Showing posts with label apostasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apostasy. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Sudan: Khartoum's rulings are totally consistent with Islam
By Elizabeth Kendal
The Case of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag
Professing Christians, Daniel Wani (a South Sudanese US citizen) and Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag were married in Khartoum, Sudan, in 2012.
In August or September 2013, a man claiming to be Meriam's Muslim brother, lodged a criminal complaint against her in Halat Kuku Court of Khartoum North, claiming that Meriam was a Muslim and therefore illegally cohabiting with a Christian man. Meriam was charged with adultery under article 146 of the Sudan Criminal Code while Daniel was accused of proselytising a Muslim.
While Daniel was found to be innocent of proselytising, Daniel and Meriam's marriage was deemed null and void on the grounds that it is illegal for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man. Meriam (27) was subsequently charged with adultery and sentenced to 100 lashes. When she countered the adultery charge by insisting that she was a Christian, the charge of apostasy was added, and on 17 February the now pregnant Meriam was imprisoned in Omdurman Federal Women's Prison along with her first-born son, Martin Ibrahim (now 20 months).
On 11 May, the court informed Meriam that she would be given three days to recant and return to Islam, warning her that if she failed to comply she would be found guilty of apostasy and sentenced to death by hanging.
At her sentencing on Thursday 15 May, a Muslim cleric asked her again to return to Islam. After Meriam replied, "I am Christian not apostate", the judge sentenced her to death by hanging. According to the Sudan Tribune, "[Meriam] Ibrahim for her part, didn't show any reaction to the judge’s ruling" (i.e. she understood the consequences of her choice and was fully prepared and unsurprised). The 100 lashes for adultery will be delivered once Meriam has recovered from giving birth. The death sentence will be delivered in two years time, after Meriam has finished nursing the infant.
Now 8-months pregnant, Meriam's health has deteriorated in prison, as has Martin's, and Daniel is deeply concerned about the conditions under which she will give birth.
Despite being found innocent of the charge of proselytising, Daniel still stands to lose everything he loves. As he explains: "The revoking of this marriage means that my son is no longer my son and the one coming is not my son too, will not be my son - so this innocence means nothing and I will appeal for myself and I will appeal for my wife."
According to reports, Daniel's appeals to the US Embassy in Khartoum, went unheeded for far too long. He told Al-Jazeera, "Considering I am an American citizen, I am disappointed with the American Embassy's position from the beginning of the whole case. At the start of the issue, I reported it to them but they didn't take much interest, particularly the consulate. They said they didn't have time. In fact last time, they said they didn't care much about the case. They came late - they intervened when they saw the issue was getting press attention - but the intervention was late."
Rattled by the international outcry, Sudanese authorities have opened an escape hatch. Speaking on Radio Omdurman on Friday 16 May, Sudan's parliamentary speaker, al-Fatih Izz Al-Din, downplayed the ruling, noting that the death sentence was a preliminary ruling which could be appealed in the various stages of the judicial process. Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abu-Bakr Al-Sideeg assured Reuters that Sudan is committed to human rights and religious freedom.
Eut even if Meriam is acquitted on appeal or released on compassionate grounds, this family will remain gravely imperilled, at risk of Islamists prepared to take the law into their own hands, sparing no effort to ensure Islam and Sharia are not mocked. This family needs to be rescued from Sudan.
Khartoum's rulings are totally consistent with Islam
Islam is a political and material religion, advancing political goals (the imposition of Sharia, the constitution of Islam) and promising material rewards (as the call to prayer states, twice: "hasten to success"). Ultimately everyone will submit to Islam and Sharia, either willing or by compulsion / force. "And to Allah prostrates whoever is within the heavens and the earth, willingly or by compulsion, and their shadows [as well] in the mornings and the afternoons." (Qur'an, Sura 13:15) As such, Islam knows no separation of religion and politics. Islam is a political religion.
According to the Qur'an, fitna -- that is anything that "averts people from the way of Allah"; anything that "causes disbelief" and therefore chaos -- is to be regarded as the greatest of all evils. Fitna is worse than killing (i.e. killing is the lesser of the two evils) -- and fitna must be purged (Sura 2:217). Be assured, nothing generates fitna like the presence of joyful, thriving apostates. Furthermore, apostasy is regarded as a betrayal of the Muslim nation akin to treason. According to Islam and Sharia, the penalty for apostasy is death. This is backed up by the famous Hadith (saying of Muhammad): "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Sahih Bukhari vol 9, book 84, number 57).
Concerning Men: All schools of Sharia (Islamic law) agree that an adult male convicted of apostasy must be killed (unless he is not of sound mind), and that boys convicted of apostasy must be imprisoned until they are of age and then, if they persist in their apostasy, they must be killed.
Concerning Women: Three of the four main Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence -- the Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i schools -- teach that women apostates must likewise be executed. Only the Hanafi (from Kufa, Sth Iraq) and Shia schools teach that women apostates should be imprisoned until they recant. [This is essentially because they view women as so insignificant that they are actually incapable of generating fitna, and therefore do not require elimination.]
Sudanese Islamic jurisprudence follows the Shafi'i school.
Generally, scholars interpret Sura 4:137 as grounds for a Muslim having three chances or three days to repent / recant before forgiveness is denied.
For an excellent study on apostasy in Islam, see:
Political and Legal Status of Apostates in Islam
BY Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (published Dec 2013)
Unlike Christianity, where religious identity is a matter of personal faith, in Islam, religious identity is a political matter, a matter for the Islamic state or nation.
In Islam, a child inherits their religion from their father and is registered as such from birth. Consequently, Muslim men are free to marry Christian women; in fact in some quarters, Muslim men are actually encouraged to marry Christians -- sometimes they are even financially rewarded for marrying Christian women -- for this not only removes child-bearers from the Christian community, it also ensures the children of Christian women are deemed Muslim from birth.
Conversely, Islamic law bans Muslim women from marrying Christian men. Any Christian man who wants to marry a Muslim woman must first convert to Islam to ensure her children are born Muslim.
When a Muslim parent abandons Islam, they automatically lose custody of their children because it is imperative that the children be raised Muslim.
When a nominal-Christian father converts to Islam in order to take a Muslim woman as a second wife, his Christian children are deemed and registered Muslim upon his conversion. From that point, his forcibly converted daughters are obliged by law to marry Muslim men and bear Muslim children, while his forcibly converted sons, even though free to marry Christian women, will produce Muslim children that must be raised as Muslims following Islam and Sharia.
Add to all this, the fact that Muslims are captives for whom leaving is forbidden upon penalty of death, and you have a truly brilliant (albeit insidious) strategy for permanent exponential growth of the Muslim community; growth that is guaranteed not only at the expense of other religious communities, but even in the virtual absence of religious conversions.
Clearly, anyone who says the rulings in Khartoum are a "blatant violation . . . of Islam and Sharia" (WEA RLC, 16 May) is either misinformed or is seeking to misinform.
"Most Muslims believe the Qur'an is about justice, which is also the purpose of Sharia," says WEA RLC's Godfrey Yogarajah.
Well, maybe it's time for "most Muslims" to wake up! Doubtless there are just as many Qur'anically illiterate Muslims who have no idea what Allah demands, as there are Biblically illiterate Christians who have no idea what the God of the Bible demands. There is a lot of ignorance, fantasy and wishful thinking all around.
Islam underpins not only these rulings out of Khartoum, but much Islamic violence, much Islamic repression and many thousands of honour killings committed annually along with the impunity afforded the perpetrators.
According to Islam and Sharia (as distinct from individual Muslims), Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag is a Muslim because she was born to a Muslim father. According to Islam and Sharia, Daniel Wani should have converted to Islam before marrying Meriam in 2012. Had Daniel complied, submitting to Sharia, then the marriage would have been legal, the children would be Muslim, and Muslims and the state would be happy. While Daniel may have failed in his responsibilities according to Islam and Sharia, the Islamic state will ensure that wrongs will be set right by denying Daniel custody of his own children and ensuring they are raised as Muslims.
Let the debate begin
Some sources are at pains to point out that Meriam was raised as a Christian by an Ethiopian Christian mother, making the ruling unfair and unjust as she never apostasised because she was never a believing Muslim. Others say Meriam was raised Muslim by a Muslim mother from a Muslim tribe and that she disappeared for several years before turning up again professing Christ and married to a Christian man.
The details however are totally irrelevant and must not be allowed to become a distraction. Every human being -- no matter how or where they were raised and irrespective of their occupation or status -- must be free to seek after God.
The debate must be about Islam's total lack of liberty, its inherent inhumanity and its gross unreasonableness in suggesting that a good God would compel people to worship and serve him against their heart and conscience.
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for suggest prayer points: see
SUDAN: Christian woman faces death for apostasy
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 261 | Wed 21 May 2014
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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah speaks to Christians today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)
Monday, September 10, 2012
Apostasy, Fitna and abuse of Interpol
by Elizabeth Kendal
If a 2 September report in the Saudi Gazette is true, then it may well be the first time Interpol as been abused by an Islamic State for the purpose of retrieving an apostate.
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APOSTASY
On 28 July 2012, the Saudi Gazette reported: "A Saudi girl who recently embraced Christianity and fled the country for refuge in Lebanon told the host of a religious program on an Arabic TV channel that she was tired of performing prayers and fasting during Ramadan.
"The girl, who said her name was Maryam, said praying and fasting did not bring her any benefits. She also criticized the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai'a) and claimed that she was raised to hate Judaism and Christianity but fell in love with the religions after she found peace in Christianity.
"She said she became a Christian after she had a dream one night. In it, she climbed to the skies and heard God telling her that Jesus is His son."
According to reports, Maryam (28) was working in an insurance firm in Al-Khobar when she became interested in Christianity through the influence of her Christian boss, Lebanese expatriate, Mr Henna Sarkees (50). An unnamed male Saudi national with links to the firm then secured false travel documents that allowed her to leave the country for Lebanon, then for Sweden.
Henna Sarkees and the unnamed Saudi national will stand trial in Al-Khobar, in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, on Saturday 15 September. Maryam's parents have charged the two men with coercing Maryam into converting to Christianity and then convincing her to leave the country without the consent of her male guardian. They have even suggested it may all be part of a conspiracy to get their daughter into the hands of international people-traffickers.
Saudi media asserts that Maryam regrets her conversion, maintains she is still Muslim, denies ever talking to Arabic TV, desires to return home and is accusing Christians of taking her to Sweden against her will.
For more background, details and links see:
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 175 | Wed 05 Sep 2012
SAUDI ARABIA: convert flees; helpers to face court
-- Interpol and Swedish authorities aid Saudi Embassy to hunt convert.
By Elizabeth Kendal
On 2 September, the following news report appeared in the Saudi Gazette:
(copied in full; emphasis mine)
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Efforts on to bring back ‘Al-Khobar girl’ from Sweden
Sunday, September 02, 2012
AL-KHOBAR —The Al-Khobar girl who fled the Kingdom after allegedly converting to Christianity will be brought home from Sweden in a matter of few days, Al-Yaum newspaper reported Saturday quoting informed sources.
The Interpol is coordinating with the Saudi Embassy in Stockholm and Swedish authorities to return the girl to her homeland before her 'kidnappers' move her to another country, the sources said.
The girl's father received phone calls from unknown people who threatened to kill his daughter or move her to another European country if the main suspect in her case, a Lebanese man named Henna Sarkess, was not released from jail in the Kingdom.
Sources said it is highly likely that a global human trafficking network was involved in the kidnapping of the girl, who was persuaded by her Lebanese manager to embrace Christianity and leave the country without the knowledge of her family.
A Saudi was arrested for faking a travel permit, which the girl used to leave the Kingdom and go to Lebanon. There, she stayed with a Christian group inside a church for a while. When she told the group that she wanted to return to the Kingdom and that she regretted what she had done, the group decided to take her to Sweden because it did not want her to return to the Kingdom.
The girl’s father has called upon the authorities to help him bring back his daughter. He said his daughter still talks to them over the phone and she is currently in Sweden. The father is worried that his daughter might get brainwashed.
The Saudi Embassy in Stockholm said it received a letter from the girl’s father requesting it to help her return to the Kingdom. The [Saudi] embassy has started a search with the Swedish authorities.
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INTERPOL
The information in this section of the posting has mostly been gleaned from the following sources:
Interpol's Red Notices Used by Some to Pursue Political Dissenters, Opponents.
Investigative report by Libby Lewis, for The Cutting Edge, 25 July 2011
GLOBAL ADMINISTRATIVE LAW MEETS “SOFT” POWERS:THE UNCOMFORTABLE CASE OF INTERPOL RED NOTICES
Journal article (91 pages) by Mario Savino, March 2010
Journal of International Law and Politics, New York University
The website of Fair Trials International / Interpol
Interpol's official website
INTERPOL: WHAT IS IT?
With 190 member countries, Interpol is the world's second largest international entity after the United Nations. As in the United Nations, Interpol's member countries span from totalitarian dictatorship to liberal democracies. While Interpol possesses many attributes of an international organisation, many would say it is really more of an international network, linking police globally for the purpose of facilitating police cooperation and law enforcement across the globe.
INTERPOL: HOW IT WORKS
Interpol operates "a closed communications system linking police via vast international databases". (Lewis) Normally, police in member countries send Interpol a domestic arrest notice, which Interpol then sends out as a global Red Notice. On the basis of a Red Notice, police in other member countries may arrest suspects for extradition.
While Interpol's Constitution mandates neutrality and prohibits "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character," cooperation is based on trust -- i.e. Interpol trusts member countries not to abuse the system.
WHERE IS THE PROBLEM?
While Interpol has doubtless made the world a safer place by facilitating the arrest of numerous transnational terrorists, traffickers and other criminals, there is nothing to prevent human rights-abusing, non-free, totalitarian states from abusing the system and using Interpol to extend their own repressive arms internationally. Indeed, dictatorial regimes have been known to abuse the system and use it to track down and capture, or even just drive underground, their most troublesome dissidents.
And because Interpol is neither transparent nor accountable, it is extremely easy to abuse.
"Interpol is not entrusted with any significant investigative or operational powers. Those powers are still located at national level. . . Interpol's core business is the administration of information." (Savino, p26)
Fair Trials International reports: "Even though some of Interpol's member countries are known human rights abusers and notoriously corrupt, Interpol has no effective mechanisms to prevent countries, or even individual prosecutors, abusing the red notice system. As a result, even though most red notices may be perfectly valid, abuses of Interpol are also affecting human rights campaigners, journalists and businessmen, in countries all over the world.
