Religion of Peace update

[Mornac]

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Grenade explodes at Jolo cathedral
 
Philippine Daily Inquirer
 
January 11, 2010
 
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Unidentified men hurdled a grenade at the compound of the Jolo Cathedral shortly before the start of Sunday morning services, authorities said.

No one was hurt in the 5:40 a.m. blast, according to Fr. Joe Ante. But the explosion shattered some cathedral windows.

Citing a report from the Jolo Police, Senior Supt. Bienvenido Latag, police chief of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said the blast, believed to have been caused by a fragmentation grenade, landed beside the cathedral.

Ante said he was waiting for the 6 a.m. Sunday Mass to start when the blast occurred.

“No perpetrators identified, no arrests, police are still investigating,” Fr. Ante told the Inquirer by phone.

“There were no churchgoers yet, only me and the sacristan (altar boy),” he said.

He said the grenade landed between the tombs of former Jolo Bishop John McSorley and Bishop Benjamin de Jesus.

The tombs are located behind the cathedral altar.

De Jesus was shot dead by gunmen in the 1990s near the Jolo Cathedral while McSorley died of natural causes.

Previous grenade explosions in the area were blamed on the Abu Sayyaf.

Brig. Gen. Rustico Guerrero, head of an antiterrorism task force, said there were no suspects in the latest blast.

In late December, a man suspected of being an Abu Sayyaf member tossed a grenade at the Jolo Cathedral compound leaving a Marine corporal slightly wounded.

In September, two American soldiers who were training local forces against the Abu Sayyaf were killed by a roadside bomb on Jolo island.
 

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100111-246661/Grenade-explodes-at-Jolo-cathedral

[Mornac]

Saudi girl, 13,  sentenced to 90 lashes after she took a mobile phone to school

By Mike Theodoulou
20th January 2010

A 13-year-old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes and two months' prison in Saudi Arabia after she took a mobile phone to school.

A court ordered the girl to be flogged in front of her classmates following an assault on the school principal, according to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan.

After the assault she was discovered to have concealed a mobile phone, breaking strict Saudi regulations banning the use of camera-equipped phones in girls' schools.

Brutal: public floggings, such as in this archive picture, are a common punishment handed down by religious courts in Saudi Arabia

Al-Watan said a court in the northeastern Gulf port of Jubail had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes inside her school, followed by two months' detention.

The punishment is harsher than that dished out to some robbers and looters.

Saudi Arabia, a leading US ally in the Middle East, is an absolute monarchy controlled by  the Al-Saud ruling tribe, and lacks any legal code.
 
King Abdullah has promoted some social reforms since taking the throne in 2005 but diplomats say he is held back by religious clerics and princes.

Cinemas and music concerts are banned, while many restaurants and even some shopping centres cater to families only, especially on holidays.

Religious police roam streets to make sure no unrelated men and women mix.

The Saudi court system is exclusively controlled Wahahbi/Salafi clerics, and bans the employment of non-Salafi citizens, especially as judges.

Saudi Arabia is the world's leading country in the use of  torture-by-flogging, public beheadings and publically crucifying condemned  prisoners.

The country crucified two people in 2009, including one in the capital Riyadh during President Barak Obama’s visit last April.

In September, twenty Saudi teenagers who ransacked shops and restaurants were publicly flogged.

Newspapers reported that the teenagers received at least 30 lashes each in a public square.

Most of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks in 2001 came from Saudi Arabia.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1244689/Saudi-girl-13--sentenced-90-lashes-took-mobile-phone-school.html#

[Mornac]

Iranian cleric: More opposition should be executed

Jan 29
 
TEHRAN, Iran – A powerful hard-line Iranian cleric on Friday called for the execution of more opposition activists to silence anti-government protests, praising the hanging a day earlier of two men caught up in the leadership's postelection crackdown.

Speaking in a Friday prayer sermon, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said the wave of street demonstrations sparked by the disputed June presidential election would not have lasted until now if protesters had been executed early on.

"Whatever we suffered was because of our weakness. How many did the judiciary execute on July 9?" he said, referring to one of the particularly large protest days.

