Liberty, Equality, Justice, Human Rights

Quick jump index: Islamic countries: Algeria Bangladesh Egypt Indonesia Iran Kuwait Malaysia Maldives Middle East Morroco Migeria Palestine Turkey Yemen One day... Infidel countries: Australia Canada Europe India Sweden Thailand UK/England The USA Arts/Science River of Blood

Algeria has a new law

     The Algerian parliament has approved a law banning the call to embrace other religions than Islam.
     This law states to jail anyone "trying to call on a Muslim to embrace another religion," in remarks to the Christianizing (evangelize) campaigns taking place in the country.
     The Algerian Ummah council (Senate) approved this decision on Monday. This decision which was approved by the national people's council ( parliament) on March 15th is an attempt to withstand the Christianizing campaign which had witnessed a notable activity recently especially in al-Qabayel area east of the country.
     The ratified law stated to sentence imprisonment for two to five years and a fee between 5 to 10 thousands EURO against "anyone urging or forcing or tempting, to convert a Muslim to another religion."
     The same penalty applies to every person, manufacturer, store or circulate publications or audo-visual or other means aiming at destabilizing attachment to Islam.
     The law also bans practicing any religion "except Islam" "outside buildings allocated for that, and links specialized buildings aimed at practice of religion by a prior licensing."
     One official at the ministry of religious affairs said that the aim of the law is basically to "ban religious activity, and secret religious campaigns."

Bangladesh wants to behead a woman

Taslima Nasreen was hounded out of her country by Muslim fundamentalists, who announced a fatwa on her head. A sensitive and liberal woman, Taslima’s fault was writing a novel about how Hindus were attacked, and particularly women were raped and pillaged by her Muslim countrymen in reaction to the Babri Masjid demolition and the Bombay riots in India. She was incensed by the Bangladeshi government’s impotence, as it stood by without taking any action against these barbaric acts.
Most of the people who accuse Taslima Nasreen of insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammed have not read her book Lajja (Shame). There was no such intention on Taslima’s part. She was trying to expose the vicious socio-political issue created by Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh to expand their grip on society and the government. Fundamentalist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, Islamic Oikyo Jote and others were in the ascendancy when the protests against Taslima erupted in Bangladesh in the 1990s. It was the period when both the BNP (1991–1996) and the Awami League governments (1996–2001) were wooing the Islamists for votes. Taslima Nasreen was dispensable.

Events in Egypt

     An excerpt of the court's press release on the Baha'is verdict (translated):
     "As for Baha'ism, it is not one of the recognized heavenly religions, and who over follows it from the muslims will be considerd an apostate since its principles stand in opposion with the principles of the Islamic religion, plus the other heavenly religions. Furthermore, its believers have totally and utterly forbidden the islamic sharia sanctioned Jihad, for they wish to get the islamic nations to hand its neck to their executioners without any resistance, using idelaistic and romantic speeches to get everybody to agree to one global government, which is the one true aim of the Baha'i religion, and the secretive reason why they are supported by the imperialistic powers- old and new- which shelters them and defends their rights…"
     I would like to point out again, for the record, in case this isn't clear, this is not the rambeling of some nutty conspiracy theorist, but rather the egyptian High court's LEGAL opinion and reasoning for rejecting the case the Baha'is filed for the recognition of their religion in the religion category on their ID's. This is what the judiciary, a branch of this "secular government" had to say about that.

     The moments that followed announcing the verdict were an example of bigotry and sectarianism par excellence. Two bearded men started shouting: “Allahu Akbar! Islam is victorious!”
     Another veiled woman, joined in the chanting. “God’s religion is Islam! Bahaai’s are infidels! They are infidels! Allahu Akbar!” The woman then knelt and kissed the floor. She then stood up, and continued her hysterical outcry outside the court room in the corridor. “Bahaai’s are the cause of problems in Iraq! They also destroyed Lebanon!!” she kept on screaming. I had no clue what the heck she was talking about, and did not know if I should laugh or cry. It was pure bigotry. “They are germs in our society!”
     As I was standing to watch the ongoing circus, a civil servant who worked at the court building apporached me.
     “What is this business of Bahaai’s?” he asked. “Is it a new movement?”
     “No. It’s a religion,” I answered.
     He paused for few seconds, looked at the Bahaai’s in tears outside the court, and then looked back at me. “They’ll go to hell, the sons of %$#^”
     Meanwhile, the veiled woman and the bearded men were still raving… and they were joined by the janitors, plainclothes building security personnel. Hatred. Hatred. Hatred. That was the atmosphere.

     Cairo, Egypt (AP) - An Egyptian blogger went on trial Thursday on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife with his Internet writings. Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger came as Washington has backed away from pressuring its Mideast ally to improve its human rights record and bring democratic reform.
     Abdel Kareem Nabil often denounced Islamic authorities and criticized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his Arabic-language blog. He has been in detention since November and faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.
     Nabil is the first blogger Egypt has put on trial for his writings. Other bloggers have been released without charges. But unlike the other detained bloggers, who concentrated on politics, Nabil wrote often on religion - and Seif al-Islam said the government was likely prosecuting him as part of its "competition with the Muslim Brotherhood to show its Islamic credentials."
     In his blog - where he uses the name Kareem Amer - Nabil was a fierce critic of conservative Muslims and in particularly of al-Azhar, one of the most prestigious religious institutions in the Sunni Muslim world.
     Nabil was a law student at al-Azhar University, but denounced it as "the university of terrorism," accusing it of promoting radical ideas and suppressing free thought. Al-Azhar "stuffs its students' brains and turns them into human beasts ... teaching them that there is no place for differences in this life," he wrote.
     He was thrown out of the university in March, and in his last blog entry before his arrest blamed al-Azhar for pushing the government to investigate him.
     In other postings, Nabil described Mubarak's regime as a "symbol of dictatorship."
     Nabil was briefly detained in late 2005 after posting a commentary on riots in which angry Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church over a play put on by Christians deemed offensive to Islam.
     "Muslims revealed their true ugly face and appeared to all the world that they are full of brutality, barbarism and inhumanity," Nabil said of the October 2005 riots.

The situation in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Hundreds of Christian theology students have been living in tents since a mob of angry Muslim neighbors stormed their campus last month wielding bamboo spears and hurling Molotov cocktails.
     The incident comes amid growing concern that Indonesia's tradition of religious tolerance is under threat from Islamic hard-liners.
     In talks since the attack, the Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology has reluctantly agreed to shut its 20-year-old campus in east Jakarta, accepting an offer this week to move to a small office building on the other side of the Indonesian capital.
     The July 25 attack, which injured 18 students, was the culmination of years of simmering tensions between the school and residents of the Kampung Pulo neighborhood.
     ... The assault began around midnight, when students woke to the crash of stones falling on their dormitory roof as a voice over a loudspeaker at a nearby mosque cried "Allah Akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic.
     "People are still tolerant, but there is a growing suspicion among Muslims of others," said Prof. Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Jesuit priest who has lived in Indonesia for half a century.
     ... A mob stormed a church service last Sunday in another east Jakarta neighborhood, forcing dozens of Christian worshippers to flee, said Jakarta Police Chief Col. Carlo Tewu. No arrests have been made.
     ... Since being driven from campus, nearly 600 female students have been sleeping under suspended tarps at a nearby scout camp, where they had to dig trenches to keep water out during downpours. Classes are held with megaphones in the sweltering summer heat, under trees or the tarps. A similar number of male students live in a guesthouse. The remainder have returned to their families.
     Christians have not been the only targets for Muslim hard-liners, who this year set fire to mosques of a Muslim sect, Ahmadiyah, that they consider heretical.
     In June, the government ordered members of the sect to return to mainstream Islam, sparking concern among activists who fear the state is interfering in matters of faith and caving in to the demands of radicals.

