Egyptian Christians in Darkening Circumstances

A small sample of the difficulties of Christians in the Middle East.  Excerpts:

...Sources say Egypt’s military is powerless against attacks by Salafis who use money and promises to turn people in the poorest regions of the country against Christians.

The extremist group is spreading across the Middle East, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Salafis are taking advantage of the region’s instability to get caretaker governments to impose their ideology based on Sharia and Islam’s supremacy on other religions.

According to a recent report cited by the Assyrian News Agency (Aina), about 100,000 Christians have already left the country since Mubarak’s fall.

“The figure is an exaggeration,” sources told AsiaNews, “but many Copts are indeed leaving the country. In Upper Egypt, but also Cairo and Alexandria, many parish churches lay empty. People are afraid and believe that if the Muslim Brotherhood wins, there will be no place for Christians in the country...”

Death Sentence for Apostasy Reveals "Nuances?"

Cause being sentenced to death for converting to Christianity is the sort of post-modern experience that really challenges one's dominant narrative, right?  We go from the whole "I'm alive" paradigm to "Ah, the lights just went out, and...oh, look, the Pearly Gates!"

Nuanced.  Feh--it's a bad piece.  Excerpts:

The possible hanging of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani for converting from Islam to Christianity has exposed a division among Islamic jurists on whether Iran would be violating Islamic law by carrying out the execution...

According to some of these scholars, the Quran not only outlaws the death penalty for the charge of apostasy, but under Sharia law, conversion from Islam is not a punishable offense at all.

"Instead, it says on a number of occasions that God prefers and even demands that people believe in Him, but that He will handle rejection of such belief by punishing them in the afterworld," wrote Intisar Rabb, an assistant professor of law at Boston College and a faculty affiliate in research at Harvard Law School, in an e-mail to CNN.

But Rabb also acknowledges that there is a more nuanced view to Islamic law, too...

Note the academic jujitsu here--the blunt, simplistic interpretation is that Islamic law doesn't prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. It's only when you pull out the microscope to examine the nuances and subtleties that suddenly a death penalty appears. So someone has got to really dissect this thing in order for it to read "Delete, delete, delete..."

"The problem in the modern period is that contemporary states apply medieval rules in unreflective ways that do not often match the classical Islamic legal tradition to which they are trying to adhere," wrote Rabb.

So--hang on a minute. It's only those people who adhere to medieval law in unreflective ways who decipher an obligation to execute in sharia? But I thought only those highly nuanced thinkers who subtly dissect Islamic law in order to discern an obscure call for the death penalty ever demanded death for apostasy?

"One of them would be to say traditionally in Shiite Islam, people have interpreted the scripture for apostates to be put to death," Lombardi said.

Of course. Sunnis don't do that sort of thing. Ever.

"The reality is the 13 scholars on our sites could give you a variety of different responses," Bhatti said. Islamic law has a "rich legal tradition and it is important for us to not convey something definitive or to suggest there is one answer."

The overriding opinion of each scholar was simple - the complication of Islamic law makes it somewhat difficult to predict what Iran will do...

Ah.  The answer is simple--it's complicated.  Lovely.  If the law is that unpredictable, is it really capable of being just?

Lombardi recalled a story in Afghanistan, where a man's neighbors hauled him to court for leaving Islam.

"The judge takes a look and says this person is an apostate and therefore the crime should be putting them to death," Lombardi said. "But then the judge said, Islam is such great religion, you could have to be crazy to have to convert from Islam. And therefore, I think this person should get off on ground of insanity."

Moral of the story, according to Lombardi: "There are all sorts of grounds for pardoning someone..."

But you can only pardon someone if they are actually guilty of a crime, right? So even though this is a real part of the law, we can find all sorts of reasons for ignoring it, right?

Men Crucified...June 8, 2011

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter." -- Qur'an 5:33

Pray for them.  Excerpts:

...Two peasant brothers were brutally crucified on “the example of Christ” as forces loyal to Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara continue to target perceived supporters of his ousted Christian predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo.