"People in this situation have no independent court they can turn to for redress. Your only option is to request a review by a Commission, funded by Interpol and serviced by Interpol staff. You have no right to a hearing, no opportunity to respond to allegations against you and will be given no reasons for the decision reached. Even if the Commission concludes that a red notice is inaccurate or abusive, it cannot require its removal or amendment. It can only make non-binding recommendations."
According to Interpol's Chief Lawyer, Joël Sollier, the agency does try to ferret out dubious requests. His instruction to Interpol is that a Red Notice should be cancelled if there is any doubt. (Lewis)
According to Lewis, Interpol's issuance of Red Notices has increased markedly in recent years, from 2,343 Red Notices in 2005, to 6,344 in 2010. "Partly to deal with that increased workload, Interpol is putting more power into the hands of its police members.
"Two years ago," writes Lewis, "police had to apply directly to Interpol for a Red Notice. Today, every Red Notice request is entered into the system directly by the police themselves—not by Interpol. Police around the world instantly see those notices—before Interpol even reviews them.
"Police can also bypass the formal Red Notice system altogether—and just type an informal notice of arrest in an email—and post it on Interpol’s communications system. Those email notices—Interpol calls them 'diffusions'—go out instantly, with no automatic Interpol review."
And as Lewis notes, "these informal email notices are linked to far more arrests than arrests linked to the Red Notices Interpol vets for political concerns". In fact, according to Lewis, in 2010, at least 1,858 arrests were made of people named in email notices while only 663 arrests were made of people named in Red Notices.
This might explain why in February of this year, while Malaysian police were claiming that they had arrested the Saudi tweeter Hamza Kashgari (23) "following a request made to us by Interpol" on behalf of the Saudi authorities, Interpol was strongly denying that it had anything to do with it.
See: Interpol accused after Malaysia arrests journalist over Muhammad tweet
Police agency strongly denies its system used by Saudi Arabia to get journalist detained for insulting the Prophet Muhammad on Twitter
By Own Bowcott, The Guardian, 10 February 2012
Kashgari had fled Saudi Arabia after his tweeted imaginary conversation with the prophet Mohammad was deemed blasphemous. After being arrested in Malaysia and extradited, he was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. He remains in prison to this day, still offering up apologies, but to no avail. Voices are still calling for him to be executed.
There have also been some really obvious and undeniable abuses of Interpol.
One such case involves Indonesia's call for a Red Notice to be issued against Papuan independence advocate Benny Wenda (36). The Red Notice was issued despite the fact that the persecuted, tortured, now Oxford-based Wenda had been granted asylum in the UK. Only in August of this year was the Red Notice against Wenda dropped.
See: Benny Wenda's plight has highlighted the misuse of Interpol
Interpol must act to stop its red notice system being abused by countries to persecute refugees and exiled political activists
By Alex Tinsley, The Guardian, 6 Aug 2012.
In an article published by CNN, Libby Lewis raises the case of Iranian dissident Shahram Homayoun (57). "After fleeing Iran in 1992 and moving to Los Angeles, Homayoun started a satellite television station, Channel One, to beam a message of civil resistance into the homes of Iranians.
"Over the years, his audience has scribbled his slogan, Ma Hastim ("We exist" in Farsi) on Iranian walls and bridges to promote democracy in the country. He has also called on his listeners to show their solidarity in creative ways, such as gathering at the tomb of Cyrus the Great or showing up at their local bakery on the same day -- every Thursday -- and asking for bread.
"At the request of Iran, which charged Homayoun with inciting terrorism, Interpol issued a Red Notice in December 2009 requesting Homayoun's arrest."
Regarding Maryam, all the Saudi authorities would have had to do was to report through Interpol channels that a Saudi Arabian girl was being held in Sweden against her will, possibly by international traffickers, and request help to retrieve her and return her to her family. And with that, Maryam's hopes of liberty are dashed.
FITNA
As I said in my opening remarks, if the 2 Sept 2012 report in the Saudi Gazette is true, then it may well be the first time Interpol has been abused by an Islamic State for the purpose of retrieving an apostate.
In the past, Islamic states have generally been content to let apostates flee, for at least then they are not be around to spread fitna (temptation / doubt) amongst the locals. However, in these days of global communications -- satellite TV, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc -- the apostate can generate far more fitna from a safe-haven in the West than they ever could at home. And "fitna is worse than killing". (Qur'an Sura 2:191).
Christian advocacy groups that have excelled at speaking into political power must quickly learn how to speak into international law enforcement so that Interpol and national police forces do not become unwitting extensions of Islamic religious police.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
IRAN: REGIME HITS OUT AT APOSTASY -- 70 ARRESTED
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 090 | Wed 12 Jan 2011
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IRAN: REGIME HITS OUT AT APOSTASY -- 70 ARRESTED
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By Elizabeth Kendal
Ethnic Armenian and Assyrian Orthodox Churches in Iran may exist in peace as long as they do not proselytise (i.e. seek converts). It is illegal to preach Christianity in Farsi (the Persian language) just as it is illegal for Muslims to reject Islam (apostasy). The penalty for apostasy is death. So when Muslim Farsi-speaking Iranians convert to Christianity, they must meet and worship in illegal 'underground' fellowships.
Early on 25 & 26 December 2010 armed plainclothed agents from the infamous Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) raided the homes of Christians known to be converts from Islam and/or active in witnessing to Muslims. As well as confiscating CDs, Bibles, religious books, computers and personal documents, they arrested 25 Christians. Sixteen other Christians listed for arrest were not home at the time of the raids and remain unaccounted for. Further to this there are unconfirmed reports that as many as 50 other mostly young believers have since been arrested. Amongst those detained are five married couples, one of whom has been separated from their two-year-old child and another from their breast-feeding infant. The detained Christians are being interrogated and coerced. Eleven have since been released after signing documents promising to refrain from Christian activity. The detained believers are virtually all converts from Islam.
The governor of Tehran province, Morteza Tamadon, describes Protestants and evangelicals as 'corrupt and deviant' and also accuses them of conducting an 'enemy cultural invasion'. 'The leaders of this movement,' he declared, 'have been arrested in Tehran province and more will be arrested in the near future. Just like the Taliban, who have inserted themselves into Islam like a parasite, [evangelicals] have crafted amovement with Britain's backing in the name of Christianity. But their conspiracy was unveiled quickly and the first blows were delivered to them.'
In June 2010 Protestant pastor Youcef Nadrkhani and his wife Fatemah were arrested in the northern city of Rasht. According to court documents, Nadrkhani has been convicted of apostasy, organising meetings, proselytising, establishing a house church, baptising people, and openly expressing his distaste for Islam. For these crimes he has been sentenced to death while Fatemah has been sentenced to life in prison. The couple have two young children. In September 2010 a court of appeals upheld the death sentence, which is being delayed to give MOIS more time to try to coerce Pastor Nadrkhani to return to Islam. Pastor Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani, also arrested in June 2010, has likewise been indicted for apostasy and similar 'national security' offences. Nine other believers arrested with him, including his wife, have been released but he has not yet been sentenced.
In October 2010 Iran's intelligence minister said his agents had discovered hundreds of underground church groups, including 200 in the Muslim holy city of Mashad. According to iranfocus.com, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an October speech that Iran's enemies were behind the underground churches. The director of the Toronto-based Iranian Christian News Agency, Saman Kamvar states, 'Since officials gave these comments, pressure has increased on our community, and the crackdowns have taken a more organised shape.'
It would be a mistake to think only politically about this as it is essentially a spiritual battle.
PLEASE PRAY THAT GOD WILL:
* demonstrate his supremacy over a belligerent regime that increasingly regards itself as supreme (see Isaiah 37:21-29 where God pronounces judgement on Sennacherib, king of Assyria); may God's hand, God's glory and God's supremacy be evident to all.
* continue his powerful work inside Iran and amongst the Iranian diaspora by his irrepressible Holy Spirit, graciously drawing Iranians out of darkness and despair into light and joy; may revival erupt, transforming the landscape.
* restrain violent hands, shield believers, provide for families, bring the schemes of the wicked to nothing (Psalm 146:9) and may what was meant for evil produce glorious fruit.
* flood the hearts of all Iranian Christians -- particularly those detained, threatened and imperilled -- with the supernatural peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).
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IRAN: REGIME HITS OUT AT APOSTASY -- 70 ARRESTED
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By Elizabeth Kendal
Ethnic Armenian and Assyrian Orthodox Churches in Iran may exist in peace as long as they do not proselytise (i.e. seek converts). It is illegal to preach Christianity in Farsi (the Persian language) just as it is illegal for Muslims to reject Islam (apostasy). The penalty for apostasy is death. So when Muslim Farsi-speaking Iranians convert to Christianity, they must meet and worship in illegal 'underground' fellowships.
Early on 25 & 26 December 2010 armed plainclothed agents from the infamous Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) raided the homes of Christians known to be converts from Islam and/or active in witnessing to Muslims. As well as confiscating CDs, Bibles, religious books, computers and personal documents, they arrested 25 Christians. Sixteen other Christians listed for arrest were not home at the time of the raids and remain unaccounted for. Further to this there are unconfirmed reports that as many as 50 other mostly young believers have since been arrested. Amongst those detained are five married couples, one of whom has been separated from their two-year-old child and another from their breast-feeding infant. The detained Christians are being interrogated and coerced. Eleven have since been released after signing documents promising to refrain from Christian activity. The detained believers are virtually all converts from Islam.
The governor of Tehran province, Morteza Tamadon, describes Protestants and evangelicals as 'corrupt and deviant' and also accuses them of conducting an 'enemy cultural invasion'. 'The leaders of this movement,' he declared, 'have been arrested in Tehran province and more will be arrested in the near future. Just like the Taliban, who have inserted themselves into Islam like a parasite, [evangelicals] have crafted amovement with Britain's backing in the name of Christianity. But their conspiracy was unveiled quickly and the first blows were delivered to them.'
In June 2010 Protestant pastor Youcef Nadrkhani and his wife Fatemah were arrested in the northern city of Rasht. According to court documents, Nadrkhani has been convicted of apostasy, organising meetings, proselytising, establishing a house church, baptising people, and openly expressing his distaste for Islam. For these crimes he has been sentenced to death while Fatemah has been sentenced to life in prison. The couple have two young children. In September 2010 a court of appeals upheld the death sentence, which is being delayed to give MOIS more time to try to coerce Pastor Nadrkhani to return to Islam. Pastor Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani, also arrested in June 2010, has likewise been indicted for apostasy and similar 'national security' offences. Nine other believers arrested with him, including his wife, have been released but he has not yet been sentenced.
In October 2010 Iran's intelligence minister said his agents had discovered hundreds of underground church groups, including 200 in the Muslim holy city of Mashad. According to iranfocus.com, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an October speech that Iran's enemies were behind the underground churches. The director of the Toronto-based Iranian Christian News Agency, Saman Kamvar states, 'Since officials gave these comments, pressure has increased on our community, and the crackdowns have taken a more organised shape.'
It would be a mistake to think only politically about this as it is essentially a spiritual battle.
PLEASE PRAY THAT GOD WILL:
* demonstrate his supremacy over a belligerent regime that increasingly regards itself as supreme (see Isaiah 37:21-29 where God pronounces judgement on Sennacherib, king of Assyria); may God's hand, God's glory and God's supremacy be evident to all.
* continue his powerful work inside Iran and amongst the Iranian diaspora by his irrepressible Holy Spirit, graciously drawing Iranians out of darkness and despair into light and joy; may revival erupt, transforming the landscape.
* restrain violent hands, shield believers, provide for families, bring the schemes of the wicked to nothing (Psalm 146:9) and may what was meant for evil produce glorious fruit.
* flood the hearts of all Iranian Christians -- particularly those detained, threatened and imperilled -- with the supernatural peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
IRAN: PERSECUTION SURGES
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 067 | Wed 04 Aug 2010
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IRAN: PERSECUTION SURGES
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Biblical revelation preaches freedom in love. Islam -- like all man-made religions -- demands submission to law. While the God of the Bible demands perfection in love, he freely provides a remedy for sin -- Jesus Christ -- and the Holy Spirit as helper. This is indeed Good News! On the other hand, while Islam demands submission to law, it provides no remedy for sin and so can only culminate in failure. Meanwhile, the dictators of Islam employ religious forces -- Revolutionary Guards, Basij, muttawa, hisba, taliban and others -- to police 'vice and virtue'. To protect their own privilege and hegemony they deny Islam's failure and deflect scrutiny from Islam by blaming the victims. Driven by apostaphobia, they strive to eliminate fitna (anything that could tempt a Muslim to doubt Islam). Sunni reformation (as in Saudi Arabia) and Shi'ite revolution (as in Iran) have only produced repressive, totalitarian police states wracked with poverty, cruelty, despair and disillusionment.
In Iran the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was set up to defend Islam. The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) was established to eliminate all opposition and dissent which they virtually did through purges, terrors and serial killings. When President Khatami (1997-2004) pressed for reforms in the style of 'glasnost' (openness) and 'perestroika' (restructuring) , Ayatollah Khamenei engineered his removal. Through the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since 2005, the hegemony of the blood-stained IRGC and MOIS
hardliners of the 1980s-90s has been restored. The regime has just announced a massive boost in funding for the Basij (state-sponsored Islamic vigilantes) and will establish 7000 new Resistance Bases across Iran. All this is unsurprising, for whilst Christianity requires radical, personal, spiritual transformation, Islam merely demands the enforcement of Islamic law.
Persecution of the Church escalated through 2009, aided because the US no longer has leverage -- due to Iraq, the US now needs Iran more than Iran needs the US. As noted in RLPB 041 (3 Feb 2010), the regime is escalating repression to curtail unrest due to widespread social dissatisfaction and economic distress. A wave of persecution hit the Church in late December 2009 and early January 2010 when many Christians were harassed, interrogated, threatened and arrested. Whilst most have been released on bond, some remain incarcerated and others have been added to their number.
