Posted on 01/22/2005 1:42:16 AM PST by underlying
Isn't it, though? How much more blatant can you get than that?
Apparently, Christians in the UK no longer have religious freedom. The police are refusing to protect Muslims who convert to Christianity and suffer violence. This article, which I excerpt below, is very disturbing. ===============================================
February 05, 2005Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family By Anthony Browne
While Christians who turn to Islam are feted, the 200,000 Muslims who turn away are faced with abuse, violence and even murder.
THE first brick was thrown through the sitting room window at one in the morning, waking Nissar Hussein, his wife and five children with a terrifying start. The second brick went through his car window.
It was a shock, but hardly a surprise. The week before, another brick had been thrown through the window as the family were preparing for bed in their Bradford home. The victim of a three-year campaign of religious hatred, Mr Hussein’s car has also been rammed and torched, and the steps to his home have been strewn with rubbish.
He and his family have been regularly jostled, abused, attacked, shouted at to move out of the area, and given death threats in the street. His wife has been held hostage inside their home for two hours by a mob. His car, walls and windows have been daubed in graffiti: “Christian bastard”.
The problem isn’t so much what Mr Hussein, whose parents came from Pakistan, believes, but what he doesn’t believe. Born into Islam, he converted eight years ago to Christianity, and his wife, also from Pakistan, followed suit.
While those who convert to Islam, such as Cat Stevens, Jemima Khan, and the sons of the Frank Dobson, the former Health Secretary, and Lord Birt, the former BBC Director-General, can publicly celebrate their new religion, those whose faith goes in the other direction face persecution. Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, is one of a growing number of former Muslims in Britain who face not just being shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in some cases killed. There is even a secret underground network to support and protect those who leave Islam. One estimate suggests that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have lost their faith, which would mean that in Britain there are about 200,000 apostates.
For police, religious authorities and politicians, it is an issue so sensitive that they are accused by victims of refusing to respond to appeals for help. It is a problem that, with the crisis of identity in Islam since September 11, seems to be getting worse as Muslims feel more threatened.
Muslims who lose their faith face execution or imprisonment, in line with traditional Muslim teaching, in many Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Yemen. In the Netherlands, the former Muslim MP Ayan Hirsi Ali had to go into hiding after renouncing her faith on television.
*snip*
The police have not charged anyone, but told him to leave the area. “We feel completely isolated, utterly helpless. I have been utterly failed by the authorities. If it was white racists attacking an Asian guy, there would be an absolute outcry,” he said. “They are trying to ethnically cleanse me out of my home. I feel I have to make a stand as an Asian Christian.”
*snip*
Although some are beaten “black and blue” for their faith, others suffer even more. The family of an 18-year-old girl whomYasmin was helping found that she had been hiding a Bible in her room, and visiting church secretly. “I tried to do as much as possible to help her, but they took her to Pakistan ‘on holiday’. Three weeks later, she was drowned — they said that she went out in the middle of the night and slipped in the river, but she just wouldn ’t have done that,” said Yasmin.
Ruth, also of Pakistani origin, found out recently that she had only just escaped being murdered. When she told her family that she had converted, they kept her locked inside the family home all summer.
*snip*
Imams in Britain sometimes call on the apostates to be killed if they criticise their former religion. Anwar Sheikh, a former mosque teacher from Pakistan, became an atheist after coming to Britain, and now lives with a special alarm in his house in Cardiff after criticising Islam in a series of hardline books.
*snip*
“The difficulty in Britain is the growing alienation between the minority Muslim communities and the mainstream Christian one. Christian mission work in inner cities is seen as an assault,” Dr Sookhdeo said. “We are only asking that freedom of religion should be applicable to everyone of every faith.”
Apparently, Christians in the UK no longer have religious freedom. The police are refusing to protect Muslims who convert to Christianity and suffer violence. This article, which I excerpt below, is very disturbing.
===============================================
February 05, 2005Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family By Anthony Browne
While Christians who turn to Islam are feted, the 200,000 Muslims who turn away are faced with abuse, violence and even murder.
THE first brick was thrown through the sitting room window at one in the morning, waking Nissar Hussein, his wife and five children with a terrifying start. The second brick went through his car window.
It was a shock, but hardly a surprise. The week before, another brick had been thrown through the window as the family were preparing for bed in their Bradford home. The victim of a three-year campaign of religious hatred, Mr Hussein’s car has also been rammed and torched, and the steps to his home have been strewn with rubbish.
He and his family have been regularly jostled, abused, attacked, shouted at to move out of the area, and given death threats in the street. His wife has been held hostage inside their home for two hours by a mob. His car, walls and windows have been daubed in graffiti: “Christian bastard”.
The problem isn’t so much what Mr Hussein, whose parents came from Pakistan, believes, but what he doesn’t believe. Born into Islam, he converted eight years ago to Christianity, and his wife, also from Pakistan, followed suit.
While those who convert to Islam, such as Cat Stevens, Jemima Khan, and the sons of the Frank Dobson, the former Health Secretary, and Lord Birt, the former BBC Director-General, can publicly celebrate their new religion, those whose faith goes in the other direction face persecution. Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, is one of a growing number of former Muslims in Britain who face not just being shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in some cases killed. There is even a secret underground network to support and protect those who leave Islam. One estimate suggests that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have lost their faith, which would mean that in Britain there are about 200,000 apostates.
For police, religious authorities and politicians, it is an issue so sensitive that they are accused by victims of refusing to respond to appeals for help. It is a problem that, with the crisis of identity in Islam since September 11, seems to be getting worse as Muslims feel more threatened.
Muslims who lose their faith face execution or imprisonment, in line with traditional Muslim teaching, in many Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Yemen. In the Netherlands, the former Muslim MP Ayan Hirsi Ali had to go into hiding after renouncing her faith on television.
*snip*
The police have not charged anyone, but told him to leave the area. “We feel completely isolated, utterly helpless. I have been utterly failed by the authorities. If it was white racists attacking an Asian guy, there would be an absolute outcry,” he said. “They are trying to ethnically cleanse me out of my home. I feel I have to make a stand as an Asian Christian.”
*snip*
Although some are beaten “black and blue” for their faith, others suffer even more. The family of an 18-year-old girl whomYasmin was helping found that she had been hiding a Bible in her room, and visiting church secretly. “I tried to do as much as possible to help her, but they took her to Pakistan ‘on holiday’. Three weeks later, she was drowned — they said that she went out in the middle of the night and slipped in the river, but she just wouldn ’t have done that,” said Yasmin.
Ruth, also of Pakistani origin, found out recently that she had only just escaped being murdered. When she told her family that she had converted, they kept her locked inside the family home all summer.
*snip*
Imams in Britain sometimes call on the apostates to be killed if they criticise their former religion. Anwar Sheikh, a former mosque teacher from Pakistan, became an atheist after coming to Britain, and now lives with a special alarm in his house in Cardiff after criticising Islam in a series of hardline books.
*snip*
“The difficulty in Britain is the growing alienation between the minority Muslim communities and the mainstream Christian one. Christian mission work in inner cities is seen as an assault,” Dr Sookhdeo said. “We are only asking that freedom of religion should be applicable to everyone of every faith.”
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