Raphael Aka Kouame died of his injuries; incredibly his younger brother, Kouassi Privat Kacou, survived the ordeal. The pair were badly beaten and tortured before being crudely nailed to cross-shaped planks by their hands and feet with steel spikes on 29 May.

The brothers were falsely accused of hiding weapons in their home village of Binkro, which has been targeted by Ouattara supporters as the birthplace of a key enemy. They are looking for Prefect Koko Djei, President of the General Council of Oumé and an official in Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front party, who is accused of distributing weapons to young Oumé men. The brothers repeatedly denied any involvement in a weapons cache, but their pleas were ignored.

After crucifying the brothers, Ouattara’s men took them on an extensive search of Binkro, but they found only a store of medical equipment and supplies, which they looted. The seriously wounded pair were then taken to prison in Oumé, where Raphael died in the night....

Copts, Persecution, and the Egyptian Revolution

Hm.  Egypt begins to look like France in the late 1700s.  Excerpts:

Twelve Christian were murdered in Egypt. Two hundred and thirty-two people wounded. The death toll will surely rise as victims succumb to their injuries. And that's just in the past few days. In the same time period, more Christians were killed in Egypt at the hands of Muslims than people killed in Syria or in Libya as a result of protests, riots and resistance.

Two churches in Cairo were burned in recent days. Over the past few months church property has being gutted, vandalised and violated with graffiti. Churches have been blown up.

An entire community - the Christian community in the new Egypt - is under attack. And the world remains relatively silent. There has been no significant religious outcry, political redress or diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks. There has been almost no media coverage as Egypt's Muslims systematically, over the past few months, set about massacring Egypt's Christians...

Christian Martyrs of the Middle East

A round-up.  Excerpts:

...Protesters and freedom fighters, however, are not the only victims of violence in the Middle East. There has been a significant rise in Christian bloodshed. Unfortunately, the leaders of Western powers, with little exception, have ignored those crimes.

In his annual address to the Vatican diplomatic corps, Pope Benedict XVI pointed to the “acts of discrimination against Christians, which are considered less grave and less worthy of attention on the part of governments and public opinion.” The Holy Father renewed his “heartfelt appeal” to Muslim religious leaders “that their Christians fellow-citizens be able to live in security, continuing to contribute to the society in which they are fully members.” Egypt’s Al-Azhar University suspended talks with the Vatican because they found the pope’s references to Muslim violence “insulting.”

Among other duties, I serve as Chairman of Aid to the Church in Need, U.S.A., a charity directly under the Holy Father that supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed, or in need. I receive regular updates and status reports on the plight of Christians in the Middle East. Here’s a roundup of what happened this past year...

For more, the documentaries of Pierre Rehov can be quite illuminating.

Persecuted, Indigenous Minority Blocked From Celebrating Holiday

That is, the Christians of the Middle East had one heck of a time with Easter.  Why?  Democratic revolutions almost never bode well for minorities--I know, counterintuitive, right?  Majority rule can really suck for minorities--whoda thunk it?  Excerpts follow:

Something very sobering and terrible is sinking in for Western journalists who are covering the uprising in the Middle East. They are beginning to wonder if the outcomes of these revolutions will automatically be good or, at least, “good” as defined in terms of civil liberties and human rights as they are promoted at, let’s say, the United Nations. In other words, sadly, there may be isolated situations on this earth in which totalitarian governments do a better job of protecting the rights of religious and ethnic minorities (or sexual minorities, for that matter) than governments that represent unfettered majority rule.

This has, of course, been a minor theme running through the mainstream press coverage of the flight of Eastern Christians from Iraq and other nations in that region. Every now and then, the mainstream press also notes the plight of the Bahai’s in Iran. Gays in Iran? Every now and then.

In other words, could there be a dark side to the Twitter and Facebook revolutions in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere?...

This year, I know, we will also pray for the safety of believers there. We will be praying for those that march in the streets once again, as they have marched for centuries, in the darkness that comes before dawn.

UPDATED: It appears that the government has, in effect, canceled Pascha, or a crucial part of it. Click here for the Washington Post story on this development.