Pastor Behrouz (Marco) Khanjani was arrested on 11 January when he responded to a request from the authorities to come in for questioning in Chiraz. He was bailed on 17 March only to be re-arrested on 16 June. His wife, Fatemeh (Marie) Torkkajouri, was arrested the next day and placed in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. After informing Pastor Behrouz of his wife's fate, the authorities reportedly incarcerated him in 'Plate 100', a dungeon of the intelligence services in Chiraz. Their daughter Esperance is in the care of Muslim family members.
Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was arrested in Rasht on 13 October 2009 for protesting the regime's plans to force Islamic education on all children in violation of the constitution. He has reportedly been sentenced to death. Furthermore Pastor Yousef's wife, Fatemeh (Tina) Passandideh, was arrested on 8 June 2010 and is in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. The authorities have threatened to put the couple's children, Yoel and Daniel, in an Islamic institution.
A group of 15 new believers were travelling by bus to the provincial town of Bojnoord on 18 July 2010. Security forces were informed and ambushed and arrested them in the city of Mashhad. After a week of harsh interrogation, believers who signed 'confessions' were freed on conditions including due payment of all bail. Mr Reza (48, also known as Stephen) and Mr Ehsan Behrooz (23) refused to co-operate and so remain incarcerated in the 901st branch of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD WILL:
* fill Iranian believers with courage and faith to face persecution in a way that brings glory to God.
* fill persecuted Iranian believers with the inner peace and joy that comes from trusting the LORD, from assurance of salvation, and from the experience of God as 'sanctuary' (Isaiah 8:14a).
* give all Iranian Christians -- especially pastors -- great spiritual wisdom to be 'wise as serpents and innocent as doves' (Matthew 10:16 ESV).
* awaken multitudes of Iranian Muslims to the deficiencies of Islam (and not just Iranian economics and foreign policy) and the Good News of Jesus Christ.
* enlighten especially the Muslim relatives, friends and neighbours of Iran's persecuted Christians that they may be so shocked and challenged by Islamic injustice, and so surprised and moved by Christian grace, that they will seek love over law and find truth in Jesus Christ.
------------------------
IRAN: PERSECUTION SURGES
------------------------
Biblical revelation preaches freedom in love. Islam -- like all man-made religions -- demands submission to law. While the God of the Bible demands perfection in love, he freely provides a remedy for sin -- Jesus Christ -- and the Holy Spirit as helper. This is indeed Good News! On the other hand, while Islam demands submission to law, it provides no remedy for sin and so can only culminate in failure. Meanwhile, the dictators of Islam employ religious forces -- Revolutionary Guards, Basij, muttawa, hisba, taliban and others -- to police 'vice and virtue'. To protect their own privilege and hegemony they deny Islam's failure and deflect scrutiny from Islam by blaming the victims. Driven by apostaphobia, they strive to eliminate fitna (anything that could tempt a Muslim to doubt Islam). Sunni reformation (as in Saudi Arabia) and Shi'ite revolution (as in Iran) have only produced repressive, totalitarian police states wracked with poverty, cruelty, despair and disillusionment.
In Iran the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was set up to defend Islam. The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) was established to eliminate all opposition and dissent which they virtually did through purges, terrors and serial killings. When President Khatami (1997-2004) pressed for reforms in the style of 'glasnost' (openness) and 'perestroika' (restructuring) , Ayatollah Khamenei engineered his removal. Through the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since 2005, the hegemony of the blood-stained IRGC and MOIS
hardliners of the 1980s-90s has been restored. The regime has just announced a massive boost in funding for the Basij (state-sponsored Islamic vigilantes) and will establish 7000 new Resistance Bases across Iran. All this is unsurprising, for whilst Christianity requires radical, personal, spiritual transformation, Islam merely demands the enforcement of Islamic law.
Persecution of the Church escalated through 2009, aided because the US no longer has leverage -- due to Iraq, the US now needs Iran more than Iran needs the US. As noted in RLPB 041 (3 Feb 2010), the regime is escalating repression to curtail unrest due to widespread social dissatisfaction and economic distress. A wave of persecution hit the Church in late December 2009 and early January 2010 when many Christians were harassed, interrogated, threatened and arrested. Whilst most have been released on bond, some remain incarcerated and others have been added to their number.
Pastor Behrouz (Marco) Khanjani was arrested on 11 January when he responded to a request from the authorities to come in for questioning in Chiraz. He was bailed on 17 March only to be re-arrested on 16 June. His wife, Fatemeh (Marie) Torkkajouri, was arrested the next day and placed in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. After informing Pastor Behrouz of his wife's fate, the authorities reportedly incarcerated him in 'Plate 100', a dungeon of the intelligence services in Chiraz. Their daughter Esperance is in the care of Muslim family members.
Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was arrested in Rasht on 13 October 2009 for protesting the regime's plans to force Islamic education on all children in violation of the constitution. He has reportedly been sentenced to death. Furthermore Pastor Yousef's wife, Fatemeh (Tina) Passandideh, was arrested on 8 June 2010 and is in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. The authorities have threatened to put the couple's children, Yoel and Daniel, in an Islamic institution.
A group of 15 new believers were travelling by bus to the provincial town of Bojnoord on 18 July 2010. Security forces were informed and ambushed and arrested them in the city of Mashhad. After a week of harsh interrogation, believers who signed 'confessions' were freed on conditions including due payment of all bail. Mr Reza (48, also known as Stephen) and Mr Ehsan Behrooz (23) refused to co-operate and so remain incarcerated in the 901st branch of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD WILL:
* fill Iranian believers with courage and faith to face persecution in a way that brings glory to God.
* fill persecuted Iranian believers with the inner peace and joy that comes from trusting the LORD, from assurance of salvation, and from the experience of God as 'sanctuary' (Isaiah 8:14a).
* give all Iranian Christians -- especially pastors -- great spiritual wisdom to be 'wise as serpents and innocent as doves' (Matthew 10:16 ESV).
* awaken multitudes of Iranian Muslims to the deficiencies of Islam (and not just Iranian economics and foreign policy) and the Good News of Jesus Christ.
* enlighten especially the Muslim relatives, friends and neighbours of Iran's persecuted Christians that they may be so shocked and challenged by Islamic injustice, and so surprised and moved by Christian grace, that they will seek love over law and find truth in Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
EGYPT: what happens when Islamic totalitarianism meets Christian freedom?
In 1980, Egypt amended its constitution to elevate Sharia (Islamic law) as "the principal source of legislation". This provision -- which is now common in Muslim constitutions, including the new constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq -- renders constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and equality before the law illusory. For Sharia's principal aim concerning religious liberty, is to eradicate apostasy (rejection of Islam) through the elimination of fitna (anything that could tempt a Muslim to reject Islam) and the establishment of dhimmitude (the humiliation and subjugation of Jews and Christians as second class citizens; crippling systematic discrimination; violent religious apartheid). There is no religious liberty in Islam, for Islam survives as religious totalitarianism that refuses rejection.
In Egypt, as in virtually all Muslim states, a person's official religion is displayed on their identity card. According to Sharia, every child born to a Muslim father is deemed Muslim from birth. According to Sharia, a Muslim woman is only permitted to marry a Muslim man. (NOTE: This is the main reason why Christian men convert to Islam, and why female converts to Christianity will risk life and liberty to secure a falsified/illegal ID, for without a Christian ID they cannot marry a Christian.)
If a Christian father converts to Islam (as some do for any number of pragmatic reasons, such as a desire for a Muslim wife or a better job), his Christian children are automatically deemed Muslim. They have no say in this and may not apostasise: i.e. return to Christianity. If a Muslim parent converts to Christianity they automatically lose custody of their children.
Egypt's Great Apostasy Debate
In 2007, a Muslim convert to Christianity, Mohammed Hegazy (24), applied to have his identity card changed. Not only was it his desire that his ID card reflect reality, he did not want his unborn child to be automatically deemed Muslim from birth. When his application was declined, Hegazy sued the Interior Ministry for his constitutional right to religious freedom (Article 46 ).
The court ruled against Hegazy on the grounds that Sharia prohibits apostasy. Death threats rang out and Hegazy, his wife and new born daughter were forced to retreat "underground", driven into hiding, to a life on the run.
In August 2008, Maher el-Gowhary stepped up in defence of Christian freedom for the sake of his own daughter, Dina (14). El-Gowhary (55), who had quietly converted to Christianity 35 years earlier, wanted his true religious identity acknowledged and his ID card corrected before his daughter turned 16. For when Dina turned 16 the state would issue her with a Muslim ID card that would condemn her to a double life and rob her of her freedom.
Religious leaders issues fatwas calling for the blood of Hegazy and el-Gowhary to be shed. In September 2008 the two men were shot at and only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
In June 2009, the court ruled against el-Gowhary on the grounds that Sharia prohibits apostasy and conversions would pose a threat to the "public order". When el-Gowhary and his daughter subsequently tried to leave Egypt, their passports were confiscated.
As Mary Abdelmassih reports, the el-Gowhary's plight and the Islamic totalitarianism of Egypt became more widely known, nationally and internationally, after Dina wrote to President Obama, pleading for help. (Dina was clearly unaware that Obama was powerless to help her since the global financial crash of August 2008 had largely robbed the US International Freedom from Religious Persecution Act 1998 of its economic leverage.) Subsequently, in April 2010, Dina was attacked with acid which caused the jacket she was wearing to ignite. Fortunately she was with her father who rescued her so that she was able to survive unharmed.
In early July, Maher el-Gowhary told ZDF German TV: "We live in constant fear ever since radical shaikhs have called for my blood to be shed because I left Islam. We are mostly afraid of the uneducated people on the street, our future is ruined. We are discriminated against; I do not believe that we will receive justice."
On 5 July 2010, as Maher el-Gowhary was walking with his lawyer, he was ambushed by militants who abused him as an apostate, shouted 'Allahu Akbar', and stabbed him several times in the neck. Despite being seriously wounded, Maher el-Gowhary is too afraid of the authorities to go to hospital.
See: Muslim Egyptian Girl Who Converted to Christianity Subjected to Acid Attack
by Mary Abdelmassih, AINA, 17 April 2010-07-14
AND
Muslims Attempt to Behead Apostate in Egypt
Written by Mary Abdelmassih, 08 July 2010
It is unsurprising that el-Gowhary, a peaceful and honest man, is afraid of the authorities, for Egyptian police are infamous for their corruption and brutality. They routinely torture with impunity (even promotion!).
NAGLA AL-IMAM
Late last year, Nagla Al-Imam (36) -- an Egyptian attorney, Sharia expert and prominent human rights activist -- publically announced that she had converted from Islam to Christianity. Nagla was subsequently abandoned by her husband, her family and her friends. She lost her source of income as she lost her attorney's license and Egypt's State Security Administration confined her to house arrest.
In early July 2010, Egyptian security officials took Nagla Al-Imam into custody, bashed and threatened her. She responded on 8 July by posting a video to the internet of herself (bruised and battered) and her two young children singing a Christian lament wherein Christ's comforting and strengthening presence is requested through the high waves of persecution.
According to reports, Nagla Al-Imam and her children subsequently "disappeared", and Al-Tarek, which is the TV station Nagla al-Imam broadcasts from, was vandalised by Egyptian security forces.
This is what happens when Islamic totalitarianism meets Christian freedom.
Islam -- a religion of peace, love and human rights? I don't think so.
In Egypt, as in virtually all Muslim states, a person's official religion is displayed on their identity card. According to Sharia, every child born to a Muslim father is deemed Muslim from birth. According to Sharia, a Muslim woman is only permitted to marry a Muslim man. (NOTE: This is the main reason why Christian men convert to Islam, and why female converts to Christianity will risk life and liberty to secure a falsified/illegal ID, for without a Christian ID they cannot marry a Christian.)
If a Christian father converts to Islam (as some do for any number of pragmatic reasons, such as a desire for a Muslim wife or a better job), his Christian children are automatically deemed Muslim. They have no say in this and may not apostasise: i.e. return to Christianity. If a Muslim parent converts to Christianity they automatically lose custody of their children.
Egypt's Great Apostasy Debate
In 2007, a Muslim convert to Christianity, Mohammed Hegazy (24), applied to have his identity card changed. Not only was it his desire that his ID card reflect reality, he did not want his unborn child to be automatically deemed Muslim from birth. When his application was declined, Hegazy sued the Interior Ministry for his constitutional right to religious freedom (Article 46 ).
The court ruled against Hegazy on the grounds that Sharia prohibits apostasy. Death threats rang out and Hegazy, his wife and new born daughter were forced to retreat "underground", driven into hiding, to a life on the run.
In August 2008, Maher el-Gowhary stepped up in defence of Christian freedom for the sake of his own daughter, Dina (14). El-Gowhary (55), who had quietly converted to Christianity 35 years earlier, wanted his true religious identity acknowledged and his ID card corrected before his daughter turned 16. For when Dina turned 16 the state would issue her with a Muslim ID card that would condemn her to a double life and rob her of her freedom.
Religious leaders issues fatwas calling for the blood of Hegazy and el-Gowhary to be shed. In September 2008 the two men were shot at and only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
In June 2009, the court ruled against el-Gowhary on the grounds that Sharia prohibits apostasy and conversions would pose a threat to the "public order". When el-Gowhary and his daughter subsequently tried to leave Egypt, their passports were confiscated.
As Mary Abdelmassih reports, the el-Gowhary's plight and the Islamic totalitarianism of Egypt became more widely known, nationally and internationally, after Dina wrote to President Obama, pleading for help. (Dina was clearly unaware that Obama was powerless to help her since the global financial crash of August 2008 had largely robbed the US International Freedom from Religious Persecution Act 1998 of its economic leverage.) Subsequently, in April 2010, Dina was attacked with acid which caused the jacket she was wearing to ignite. Fortunately she was with her father who rescued her so that she was able to survive unharmed.
In early July, Maher el-Gowhary told ZDF German TV: "We live in constant fear ever since radical shaikhs have called for my blood to be shed because I left Islam. We are mostly afraid of the uneducated people on the street, our future is ruined. We are discriminated against; I do not believe that we will receive justice."
On 5 July 2010, as Maher el-Gowhary was walking with his lawyer, he was ambushed by militants who abused him as an apostate, shouted 'Allahu Akbar', and stabbed him several times in the neck. Despite being seriously wounded, Maher el-Gowhary is too afraid of the authorities to go to hospital.
