Subject: The religion of peace and mercy in action -
Love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage http://www.bbce.co.uk/handcrafted2.asp
To contact the registrant of this domain CLICK HERE MUSLIM DATING
Love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage
Muslim Dating | Indian Dating | Arabic Dating | Arab Women | Islamic Clothing | Arab Singles | Islamic Marriage | Islamic Gifts MUSLIM DATING SERVICE MUSLIM PERSONALS MUSLIM SINGLE MEN MUSLIM SINGLES MUSLIM CLOTHING MUSLIM BRIDES MUSLIM WOMEN
If faith is important to you and will be an important part of your relationship then this site will make it easy to find the right person for you.
These sites put values first and go out of their way to help Muslim singles come together and create good, strong families. A true first choice for those who date with faith! Related Topics: Islamic Books | Modern Islamic Clothing | Islamic Womens Clothing | Muslim Love | Muslim Marriage International Dating | Singles Matchmaking | Online Dating Agency | Free Dating Sites | Free Single Ads | Love Dating source: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=12865&size=A
Over the week-end Muslim fanatics target a Christian school in the capitals east side.
Police evacuate the institute to protect students.
Hundreds of police agents are now guarding it to prevent further violence. Jakarta (AsiaNews) Police evacuated the Christian Theological Arastamar Institute (STT SETIA) which is located in an eastern district of the Indonesian capital after it suffered damages during clashes between Christians and Muslims over the week-end.
At least 1,500 students were moved to nearby police headquarters and a local Christian-based political party.
The situation remains critical and further violence between opposite factions cannot be ruled out. The school foundation urged us to intervene to protect people, said East Jakarta District Police Chief Senior Superintendent.
For this reason we moved everyone out.
Last night hundreds of residents from the village of Kampung Pulo had taken up arms threatening to storm the school after being instigated by an imam at a local mosque who claimed that a bunch of Christian gangsters were coming to protect the school after it was attacked on Saturday by a Muslim mob, causing damage to the building and hurting hundreds. In an attempt to solve the problem East Jakarta District Chief Murdani held a close door meeting with the warring parties to discuss the issue.
At the same time though, he said that police would conduct a thorough investigation and check if the school’s legal status was in order and that it respected all building regulations. In case of violations he would issue orders to demolish the unlawful structures.
At present hundreds of agents are guarding the school and have orders to stop any act of violence and disarm people. The Arastamar High School for Theology and Biblical Studies, locally known as STT SETIA, was established by Rev Mathew Mangentang in 1987.
The SST SETIA has more than 29 branches school across the country.
In Jakarta alone it has thousands of students, including 265 who were injured in latest clashes. Tensions between Christians and Muslims flared up on Saturday following rumours that a SETIA student had stolen a motorcycle that belonged to a Muslim from a neighbouring village. Senny Manafe, a spokesperson for the school, rejected the accusation, claiming instead that the attacks were triggered by a trivial incident.
In an attempt to chase a mouse in the street, a student threw a slipper against a house owned by a local Muslim. Outraged by the deed, the latter kicked and punched the student as people gathered drawn by the rumour that a Christian student had tried to steal the Muslims motorbike.
Many students suffered various injuries to the head. Others were burnt by Molotov cocktails, Manafe said. The violence and charges against SETIA are the work of Risman Hadi, chairman of Muslim Brotherhood Forum of Kampung Pulo Village, who in the past opposed the opening and continued existence of the Christian institute. source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71498 More than a dozen Christians in Saudi Arabia who were accused by government officials of worshipping in their homes have been ordered deported. According to a report from International Christian Concern, the Christians will be expelled tomorrow for their part in a home worship service in Taif in April.
The deportation conflicts with the message stated just weeks earlier by Saudi King Abdullah, who called for interfaith dialogue and held a summit in Spain with a representatives from several major religions.
"Deporting Christians for worshipping in their private homes shows that King Abdullah's speech is mere rhetoric and his country is deceiving the international community about their desire for change and reconciliation," said Jeff King, the president of ICC.
The report from the Washington-based human rights group said 15 Christians will be deported. Sixteen had been arrested April 25 when a dozen Saudi Arabian police officers raided a home during a prayer meeting.
"The first officer to enter the house after breaking down the main gate pointed a pistol at the Christians and ordered them to hand over their resident permits and mobile phones," the report said.
"The other 11 police followed quickly and started searching the entire house. The confiscated an electronic drum set, an offering box with 500 Saudi Riyal in it ($130), 20 Bibles, and a few Christian books."