Jakarta, 19 Nov. 2007 (AKI) - About 30 self-appointed Islamic vigilantes are alleged to have raided a house suspected to be a Christian place of worship in Citeureup Village of Bandung in the Indonesian province of West Java, on Monday.
     The owner of the house, Ranto Gunawan Simamora, told reporters that dozens of people raided the house and went directly to the living room which is normally used for Christian gatherings and worship.
     No-one was injured in the raid and the police have sealed off the house while they carry out further investigation.
     The attack is the latest aimed against so-called illegal places of worship in Java and beyond.
     In order to obtain a permit to establish a Christian, Catholic, Buddhist or Hindu place of worship in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, any group seeking a permit must have at least 90 members and receive the permission of 60 local residents who are members of a different faith.

Iran arrests Christians worshipping at home

     Compass Direct News – Iranian secret police began to raid and arrest leaders of one of the Islamic republic’s indigenous house church movements on Sunday, December 10, arriving unannounced in the early morning hours to search their homes in Tehran, Karaj, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali.
     According to one source, those arrested have been told they face 10 accusations, including evangelization activities and actions against the national security of Iran.
     Police authorities reportedly confiscated computers, CDs, tapes, Bibles and printed evangelistic literature found in the homes they searched, according to a report on the Farsi Christian News Network website.
     Over the past five days several members of the house church movement have been called in for a day or more of interrogations and then released. But eight remain under arrest, including one woman.
     The pastors and active members still held in custody were identified as Behnam Irani and Peyman Salarvand, from Karaj; Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani, Shirin Sadegh-Khandjani and Hamid Reza Toluinia, from Tehran; and Yousef Nadarkhani, Parviz Khalaj and Muhammad Reza-Taghizadeh, from Rasht.

Police arrest 15 members of Christian sect in lead-up to Christmas.
     In four raids in different cities, officials arrested members of a “free” evangelical group accused of proselytism and threats to national security. Thirteen are still in prison.
     Iran’s secret police have conducted raids against some Christian communities in the lead-up to Christmas. On Sunday, 10 December officials arrested 15 Christians in different areas of the country: Karaj, Teheran, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali. Only two have been released, according to the Compass Direct agency that broke the news on 14 December. Compass initially reported 10 arrests but yesterday more details became available.

Religious intolerance in Kuwait

     Kuwait: Is it religiously acceptable for Muslims to wish their Christian colleagues or acquaintances a Merry Christmas? In Kuwait, it depends on who you ask. Days before the holiday that is not officially celebrated in Kuwait, fundamentalists like Mohammed Al-Kandari began urging fellow Muslims not to extend the greeting to Christians they know. Al-Kandari, who heads the Society of Sharia, or Islamic law, told Al-Watan daily the celebration contradicted with Islam because Christians believe Jesus (PBUH) was the son of God. The decline in tolerance of other faiths comes as political Islam is sharply increasing its presence in mainstream politics across the region.
     A year ago, the militant Islamist group Hamas swept Palestinian elections; Jordan appointed an Islamist to the Cabinet in November; and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood formed the largest opposition bloc in parliament since elections in 2005. There are few hundred Kuwaiti Christians among the country's 1 million citizens. However, many of the 2 million foreign workers who live here are Christian. Kuwait University political science teacher Ahmed Al-Baghdadi said posters expressing sentiments similar to Al-Kandari's appeared around campus for several days. "It is dangerous because it means that the extremist movement feels stronger than before ...maybe in the future they will call for closing down (non-Muslim) places of worship."

Growing intolerance in Malaysia

     Lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sawar seems a most unlikely person to attract death threats. A small, softly spoken, friendly man, the impression he gives is above all one of consideration.
     What has earned him the death threats is his appearance in court on behalf of Lina Joy, a case that has become a battleground of Malaysian political and cultural identity, and of freedom of religion.
     The case highlights what some analysts believe is the Arabization of Malaysian Islam, a dynamic that can also be seen in Indonesia.
     Lina Joy was once a Muslim but has converted to Christianity. She didn't do so to make any broad point or to lead any social movement. It was entirely a private decision. But in Malaysia the state takes official notice of your race and religion.
     Lina Joy tried to get herself deregistered as a Muslim and reregistered as a Christian. As a Muslim she is not allowed to marry a Christian man and any children she has must be brought up as Muslims.
     When the state authorities refused to accept her conversion she appealed to the courts on the basis of Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.
     The case, in which judgment could be given at any time, has polarised Malaysia. Many Muslims believe apostasy - changing your religion - is not only a sin but should be punishable by death.
     ... In recent years, however, a body of case law has grown up that requires a Malaysian to go before a sharia - Muslim religious - court to get a kind of exit permit from the religion

     Malaysia's highest court has rejected a Muslim convert's six-year battle to be legally recognised as a Christian.
     A three-judge panel ruled that only the country's Sharia Court could let Azlina Jailani, now known as Lina Joy, remove the word Islam from her identity card.
     Malaysia's constitution guarantees freedom of worship but says all ethnic Malays are Muslim. Under Sharia law, Muslims are not allowed to convert.
     Ms Joy said she should not be bound by that law as she is no longer a Muslim...

     Malaysia's Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim said the panel endorsed legal precedents giving Islamic Sharia courts jurisdiction over cases involving Muslims who want to convert.
     About 200 protesters shouted "Allah-o-Akbar" (God is great) outside the court when the ruling was announced.
     "You can't at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another," Ahmad Fairuz said.
     ... Ms Joy has been disowned by her family and forced to quit her job. She went into hiding last year. A Muslim lawyer who supported her case received death threats.

     The Malaysian government under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi prides itself with the claim of being a moderate Muslim state where a ‘civilised Islam’ is being promoted under the vague banner of ‘Islam Hadari’. But where, pray tell, is the ‘civilised’ aspect of religious moral policing that locks people in cages, verbally abuses female Muslims accused of indecent dressing, breaks into the homes of citizens in the dead of night? Underneath the glitz and glamour of Malaysia’s polished façade, the unfettered religious bureaucracy of the country points to a growing tide of Malay-Muslim communitarianism that is increasingly intolerant and demanding a greater slice of public space. Some Malaysians living in multiracial neighbourhoods have even been told that they cannot keep dogs as pets, for fear of upsetting their Muslim neighbours.

