“Jihad for Love” film looks at challenges of muslim gays [video]
“And last year, when we were showing the film in South Africa, there was a lot of protest. The Muslim Judicial Council in that country issued a judgment saying that people should not go and see the film, and they called Muhsin and myself apostates. Now, the sin of apostasy in Islam carries the death penalty. This was read out in 300 mosques in Cape Town. But what was really interesting was that Muslims turned up in very large numbers to see the film because of what the Muslim Judicial Council had said. So–and his daughter, who is now fourteen, stood up on stage with her father, and she said, “I don’t care what the Muslim leadership thinks about my father. If they think being gay is a problem, that’s their problem, not ours.”
Director Parvez Sharma, remarking on a screening of his film, “A Jihad For Love,” which examines the lives of a gay imam in South Africa, an Egyptian who fled to France, and a lesbian couple in Turkey. (Democracy Now)
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