Well, that is of course unless you have a government like ours that are the suckers of the world. Aren't we paying countries like our so called "ally" Pakistan to fight what our government calls Islamic extremism? How much longer will we pump billions of dollars into the Islamic world, only to have them persecute non-Muslims? The Bush administration continually speaks of freedom of religion, but obviously that does not apply to Islamic countries. I am not religious, but about 80% of our country identifies themselves as Christians. When will our so called leaders find the courage to confront the Islamic community on their worldwide persecution of Christians? What needs to be said is, no freedom for Christians in Islamic countries, then no freedom for Muslims here. Here is what we are getting in return for our money. What a bargain....
Pakistan court says the forced conversion of two kidnapped girls is legal
22 Jul 2008
A Christian father in Pakistan is trying without success to gain custody through the courts of his two pre-teen daughters who were kidnapped and made to convert to Islam - writes Anto Akkara.
On 12 July 2008, a judge in Pakistan's Punjab province ignored pleas that Saba Younis, aged 12, and her 10 year old sister, Anila Younis, who went missing on 26 June from the small town of Chowk Munda, had been kidnapped while on their way to their uncle's residence and ruled that their conversion to Islam was legal.
The kidnappers, who had married the girls, had also filed for custody of the girls at a local police station on 28 June, asserting that the sisters had converted to Islam and their father no longer had jurisdiction over them.
"We are shocked by this court order," Anita Maria, a lawyer and a spokesperson for a Pakistani Christian group told Ecumenical News International recently. "Poor Christians in remote areas have to live with that." Maria said that in some cases young women who have been abducted are charged with adultery if they refuse to convert and marry their abductors.
The police had been unable to trace the girls, and members of the local Christian community were shocked when their abductors came forward to claim that the girls had converted to Islam and that they had married the girls.
The Muzaffargarh district court on 12 July said the disputed conversion of the girls was legal, and it was this ruling that left the local Christians stunned.
"We will move the [Lahore] high court to challenge this order," said Maria, who works as the programme coordinator for Pakistan's Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement.
The Pakistan Minorities Concern network said in a statement that Younis Masih, the father of the kidnapped girls, was threatened by the local police when he went to complain about the kidnapping of his daughters. The statement noted that the village has only a few Christian families living among 150 Muslim families, and said that police refused to support the Christian family. The network pointed out that in 2005, nearly 50 Hindu girls and 20 Christian girls were kidnapped and the majority had been forcibly converted to Islam.
"This is a travesty of justice. But unfortunately, this is the practice here," lamented Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, which groups four Protestant churches. Azariah said, "The courts never help us."
Christians account for only about two percent of Pakistan's 168 million people, more than 90 percent of whom are Muslim.
Link to Article
NEWS ALERT: Pakistan Clerics Threaten To Kill Christian For Marrying Muslim; Christian Girls Kidnapped
Thursday, 17 July 2008
By BosNewsLife Correspondents Stefan J. Bos at BosNewsLife News Center and Jawad Mazhar reporting from Pakistan
Members of Pakistan's tiny Christian minority join Easter prayers at a church in Karachi. Via BBC News ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian man was hiding Thursday, July 17, after Muslim clerics in Pakistan's Punjab province threatened to kill him for marrying a Muslim woman, while two Christian girls in the same region were forced to marry their Muslim kidnappers, rights investigators and local Christians said.
Asim Pasha, a Christian resident of the city of Attock, reportedly married Samina in 2004, despite objections from her parents. "Samina’s Muslim parents opposed the marriage due to Pasha’s Christian faith. That's why the couple fled the city and remained in hiding to protect themselves from Samina’s parents," said US-based rights group International Christian Concern (ICC) with Website www.persecution.org
The couple apparently returned to Attock in 2007 with a child and Pasha started a music business in his neighborhood. Soon after, local Muslim clerics reportedly claimed that Pasha had turned to Islam only to eventually force Samina to convert to Christianity.
They said he had "cheated a Muslim girl and made fun of Islam,” and therefore “must be hanged publicly," ICC reported.
CHARGES DENIED
Pasha has denied their charges. He has asked authorities to protect him and a human rights organization is providing him with a hiding place, ICC said. "Pasha is ready for exile along with his wife and child. He said he wants to live happily with his family without fear of disputes. This is not currently possible for him as the local police have refused to register a case against the clerics" or a news paper who made false allegations about him, ICC added.