See: Muslim Egyptian Girl Who Converted to Christianity Subjected to Acid Attack
by Mary Abdelmassih, AINA, 17 April 2010-07-14
AND
Muslims Attempt to Behead Apostate in Egypt
Written by Mary Abdelmassih, 08 July 2010
It is unsurprising that el-Gowhary, a peaceful and honest man, is afraid of the authorities, for Egyptian police are infamous for their corruption and brutality. They routinely torture with impunity (even promotion!).
NAGLA AL-IMAM
Late last year, Nagla Al-Imam (36) -- an Egyptian attorney, Sharia expert and prominent human rights activist -- publically announced that she had converted from Islam to Christianity. Nagla was subsequently abandoned by her husband, her family and her friends. She lost her source of income as she lost her attorney's license and Egypt's State Security Administration confined her to house arrest.
In early July 2010, Egyptian security officials took Nagla Al-Imam into custody, bashed and threatened her. She responded on 8 July by posting a video to the internet of herself (bruised and battered) and her two young children singing a Christian lament wherein Christ's comforting and strengthening presence is requested through the high waves of persecution.
According to reports, Nagla Al-Imam and her children subsequently "disappeared", and Al-Tarek, which is the TV station Nagla al-Imam broadcasts from, was vandalised by Egyptian security forces.
This is what happens when Islamic totalitarianism meets Christian freedom.
Islam -- a religion of peace, love and human rights? I don't think so.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Afghanistan: what chance do 'apostates' have when their government is pursuing peace and reconciliation with an ascendant Taliban?
updated 1 July 2010
On Monday 31 May, the government of Afghanistan suspended two church-based aid organisations -- US-based Church World Service (CWS) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) -- over allegations of proselytisation.
According to the New York Times, "Both groups have major operations in Afghanistan, disbursing millions of dollars in aid. Church World Service employs 190 people, and Norwegian Church Aid 50 people in a variety of development programs here, the government said."
Christian Post reports that the "U.S.-based CWS is a cooperative ministry of 36 Christian denominations and communions. It operates relief and development programs in more than 80 countries. Norwegian Church Aid [which has worked in Afghanistan since 1979] operates in some 125 countries and provides emergency relief and development aid to poor communities and people in need."
Both groups are vociferously denying the charge, insisting they do not evangelise and have adhered to the Islamic State's strict protocols. Of course one does not need to preach/evangelise to be guilty of fitna. Fitna is anything at all that could have the effect of tempting or seducing a Muslim to turn away from Islam -- anything from vile torture to magnetic grace. In Islam, fitna is equated with persecution and must be eliminated. (For a fuller examination of fitna, see my earlier posting: "Fitna in Morocco".)
Islam is inherently apostaphobic, and leaving Islam (apostasy) is a capital offense under Afghan law and it is illegal to proselytise. The allegations emerged on 27 and 28 May, via a privately-run Afghan television station, Noorin TV, which broadcast video footage reportedly showing Afghans being baptised and participating with Westerners in Christian prayer meetings being held in alleged "missionary safe houses" in western Kabul. While CWS and NCA were specifically named, Noorin TV unashamedly confesses it has NO evidence they were involved. According to the producer, the report merely raised "suspicions" about the two groups whose names had simply been selected out of the telephone directory on account of the fact that they contained the word "church".
See: Afghanistan Suspends Two Aid Groups
By Rod Nordland and Abdul Waheed Wafa
New York Times, 31 May 2010
According to Reuters (31 May), Sediq Amarkhil, a spokesman for the economy ministry said on Sunday 30 May, it had formed a commission to investigate all NGOs after a local TV report accusing aid groups of promoting Christianity. "We are very, very serious about this matter," said Amarkhil. "If proven that any NGO is operating against the norms and laws of Afghanistan and Islam and is inviting people to Christianity . . . we will not only close it down, but will hand it over to the judicial and legal organs of the government."
In Kabul, angry protesters have demanded the expulsion of foreigners who try to convert Muslims. In parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, a deputy of the lower house, called for Muslim converts to Christianity to be executed, saying: "Those Afghans that appeared in this video film should be executed in public, the house should order the attorney general and the NDS (intelligence agency) to arrest these Afghans and execute them." Qazi Nazir Ahmad, a lawmaker from the western province of Herat, affirmed that killing an apostate is "not a crime".
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is reportedly taking a personal interest in the case and has ordered an investigation, but not because he is keen to defend religious liberty. According to Waheed Omar, the President's spokesman, Karzai has instructed his interior minister and the head of country's spy agency "to take immediate and serious action to prevent this phenomenon".
A European diplomat told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that he suspected there might be a "hidden political agenda", behind the Noorin TV broadcast, "at a time when stirring up anti-foreign sentiment is quite fashionable in Kabul".
See: Afghan president takes 'personal interest' in suspended NGOs
(AFP) 1 June 2010
Pursuing peace and reconciliation with the Taliban
This drama is unfolding parallel to President Hamid Karzai's desperate efforts to entice the Taliban into a peace agreement. A government-run three-day Consultative Peace Jirga commenced in Kabul on 2 June, just days after the proselytising accusations were broadcast and the government's and Karzai's indignation had been loudly publicised. Karzai no longer needs to defend religious liberty to maintain Western favour -- unlike in March 2006 when he facilitated the escape of convert Abdul Rahman so as to avoid risking Western aid. It is the Taliban that needs to be seduced now, not Western governments. Western governments want whatever leads to "peace".
The main purpose of the Jirga -- to which some 1,600 Afghans were invited -- was to discuss plans for reconciling with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
See: Afghan jirga's resolutions 'nice on paper'
By Waheedullah Massoud (AFP) 6 June 2010
As part of the British-authored, US-approved Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program, Taliban insurgents who denounce violence and lay down their weapons will receive material support including cash, and amnesty. Billions of dollars will thus be channelled to alleged 'de-radicalised' Taliban. Western Nations desperate for "peace" are lining up to contribute to the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund (RTF). Australia, for instance, has pledged $25 million. Officials estimate the RTF will disburse more than $1.5 billion in the next few years.
See: $25m promised to woo Taliban insurgents
By Dan Oaks, Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), 30 January 2010
(According to this article, "Australia will contribute $100 million more in aid to Afghanistan, including $25 million to a fund to lure insurgents to the Afghan Government's side" . . . $20 million for mine clearance and $55 million for reconstruction, agricultural reform and promotion of [Islamic?] human rights.)
Ministerial statement on Afghanistan, 2 February 2010
By the Hon Stephen Smith, Australian Minister for Foreign Affaris
Ministerial Statement on Afghanistan, 18 March 2010
By Senator the Hon John Faulkner, Minister for Defence
Of course you really don't need too many brain cells to imagine how this scheme could be massively rorted to produce the exact opposite of what was intended.
Broken promises send Taliban back into battle
By Tom Hyland, The AGE (Melbourne, Australia), 16 May 2010
ANALYSIS: "Flawed" peace strategy in Afghanistan
By IRIN (a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
KABUL, 31 May 2010
REPORT: "Golden Surrender? The risks, challenges, and implications of reintegration in Afghanistan" (March 2010).
By Matt Waldman, a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University.
The foundational premise underlying the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program is the belief that "most of the rank-and-file insurgents are fighting primarily for economic reasons and an attractive reintegration package will wean them off the conflict" (IRIN).
Yet as Waldman notes: "Golden surrender' [the US military's term] holds little appeal for those who are not fighting for gold."
However, in his ONLY mention of Islam in his entire 11 report, Waldman lists "tribal, community, and group exclusion or disempowerment; leverage in local rivalries, feuds, and conflicts; government predation, impunity, or corruption; criminality, disorder, and the perversion of justice; civilian casualties and abusive raids or detentions; resistance to perceived western occupation or suppression of Islam; the hedging of bets; and as a reaction to threats, intimidation, or coercion" as reasons driving people to join the insurgency. (p 4) (emphasis mine)
Nowhere in Waldman's report (which is excellent on so many other levels) or in the IRIN analysis, is the issue of Islam as a motivating factor even raised.
Waldman does however raise the issue of honour and status (p 6). Yet even here he only considers honour and status as they may be acquired through money and power. Yet the fact remains, that many Taliban are Taliban because in such an orthodox Islamic fundamentalist society, honour and status are not derived from wealth or from being a gainfully employed husband and father, as much as from being a jihadist, suffering deprivation and risking life and limb to fighting in the cause of Allah. Like most Western analysts, Waldman insists on viewing the insurgency as a "social and cultural phenomenon" that can be addressed without reference to Islam. Thus the issue of orthodox Islamic fundamentalism as a "root cause" of the insurgency is never even raised.
Waldman concludes: "Perhaps the greatest risk is that the [reintegration] programme distracts policy‐makers from addressing the root causes of the conflict, especially predatory, exclusionary politics, and the abuse of power. This would be treating the symptoms while ignoring the cancer.
"Into what kind of society are we asking insurgents to integrate? 'Golden surrender' holds little appeal for those who are not fighting for gold. Indeed, there would seem to be as much need for the social and political reintegration of government officials and other power‐holders into society, as there is for insurgents. If this happens – through fairer politics, better government, and stronger development – it may well be that reintegration starts to happen quietly of its own accord." (p 11)
And this is exactly the point -- except Waldman is not seeing what Karzai sees. Karzai is desperately busy making Afghanistan into the kind of society that the Taliban might wish to integrate. This is why he has been on the path of Islamisation and Talibanisation since 2006.
The Taliban are not interested in peace because they are ascendant. Even now, they can terrorise Kabul at will. They can smell victory and are just biding their time until the US and allied forces depart, then, whether they decide to take over Kabul or not, they will certainly dictate their terms.
And so Karzai is offering appeasements and inducements in the hope that the ascendant Taliban will ensure his government's survival, albeit as a puppet or facade.
In such an environment of political and existential desperation, the lives of the Afghan believers who have been filmed being baptised or praying to the Lord, are imminently imperilled.
The Islamic masses are against them. The Islamic State's constitution is against them. Their own government -- including their West-backed president -- is against them. Thankfully the God of their salvation, the Almighty eternal God Yehovah, is with them and for them.
(this post is an expanded version of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 059, released 9 June 2010)
UPDATE:
Sources have told Christian Solidarity Worldwide that more than 20 Afghan Christians have been detained in Afghanistan since early June. Reportedly non-Christians with ties to Westerners have also been targeted for interrogation.
Afghan Christian refugees arriving in India on 8 June reported there had already been many arrests and searches as well as claiming that arrested Christians were being tortured for information on the 'underground church'.
Afghan Christian refugees have also been targeted for persecution in Delhi, India. On 14 June a group of Afghan Muslim refugees deliberately rammed their car into a disabled Afghan Christian refugee named Hamidullah. Earlier in the month a young Afghan Christian refugee named Mirdad Al was attacked by a group of Indian and Afghan Muslims who abused him as a pagan and infidel. Indian police reportedly refuse to extend protection to 'illegal immigrants'.
On Monday 31 May, the government of Afghanistan suspended two church-based aid organisations -- US-based Church World Service (CWS) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) -- over allegations of proselytisation.
According to the New York Times, "Both groups have major operations in Afghanistan, disbursing millions of dollars in aid. Church World Service employs 190 people, and Norwegian Church Aid 50 people in a variety of development programs here, the government said."
Christian Post reports that the "U.S.-based CWS is a cooperative ministry of 36 Christian denominations and communions. It operates relief and development programs in more than 80 countries. Norwegian Church Aid [which has worked in Afghanistan since 1979] operates in some 125 countries and provides emergency relief and development aid to poor communities and people in need."
Both groups are vociferously denying the charge, insisting they do not evangelise and have adhered to the Islamic State's strict protocols. Of course one does not need to preach/evangelise to be guilty of fitna. Fitna is anything at all that could have the effect of tempting or seducing a Muslim to turn away from Islam -- anything from vile torture to magnetic grace. In Islam, fitna is equated with persecution and must be eliminated. (For a fuller examination of fitna, see my earlier posting: "Fitna in Morocco".)
Islam is inherently apostaphobic, and leaving Islam (apostasy) is a capital offense under Afghan law and it is illegal to proselytise. The allegations emerged on 27 and 28 May, via a privately-run Afghan television station, Noorin TV, which broadcast video footage reportedly showing Afghans being baptised and participating with Westerners in Christian prayer meetings being held in alleged "missionary safe houses" in western Kabul. While CWS and NCA were specifically named, Noorin TV unashamedly confesses it has NO evidence they were involved. According to the producer, the report merely raised "suspicions" about the two groups whose names had simply been selected out of the telephone directory on account of the fact that they contained the word "church".
See: Afghanistan Suspends Two Aid Groups
By Rod Nordland and Abdul Waheed Wafa
New York Times, 31 May 2010
According to Reuters (31 May), Sediq Amarkhil, a spokesman for the economy ministry said on Sunday 30 May, it had formed a commission to investigate all NGOs after a local TV report accusing aid groups of promoting Christianity. "We are very, very serious about this matter," said Amarkhil. "If proven that any NGO is operating against the norms and laws of Afghanistan and Islam and is inviting people to Christianity . . . we will not only close it down, but will hand it over to the judicial and legal organs of the government."
In Kabul, angry protesters have demanded the expulsion of foreigners who try to convert Muslims. In parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, a deputy of the lower house, called for Muslim converts to Christianity to be executed, saying: "Those Afghans that appeared in this video film should be executed in public, the house should order the attorney general and the NDS (intelligence agency) to arrest these Afghans and execute them." Qazi Nazir Ahmad, a lawmaker from the western province of Herat, affirmed that killing an apostate is "not a crime".
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is reportedly taking a personal interest in the case and has ordered an investigation, but not because he is keen to defend religious liberty. According to Waheed Omar, the President's spokesman, Karzai has instructed his interior minister and the head of country's spy agency "to take immediate and serious action to prevent this phenomenon".
A European diplomat told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that he suspected there might be a "hidden political agenda", behind the Noorin TV broadcast, "at a time when stirring up anti-foreign sentiment is quite fashionable in Kabul".
See: Afghan president takes 'personal interest' in suspended NGOs
(AFP) 1 June 2010
Pursuing peace and reconciliation with the Taliban
This drama is unfolding parallel to President Hamid Karzai's desperate efforts to entice the Taliban into a peace agreement. A government-run three-day Consultative Peace Jirga commenced in Kabul on 2 June, just days after the proselytising accusations were broadcast and the government's and Karzai's indignation had been loudly publicised. Karzai no longer needs to defend religious liberty to maintain Western favour -- unlike in March 2006 when he facilitated the escape of convert Abdul Rahman so as to avoid risking Western aid. It is the Taliban that needs to be seduced now, not Western governments. Western governments want whatever leads to "peace".
