Maldivian Artists and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs

Maldivian Islamists have achieved a major political victory. They have a seat at the table. They have demanded and are getting part of what they want. They have a new Ministry of Islamic Affairs headed by Dr. Majeed - "a man who claims to have personally witnessed a beheading in Saudi Arabia and talks about it as if it is office gossip."
What else do they want?
“If such an institution is established it will be a power to protect religion in Maldives…to minimise government influence in religious affairs,” Majeed said.

So what exactly are they going to do with their power? Beheadings?
He has declared that music is haraam. He also says that a woman should not rule a country. He knows this because they told him so in a madarusa in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
Let us have a look at what is happening in those places.....

Bangladeshi artists under attack from Muslim hardliners
DHAKA (AFP) – Rashed Ahmed paints the fiery eyes of a python on to a giant piece of white cloth in the grounds of Dhaka University, as a huge crowd of painters, actors and writers cheer the fine arts student on.
Each of those gathered then has a tilt at drawing their own symbols, leaving a personal mark indicative of the Bangladeshi cultural heritage they say hardline Muslims are determined to destroy.
"The python is the symbol of radical Islamists," says Ahmed. "It has started devouring our rich culture. Unless we can collectively stop it, the survival of our arts, sculptures, writings and dramas will be at stake."
Large groups of Bangladeshi artists -- including film-makers, singers and writers -- began daily protests last month after authorities removed two newly commissioned sculptures of local folk singers erected outside Dhaka's airport.
A group of Muslim hardliners calling themselves the Anti-Statues Resistance Committee complained that the sculptures were idols, which are strictly forbidden in Islam, and threatened to attack the artwork with power tools.
Buoyed by their removal, hardline Islamists are now demanding that the government erect a minaret honouring Muslim pilgrims at the same airport site.
One of the group's leaders Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini, a former MP, says that he will "demolish all statues" if his party wins the December 18 parliamentary elections.
This is not the first time extremists have targeted people in the arts in Muslim-majority but officially secular Bangladesh. In 1994, feminist writer Taslima Nasreen fled the country after she was accused of blasphemy.
Another respected writer, Humayun Azad, died in 2004 after he was attacked with machetes at a book fair by suspected Islamists.
According to leading intellectual and English literature professor Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, the removal of the sculptures capped the state's growing acquiescence with extremist groups.
Last year, a satirical magazine published by the country's largest media group was closed down and its editor apologised after it printed a cartoon of prophet Mohammed.
The military-backed government also backed down from a policy to ensure equal property rights to women amid angry protests by Muslim clerics that the move would override Islamic law.
Continue reading at Yahoo News...

Woman in pants leave the Islamists hot and bothered.
Mainly Muslim Malaysia's National Fatwa Council recently issued a religious ruling that wearing trousers was un-Islamic.
It said that, by wearing trousers, young girls risked becoming "tomboys" who became sexually active.
That move triggered small protests later from two non-Muslim non-government organizations -- Katagender and Food-not-Bombs.
"I'm warning them and will take stern action as it involves national security," Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan told reporters on Thursday, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.
Malaysia frowns on oral and gay sex, describing them as against the order of nature. Under civil law, offenders -- male and female -- can be jailed for up to 20 years, caned or fined.
As well as women in trousers, the Fatwa Council is considering barring Muslims from practicing yoga.
Just over half of Malaysia's 27 million people are Malay Muslims, practicing the moderate form of Islam.
From: Reuters