"We showed weakness, so then we had Ashoura," he said, referring to a major protest on Dec. 27. "If you show weakness now, the future will be worse ... There is no room for Islamic mercy."

Iran's judiciary is stepping up death sentences as the leadership intensifies its campaign to eliminate the challenge from the pro-reform opposition movement. Authorities announced Thursday that nine people accused of involvement in protests have been sentenced to death — including five who allegedly had a role in the Dec. 27 protests, which saw a particularly violent clampdown.

Iran's top prosecutor said a new group of protesters and others would soon be brought to trial.

The two men executed Thursday were arrested before the June 12 election on charges of belonging to an armed group aiming to topple the government. But authorities lumped them in with opposition activists arrested during the postelection crackdown.

In his sermon, aired live on state radio, Jannati thanked Iran's judiciary chief, Sadeq Larijani, for Thursday's executions and urged more, saying: "Stand up courageously for the sake of God, the same way you executed these two persons very quickly."

Jannati cited verses from the Quran, Islam's holy book, that he said show Islam permits rulers to kill their opponents, including "hypocrites, those with evil intentions and those who spread rumors."

Jannati is one of the best known hard-line clerics in Iran and frequently delivers the nation's keynote sermon during prayers on Friday. He holds positions on one of the powerful councils of clerics that under Iran's Islamic Republic system vets laws passed by parliament and controls who can run for the legislature.

Hard-liners have called for the trial and execution of Iran's opposition leaders including Mir Hossein Mousavi and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami and former parliamentary speaker Mahdi Karroubi.

Hundreds have been arrested in the heavy crackdown by security forces against opposition protests, but activists have continued to hold sporadic, large street rallies. The opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the June election was fraudulent and call for his removal — though some in the movement have expanded to criticize Iran's clerical leadership.

The two men who were executed — Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 20 — were convicted by a Revolutionary Court of belonging to "counterrevolutionary and monarchist groups," plotting to overthrow "the Islamic establishment" and planning assassinations and bombings.

They were arrested months before the election. But they were put on the same mass trial as around 100 opposition activists, protesters and politicians who were arrested in the postelection crackdown — an attempt by the leadership to show that the political opposition is in league with violent armed groups in a foreign-backed plot to overthrow the Islamic system.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_16

[JC]

Theres enough religious zealotry and violence occurring in our own country that is not islamic, Mornac. I think it's a bit disingenuous to make these "religion of peace" threads as if you are implying that THEY are the non peaceful ones and WE are non violent. I'm sure the argument could easily be made and some would say you belong to the gay obsessed religion....what value do you serve by offerring up these kind of bullshit threads? Christianity has it's share of idiots too, and you are only opening yourself up to criticeism when you pull this garbage.

[Mornac]

Who is WE?

[JC]

Who is WE?

"They" being Islam and "we" being anyone not belonging to that religion, but obviously from your perspective being christian. I think you already know this and are just doing what you do best, which is to play vapid little word games in an attempt to delay, divert and distract so as to not be held accountable yourself for posting these stupid "them" bad/ "we" good exceptionalism crap. It's easy to point the finger a "them" and not hold your own accountable for wrongdoing violence and non peaceful acts like illegal invasions and such. I'm pretty sure you knew exactly what I meant....either that or once again I've given you way too much credit, which, could perhaps be the case.....After all you are the one struggling with the definition of gay.....A good rule of thumb would be-people whose own religions are a glass house(and I can't think of a religion that isn't)shouldn't cast stones in an attempt to put themself on a higher plain....

[Mornac]

"They" being Islam and "we" being anyone not belonging to that religion,

--I'm afraid I don't draw a line there.

 

but obviously from your perspective being christian.

--And I don't draw one there either.

 

I think you already know this

--I didn't and I still don't.

and are just doing what you do best, which is to play vapid little word games in an attempt to delay, divert and distract so as to not be held accountable yourself for posting these stupid "them" bad/ "we" good exceptionalism crap.

--What I do best is reason. I don't play word games - I expose them. I am accountable for everything I post.