The worshippers initially faced accusations of preaching and singing. "They later changed the charge to holding a 'dance party' and collecting money to support terrorism," the ICC said. "During the raid, the police mocked, questioned and harassed the Christians for four hours," ICC said..
"Then they took them to a police station where the head of the station interrogated them. The head of the police then wrote down their 'statements' in Arabic and forced the Christians, who are immigrants and not able to read or write Arabic, to sign the statements."
They were released three days later, and one Christian immediately left the country.
The others returned to their work but soon got letters ordered their departures tomorrow, ICC said. "Three weeks ago, Saudi Arabia hosted an interfaith conference in Madrid, Spain. During the conference that took place from July 16-19, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called for reconciliation among various religions," ICC said. According to an International Herald Tribune report, King Abdullah's meeting drew about 200 representatives of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Taoism and other religions.
The reporter noted that the meetings had to be held outside of Saudi Arabia, because "the mere fact that rabbis would be openly invited to the kingdom, a country where in principle Jews are not permitted to visit, would have constituted a turning point."
Note: Sent to me anonymously. RH The Norwegian Islamic Council is still waiting for a reply from the European Fatwa Council before it decides whether or not it is in favour of the death penalty for homosexuality.
"Unacceptable," says lesbian Sara Asmeh Rasmussen.
Last November the Norwegian Islamic Council asked the European fatwa council what attitude it should have to homosexuals.
The fatwa council, which debates questions of Muslim faith and doctrine, had its annual meeting in Paris three weeks ago, but did not discuss the subject, according to daily newspaper Dagsavisen. "It's wrong of the Islamic Council to wait for the "verdict" from the fatwa council in such an important case.
By not saying 'no' to death penalties for gays, it shows attitudes that conflict with both democratic and humanitarian values," says Sara Azmeh Rasmussen. She is the only openly lesbian Muslim in Norway.
The head of the Norwegian Islamic Council, Senaid Kobilica, is not worried that the fatwa council will decide in favour of the death penalty.
"I'm 100 percent certain that the fatwa council will not come out in favour something which conflicts with European law. The council wasn't able to deal with the question of homosexuality this time, but it thinks that subject is quite relevant and wants to look at the matter more," says Kobilica.
The Islamic Council, which represents 60,000 Muslims in Norway, is still not willing to say whether it is for or against the death penalty for homosexuals, until the fatwa council has spoken.
"It's very important to have the European fatwa council with us in difficult matters like this. I am not in favour of the death penalty, but there are Islamic texts that various people understand differently.
This is why we need to know the attitude of the authority before we make a decision," says Kobilica. http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2573841.ece
So they have to wait to see if homosexuals should be executed, even in a non-muslim country? If they truly belonged in western countries there'd be no need to wait and there'd be a resounding 'NO'.
The fact that they can even consider it sends shivers down my spine. Daily telegraph Philippine army attacks Muslim rebels causing thousands to flee The Philippine army has launched an offensive against hundreds of Muslim rebels defying a deadline to retreat from occupied Christian villages in the south of the country.
By Kevin Doyle in Phnom Penh Last Updated: 5:02PM BST 10 Aug 2008 Up to 100,000 civilians are reported to have fled the clashes as government soldiers, backed by artillery and armoured cars, advanced on the occupied townships in North Cotabato province, 570 miles south of Manila.
Several government soldiers were reported injured and at least one killed as they attacked heavily armed members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who had failed to withdraw by Friday's 10am deadline. Rebel casualties were not yet known. The MILF has waged a 30-year guerrilla war for the establishment of a separate Islamic state in the south. It said it had ordered the 800 fighters out of the occupied villages on Saturday, but their retreat had been obstructed by a build-up of government troops and pro-government militia. Authorities said the Moro fighters broke a 2003 cease-fire by occupying the villages late last month, and then burning houses, destroying farms and driving tens of thousands of people from the predominately Catholic area. In a statement issued by the Philippine military, Brigadier General Jorge Segovia said the renewed conflict was not with the wider MILF movement, but with a "lost command" of militants who had refused to retreat and had "degenerated into a plain bandit group." "All peaceful avenues have been exhausted to resolve the conflict. We are now compelled to resort to the application of proportionate and justifiable force," he said. Provincial Governor Jesus Sacdalan was reported as saying rebels appeared to be intentionally ignoring orders from MILF commanders to withdraw.
