About The Centanni/Wiig "Conversion"

Who's to say whether "conversion" to Islam needs quotes, and that's the question. Is it just me, or has This NPR interview with Fox News's Steve Centanni on Aug. 30 not been widely noted? Here's the key quote, from the summary:

Before their release, Centanni and Wiig were recorded on videotape, saying that they had converted to Islam. He remains unsure of its legitimacy.

"Did I convert? I don't know enough about Islam to know if it was official, or recognized," he says.

I've played the audio several times, and here's the entire quote:

Did I convert. I don't know enough about Islam to know if it was official, or recognized, if it went through the proper procedure or not. They believed we had, I believed we had.

Yikes.

This part of the segment starts around five minutes in, and when NPR's Madeleine Brand first mentions the conversion, Centanni avoids the subject, talking about how his captors brought books about Islam so they would help spread the word. She then asks Did you convert, leading to his answer above.

Brand then asks whether he and Wiig were afraid of being executed. Centanni's answer is you never know, but the question isn't placed specifically in the context of the punishment for apostasy being death.

He later adds he "may" report again from the Middle East, but "I'm not particularly interested" in reporting from Gaza right now. Understandable in any case, but the forced conversion, and its possible implications, add another horrible layer.

Comments

[The Sanity Inspector]

I liked what Steyn had to say, that the forced conversions were staged, to show the jihadists' Muslim audience how spineless the West is.