It's easy to point the finger a "them" and not hold your own accountable for wrongdoing violence and non peaceful acts like illegal invasions and such.

--I suppose that would be easy, but I'll never know because I choose not to do it.

I'm pretty sure you knew exactly what I meant....

--If I did then I wouldn't have had to ask.

either that or once again I've given you way too much credit, which, could perhaps be the case.....

--It's not.

After all you are the one struggling with the definition of gay.....

--I'm struggling? Two days ago I asked if anyone knew the legal definition and no one has yet been able to find it. I'd say we're all struggling.

A good rule of thumb would be-people whose own religions are a glass house(and I can't think of a religion that isn't)shouldn't cast stones in an attempt to put themself on a higher plain....

--Splendid rule of thumb.

[JC]

Sure Mornac,whatever....

 What is your point to the religion of peace nonsense in regards to islam unless you have a dog of your own in this hunt-that dog being your own religion/ideology? Cherry picking articles like that and posting them is exceptionalism without accountability. You can disagree but I am certain your religion whatever you proclaim yourself to be today - is no more of a religion of peace that what you criticize by posting up in this thread.

[Mornac]

Criticize? Show me where I posted a single word of criticism. In fact show me where I posted any commentary at all. Every story on this thread appears in its original, unedited form and they are all from recognised secular news sources. If you have a problem with any of them, perhaps you shoud get in touch with the coresponding editor(s).

[JC]

Mornac, you know better.....it is fair to say you are criticizing simply by posting these stories and articles under a title that has the words religion of peace in quotation marks. You certainly are not promoting them(islam) as a religion of peace when you do that. Quite the opposite. Couple that with the fact that you are doing so in an opinion and discussion forum.
Posting the articles with the content and stories of violence under a title with the quotation marks around religion of peace IS your commentary and criticism.

  Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you are not painting them(islam) in a positive light.I am not a sympathizer or apologist or supporter for the Muslim faith or any other for that matter. I am simply pointing out the hipocracy of those who will denegrate one religion as a way to bolster their own. I believe that is what you do when you practice what you do in this thread. And to try to distance yourself doing your best Alfred E. Newmann (who,what?....Me?) may work on others. You may not be editorializing in a large number of words, but your message is clear and not lost on me. And you cannot sidestep away from it. You post what you do to convey a message. You own this commentary and criticism. Call it passive aggressive, call it what you will, but you ARE editorializing and endorsing these articles when you post them in a thread titled:  "Religion of Peace" update. 

[Mornac]

Mornac, you know better...

--Thank you JC.

 

..it is fair to say you are criticizing simply by posting these stories and articles under a title that has the words religion of peace in quotation marks.

--The stories all concern the religion which is refereed to as "religion of peace" by its adherents. If I were being derogatory, I would have called it something derogatory such as "Religion Of Terror". I have not.

 

You certainly are not promoting them(islam) as a religion of peace when you do that.

--It is not my intent to promote them at all. Why would I be doing something like that?

 

Quite the opposite.

 

--I am neither promoting nor disparaging them.
 

Couple that with the fact that you are doing so in an opinion and discussion forum.

--These are current events with a theological underpinning. You're free to discuss them if you like. As a matter of fact, it strikes me that we're doing that right now.

 

Posting the articles with the content and stories of violence under a title with the quotation marks around religion of peace IS your commentary and criticism.

 

--In that case, I'll remove the quotation marks.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you are not painting them(islam) in a positive light.

--You're wrong. I'm not painting them in any light. I'm just posting stories surrounding their activities. I didn't write the stories, but they seem to me to be doing nothing more than reporting facts. If you believe that they are in any way slandering people of the religion of peace, then by all means register a complaint with the editors of the news sources.

 

I am not a sympathizer or apologist or supporter for the Muslim faith or any other for that matter.

--Noted.

I am simply pointing out the hipocracy of those who will denegrate one religion as a way to bolster their own.

--I wouldn't see any hypocrisy in that if they felt their religion embodied the truth and that the religion they were denigrating was hazardous to the souls of its practitioners. Actually, I would see that more as an act motivated by charity.