The Maldives

     The Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP) says the regulation in the country’s new constitution – ratified on Thursday – undermines basic guarantees of rights and freedoms.
     The move follows criticism from US Ambassador Robert Blake, who also said the clause violated international covenants, describing it as a “concern” earlier this week.
     The clause was left unchanged in the constitutional drafting process – despite being flagged up as a controversial issue – due to its sensitive nature in an Islamic country.
     Article 9, Section D of the constitution now states that “a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives,” which the IRPP says violates minorities’ freedom of worship.
     “This denial of citizenship to non-Muslims is an extraordinarily harsh measure which places the Maldives among the worst countries in the world in regards to the legal foundation for freedom of religion and belief,” the Institute President Joseph K. Grieboski is reported to have said.

Persecution in Marroco

     They might have Islamic names like Mohammed or Ali, but every Sunday these Moroccan converts to Christianity go discreetly to "church" -- to the ire of Islamic militants and under the suspicious eye of police.
     "There are about a thousand of us in around 50 independent churches across the big cities of the kingdom," explained Abdelhalim, who coordinates these evangelical Protestant groups in Morocco.
     "As we are tolerated, but not recognized (by the state) we must, for security reasons, conduct ourselves as a clandestine organisation," said the 57-year-old, who preferred to use a pseudonym.
     Discretion is the order of the day for Morocco's Christians, with the faithful holding services in their homes, against a background of suspicion from the Islamic world.
     "We have to be careful because ordinary people cannot understand that we can be Arabs without being Muslim. For us the biggest danger is ignorance," Abdelhalim said.
     The Christian converts also have article 220 of the penal code hanging over their heads, which provides for prison sentences of between six months and three years for anyone who tries to undermine a Muslim's faith or to convert him to another religion.
     "I have been summoned to the police station dozens of times," said Youssef. He nonetheless says that Morocco is considered more tolerant than other Muslim countries thanks to King Mohammed VI, who has encouraged reforms to fight poverty, boost women's rights and thwart any slide towards Islamic extremism in the kingdom.
     Radouan Benchekroun, the president of the council of Muslim scholars in Casablanca is, however, unaccommodating.
     "To deny one's religion, it is the biggest sin that a Muslim can commit," he said.

Christians forced out in the Middle East (Arab World)

     A Christian Exodus from the Arab World, By Amira El Ahl, Daniel Steinvorth, Volkhard Windfuhr and Bernhard Zand
     Violence, terrorism and the Islamists' growing influence pose a threat to Christianity in the Middle East. In some countries, members of an unpopular Christian minority are already fighting for their survival -- or fleeing for their lives.
     In New Baghdad, the driver of a minibus, a Shiite named Ali, set out at 7 a.m. on the last Sunday before Christmas. A few hours earlier he had received a call on his mobile phone with instructions to pick up five passengers for a long trip outside the city. His first passenger, he had been told, would tell him who the other passengers were and what their destination would be. He was also told not to mention a word to anyone.
     The first passenger was a 24-year-old man named Raymon, who was sitting on his suitcase a few blocks away. He directed Ali through the city's dreary east side, where having a Shiite as a driver is a smart move -- first to the Karrada district, where Amir and Fariz boarded the bus, and then to Selakh, where Wassim and Qarram were waiting. By 9 a.m., Ali had picked up all of his passengers and the bus left Baghdad and began traveling to the northeast -- for the 350-kilometer (218-mile) journey to Kurdistan, the only part of Iraq that is anything close to safe.
     The five young men traveling in Ali's red Kia were the last seminary students at the Chaldean Catholic Babel College to leave Baghdad. Four priests have been abducted since mid-August, and two others were murdered. Father Sami, the director of the seminary, was kidnapped in early December. The community managed to raise $75,000 to buy his freedom, but after hesitating for weeks, Emmanuel III, the Chaldean patriarch, decided to withdraw the teaching institutions of his community from Baghdad. He ordered the evacuation of the city's four Catholic churches, the Hurmis monastery and the college in the city's Dura neighborhood, but chose to remain behind in the city as the lonely shepherd of a rapidly shrinking congregation.
     Christians have lived in the Arab world for the past 2,000 years. They were there before the Muslims. Their current predicament is not the first crisis they have faced and, compared to the massacres of the past, it is certainly not the most severe in Middle Eastern Christianity. But in some countries, it could be the last one. Even the pope, in his Christmas address, mentioned the "small flock" of the faithful in the Middle East, who he said are forced to live with "little light and too much shadow," and demanded that they be given more rights
     Egypt's Coptic Christians, numbering at least 5 million, are by far the Middle East's largest Christian minority. The Coptic Christian Church, which dates back to St. Mark the Evangelist, begins its calendar in 284 A.D., the high point of Roman persecution of Christians. Its spiritual leader is the 83-year-old Pope Shenouda III.
     Coptic activists have been complaining about discrimination at the hands of the Egyptian state for years. Yussuf Sidham, editor-in-chief of Watani, a Coptic weekly newspaper, says that unlike the 1970s, there is little open violence between Muslims and Christians today. "Instead," he continues, "we are now struggling against the sick ideas of Islamic fundamentalists. There is an ever-widening gap between liberal and fundamentalist forces."

     This sort of persecution is nothing new in Egypt. When Napoleon's troops advanced into the Nile delta in 1798 and occupied Egypt, they noticed strange customs. Coptic women were required to wear one blue and one red shoe. The men were permitted to ride on horseback, but only facing backwards. The French quickly realized that the Copts were subjects "de troisième classe" -- third-class citizens. Some continue to feel that way today.
     In Saudi Arabia, for example, which has no Christian minority of its own but employs tens of thousands of Christian guest workers from the Indian subcontinent and Africa, Christian church services are banned and punishable with severe penalties. Bibles and crucifixes are routinely confiscated. The Wahhabite religious police, the Muttawah, have even been known to raid private religious services.
     Other Gulf states are more liberal, although religious freedom in the Western sense is virtually nonexistent in Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The Islamist opposition in Damascus, especially the banned Muslim Brotherhood, disparages the country's unpopular Christians as "worshippers of a godless regime."

Attacked by Muslims in Nigeria

Pakistan kills woman over Islamic code

     A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil.
     Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said.
     Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.
     Mr Sarwar (The gunman) appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had carried out God’s order to kill women who sinned. “I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment,” he said, adding that Islam did not allow women to hold positions of leadership. “I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again,” he said.
     “He killed her because she was not observing the Islamic code of dress. She was also campaigning for emancipation of women,” said Nazir Ahmad, a local officer.

