Algerian Government Persecutes Christians and ex-Muslims

Habiba Kouider used to be a Muslim. Then she converted to Christianity and was baptized. Recently she was pulled off a bus by police who interrogated her in public, rifled through her purse, examining her bibles and other literature, and even performed a body search on her, all while firing hostile questions at her.

After examining the contents of the Christian woman’s handbag, police officers body-searched her and then proceeded to interrogate her.

“Why did you convert to Christianity, why did you forsake Islam?” the officers asked, according to comments by Mustapha Krim, published on the website collectifalgerie.free.fr.

Kouider has been charged with “practicing a non-Muslim religion” and is facing a three-year prison sentence requested by prosecutors.

Meanwhile, six Christians who had been worshiping in a private house in Tiaret, Algeria were arrested by non-uniformed secret police after they completed a worship service. They now face two years in prison for worshiping in a house and have released an open letter for help to the Christians of the world.

My dear brothers in faith all over the world, here is the tale of humiliation, injustice and persecution that your brothers in Algeria are subjected to daily, by society but in particular by the security services and the state. The latest event took place on May 9th, 2008 after leaving the Friday worship service, which we held in secret, in fear, in a brother’s house in Tiaret. We were taken by surprise when we were arrested openly in the street by security forces in plain clothes. These persons took us one by one, just like criminals, but our only crime was our faith in Jesus Christ, which has become a dangerous crime in Algeria.

My brothers, I will not describe the humiliation that we had to endure at the hands of these agents, as they were taking us to the central police station. When we had arrived they searched us one by one while insulting us, calling us renegades: those who have denied their faith in order to follow that of the west. They said we were accomplices and Isreali spies, and that we deserve to have our throats cut without any pity: a violent and inhuman aggression. Is it normal to arrest someone just because of his faith, in a country which pretends to be democratic and which says it respects human rights and personal freedom? On top of all that, we were kept there by the agents all night on Friday, in a prison cell in deplorable and undescribable conditions, without allowing us to phone our families or those dear to us. The next day we were taken before the Prosecutor of the Republic at the court in Tiaret, to ask us humiliating and embarassing questions, such as : « Why have you forsaken your ancestors’ religion? For money? » and « at what price have you been bought? » Finally we were free to go, with the order to appear in court on May 27th 2008 on an absurd charge : « Distribution of documents and books in order to destabilise the faith of muslims ». Hereunder is a copy of the order to be present at the trial. Brothers, I have written this so that you could be informed of the situation. We need your support in these difficult times, by all possible means (written, protestations…).

The 2006 Law in Algeria concerning Christianity and other non-Muslim religion is horrible. If you would like to complain, and you really should, the Algerian Embassy in Washington DC can be reached at the following addresses (try both).

Embassy of The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria 2118 Kalorama Rd, NW Washington , D.C 20008 Tel: (202) 265-2800 Fax: (202) 667-2174 Email: ambassadoroffice@yahoo.com

Embassy of The Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria 2137 Wyoming Ave, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20008 tel: (202) 265-2800 fax: (202) 667-2174 E-mail: embalgus@cais.com

We do not regret things we have done so much as we regret things we have not done. Do not give yourself a reason to regret your silence about the persecuted Christians in Algeria. Speak up, even if just with an email.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, Pet’s Garden Blog, third world county, Faultline USA, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, , and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Technorati Tags: Freedom of Religion, Algeria, Christianity, Ex-Muslim, Sharia, Tyranny

LiveLeak, Fitna, and the Base

This is an open letter to LiveLeak.

In these days of the globalized Jihad everyone must choose their allies, their customers, their base with care. Choices not made still have consequences.

A few days ago, Fitna hit the Internet. LiveLeak, which hosted it, became the target of threats and rage. About 12 hours after posting the movie, LiveLeak took it down.