The renewed fighting comes amid frustration among some members of the MILF after a draft peace agreement was reached with the government in late July but was then blocked by the Philippine Supreme Court.
The agreement, which would have expanded an existing autonomous Muslim region in the south of the country, was halted following protests from Christian politicians in North Cotabato. A Supreme Court hearing on issue is scheduled for this week. In a posting to its official Website Sunday, the MILF said the government could end the latest conflict by solving "the problem besetting" the signing of the agreement, which could derail a 10-year-old peace process. "Let us all pray, come to our senses and come together to help in one way or the other to resolve this crisis in order to save the peace process between the government and the MILF. God Speed," the posting added. ? _FrontPage Magazine_ (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=93B7DB29-AE78-4136-B 840-24398C9FB85B) The Assassination of Assads Top Aide By _P. David Hornik_
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=59f03c00-4031-4ea e-8b93-58def69a3fd2 ) FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, August 11, 2008
Britains Sunday Times _reports_ (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4493334.ece) that Brig.-Gen. Muhammad Suleiman, the key aide to Syrian president Bashar Assad who was assassinated last August 2, had been the one supplying Hezbollah with Russian-made SA-8 anti-aircraft missiles that threatened Israel’s air supremacy over Lebanon.
The Times cites the London-based Saudi paper Al-Sharq al-Awsat as saying Suleiman was “senior even to the defense minister and knew everything.
He had been Bashar Assads personal mentor since 1994, and after becoming prime minister in 2000 Assad appointed Suleiman as his operations officer with responsibility for protecting the regime.
The Times notes that Suleiman was killed by a single shot to the head as he sat in the garden of his summer house near the northern port city of Tartus.
Nobody heard the shot, which appears to have been fired from a speedboat by a sniper, possibly equipped with a silencer. In other words, a highly sophisticated job that seems to point to Israel.
Right after the assassination, though, with speculations swirling as to who was responsible, and some even saying it was an inside job by Assad himself because Suleiman knew too much about Assads involvement in the killing of Rafik Hariri and other Lebanese figures, it was thought that Israel wasnt a likely suspect because of Prime Minister Ehud Olmerts push for Syrian-Israeli peace talks.
The Times, though, cites Israeli sources as saying that during Assads visit to Paris last month ¦Olmert asked President Nicolas Sarkozy to tell Assad that he was crossing a red line supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, for his part, has been extremely perturbed by Syrias ongoing weapons largesse to Hezbollah and particularly the anti-aircraft missiles.
Last week Israels security cabinet got an intelligence briefing on the mounting danger. Lending further plausibility to the Sunday Times claim that Suleimans killing was intended [by Israel] as a warning to the Syrian regime is that it could fit into a picture of deep penetration of Syria by Israeli intelligence leading to successful operations.
It was last September that Israeli planes took out the North Korean-supplied Syrian nuclear reactor after intelligence, among other things, provided photos taken within the reactor itself. And it was last February that terrorist kingpin Imad Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in a clean job that claimed no other casualties.
Unlike the reactor, Israel has never taken responsibility and here, too, speculation has been rife with Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran fingered for various internecine motives while Hezbollah itself has blamed Israel and sworn revenge.
Bolstering the possibility that Israel is behind all three strikes is the known capability, hawkishness, and closeness to Olmert of Mossad chief Meir Dagan, whose tenure Olmert extended in June in a move that some saw as signaling Israeli plans to attack Irans nuclear program. Dagans fierce opposition to Israels terrorists-for-corpses prisoner swap with Hezbollah last July also apparently caused Olmert to have misgivings about the deal before finally deciding to go through with it. Enhanced Israeli assertiveness toward the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis could only encourage those who are concerned about the decline in Israels deterrence and rational functioning as seen recently in the 2005 disengagement that turned Gaza into a bristling Hamastan, the failed 2006 war against Hezbollah, the passivity before the continuing Hamas and Hezbollah buildups, and last months prisoner-swap debacle.
It remains to be seen whether Baraks”and possibly Olmerts exasperation with Syria signals the beginnings of a readjustment to Middle Eastern reality coupled with a willingness to use Israels great capabilities effectively against its foes. daily telegraph Al-Qa'eda in Iraq alienated by cucumber laws and brutality Al-Qa'eda is losing support in Iraq because of a brutal crackdown on activities it regards as un-Islamic - including women buying cucumbers. Last Updated: 8:30PM BST 11 Aug 2008 An Iraqi woman buys some food at a market in Baghdad Photo: EPA Besides the terrible killings inflicted by the fanatics on those who refuse to pledge allegiance to them, Al-Qa'eda has lost credibility for enforcing a series of rules imposing their way of thought on the most mundane aspects of everyday life.