"The country (Pakistan), which was created in the name of protecting the civic and religious rights of (the then) Indian Muslims, has been unable to develop strong governance based on democraty and a justice system with the dominant values of freedom of speech, faith and other civic values." Duhhhh, but these values are the opposite of Islam.
The sole reason for the existence of Pakistan is Islam. There is little difference between the Indians and the Pakistanis - except the Pakis remain obedient to their Arab masters and their evil religion.
Here is how Muslims view the 800 years they ruled India:

     "History of Muslims in India, is in fact, the history of a most eventful, colourful and glorious period. Islam not only bestowed this country with an effective government and a perfect administration but also a new civilization and a rich culture.
(https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no31973.htm)

Here is how a modern historian sees the same period:

     Islamic rule in India as a "colonial experiment" was "extremely violent", and "the Muslims could not rule the country except by systematic terror. Cruelty was the norm -- burnings, summary executions, crucifixions or impalements, inventive tortures. Hindu temples were destroyed to make way for mosques. On occasion there were forced conversions. If ever there were an uprising, it was instantly and savagely repressed: houses were burned, the countryside was laid waste, men were slaughtered and women were taken as slaves." (A History of Civilizations - Penguin 1988/1963, p.232-236)
     And now about 'Status of religious freedom in India':
     "Modern India came into existence in 1947 as a secular nation, two of the large sections of India, were partitioned into a new Islamic nation, Pakistan (East Pakstan later became Bangladesh). In Pakistan, the Hindu population declined from 24% to about 1.5%, in Bangladesh the Hindus declined from 39% to 10%. The Muslims in India have increased from 10.3% to 13.4%" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_religious_freedom_in_India

     As usual, Muslims murder and persecute non-Muslims where they dominate - a never ending jihad against infidels.
     It all goes back to Mohammad, who killed, robbed, enslaved, lied, raped, tortured - and Muslims love him.
Kactuz

Kill the ladies in Palestine

From the Associated Press - June 3, 2007
     Gaza City — An Islamic group threatened to behead female TV journalists who don't wear strict Islamic dress, alarming reporters in the Gaza Strip.
     The threat to "cut throats from vein to vein" was e-mailed to news organizations by the Swords of Truth, a radical group that has claimed responsibility for bombing Internet cafes and music shops. The threat was the first time the organization targeted a specific group.
     In many parts of the Muslim world, conservative policies keep women out of TV anchor positions or require that they wear head scarves on the air. However, TV journalists wearing head scarves are uncommon in Lebanon and Jordan and are prohibited on Egypt's stations.
     Most of the 15 women who appear on the Palestine TV station wear head scarves. But they also wear makeup and Western-style clothing, not considered strictly observant by extremists.
     Some said they had received personal threats on their cellphones.
     An anchorwoman who does not wear a head scarf said she was too frightened to go to work Saturday.

The Big Exodus, by Hussein Shobokshi (10/01/2007) - Chile, which is located in the western side of the southern tip of South America and which is far geographically and culturally from the Middle East, has become a safe haven for an increasing number of Christian Palestinians. In the capital Santiago, there are over 70,000 Christian Palestinians, representing the largest Christian Palestinian concentration in the world apart from the Palestinian territories. The Christian Palestinians have fully integrated in Chilean society to the point that two of them have been selected in the Chilean national soccer team.
     The plight of Christian Palestinians is not unique. There are several glaring examples of the "big exodus" of the Christians of the Orient from their countries. Copts have arrived in large numbers in Montreal, Canada, and in Sydney, Australia, in addition to various cities in the United States. The Maronites of Lebanon have migrated to Europe, especially France, in addition to South America, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Many Greek Orthodox Christians in Jordan and Syria have migrated to various countries in the world. Many Copts and Greek Orthodox Christians have left Sudan for Europe. Recently, Baghdad and Mosul have been emptied of over 50 percent of their Christian inhabitants. Some of them have left out of fear, others voluntarily, and the rest have been forced to leave.
     What is the meaning of these indicators? There is definitely a reason for the migration of the Christians from their countries, leaving behind their properties and homes. It is obvious that the environment and climate of the Middle East no longer tolerate peaceful coexistence, especially with the Christians. Otherwise, how could this continuous and big exodus be explained?
     Malicious fundamentalism and insane extremism occurring now in religious discourse and ideology stoke up hatred of the People of the Book (Christians) in a way unconnected with the teachings of the Prophet (Muhammad), prayer and peace be upon him, as if there is an attempt to invent a new interpretation of an old and noble religion. The offensive launched by some Islamic figures through the various media in the Arab world against the Western world, criticizing some unfair practices against Muslim communities in Western countries, criticism that is sometimes justified, must be accompanied by a real application of the meanings of tolerance and respect for the People of the Book, which are the basics of Muslim religion.
     Emptying the Arab world of its Christians because of an extremist and convulsive interpretation of Islam by some Muslims will create a more extremist environment because the Christians of the Orient were and still are a beautiful example of the ability of divine religions for beautiful coexistence in the Orient, refuting the theories by orientalists and extremist politicians in the West. It is the responsibility of all the people of the Arab world to put an end to the bleeding resulting from the migration of the Christians of the Orient. However, the painful question remains: If the Muslims cannot coexist with each other, how can they coexist with the Christians?

Turkey puts converts on trail for leaving Islam

     Istanbul, Turkey --Two men who converted to Christianity went on trial Thursday for allegedly insulting "Turkishness" and inciting religious hatred against Islam, the Anatolia news agency reported.
     The trial opened just days before a visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict XVI. During his visit, the pontiff is expected to discuss improved religious rights for the country's tiny Christian minority who complain of discrimination.
     Hakan Tastan, 37, and Turan Topal, 46, are accused of making the insults and of inciting hate while allegedly trying to convert other Turks to Christianity. If convicted, the two Turkish men could face up to nine years in prison.
     The men were charged under Turkey's Article 301, which has been used to bring charges against dozens of intellectuals -- including Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.
     The law has widely been condemned for severely limiting free expression and European officials have demanded Turkey change it as part of reforms to join the EU.
     They also are charged under a law against inciting hatred based on religion.
     Prosecutors accuse the two of allegedly telling possible converts that Islam was "a primitive and fabricated" religion and that Turks would remain "barbarians" as long they continued practicing Islam, Anatolia reported.      The prosecutors also accused them of speaking out against the country's compulsory military service, and compiling databases on possible converts.
     Tastan and Topal denied the accusations in court.
     "I am a Turk, I am a Turkish citizen. I don't accept the accusations of insulting 'Turkishness,'" Anatolia quoted Tastan as telling the court. "I am a Christian, that's true. I explain the Bible ... to people who want to learn. I am innocent."

     It has been a bad year for Orhan Ant. As a Protestant missionary in Samsun, on the Black Sea, he has had death threats and his church has been repeatedly stoned. Local newspapers called him a foreign agent. A group of youths tried to kidnap him as he was driving home. His pleas for police protection have gone unheeded.
     Mr Ant is not alone. All over Turkey, Christians are under attack. In January Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian newspaper editor, was shot dead in Istanbul by a teenager who said he had "insulted Turkishness". In April two Turks and a German, all evangelists, were murdered in Malatya. Their killers bound and tortured them before slitting their throats. In December an Italian Catholic priest was knifed by a teenager in Izmir. Another Italian priest was shot dead in Trabzon in 2006.
     Respecting the religious freedom of non-Muslims is essential to Turkey's hopes of joining the European Union. …Never mind that the Greek Orthodox church in Istanbul has dwindled to 4,000 souls, many of them too old to follow their children abroad. …"They [ie, the Turks] apparently won't regard the conquest of Constantinople as complete until the patriarchate ceases to exist and all Christians have been frightened away," suggests one restorer of icons in Istanbul. …The government has yet to approve a draft bill to help non-Muslims recover thousands of properties that have been confiscated by the state and either sold or left to decay. The Aya Yorgi church in Istanbul's Edirnekapi district, which was badly damaged in an earthquake, is one sad example. Its walls are cracked, its roof is leaking; a marble angel lies in pieces on the floor. "All we ask is to be permitted to rescue our church, but we cannot hammer a single nail," complains Bishop Dionysios, a Greek Orthodox prelate who still conducts services there.
     Many Christians concede that AK has treated them better than its secular predecessors did. They blame the deep state for their recent troubles. But the excuse of the deep state's power is wearing thin after AK's big victory in July's general election. "With such a strong mandate, the government's failure to meet our demands can only mean one thing, that the deep state is still in charge," says a Christian priest. Or perhaps that AK (the government) believes in religious freedom for Muslims, but not Christians.

