Five Northern Virginia males who were imprisoned in Pakistan pointed out Monday that they have plans to battle terrorism charges that Pakistani authorities are promoting by utilizing a method observed in U.S. courtrooms: that they were getting ready for jihad, however, not arranging any terror attacks.
Among the men, Ramy Zamzam, informed reporters: “We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism.” There were no charges submitted throughout the hearing in Sargodha, however Pakistani police stated that their formal reccomendation the men be charged with anti-terrorism laws — and get a life sentence to prison — will be filed by Tuesday.
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This is actually a very interesting defense. There is a body of scholarship out there by linguistic experts that addresses this very issue — the difference between Jihad and terrorism.
In fact, Islamic Jihad is known to translate to Peaceful Striving.
In addition, HSTV just interviewed an Arabic Linguist who challenged the meaning of al-Qaeda based on its traditional Arabic use in the Quran. Basically, if you look at how the term Qaeda is used in the Quaran, it refers to those who sit idle or those who are lazy. The argument was that the founders of al-Qaeda (Azzam and bin Laden) are clueless about the teachings in the Quran.
However, this has been challenged and for good reason. We know that they are very good at twisting Quranic language to justify their murder.
Is this what their defense attorney told them to say? The Jihad web sites talk about commiting acts of destruction (terrorism). If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…….well you know the rest.
I guess its duck season. I better tell the boss that im going hunting.
Weird posting…I guess it only works b/c we usually hear “Jihad” in the context of terrorism. Really isn’t this story just saying these guys are pleading not guilty to terrorist charges? I mean it seems irrelevant whether they are claiming to be preparing for “jihad” or not.