Tag Archives: Religion of Peace

Afghan Red Cross worker set to be hanged after converting to Christianity

Map of the Middle East
Map of the Middle East

Mary sent me this news article from the UK Daily Mail.

Full text:

An Afghan physiotherapist will be executed within three days for converting to Christianity.

Said Musa, 45, has been held for eight months in a Kabul prison were he claims he has been tortured and sexually abused by inmates and guards.

Mr Musa, who lost his left leg in a landmine explosion in the 1990s, has worked for the Red Cross for 15 years and helps to treat fellow amputees.

He was arrested in May last year as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy following a crackdown on Christians within Afghanistan.

He claims he was visited by a judge who told him he would be hanged within days unless he converted back to Islam.

But he remains defiant and said he would be willing to die for his faith.

He told the Sunday Times: ‘My body is theirs to do what they want with.

‘Only God can decide if my spirit goes to hell.’

Defence lawyers have refused to represent him, while others have dropped the case after receiving death threats.

Mr Musa was arrested after a TV station showed western men baptising Afghans during secret ceremonies.

And it’s not just Afghanistan and Iraq – now it’s Egypt. Jennifer Caballero linked to this Cubachi post that explains how Egyptian Christians are in fear of persecution.

Here is an article from the left-wing Huffington Post that talks about Obama’s response to all of this persecution of Christians.

Excerpt:

The Obama administration has not shown us it cares about the persecution of Christians. This is obvious. At a time of rising persecution of Christians throughout Muslim lands, the president has nominated Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook — a “motivational speaker” with questionable qualifications — to hold the critical position of U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Respected diplomat Thomas Farr, who headed the State Department’s International Religious Freedom desk, has written in The Washington Post: “The Obama administration seems to have decided that other policy initiatives — outreach to Muslim governments, obtaining China’s cooperation, advancing gay rights — would be compromised by vigorous advocacy for religious freedom.”

The situation for Christians around the world is increasingly dire. In Afghanistan, a government we support and largely fund is hounding Christians, pursuing them, and threatening them with death.

Christians in Iraq are suffering more now than at any time since the dawn of the Christian era. Fully half of Iraq’s Christians have fled the country since the 2003 U.S. invasion. They can no longer survive where their ancestors lived for thousands of years.

Christians in Egypt were murdered at Christmas by Muslim militants. Christians in Lebanon are newly threatened by the rise of Hezbollah — backed by Iran.

In Iran itself, 100 Christians were arrested in 24 cities on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. The Iranian regime — to which this president extended an “open hand” and to whose people he sent Persian New Year’s greetings — is committed to a totalitarian variant of Islam. No wonder they want nuclear weapons.

It’s become very popular on the left to say that Islam is a religion of peace, and to include Islam as a mainstream religion alongside Judaism and Christianity. Somehow, I don’t think that the multicultural relativists have looked very deeply at Islam.

And I don’t think that Islam could have much going for it rationally or evidentially if it has to resort to violence in order to avoid people converting away from it. If membership in Islam isn’t voluntary, then how many Muslims really believe in it because they think it is true? Clearly, they don’t really care about presenting as rationally testable. It’s basically presented as “convert or die”.

500 Muslim scholars endorse murder of Pakistani governor who opposed blasphemy laws

Map of Middle East and Asia
Map of Middle East and Asia

From McClatchy. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

The increasing radicalization of Pakistani society was laid bare Wednesday when the nation’s mainstream religious organizations applauded the murder of provincial governor Salman Taseer earlier this week, while his killer was showered with rose petals as he appeared in court.

Taseer, 66, the governor of Punjab, the country’s most heavily populated province, was assassinated Tuesday by one of his police bodyguards after Taseer had campaigned to ease Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Religious groups threatened to kill others who questioned the blasphemy statute, which is designed to protect Islam and the Prophet Muhammad from “insult.”

Pakistan is a key partner for the U.S. in the global fight against terrorism but waves of fundamentalism have produced an increasingly intolerant and anti-American country, making the alliance with Washington hugely unpopular.

Life Site News explains more.

Excerpt:

In November a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to be executed under the law for having defended her faith from insults by Muslims in the same state.

[…]While the Pakistani government denounced the murder, a group of 500 Muslim scholars issued an explicit statement endorsing the killing of Taseer. During initial court hearings Qadri was kissed and showered with flower petals by numerous supporters.