This is quite ironic because LiveLeak, hosted in both the UK and USA, has long been one of the most reliable places to find jihad terrorist propaganda videos. For the past couple of years, YouTube and LiveLeak have hosted hundreds, thousands of terrorist propaganda videos featuring such horrors as Juba’s sniper attacks on American and British soldiers, IED and VBIED explosions, torture murders of captives, etc. YouTube initially resisted requests to take the videos down, but eventually began to comply. On the other hand, when requested by American and British citizens to remove the terrorist propaganda movies, LiveLeak always used free speech as a defense for letting the movies stay.

For several years, against the opprobrium of patriots from the English speaking countries, LiveLeak stood firm in its stand for the free speech rights of those who were profoundly opposed to free speech for those who were not as them. Its reputation grew among the terrorists and the terrorists’ fans, both from idolaters of Jihad and those with a nihilist, post-modern, Gramscian hatred of ordinary British and American culture. LiveLeak developed these haters of Britain, America, Christianity, Jews, and capitalism into its base.

So when Geert Wilders came along with his well-publicized project to face Islam with the idolatry of Jihad within it, it seemed like a perfect opportunity for LiveLeak to poke a stick in the eye of a new target. LiveLeak exists to stir things up like this. But this time it backfired. LiveLeak was threatened, not with scorn and indignation, but with bloodcurdling threats of violence against employer, employees, and their families. The threats were believable because the evidence that violent Muslims would carry them out was in color on LiveLeak’s very own site. Worse yet, the base of haters that LiveLeak had built up with great care was the heart of the revolt against it. Now LiveLeak felt the hatred and threat of violence that it had gleefully helped its own base aim at others for years.

It spooked LiveLeak. The company threw in its cards. It banished Fitna with the cynical excuse that the price of free speech was too great.

Now it was apparent to everyone what LiveLeak was. Its ethical stance was revealed as a rotting corpse. LiveLeak turned out to be a feckless organization that cheered on murderers against its employees, their neighbors, and the countries in which they lived. Were any LiveLeak employees killed in the 7/7 bombings? Were the brothers of any LiveLeak employees killed in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan? Perhaps not, but they very well could have been. But when LiveLeak itself faced a few threats it quickly gave up and censored one, carefully chosen video that it hosted.

A few days later, LiveLeak restored Fitna. But it does not help LiveLeak, which now stands exposed as a cowardly, rabble-rousing, self-loathing organization without even the courage of its convictions. LiveLeak’s way forward will either be to self-destruct, or to take sides. Will it recruit its base from the peoples of the countries that nurtured it, that provided the environment in which the technology that allows it to exist was developed, countries that send brave young, all-too-young, men to dangerous places to protect LiveLeak from morally retrograde murderers and slave-takers, or will it recruit its base among those who would overthrow free speech, democracy, women’s and gay rights, scientific discovery, secular law, who would reinstate slavery and impose the burka, honor killings, second class citizenship, and clitorodectomies on women? That is the choice before it. The result of no choice will be a slow death of nihilism and irrelevance.

LiveLeak, it is time to choose. This is the moment that will make or break you. Take your stand or slowly wither away.

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Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, Democrat = Socialist, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, Stuck On Stupid, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, D equals S, Nuke Gingrich, third world county, McCain Blogs, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, , Rant It Up, Tilting At Windmill Farms, Stageleft, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Technorati Tags: Jihad, Moral Clarity, Sharia, Culture War

Saudi 4th Grader marries 5th Grade cousin

Kids and cousins. Everyone should oppose consanguineous marriage. Banning first-cousin-marriage would be a good first step.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, third world county, Nuke Gingrich, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Miss Beth’s Victory Dance, Stuck On Stupid, The Pink Flamingo, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Right Voices, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Technorati Tags: consanguineous marriage, Saudi Arabia, degeneracy, Sharia

The Role of Christianity in Abolishing Slavery of Blacks and of Islam in Perpetuating it