News of Pasha's troubles, come as a Pakistani couple has appealed a court decision to award custody of their two daughters, 10 and 13, to the children’s alleged kidnappers. The court based its custody decision on the girls’ alleged conversion to Islam. Judge Main Naeem Sardar ruled Saturday, July 12, that Saba Masih, 13, and Aneela Masih, 10, had become Muslims, invalidating their Christian parents’ right to legal guardianship.
Under a common interpretation of Islamic law, a Christian cannot have custody of a Muslim. The sisters appeared in a Muzaffargarh District and Sessions court in the company of 16 Muslim men and were given five minutes to testify that their conversion was genuine, human rights activist Ashfaq Fateh told reporters.
FIRST TIME
It was the first time that Younis Masih and his wife had seen their daughters since they disappeared on June 26 while traveling to their uncle’s nearby home in Sarwar Shaheed, 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Lahore, trial observers said.
The chairman of advocacy group Rays Of Development (ROD, Ferhan Mazher, told BosNewsLife that the reported kidnapping underscored the need of police and government officials to "take notice of the lamentable episode and rescue the girls from the hard line Islamic elements," who he claimed could eventually even “kill the Christian girls.”
Several politicians have made clear this week they hope that the new government's efforts to allocate five seats to minorities in Pakistan's Senate will help to out the difficulties of religious minorities, including Christians, on the political agenda in this mainly Muslim nation.
Link to Article
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
U.K.: Hezbollah Members not Welcome
Well, there is a shred of common sense left in the U.K. Now if they would only end all Muslim immigration. Hopefully this is a step in that direction for our British friends.
British parliament bans military wing of Hezbollah from UK for supporting militants
The British government will ban the military wing of Lebanese-based group Hezbollah from the country to punish it for supporting terrorist activities in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Lawmakers agreed Tuesday to make it a crime to join or support the military wing of the radical group.
Britain's minister in charge of fighting terrorism, Tony McNulty, says the movement is linked to insurgent groups in Iraq that have attacked coalition soldiers.
He says the organization's social and humanitarian wings would not be affected by the ban.
All political parties supported the ban, which passed through the House of Commons unopposed.
Link to Article
British parliament bans military wing of Hezbollah from UK for supporting militants
The British government will ban the military wing of Lebanese-based group Hezbollah from the country to punish it for supporting terrorist activities in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Lawmakers agreed Tuesday to make it a crime to join or support the military wing of the radical group.
Britain's minister in charge of fighting terrorism, Tony McNulty, says the movement is linked to insurgent groups in Iraq that have attacked coalition soldiers.
He says the organization's social and humanitarian wings would not be affected by the ban.
All political parties supported the ban, which passed through the House of Commons unopposed.
Link to Article
Islamic Preacher Calls for Full Sharia in the U.K.
Just a few months after the top judge in the U.K. said that Muslims should be allowed to live under some aspects of Sharia law , a Muslim preacher is calling for full Sharia law within the Kingdom. What people like Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips do not understand is that once even one aspect of Sharia is allowed, Pandora's Box has been opened. 40% of the Muslims in the U.K. want Sharia law , so why would they stop pushing for full Sharia once the door has been opened? Allowing any aspect of Sharia is just inviting trouble and when you give Islamos an inch, they will take foot......literally.
Cleric in ‘kill them’ hate rant
By SIMON HUGHES
Published: 14 Jul 2008
AN extremist Muslim preacher has called for death sentences and flogging in a rant at Britain’s best-known mosque.
Abu Zahra declared: “Male and female thief – amputate their hands. Those who kill – their life is not secure.” And he slammed unmarried sex, saying: “Lash them.”
His demand for Islamic-style punishments was revealed as the row continues over the Lord Chief Justice’s support for Sharia law.
Zahra belongs to hard-line Hizb Ut Tahrir, which once faced a ban.
At London’s Regent’s Park mosque he slated British democracy as criminal.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: “It’s unacceptable.”
Link to article
Cleric in ‘kill them’ hate rant
By SIMON HUGHES
Published: 14 Jul 2008
AN extremist Muslim preacher has called for death sentences and flogging in a rant at Britain’s best-known mosque.
Abu Zahra declared: “Male and female thief – amputate their hands. Those who kill – their life is not secure.” And he slammed unmarried sex, saying: “Lash them.”
His demand for Islamic-style punishments was revealed as the row continues over the Lord Chief Justice’s support for Sharia law.
Zahra belongs to hard-line Hizb Ut Tahrir, which once faced a ban.
At London’s Regent’s Park mosque he slated British democracy as criminal.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: “It’s unacceptable.”