They include a ban on women buying suggestively-shaped vegetables, according to one tribal leader in the western province of Anbar. Sheikh Hameed al-Hayyes, a Sunni elder, told Reuters: "They even killed female goats because their private parts were not covered and their tails were pointed upward, which they said was haram.
"They regarded the cucumber as male and tomato as female. Women were not allowed to buy cucumbers, only men."
Other farcical stipulations include an edict not to buy or sell ice-cream, because it did not exist in the time of the Prophet, while hair salons and shops selling cosmetics have also been bombed. Most seriously, Sheikh al-Hayyes said: "I saw them slaughter a nine-year old boy like a sheep because his family didn't pledge allegiance to them."
Such tactics have triggered a backlash among Sunnis, whom Al-Q'aeda had claimed to be protecting, the sheikh and military leaders said. Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Albers, an American intelligence officer, told the news agency: "Al-Qa'eda's very heavy-handed killing of civilians backfired on them.
The Sunnis just wouldn't stand for it any more. "The self-described protectors of the Sunni community now kill more Iraqi Sunnis than anyone else." ?? _FrontPage Magazine_ (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D4144588-F5FE-4A46-9 4D6-7C5DF000C0C3) Son of Hamas Leader Turns Back on Islam By _Jonathan Hunt_ (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=5b8ff11a-0925-445 b-aeb0-30c2b403b4d7 ) Fox News | Thursday, August 14, 2008 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#) Mosab Hassan Yousef is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary story.
He was born the son of one of the most influential leaders of the militant Hamas organization in the West Bank and grew up in a strict Islamic family.
Now, at 30 years old, he attends an evangelical Christian church, Barabbas Road in San Diego, Calif. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and is seeking asylum in the United States. The story of how his life unfolded is truly amazing, whether you agree or disagree with his views. Below is a transcript on an exclusive FOX News interview with Hassan as he tells firsthand how a West Bank Muslim became a West Coast Christian. • _Click here to view video of Mosab Hassan Yousef speaking out._ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#) • _Click here to view video 'Renouncing Islam.'_ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#)
JONATHAN HUNT: Why, after 25 years, did you change?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I believe that all those walls that _Islam_ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#) built for the last 1,400 years are not existing (sic) anymore.
They don't recognize this. They built those walls and made people ignorant because they're afraid. They didn't want people to discuss anything about the reality of Islam, about the big questions of Islam and they asked their followers, the Muslims, 'Don't ask about those certain questions.' But now, people have media.
If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she's going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it's very, very available for everybody to study about Islam, about other religions.
Not from the Islam point of view, but from other points of view. So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Muslim and the Arab world.
JONATHAN HUNT: You speak from a unique perspective, a man who grew up not just in an Islamic family but as part of an organization seen by many people around the world as an extreme force in Islam: _Hamas_ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#) . What is the reality of Islam? You say people don't see the reality; What is the reality of Islam?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There are two facts that Muslims don't understand ... I'd say about more than 95 percent of Muslims don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion. Second, they don't understand anything about other religions. Christian communities live between Muslims and they're minority and they (would) rather not to go speak out and tell people about Jesus because it's dangerous for them. So, all their ideas about other religions on earth are from Islamic perspectives. So those two realities, most people don't understand.
If people, if Muslims, start to understand their religion first of all, their religion and see how awful stuff is in there, they'll start to figure out, this can't (be) ... because most religious people focus on certain points of Islam.
They have many points that they are very embarrassed to talk about.
JONATHAN HUNT: Such as?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Such as Muhammad's wives. You will never go to a mosque and hear about anyone talking about Muhammad's wives, which is like more than 50 wives — and nobody knows (this), by the way.
If you ask the majority of Muslims, they will not know this fact. So they're embarrassed to talk about this, but they talk about the glory of Islam, they talk about the victory, the victories that Muhammad made.