Robert Spencer enlightens his readers just in time for National Black History Month:

Slavery was taken for granted throughout Islamic history, as it was, of course, in the West as well up until relatively recent times. Yet while the European and American slave trade get lavish attention from historians […], the Islamic slave trade actually lasted longer and brought suffering to a larger number of people. It is exceedingly ironic that Islam has been presented to American blacks as the egalitarian alternative to the “white man’s slave religion” of Christianity, since Islamic slavery operated on a larger scale than did the Western slave trade, and lasted longer. While historians estimate that the transatlantic slave trade, which operated between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, involved around 10.5 million people, the Islamic slave trade in the Sahara, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean areas began in the seventh century and lasted into the nineteenth, and involved 17 million people. […]Slavery is still practiced openly today in two Muslim countries, Sudan and Mauritania. In line with historical practice, Muslim slavers in the Sudan primarily enslave non-Muslims, and chiefly Christians. According to the Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan (CASMAS), a human rights and abolitionist movement founded in 1995, “The current Khartoum government wants to bring the non-Muslim Black South in line with Sharia law, laid down and interpreted by conservative Muslim clergy. The Black animist and Christian South remembers many years of slave raids by Arabs from the north and east and resists Muslim religious rule and the perceived economic, cultural, and religious expansion behind it.”

One modern-day Sudanese Christian slave, James Pareng Alier, was kidnapped and enslaved when he was twelve years old. Religion was a major element of his ordeal: “I was forced to learn the Koran and re-baptised Ahmed. They told me that Christianity was a bad religion. After a time we were given military training and they told us we would be sent to fight.” Alier has no idea of his family’s whereabouts. The BBC reported in March 2007 that slave raids “were a common feature of Sudan’s 21-year north-south war, which ended in 2005. . . . According to a study by the Kenya-based Rift Valley Institute, some 11,000 young boys and girls were seized and taken across the internal border—many to the states of South Darfur and West Kordofan. . . . Most were forcibly converted to Islam, given Muslim names and told not to speak their mother tongue.” Yet even today, while non-Muslims were enslaved and often forcibly converted to Islam, their conversion does not lead to their freedom. Mauritanian anti-slavery campaigner Boubacar Messaoud explains that “it’s like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves.”

Anti-slavery crusaders like Messaoud have great difficulty working against this attitude, because it is rooted in the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example. Particularly when the slaves are non-Muslims, there is no verse of the Qur’an corresponding to Lincoln’s favored Bible verse, Genesis 3:19, that anti-slavery Muslims can invoke against those who continue to approve of and even to practice slavery.

Read the rest.

For more on the state of Liberty around the world, see here.

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Trackposted to The Virtuous Republic, third world county, Allie is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, A Newt One, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Technorati Tags: Slavery, Sharia, Islam, Moral Clarity, Human Rights, National Black History Month

Just Suppose Your Surgeon was wearing a Burkah

Imagine going into the Hospital for surgery and while being prepared in your room the surgeon comes in to greet you, and she is in a black Burkah that reaches down to the floor and covers her wrists, won’t show her face, and refuses to shake your hand or speak to you. Then someone mentions that she will refuse to wash her hands properly, but will instead stop her hand-wash at her wrist. She will be dragging her sleeve in your blood. You can’t tell if there is any congealed blood already on her black sleeves. What disease will she pass to you?

The panic is rising in you. Your heart is beating. You are sweating with a minor kind of terror. What do you do?

Sound farfetched? Not really.

Minutes of a clinical academics’ meeting at Liverpool University revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children’s hospital had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns.Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University. Minutes from a medical school committee said that “a number of Muslim females had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to the elbow for appropriate handwashing”.

Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to “scrub” as this left her forearms exposed.

Astounding.