Link to article
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Muslims, you Cannot Have it Both ways
We all see that people across the world are desperately clinging to the slim chance that "moderate" Islam will coming riding in on a white horse and end all the problems that the Islamic community is causing worldwide. But the truth is that "moderate" Islam has not come to the rescue for 1400 years. That is why we need to continue to speak up and force our governments to end Muslim immigration. Muslims cannot have it both ways, they get angry when we speak out against their religion and all the problems that it causes. Yet, they do nothing about it.
Lets put the violence in Islam aside and take something simple. Like the latest piggy bank ban. We see events like this happening more and more, as life as we know it is slowly being changed to suit Islam. What I want to know is, where are the Muslim groups speaking out against this ban? Muslims know that non-Muslims are sick of changing things to suit a religion they we do not belong to. So if they really wanted to be part of our countries and not just change it to suit them, why are the so silent?
Where are the Islamic protests, saying we are against the ban of piggy banks as non-Muslims do not find them offensive and many children love them as it is a tradition with children in non-Islamic countries? Where is the concern for our way of life? Here is a little friendly advice for Muslims. Either stop complaining about what offends you and showing no concern for what anyone else believes or wants, or do not complain as our voice against Islam gets louder. Like I said you cannot have it both ways.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Yemen: Christian Arrests may Herald new era of Persecution
Here is another one of our Islamic "allies". Muslims can persecute Christians and Jews across the Islamic world and we are not supposed to say a word about it. Because the most important thing in the world as we all know, is not to offend the poor Muslims. Our fearless leader Mr. Bush keeps talking about freedom and freedom of religion. How come it does not apply to his Islamic buddies?
Friday, July 11, 2008
Yemen: Christian arrests may herald new era of persecution.
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- On 18 June Yemeni news source Al Sahwa reported that Yemeni political security forces in Hodiada province had arrested a "missionary cell" of seven people and charged them with promoting Christianity and distributing the Bible. One of those arrested, Hadni Dohni, stands accused of converting to Christianity.
According to Sahwa Net, ". . . the suspects were transferred to Sana'a in order to investigate them to know who support them." (Link 1)
BosNewsLife subsequently reported on 2 July that according to International Christian Concern (http://www.persecution.org) the Yemeni Christians were still in detention and at risk of mistreatment and torture at the hands of Yemeni authorities. (Link 2)
Hodaida is Yemen's third largest city. It is the capital of Hodaida Province which is located on Yemen's western Red Sea coast and home to more than two million Yemenis. (See map at link 3)
ARRESTS MAY HERALD NEW ERA OF PERSECUTION
These arrests may well herald an era of more intense and systematic persecution. They came hot on the heels of an Islamist media campaign (foreign, terrorist, and local) that claims Islam in Yemen is under threat due to Christian missionary activities; and at a time when the hugely unpopular, corrupt, abusive, dictatorial regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is struggling to hold the state together.
MEDIA CAMPAIGN: IN FEAR OF MISSIONARIES AND APOSTATES
On 11 October 2007, Catholic World News reported: "The Palestinian newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi is reporting 2,000 conversions from Islam to Christianity in Yemen.
"Many of the converts are reportedly living abroad in fear for their lives. Yemen adheres to Shari'a law, which forbids conversions from Islam on pain of death.
"The World Muslim League has appealed to Yemen's government to stem the tide of conversions, placing the blame on schools administered by foreigners." (Link 4)
On 13 January 2008, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported: "On January 13, 2008, Islamist websites posted the first issue of Sada Al-Malahim [Echo of Wars], the e-journal of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. According to its editor, the journal was established in response to a call by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who urged '[those] who are engaged in Islamic media jihad to strengthen their resolve . . . in the face of the fiercest Crusader attack that the Islamic nation [has ever known]." (Link 5)
Then on 18 February 2008, the Yemen Post reported: "Yemeni Researcher Dr Abdul Qawi Al-Tab'ee warned of the growing organised Christian movement in Yemen, hinting the missionary work of foreign agencies focus on young youth to build its movement and spread Christianity in Yemen.
"This news comes in shock to a country known to be free from Christians as only very few Christian Yemenis exist in Aden, which officials say that they are not of Yemeni root.
"Meanwhile, the Islamic World League in its report warned of growing missionary work in Yemen and indicated that the missionary agencies have managed so far to turn over 120 Yemenis in Hadramout into Christianity. It also hinted these agencies are also active in Eritrean and Somali refugees' camps located in southern part of Yemen.