The situation in Yemen is bad and getting worse

     The eldest, Ashwaq, 21, a university graduate, wants to be a journalist. Asked what she thinks about Yemen's new self-appointed morality authority, she looks up from styling her sister's hair. "The first thing they'll do is stop women from working. Then they'll force us to wear the veil."
     The state is weak and the courts have limited reach. Instead, cultural practices - such as veiling and gender segregation - are enforced by neighbours, relatives and community leaders. But on 15 July, a panel of Islamic clerics - supported by prominent tribal chiefs - announced the creation of a Meeting for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice. The unofficial body will alert Yemen's police force to infringements of Islamic law and hold annual conferences to monitor progress.

One day, just one day!

It is not just in Muslim societies

Canada has problems

     Mohammed Atif Siddique, a polite and well-spoken 21-year-old born in Alva in Central Scotland, had left the family home in the pursuit of his goal of Holy War, and the Ottawa operation was to be his moment of bloody glory.
     (On his computer) they discovered he had accessed hundreds of Islamist-based web pages containing training material on terror techniques and documents extolling the virtues of martyrdom. There were also images of insurgent attacks in Iraq and footage of beheadings. Accessing such information is a crime under Britain's newly strengthened terror laws.
     This weekend Siddique's sister Ayesha wept as she and the rest of the family declared the innocence of the quiet and well-mannered boy who grew up in an archetypal small Scottish town. They said his crimes amounted to no more than "a silly wee boy" from Clackmannanshire using the internet to sate his curiosity about his religion and political beliefs.

     Most Canadian Muslim leaders immediately condemned what had happened but it didn't take very long for the usual suspects to explain on radio and television that the tragedy had nothing to do with the Muslim faith and that all religions contain extremism. Islam, we were told, is a religion of peace.
     Which is probably just what the owner of a Christian bookstore in Gaza thought three months ago as he was murdered and his shop firebombed. Or Danny Pearl, shortly before the American journalist had his head cut off by Islamic terrorists -- who, naturally, filmed the whole thing and made sure their chants from the Koran were loud and clear.
     Or the wretched gang-rape victim in Saudi Arabia sentenced to 200 lashes for daring to be in a car at the time of the crime with a man to whom she was not married or related. Or the women stoned to death for adultery. Or the Iranian men hanged because they were homosexual.
     Or the women who lived and died under the Taliban. Or the Christians persecuted and killed in Pakistan, Egypt and Sudan.
     Or the young women in France, Britain and all over Europe killed by fathers and brothers for leaving Islam, dressing like other girls or dating non Muslims.
     Or the teacher who allowed a student to name a teddy bear Muhammad, or Salman Rushdie's translator whose throat was cut from ear to ear, or movie director Theo Van Gogh who was slaughtered like an animal in the middle of a Dutch street.
     And on and on. On until the denial is sickening. It's cultural, it's because of colonialism, it's because of Palestine, because of Iraq, because of misunderstanding. Because of anything other than Islam.
     Only a bigot would argue that every Muslim was violent or opposed to Western freedom. But only a coward or a liar would argue that there was not a profound and deeply worrying link between conservative Islam and myriad acts of terror, intolerance and hysterical anger.

All of Europe has serious problems

India has its problems, too...

     Even as the dead are still being counted in India's worst terrorist attack in more than a decade, suspicion has already fallen on Islamic terrorists — though not al-Qaeda. India is home to a Muslim insurgency in Kashmir, and earlier in the day militants killed eight people and injured 30 in five separate bomb attacks in the capital, Srinagar. And while no one said those same insurgents carried out Tuesday's rush-hour train attacks in Bombay — which police said killed at least 130 people and injured 260 — security sources told TIME they suspected a shadowy alliance of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) working with indigenous Indian Muslims from the banned Student Islamic Movemement of India (SIMI).
     SIMI detonated a total of nine bombs in Bombay during the course of 2003, killing close to 80 people and injuring hundreds more. The same loose grouping of Islamic radicals are also suspected of being behind a series of attacks in India in the last year that included three blasts in New Delhi last October that killed 60 and three more in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi in March this year, which killed 20, as well as smaller attacks in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
     Ajay Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi said it was unlikely that there had been any trigger for the attacks. Rather this was an "ongoing war" against Hindu-majority India by South Asian Muslims. "It is a continuous process of preparing for attacks and carrying them out," he said. "When these people are able to bring something to fruition, they do it. The act itself is the objective. It says: 'We're here. And this is what we are going to do to you.'"
     ...In 2003, just before twin bomb blasts in August that killed more than 50, TIME spoke to "Umar," a SIMI operative, or Ansar ("guide"), who said his men were carrying out the attacks. The 44-year-old said: "This country doesn't work for Muslims any more. You can't get a proper education, you can't get a job. You're not even safe." He said he and his men had no intention of ever ending their murderous campaign. "We will continue," he told TIME. "There is no limits on our actions... Even to kill children is good — you stop the generation there, at the beginning."

In Sweden Muslims have a list of demands...

     Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has invited ambassadors from Muslim countries to talks over a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper, the government said Thursday.
     Reinfeldt has been trying to prevent an international crisis over the cartoon, which has drawn protests from Swedish Muslim groups and formal complaints from Muslim countries
     The sketch by Swedish artist Lars Vilks showed the prophet's head on a dog's body. It was published in an Aug. 19 editorial in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper, which criticized Swedish art galleries for refusing to display Vilks' drawings. Nerikes Allehanda is a local newspaper with a circulation of about 67,000
     Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depiction of the prophet for fear it could lead to idolatry
     Despite the praise, Sotouhi said the invited Muslim diplomats have agreed on presenting a list of demands to the premier at Friday's meeting.
     The list, which is aimed at seeking a long-term solution of the controversy, includes demands for a law change to protect Muslims against the Prophet Muhammad being violated, he said.
     "We want action, not just empty words," he said.