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Trackposted to The Virtuous Republic, third world county, Allie is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, A Newt One, Dumb Ox Daily News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Technorati Tags: Sharia, Islam, Medicine, Burkah

In Solidarity with Death before Burkas

Kyle-Anne Shiver lets it all out:

Before the current high-tech, news-around-the-world-in-the-blink-of-an-eye age, I doubt many Americans would even know how the proverbial other half of the planet lives; but now we do. We can read about it every day, 24/7. We have pictures, videos yet. Even in some of the most repressive regimes on earth, some brave soul with a laptop, internet access and a cell phone/camera/camcorder manages to get the word out, and blast it around the globe instantaneously.

And in my opinion, the ultimate oppression of our age, no matter how one cares to cut it, slice it, dice it, whatever, is hands-down the subjugation of females – from birth to the grave – in places ruled by this cockamamie Sharia law. Liberals may be scared to call a spade a spade, but I’m not.

NOW doesn’t have anything to say about burkas but I do. I think they are not only oppressive, which is bad enough, but they are also full-body disguises that no society that is the target of terrorists can allow on the streets any more than level IV tactical body armor is allowed for civilian wear.

Technorati Tags: Burka, Sharia, Women’s Rights

A Spur to Action: The Violent Oppression of Woman in Islam

The following video is not safe for work. It is not safe to watch with children. It is not safe to watch if you are easily sickened or horrified. What it is, is a true documentary depiction of what it means for girls and women to be subjugated and oppressed by barbaric and abusive practices associated with Islamic imperialism.

Narrated by ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish, its name is The Violent Oppression of Woman in Islam.

h/t: Michelle Malkin

Technorati Tags: Islamism, Women’s Rights, Tyranny, Video

This and That

Being a grab bag of things that Panglossians might find interesting.

Aussie Dave kicks it off with The Refugee Issue Examined

Around 820,000-850,000 Jews were either expelled from, or were otherwise forced to leave Arab countries after the 1948 War of Independence, a war started after the 5 Arab armies attacked the newly established State of Israel. Of these Jewish refugees, approximately 590,000-600,000 were absorbed into Israel, leaving behind their homes, businesses and possessions without receiving any compensation.

The War of Independence also produced some Arab refugees, totaling somewhere between 430,000-650,000. The vast majority of these refugees (approximately 68%) left without even seeing an Israeli soldier, but rather at the beckoning of the invading Arab armies, who were certain of a quick victory. [..]

So from my point of view, it is clear that the only just solution is for the Arab refugees to be absorbed into the Arab countries, rather than being kept in refugee camps as a pawn in the war against Israel. As for talk of compensation, Jewish refugees left behind assets in the Arab countries of greater worth than the Arab assets left behind in Israel, so if any side has a claim, it is us [Jews].

Next, Mirsulzhan Namazaliev is concerned about the Islamization of Kyrgyzstan

The citizens of Kyrgyzstan, a nominally Muslim country, have an interesting history with Islam: While the nomadic Kyrgyz haven’t really been introduced to the religion before the 18th century, Kyrgyzstani Uzbeks from the Ferghana Valley practice a more traditional form of Islam. During the Soviet era, religion was pushed to the sidelines of society, but Islam has seen some revival since Kyrgyzstan’s independence in 1991, again mostly in the southern rural parts of the country.

Last week, Kyrgyzstani bloggers were worried about the threat of Islamisation in their country. The debate was the result of an interdepartmental commission’s decision to allow Muslim women to wear hijabs for their passport photographs.

The decision of the commission was based on a claim that Islam prohibits women to uncover their heads and ears in front of unknown males. “We feel discomfort when we go through border control. The airport personnel demands us to take off our hijabs instead of introducing special rooms and having women personnel checking us”, Islamic representatives were quoted as saying.

Mong Palatino rounds up the separatist voices discussing the all-out war of secession in Basilan, Philippines.

War is raging in the island of Basilan, located in the southernmost part of the Philippines. An all-out war was recently declared by the government against the Abu Sayyaf bandit group accused of beheading 14 Marines last month. The military offensives have displaced thousands of families and imperiled the peace negotiations between the government and other Muslim rebel forces..

