!
Also this:
Abdou Houdia Diop - a doctor at a sexually-transmitted disease clinic run by the Senegalese Ministry of Health - says societal, religious and legal disapproval of homosexuality drives many underground.
"Since homosexuals are a hidden group, it is difficult to treat them, and it makes it difficult to manage their treatment because they may not want to get tested or to come for their test results," he said.
(There is more to read at the link below)
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-02/2007-02-15-voa14.cfm
Topic: Nice things about Islam and Muslim culture.