This Month's Death Post
Following up on the latest status of Abdul Rahman (a/k/a Abdur Rahman), I ran across the following:
Abdul Rahman, 41, was released from the high-security Policharki prison on the outskirts of the capital late Monday after a court dropped charges of apostasy against him for lack of evidence and suspected mental illness....
Muslim clerics condemned Rahman's release, saying it was a "betrayal of Islam." They threatened to incite violent protests....
Rahman's ordeal began as a custody dispute over his two daughters, now 13 and 14. The girls had been living with their grandparents their whole lives but Rahman sought custody when he returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after living in Germany for nine years. A custody battle ensued and the matter was taken to police.
During questioning, it emerged that Rahman was a Christian and was carrying a Bible. He was immediately arrested and charged....
Back to the Muslim clerics in Afghanistan. You'll recall that they previously called for Rahman to be hacked to pieces. Turns out they want to hack me, and some of you, to pieces also (emphasis mine):
Early on Monday around 500 people demonstrated in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif against the Supreme Court's decision not to go ahead with the case, shouting "Death to Christians!" "Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it," said senior cleric Faiez Mohammed, "The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion." Similar protests are now expected in Kabul and some imams called for Afghans to kill Rahman in an act of vigilante justice if he were to be freed. Police security forces are being deployed in central locations in anticipation of further protests.
Ah, "Death to Christians." Turns out it's a pretty catchy tune, along with that other top hit, "Death to Jews." From Saudi Arabian TV in 2004:
On May 24, Sheik Dr. Ahmad Abd Al-Latif, a professor at Um Al-Qura University, was asked the following question on Saudi channel TV1: "Some imams and preachers call for Allah to annihilate the Jews and those who help them, and the Christians and those who support them... Is it permitted according to Islamic law?"
Professor Al-Latif responded: "What made them curse the Jews is that the Jews are oppressors. ... The same goes for the Christians, because of their cruel aggression against Islamic countries ... while the truth is that this is a crusading war whose goal is to harm Muslims. This is why a Muslim is allowed to curse the oppressors from among the Jews and Christians. ... Cursing the oppressing Jews and the oppressing and plundering Christians and the prayer that Allah will annihilate them is permitted."
From Hungary in 2004:
During a live programme on Christmas Eve a presenter from Tilos Radio, based in Budapest, suggested that all Christians should be exterminated.
And from Minsk, Belarus:
[T]he 17th century Holy Spirit Cathedral, the most revered Orthodox cathedral in Belarus, was vandalized with the slogans and symbols July 25 in an attack police and clergy agreed was the work of Satanists. The building, which was dynamited by Communists in 1936 but rebuilt after World War II, had inverted crosses and stars painted on it, along with slogans reading: "Death to Christians. No to Christians in Slav lands. I am Satan. I am the truth." Police have launched an investigation into what they describe as the first instance of church desecration in the former Soviet republic.
And here's an older one from AD 258:
Valerian issues edict ordering confiscation of property and death to Christians of high rank
And, as one Wall Street Journal writer noted right after September 11:
Instead of trying to think of ways to help the victims, the leadership of the Muslim community would rather wrap itself in the mantle of victimhood. Actually, that's not quite right: It is wrapping itself in the mantle of potential victimhood. The feared hate crimes have not materialized. No one is taking to the streets and shouting "Death to Muslims." No mosques have been burned to the ground.
Not so fast. From Arizona:
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday that a newspaper cannot be sued for printing a letter that suggested Americans respond to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by going to the nearest mosque and killing the first five Muslims they see.
And in a games forum:
user: Death to Muslims
James R
Just this guy, you know? (8,995 posts) 02-08-06, 08:20 PM
You have been banned from sciforums due to your user name, which is an obvious attempt to provoke members of a particular religious group.
You are welcome to sign up under a more appropriate user name, but you will need to use a different email address.
Please consider the name you choose next time more carefully.