See what I mean about taking the side of the separatists against the legitimate government of the Philippines? The rest goes on like this, but is still a good overview of the ground.

Samir Khalil Samir writes about the issues raised by the case of Mohammed Ahmad Hegazi, an Egyptian who converted to Christianity and had to flee Egypt.

Islam protects itself against conversions by putting apostates in prison or by killing them. But its obsession with conversion includes a series of privileges it claims for itself. So much so that in many Muslim countries, even those that are supposedly secular, the right to promote the Islamic faith is taken for granted and is not enshrined in law. Conversely, the right to promote any other religion is considered de facto and de jure unacceptable.

Islamic propaganda is part of the state’s mandate. In Egypt for example public institutions disseminate songs, prayers, movies and written material that praise Islam and denigrate Christianity. Inevitably this favours conversions to Islam. By contrast, Christian propaganda (tabshīr) is banned by law.

Recently in Algeria, a new law was approved that condemns anyone promoting the Christian faith and anyone who converts to Christianity. Of course, some might say that this kind of law is directed only at Protestant proselytising. True! But Muslims proselytise as well? Should the law not be the same for everyone?

And finally, Steve Verdon explores the links between Hillary Clinton, Norman Hsu, and Communist Chinese money going to a whole raft of Democrat candidates by way of Hong Kong and Mr. Hsu of the inscrutable business history.

Drudge has three links to the news about Norman Hsu apparently a big time donor to Democratic candidates, and Hillary Clinton in particular. Hsu has donated over $600,000 to various candidates, but what is interesting is that his income appears to be a complete mystery. Further, there is an outstanding bench warrant for his arrest in a fraud case, and that Hsu has now been taken into custody and held on $2 million bond.

Hsu appeared in court accompanied by a lawyer and publicist, both of whom declined to say whether the New York apparel executive would immediately post bail. A warrant was issued for his arrest after he skipped the sentencing for a 1991 grand theft charge.

Publicist? This is sure looking like it will be interesting to watch. Needless to say all the candidates that Hsu has donated to, either directly, or through what appears to be proxies, have been scrambling to hand the money over to charities.

The Clinton campaign has said it will give to charity $23,000 that Mr. Hsu contributed, and yesterday representatives of Mr. Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who received $50,000 from Mr. Hsu, said they would do the same. A spokesman for Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is a rival of Mrs. Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination, said Mr. Obama intended to give away $7,000 that Mr. Hsu contributed to his committees.

The Clinton-Gore campaign donation case, wherein Johnny Chung funneled money from Chinese intelligence services to the 1996 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign, suddenly doesn’t look so closed.

I hope you find these to be as fascinating as I do.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Refugees, Palestinians, Kyrgyzstan, Islamization, Basilan, Philippines, Jihad, Islam, Ex-Muslim, Religious Freedom, Hillary Clinton, Norman Hsu,

Jewess Runs for Parliament in Morocco

Positive news from Al-Masaa via MEMRI.

A Moroccan Jewish woman, Maggie Cacoun, is to head the women’s list of the Al-Wast Al-Aghtama’i party in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Morocco.

Cacoun, who defines herself as a “nationalist Moroccan,” said that she does not want her religion to be the main issue in her candidacy.

The party’s secretary-general said that Cacoun’s candidacy was “an opening for Jews as a fundamental element among the elements of the Moroccan identity.”

Another Jew, Joseph Levy, is currently the party’s deputy secretary-general.

I wonder how she will do in the election.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Jews, Islam, Morocco, Sharia, Good News

Not Islamophobia, but a justified concern

Responding to a heartfelt essay by Army Girl, I would start by saying that Islamophobia should properly be defined as a “senseless reaction against Islam.” Defined thus, any fact-based objection to Islam is not Islamophobia, but justified concern.