No justice for Christians in Pakistan

America, UK, Europe, get ready. This is your future as you continue to import large numbers of Muslims.

From Christianity Today:

The ruling comes less than a month after the court acquitted more than 100 Muslims for rampaging through another one of Lahore’s major Christian communities in 2013 over one man’s alleged blasphemy. 

The 42 Christians were roughly half of those accused of murder and terrorism after two Muslim men suspected of bombing Sunday services in Youhanabad were killed. The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), an initiative of Pakistan’s Catholic bishops, told Fides that they were disappointed that the church attackers have not been punished. 

Also left unpunished were the approximately 112 Muslims who were arrested for ransacking, looting, and setting fire to more than 100 homes in Joseph Colony in 2013. The court found them innocent despite eyewitnesses and videos of the attack, reported World Watch Monitor.

For shame, Pakistan. A nation built on injustice and oppression. Jesus Christ is your king, though you refuse to know either justice or mercy.

The Rev Ghulam Masih Naaman, ex-Muslim, Kashmiri, Anglican priest

Born in 1923 in Kashmir, he became a soldier, then a Christian, and then in 1960 an Anglican priest.

His story can be found here.

Pakistan Disintegrating?

Bad news for the world, as Pakistan is one of the most populous countries in the world (fourth, I think, after the India, China, and the US, but don't quote me on that). This is a fine article about why Pakistan has no future.

But fear not, they will go to the UK.

The great fear of the West is Pakistan falling under the control of radical Islamists. The great fear of Pakistan’s leadership is the state fracturing (this is probably #2 for the West – a nuclear Yugoslavia.) But the endemic low level violence suggests another possibility, the state dissolving – a nuclear Somalia.

Medium and Long-Term Dangers
Meanwhile the terrible flooding is testing the capabilities of Pakistan’s institutions and they are failing. Their record at providing immediate relief is mediocre. But the floods have destroyed Pakistan’s crops, so that the country (which is already broke) will be forced to buy or beg food abroad. It will be several years before Pakistan’s agricultural production will return to their previous levels – so food shortages will be an ongoing problem. Even without the crisis food security was a problem in Pakistan. In addition, cotton crops, essential to Pakistan’s major export industry – textiles – have also been devastated. All of this can only further weaken an already precarious economy.

From The Terror Wonk, a blog that is new to me.

Islamic forced marriage in the UK

How do you say 'not surprised' in Pashto? Just curious...Check out the article HERE. Here is an excerpt:

...government figures released today suggest the true scale of Britain's forced-marriage problem is only now beginning to emerge. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 cases of forced marriage occurred in Britain last year, according to the Department for Children, Schools, and Families.

Most are teenage girls from Britain's large Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Indian communities. They're married off, according to the report, to bond the young women to their community, keep clan promises, or as a way to provide a British visa for a foreign family member or friend.

The figures have delivered a fresh jolt to Britain's multicultural paradigm, which until recently handled reports of forced marriage and associated "honor crimes" as cultural issues, beyond the remit of the justice system [...]

Islam and "a shameless display of hypocrisy"

From Shoaib Nasir, an ex-Muslim:

...under Islamic law one could not preach any other religion in the country [Pakistan]. However when Muhammadans went to other countries, they wanted (and still do with even more fervor) the freedom to practicew, preach, and convert others. I can say with the utmost confidence that I have never seen such a shameless of hypocrisy in any other ideology.

(In Ibn Warraq ed, 2004, p 251.)

UK and Terrorism

Hmm, doesn't look like very good news:

Then consider this: a few days ago, The Telegraph revealed that nearly half of all CIA operations – aimed at protecting the US from another 9/11 – are now conducted inside Britain. The CIA has informed president Obama that the most likely source of a terrorist attack on the US is “British-born Pakistani extremist[s]” traveling to the US from the UK.

From the Brussels Journal.

The Mumbai Atrocities

From HERE:

[...] But if the lack of outrage over the Islamic terrorist assault on Mumbai, India last month was any indication, everything has changed back.

The obfuscation that characterized much of the early reporting on Mumbai is partially to blame. Watching a number of television reporters go through visible pains not to use the word "terrorist" to describe a four-day reign of terror that would eventually kill more than 170 people and injure hundreds was a surreal spectacle. Initial articles described "militants," "gunmen," and "extremists," but rarely terrorists, and rarer still, Islamic terrorists. So-called experts prattled on vaguely about the perpetrators' motivations, as if the ideology fueling a group called the Deccan Mujahedeen was a complete and utter mystery. [...]

