Iran: Death for Bloggers Promoting Christianity

Iran imposes the death penalty for "spreading mischief in the land", a reference to the Quran 5:32. This verse is interpreted to apply to those who encourage conversion from Islam to Christianity. Leaving Islam for another religion is considered "Apostasy". According to Farsi Christian News Service, two Christian bloggers were entrapped and arrested in Isfahan on February 4th. The target of the entrapment operation seems to be bloggers rather than Christian converts as other family members were not arrested.

This Aljazeera video from March 24th acknowledges that bloggers in Iran who encourage conversion to Christianity are in danger of the death penalty for their activities.



Hat Tips to Nova Scotia Scott and Islam in Action

England: Muslim Protesters Disrupt Royal Anglian Parade

As 200 soldiers from the Royal Anglian Regiment marched through Luton in a Homecoming Parade from their tour of duty in Iraq, the Telegraph reports that:

A group of around 20 men in traditional Islamic dress held up banners and placards that read: "Anglian Soldiers Butchers of Basra", "Anglian Soldiers Criminals, Murderers Terrorists" and "Baby killers".

As the battalion, which is nicknamed The Poachers, reached Luton Town Hall the small group shouted and yelled "Terrorists" and "Anglian Soliders Go to Hell."

The protesters then had to be protected by police as angry supporters of the soldiers turned on them shouting: "Scum" and "No surrender to the Taliban."

Here is the parade video posted by lutonloyal at Youtube:



And here is the altercation video posted by lutonloyal at Youtube. (You will notice that the Telegraph did not report the obscene language):



The Muslim protesters were within their rights to behave in this despicable way. The BBC reports that police arrested a few from the pro-soldier crowd who were violating the protesters rights. And as someone who really does believe in free speech, I think it is a good thing that the police protected the small group of protesters from the crowd and arrested those who violated their rights.

I just wish that the Muslim protesters had an ethic of reciprocity, so that they recognized the right to free speech of those who do not believe in God in the way Islam presents God or chose to leave Islam. In Islamic Law, the first is called blasphemy and is punishable by death. (Remember the fatwa against Salman Rushdie?) In Islamic Law, the second is called apostasy and is punishable by death.

I also wish the police will evidence a belief in reciprocity and arrest Muslims who violate the free speech of those who protest against Islamic terrorism, or for Israel, or against Sharia Law, etc.

Egypt: Islamic lawyers urge death sentence for convert

Islamic law requires death for apostates, although the Quran only says that apostates will suffer death in the next world:

In Islamic law (sharia), the consensus view is that a male apostate must be put to death unless he suffers from a mental disorder or converted under duress, for example, due to an imminent danger of being killed. A female apostate must be either executed, according to Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), or imprisoned until she reverts to Islam as advocated by the Sunni Hanafi school and by Shi'a scholars.

This is a real problem for converts to Christianity in Muslim countries. For example, a recent report at Compass Direct News begins:

In the latest hearing of a Muslim-born Egyptian’s effort to officially convert to Christianity, opposing lawyers advocated he be convicted of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, and sentenced to death.

More than 20 Islamic lawyers attended the hearing on Sunday (Feb. 22) in Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary’s case to obtain identification papers with Christianity designated as his religious affiliation. Two lawyers led the charge, Ahmed Dia El-Din and Abdel Al-Migid El-Anani.

“[El-Din] started to talk about the Quran being in a higher position than the Bible,” one of El-Gohary’s lawyers, Said Fayez, told Compass. “[El-Din said] people can move to a higher religion but not down, so people cannot move away from Islam because it is highest in rank.”

Memos submitted by opposing lawyers asserted that cases such as El-Gohary’s form part of a U.S. Zionist attack on Islam in Egypt, that Christianity is an inferior religion to Islam and that Copts protect and defend converts from Islam at their own peril.

El-Gohary is not the only convert in danger:

But he also has received text messages, he said, of encouragement from other Muslim-born converts too fearful to take a similar stand.

“Everyday I get calls from people who have converted but are secret,” said El-Gohary. “They ask me every day about what is happening, because it affects their future.”

I highly recommend you read it all.

The Barnabus Fund has started a campaign to abolish the Islamic apostasy laws. They say:

The Islamic apostasy law also stands in stark contrast to Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, published sixty years ago this month, which states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief...”

Please go to their website and sign the online petition. It reads:

We call on our national government to support all efforts by Muslims to have the apostasy law abolished, so that Muslims who choose to leave their faith are no longer liable to any penalty but are free to follow their new convictions without fear, in accordance with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Hat Tip Women Against Shariah

Saudi Arabia: Christian Convert in Danger of Execution

Compass Direct News reports:

Five months after the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ, Saudi authorities have reportedly arrested a 28-year-old Christian man for describing his conversion and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his Web site.

Saudi police arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh on Jan. 13 “because of his opinions and his testimony that he had converted from Islam to Christianity,” according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Bin Saleh, who had been detained for nine months in 2004 and again for a month last November, was reportedly being held in Riyadh’s Eleisha prison.

On his web site, which Saudi authorities have blocked, Bin Saleh wrote that his journey to Christ began after witnessing the public beheading of three Pakistanis convicted of drug charges.

[Bin Saleh was a blogspot blogger and his website was christforsaudi.blogspot.com Although this is blocked now, The Jawa Report had provided this link to an English translation from the Google cache.]

Shaken, he began an extensive study of Islamic history and law, as well as Saudi justice. He became disillusioned with sharia (Islamic law) and dismayed that kingdom authorities only prosecuted poor Saudis and foreigners.
“I was convinced that the wretched Pakistanis were executed in accordance with the Muhammadan laws just because they are poor and have no money or favored positions, which they had no control or power over,” he wrote in Arabic in his Dec. 22 posting, referring to “this terrible prejudice in the application of justice in Saudi Arabia.”

The article goes on to give some details about Bin Saleh's readings into Sharia Law and into the Bible. Then:

After reading how Jesus forgave – rather than stoned – a woman condemned for adultery, Bin Saleh eventually received Christ as savior.

The article explains how the Sharia Law provides for the death penalty for conversion from Islam (apostasy) and for blogging about it (blasphemy):

With the Quran and sayings of Muhammad (Sunna) as its constitution, Saudi Arabia enforces a form of sharia derived from 18th-century Sunni scholar Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab that calls for the death penalty for “blasphemy,” or insulting Islam or its prophet, Muhammad. Likewise, conversion from Islam to another faith, “apostasy,” is punishable by death, although the U.S. Department of State’s 2008 International Religious Freedom Report notes that there have been no confirmed reports of executions for either blasphemy or apostasy in recent years.

The earlier killing of the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police who was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ is described at the end of the article:

In August 2008, a 26-year-old woman was killed for disclosing her faith on a Web site. Fatima Al-Mutairi reportedly had revealed on Web postings that she had left Islam to become a Christian.

Gulfnews.com reported on Aug. 12, 2008 that her father, a member of the religious police or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, cut out her tongue and burned her to death “following a heated debate on religion.” Al-Mutairi had written about hostilities from family members after they discovered she was a Christian, including insults from her brother after he saw her Web postings about her faith. Some reports indicated that her brother was the one who killed her.
She had reportedly written an article about her faith on a blog of which she was a member under the nickname “Rania” a few days before her murder.

An earlier report of Bin Saleh's arrest was published by The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Hat Tip Women Against Shariah