Shahbaz Bhatti: "A Truly Brave Man And A Hero of The Faith"

He may not have been given anything approaching adequate protection. Excerpts:

It was a troubling phone call and it came late in the evening.

The man on the line had been told by security officials of a plot to kill him. He wanted more protection but wasn't getting it. He sounded anxious and alone, though he had a seat at the cabinet table.

The call was from Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Minister for Minority Affairs, the only Christian member of the Cabinet, now silenced forever by the Taliban. His killing was a death foretold by many, most of all Bhatti himself.

When he called that night, he was concerned about a warning from the security agencies.

"They say there's a terrorist plot to assassinate me," he said. "They've told me to be careful, but didn't tell me anything else. I haven't been given any extra security. It's just the same as it has been since I became a minister."

Though his voice sounded weary, the minister's commitment was unwavering. "I have struggled for a long time for justice and equality," he said.

"If I change my stance today, who will speak out? I am mindful that I can be assassinated any time, but I want to live in history as a courageous man."

After we ended our conversation, I could not escape the feeling that the minister had called to say goodbye...

The story includes some important background information on why the Pakistani blasphemy laws are a problem. The Catholic Herald comments:

...There are questions to be asked about all this. After all, Pakistan will soon be receiving more development aid from this country than any other country: and questions are more and more being asked about our relations with dodgy governments. Pakistan is supposed to be an ally. But is there not something dodgy in the extreme about a government which knows that one of its ministers is in great danger from terrorists and does nothing to protect him? Why was Shahbaz Bhatti refused extra security when he had asked for it? Why was there no security guard in the car with him? Why was he refused a bullet-proof car?...

Like many courageous Christians in Pakistan, Shahbaz Bhatti was a Catholic (most press reports simply describe him as a Christian). It must surely be said that he died for his faith, and that though his death is an event by which we are rightly horrified, it is also one by which we should be inspired. He died for opposing the persecution of all minorities, most of all for defending Asia Bibi, a Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy, as I recounted some time ago in this column, on the basis of false accusations. He was a truly brave man and a hero of the faith...

And the Pakistani Christian community knows it. Excerpts:

...There were emotional scenes as several thousand Christians buried their leader in his home village near Faisalabad.

Earlier, hundreds turned out for a church service in the capital.

...In the minister's native village of Khushpur nearby, black flags flew for the burial.

"The killers have snatched our hero," said Mr Bhatti's brother, Sikander, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

So large were the crowds that the burial was delayed by several hours, the BBC's M Ilyas Khan reports from Khushpur.

He says the thousands of mourners waited all day to pay their respects...

Ladies and gentlemen, behold a true Christian martyr.  (h/t Aggie Catholics).

Last Video of Killed Pakistani Catholic Cabinet Minister

Pray for the repose of his soul, the comfort of his family, and the Holy Spirit's deeper infusion into the Pakistani Church.

Coren on Christians

in the Middle East.  Excerpts:

Last year I attended a dinner with the Toronto Pakistani Christian community to hear the country’s Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, give a speech. What struck me about him and about the people gathered there to listen to him was how gentle they were, how badly they had been treated, and how isolated and ignored they felt. Bhatti’s murder by Muslim terrorists this week came, frankly, as no surprise. His friends and supporters had expected an attack and he himself had sent a tape to the BBC in the case of his assassination. Remember, a senior governor in the country who was Muslim but merely argued that the nation’s blasphemy laws were repugnant and wrong was also slaughtered for his courage.

The Christians of Pakistan are persecuted, robbed, beaten, denied jobs and freedom, and killed. If the crop is bad, a church is destroyed. If anything goes wrong in Pakistan, Christians are attacked. An entire group of people are denied the basic rights of humanity and citizenship merely because they are Christian...

Don't ever let the modern martyrs be forgotten. Read works such as The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History and pray for their families and churches. Support Aid to the Church in Need and other such organizations.  Pray, people of God!

Middle Eastern Christianity

An analysis of Pope Benedict XVI's address to the Synod on the Middle East from last year.  Excerpts:

...The Pope first mentioned the fact that the Middle East has seen "ever since the days of Jesus until today, the continued presence of Christians."