So, when people just like look at themselves and see they're defeated, they have ignorance, they're not educated, they're not leading the world as they're expected to do. They re think they want to get back to that victory by doing the same, what Muhammad did, but disregarding (sic) the timing. They forget that this happened 1,400 years ago and it's not going to happen again. JONATHAN HUNT: Do they want to destroy Christianity?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Islam destroyed Christianity from the beginning and Muslims don't recognize that they stabbed Christianity (in) its heart when they said that Jesus wasn't killed on the cross. They think that they honor him in this way. Basically, any Christians understand that this way, (but Muslims) tell Jesus, okay, we don't care, you didn't die for us. Someone sacrificed his life for you, (but) you tell him, okay, you didn't do it!
This is what Muslims are doing basically. But they don't understand that this is the most important part of Christianity: the cross!
So, they are ignorant, they don't know what they are doing and it explains what an evil idea it is behind this Islam.
JONATHAN HUNT: What specific event or events began to change your mind about Islam? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Since I was a child I started to ask very difficult questions, even my family was telling me all the time, 'You're a very difficult person and we were having trouble answering your questions. Why are you asking so many questions?' This was from the beginning, to be honest with you.
But I felt that everybody and my father was a good example for me because he was a very honest, humble person, very nice to my mother, to us, and raised us on the principle of forgiveness, okay?
I thought that everybody in Islam was like this. When I was 18 years old, and I was arrested by the Israelis and was in an Israeli jail under the Israeli administration, Hamas had control of its members inside the jail and I saw their torture; (they were) torturing people in a very, very bad way.
JONATHAN HUNT: Hamas members torturing other Hamas members?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Hamas leaders! Hamas leaders that we see on TV now, and big leaders, responsible for torturing their own members.
They didn't torture me, but that was a shock for me, to see them torturing people: putting needles under their nails, burning their bodies. And they killed lots of them.
JONATHAN HUNT: Why were they torturing people?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Because they suspected that they had relations with the Israelis and (were) co-operating with the Israeli occupation against Hamas ... So hundreds of people were victims for this, and I was a witness for about a year for this torture. So that was a huge change in my life.
I started to open my (eyes), but, the point (is) that I got that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. Good Muslims, such as my father, and bad Muslims, like those Hamas members in the jail torturing people. So that was the beginning of opening my eyes wide.
JONATHAN HUNT: You talk about the good Muslims, like your father, yet you still now renounce the faith of your father. Could you have not been a good Muslim?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Now, here's the reality: after I studied Christianity which I had a big misunderstanding about, because I studied about Christianity from Islam, which is, there is nothing true about Christianity when you study it from Islam, and that was the only source.
When I studied the Bible carefully verse by verse, I made sure that that was the book of God, the word of God for sure, so I started to see things in a different way, which was difficult for me, to say Islam is wrong. Islam is my father. I grew up for (one) father 22 years for that father and another father came to me and told me, 'I'm sorry, I'm your father.'
And I was like, 'What are you talking about? Like, I have my own father, and it's Islam!' And the father of Christianity told me, 'No, I'm your father. I was in jail, and this (Islam) is not your father.'
So basically this is what happened. It's not easy to believe this (Islam) is not your father anymore.
So I had to study Islam again from a different point of view to figure out all the mistakes, the huge mistakes and its effects, not only on Muslims (of) which I hated the values ... I didn't like all those traditions that make people's lives more difficult but its effects also on humanity.
On humanity! People killing each other (in) the name of God. So definitely I started to figure out the problem is Islam, not the Muslims and those people I can't hate them because God loved them from the beginning. And God doesn't create junk. God created good people that he loved, but they're sick, they have the wrong idea. I don't hate those people anymore but I feel very sorry for them and the only way for them to be changed (is) by knowing the word of God and the real way to him.
JONATHAN HUNT: Does it worry you that in saying these things and given your background and your words carrying extra weight — there is a danger that you will increase the difficulties, the hatred between Christians and Muslims in the world right now?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: This could happen if a Christian person will go talk to them about the reality of Islam. They put Christians on the enemy list anyway, before you talk to them about Islam. So if you go to them and tell them, as a Christian, they will be offended immediately and they will hate you and this will definitely increase the vacuum between both religions but what made someone like me change? Years ago, years ago, when I was there, God opened my eyes, my mind also, and I became a completely different person. So now, I can do this duty, while you as Christians can help me do it, but maybe you wouldn't be able to. (Muslims) have no excuse now.