Muslims murdering in Thailand

     Muslim insurgency stokes fear in southern Thailand - by Seth Mydans Published: February 25, 2007
     Pattani, Thailand: Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years, with almost- daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings.
     It is a conflict the government admits it is losing. A harsh crackdown and martial law in recent years seem only to have fueled the insurgency, generating fear and anger and undermining moderate Muslim voices.
     A new policy of conciliation pursued by Thailand's junta since it took power in a coup five months ago has been met by increased violence, including a barrage of 28 coordinated bombings in the south that killed or injured about 60 people a week ago.
     The insurgents seem to be taking their war to a new stage, pitting local Buddhists against Muslims by attacking symbols of Buddhism — Thailand's dominant faith — with flamboyant brutality.
     "Buddhist monks have been hacked to death, clubbed to death, bombed and burned to death," said Sunai Phasuk, a political analyst with the Human Rights Watch monitoring group. "This has never happened before. This is a new aspect of violence in the south."

In the UN, Muslims want laws against people that criticize Islam

     JEDDAH, 28 December 2006 — A two-day conference organized by the Makkah-based Muslim World League yesterday called for a consultative commission in order to take legal action against those who abuse Islam and its Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and Islamic sanctities, at local and international courts of justice, the Saudi Press Agency said.
     The conference titled “In Defense of the Prophet” called upon Islamic countries and governments to stand united to defend the Islamic faith and its Prophet. It denounced the smear campaigns to tarnish the image of the Prophet and urged Muslims to make all-out efforts to project the true picture of Islam and the great divine teachings of the Prophet.
     Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, who presided over the conference, called upon Muslims to follow the Prophet’s teachings.
     “Our enemies are exploiting Muslims’ weak adherence to the Prophet’s Sunnah,” said Al-Asheikh. “We should not be ashamed of implementing his Sunnah. On the other hand, all Muslims must observe his teachings in all walks of their life.”
     ... Al-Turki called upon Western countries to protect human rights of Muslim communities and take action against those who create unnecessary fear about Islam by linking it with terrorism and violence.
     “The creation of such fears will lead to violating human rights of Muslims and threats to their freedom and security,” he said. “It will also have other long-term negative impacts.”

No place on earth is worse than the United Kingdom

     Dispatches has investigated a number of mosques run by high profile national organisations that claim to be dedicated to moderation and dialogue with other faiths. But an undercover reporter joined worshippers to find a message of religious bigotry and extremism being preached.
     He captures chilling sermons in which Saudi-trained preachers proclaim the supremacy of Islam, preach hatred for non-Muslims and for Muslims who do not follow their extreme beliefs - and predict a coming jihad. "An army of Muslims will arise," announces one preacher. Another preacher said British Muslims must "dismantle" British democracy - they must "live like a state within a state" until they are "strong enough to take over."

"What makes Allah happy? Allah's happy when (non-Muslims) get killed."
"You see the Islamic rule, if a Kuffar (non-Muslims) goes into a Muslim country. And he's walking by. He's like a cow; boy, anybody could take him. That is the Islamic rule and this is the opinion of Islam. It's not my opinion. If you read the books of jihad, you'll see . . . A Kuffar is walking by, he walks inside you catch him. "What are you doing here?" Then he's a booty, you can sell him in the market. If Muslims cannot take him, you know, and sell him in the market then you just kill him. It's okay." (Abu Hamza Al - Masri)

     The investigation reveals Saudi Arabian universities are recruiting young Western Muslims to train them in their extreme theology, then sending them back to the West to spread the word. And the Dispatches reporter discovers that British Muslims can ask for fatwas, religious rulings, direct from the top religious leader in Saudi Arabia, the Grand Mufti.
     Saudi-trained preachers are also promoted in DVDs and books on sale at religious centres and sermons broadcast on websites. These publications and webcasts disseminate beliefs about women such as: "Allah has created the woman deficient, her intellect is incomplete", and girls: "By the age of 10 if she doesn't wear hijab, we hit her," and there's an extreme hostility towards homosexuals.
     The investigation reveals that the influence of Saudi Arabian Islam, Wahabism, extends beyond the walls of some mosques to influential organisations that advise the British government on inter-community relations and prevention of terrorism.
     The Dispatches reporter attends talks at mosques run by key organisations whose public faces are presented as moderate and mainstream - and finds preachers condemning the idea of integration into British society, condemning British democracy as un-Islamic and praising the Taliban for killing British soldiers.

     • “Allah has created the woman and even if she gets a PhD she is deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal one witness of a man.”
     • “By the age of ten, it becomes an obligation on us to force her to wear hijab, and if she doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her.”
     • “Men are in charge of women. Wherever he goes she should follow him, and she shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house without his permission.”
     Other statements made in the mosque, including these about Britain and the Islamic state:
     • “You have to live like a state within a state until you take over.”
     • “We want the laws of Islam to be practiced; we want to do away with man-made laws.”
     • “Muslims shouldn’t be satisfied with living in other than the total Islamic state.”
     • “I encourage all of you to be from amongst them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength, and when that happens, people won’t get killed — unjustly.”
     • “Allah has decreed this thing that I am going to be dominant. The dominance of course is a political dominance.”

     Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.
     Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.
     The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers.
     Seventeen of Britain’s 26 Islamic seminaries are run by Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants. The sect, which has significant representation on the Muslim Council of Britain, is at its strongest in the towns and cities of the Midlands and northern England.
     The Times has gained access to numerous talks and sermons delivered in recent years by Mr ul Haq and other graduates of Britain’s most influential Deobandi seminary near Bury, Greater Manchester. Intended for a Muslim-only audience, they reveal a deep-rooted hatred of Western society, admiration for the Taleban and a passionate zeal for martyrdom “in the way of Allah”.

     In late July, Cambridge University Press (England) announced it was destroying all its remaining copies of Alms for Jihad, a 2006 book exploring the nexus of Islamic charities and Islamic radicalism. At the same time, Cambridge asked libraries around the world to stop carrying the book on their shelves. The reason? Fear of being sued in a British court by Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi billionaire who ranks as one of the world's richest men--and whose suspected links to terrorist financing earned him a mention in Alms for Jihad.
     Cambridge issued a formal apology to bin Mahfouz, and posted a separate public apology on its website. The latter read in part:
     In 2006 Cambridge University Press published Alms for Jihad written by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins which made certain defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and his family in connection with the funding of terrorism. Whilst the allegations were originally published in good faith, Cambridge University Press now recognizes that the information upon which they were based was wrong. Cambridge University Press accepts that there is no truth whatsoever in these serious allegations.
     Therefore, "To emphasize their regret, Cambridge University Press has agreed to pay Sheikh Khalid substantial damages and to make a contribution to his legal costs, both of which Sheikh Khalid is donating to the charity UNICEF."
     Neither Burr nor Collins joined the apology. Both American writers and U.S. citizens, they stand by their scholarship. "We refused to be a party to the settlement," says Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California-Santa Barbara. "I'm not going to recant on something just from the threat of a billionaire Saudi sheikh." What's more, he adds, "I think I'm a damn good historian."
     ...Many "charities," it seems, have fueled Islamic radicalization across the globe and given tangible assistance to terrorists. As Collins points out, the book is extensively referenced with hundreds of footnotes.
     More than two years ago, the London Times warned that "U.S. publishers might have to stop contentious books being sold on the Internet in case they reach the 'claimant-friendly' English courts." So why hasn't this become a cause célèbre for American publishing firms and journalists?
     "There's been very little mainstream media coverage" of the Alms for Jihad story, observes Jeffrey Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Bonus Books (which published Funding Evil). This lack of outrage is "absolutely appalling," Ehrenfeld says. "They are burning books now in England, and we are sitting here doing nothing." As for her own legal struggle, she says, "It's been a very lonely fight. It still is."
     Duncan Currie is a reporter at The Weekly Standard

