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Measles Makes a Comeback in Kyrgyzstan Because of Islamic Law
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On February 9, 2015 @ 8:00 pm In The Point | 14 Comments
Now these are some “anti-vaxxers” that Salon and Slate won’t want to talk about.
All but declared dead a few years ago, measles is back in Kyrgyzstan — and Allah is largely to blame.
What sets the anti-vaxxer community apart in Kyrgyzstan, a predominantly Muslim country, is that there is one overarching reason for opting out of inoculations — religion.
One figure touting such views is Niazaly Aripov, the head of the Osh Oblast Muftiat, the region’s chief Islamic body.
Nearly 70 percent of the 6,400 people who sought vaccination exemptions in 2014 did so on religious grounds, according to the Bishkek-based National Center for Immunization and Disease Prevention. As a result, diseases that were contained or had not been seen in Kyrgyzstan in years are reemerging as a threat to the public health.
After more than 200 cases were recorded in 2014, more than 3,400 confirmed cases and nearly 1,000 suspected cases have been recorded as of February 5 of this year.
“You can’t find a single word in hadiths or the Koran saying that before the hajj people should be vaccinated,”father-of-two Almaz Alimbaev adds.
This is mild compared to how brutally the Taliban are fighting Polio vaccines.
Frequent attacks on anti-polio campaign volunteers and vaccination teams in Pakistan have become increasingly common since the Pakistani Taliban leadership began issuing religious edicts (fatwa) against the government vaccination program and against female health volunteers who have been the core workforce for health care programs. At least 56 individuals, mostly female health workers and security personnel aiding the anti-polio campaign in Pakistan, were reportedly killed in attacks since June 2012 when the Pakistani Taliban reiterated its ban on the ongoing vaccination program.
Maulana Fazlullah, the present TTP leader, alleged that the polio eradication campaign was part of a “conspiracy of Jews and Christians to make Muslims impotent and stunt the growth of Muslims.”
One such decree called the presence of women in public spaces a form of indecency, and instructed that it “was a Muslim man’s duty to kidnap the women health workers when they paid home visits, to marry them forcibly even if they were already married women, or to use them as sexual slaves.” Another similar Taliban decree declared that it was morally illegal for Muslim women to work for wages.
But nothing immoral about raping them. That’s fine in Islam. Mohammed did it.
Boko Haram, the Islamic State in Nigeria, has also been fighting polio vaccination through mass murder. But, as Obama said, let’s not get on our high horse about it.
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