The pope wants to emphasize the apostolic nature of the churches in the Middle East and the fact that churches are alive. The Church of Antioch, there where Christians for the first time receive this  name from others (Acts 11:26). The Church of Jerusalem, which experienced the historical fact of Jesus and knew the Apostles. The Church of Alexandria, where St. Mark the Evangelist was martyred. These churches did not receive the faith by missionaries sent from Rome, but from the Apostles themselves, and thus are witnesses to the original message. This, for our Churches, is an important spiritual force. If they disappear, it would be a loss for Christians everywhere...

At one point in his speech, the Pope speaks of the faithful of the diaspora, and this raises a problem within the Catholic Church, because bishops in Europe often want to have jurisdiction over the Eastern faithful immigrants. For example, there is a rule that prohibits the existence of married Eastern priests in the West. They can have them in the East but not in the Western Diocese. This decision was taken - it was said – so as not to scandalize the faithful. But all this must change.

Originally, the patriarchates were geographical, but now the fact of migration is raising several issues. Yesterday, the pope spoke of "all the faithful entrusted to their pastoral care (ie of the Patriarchs) in their own countries and also in the diaspora." It is a small point but an important one. This is also a problem for the Orthodox, the Church of Moscow. Who do the Orthodox of the diaspora depend on? Once it was the Ecumenical Patriarch who had responsibility beyond territorial boundaries, now they want to restrict it to Turkey...

All this is important for us in the Middle East. From the sociological point of view we feel unable to engage in mission to Muslims, who are the majority of our people, inviting them to discover the Gospel and the salvation that comes from the absolute Gospel, because the laws forbid it.

Yesterday, I saw the Bishop of Algiers, who told me that he spent two hours speaking with the Minister for Religious Affairs on this issue [anti-proselytizing laws that hamper the freedom to proclaim]. To the point that some bishops and many missionaries refuse to baptize Muslims who have been asking to be baptised for years, because they are afraid that by doing so they will lose elements of their culture!

From the theological point of view the pope's discourse corrects those theologies (some in India and many "theologies of religions" popular in the West) that preach that it is not necessary to switch to the Christ. A missionary once said to me, the Second Vatican Council established that everyone can be saved in their own religion, so why baptize them?

Our Churches in the East have lost their sense of mission because they are focused on their survival. But the body will not survival if I concentrate on the physical problem alone: it becomes a form of asphyxia. And this is what is happening to our Churches, we are so interested in saving our culture, our particularity, our survival, in the end we focus on little things, instead of seeing our world mission.

We are even dying in Europe because the missionary age, when from Italy and France we went out everywhere, is no more. Today we are so concerned about ourselves and our problems that we have lost the sense of mission. We must recapture that sense. We also tend to reduce mission to charity, commitment to development is not satisfactory...

There's a lot more, well worth a read. Go check out the whole thing, and maybe even read some of the documents from the Synod.

Pakistani Catholic Cabinet Minister Killed

for speaking out against Pakistan's blasphemy laws.  Excerpts follow:

Shahbaz Bhatti, a lay Catholic who served as Pakistan’s federal minister for religious minorities, was assassinated on March 2 while traveling to work. He was 42.

The gunman who ambushed Bhatti's car and shot down the government leader left a note saying that Bhatti was killed "for speaking out against the blasphemy law." The assassin claimed credit for the killing in the name of Tehrik-e-Taliban, a coalition of Islamic extremist groups.

The cabinet minister had received multiple death threats when he questioned the death sentence for blasphemy handed down in the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian housewife whose friends insist that she was convicted on false charges...

Three weeks before his assassination, Bhatti had predicted that his reappointment as cabinet minister would “create some protests and resentment by many Islamic extremists. But my struggle will continue, despite the difficulties and threats that I have received. My only aim is to defend fundamental rights, religious freedom and the life of Christians and other religious minorities. I am prepared for any sacrifice for this mission, which I carry out with the spirit of a servant of God.”

Bhatti is the second prominent Pakistani leader who has been killed after urging changes in the country's blasphemy law. Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjad province, was murdered in January. Sherry Rehman, a member of parliament who suggested amending the law, withdrew her proposal after receiving death threats...