"The league attributed the success of Christianity campaign in Yemen to the absence of attention by Muslims . . ." (Link 6)
It is difficult to see how the above article, written by Yemen Post staff writer Hakim Almasmari, could fail to cause anxiety and outrage amongst Yemeni Muslims.
Almasmari asserts that Christians use international organisations -- especially those involved in education, health or humanitarian relief and development -- as fronts for their missionary work. He specifically mentions the Jibla Baptist hospital without condemning the 30 December 2002 terrorist attack which claimed the lives of Dr Martha Myers (57), hospital administrator William Koehn (60) and supply purchaser Kathleen Gariety (53), as well as critically wounding pharmacist Donald Caswell. He also fails to mention the great outpouring of grief in Jibla that followed the slaying of the three Christians who, having spent 62 years in Yemen between them, had brought health, hope, joy and friendship to multitudes. As distraught mourner Malka al-Hadhrami told Salah Nasrawi of the Associated Press, "All Jibla weeps for them." The terrorist, Abed Abdel Razzak Kamel (35), a member of a group called Islamic Jihad, confessed to having shot the Americans "because they were preaching Christianity in a Muslim country". (See Link 7)
Almasmari adds that while Christian missionary work is strictly forbidden "books and literature about the Christian faith have been widely noticed to be distributed in the Old City of Sana'a".
HOLDING THE STATE TOGETHER: A DEAL WITH AL-QAEDA
AND/OR A FEAR TO BE EXPLOITED FOR POLITICAL GAIN
The 1990 creation of the unified state of Yemen brought together North Yemen which was 66 percent Shi'ite and had traditionally (until a 1962 military coup) been ruled by a Shi'ite Imamate, and South Yemen which was 99 percent Sunni, Marxist and until 1990 was sponsored by the Soviet Union. The already aggrieved religiously conservative Shi'ites then became a 30 percent minority in a Sunni dominated socialist ("apostate") republic. North Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, an Arab Socialist revolutionary and nominal Shia, was elected as the president of the unified Republic of Yemen.
It is difficult to imagine a more potentially fraught marriage. Indeed, not long after the honeymoon ended, civil war erupted.
As a secular socialist, Saleh was no admirer of religious fundamentalists -- unless of course they could be exploited and employed to his advantage.
During the 1994 civil war, Saleh, who had to fight against disaffected southerners to keep his country unified, employed tens of thousands of "Afghan" Arabs (Sunni fundamentalist Arab veterans of the 1980s Afghan jihad) in a "jihad" against the "infidel" southern separatists. The government-jihadi alliance crushed the southern separatists, and the previously more open and liberal Aden (capital of the south) was left helpless before an incoming tide of Islamisation. This of course has only caused the disaffection and grief of the more liberal and secular southerners to intensify.
The 1994 civil war marked the beginning Saleh's pragmatic alliance with Sunni fundamentalists and militants, including al-Qaeda. It is an alliance that mirrors the alliance between al-Saud and al-Wahhab: a pragmatic alliance built on quid pro quo deals. Saleh does not interfere with al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda preserves Saleh's socialist dictatorship, at least for as long as it is convenient. Al-Qaeda-perpetrated terror under this arrangement is Government-controlled but it gives Saleh grounds to cry out to the West for funding for his war against terror. However Saleh's relationship with the US in the War on Terror (even if it was/is a confidence trick) gave the Shi'ite rebels of the north grounds to accuse him of being pro-American, the ultimate sin.
When the Shi'ite rebellion erupted in 2004, President Saleh employed his Sunni fundamentalist militants and al-Qaeda puppets alongside his army in his war against the al-Houthi Shi'ite rebels.
Thus Saleh is fighting Shi'ite rebels in the north and liberal pro-democracy and separatist forces in the south, by feeding and partnering with Shi'ite-hating, democracy-hating, liberty-hating, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-infidel, anti-apostate, Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalist militants including al-Qaeda.
This has not resulted in the defeat of the al-Houthi Shi'ite rebellion (which has cost thousands of lives) or the repression of dissent in south. The result has been escalating radicalisation, terrorism, disaffection, rioting and a dangerous broadening of the sectarian conflict as the warring Islamic sects receive support from their co-religionists abroad. Yemen is now in the grip of a Sunni v Shi'ite sectarian conflict which most analysts believe is fast becoming a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In such an explosive environment it is common for Muslim leaders to try and generate popularity and Islamic solidarity by deflecting hostilities onto a common "enemy": Jews, "Zionists", "Crusaders", Christians, missionaries, apostates. The Jews come first and then the Christians -- as the Muslim war chant goes, "Baad a- Sabt biji Yom al-Ahad": "After Saturday comes Sunday", meaning after we deal with the Saturday people -- the Jews -- we'll deal with the Sunday people -- the Christians.