--Cinnamon Stillwell

Bp. Michael Nazir-Ali: a prophet rejected by his own people

There's precious little good news from England these days. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury wants "limited" sharia' (I have told you what I think about that), and...well, I won't even go on with the list. Suffice to say that the government seems adamantly intent on Islamizing the whole country. Mamlakat al britaania al islamiyya anyone?

But there are glimpses of light here and there. Michael Nazir-Ali is one of them. This is from HERE, do click and read the whole profile:

..."If you want to go high in the Church of England you keep your nose clean and you become a safe pair of hands. That's what most of them are, but Nazir-Ali is a prophet and prophets are rejected in their own constituency, like Jesus was. He is a serious man for serious times. What you see in public is what you get in private," Eddy says.

"He's a major influence among Anglo-Catholics, evangelicals, and it's well-known that Rowan Williams and the bishop have not spoken in any detail for more than a year. If Rowan had consulted Michael about sharia law it would have saved the Church of England a lot of heartache."

Nazir-Ali's views have earned him some unflattering nicknames. But Andrew Brown, the church commentator, likens him to a Cambridge don. "He's conservative, he's clever and he's old-fashioned," Brown says. "We may not like him, but he is formidable. Whether he knows it or not, questions about Islam are a great way to marginalise liberals and will become the new battleground for the evangelical wing of the Church of England."

"Organised crusade...to demonize Islam"

Notice how there is no evidence that Muslims or Islam or the Quran might actually be responsible for the increasingly negative perceptions of Islam in the West. Rather we have an organized crusade! I only wish we had the organizational proqess that Dr. Khan attributes to us. Notice also how we lumps BXVI's baptism of Magdi Cristiano Allam in there as part of a smear campaign against Islam:

Countering Western anti-Islam media spin

Dr Adalat Khan

It is sad to note that now a days in the Western Media Islam bashing has become fashionable and oft and on we see provocative articles, cartoons, videos and other propaganda items against Islam and the Muslims. A latest slur is the fifteen minutes video by the racist anti-immigration right wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders called fitna. This film features violent imagery of terrorist attacks in New York and Madrid set against passages from the Holy Quran that are distorted and taken out of context. Under the guise of freedom of speech irresponsible politicians such as Wilder are stirring hatred against Muslims not only in their own country but throughout the world. Wilder is not alone in this malicious spin, but it would seem that an organized crusade by the vested interests in the West has been unleashed to demonise Islam and Muslims.

It is reported that a theatre in Germany is staging a play based on the infamous book Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdi, while a few weeks ago Pope Benedict was seen baptizing the conversion of a Muslim journalist from Egypt during Easter. It was the same Pope who last year delivered a lecture in which he gave hateful interpretation to the Prophet Muhammad’s mission.

In year 2006, a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Prophet (PBUH) linking him to bombs and terror. [...] It is in fact an organized and systematic Western campaign to malign Islam and impose their hegemony over the Muslim world. [...]

Leaving Islam and the internet (irtidad)

This is a testimony from a Pakistani Apostate of Islam. He did not become a Christian as far as I can tell, but he certainly left Islam. The significant element here is how the internet was instrumental in his apostasy (irtidad). His English is not excellent, but it is understandable:

[...] Then I got a lecture of Dr. Zakir Naik. That gave me new life .I was very impressed of his memory. I thought that he is "mujadid" [Arabic for 'reformer' or 'renewer']. I got many CDs, of him listened to him and admired him. I was his fan at that time.

I got bearded, started practicing Islam with a new zeal. I was satisfying my mind by learning the miracles of Quran. My favorite topic was "Quran and science." At that time I started reading the Quran with Urdu translation. While reading, I was finding the miracles in the Quran. I found many miracles (actually I assumed them as miracles).

In the mean time, I got admission in a reputed university of Pakistan . At that time my faith in Islam was dependent of Dr. Zakir Naik.

In this university I got a friend who was also my roommate. He was an atheist and I was a fundamentalist "mullah". Same story repeated again. I started debating with him. But he never showed that he was atheist. He started convincing me. His discussion was effecting me slowly. At the same time I searched the word "Ali Sena" [a famous apostate]. I got information about FFI and wikiislam ... I was shocked. I tried to open it but I was blocked in Pakistan . I used the proxy changing website www.skurfit.com to access the site.

