ISLAM. TARIQ RAMADAN CALLS FOR MORATORIUM ON DEATH PENALTY IN MUSLIM WORLD

a prominent Muslim intellectual in Europe, Tariq Ramadan, has called for a moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Muslim world.
Under what are known as the "hudud" laws, adulterers can be stoned to death and thieves can have their right hands amputated.
Dr Ramadan has now launched a campaign which he hopes will resonate across the Muslim world, as well as in the West.
To most in the West it is indefensible that such punishments are still carried out in parts of the Muslim world - such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia - and they argue the practices should be outlawed. But Dr Ramadan counters that - since these punishments have a basis in classical Islamic law - it is the wrong approach. The real issue, he says, is the context in which the hudud penalties are applicable. He argues that the political and legal systems in the Muslim world do not allow for just and equal treatment of the individual and that "you can't go on killing poor people and women" who, he says, are the main victims of the current situation.