Muslims are rapists - Fact or Fiction?
American author Mark Twain made the observation that there are three types of commonly recognised untruth: "Lies, damn lies and statistics."
Personally, I like to see original numbers along with percentages. Without them you can easily get the wrong idea.
Rape is indefensible under all circumstances, but reports of a Muslim Rape Epidemic in Sweden and Norway could easily give the impression that Norway is one of the most dangerous countries on the planet for a woman to live.
But are the '65% of rapes committed by muslims' stories on the net making the best use of available data on both how often people get raped in Norway, compared say to the US, and who is actually being locked away for doing it?
Percentages can give the wrong impression of a place and how safe it is to live there.
1) COMPARED WITH USA
For example, did you know that living in the US (where only a tiny minority follow the teachings of Islam) you are 80% MORE likely to get raped than someone living in Norway?* Sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
Given this, what form of cultural and religious self defence would commentators like to prescribe for women living in the US?
2) SEXUAL OFFENCES IN NORWAY IN 2004
One argument commonly posted on the web to smear Norway's muslims with the label of 'rapists' is based on the following misrepresentation of the facts - the allegation that NON-WESTERN IMMIGRANTS (synonymous with Muslims, since they comprise the majority of this group) are responsible for 65% of rapes.
Let's check the maths.
(Statistic Norway 2004)
All Sexual offences in Norway = 571 in 2004
By Norwegians 511 (89%)
By Western Immigrants 27 (5%)
By NON-WESTERN IMMIGRANTS 33 (6%)
Those who wish to smear muslims quote 65% of rapes. The official 2004 statistics indicate 6% of sexual offences by NON-WESTERN IMMIGRANTS... or 33 sex crimes in total across the whole country.
Does that sound like an epidemic?
When you find out the real numbers, the lies, damn lies and distortion created by misquoted percentages becomes clear. What may have started its life, in fact, as an honest calculation of 6.5%, has been misread/ misprinted as 65% and grabbed as proof of a muslim rape epidemic by European anti-muslim propagandists. Its repetition ad nauseum across the net reinforces the perception that it must be accurate, when readily available government records prove it to be a classic example of 'lies, damn lies, and statistics'.
Moral of the story - When you are GIVEN PERCENTAGES, DEMAND TO SEE THE NUMBERS they were derived from. Nothing less will bring you closer to the truth...
Muslims are NOT rapists
Ends | 27 Mar 2006 |
http://www.ablemesh.co.uk/thoughtsmusli ... pists.html
The moral is - let's see the numbers and evidence to back up any allegations.
Above we have the figures for 2004. Let's compare them with the combined figures for the alleged past few years when there has allegedly been a Muslim rape epidemic. Let's see the comparable numbers, breakdown and source.
*Here are the sums:
(Statistics Norway 2005)
Norway's population 4,631,799
798 reported rapes
= 0.017% of all residents reported being raped
(FBI Uniform Crime Report 2003)
US population 298,421,911
93,433 forcible rapes in 2003
= 0.031% of all residents reported being raped
The US percentage of residents reporting rape looks significantly bigger to me than the Norway percentage... nearly double, the ratio is US's 31 to Norway's 17. In fact 31 as a digit is 80% bigger than 17. (17 x 1.8 = 30.6)
Might I not therefore, resonably deduce from this that a US resident is 80% more likely to be a victim of rape than a Norwegian resident?
my sources:
Norway data:
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/01/10/
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/03/05/lovbrudda_en/
Cheers,
Shafique