The Jews have already been dealt with. As reported by WEA RLC News & Analysis in January 2007: "On 10 January [2007] the 45 Jews of al Haid, Sa'ada (north Yemen) received letters from a Shi'ite rebel militia. The letters accused them of promoting vice and demanded that they leave the province. According to the Yemen Observer, the 45 Jews have been forced to flee their homes in fear of their lives." (Link 8)
As fighting flared again in April 2008, the Shi'ite rebels finished the job by destroying the homes abandoned by the al Haid Jews some 15 months earlier. They also looted the former home of Rabbi Yehia Youssuf. Israel absorbed some 50,000 Yemeni Jews who were forced to flee Yemen in the immediate aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel. Some 1,600 Jews left Yemen in the 1990s, leaving a remnant of only around 400 Jews in Yemen today. (Link 9)
Maybe "Sunday" has arrived.
Insecurity, terrorism, separatism, rioting and sectarian conflict are not President Saleh's only problems. He is an unpopular dictator who after 27 years in power still imprisons his critics and rules over a state with high levels of illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and malnutrition.
So Islamic fundamentalists will not be the only ones to benefit from a state-sponsored crackdown on Christian missionary activity and apostasy. The Islamic media, with its anti-Christian propaganda and disinformation, has no doubt made persecution of Christians a real vote-winner. Protecting Islam by arresting missionaries and apostates is one way the embattled Saleh-the-secular-socialist can bolster his Islamic credentials -- important in a Muslim state undergoing radicalisation -- and generate some popularity. Saleh releases convicted Islamic terrorists from prison for similar reasons: not only to keep al-Qaeda happy, but to bolster his anti-US credentials for political gain. While the state's prisons maintain a revolving door for Islamic terrorists, they remain full due to a continual intake of journalists, comedians, singers, dissidents, pro-democracy activists, justice advocates -- and now Christians.
If the arrests are part of a deal with Islamic fundamentalists and/or a grab for grassroots popularity and Islamic solidarity, then we have grounds to expect more arrests and an escalation in very public persecution.
. . . and when President Saleh saw how much it pleased the Muslims, he proceeded to arrest more Christians . . . (Adaptation of Acts 12:3)
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) Yemeni security arrests missionary cell in Hodaida. 18/06/2008
Click here
2) Yemeni Christians Remain Detained; No Americans Among Them
By BosNewsLife News Center, 2 July 2008
Click here
3) MAP. Note -- Hodaida here is spelt Hodaydah. Click here
4) Conversions reported on the rise in Yemen. 11 Oct 2007
Click here
5) Al-Qaeda in Yemen Launches New E-Journal -- Sada Al-Malahim
13 January 2008 MEMRI
Click here
6) Researcher Warns Christianity Growth in Yemen
By Hakim Almasmari, 18 February 2008
Click here
7) Yemeni Town Mourns U.S. Missionaries
By SALAH NASRAWI. The Associated Press
JIBLA, Yemen. 31 December 2008
Click here
ALSO
Religious Liberty 2003
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 6 January 2003
Click here
8) Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces -- Yemeni Jews threatened.
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 16 February 2007
Click here
9) Yemen -- Empty Jewish homes destroyed. 7 April 2008
Click here
Link to article
Friday, July 11, 2008
Yemen: Christian arrests may herald new era of persecution.
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- On 18 June Yemeni news source Al Sahwa reported that Yemeni political security forces in Hodiada province had arrested a "missionary cell" of seven people and charged them with promoting Christianity and distributing the Bible. One of those arrested, Hadni Dohni, stands accused of converting to Christianity.
According to Sahwa Net, ". . . the suspects were transferred to Sana'a in order to investigate them to know who support them." (Link 1)
BosNewsLife subsequently reported on 2 July that according to International Christian Concern (http://www.persecution.org) the Yemeni Christians were still in detention and at risk of mistreatment and torture at the hands of Yemeni authorities. (Link 2)
Hodaida is Yemen's third largest city. It is the capital of Hodaida Province which is located on Yemen's western Red Sea coast and home to more than two million Yemenis. (See map at link 3)
ARRESTS MAY HERALD NEW ERA OF PERSECUTION
These arrests may well herald an era of more intense and systematic persecution. They came hot on the heels of an Islamist media campaign (foreign, terrorist, and local) that claims Islam in Yemen is under threat due to Christian missionary activities; and at a time when the hugely unpopular, corrupt, abusive, dictatorial regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is struggling to hold the state together.