The main purpose of the Jirga -- to which some 1,600 Afghans were invited -- was to discuss plans for reconciling with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
See: Afghan jirga's resolutions 'nice on paper'
By Waheedullah Massoud (AFP) 6 June 2010
As part of the British-authored, US-approved Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program, Taliban insurgents who denounce violence and lay down their weapons will receive material support including cash, and amnesty. Billions of dollars will thus be channelled to alleged 'de-radicalised' Taliban. Western Nations desperate for "peace" are lining up to contribute to the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund (RTF). Australia, for instance, has pledged $25 million. Officials estimate the RTF will disburse more than $1.5 billion in the next few years.
See: $25m promised to woo Taliban insurgents
By Dan Oaks, Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), 30 January 2010
(According to this article, "Australia will contribute $100 million more in aid to Afghanistan, including $25 million to a fund to lure insurgents to the Afghan Government's side" . . . $20 million for mine clearance and $55 million for reconstruction, agricultural reform and promotion of [Islamic?] human rights.)
Ministerial statement on Afghanistan, 2 February 2010
By the Hon Stephen Smith, Australian Minister for Foreign Affaris
Ministerial Statement on Afghanistan, 18 March 2010
By Senator the Hon John Faulkner, Minister for Defence
Of course you really don't need too many brain cells to imagine how this scheme could be massively rorted to produce the exact opposite of what was intended.
Broken promises send Taliban back into battle
By Tom Hyland, The AGE (Melbourne, Australia), 16 May 2010
ANALYSIS: "Flawed" peace strategy in Afghanistan
By IRIN (a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
KABUL, 31 May 2010
REPORT: "Golden Surrender? The risks, challenges, and implications of reintegration in Afghanistan" (March 2010).
By Matt Waldman, a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University.
The foundational premise underlying the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program is the belief that "most of the rank-and-file insurgents are fighting primarily for economic reasons and an attractive reintegration package will wean them off the conflict" (IRIN).
Yet as Waldman notes: "Golden surrender' [the US military's term] holds little appeal for those who are not fighting for gold."
However, in his ONLY mention of Islam in his entire 11 report, Waldman lists "tribal, community, and group exclusion or disempowerment; leverage in local rivalries, feuds, and conflicts; government predation, impunity, or corruption; criminality, disorder, and the perversion of justice; civilian casualties and abusive raids or detentions; resistance to perceived western occupation or suppression of Islam; the hedging of bets; and as a reaction to threats, intimidation, or coercion" as reasons driving people to join the insurgency. (p 4) (emphasis mine)
Nowhere in Waldman's report (which is excellent on so many other levels) or in the IRIN analysis, is the issue of Islam as a motivating factor even raised.
Waldman does however raise the issue of honour and status (p 6). Yet even here he only considers honour and status as they may be acquired through money and power. Yet the fact remains, that many Taliban are Taliban because in such an orthodox Islamic fundamentalist society, honour and status are not derived from wealth or from being a gainfully employed husband and father, as much as from being a jihadist, suffering deprivation and risking life and limb to fighting in the cause of Allah. Like most Western analysts, Waldman insists on viewing the insurgency as a "social and cultural phenomenon" that can be addressed without reference to Islam. Thus the issue of orthodox Islamic fundamentalism as a "root cause" of the insurgency is never even raised.
Waldman concludes: "Perhaps the greatest risk is that the [reintegration] programme distracts policy‐makers from addressing the root causes of the conflict, especially predatory, exclusionary politics, and the abuse of power. This would be treating the symptoms while ignoring the cancer.
"Into what kind of society are we asking insurgents to integrate? 'Golden surrender' holds little appeal for those who are not fighting for gold. Indeed, there would seem to be as much need for the social and political reintegration of government officials and other power‐holders into society, as there is for insurgents. If this happens – through fairer politics, better government, and stronger development – it may well be that reintegration starts to happen quietly of its own accord." (p 11)
And this is exactly the point -- except Waldman is not seeing what Karzai sees. Karzai is desperately busy making Afghanistan into the kind of society that the Taliban might wish to integrate. This is why he has been on the path of Islamisation and Talibanisation since 2006.
The Taliban are not interested in peace because they are ascendant. Even now, they can terrorise Kabul at will. They can smell victory and are just biding their time until the US and allied forces depart, then, whether they decide to take over Kabul or not, they will certainly dictate their terms.
And so Karzai is offering appeasements and inducements in the hope that the ascendant Taliban will ensure his government's survival, albeit as a puppet or facade.
In such an environment of political and existential desperation, the lives of the Afghan believers who have been filmed being baptised or praying to the Lord, are imminently imperilled.
The Islamic masses are against them. The Islamic State's constitution is against them. Their own government -- including their West-backed president -- is against them. Thankfully the God of their salvation, the Almighty eternal God Yehovah, is with them and for them.
(this post is an expanded version of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 059, released 9 June 2010)
UPDATE:
Sources have told Christian Solidarity Worldwide that more than 20 Afghan Christians have been detained in Afghanistan since early June. Reportedly non-Christians with ties to Westerners have also been targeted for interrogation.
Afghan Christian refugees arriving in India on 8 June reported there had already been many arrests and searches as well as claiming that arrested Christians were being tortured for information on the 'underground church'.
Afghan Christian refugees have also been targeted for persecution in Delhi, India. On 14 June a group of Afghan Muslim refugees deliberately rammed their car into a disabled Afghan Christian refugee named Hamidullah. Earlier in the month a young Afghan Christian refugee named Mirdad Al was attacked by a group of Indian and Afghan Muslims who abused him as a pagan and infidel. Indian police reportedly refuse to extend protection to 'illegal immigrants'.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
SAUDI CHRISTIAN BLOGGER ARRESTED
Date: Tuesday 27 January 2009
Subj: Saudi Arabia: Christian Blogger Arrested
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
---------------------------------------------------------
SAUDI CHRISTIANITY AND THE CULTURE OF NO LIBERTY IN THE LAND OF NO DIFFERENCE.
---------------------------------------------------------
SAUDI CHRISTIAN BLOGGER ARRESTED
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reports that on 13 January 2009, Saudi police arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh and blocked access to his blog -- "Masihi Saudi - http://christforsaudi.blogspot.com " -- because of his opinions and his testimony that he had converted from Islam to Christianity. According to ANHRI, Hamoud Bin Saleh is incarcerated in the infamous Eleisha political prison in Riyadh. (Link 1)
ANHRI reports: "The 28-year-old alumni of the al Yarmouk University in Jordan has been arrested twice before; for nine months in 2004 and last November [2008]." On that occasion (November 2008) Saudi authorities released Hamoud prior to the Saudi-sponsored, UN-run "Culture of Peace" conference that was held in the UN Headquarters in New York on 12-13 November 2008. King Abdullah did not want to put his public relations coup at risk, and clearly it would have been inappropriate for Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stand up and lament mankind's "preoccupation with differences between the followers of religions" (see link 2) while his religious police were abusing a young Saudi intellectual detained purely for his different religion. However once the Saudi-sponsored "Culture of Peace" conference had passed, Hamoud Bin Saleh was re-arrested for professing a different religion.
ANHRI holds great fears for Hamoud's life, concerned that the Saudi authorities might seize the opportunity to make an example of him while the world's eyes are fixed on the situation in Gaza.
As ANHRI notes: "The young man committed no crime and the only thing he has done is exercising his normal right to express his opinions and beliefs, which must not be violated under whatever pretext.
"ANHRI condemns Saleh's arrest and holds the Saudi government fully responsible for his safety. It also demands his immediate release and calls on the Saudi government to meet its commitments and the Saudi king's statements about the respect of freedom of expression and religious tolerance."
THE REALITY OF SAUDI BLOGGING
On 10 December 2007, Fouad Ahmad al-Farhan (32) became the first Saudi to be arrested in Saudi Arabia over the content of a blog. US-educated Farhan, an Information Technology (IT) specialist who is married with two children, was arrested in Jeddah after using his blog to criticise the Interior Ministry Spokesman.
Al- Farhan was a very popular blogger who exposed corruption and appealed for political reform. A huge campaign was subsequently launched calling for his release. Al-Farhan was release on 26 April 2008 after being interrogated and held in solitary confinement for over four months. He was unique amongst Saudi bloggers in that he refused to seek refuge in anonymity and blogged openly under his real name.
According to a January 2008 article in the Washington Post: "Blogging has been on the rise in Saudi Arabia recently, allowing people to 'speak up' in a society where the media is censored and where political parties and public gatherings are banned. There are an estimated 600 bloggers in the kingdom, male and female, conservative and liberal, writing in English and Arabic." (Link 3)
THE REALITY OF SAUDI CHRISTIANITY
On 20 August 2008, the WEA Religious Liberty Prayer (RLP) ministry issued a prayer bulletin (RLP No. 492) entitled: "Saudi Arabia: shaken by apostasy and dissidence." (Link 4)
The case at the centre of the prayer bulletin was that of a young Saudi woman, Fatima Al-Mutairi (26), who revealed in her blog that she had converted to Christianity. When her brother (or father: reports vary), an officer with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, learned of her conversion, he reportedly cut out her tongue and burned her to death.
Gulf News reported: "The death of the girl sent shockwaves and websites where the victim used to write with various nicknames have allocated special space to mourn her, while some others closed temporarily in protest." (Link 5)
The RLP bulletin highlighted the tensions that are rising in totalitarian Islamic states where Islam is traditionally protected from "blasphemy" (criticism) and "apostasy" (rejection). Today globalisation and advances in information and communication technologies are providing avenues through which differing opinions and ideas infiltrate once closed, totalitarian societies. After discovering diversity, curious and enquiring minds then discover what it means to be living in a culture of no liberty in a land of no difference.
Shortly before her martyrdom, Fatima Al-Mutairi wrote and posted to her blog a poem she entitled "And we for the sake of Christ all things bear". The Barnabas Fund published an English translation of this poem on page 12 of its January-February 2009 newsletter (also available online: link 6).
In her poem Fatima's professes her love for Jesus Christ, and for her homeland, Saudi Arabia -- a love so strong she stands ready to die for both. She laments the cruel persecution while professing no fear and a commitment to remain "unto death a Christian".
She concludes her poem with this prayer:
"As to my last words, I pray to the Lord of the worlds
Jesus the Messiah, the Light of Clear Guidance
That He change notions, and set scales of justice aright
And that he spread Love among you, O Muslims."
Saudi authorities have long repressed and persecuted the kingdom's Christian expatriate workers, and forbidden Bibles, crosses and Christian literature from entering the country, believing that they can keep Christianity out of the Saudi population. But all the effort has been for naught, for Christianity has sprung up in its midst anyway.
"I am a Saudi and a Christian," said Fatima Al-Mutairi (26) before she was martyred.
"I am a Saudi and a Christian," said Hamoud Bin Saleh (28) before he was arrested.
Saudi authorities have no right to promote themselves as beacons of peace and religious tolerance until Saudi Christianity is recognised and Saudis themselves have religious liberty.
By Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) KSA arrests blogger, blocks his blog. His life at risk as he embraced Christianity.
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Cairo, 14 Jan 2009 (note: site mistakenly says 2008)
http://anhri.net/en/reports/2009/pr0114.shtml
ALSO
Blogger arrested after posting opinions, announcing his conversion to Christianity
País/Tema: Saudi Arabia
Fecha: 15 de enero de 2009
Fuente: Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Persona: Hamoud Bin Saleh
http://www.ifex.org/es/content/view/full/99886/
2) King Abdullah address at the UN Peace through Dialogue meeting
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz address to the High Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Peace Through Dialogue, New York, November 12, 2008
http://www.saudiembassy.net/2008News/Statements/SpeechDetail.asp?cIndex=732
3) Dissident Saudi Blogger Is Arrested. 1 January 2008
By Faiza Saleh Ambah, Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123101915.html
ALSO: Blogger who dared to expose Saudi corruption is arrested
By Claire Soares, 3 January 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/blogger-who-dared-to-expose-saudi-corruption-is-arrested-767807.html
ALSO: Saudi official: why popular blogger Farhan was jailed.
(Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour Al Turki told the Christian Science Monitor that Fouad Farhan had been jailed for violating his (Al-Turki's) rights by criticizing and offending him.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p07s02-wome.html
4) WEA Religious Liberty Prayer bulletin No. 492, 20 Aug 2008
Saudi Arabia: shaken by apostasy and dissidence.
5) Saudi man kills daughter for converting to Christianity
By Mariam Al Hakeem, 12 August 2008.
http://www.gulfnews.com/News/Gulf/saudi_arabia/10236558.html
6) Barnabas Fund January/February 2009 newsletter
https://barnabasfund.org/pdfdocs/BFAIDJ-F09.pdf
Subj: Saudi Arabia: Christian Blogger Arrested
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
---------------------------------------------------------
SAUDI CHRISTIANITY AND THE CULTURE OF NO LIBERTY IN THE LAND OF NO DIFFERENCE.
---------------------------------------------------------
SAUDI CHRISTIAN BLOGGER ARRESTED
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reports that on 13 January 2009, Saudi police arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh and blocked access to his blog -- "Masihi Saudi - http://christforsaudi.blogspot.com " -- because of his opinions and his testimony that he had converted from Islam to Christianity. According to ANHRI, Hamoud Bin Saleh is incarcerated in the infamous Eleisha political prison in Riyadh. (Link 1)
ANHRI reports: "The 28-year-old alumni of the al Yarmouk University in Jordan has been arrested twice before; for nine months in 2004 and last November [2008]." On that occasion (November 2008) Saudi authorities released Hamoud prior to the Saudi-sponsored, UN-run "Culture of Peace" conference that was held in the UN Headquarters in New York on 12-13 November 2008. King Abdullah did not want to put his public relations coup at risk, and clearly it would have been inappropriate for Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stand up and lament mankind's "preoccupation with differences between the followers of religions" (see link 2) while his religious police were abusing a young Saudi intellectual detained purely for his different religion. However once the Saudi-sponsored "Culture of Peace" conference had passed, Hamoud Bin Saleh was re-arrested for professing a different religion.
ANHRI holds great fears for Hamoud's life, concerned that the Saudi authorities might seize the opportunity to make an example of him while the world's eyes are fixed on the situation in Gaza.
