Tzortzis has said a lot of dubious things.
In the following I try to go back to the original source.
A
2008 video,
"Secularism basis refuted and Proof of Quran",
used to be here.
At 4:40,
Tzortzis says:
"We as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of
freedom. We see under the Khilafa (caliphate), when people used to engage in
a positive way, this idea of freedom was redundant, it was unnecessary, because
the society understood under the education system of the Khilafa state, and
under the political framework of Islam, that people must engage with each
other in a positive and productive way to produce results, as the Qur'an says,
to get to know one another. Whereas in this society, what they call debate and
positive discourse is printing cartoons."
In the transcript, Tzortzis
defends Muhammad having sex with a 9 year old.
"This is our law: it's nothing to do with age. Now listen to the principles.
Number 1. Is she physically fit?
Number 2. Is she emotionally ready?
Number 3. Is she mentally ready?
Number 4. Is this socially acceptable?
...
All these different kinds of principles that we apply. And it happened, that there was an outlier from the statistics that a nine-year-old was physically fit, was mentally ready ... was ... given by her own father and the tribe".
Discussion on
"The Magic Sandwich Show", June 2011, part 10.
At the end of
part 9,
the host points out that the Islamic penalty for apostasy is death.
At the start of part 10,
the host asks
Tzortzis if he thinks that is fair.
He dodges into the claim that apostasy could be "fighting against the community",
for which the death penalty (beheading) is reasonable.
A speaker says:
"Death penalty for apostasy, death penalty for blasphemy, right? Islam condones
a death penalty for both of those crimes, right?"
He replies "Yes it does, yes".
He then talks about "fighting against the community" again.
The speaker asks him about "apostasy without violence".
He agrees that some interpretations of Islam would kill that apostate.
We never seem to get an answer as to what he thinks.
In Oct 2015, Hamza Tzortzis's organisation iERA held a debate:
"The Big Question: Is Islam The Cause Or Solution To Extremism?"
See full debate
and search.
In this segment,
Peter Tatchell
challenges
Anas Altikriti, Mohammed Amin, Fiyaz Mughal, Zara Huda Faris and Hamza Tzortzis
to condemn sharia punishments such as death for apostasy.
He just gets evasion.
Converts to Islam almost inevitably become anti-Israel.
Tzortzis for many years talked mainly about religion, not politics.
He did not talk much about Israel before
Hamas' genocidal attack on Israel
on 7 Oct 2023.
After that, he came out as fanatically anti-Israel.
Tzortzis video on the war, 23 Oct 2023.
He attacks people who
condemn Hamas' attack but not Israel's war in response.
People like me, for example.
OK.
But where is his clear condemnation of both?
I could not find it.
He disputes that Israel has a right to defend itself.
His logic may make sense to him,
but why he expects Israelis to listen for 5 seconds is beyond me.
Israelis, like everyone else, want to live.
He says Palestinians have a right to armed resistance.
He is vague on what this would involve.
He does not address the fact that for Palestinians
it has involved endless war crimes targeting civilians,
culminating in the atrocity of 7 October.
He has some "thought experiments"
but they are irrelevant
since they do not describe
the Israel-Arab conflict since 1948.
(I would say most, maybe 90 percent of,
analogies and thought experiments in war are useless and just bring confusion.)
He claims hostages were treated well by Hamas,
despite the proof that
Hamas has beaten, raped and executed hostages.
Screenshots of Tzortzis' book from one of his fans here.
Absolutely disgusting stuff.