And then my life changed....................
FFI [a website for former Muslims] gave me answers to all the questions. When I told my atheist roommate about this site he opened his heart about the realities of Islam. He told me about his story of guidance, which is about same as mine. I will ask him to join the forum and write his testimony. After that I installed "the Nobel Quran" and "the Hadith" software in my pc. I confirmed many references of Ali Sina. Meanwhile I started writing a book, "Questions Never Answered". I wrote 8 pages, but when I read FFI I felt ashamed of my little knowledge. But though I have little knowledge I know that I have reached that right path of love and peace. [...]

From Faith Freedom

Where art thou, O moderate Islam?

From HERE:

That Proper Interpretation of Islam which will allow for Muslims to coexist peacefully with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis, without implementing any endeavor to impose Sharia, continues to be the great unicorn in which everyone believes but no one has actually seen.

It would be great for the Pakistani authorities to reform the madrassas. But what will be taught in the reformed madrassas? How will the reformed madrassas counter the jihadist claim to represent the pure, true teachings of Islam? If such a counter to that claim is readily available, why do the condemnations of terrorism by American Muslim advocacy groups continue to be so vague and hollow?

Everyone believes in this Proper Interpretation of Islam that is peaceful and tolerant -- why then is it so hard for Muslims actually to point to it and explain its contents in contradistinction to the Islamic arguments of the jihadists?

Perhaps in reply someone will trot out the soothing theories of some Western academic, the latest from Akbar Ahmed or Khaled Abou El Fadl or Reza Aslan or the moderate du jour. These are, however, in the final analysis, just that: theories. Where is the mainstream Islamic theological construct that abjures Islamic supremacism? The peaceful Muslims of the world, who exist in huge numbers, are the products of cultural and political factors, not of theological reform of Islam's jihad doctrines. Consequently the exponents of such doctrines can always portray themselves as the exponents of the full, and true, and pure practice of Islam. [...]

More protests about Muhammad cartoons

So yeah, more protests. And they want Pakistan to break off diplomatic ties with Denmark. Guess who that's going to hurt more. Oh yeah, and why are they burning US flags? Did they have som leftovers from the last protest? I'm just not sure how these things work :-(

But here's the link:

Pakistani cartoon protesters burn Danish, US flags

KARACHI - Hundreds of angry Muslim youths rallied in major cities in Pakistan on Friday and torched Danish flags to protest against the recent republication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh).

Witnesses said about 150 supporters of fundamentalist party Jamaat-i-Islami gathered outside a mosque in the port city of Karachi, flying banners demanding Pakistan sever diplomatic ties with Denmark.

“We don’t need to have diplomatic relations with a country that hurts our religious sentiments,” the banners read, as demonstrators burned Danish and US flags and chanted: “Death to the cartoonist.”

In the capital Islamabad, cries of “Say no to Denmark” rang out as about 300 students from colleges and Islamic schools crowded outside the city’s biggest mosque, witnesses said.

They burned an effigy of the Danish cartoonist amid chants of ”Crush Denmark” and “We love our Prophet.”

Up to 200 religious studies students held similar rallies in the central city of Multan.

Protest leaders vowed to continue their demonstrations.

“We are observing this protest across the country today and we would not avoid sacrificing our lives for this sacred cause,” said Syed Riaz Hussain Shah, one of the demonstrators.

To Muslims, such drawings are blasphemous since Islam prohibits any images of the prophet.

Pakistan on Tuesday summoned the Danish envoy in Islamabad to lodge a “strong protest” over republication of the cartoons in Denmark.

The pictures originally appeared in September 2005, sparking anger and protests across the Muslim world. Five people died in Pakistan in February 2006 during violent protests against the cartoons.

At least 17 Danish dailies reprinted a drawing earlier this month, vowing to defend freedom of expression a day after police in Denmark foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist.

Protests swiftly broke out across Pakistan, with hundreds of youths gathering in major cities on February 15 burning effigies of the Danish prime minister.

Hardliners are also unhappy with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s close ties with the US.

For those of you who never read it, here is the link to my article Cartoons and Riots which I wrote back in the day when this first was an issue.

