By the standards of Western human rights activists and of many Muslims as well several countries in the Muslim Middle East are alleged to have very bad "human rights" records. In the last chapter, in our discussion of "Islamic law" in contemporary practice, we gave some instances of conduct which would surely be regarded as outrageous and indecent in Western eyes. Much of this conduct most notably, perhaps, the alleged rape of young women prisoners in Iran in order to render them ostensibly suitable for execution would perhaps appear even more outrageous and indecent in orthodox Muslim eyes.
Human rights violations in the Middle East continue. Amnesty International, in its Annual Report Summary (1990), reported sharp increases in the number of executions in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Torture was reported to be widespread in Morocco, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and also was reported in Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.
To the Western public, these are all grouped together as Muslim (or even as "Arab") nations and societies, and all of their human rights abuses are liable to be laid at the door of Islam. Yet it will be noted that many of the worst Middle Eastern human rights abusers are under non Islamic often, indeed, rigidly secular regimes. The plainest examples of this are Iraq and Syria, ruled by different wings of the socialist Baath Party. Socially, both have a veneer of secular Westernism active cafe and nightclub cultures, for example. In spite of Saddam Hussein's wartime effort to present his effort (against a coalition with many Muslim member states) as a jihad, Islam has had no place in the political agenda of Iraq or Syria.
Nor, of course, is the Middle East alone in human rights violations. Amnesty International (1990) reports abuses in every part of the world, and the Middle East a...