For some sense of why the Pakistani blasphemy laws are such a big deal:

...According to the National Commission on Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Church, between 1986 and August 2009, at least 974 people have been charged for defiling the Qur’an or insulting the Prophet Muhammad. They include 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 from other religions.

The blasphemy law has often been used as a pretext for personal attacks or vendettas as well as extra-judicial murders. Overall, 33 people have died this way at the hands of individuals or crazed mobs...

Remember the persecuted Church in your prayers. Organizations like Aid to the Church in Need and (no joke) the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre attempt to assist the Middle Eastern Church whenever possible.  Read up on those suffering and why in books like The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century or The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, or see First Comes Saturday, Then Comes Sunday.

Afghani Christian Converts and Sharia Law

An ongoing ambiguity. The New York Times reports. Excerpts:

...Afghanistan’s Constitution, established in 2004, guarantees that people are “free to exercise their faith.” But it also leaves it open for the courts to rely on Shariah, or Islamic law, on issues like conversion. Under some interpretations of Shariah, leaving Islam is considered apostasy, an offense punishable by hanging.

Mr. Mussa, 46, is staring at the prospect of a death sentence...

Diplomats and Afghan officials, meanwhile, have tried to keep it out of the spotlight, fearing that publicity, particularly from the local news media, could set off an outcry from hard-line conservatives, endangering him and other Afghan Christians.

...after months of intermittent measures by diplomats to free him, Christian advocates and members of Congress are growing frustrated, not least with the larger issue of underwriting an Afghan government that has not ensured religious freedom.

“We cannot justify taxpayer dollars going to a government that allows the same restrictions on basic human rights that existed under the Taliban,” two Republican members of Congress, Representatives Trent Franks of Arizona, co-chairman of the International Religious Freedom Caucus, and Doug Lamborn of Colorado, wrote in a letter last fall to Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, urging stronger action...

“Based on Shariah law, whoever converts from Islam should be sentenced to death,” said the prosecutor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But based on international agreements that Afghanistan has accepted and agreed with, Sayed Mussa has a chance to be released.”

The Afghan government has not executed anyone for religious crimes since the Taliban’s fall, though at least one person has been sentenced to death: Parvez Kambakhsh, a journalism student, who in 2008 was condemned for blasphemy for distributing material found on the Internet questioning women’s rights under Islam. A court later commuted the sentence to 20 years before President Hamid Karzai pardoned him.

Another man, Shoaib Assadullah Musawi, has been jailed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif since November after being accused of giving the New Testament to a friend, who then turned him in.

Afghan and American legal experts say such cases are rare. But in the handful that have emerged publicly, it has taken Western intervention to secure a release, leaving the central ambiguities in the Constitution unresolved...

For more on such issues, see The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, Freedom to Believe: challenging Islam's apostasy law, or (judging by the title) Shari'a in the Constitutions of Afghanistan, Iran And Egypt: Implications for Private Law.

Iraqi Christians Comparable to Soviet Jews Fleeing

Huh.  Fascinating interview with Msgr. Robert Stern, secretary general of CNEWA, an aid organization helping the Catholics (and other Christians) in Egypt. Excerpts:

...How old is the Catholic community in Egypt, and what is its current status?

A little under 2,000 years (chuckling). First of all, I should say that the Catholics are a miniscule minority of the Christians in Egypt: 10% of the Egyptian population is Christian, but it is overwhelmingly Coptic Orthodox. Our work is to look to the welfare of the Catholics, who number between 150,000 and 250,000, but the Holy Father has also given us the task of working for the union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the Near and Middle East. So we care deeply about the welfare of Catholics and Orthodox and evangelical Christians in Egypt.

How are Christians treated in Egypt?

Christians are definitely being discriminated against. Whether it is useful to say this publicly, whether it will hurt them more than help them, is a matter for prudential judgment. But in Islam there is no such thing as separation of church and state. And when you have a Muslim majority, you almost always have a state that is run in a way that favors Muslims. In Egypt there are very rarely Christian cabinet ministers, Christian senior officials, Christian generals, Christian village leaders.