 

I believe that is what you do when you practice what you do in this thread.

--I'm not practicing anything in this thread. Heretofore I have been the silent courier of news stories about events taking place in the world of Islam.

 

And to try to distance yourself doing your best Alfred E. Newmann (who,what?....Me?) may work on others.

--I haven't distanced myself from anything.

 

You may not be editorializing in a large number of words, but your message is clear and not lost on me.

--I am not editorializing in any number of words. If your getting a message, the only place you could possibly be getting it from is the text of the news stories I've posted here.

 

And you cannot sidestep away from it.

--I'm not going anywhere. I'm sitting here answering all of your questions like I always do. (Not that I expect to ever be reciprocated in a like manner. Some of you people have a lot to learn about courtesy).
 

You post what you do to convey a message.

--Any message is in the eyes and ears of those reading the stories and then it can only come from writers who, willfully or otherwise, try to convey something above and beyond the facts. I haven't seen any of that myself but again, if you perceive it you should avail yourself of the e-mail addresses on the corresponding sites in order to make your discontent known to the proper editors.

You own this commentary and criticism.

--I have made no commentary nor criticism. If you feel I have, then just copy and paste my words here and I'll have a look.

 

Call it passive aggressive, call it what you will, but you ARE editorializing and endorsing these articles when you post them in a thread titled:  "Religion of Peace" update.

--I call it passing on stories in the news.

 

[Mornac]

01/28/2010 15:46

PHILIPPINES – SAUDI ARABIA
Christian Filipino migrants forced to convert to Islam

Santosh Digal

A Filipino nurse with ten years in Saudi Arabia talks about the dramatic situation of Christian workers, forced to embrace Islam just to keep their job. Despite abuses and violence, migrants still choose the Middle East because of the availability of work.

Manila (AsiaNews) – “In my tens in Saudi Arabia, I have witnessed several Catholic or Christian Filipino migrants accept Islam under duress,” said Joselyn Cabrera, a Filipino Catholic nurse working at Riyadh hospital. Because of high unemployment levels in the Philippines, more than ten million Filipinos have left to seek jobs abroad. Every day, about 3,000 leave the country. Recently, a majority has gone to Arab countries—some 600,000 in all, 200,000 in Saudi Arabia alone.

“After some months, employers give you an ultimatum, telling you to become Muslim to keep your job,” she said. “For us, it is hard to make such a choice, but if we don’t, we become the victims of abuse.”

In her years in the kingdom, she said she saw at least 50 forced conversions at work.

“Even I have been subjected to pressures from my Muslim co-workers, but I have always refused saying that I’d rather remain Catholic. Until now, nothing has happened to me, yet.”

According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Filipino emigration towards the Middle East has grown by 29.5 per cent between 2007 and 2008, a destination of choice for many migrants, and this despite horrible working conditions that include the possibility of forced conversion and sexual abuse in the case of women.

The most recent case involves a woman who was raped at work. Because of the incident, Saudi authorities accused her of unlawful extramarital sex and on 11 September jailed her in the capital.

As a result of the rape, she became pregnant, but miscarried because of harsh conditions in the prison.

Next month, she is scheduled to appear before a court, which could sentenced her to 100 lashes.

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Christian-Filipino-migrants-forced-to-convert-to-Islam-17478.html#

[Mornac]

[Mornac]

The Silent Spectre of Religious Cleansing

Christian persecution is certainly nothing new. The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, where they are routinely victims of murder, violence, and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted religious group around the world. To say that in recent months and years the number of attacks on Christians — their homes, churches, convents, schools, and orphanages — in certain parts of the world is alarming would be an understatement.

In some cases the incidents were politically motivated. In Iraq, the weeks leading up to the March 7 general elections were marked by a spate of anti-Christian attacks. Bombings and shootings were recorded almost daily in the northern city of Mosul, home to the longstanding struggle for territory and power between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The minority Christians' vote was thought to be the primary motivating factor in this particular case. The United Nations reported that more than 680 Christian families have fled Mosul due to the recent attacks. Nevertheless, the persecution of Iraqi Christians is more often religiously motivated. The general message to Christians: Leave Mosul or convert to Islam. In fact, in recent years most Christian families have left Mosul and live as refugees in other parts of the country or in Syria.