And some incidents are a little more violent:
In 1989, the R.S.S. and B.J.P., led by L.K. Advani, started a campaign to build a Hindu temple in the north Indian town of Ayodhya over what they believe was the birthplace of the god Rama. There was only one problem. A Muslim mosque, the Babri Masjid, already occupied the site, and had since the 16th century. The R.S.S. claimed that the Mogul emperor, Babur, destroyed an ancient Hindu temple to build the mosque. He may well have done so, since Mogul emperors destroyed thousands of Hindu temples during their conquest of north India, often replacing them with mosques.
In December 1992, B.J.P. leaders organized a mob of Hindus that demolished the Babri Masjid, while shouting “Death to Muslims.” At least 1,700 people, most of them Muslim, were murdered in the “riots” that followed. But these communal “riots” were actually organized genocidal massacres, that intentionally targeted victims because of their religious identity. In March 1993, Muslim terrorists retaliated with simultaneous bombings that killed over 300 civilians.
And how about death to atheists?
A Taylor police dispatcher took the call at precisely 12:44 p.m. on Oct. 18.
A 49-year-old man said he'd just blasted a man with a revolver and a shotgun because the man said he didn't believe in God.
The dispatcher said the alleged shooter told him he'd just shot "the devil himself" and was still armed and standing over the body of the 62-year-old victim "in case he moved."
"I want to make sure he's gone," the alleged shooter told the dispatcher.
The dispatcher asked the suspect how many times he shot the victim.
"Hopefully enough," was the suspect's chilling reply, according to the dispatcher....
On the way to the police station, the suspect told police "he did not want to deal with anyone that did not believe in God," according to the report....
The suspect said the victim had told him there was nothing he could say that would convince the 62-year-old to believe in God.
Following this discussion, the suspect said, he went into another room and removed his shirt. Then he shaved his face.
He tried once more to convince the victim to believe in God, but this time, he had the shotgun.
"How long would it take you to believe in God?" the suspect said he asked the victim.
"Not until I hear Gabriel blow his horn," the victim allegedly replied, while tipping his hat.
That's when the suspect shot him.
"I did it because he is evil; he was not a believer," the suspect told police....
At the police station, the suspect commented that he believed there is a God.
Then, looking at the floor, he seemed to have second thoughts: "Maybe there's not," he said.
In the interests of self-preservation, I'm going back to the "death to Christians" theme. Andrew Oh-Willeke has observed:
The people of Afghanistan have greeted American troops with cheering crowds and flowers.
The cheering crowds have been chanting: "Death to Christians!"
The flowers have been poppies....
I wonder if President Bush can say, when he reflects on his adventure in Afghanistan that he "saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 31. Or, in the words he prefers: "Mission Accomplished!"
The Worshipping Christian's blog has been covering the Abdul Rahman issue. In a recent post, the blog quotes from another article:
[The West] may be able to help topple an unwanted regime and bring new people to power, and even write a new constitution, but it cannot change the local mentality overnight. Western democracy cannot take root in traditional Eastern society. The West has been outraged by the plight of Rahman, but the Islamic world has hardly paid much attention to the story.
Of course, the article writer then contradicts the statement above, to a point:
The Arabic television network Aljazeera's website reported blitz polls in Afghanistan showing that the majority of the respondents were for executing Rahman. According to the TV channel, Afghan judges reject Western calls for freeing the man as interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan....
The only Islamic organization to report the scandal was Aljazeera. There are several reasons for this. To begin with, there are too many other problems, including human rights violations, in the Islamic world. When regarded against the backdrop of Iraqi developments, the trial of Rahman is not news at all. After all, he could save himself, but who will save Iraqis? Then, the issue of apostates in many Islamic, including Arab, countries is too painful to be discussed publicly.
"What could people think about Christian converts when Sunnis say Shiites are apostates?" asked Manal al Nahas, a journalist with the Arabic daily Al Hayat.
However, despite the complicated attitude towards converts, many Muslims, in particular in Lebanon, still think that the death penalty is a much too severe punishment in such cases. Islam and the Islamic world have many faces.
Later, writing in his/her own voice, the blogger makes this interesting statement:
Gotta love thouse [sic] peace lovin' muslims...NOT.
Actually, you do gotta love 'em. For the Bible tells you so (Lev 19:18; Mt 22:37-40; Gal 5:14; whether you're Pauline or Jamesian or whatever).
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