MEDIA CAMPAIGN: IN FEAR OF MISSIONARIES AND APOSTATES
On 11 October 2007, Catholic World News reported: "The Palestinian newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi is reporting 2,000 conversions from Islam to Christianity in Yemen.
"Many of the converts are reportedly living abroad in fear for their lives. Yemen adheres to Shari'a law, which forbids conversions from Islam on pain of death.
"The World Muslim League has appealed to Yemen's government to stem the tide of conversions, placing the blame on schools administered by foreigners." (Link 4)
On 13 January 2008, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported: "On January 13, 2008, Islamist websites posted the first issue of Sada Al-Malahim [Echo of Wars], the e-journal of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. According to its editor, the journal was established in response to a call by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who urged '[those] who are engaged in Islamic media jihad to strengthen their resolve . . . in the face of the fiercest Crusader attack that the Islamic nation [has ever known]." (Link 5)
Then on 18 February 2008, the Yemen Post reported: "Yemeni Researcher Dr Abdul Qawi Al-Tab'ee warned of the growing organised Christian movement in Yemen, hinting the missionary work of foreign agencies focus on young youth to build its movement and spread Christianity in Yemen.
"This news comes in shock to a country known to be free from Christians as only very few Christian Yemenis exist in Aden, which officials say that they are not of Yemeni root.
"Meanwhile, the Islamic World League in its report warned of growing missionary work in Yemen and indicated that the missionary agencies have managed so far to turn over 120 Yemenis in Hadramout into Christianity. It also hinted these agencies are also active in Eritrean and Somali refugees' camps located in southern part of Yemen.
"The league attributed the success of Christianity campaign in Yemen to the absence of attention by Muslims . . ." (Link 6)
It is difficult to see how the above article, written by Yemen Post staff writer Hakim Almasmari, could fail to cause anxiety and outrage amongst Yemeni Muslims.
Almasmari asserts that Christians use international organisations -- especially those involved in education, health or humanitarian relief and development -- as fronts for their missionary work. He specifically mentions the Jibla Baptist hospital without condemning the 30 December 2002 terrorist attack which claimed the lives of Dr Martha Myers (57), hospital administrator William Koehn (60) and supply purchaser Kathleen Gariety (53), as well as critically wounding pharmacist Donald Caswell. He also fails to mention the great outpouring of grief in Jibla that followed the slaying of the three Christians who, having spent 62 years in Yemen between them, had brought health, hope, joy and friendship to multitudes. As distraught mourner Malka al-Hadhrami told Salah Nasrawi of the Associated Press, "All Jibla weeps for them." The terrorist, Abed Abdel Razzak Kamel (35), a member of a group called Islamic Jihad, confessed to having shot the Americans "because they were preaching Christianity in a Muslim country". (See Link 7)
Almasmari adds that while Christian missionary work is strictly forbidden "books and literature about the Christian faith have been widely noticed to be distributed in the Old City of Sana'a".
HOLDING THE STATE TOGETHER: A DEAL WITH AL-QAEDA
AND/OR A FEAR TO BE EXPLOITED FOR POLITICAL GAIN
The 1990 creation of the unified state of Yemen brought together North Yemen which was 66 percent Shi'ite and had traditionally (until a 1962 military coup) been ruled by a Shi'ite Imamate, and South Yemen which was 99 percent Sunni, Marxist and until 1990 was sponsored by the Soviet Union. The already aggrieved religiously conservative Shi'ites then became a 30 percent minority in a Sunni dominated socialist ("apostate") republic. North Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, an Arab Socialist revolutionary and nominal Shia, was elected as the president of the unified Republic of Yemen.
It is difficult to imagine a more potentially fraught marriage. Indeed, not long after the honeymoon ended, civil war erupted.
As a secular socialist, Saleh was no admirer of religious fundamentalists -- unless of course they could be exploited and employed to his advantage.
During the 1994 civil war, Saleh, who had to fight against disaffected southerners to keep his country unified, employed tens of thousands of "Afghan" Arabs (Sunni fundamentalist Arab veterans of the 1980s Afghan jihad) in a "jihad" against the "infidel" southern separatists. The government-jihadi alliance crushed the southern separatists, and the previously more open and liberal Aden (capital of the south) was left helpless before an incoming tide of Islamisation. This of course has only caused the disaffection and grief of the more liberal and secular southerners to intensify.