Creation of the Orthodox Metropolis of Singapore

From OCMC.org:

[...] On Friday, January 11th, 2008, the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced the creation of a new ecclesiastical jurisdiction in southeast Asia, based in Singapore, to oversee Orthodox Christian parishes in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The decision was taken after an unanimous vote to detach the regions from the Metropolis of Hong Kong and to establish the Metropolis of Singapore.

Meanwhile, Archimandrite Nektarios Tsilis was unanimously elected as the new Metropolitan of Hong Kong, with a jurisdiction over Orthodox parishes in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. The ordination of the newly elected Metropolitan took place in the Phanar at the Patriarchal church of St. George in Constantinople, on Sunday, January 20th, 2008.

Archbishop Nektarios is a graduate of the Theological Academy in Athens and the Theological School of the University of Athens. He has also successfully completed courses and seminars on the structure, organization, and information technologies of the European Union.

He was ordained deacon in 1990 and priest in 1995. [...]

Creation of the Orthodox Metropolis of Singapore

From OCMC.org:

[...] On Friday, January 11th, 2008, the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced the creation of a new ecclesiastical jurisdiction in southeast Asia, based in Singapore, to oversee Orthodox Christian parishes in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The decision was taken after an unanimous vote to detach the regions from the Metropolis of Hong Kong and to establish the Metropolis of Singapore.

Meanwhile, Archimandrite Nektarios Tsilis was unanimously elected as the new Metropolitan of Hong Kong, with a jurisdiction over Orthodox parishes in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. The ordination of the newly elected Metropolitan took place in the Phanar at the Patriarchal church of St. George in Constantinople, on Sunday, January 20th, 2008.

Archbishop Nektarios is a graduate of the Theological Academy in Athens and the Theological School of the University of Athens. He has also successfully completed courses and seminars on the structure, organization, and information technologies of the European Union.

He was ordained deacon in 1990 and priest in 1995. [...]

Peresecution of Christians in Pakistan and Ethiopia

PAKISTAN Pastor Killed -- VOM Sources
On January 17, a pastor was shot and killed by an unknown person in Peshawar, Pakistan. According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts, the pastor had worked with the Assembly of God Church in Peshawar, for the past 10 years. He is survived by his wife and a one-year-old daughter. Pray for this grieving family and church. Ask God to comfort believers in Peshawar and for this pastor's family to realize that to be absent from the body is to be present with Him. Psalm 27:1, Psalm 23

Pray for ETHIOPIA
ETHIOPIA Christian Family's House Bombed -- VOM Sources
On January 12, a home belonging to a Christian family was bombed in the southeastern city of Jijiga. According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts, "Terefe Feleke, his wife and their two children were in the house at the time of the attack, thankfully none of them were seriously hurt. The roof of the house was destroyed by the bomb blast. While searching the compound, the police found another bomb set to explode a few hours later." Praise God, this family was kept from serious harm. Pray for Christians in Jijiga, where Muslims have recently mounted attacks against Christians in an attempt to drive them out of the region. Pray believers in this area will remain faithful and demonstrate Christ's love to their persecutors. Joshua 1:9; 2 Timothy 1:7

Voice of the Martyrs -- persecution.com

Pakistan bombings reach 'unprecedented' level

Pakistan bombings reach 'unprecedented' level

... On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed at least 23 people and injured more than 58 others outside a court in Lahore, police said.

The attack brought to 20 the number of suicide attacks in Pakistan in the last three months, including a failed attack on Bhutto's life in October. The bombings have killed close to 400 people and wounded nearly 1,000 others in the last three months, according to government officials.

Pro-Taliban militants with ties to al Qaeda are carrying out the attacks, according to analysts and government officials.

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen says the number of suicide bombings in Pakistan has "reached unprecedented levels in the past year." Previously, Bergen says, such attacks were rare.[...]

'Family turned a blind eye' as teenage bride was beaten to death by arranged husband

'Family turned a blind eye' as teenage bride was beaten to death by arranged husband

A teenage bride was beaten to death by her husband while her in-laws stood by and did nothing, a court heard yesterday.

Sabia Rani, 19, was repeatedly attacked over a three-week period, suffering bruising to 90 per cent of her body and "catastrophic" injuries usually only seen in car crash victims.

She had arrived five months earlier from Pakistan for an arranged marriage to Shazad Khan, 25, of Oakwood Grange, Leeds, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told.