As ANHRI notes: "The young man committed no crime and the only thing he has done is exercising his normal right to express his opinions and beliefs, which must not be violated under whatever pretext.
"ANHRI condemns Saleh's arrest and holds the Saudi government fully responsible for his safety. It also demands his immediate release and calls on the Saudi government to meet its commitments and the Saudi king's statements about the respect of freedom of expression and religious tolerance."
THE REALITY OF SAUDI BLOGGING
On 10 December 2007, Fouad Ahmad al-Farhan (32) became the first Saudi to be arrested in Saudi Arabia over the content of a blog. US-educated Farhan, an Information Technology (IT) specialist who is married with two children, was arrested in Jeddah after using his blog to criticise the Interior Ministry Spokesman.
Al- Farhan was a very popular blogger who exposed corruption and appealed for political reform. A huge campaign was subsequently launched calling for his release. Al-Farhan was release on 26 April 2008 after being interrogated and held in solitary confinement for over four months. He was unique amongst Saudi bloggers in that he refused to seek refuge in anonymity and blogged openly under his real name.
According to a January 2008 article in the Washington Post: "Blogging has been on the rise in Saudi Arabia recently, allowing people to 'speak up' in a society where the media is censored and where political parties and public gatherings are banned. There are an estimated 600 bloggers in the kingdom, male and female, conservative and liberal, writing in English and Arabic." (Link 3)
THE REALITY OF SAUDI CHRISTIANITY
On 20 August 2008, the WEA Religious Liberty Prayer (RLP) ministry issued a prayer bulletin (RLP No. 492) entitled: "Saudi Arabia: shaken by apostasy and dissidence." (Link 4)
The case at the centre of the prayer bulletin was that of a young Saudi woman, Fatima Al-Mutairi (26), who revealed in her blog that she had converted to Christianity. When her brother (or father: reports vary), an officer with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, learned of her conversion, he reportedly cut out her tongue and burned her to death.
Gulf News reported: "The death of the girl sent shockwaves and websites where the victim used to write with various nicknames have allocated special space to mourn her, while some others closed temporarily in protest." (Link 5)
The RLP bulletin highlighted the tensions that are rising in totalitarian Islamic states where Islam is traditionally protected from "blasphemy" (criticism) and "apostasy" (rejection). Today globalisation and advances in information and communication technologies are providing avenues through which differing opinions and ideas infiltrate once closed, totalitarian societies. After discovering diversity, curious and enquiring minds then discover what it means to be living in a culture of no liberty in a land of no difference.
Shortly before her martyrdom, Fatima Al-Mutairi wrote and posted to her blog a poem she entitled "And we for the sake of Christ all things bear". The Barnabas Fund published an English translation of this poem on page 12 of its January-February 2009 newsletter (also available online: link 6).
In her poem Fatima's professes her love for Jesus Christ, and for her homeland, Saudi Arabia -- a love so strong she stands ready to die for both. She laments the cruel persecution while professing no fear and a commitment to remain "unto death a Christian".
She concludes her poem with this prayer:
"As to my last words, I pray to the Lord of the worlds
Jesus the Messiah, the Light of Clear Guidance
That He change notions, and set scales of justice aright
And that he spread Love among you, O Muslims."
Saudi authorities have long repressed and persecuted the kingdom's Christian expatriate workers, and forbidden Bibles, crosses and Christian literature from entering the country, believing that they can keep Christianity out of the Saudi population. But all the effort has been for naught, for Christianity has sprung up in its midst anyway.
"I am a Saudi and a Christian," said Fatima Al-Mutairi (26) before she was martyred.
"I am a Saudi and a Christian," said Hamoud Bin Saleh (28) before he was arrested.
Saudi authorities have no right to promote themselves as beacons of peace and religious tolerance until Saudi Christianity is recognised and Saudis themselves have religious liberty.
By Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) KSA arrests blogger, blocks his blog. His life at risk as he embraced Christianity.
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Cairo, 14 Jan 2009 (note: site mistakenly says 2008)
http://anhri.net/en/reports/2009/pr0114.shtml
ALSO
Blogger arrested after posting opinions, announcing his conversion to Christianity
País/Tema: Saudi Arabia
Fecha: 15 de enero de 2009
Fuente: Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Persona: Hamoud Bin Saleh
http://www.ifex.org/es/content/view/full/99886/
2) King Abdullah address at the UN Peace through Dialogue meeting
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz address to the High Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Peace Through Dialogue, New York, November 12, 2008
http://www.saudiembassy.net/2008News/Statements/SpeechDetail.asp?cIndex=732
3) Dissident Saudi Blogger Is Arrested. 1 January 2008
By Faiza Saleh Ambah, Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123101915.html
ALSO: Blogger who dared to expose Saudi corruption is arrested
By Claire Soares, 3 January 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/blogger-who-dared-to-expose-saudi-corruption-is-arrested-767807.html
ALSO: Saudi official: why popular blogger Farhan was jailed.
(Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour Al Turki told the Christian Science Monitor that Fouad Farhan had been jailed for violating his (Al-Turki's) rights by criticizing and offending him.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p07s02-wome.html
4) WEA Religious Liberty Prayer bulletin No. 492, 20 Aug 2008
Saudi Arabia: shaken by apostasy and dissidence.
5) Saudi man kills daughter for converting to Christianity
By Mariam Al Hakeem, 12 August 2008.
http://www.gulfnews.com/News/Gulf/saudi_arabia/10236558.html
6) Barnabas Fund January/February 2009 newsletter
https://barnabasfund.org/pdfdocs/BFAIDJ-F09.pdf
Monday, September 22, 2008
Iran: parliament passes apostasy death bill -- UNHCR take note!
Date: Monday 22 September 2008
Subj: Iran: parliament passes apostasy death bill -- UNHCR take note!
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
That apostasy (leaving Islam) is an enormously risky even deadly business in any Muslim country is not news to any apostate or to any serious religious liberty observer. That the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) does not always share this view however is news to many.
ISLAM RETURNS
Traditional Sharia Law mandates death for apostates based on the Hadith (saying of Muhammad) "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." (Sahih Al-Bukhari Vol. 9:57).
The decline of Islamic political power, particularly after World Wars 1 and 2, the subsequent rise of secular Arab nationalism, and leverage afforded to the USA due to its economic power led to this practice being largely abandoned at the state level. Whilst apostates were frequently murdered either out of religious hatred or for the sake of "honour", they were not executed by states that were under Western mandates, pursuing secularism and dependent on Western aid and trade.
But times have changed. An international revival of Sunni Wahhabism has been riding on the back of Saudi Arabian oil profits since the late 1970s. Furthermore, decades of brutal, repressive, corrupt dictatorships and declining living standards primed the Muslim masses for the "democracy" coming their way. Now, as soon as the opportunity presents, it appears that Muslims are ready to test the Muslim Brotherhood's assertion that "Islam is the solution".
Meanwhile, the Shi'ite revolutionaries of 1979, after being exhausted by the Iran-Iraq war and then constrained by a western bulwark (Saddam Hussein's Iraq), are now liberated, empowered, bursting with apocalyptic zeal and driven by the scent of Islamic leadership and ascendancy.
After centuries of decline and decades in the cupboard, Islam has returned!
Now Iran is in the process of legislating to make apostasy and promoting apostasy (including through the Internet) mandatory capital offences in the name of protecting the State's "mental security". This shows the degree to which the balance of power has shifted. Clearly the clerics in charge of the Iranian police state do not feel threatened by, nor do they care about, Western displeasure. In fact making the death sentence mandatory for apostasy and promoting apostasy is a very powerful way for ascendant Iran to make an offensive gesture to the USA, the rival power it is gradually replacing as hegemon in Iraq and the wider Middle East. It is a sign of supreme self-confidence.
Further to this, it is also a reactionary response to the reality that Iranian Muslims, fed up with and distressed by seemingly endless poverty and repression, are leaving Islam in increasing numbers. A recent sermon by an Iranian Shia Imam reveals how concerned the authorities are about the apostasy phenomenon and how determined they are to crush it. A Youtube clip shows a portion of a television broadcast of a sermon by an Iranian Shia mullah who is instructing the faithful not to worry about recruiting Sunnis, Christians and Zoroastrians into Shi'ism. For, he warns, he has travelled the country and the greatest danger is that of apostasy, especially young Iranian Shi'a youths converting to Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of pre-Islamic Persia. "Don't let our Shi'a youth leave our faith", he thunders. (Link 1)
IRAN, APOSTASY AND THE UNHCR
Yet over recent years several Western countries have been returning Iranian Christian asylum seekers, including apostates, to Iran on the basis that the UNHCR claims they will not be persecuted.
UNHCR TAKE NOTE: As Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports, "The Iranian Parliament voted on Tuesday [9 Sep] in favour of a bill stipulating the death penalty for apostasy. The bill was approved by 196 votes for, seven against, and two abstentions.
"The progress of this bill through the Iranian Parliament is a cause of grave concern for increasing numbers of Iranians who have left Islam for another religion, and a significant backwards step for human rights in Iran. The draft bill will add a number of crimes to the list of those resulting in execution, among them; 'establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy'." (Link 2)
The Khaleej Times (Dubai) in July reported the bill states that those convicted of these crimes "should be punished as 'mohareb' (enemy of God) and 'corrupt on the earth'". The bill also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases "cannot be commuted, suspended or changed". (Link 3)
As the Khaleek Times notes: "Internet is widely used in Iran despite restrictions on access and the blocking of thousands of websites with a sexual content or deemed as insulting religious sanctities and promoting political dissent. Blogging is also very popular among cyber-savvy young Iranians, some openly discussing their private lives or criticising the system."
The Defenders of Human Rights Centre, which is run by Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, warned in July: "If this bill is adopted, there will be further infringement of the freedom of expression, citizens' judicial security will be jeopardised and executions will increase." (Link 4)
IMMEDIATE IMPLICATIONS
. . INSIDE IRAN
On 10 September Compass Direct (CD) reported that two Iranian Christians have now officially been charged with "apostasy".
Mahmood Matin Azad (52) and Arash Basirat (44) have been in prison since their arrest in Shiraz on 15 May "on suspicion of apostasy". The two men were later charged with "Propaganda Against the Islamic Republic of Iran".
CD reports: "When their lawyer went to authorities to inquire about the case in early August, he was informed that the two men had been formally charged with apostasy.
"Sources who spoke to the two Christians' defence lawyer explained that a written order of the formal charge of apostasy was unusual and an indication of the severity and complexity of the case.
"With the apostasy bill debated in Parliament, some Iranian Christians fear that authorities are seeking to make an example of the two prisoners or give the prospective law a 'test run'." (Link 5)
. . AND OUTSIDE IRAN
The UNHCR and all Western governments must observe that this bill mandating death for apostasy and promoting apostasy passed easily through the Iranian parliament. The vote clearly proves that Iranian authorities overwhelmingly believe that apostates and those who promote apostasy should die. Even if the Guardian Council does not pass the bill into law (for whatever reason) it may be assumed that those who take the implementation of Sharia law into their own hands will not be prosecuted by this regime. Apostates who have left Islam will have no security. This fact must be allowed to impact refugee claims.
Two cases presently before the courts in New Zealand perfectly demonstrate the problem faced by numerous Iranian Christian asylum seekers.
Thomas Yadegary is an Iranian convert to Christianity. He arrived in New Zealand in 1993 and had been working for years as a chef when in November 2004, after his final appeal for refugee status was declined, Yadegary was issued with a deportation order. Yadegary was then arrested after he refused to sign an application for an Iranian passport. In early April 2007, after 29 months behind bars, Yadegary was released on bail after a court hearing, the details of which were suppressed pending a government appeal. (Link 6)
Miss Bahareh Moradi, another Iranian convert to Christianity, is also fighting deportation. Her pastor, Rev. Rinny Westra of St Aidan's Presbyterian Church, says he has seen Immigration New Zealand targeting Iranian converts for harsh treatment.
Scoop Independent news reports: "Mr Westra says Miss Moradi's case is one of a series where Iranian Christians have been unreasonably rejected by Immigration.
"He points to Christian convert Ali Pannah, who went on a hunger strike in prison to avoid deportation, and Majid Mohebbi, who he says was whipped after being deported.
"'In mid-April an Iranian man who claims to be a Christian was deported after visiting Miss Moradi's brother Hamid,' says Mr Westra. "In all their cases their pastors vouched for the truth of their conversions." (Link 7)
UNHCR
According to the article "Pastor speaks against immigration 'persecution'" (at link 6), the Labour Department, which oversees Immigration NZ, rejects the claims that Iranian Muslims who convert to Christianity face persecution in Iran. In its statement the Labour Department asserts: "Neither the United Nations High Commission for Refugees nor the government's own sources support the contention that all Christians face danger, on the basis of religion, if they are returned to Iran."
When the New Zealand Parliament sat in April, the Minister for Immigration, the Hon. Clayton Cosgrove, was asked to comment on the government's recent decision to order the deportation of Miss Bahareh Moradi.
Now the Refugee Status Appeals Authority had expressed doubts about the genuineness of various conversions despite detailed evidence to the contrary from clergy and pastoral workers from the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Pentecostal Churches. However Mr Cosgrove said the genuineness of a conversion was irrelevant, because the issue is whether the fear of persecution is well founded and, he reports, according to the UNHCR it is not.
"We are reliant on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for advice," said Cosgrove. "We are reliant on the members of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority as independent individuals to make those judgments. They assess all the facts. They receive representations from qualified and unqualified stakeholders, and they make decisions in an independent way.
"We are governed by the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, not vested interest groups, and not representations from others, though they are taken into account. To date, despite what the member says, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not support the contention that Christians face these dangers if returned to Iran. However, if it was to be the case that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees changed its view . . . then of course New Zealand, being governed by its international obligations, would indeed consider that change. I note, though, that the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and other countries have faced similar issues of repatriating Iranians who have hindered their departure. These countries have found that Iranians who are returned to Iran are unlikely, despite their alleged conversion to Christianity, or other claims, to be subjected to persecution." (Link 8, Hansard; for the full transcript of the debate in the NZ parliament: "Refugee Status Appeals Authority—Conversion to Christianity".) The New Zealand parliament next sits on Tuesday 23 September 2008.