Elsewhere, as in Iraq, politics is seldom the primary motivating factor. Typically, we're talking about religious persecution in predominantly Muslim countries. Anti-Christian violence in Pakistan makes headlines every week — at least in the Asian press. Last year, for example, 125 Christians were charged with "blasphemy" in Pakistan. Many of those already sentenced are on death row. Their only crime: Saying or doing something perceived to be an insult to Islam. In March, a Christian couple was sentenced to 25 years in prison under the blasphemy law for allegedly touching the Koran without first washing their hands (AsiaNews.it, Mar. 3), a dubious charge that the Catholic Church in Pakistan disputes.

Aside from state-sanctioned anti-Christian persecution, anti-Christian hate crimes often go unpunished. In late February, for example, 150 Muslims stormed the streets of Karachi, attacking Christian churches, shops, and homes in the city's only predominantly Christian neighborhood. The result: Forty Christians were accused groundlessly of beating Muslim men, abusing Muslim women and girls, and ransacking and looting Muslim homes. Many of these innocent Christians were arrested for one reason alone: to intimidate the Christian community. Also in February, Pakistani Christians protested the release of a Muslim lawyer accused of raping, torturing, and killing a 12-year-old Catholic girl employed in his household as a domestic worker. Such cases in Pakistan are de rigueur.

They are also de rigueur throughout the Muslim world. Consider that, during the week of anti-Christian violence in Pakistan, a Muslim mob burned down two churches, a clinic, shops, and a mayor's house in Liberia; and in Nigeria, a Muslim mob burned down eight churches. Yes, all in the same week! But in Nigeria the Muslim mischief was merely a prelude to wholesale slaughter. On Sunday, March 7, machete-wielding Muslims attacked Christians in three Nigerian villages, hacking to death at least 500 Christians — a massacre.

In Malaysia, where 60 percent of the population is Muslim, the so-called Allah controversy has escalated to absurd proportions. The facts in the case almost defy belief. Malay Muslims, who claim "Allah" — both the word and the God — for themselves, fear that if Christians are allowed to refer to God as "Allah," it will lead Muslims astray. Since Malay Christians don't have another word for God, the High Court decided to allow them to use the word "Allah" to define God. Malay Muslims were not happy. Imams (Islamic religious leaders) spoke out virulently against the December 31, 2009, decision, and a wave of anti-Christian violence ensued. Eleven churches, many of them Catholic, were attacked with stones or fire-bombed. To make matters worse, Prime Minister Najib Razak, a Muslim, hinted that the perpetrators would not be called to account. The Malay government supports the Islamic groups and has declared its intention to appeal the decision of the court that allows Christians to say "Allah."

In many other countries where Islam has sway over politics — Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Algeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia — Christians aren't allowed to build churches, buy Bibles, or hold certain jobs and positions. In other instances of religious discrimination in these countries, Christians are routinely blackmailed, robbed, expelled, abducted, or murdered.

Even in countries like Egypt, whose government is not hostile toward Western ways, a Christmas Eve attack last year in the southern town of Nag Hammadi left six Christians dead and nine wounded right outside a Coptic church. To compound the problem, Egyptian State Security arrested and tortured Coptic Catholics who demonstrated in the aftermath of the massacre there.

Government-tolerated persecution occurs even in Turkey, the most secular country in the Muslim world, where around 110,000 Christians make up less than a quarter of one percent of the population. Christians in Turkey, who numbered well over two million in the 19th century, at this point are simply fighting for their continued existence.

If this comes as a surprise to you, you're not alone. Anti-Christian persecution — murder, rape, arson, and other acts of terrorism in the service of Islam — is not a popular topic in Western media. First, political correctness sadly dictates that religiously motivated acts of Muslim terror go largely uncovered. Even when these incidents do make the news, they're downplayed and the religious motivations are ignored or dismissed.