But Khan's family, with whom she lived, took an almost instant dislike to her, said Simon Myerson, prosecuting, and Khan began beating her.

The attack which killed her was "prolonged and vicious," the court heard.

Her agonising rib fractures were caused by "kicks, stamps or very hard punches".

The victim's mother-in-law and a sister-in-law blamed the injuries on "evil spirits, curses and black magic".

But after Khan was convicted of murder at Leeds Crown Court last January, police investigated the role of other family members. [...]

And more Muslim violence against women here for those interested: Honor Killing in Texas.

Rape and Islamic Sharia

Robert Spencer provides a very nice explanation of the origins of the absurd four witness requirement for cases of rape. The outcome of this requirement is, as you will see below, that it is virtually impossible to charge a man with rape under the sharia:

Pakistan’s President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) implemented the Hudood Ordinances in 1979. Hudood crimes are those considered most serious in Islamic law. These laws returned the crime of rape to the realm of Islamic law, making a rape victim liable to being prosecuted for adultery if she could not produce four male Muslim witnesses who would testify that they had actually witnessed the rape.

This law comes from the Qur’an. Accusations of adultery against Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, and Muhammad’s desire to exonerate her brought about the requirement that four male Muslim witnesses must be produced in order to establish a crime of adultery or other sexual indiscretions: “Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah” (Qur’an 24:13; see also 24:4 and Bukhari, vol. 3, book 52, no. 2661).

Aisha’s own word counted for nothing to establish the falsity of the accusations against her -- so to this day Islamic law restricts the validity of a woman’s testimony, particularly in cases involving sexual immorality. Says the Qur’an: “Call in two male witnesses from among you, but if two men cannot be found, then one man and two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses; so that if either of them commit an error, the other will remember” (2:282). And Islamic legal theorists have restricted women’s testimony even farther, limiting it to, in the words of one Muslim legal manual, “cases involving property, or transactions dealing with property, such as sales” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o24.8). Otherwise only men can testify.

Consequently, it is even today virtually impossible to prove rape in lands that follow these Sharia provisions. As long as men deny the charge and there are no witnesses, they get off scot-free, because the victim’s account is inadmissible. Even worse, if a woman cannot produce four male witnesses, she may end up incriminating herself simply by making the charge: she has by charging a man with rape made an admission of adultery. That accounts for the grim fact that, according to the Muslim feminist group Sisters in Islam, as many as seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape.

Pakistan: Islamic Dis-unity

Peel off the rhetoric of Islam and the all-too-familiar pattern of power politics can be seen running through Pakistani history. In an attempt to dodge, fudge, and suppress the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the country, successive civil and military regimes have played up religion as a symbol of unity. None of them has been successful. In fact, the more the state relied on Islam as a political slogan, the sharper and more irreconcilable these divisions have become.

In the process the myth that Pakistan is a religiously homogenous Muslim country has also been shattered. Those who identify themselves as Muslims are more precisely either Shias or Sunni-Barelvis or Sunni-Deobandis, or Wahhabi or Ahle-Hadith or Maududi’s followers, or belong to one or the other of the many mutually exclusive sects and cults. (Even the constitution of Pakistan concedes that “[I]n the application…to the personal law of any Muslim sect, the expression ‘Qur’an and Sunnah’ shall mean the Qur’an and Sunnah as interpreted by that sect.) So problematic has been the task of interpreting “true” Islam that the constitution had to be amended to insert a clause to define who is a Muslim -- rather who is a non-Muslim. Similar sectarian disputes, which have marked efforts to Islamize education and laws, have often taken a violent turn. [...]

From HERE, great article, I recommend you read it all.

Pakistan: of grave conern to the West

Today's assassination in Pakistan of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto should be a stark reminder that terrorists are engaged in a very real war against modern civilized society. Bhutto had her own ethically questionable background; but her current public political posture was pro-Western, democratic, peaceful and against the radical Islamic terrorists who may have been responsible for her death. While the investigation must go forward, initial speculation is pointing to those radical Islamic terrorist elements operating in Pakistan, perhaps even al-Qaeda.

What happens over the next several days will be a crucial test for the Pakistani people and government. It may also indicate if this attack is part of a larger jihadist plan of action within Pakistan. Given Pakistan's supposed critical status as an ally of the US in counter-terrorism efforts, and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, what happens inside Pakistan over the coming days and weeks should be of grave concern to America and the West. [...]

From HERE.