-----
The opinion of the UNHCR carries considerable weight in Refugee Review Tribunals. Therefore the UNHCR should cast off all political correctness and instead catch up with and embrace the challenge of reality: that due to the violent, repressive, rights-abusing nature of Sharia Law, non-Muslims -- in particularly apostates, who are in effect "religious-dissidents" -- seeking refugee status on religious grounds should never be forced to return to Islamic states. Their fear of persecution is very well founded indeed.
Links
1) Iranians are renouncing Islam: Mullah gets Paranoid! Sep 2008
http://www.iranian360.com/story.php?title=iranians-are-renouncing-islam-mullah-gets-paranoid-1
2) Iran -- Parliament votes in favour of punishing apostasy with death
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 11 Sep 2008
http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=press&id=773
3) Iran mulls death penalty for Internet crimes.
Khaleej Times (Dubai) (AFP) 2 July 2008
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/July/middleeast_July44.xml§ion=middleeast&col
4) Ebadi rights group warns Iran on Internet crime bill. 20 July 2008
http://news.theage.com.au/technology/ebadi-rights-group-warns-iran-on-internet-crime-bill-20080720-3hzs.html
5) Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org/content/index.php?id=25 (search Iran)
6) Iranian refugee freed after two years [29 months] in New Zealand jail
Asia-Pacific News 5 April 2007
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1287465.php/Iranian_refugee_freed_after_two_years_in_New_Zealand_jail
Upset as gay Iranian wins asylum but Catholic fails. 6 Feb 2007
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10422597
Yadegary decision shows need for Bill change. 14 August 2008.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0808/S00233.htm
7) Deportation could spell death
By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Friday, 07 March 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4429773a11.html
Pastor stands by fugitive Iranian
By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Thursday, 10 April 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/4472327a22400.html
Pastor speaks against immigration 'persecution'
By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Tuesday, 06 May 2008
http://www.snl.co.nz/4511319a6016.html
8) "Refugee Status Appeals Authority -- Conversion to Christianity"
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/QOA/b/0/1/48HansQ_20080417_00000537-8-Refugee-Status-Appeals-Authority-Conversion.htm
Subj: Iran: parliament passes apostasy death bill -- UNHCR take note!
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
That apostasy (leaving Islam) is an enormously risky even deadly business in any Muslim country is not news to any apostate or to any serious religious liberty observer. That the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) does not always share this view however is news to many.
ISLAM RETURNS
Traditional Sharia Law mandates death for apostates based on the Hadith (saying of Muhammad) "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." (Sahih Al-Bukhari Vol. 9:57).
The decline of Islamic political power, particularly after World Wars 1 and 2, the subsequent rise of secular Arab nationalism, and leverage afforded to the USA due to its economic power led to this practice being largely abandoned at the state level. Whilst apostates were frequently murdered either out of religious hatred or for the sake of "honour", they were not executed by states that were under Western mandates, pursuing secularism and dependent on Western aid and trade.
But times have changed. An international revival of Sunni Wahhabism has been riding on the back of Saudi Arabian oil profits since the late 1970s. Furthermore, decades of brutal, repressive, corrupt dictatorships and declining living standards primed the Muslim masses for the "democracy" coming their way. Now, as soon as the opportunity presents, it appears that Muslims are ready to test the Muslim Brotherhood's assertion that "Islam is the solution".
Meanwhile, the Shi'ite revolutionaries of 1979, after being exhausted by the Iran-Iraq war and then constrained by a western bulwark (Saddam Hussein's Iraq), are now liberated, empowered, bursting with apocalyptic zeal and driven by the scent of Islamic leadership and ascendancy.
After centuries of decline and decades in the cupboard, Islam has returned!
Now Iran is in the process of legislating to make apostasy and promoting apostasy (including through the Internet) mandatory capital offences in the name of protecting the State's "mental security". This shows the degree to which the balance of power has shifted. Clearly the clerics in charge of the Iranian police state do not feel threatened by, nor do they care about, Western displeasure. In fact making the death sentence mandatory for apostasy and promoting apostasy is a very powerful way for ascendant Iran to make an offensive gesture to the USA, the rival power it is gradually replacing as hegemon in Iraq and the wider Middle East. It is a sign of supreme self-confidence.
Further to this, it is also a reactionary response to the reality that Iranian Muslims, fed up with and distressed by seemingly endless poverty and repression, are leaving Islam in increasing numbers. A recent sermon by an Iranian Shia Imam reveals how concerned the authorities are about the apostasy phenomenon and how determined they are to crush it. A Youtube clip shows a portion of a television broadcast of a sermon by an Iranian Shia mullah who is instructing the faithful not to worry about recruiting Sunnis, Christians and Zoroastrians into Shi'ism. For, he warns, he has travelled the country and the greatest danger is that of apostasy, especially young Iranian Shi'a youths converting to Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of pre-Islamic Persia. "Don't let our Shi'a youth leave our faith", he thunders. (Link 1)
IRAN, APOSTASY AND THE UNHCR
Yet over recent years several Western countries have been returning Iranian Christian asylum seekers, including apostates, to Iran on the basis that the UNHCR claims they will not be persecuted.
UNHCR TAKE NOTE: As Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports, "The Iranian Parliament voted on Tuesday [9 Sep] in favour of a bill stipulating the death penalty for apostasy. The bill was approved by 196 votes for, seven against, and two abstentions.
"The progress of this bill through the Iranian Parliament is a cause of grave concern for increasing numbers of Iranians who have left Islam for another religion, and a significant backwards step for human rights in Iran. The draft bill will add a number of crimes to the list of those resulting in execution, among them; 'establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy'." (Link 2)
The Khaleej Times (Dubai) in July reported the bill states that those convicted of these crimes "should be punished as 'mohareb' (enemy of God) and 'corrupt on the earth'". The bill also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases "cannot be commuted, suspended or changed". (Link 3)
As the Khaleek Times notes: "Internet is widely used in Iran despite restrictions on access and the blocking of thousands of websites with a sexual content or deemed as insulting religious sanctities and promoting political dissent. Blogging is also very popular among cyber-savvy young Iranians, some openly discussing their private lives or criticising the system."
The Defenders of Human Rights Centre, which is run by Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, warned in July: "If this bill is adopted, there will be further infringement of the freedom of expression, citizens' judicial security will be jeopardised and executions will increase." (Link 4)
IMMEDIATE IMPLICATIONS
. . INSIDE IRAN
On 10 September Compass Direct (CD) reported that two Iranian Christians have now officially been charged with "apostasy".
Mahmood Matin Azad (52) and Arash Basirat (44) have been in prison since their arrest in Shiraz on 15 May "on suspicion of apostasy". The two men were later charged with "Propaganda Against the Islamic Republic of Iran".
CD reports: "When their lawyer went to authorities to inquire about the case in early August, he was informed that the two men had been formally charged with apostasy.
"Sources who spoke to the two Christians' defence lawyer explained that a written order of the formal charge of apostasy was unusual and an indication of the severity and complexity of the case.
"With the apostasy bill debated in Parliament, some Iranian Christians fear that authorities are seeking to make an example of the two prisoners or give the prospective law a 'test run'." (Link 5)
. . AND OUTSIDE IRAN
The UNHCR and all Western governments must observe that this bill mandating death for apostasy and promoting apostasy passed easily through the Iranian parliament. The vote clearly proves that Iranian authorities overwhelmingly believe that apostates and those who promote apostasy should die. Even if the Guardian Council does not pass the bill into law (for whatever reason) it may be assumed that those who take the implementation of Sharia law into their own hands will not be prosecuted by this regime. Apostates who have left Islam will have no security. This fact must be allowed to impact refugee claims.
Two cases presently before the courts in New Zealand perfectly demonstrate the problem faced by numerous Iranian Christian asylum seekers.
Thomas Yadegary is an Iranian convert to Christianity. He arrived in New Zealand in 1993 and had been working for years as a chef when in November 2004, after his final appeal for refugee status was declined, Yadegary was issued with a deportation order. Yadegary was then arrested after he refused to sign an application for an Iranian passport. In early April 2007, after 29 months behind bars, Yadegary was released on bail after a court hearing, the details of which were suppressed pending a government appeal. (Link 6)
Miss Bahareh Moradi, another Iranian convert to Christianity, is also fighting deportation. Her pastor, Rev. Rinny Westra of St Aidan's Presbyterian Church, says he has seen Immigration New Zealand targeting Iranian converts for harsh treatment.
Scoop Independent news reports: "Mr Westra says Miss Moradi's case is one of a series where Iranian Christians have been unreasonably rejected by Immigration.
"He points to Christian convert Ali Pannah, who went on a hunger strike in prison to avoid deportation, and Majid Mohebbi, who he says was whipped after being deported.
"'In mid-April an Iranian man who claims to be a Christian was deported after visiting Miss Moradi's brother Hamid,' says Mr Westra. "In all their cases their pastors vouched for the truth of their conversions." (Link 7)
UNHCR
According to the article "Pastor speaks against immigration 'persecution'" (at link 6), the Labour Department, which oversees Immigration NZ, rejects the claims that Iranian Muslims who convert to Christianity face persecution in Iran. In its statement the Labour Department asserts: "Neither the United Nations High Commission for Refugees nor the government's own sources support the contention that all Christians face danger, on the basis of religion, if they are returned to Iran."
When the New Zealand Parliament sat in April, the Minister for Immigration, the Hon. Clayton Cosgrove, was asked to comment on the government's recent decision to order the deportation of Miss Bahareh Moradi.
Now the Refugee Status Appeals Authority had expressed doubts about the genuineness of various conversions despite detailed evidence to the contrary from clergy and pastoral workers from the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Pentecostal Churches. However Mr Cosgrove said the genuineness of a conversion was irrelevant, because the issue is whether the fear of persecution is well founded and, he reports, according to the UNHCR it is not.
"We are reliant on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for advice," said Cosgrove. "We are reliant on the members of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority as independent individuals to make those judgments. They assess all the facts. They receive representations from qualified and unqualified stakeholders, and they make decisions in an independent way.
"We are governed by the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, not vested interest groups, and not representations from others, though they are taken into account. To date, despite what the member says, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not support the contention that Christians face these dangers if returned to Iran. However, if it was to be the case that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees changed its view . . . then of course New Zealand, being governed by its international obligations, would indeed consider that change. I note, though, that the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and other countries have faced similar issues of repatriating Iranians who have hindered their departure. These countries have found that Iranians who are returned to Iran are unlikely, despite their alleged conversion to Christianity, or other claims, to be subjected to persecution." (Link 8, Hansard; for the full transcript of the debate in the NZ parliament: "Refugee Status Appeals Authority—Conversion to Christianity".) The New Zealand parliament next sits on Tuesday 23 September 2008.
-----
The opinion of the UNHCR carries considerable weight in Refugee Review Tribunals. Therefore the UNHCR should cast off all political correctness and instead catch up with and embrace the challenge of reality: that due to the violent, repressive, rights-abusing nature of Sharia Law, non-Muslims -- in particularly apostates, who are in effect "religious-dissidents" -- seeking refugee status on religious grounds should never be forced to return to Islamic states. Their fear of persecution is very well founded indeed.
Links
1) Iranians are renouncing Islam: Mullah gets Paranoid! Sep 2008
http://www.iranian360.com/story.php?title=iranians-are-renouncing-islam-mullah-gets-paranoid-1
2) Iran -- Parliament votes in favour of punishing apostasy with death
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 11 Sep 2008
http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=press&id=773
3) Iran mulls death penalty for Internet crimes.
Khaleej Times (Dubai) (AFP) 2 July 2008
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/July/middleeast_July44.xml§ion=middleeast&col
4) Ebadi rights group warns Iran on Internet crime bill. 20 July 2008
http://news.theage.com.au/technology/ebadi-rights-group-warns-iran-on-internet-crime-bill-20080720-3hzs.html
5) Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org/content/index.php?id=25 (search Iran)
6) Iranian refugee freed after two years [29 months] in New Zealand jail
Asia-Pacific News 5 April 2007
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1287465.php/Iranian_refugee_freed_after_two_years_in_New_Zealand_jail
Upset as gay Iranian wins asylum but Catholic fails. 6 Feb 2007
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10422597
Yadegary decision shows need for Bill change. 14 August 2008.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0808/S00233.htm
7) Deportation could spell death
By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Friday, 07 March 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4429773a11.html
Pastor stands by fugitive Iranian
By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Thursday, 10 April 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/4472327a22400.html
Pastor speaks against immigration 'persecution'
By HAYDEN DONNELL - North Shore Times | Tuesday, 06 May 2008
http://www.snl.co.nz/4511319a6016.html
8) "Refugee Status Appeals Authority -- Conversion to Christianity"
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/QOA/b/0/1/48HansQ_20080417_00000537-8-Refugee-Status-Appeals-Authority-Conversion.htm
Friday, July 11, 2008
Yemen: Christian arrests may herald new era of persecution.
Date: Friday 11 July 2008
Subj: Yemen: Christian arrests may herald new era of persecution.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
YEMEN: CHRISTIAN ARRESTS MAY HERALD NEW ERA OF PERSECUTION
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 apostaphobic 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 February 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
http://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=401_2008_06_18_64109
2) Yemeni Christians Remain Detained; No Americans Among Them
By BosNewsLife News Center, 2 July 2008
http://www.bosnewslife.com/middle-east/yemen/3689-yemeni-christians-remain-detained-no-american
3) MAP. Note -- Hodaida here is spelt Hodaydah. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_middle_east/yemen_divisions.jpg ).
4) Conversions reported on the rise in Yemen. 11 Oct 2007
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=54102
5) Al-Qaeda in Yemen Launches New E-Journal -- Sada Al-Malahim
13 January 2008 MEMRI
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/4640.htm
6) Researcher Warns Christianity Growth in Yemen
By Hakim Almasmari, 18 February 2008
http://www.yemenpost.net/17/LocalNews/1.htm
7) Yemeni Town Mourns U.S. Missionaries
By SALAH NASRAWI. The Associated Press
JIBLA, Yemen. 31 December 2008
http://www.islamreview.com/news/2002_news.htm
ALSO
Religious Liberty 2003
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 6 January 2003
8) Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces -- Yemeni Jews threatened.