The 1994 civil war marked the beginning Saleh's pragmatic alliance with Sunni fundamentalists and militants, including al-Qaeda. It is an alliance that mirrors the alliance between al-Saud and al-Wahhab: a pragmatic alliance built on quid pro quo deals. Saleh does not interfere with al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda preserves Saleh's socialist dictatorship, at least for as long as it is convenient. Al-Qaeda-perpetrated terror under this arrangement is Government-controlled but it gives Saleh grounds to cry out to the West for funding for his war against terror. However Saleh's relationship with the US in the War on Terror (even if it was/is a confidence trick) gave the Shi'ite rebels of the north grounds to accuse him of being pro-American, the ultimate sin.
When the Shi'ite rebellion erupted in 2004, President Saleh employed his Sunni fundamentalist militants and al-Qaeda puppets alongside his army in his war against the al-Houthi Shi'ite rebels.
Thus Saleh is fighting Shi'ite rebels in the north and liberal pro-democracy and separatist forces in the south, by feeding and partnering with Shi'ite-hating, democracy-hating, liberty-hating, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-infidel, anti-apostate, Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalist militants including al-Qaeda.
This has not resulted in the defeat of the al-Houthi Shi'ite rebellion (which has cost thousands of lives) or the repression of dissent in south. The result has been escalating radicalisation, terrorism, disaffection, rioting and a dangerous broadening of the sectarian conflict as the warring Islamic sects receive support from their co-religionists abroad. Yemen is now in the grip of a Sunni v Shi'ite sectarian conflict which most analysts believe is fast becoming a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In such an explosive environment it is common for Muslim leaders to try and generate popularity and Islamic solidarity by deflecting hostilities onto a common "enemy": Jews, "Zionists", "Crusaders", Christians, missionaries, apostates. The Jews come first and then the Christians -- as the Muslim war chant goes, "Baad a- Sabt biji Yom al-Ahad": "After Saturday comes Sunday", meaning after we deal with the Saturday people -- the Jews -- we'll deal with the Sunday people -- the Christians.
The Jews have already been dealt with. As reported by WEA RLC News & Analysis in January 2007: "On 10 January [2007] the 45 Jews of al Haid, Sa'ada (north Yemen) received letters from a Shi'ite rebel militia. The letters accused them of promoting vice and demanded that they leave the province. According to the Yemen Observer, the 45 Jews have been forced to flee their homes in fear of their lives." (Link 8)
As fighting flared again in April 2008, the Shi'ite rebels finished the job by destroying the homes abandoned by the al Haid Jews some 15 months earlier. They also looted the former home of Rabbi Yehia Youssuf. Israel absorbed some 50,000 Yemeni Jews who were forced to flee Yemen in the immediate aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel. Some 1,600 Jews left Yemen in the 1990s, leaving a remnant of only around 400 Jews in Yemen today. (Link 9)
Maybe "Sunday" has arrived.
Insecurity, terrorism, separatism, rioting and sectarian conflict are not President Saleh's only problems. He is an unpopular dictator who after 27 years in power still imprisons his critics and rules over a state with high levels of illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and malnutrition.
So Islamic fundamentalists will not be the only ones to benefit from a state-sponsored crackdown on Christian missionary activity and apostasy. The Islamic media, with its anti-Christian propaganda and disinformation, has no doubt made persecution of Christians a real vote-winner. Protecting Islam by arresting missionaries and apostates is one way the embattled Saleh-the-secular-socialist can bolster his Islamic credentials -- important in a Muslim state undergoing radicalisation -- and generate some popularity. Saleh releases convicted Islamic terrorists from prison for similar reasons: not only to keep al-Qaeda happy, but to bolster his anti-US credentials for political gain. While the state's prisons maintain a revolving door for Islamic terrorists, they remain full due to a continual intake of journalists, comedians, singers, dissidents, pro-democracy activists, justice advocates -- and now Christians.
If the arrests are part of a deal with Islamic fundamentalists and/or a grab for grassroots popularity and Islamic solidarity, then we have grounds to expect more arrests and an escalation in very public persecution.
