As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan continues, my thoughts do not centre on fasting, renewal and self-restraint--the latter two I like, fasting not so much--but on burkas, flooding in Pakistan, Omar Khadr and Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

An email from the president of the B.C. Muslim Association about Ramadan had me thinking about my Muslim friends. I don't have any. Why, in a large multicultural city such as Vancouver, do I not have any friends or even acquaintances of the Muslim faith? Even through my work at the Courier, it's rare that I speak to someone who is Muslim. It seems strange given 72,000 Muslims live in Metro Vancouver, according to the last census.

The Courier has tried to interview Muslims in the past, most recently Iraqi refugees who came to Canada via a Syrian refugee camp, but we were denied. Too scared, we're told. 9/11 changed a lot.

An opportunity to form a friendship with a person of the Muslim faith hasn't happened, although I was slowly getting to know an Iraqi named Fatima, her two kids and soccer-loving husband at my local East Side park. She didn't go to the park as often as I did and then my family moved away last year. Fatima, dressed in full-length covering with only her face visible, and I talked mostly about our kids. I asked her about her new life in Canada. It was difficult sometimes, she replied in broken English, but better than life in Iraq. I worried that Canada's reputation as a friendly and welcoming nation wasn't meeting her expectations.

New Canadians tend to stick with their own due to language, religion or culture--which I understand. It's the same everywhere. After a while, what divides us slowly disappears thanks to a new generation of Canadian kids who don't care about another child's background or language--unless they've picked up prejudices at home from their parents.

When I met Fatima at the park--mostly in the warmer months--I wondered what it must be like to walk around covered head to toe in a long, heavy dress. She often looked very hot.

Burkas, however, disturb me. They deny Muslim women from enjoying life's simple pleasures--feeling the wind on your face while riding a bike, licking an ice cream cone at the beach with friends while letting the sun's rays wash over your face, hiking the North Shore mountains without succumbing to heat exhaustion from wearing a tent, picking up your little ones from daycare and letting them spontaneously kiss your exposed cheek.

Burkas oppress women. I wish they'd disappear.

Truth be told, my only ongoing Canadian relationship with Muslims is via the light-hearted CBC TV comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie and the news, such as the tragedy of flooding in Pakistan and why the world isn't responding as it did when an earthquake rocked Haiti and a tsunami swept through parts of Southeast Asia.

Then there is the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, who was captured by American soldiers in 2002 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay ever since. He was 15 when he was caught. Whatever your thoughts on his jihadist parents, he was a child and his confinement violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Khadr's fate--the facts are not clear whether he threw the grenade that killed an American--is now being decided in a U.S. military court.

As unfair as Khadr's treatment has been at the hands of the so-called democratic and civilized nations of the U.S. and Canada, worse is the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian mother accused of adultery and killing her husband. Thanks to global outrage, she will not be stoned to death. But fears are she may be hanged.

People of many faiths (Christians killing doctors who perform abortions, Hindus setting daughters on fire for "shaming" the family, Muslim dads killing their Canadian daughters for dating non-Muslims) commit horrendous crimes and when a religion justifies stoning a woman or man to death, the world must speak out loudly. Cruel and barbaric forms of capital punishment, which includes lethal injection, and murder in the name of religion must be universally condemned.

According to a recent report in the Guardian newspaper, Mohammadi Ashtiani's case embarrassed the Iranian government, but her lawyer worries about other Iranian women facing a similar sentence who aren't in the public eye. Also according to the paper, Iran is said to have frozen all executions until the end of Ramadan. At least 12 Iranian women and three men are awaiting execution by stoning.

These are the thoughts flitting through my mind as the days of Ramadan continue.

fhughes@vancourier.com