     How will we lose the war against "Radical Islam"?
     Well, it won't be in a tank battle. Or in the Sunni Triangle or the caves of Bora Bora. It won't be because terrorists fly three jets into the Oval Office, Buckingham Palace and the Basilica of St Peter's on the same Tuesday morning.
     The war will be lost incrementally because we are unable to reverse the ongoing radicalization of Muslim populations in South Asia, Indonesia, the Balkans, Western Europe and, yes, North America. And who's behind that radicalization? Who funds the mosques and Islamic centers that in the past 30 years have set up shop on just about every Main Street around the planet?
     For the answer, let us turn to a fascinating book called "Alms for Jihad: Charity And Terrorism in the Islamic World," by J. Millard Burr, a former USAID relief coordinator, and the scholar Robert O Collins. Can't find it in your local Barnes & Noble? Never mind, let's go to Amazon. Everything's available there. And sure enough, you'll come through to the "Alms for Jihad" page and find a smattering of approving reviews from respectably torpid publications: "The most comprehensive look at the web of Islamic charities that have financed conflicts all around the world," according to Canada's Globe And Mail, which is like the New York Times but without the jokes.
     Unfortunately, if you then try to buy "Alms for Jihad," you discover that the book is "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." Hang on, it was only published last year.
     Well, let us cross the ocean, thousands of miles from the Amazon warehouse, to the High Court in London. Last week, the Cambridge University Press agreed to recall all unsold copies of "Alms for Jihad" and pulp them. In addition, it has asked hundreds of libraries around the world to remove the volume from their shelves. This highly unusual action was accompanied by a letter to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, in care of his English lawyers, explaining their reasons:
     "Throughout the book there are serious and defamatory allegations about yourself and your family, alleging support for terrorism through your businesses, family and charities, and directly.

The reason that the radicals are winning -- and the so-called moderates losing -- is because the radicals have the Quran, the ahadith and the example of Islam's great prophet on their side. (Kactuz)

     "As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your family, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false."
     Who is Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz? Well, he's a very wealthy and influential Saudi. Big deal, you say. Is there any other kind? Yes, but even by the standards of very wealthy and influential Saudis, this guy is plugged in: He was the personal banker to the Saudi royal family and head of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, until he sold it to the Saudi government.
     As to whether allegations about support for terrorism by the sheikh and his "family, businesses and charities" are "entirely and manifestly false," the Cambridge University Press is going way further than the United States or most foreign governments would. Of his bank's funding of terrorism, Sheikh Mahfouz's lawyer has said: "Like upper management at any other major banking institution, Khalid Bin Mahfouz was not, of course, aware of every wire transfer moving through the bank. Had he known of any transfers that were going to fund al-Qaida or terrorism, he would not have permitted them." Sounds reasonable enough. Except that in this instance the Mahfouz bank was wiring money to the principal Mahfouz charity, the Muwafaq (or "Blessed Relief") Foundation, which in turn transferred them to Osama bin Laden.
     In October 2001, the Treasury Department named Muwafaq as "an al-Qaida front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen" and its chairman as a "specially designated global terrorist." As the Treasury concluded, "Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to bin Laden through Blessed Relief."
     Indeed, this "charity" seems to have no other purpose than to fund jihad. It seeds Islamism wherever it operates. In Chechnya, it helped transform a reasonably conventional nationalist struggle into an outpost of the jihad. In the Balkans, it played a key role in replacing a traditionally moderate Islam with a form of Mitteleuropean Wahhabism. Pick a Muwafaq branch office almost anywhere on the planet and you get an interesting glimpse of the typical Saudi charity worker. The former head of its mission in Zagreb, Croatia, for example, is a guy called Ayadi Chafiq bin Muhammad. Well, he's called that most of the time. But he has at least four aliases and residences in at least three nations (Germany, Austria and Belgium). He was named as a bin Laden financier by the U.S. government and disappeared from the United Kingdom shortly after 9/11.
     So why would the Cambridge University Press, one of the most respected publishers on the planet, absolve Khalid bin Mahfouz, his family, his businesses and his charities to a degree that neither (to pluck at random) the U.S., French, Albanian, Swiss and Pakistani governments would be prepared to do?
     Because English libel law overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff. And like many other big-shot Saudis, Sheikh Mahfouz has become very adept at using foreign courts to silence American authors – in effect, using distant jurisdictions to nullify the First Amendment. He may be a wronged man, but his use of what the British call "libel chill" is designed not to vindicate his good name but to shut down the discussion, which is why Cambridge University Press made no serious attempt to mount a defense. He's one of the richest men on the planet, and they're an academic publisher with very small profit margins. But, even if you've got a bestseller, your pockets are unlikely to be deep enough: "House Of Saud, House Of Bush" did boffo biz with the anti-Bush crowd in America, but there's no British edition – because Sheikh Mahfouz had indicated he was prepared to spend what it takes to challenge it in court, and Random House decided it wasn't worth it.
     We've gotten used to one-way multiculturalism: The world accepts that you can't open an Episcopal or Congregational church in Jeddah or Riyadh, but every week the Saudis can open radical mosques and madrassahs and pro-Saudi think-tanks in London and Toronto and Dearborn, Mich., and Falls Church, Va. And their global reach extends a little further day by day, inch by inch, in the lengthening shadows, as the lights go out one by one around the world.

Endless phone threats inform her that she will soon be beheaded – but she has learned that the police just aren't interested. "They have never been very helpful," she says. "They act as if it's your fault for 'provoking' these people, when in fact the Islamist movement uses threats and intimidation as a tool to silence their critics."

Yet the attitudes that lead to the persecution of apostates are widespread even within British Islam, because we patronisingly assume it is "their culture" and do not challenge it. Some 36 per cent of British Muslims between the ages of 18 and 24 think apostates should be murdered. The younger British Muslims are, the more they believe it – a bad sign for the future...

If we in Europe do not defend people like Ehsan and Maryam and Mina, who are fighting fundamentalist thugs for the basic human right to believe and say what they want, do we deserve these rights for ourselves?

The inquisition in Hornchurch, East London, prompted a furious row about policing priorities. In the past 12 months there have been five murders, 33 rapes, 424 robberies and 2,267 burglaries in the local police borough of Havering.
Yet, despite being accused of turning a blind eye to the inflammatory remarks of some Muslim preachers of hate, the Met still found time to quiz Mr Hayes.

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion and co-author of the report, said Muslims found it "increasingly difficult" to criticise elements of their faith or culture without fear of reprisal.

"In a free society, no belief or set of values should remain beyond open criticism," he said. "To grant a belief system amnesty from discussion concedes that intimidation and violence can succeed.