. . . and when President Saleh saw how much it pleased the Muslims, he proceeded to arrest more Christians . . . (Adaptation of Acts 12:3)
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) Yemeni security arrests missionary cell in Hodaida. 18/06/2008
Click here
2) Yemeni Christians Remain Detained; No Americans Among Them
By BosNewsLife News Center, 2 July 2008
Click here
3) MAP. Note -- Hodaida here is spelt Hodaydah. Click here
4) Conversions reported on the rise in Yemen. 11 Oct 2007
Click here
5) Al-Qaeda in Yemen Launches New E-Journal -- Sada Al-Malahim
13 January 2008 MEMRI
Click here
6) Researcher Warns Christianity Growth in Yemen
By Hakim Almasmari, 18 February 2008
Click here
7) Yemeni Town Mourns U.S. Missionaries
By SALAH NASRAWI. The Associated Press
JIBLA, Yemen. 31 December 2008
Click here
ALSO
Religious Liberty 2003
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 6 January 2003
Click here
8) Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces -- Yemeni Jews threatened.
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 16 February 2007
Click here
9) Yemen -- Empty Jewish homes destroyed. 7 April 2008
Click here
Link to article
Friday, July 11, 2008
France Rejects Radical Burqa Wearing Muslim
It appears that Europe is waking up more and more. I have been saying for years that the burqa is a sign of oppression and should not be allowed in non-Islamic countries. More actions like this will make Muslims not even want to come into our countries. Viva la France!!
France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris The Guardian, Saturday July 12, 2008
A woman wearing a burqa. France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds of 'insufficient assimilation'. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images
France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes.
The case yesterday reopened the debate about Islam in France, and how the secular republic reconciles itself with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the French constitution.
The woman, known as Faiza M, is 32, married to a French national and lives east of Paris. She has lived in France since 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France. Social services reports said she lived in "total submission" to her husband. Her application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of "insufficient assimilation" into France. She appealed, invoking the French constitutional right to religious freedom and saying that she had never sought to challenge the fundamental values of France. But last month the Council of State, France's highest administrative body, upheld the ruling.
"She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes," it said.
"Is the burqa incompatible with French citizenship?" asked Le Monde, which broke the story. The paper said it was the first time the level of a person's personal religious practice had been used to rule on their capacity be to assimilated into France.
The legal expert who reported to the Council of State said the woman's interviews with social services revealed that "she lives almost as a recluse, isolated from French society".
The report said: "She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote. She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seems to find this normal and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind."
The woman had said she was not veiled when she lived in Morocco and had worn the burqa since arriving in France at the request of her husband. She said she wore it more from habit than conviction.
Daniele Lochak, a law professor not involved in the case, said it was bizarre to consider that excessive submission to men was a reason not to grant citizenship. "If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that women whose partners beat them are also not worthy of being French," he told Le Monde.
Jean-Pierre Dubois, head of France's Human Rights League, said he was "vigilant" and was seeking more information.
France is home to nearly 5 million Muslims, roughly half of whom are French citizens. Criteria taken into account for granting French citizenship includes "assimilation", which normally focuses on how well the candidate speaks French. In the past nationality was denied to Muslims who were known to have links with extremists or who had publicly advocated radicalism, but that was not the case of Faiza M.
The ruling comes weeks after a controversy prompted by a court annulment of the marriage of two Muslims because the husband said the wife was not a virgin as she had claimed to be.
France's ban on headscarves and other religious symbols in state schools in 2004 sparked a heated debate over freedom and equality within the secular republic. The French government adheres to the theory that all French citizens are equal before the republic, and religion or ethnic background are matters for the private sphere. In practice, rights groups say, society is plagued by discrimination.
The president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has stressed the importance of "integration" into French life. Part of his heightened controls on immigrants is a new law to make foreigners who want to join their families sit an exam on French language and values before leaving their countries.
Link to article
Out of the Closet
I would like to inform the readers that I now will be using my real name Christopher Logan instead of Exposing Islam. When I first started researching and speaking about the problems that Islam brings to the world, I used Exposing Islam just as an Internet nickname.
Most of you know, but not all, that I was an administrator and moderator at Jihad Chat since the board was opened. I recently stepped down to spend more time on my blog. The blog has really started to take off and I am looking to target an even wider audience. So I believe that using my name instead of a nickname will make that easier. I will also be upgrading to www.ChristopherLogan.org, in the near future.
Thank you all for your support and everyone one of you should pat yourselves on the back, for doing the job that our government will not do, expose Islam.
Most of you know, but not all, that I was an administrator and moderator at Jihad Chat since the board was opened. I recently stepped down to spend more time on my blog. The blog has really started to take off and I am looking to target an even wider audience. So I believe that using my name instead of a nickname will make that easier. I will also be upgrading to www.ChristopherLogan.org, in the near future.
Thank you all for your support and everyone one of you should pat yourselves on the back, for doing the job that our government will not do, expose Islam.
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