“We pay rich tributes and salute the bravery, valor and faith of Mumtaz Qadri,” declared the Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat group in a statement issued to the press. They added that “there should be no expression of grief or sympathy on the death of the governor, as those who support blasphemy of the Prophet are themselves indulging in blasphemy.”

Extremist Islamic groups have held a national strike to protest the proposed repeal of the law, even though Pakistan’s ruling party has renounced plans to do so.  The groups have also demanded the execution of Bibi, who was arrested in 2009 after defending her faith against Muslim women who she said were taunting her for her Christianity. She denies having insulted Mohammed.

Meanwhile, Iran is rounding up Christian leaders.

Excerpt:

Iranian state television said Wednesday that leaders of the country’s Christian minority have been arrested and accused of spreading a hard-line version of their faith.

The report did not give the number of people arrested. The group was promoting hard-line Christian views at cultural gatherings with the support of Britain, the TV reported, quoting Tehran Governor Morteza Tamadon. It did not elaborate.

Tamadon was quoted as calling the group “a corrupt and deviant current.”

A website of Iran’s political opposition reported that 60 Christians have been arrested since Christmas, including a priest taken into custody on Friday.

The Sahamnews.org website said the priest, Leonard Keshishian, was summoned by security authorities in the central city of Isfahan and arrested.

It gave no further details or a reason for the arrests.

Where is Obama? Does he have anything to say about this? Shouldn’t the supposed leader of the free world have something to say about this?

Maybe he is too busy playing golf… in only TWO YEARS he has played twice as many rounds of golf as George W. Bush played in EIGHT YEARS.

Pakistan woman sentenced to death for defending her faith against Muslims

A story from CNS News about a very brave Christian woman from Pakistan.

Excerpt:

A Pakistani Christian woman is facing death following a conviction under the nation’s Blasphemy Law, after she defended her  faith against a group of Muslims who insulted her for her Christian beliefs.

Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old farmworker and mother of three, was working in the fields of her small town of Itan Wali in the Punjab region of Pakistan in 2009 when her hand touched the water that the workers were to drink.  The Muslim women working with her then refused to drink the water, saying that it had been contaminated by the touch of a Christian.  Some reports indicate that the group had been pressuring Asia to abandon Christianity for some time.

In the argument that followed, Asia reportedly defended her faith, although there are two versions of the exact nature of her statements. The Muslim women claim that she insulted Mohammed, claiming that he had died “with worms in his mouth.”  However, Asia’s defenders say that she never made any insults, but rather defended her faith in Christ, affirming that he had died for the sins of mankind and risen from the dead, while Mohammed had not.

After the women complained to a local imam, Quari Salim, the cleric filed charges against Asia for “blasphemy,” and she was sent to prison to face trial.  Fifteen months later, on November 7, she was sentenced to hang for her “crime,” and to pay a fine equivalent to two-and-a half years’ salary for an unskilled worker.

A group of townspeople in Itan Wali told CNN that they all support the death sentence against Asia, and Quari told the news agency that her death sentence was “one of the happiest moments of his life,” according to the interviewer.

“Tears of joy poured from my eyes,” said the imam during the videotaped interview.

[…]It has been reported that, in recent years, over 30 people who were accused of violating Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law were either murdered in prison or killed following their acquittal and release.

Meanwhile, here’s the Democrat Hillary Clinton defending the religious freedom OF MUSLIMS.

Excerpt:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized Wednesday the state of religious freedom in Europe, as Washington highlighted policies and attitudes toward Muslim veils and Islam as a whole.

“Several European countries have placed harsh restrictions on religious expression,” Clinton said, without elaborating as she unveiled the State Department’s report on international religious freedom for the last year.

Her assistant secretary for human rights, Michael Posner, cited France’s ban on wearing the niqab and other face coverings in public places and a Swiss motion passed last year that bans building new minarets.

[…]France’s law banning veils — passed last month — was considered an especially controversial move in a country with Europe’s biggest Muslim population, estimated at nearly six million. The Netherlands is expected to follow suit.

If you expect the Democrats to do something about Christians being persecuted by Muslims, you’re going to be waiting an awfully long time.

Also, why isn’t the secular-leftist mainstream media reporting this story as much as they report stories like the Matthew Sheppard story and the Abu Ghraib story? Do Christian women not count as victims to the mainstream media, if the perpetrators are Muslim?

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