Fatwa for a hug?

Well, I guess if cartoons mean riots, a hug is at least worth a fatwa:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Islamic clerics at a radical mosque in Pakistan's capital have demanded the minister for tourism be fired, after she was pictured committing a "great sin" by hugging a foreign man.

Minister for Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar on Monday rejected the Taliban-style edict against her by clerics at Islamabad's Red Mosque, who last week set up their own court to deliver Islamic justice.

Photos carried in the Pakistani press showed Bakhtiar, helped by a male instructor during a charity parachute jump she made in France last month to raise money for victims of the massive earthquake that hit Pakistan in October 2005. Another picture shows a woman — apparently Bakhtiar — hugging the instructor.

On Sunday, two clerics at the mosque's Darul Afta or Department of Edicts issued a fatwa, or edict, that this was "an illegitimate and forbidden act."

"Without any doubt, she has committed a great sin," a copy of the fatwa seen by The Associated Press said. It declared that Muslim women must stay at home and must not venture out uncovered.

The fatwa demanded that Bakhtiar be sacked, given some other unspecified punishment and that her family should "force her to ask for forgiveness so that she does not repeat this un-Islamic act."