"Unless Muslims are allowed to discuss their religion without fear of attack there can be no chance of reform or genuine freedom of conscience within Islam."

And in the Good, Old USA

     A community debate over religious freedom surfaced in Western Pennsylvania last week when Dutch feminist author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who has lived under the threat of death for denouncing her Muslim upbringing, made an appearance at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.
     Islamic leaders tried to block the lecture, which was sponsored through an endowment from the Frank J. and Sylvia T. Pasquerilla Lecture Series. They argued that Hirsi Ali's attacks against the Muslim faith in her book, "Infidel," and movie, "Submission," are "poisonous and unjustified" and create dissension in their community.
     Although university officials listened to Islamic leaders' concerns, the lecture planned last year took place Tuesday evening under tight security, with no incidents.
     Imam Fouad ElBayly, president of the Johnstown Islamic Center, was among those who objected to Hirsi Ali's appearance.
     "She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death," said ElBayly, who came to the U.S. from Egypt in 1976.

     A National Council of Churches (NCC) meeting soon after the creation of IDOP included a briefing on Christian persecution. The then NCC public policy director, Albert Pennybacker, told delegates that the NCC was grateful to the evangelicals who had raised consciousness on this important issue, but that public talk about "persecution" was not the right response to this complicated matter.
     "This is deceptive," Pennybacker protested. "There is a political agenda hidden under the prayer day. We don't think prayers are for that." Readers may remember that it was the NCC that previously had met with President Clinton in the White House, laid hands on him, and prayed for him to be "strong for the task" of resisting the Republican Congress.

What do Liberal churches say about Islam's oppression of non-Muslims? What may appear as "persecution" and indeed is resistance may in fact be the wish to preserve authentic religious and cultural traditions.

     Reception was not much warmer in the United Methodist national church agencies. The official magazine of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Christian Social Action, carried a diatribe against the Day of Prayer by a former board staffer. Robert McClean dismissed the prayer campaign for the persecuted church as a "stealth attack" by conservative Christians upon the mainline churches. He viewed campaign not as an expression of concern and compassion for the persecuted, but as another way to discredit the liberals. "The unfortunate truth is . . . every congregation that joins with this group and observes the 'International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church' weakens the struggle to help those persecuted for their faith," McClean incomprehensibly warned. Ten years on, we can confidently say that McClean was incorrect in this dire prediction.
     We recognize that the relationship between religious faith and the communities that live out such faith, and the cultural heritage of religions and nations are deep-seated, complex and defy easy assessment from afar. There is an interior religious and cultural reality that requires respect by governments, and especially by religionists of other cultural and religious traditions. The evangelistic zeal of outsiders, openly voiced or even subtly imposed, may encounter an authentic resistance as it moves on unfamiliar ground. What may appear as "persecution" and indeed is resistance may in fact be the wish to preserve authentic religious and cultural traditions. This has long been a reality in the missionary outreach of the churches over the centuries and a tension that continues today.

"The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions," it states. This process requires a "mastery of the art of 'coalitions,' the art of 'absorption' and the principles of 'cooperation.' "

     NEW YORK - Seated several floors above a busy Manhattan thoroughfare, the two Egyptian men were restless.
     "You have to be careful here," one said. "The hot dog stand owners, the taxi cab drivers - they are Muslims and they listen to everything."
     Having just come out of church, they were at an indoor cafe, conversing about former Muslims they knew who were now Christians. Some married into the faith. Some of the converts no longer believed in the Koran. Others said they had had visions or dreams of Jesus Christ. And others felt the Christian message of God becoming a man was more compelling than their faith. These converts face all kinds of dangers for having left Islam: ostracism from family members and friends, kidnappings and even death threats.
     "Most of the people who come here start to question the Koran," one of the Egyptians said. "They can read sources not available in our countries, especially sources in Arabic." The government of Saudi Arabia, for example, blocks thousands of Web sites through its Internet Services Unit in Riyadh, including anything criticizing Islam. A Harvard University study conducted in May showed that out of 2,038 sites banned by the Saudis, 250 were religious.
     In the West, seekers who've never heard a serious debate on Islam can click on Exmuslim.com, Islamreview.com and Arabicbible.com. Then there's Paltalk.com, a chat site featuring discussions in various languages on a wide range of topics.
     The U.S. State Department has documented numerous instances of religious persecution overseas against Muslim converts to Christianity. What is not so well known are the threats against such converts in the United States.

     Actually, that instruction is in the Hadith, a collection of the sayings of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. It has been enforced in varying ways. Female converts are usually imprisoned in a room - for months or years - as a sort of psychological torture until they recant. As for the men, all the traditional schools of Shariah (Islamic) law stipulate that "apostates" - those who leave their faith - must die. But before they die, they lose all civil liberties. Their children are taken away, their marriage is dissolved, they lose their family inheritance and they cannot be buried in a Muslim graveyard
     Mina Nevisa, an Iranian convert who lives in the Los Angeles area, has not seen her family since she and her husband fled the country in 1984. She had just started attending an underground church in Tehran with her 28-year-old female cousin when a police raid on the home of the pastor revealed a directory with a listing of names of secret converts to Christianity.
     The cousin was arrested on charges of apostasy and taken to the notorious Evin prison, where she was raped, tortured and then killed by a firing squad. The pastor was also killed. Mrs. Nevisa and her husband fled first to Turkey, then to Spain and then Sweden. While in Sweden, she said, she got threatening letters from the Iranian government. She said she also received threatening phone calls.
     The couple fled here in 1998, settling in Northern Virginia and setting up an evangelistic ministry geared toward Muslims. In 1999, she published a book: "Don't Keep Me Silent: One Woman's Escape from the Chains of Islam."
     The threatening calls started up again. This past January, Mrs. Nevisa said she was alone at home when a caller informed her he knew her husband was out of town.
     "Don't you know we know your schedule?" the caller asked. The couple decided to re-establish their ministry in Southern California, but their www.touchofchrist.net Web site leaves only e-mail addresses and post office box numbers with which to find them.
     "We got a letter this past Christmas saying 'die' in English," she said. "It's not only the Iranian government that wants to hurt you; it's fanatic individuals."

Death of the Arts, Sciences and our Basic Freedoms

     The arts establishment in Britain makes much of its role as a keeper of the flame of free speech and creative expression. So at a time when, in the country as a whole, it seems that the penny might finally be dropping as to the extent of the threat we face from Islamist radicalism, what have the arts got to say about what is, without question, the most important issue facing us?
     The answer is - virtually nothing. The creative intelligentsia has plenty to say about the evils of Bush, America and the Iraq war; there is a veritable explosion of new 'protest' art, and Brian De Palma's new film, Redacted, which is heavily critical of the US military, has just won the Silver Bear award at the Venice Film Festival. Artists, playwrights and directors continue, predictably, to fetishize these issues, while either quietly hoping that the problem posed by Islamist extremism will go away, or, increasingly, actively censoring itself, at the very time when it should be doing what it prides itself on: speaking out.

     But fear alone is not the full explanation for the inexcusable supine posture of Western cartoonists, dram