Do Christian leaders see the current uprising as dangerous?

I think they do. The Orthodox Coptic Pope Shenouda III has expressed hopes for reform coming from the current situation, but all Christian leaders there are afraid that there will be a repetition of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. At least Christians were protected under Saddam, but once he fell and Sunnis and Shiites began fighting, Christians were caught in the cross fire.

Some radical Muslims in Egypt may already be taking advantage of the uprising to attack Christians...

What can Catholics in America do?
Firstly, just to be aware there is a Church in Egypt would be a big step. The Christians in Egypt do feel themselves in solidarity with Christians around the world. We should feel the same with them.

Secondly, they really do need our support, lobbying, speaking, expressing indignation when someone tosses a bomb into a church. Ask our members of Congress what the United States is getting back for its billion dollars in aid each year.

Should Catholics be preparing to receive a flood of refugees from Egypt?

I don’t think there is going to be a major exodus. There is still a critical mass of Christians in Egypt that makes the community there self-sustaining. Whereas, the kindest thing Americans can do for the Iraqi Christians is to lobby for their easy admission to the U.S., as was once done for Jews leaving the Soviet Union.

Christianity, the Middle East, and Martyrdom

Archbishop Chaput points out the historic, systemic, and ongoing persecution of the Christian population of the Middle East.  Excerpts:

Five years ago I received a letter from a former Special Forces officer and graduate of West Point—a career Army veteran—serving in Baghdad as a security adviser to Iraqi authorities.

A Catholic himself, he wrote to me about the harassment and violence Iraqi Christians face as part of their daily routine. He knew, as many Americans still don’t, that large Christian Arab communities once thrived across the Middle East. Over the centuries, under pressure from Islam, Christian populations have slowly declined. But the past 100 years have been especially brutal for Christians of the region.

He wrote that:

“I have come to know many of the surviving (Iraqi) Christians, both Eastern-rite Catholic and Orthodox, who work here in (Baghdad’s) International Zone. I had known as an academic item about the massacre of the (Christian) Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915. What I had not known was that many of the areas currently occupied by Kurds—(southeast) Turkey, northern Iraq and northwest Iran—were originally… Christian. Not having enough manpower to kill all the Christians in their empire, the Ottomans ‘contracted out’ the destruction of the Christians to their subject peoples. More than 750,000 were directly killed, died of disease and exposure, or starved to death. What’s going on now (in Iraq) very much affects the remaining Christians here too.”

Discrimination, deprivation of rights and even bloodshed against Christians: All of these indignities have a long and troubling history in the Middle East that predates Western colonialism and American interventions by many years. The horrific attack and murders at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church (also translated as “Our Lady of Deliverance”), an Eastern-rite Catholic community in Baghdad last Oct. 31, were simply the most dramatic in a long line of brutal acts designed to obliterate—either by killing or driving out—the ancient Iraqi Christian community. Observers quite rightly describe the continuing anti-Christian violence in Iraq as a form of “religious cleansing...”

Go read the whole thing. Assistance can be sent through Aid to the Church in Need, among other fine organizations. For more on the subject, see The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century, or The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims.

Pope Defends Religious Freedom

Egypt not amused, as the BBC reports.  Excerpt:

Egypt has recalled its ambassador to the Vatican for consultation after Pope Benedict XVI urged the country to do more to protect its Christian minority.

In an address to ambassadors at the Vatican on Monday, the Pope cited recent attacks on Christians in Egypt and Iraq.

An Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman said the remarks were "unacceptable"...

"Egypt asked its ambassador in the Vatican to come to Cairo for consultation after the Vatican's new statements that touch on Egyptian affairs, and which Egypt considers an unacceptable interference in its internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said in a statement...

Sad News from Iraq

This is the reaction of someone who truly believes his church faces extermination.  Incredibly tragic:

...Archbishop Athanasios Dawood slammed the Iraqi government for not doing enough to protect the rights of minorities and urged Christians to quit the country.

"I say clearly and now -- the Christian people should leave their beloved land of our ancestors and escape the premeditated ethnic cleansing. This is better than having them killed one by one," said Dawood, according to prepared remarks he sent to CNN.