The hard facts indicate that in most Muslim-dominant countries, Islam has a plan to eliminate (by jihad) or subjugate (by dhimmitude) Christianity. It's not just al-Qaeda-trained warriors out to wreak havoc on the Western economy and "way of life." It is also residents of Islamic states, members of religious sects, and sometimes supposedly pious citizens. For them, Christians are not welcome. Christianity is not tolerated. "Apostasy" from Islam is punishable by death.

As Islam continues to gain a stronghold throughout formerly Christian Europe, Muslims are bringing their anti-Christian persecutions closer to home. Cities such as London, Milan, Paris, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam are already breeding grounds for Muslim jihadists. Yes, it is true that many Muslims just want to live in peace alongside their coreligionists, but far too many are under the influence of intolerant imams and political leaders who preach death and destruction to apostates and infidels.

Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi, for example, recently called for jihad against Switzerland over the ban adopted last year on the construction of minarets in that country. "It is against unbelieving and apostate [sic] Switzerland that jihad ought to be proclaimed by all means," Kaddafi said during a speech in the Mediterranean coastal city of Bengazi to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed (Agence France Presse, Feb. 25). "Jihad against Switzerland, against Zionism, against foreign aggression is not terrorism," Kaddafi explained. "Any Muslim around the world who has dealings with Switzerland is an infidel [and is] against Islam, against Mohammed, against God, against the Koran," the leader told a crowd of thousands in a speech broadcast live on television.

That nicely sums up the jihadist attitude. Notice Kaddafi is not motivated by politics or some arcane cultural dispute. His motivation is religious: Down with all infidels! Not just infidels in Muslim countries, but so-called infidel nations and infidels in Christian nations. Down with Christianity in Europe and in the world.

But Christians, both religious and secular, in Europe are in a pickle. Their religious and political leaders often teach that it is somehow anti-Christian or politically incorrect to resist the colonization of Europe by Islam. Object to the Muslim jihadist mentality and you're labeled an Islamo­­­­-­phobe, much the same way that those who object to same-sex marriage are dubbed homo­phobes.

Take, for example, the recent case of Nicholas Kafouris, a Greek Orthodox Cypriot who was fired from his teaching job in London after complaining that some of his Muslim students openly praised Islamic extremists in class and described the 9/11 terrorists as "heroes and martyrs." According to Kafouris, other students said, "We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up," and "The Christians and Jews are our enemies — you too because you're a Christian." According to a complaint filed by Kafouris, not only did the school fail to take action against the students, the headmistress proceeded to excuse and justify the students' remarks "as if I had no right to be offended" (Daily Mail, Feb. 9).

Here then is a classic case of situational irony: Christians are routinely and violently persecuted in Islamic countries. Yet many Muslims from these same countries are invited to live as welcome immigrants in Judeo-Christian countries, where they exploit the Western political system, which guarantees them the right to free speech, well-being, and respect for religious rights, in order to ultimately impose their intolerant anti-Christian laws on that same Western society. In the words of Brigitte Bardot in her bestselling book Un cri dans le silence, "Not only does [Islam] fail to give way to our laws and customs. Quite the contrary, as time goes by it tries to impose its law on us."

It may already be too late for Europe. America, are you listening?

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/note.jsp?did=0410-notes-spectre

[ivanm]

Theres enough religious zealotry and violence occurring in our own country that is not islamic, Mornac. I think it's a bit disingenuous to make these "religion of peace" threads as if you are implying that THEY are the non peaceful ones and WE are non violent. I'm sure the argument could easily be made and some would say you belong to the gay obsessed religion....what value do you serve by offerring up these kind of bullshit threads? Christianity has it's share of idiots too, and you are only opening yourself up to criticeism when you pull this garbage.

In the case of the Saudi piece and the Iran piece the violence is coming from official sources.  Do we have an equivalent to beheading, flogging, and the like, particular by private citizens.  The article from the Phillipines against the church does not identify the source, so what is your problem anyway?