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 16 February 2007
9) Yemen -- Empty Jewish homes destroyed. 7 April 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207486208257&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Subj: Yemen: Christian arrests may herald new era of persecution.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
YEMEN: CHRISTIAN ARRESTS MAY HERALD NEW ERA OF PERSECUTION
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 apostaphobic 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 February 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
http://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/view_nnews.asp?sub_no=401_2008_06_18_64109
2) Yemeni Christians Remain Detained; No Americans Among Them
By BosNewsLife News Center, 2 July 2008
http://www.bosnewslife.com/middle-east/yemen/3689-yemeni-christians-remain-detained-no-american
3) MAP. Note -- Hodaida here is spelt Hodaydah. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_middle_east/yemen_divisions.jpg ).
4) Conversions reported on the rise in Yemen. 11 Oct 2007
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=54102
5) Al-Qaeda in Yemen Launches New E-Journal -- Sada Al-Malahim
13 January 2008 MEMRI
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/4640.htm
6) Researcher Warns Christianity Growth in Yemen
By Hakim Almasmari, 18 February 2008
http://www.yemenpost.net/17/LocalNews/1.htm
7) Yemeni Town Mourns U.S. Missionaries
By SALAH NASRAWI. The Associated Press
JIBLA, Yemen. 31 December 2008
http://www.islamreview.com/news/2002_news.htm
ALSO
Religious Liberty 2003
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 6 January 2003
8) Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces -- Yemeni Jews threatened.
WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendal, 16 February 2007
9) Yemen -- Empty Jewish homes destroyed. 7 April 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207486208257&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
MALAYSIA: the Great Apostasy Debate stirs again.
Date: Tuesday 13 May 2008
Subj: Malaysia: the Great Apostasy Debate stirs again.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
On 8 May, media across the world ran with the news: "Malaysian woman can leave Islam." (BBC headline) Jurist, which reports legal news, commented: "Religious rights groups hailed the decision as a landmark ruling for interfaith relations." (Link 1)
Judge Othman Ibrahim's 8 May 2008 ruling in Penang's Syariah High Court, whereby Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah (Tan Ean Yuang) (39) was granted leave to revert from Islam to Buddhism, is indeed a landmark ruling. But before getting too excited, religious liberty advocates should consider the following:
1) The finer details of the ruling make it unlikely that it could be a precedent for many other cases.
2) A significant element of the ruling was the judge's castigation of the Islamic authorities for failing to save the plaintiff's faith.
3) This case is not over yet. The Penang state religious council, which is opposing the plaintiff's renunciation of Islam, has indicated that it is preparing to launch an appeal.
4) For religious liberty advocates it remains absolutely unacceptable that any Malaysian citizen should have to get permission from a Sharia (Islamic) Court before they can change their religious identity.
----------------------
THE PENANG RULING
The plaintiff, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian woman named Tan Ean Yuang (39), converted from Buddhism to Islam in 1998 in order to marry an Iranian Muslim named Ferdoun Ashanian. Tan subsequently took the Islamic name of Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah and the couple married in 2004. The marriage only lasted four months and Siti claims that she has had no knowledge of her husband's whereabouts since he deserted her.
In May 2006 Siti filed an application to renounce Islam and revert to Buddhism. The court however "ordered that she learn more about Islam and undergo three months of counselling with the Penang Islamic Religious Department's unit ukhwah (brotherhood) to ensure she understood the religion. However, she only attended the session once and remained steadfast in wanting to revert to Buddhism." (Link 2)
On Thursday 8 May 2008, in the Syariah High Court in Penang, judge Othman Ibrahim ruled in favour of Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah. While he noted that apostasy is a great sin in Islam deserving of severe punishment even death, he ruled that Siti was free to return to Buddhism on the grounds that she had never practised Islam, and therefore the court could regard her as a non-believer (kafir) and not an apostate (murtad). Siti's lawyer remarked that "the ruling was important because it accepted that Muslims could renounce Islam on the grounds that they had never practised the faith". (Link 3)
As the ruling rested on the plaintiff's alleged non-practice of Islam, it can be assumed that had any Muslim testified to the contrary, Tan's application would not have been successful.
Clearly this ruling will not provide a precedent for converts who have practised Islam -- converts like Soon Singh, a Malaysian Sikh who converted to Islam as a minor but in 1999, at the age of 21 years, sought redress through the courts to renounce Islam and return to Sikhism. Soon Singh's appeal was denied and the court ruled not only that all Muslims should have "Islam" printed on their identity cards, but that Sharia courts should have jurisdiction over all matters concerning Islam. This ruling became the precedent for all subsequent appeals against apostasy. (See link 4)
A SITUATION THE JUDGE BELIEVES SHOULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED
When delivering his ruling, judge Othman Ibrahim regretted that Siti's Iranian husband had failed her by failing to guide her in her new faith. He then castigated the Penang Islamic Religious Council for neglecting its duties and failing to "save" Siti's faith in Islam. "It is their obligation to encourage, support, help and ensure that new converts understand and follow Islamic teachings. However, in this case nothing was done until the last moment when it was already too late." (Link 5)
According to Malaysia's The Star online, PAS [Parti Islam se-Malaysia] is protesting the decision. "PAS vice-president Nasharudin Mat Isa said renouncing Islam was forbidden, unless one had been forced to embrace Islam under duress. 'If one has embraced Islam out of one's own free will, then one must be subject to Islamic law, and the law forbids the renouncing of Islam because it touches on one's faith in the religion,' he said." (Link 6)
The Malay Mail notes: "Only last week both BN [Barisan Nasional] and PAS members of Parliament had argued that once you enter Islam there is no turning back, not just for born Muslims, but also for converts." (Link 7)
Clearly PAS and the ruling BN government of PM Badawi are not interested in advancing religious liberty. It can therefore be expected that this ruling will not only stir the Great Apostasy Debate but initiate a debate about conversion procedures so that conversions to Islam are legally secure.
While Judge Ibrahim did 'tear up' Tan's certificate of conversion to Islam he did not grant her application to have a new identity card issued, saying that was a matter for the National Registration Department (NRD).
The NRD is unlikely to issue Tan a new identity card while the Penang state Religious Council is planning to appeal the ruling. "The council's counsel Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz said the council would appeal within the 14-day period, adding that among the concerns was the status of Siti Fatimah's marriage as her conversion did not dissolve the marriage." (Link 8)
If the ruling is appealed, then Tan may find she has injured her case by stating in her affidavit that she "stopped practising Islam" after her husband left her. (Link 7)
NO GAIN
Ultimately the ruling does not advance religious liberty in Malaysia -- it merely perpetuates the unacceptable status quo whereby in matters concerning Islam the religious liberty guarantees of the federal Constitution are deemed subordinate to the rulings of state-run Sharia Courts.
Malaysian lawyer A Sivanesan cautions: "This is a landmark decision and gives relief to Tan. However, non-Muslims should not be complacent with this decision. The real remedy for them is for the civil court to bravely uphold constitutional guarantees." (Link 7)
The best this ruling can do is to stir up Malaysia's Great Apostasy Debate once again.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) Malaysian woman can leave Islam. BBC, 8 May 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7389874.stm
Malaysia Islamic Court Allows Reconversion from Islam
Jurist, 8 May 2008
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/malaysia-islamic-court-allows.php
2) Syariah court allows convert to renounce Islam
By Sharanjit Singh, New Straits Times
(Picture: Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah with lawyer Ahmad Jailani Abdul Ghani.)
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/2235294/Article/index_html
3) Malaysia woman scores rare legal win to quit Islam. 8 May 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/sphereNews/idUSKLR29947320080508?sp=true&view=sphere
4) Malaysia: The Islamisation of Malaysia
WEA RLC News & Analysis. 8 June 2007
5) Judge: Council failed in duty to guide converts
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/2235317/Article/index_html
6) MCA hails court decision. 9 May 2008
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/9/nation/21197271&sec=nation
7) A precedent for converts. Malay Mail, 9 May 2008
http://www.mmail.com.my/Current_News/mm/Friday/Opinions/20080509105658/Article/index_html
8) Syariah High Court lets Muslim convert renounce Islam and go back to Buddhism
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/9/nation/21194502&sec=nation
Subj: Malaysia: the Great Apostasy Debate stirs again.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
On 8 May, media across the world ran with the news: "Malaysian woman can leave Islam." (BBC headline) Jurist, which reports legal news, commented: "Religious rights groups hailed the decision as a landmark ruling for interfaith relations." (Link 1)
Judge Othman Ibrahim's 8 May 2008 ruling in Penang's Syariah High Court, whereby Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah (Tan Ean Yuang) (39) was granted leave to revert from Islam to Buddhism, is indeed a landmark ruling. But before getting too excited, religious liberty advocates should consider the following:
1) The finer details of the ruling make it unlikely that it could be a precedent for many other cases.
2) A significant element of the ruling was the judge's castigation of the Islamic authorities for failing to save the plaintiff's faith.
3) This case is not over yet. The Penang state religious council, which is opposing the plaintiff's renunciation of Islam, has indicated that it is preparing to launch an appeal.
4) For religious liberty advocates it remains absolutely unacceptable that any Malaysian citizen should have to get permission from a Sharia (Islamic) Court before they can change their religious identity.
----------------------
THE PENANG RULING
The plaintiff, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian woman named Tan Ean Yuang (39), converted from Buddhism to Islam in 1998 in order to marry an Iranian Muslim named Ferdoun Ashanian. Tan subsequently took the Islamic name of Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah and the couple married in 2004. The marriage only lasted four months and Siti claims that she has had no knowledge of her husband's whereabouts since he deserted her.
In May 2006 Siti filed an application to renounce Islam and revert to Buddhism. The court however "ordered that she learn more about Islam and undergo three months of counselling with the Penang Islamic Religious Department's unit ukhwah (brotherhood) to ensure she understood the religion. However, she only attended the session once and remained steadfast in wanting to revert to Buddhism." (Link 2)
On Thursday 8 May 2008, in the Syariah High Court in Penang, judge Othman Ibrahim ruled in favour of Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah. While he noted that apostasy is a great sin in Islam deserving of severe punishment even death, he ruled that Siti was free to return to Buddhism on the grounds that she had never practised Islam, and therefore the court could regard her as a non-believer (kafir) and not an apostate (murtad). Siti's lawyer remarked that "the ruling was important because it accepted that Muslims could renounce Islam on the grounds that they had never practised the faith". (Link 3)
As the ruling rested on the plaintiff's alleged non-practice of Islam, it can be assumed that had any Muslim testified to the contrary, Tan's application would not have been successful.
Clearly this ruling will not provide a precedent for converts who have practised Islam -- converts like Soon Singh, a Malaysian Sikh who converted to Islam as a minor but in 1999, at the age of 21 years, sought redress through the courts to renounce Islam and return to Sikhism. Soon Singh's appeal was denied and the court ruled not only that all Muslims should have "Islam" printed on their identity cards, but that Sharia courts should have jurisdiction over all matters concerning Islam. This ruling became the precedent for all subsequent appeals against apostasy. (See link 4)
A SITUATION THE JUDGE BELIEVES SHOULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED
When delivering his ruling, judge Othman Ibrahim regretted that Siti's Iranian husband had failed her by failing to guide her in her new faith. He then castigated the Penang Islamic Religious Council for neglecting its duties and failing to "save" Siti's faith in Islam. "It is their obligation to encourage, support, help and ensure that new converts understand and follow Islamic teachings. However, in this case nothing was done until the last moment when it was already too late." (Link 5)
According to Malaysia's The Star online, PAS [Parti Islam se-Malaysia] is protesting the decision. "PAS vice-president Nasharudin Mat Isa said renouncing Islam was forbidden, unless one had been forced to embrace Islam under duress. 'If one has embraced Islam out of one's own free will, then one must be subject to Islamic law, and the law forbids the renouncing of Islam because it touches on one's faith in the religion,' he said." (Link 6)
The Malay Mail notes: "Only last week both BN [Barisan Nasional] and PAS members of Parliament had argued that once you enter Islam there is no turning back, not just for born Muslims, but also for converts." (Link 7)
Clearly PAS and the ruling BN government of PM Badawi are not interested in advancing religious liberty. It can therefore be expected that this ruling will not only stir the Great Apostasy Debate but initiate a debate about conversion procedures so that conversions to Islam are legally secure.
While Judge Ibrahim did 'tear up' Tan's certificate of conversion to Islam he did not grant her application to have a new identity card issued, saying that was a matter for the National Registration Department (NRD).
The NRD is unlikely to issue Tan a new identity card while the Penang state Religious Council is planning to appeal the ruling. "The council's counsel Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz said the council would appeal within the 14-day period, adding that among the concerns was the status of Siti Fatimah's marriage as her conversion did not dissolve the marriage." (Link 8)
If the ruling is appealed, then Tan may find she has injured her case by stating in her affidavit that she "stopped practising Islam" after her husband left her. (Link 7)
NO GAIN
Ultimately the ruling does not advance religious liberty in Malaysia -- it merely perpetuates the unacceptable status quo whereby in matters concerning Islam the religious liberty guarantees of the federal Constitution are deemed subordinate to the rulings of state-run Sharia Courts.
Malaysian lawyer A Sivanesan cautions: "This is a landmark decision and gives relief to Tan. However, non-Muslims should not be complacent with this decision. The real remedy for them is for the civil court to bravely uphold constitutional guarantees." (Link 7)
The best this ruling can do is to stir up Malaysia's Great Apostasy Debate once again.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) Malaysian woman can leave Islam. BBC, 8 May 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7389874.stm
Malaysia Islamic Court Allows Reconversion from Islam
Jurist, 8 May 2008
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/malaysia-islamic-court-allows.php
2) Syariah court allows convert to renounce Islam
By Sharanjit Singh, New Straits Times
(Picture: Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah with lawyer Ahmad Jailani Abdul Ghani.)
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/2235294/Article/index_html
3) Malaysia woman scores rare legal win to quit Islam. 8 May 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/sphereNews/idUSKLR29947320080508?sp=true&view=sphere
4) Malaysia: The Islamisation of Malaysia
WEA RLC News & Analysis. 8 June 2007
5) Judge: Council failed in duty to guide converts
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/2235317/Article/index_html
6) MCA hails court decision. 9 May 2008
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/9/nation/21197271&sec=nation
7) A precedent for converts. Malay Mail, 9 May 2008
http://www.mmail.com.my/Current_News/mm/Friday/Opinions/20080509105658/Article/index_html
8) Syariah High Court lets Muslim convert renounce Islam and go back to Buddhism
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/9/nation/21194502&sec=nation