Speaking at a service in London, he also asked the British government, and those in other European countries, to grant asylum to Christians living in Iraq.

"The Iraqi government is weak, biased, if not extremist. It does not protect us and the other minorities. It has ignored our legal rights. We ask the British government, the EU and the U.N. to protect us," he said.

"I ask the British government again to help the Iraqi Christians and grant them the rights of humanitarian asylum in order to preserve what is left of the victims who do not carry a weapon to fight and kill," said Dawood.

His call came a week after the brutal siege on a Baghdad church...

For more on the Church in the Middle East, see John Allen's excellent reporting on the synod of the Middle Eastern bishops which recently concluded.

Muslims For Free Speech!

Very good!  Canadian and American Muslims take a stand for free speech.

In the wake of this appalling turn of events:

The last time Molly Norris was in the news was July. She’s the Seattle cartoonist who responded to censorship of South Park by declaring April 20 to be “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."...

So Norris shows some solidarity with these victimized cartoonists. Outrage ensued — protests, riots, you name it. She quickly backtracked and explained she didn’t mean to offend. Too late, Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki declared, putting her on an execution hitlist...

So how does someone respond to a death threat from al-Awlaki? The Seattle Weekly, where she used to be published, has the latest. And it’s not good:

You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week. That’s because there is no more Molly.

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It’s all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon.

this constructive reaction has come from the American/Canadian Muslim community:

We, the undersigned, unconditionally condemn any intimidation or threats of violence directed against any individual or group exercising the rights of freedom of religion and speech; even when that speech may be perceived as hurtful or reprehensible.

We are concerned and saddened by the recent wave of vitriolic anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment that is being expressed across our nation.

We are even more concerned and saddened by threats that have been made against individual writers, cartoonists, and others by a minority of Muslims. We see these as a greater offense against Islam than any cartoon, Qur’an burning, or other speech could ever be deemed.

We affirm the right of free speech for Molly Norris, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, and all others including ourselves.

As Muslims, we must set an example of justice, patience, tolerance, respect, and forgiveness...Islam calls for vigorous condemnation of both hateful speech and hateful acts, but always within the boundaries of the law. It is of the utmost importance that we react, not out of reflexive emotion, but with dignity and intelligence, in accordance with both our religious precepts and the laws of our country.

We uphold the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Both protect freedom of religion and speech, because both protections are fundamental to defending minorities from the whims of the majority.

We therefore call on all Muslims in the United States, Canada and abroad to refrain from violence. We should see the challenges we face today as an opportunity to sideline the voices of hate—not reward them with further attention—by engaging our communities in constructive dialogue about the true principles of Islam, and the true principles of democracy, both of which stress the importance of freedom of religion and tolerance...

Signatories follow. This is very good to see.

South Park and Mohammed

While I'm not a fan of all their stuff, this is important:

"...their primary point was that you can make fun of anyone in a free democracy—except Muhammad. The threats and violence that have dogged anyone who dares even represent the prophet—from Salman Rushdie to Danish and Swedish cartoonists—have created a kind of fear-fueled exception to free-speech laws even in Western democracies. The episode addressed this hypocrisy clearly, even as Parker and Stone took care to obscure the actual image of Muhammad with everything from a black “censored” bar to a U-Haul truck to a bear mascot suit because South Park’s animated townspeople wanted to avoid having a fatwa placed on them. This wasn’t just provocative satire—it was both smart and brave. Unfortunately, South Park’s network, Comedy Central, seemed to cave into the threats to a degree when the second episode of the two-part series was aired this week, bleeping out even the mention of Muhammad’s name. This was cowardly and provided evidence that coercion could be successful... The group’s homepage—which is now down—featured the “warning” over audio from radical clerics and also showed the picture of the author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was threatened alongside Van Gogh. I contacted Ayaan to get her take on the incident. “It is obviously a very clear threat and it echoes the same threats that were used against Theo van Gogh and me when he was alive,” Ayaan said. “It is an invitation to murder, a way of inspiring other people to kill. And how disgusting that they are using the image of an innocent man who was killed—he has a son and a mom and dad and friends. When you grieve, you get closure. For them, there's no closure this way. I don’t know if I can legally stop them from using my image, but I feel threatened by them and, according to the Netherland's Radio 4, the Dutch Secret Service say they are concerned for my safety. The images and audio on their website make it clear that they are in cahoots with [Al Qaeda cleric and propagandist] Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen and consider the Fort Hood shooter—Nidal Malik Hasan—a hero.”"

And a good thing to support (different incident, but the same cause):

Recently, I asked you to put your names on a petition to support the 12 signatories of the Manifesto Against a New Totalitarianism. The manifesto signatories included me, Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Taslima Nasrin. We and eight others received a serious death threat from the British-based Islamic website ummah.com. (See a screen grab of the forum entry where the death threat was issued.)

Your signatures of solidarity with us would show that we are not afraid to defy Islamist radicals. More than 4,800 of you have already signed - and most of you have opted to name your city or town. I love your guts.

Only one person emailed a disconcerting message. Norman Finkelstein wrote to say, "Is there a petition supporting the death threats?"

Below are the opponents of the death threats. Thank you for going public. Remember that there's strength in numbers, so please forward this link to like-minded friends and family.

Pray for the Christians of the Middle East

Their suffering goes on:

A policy of “ethnic and religious cleansing” is underway in Mosul; in fact, it has worsened as Christmas approaches, Mgr Louis Sako told AsiaNews. The archbishop of Kirkuk says security measures will be strengthened during Christmas for fear of new attacks. Two attacks are carried out in Mosul yesterday; two churches are hit, one baby girl is dead and 40 people are wounded. Source tells AsiaNews that the Christian community is “destined to die” in the city...

Yesterday’s attacks are the latest episodes in a series of violence against Christian places of worship. On 26 November, terrorists razed to the ground the Church of Saint Ephrem and the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine. A source told AsiaNews that most nuns left; only a few have remained but “are afraid of going out”.

Such attacks are a “warning” for Christians to leave en masse. Many “families have fled north, into Kurdistan, but are jobless and have no hope for the future. The Christian community is destined to die,” the source said.

Mgr Louis Sako shares this concern. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, “ethnic and religious cleansing” is underway in Mosul. The central government and parties are concerned only about the elections, scheduled for 7 March 2010, especially about “sharing the oil”.

To understand the current situation, the interested reader must inform themselves about a little thing called "dhimmitude."

Minarets vs. Churches

So the Dar al Islam did not like the Swiss minaret ban--but they have no problem with what's going on in their own backyard:

While Muslim leaders criticized the Nov. 29 vote in Switzerland that banned construction of minarets, they don’t support Christians who want to build churches in some Islamic countries. Restrictions in Egypt have exacerbated sectarian violence and discrimination, say Copts, a 2,000-year-old denomination that comprises about 10 percent of the population.

The day after the Swiss vote, Ali Gomaa, one of Egypt’s top Muslim clerics, called the decision “an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside of Switzerland.”

Copts quickly said that neither Gomaa nor any other Islamic leader mentioned the Christian situation in Egypt.

“Without the merest attempt to put our house in order, are we in any position to taunt others to put theirs?” Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of the Cairo-based Egyptian Coptic weekly newspaper El-Watani, said in a telephone interview. “They should be ashamed.”

The contrast between criticism of the Swiss and silence about local parallels isn’t limited to Egypt. Censure of Switzerland, where about 5 percent of the population is Muslim, was widespread in Islamic countries where Christians face restrictions on practicing their faith.

Read the whole thing. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is mentioned in the piece. This is the same organization that sponsored the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam" as a counter-declaration to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Cairo Declaration sounds fairly compatible with universal norms of human rights based solely in natural law and those principles accessible through philosophical reflection--that is, the exercise of human reason without any necessary reference to faith--until one hits the last two articles of the Cairo Declaration:

Article 24 All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah.

Article 25 The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.

In other words, according to the body which represents all the Islamic countries, Islam recognizes no human rights except what is conferred by Islamic religious law. Where, pray tell, does that leave religious freedom? And who among us infidels knows which rights Islam is willing to grant us?