JONATHAN HUNT: How difficult a process has this been for you to effectively walk away from your family, leave your home behind? How difficult is that?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Taking your skin off your bones, that's what happened. I love my family, they love me. And my little brothers, they’re like my sons. I raised them. Basically, it was the biggest decision in my life. I left everything behind me, not only family. When you decide to convert to Christianity or any other religion from Islam, it's not (enough) to just say goodbye and leave, you know? It's not like that. You're saying goodbye to culture, civilization, traditions, society, family, religion, God what you thought was God for so many years! So it's not easy. It's very complicated. People think it's that easy, like it doesn't matter. Now I'm here in the U.S. and I got my freedom and it's great, but at the same time, nothing is like family, you know. To lose your family
JONATHAN HUNT: Have you lost your family?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My family is educated and it was very difficult for them. They asked me many times, especially for the first two days, to keep my faith to myself and not go to the media and announce it. But for me it was a duty from God to announce his name and praise him (around) the world because my reward is going to be that he's going to do the same for me. So I did it, basically, as a duty. I (wonder) how many people can do what I can do today? I didn't find any. So, I had to be strong about that. That was very challenging. That was the most difficult decision in my life and I didn't do it for fun. I didn't do it for anything from this world. I did it only for one reason: I believed in it. People are suffering every day because of wrong ideas. I can help them get out of this endless circle ... the track the devil (laid) for them. JONATHAN HUNT: Have you spoken to your father recently?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance to communicate with my father because he's in jail now and there is (sic) no phones in the jail to communicate with him.
JONATHAN HUNT: Have other members of your family told you how he's reacted?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They've visited him from time to time. Till this moment, I don't know his reaction exactly but I'm sure he's very sad (over) a decision like this. But at the same time, he's going to understand, because he knows me and he knows that I don't make any decisions without (believing strongly in them).
JONATHAN HUNT: Is it making his life more difficult among fellow Hamas members?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. My family, including my father, had to carry this cross with me. It wasn't their choice. It was my choice, but they had to carry this cross with me and I ask God I pray for (my father), all my brothers and my sisters here in this church, praying all the time for them — 'God, open their eyes, their minds, to come to Christ. And bless them because they had to carry this cross with me.'
JONATHAN HUNT: Tell me about Hamas and the way it works. Is Hamas a purely Islamic religious organization as you see it, and that's where, in your eyes, its faults lie, or are there other parts of it which are a problem for you? Or is Hamas a good organization? What is Hamas to you?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: If we talk about people, there are good people everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, good people that God created. Do they do their own things? Yes, they do their own things. I know people who support Hamas but they never got involved in terrorist attacks, for example ... They follow Hamas because they love God and they think that Hamas represents God. They dont have knowledge, they don't know the real God and they never studied Christianity. But Hamas, as representative for Islam, it's a big problem. The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea, as an idea. And about Hamas as an organization, of course, the Hamas leadership, including my father, they're responsible; they're responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization. I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against _Israel_ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#) , (for) which there was the killing of many civilians.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe Israel blameless in the conflict?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Occupation is bad. I can't say Israel I'm not against any nation. We can't say Israelis, we can't say Palestinians, we're talking about ideas. Israel has the right to defend itself, nobody can (argue) against this. But sometimes they use (too much) aggression against civilians. Sometimes many civilians were killed because those soldiers weren't responsible enough, how they treat people at the checkpoints. My message even to the Israeli soldiers: at least treat people in a good way at the checkpoints. You don't have to look really bad and it's not about nations, it's about just wrong ideas on both sides and the only way for two nations really to get out of the endless circle is to know the principles that Jesus brought to this earth: grace, love, forgiveness. Without this, they will never be able to move on, or break this endless circle.
JONATHAN HUNT: You've seen your father jailed, you've been in prison yourself. You've seen Hamas carry out acts of terror against Israelis, and yet you say everybody needs to rise above that?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. This is the only choice. Nobody has magic power to do something for the _Middle East_ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402483,00.html#) . No one. You can ask any politician here in the U.S., you can ask any Palestinian politician or Arab politician, Israeli leaders; no one, no one can do anything. Even if they believe in peace now: they're part of the game. They're part of the trick. They can't, even if you find a brave person, like Rabin, who was called by an Israeli to make peace with the Palestinians and give them a state, no one, even if you find a strong leader, they can't do this. You can't force an independent country to give another country independence. (Especially when) the other country wants to destroy it. Everybody is hurt. Israeli soldiers, they lost their friends. Palestinians, they lost their children, their fathers. (There are) many people in prison still, and many people were killed. Thousands. So everybody will never forget this. If they want to keep looking to the past, they will never get out of this circle. The only way to start (is just by) moving on. They were born under the occupation as Palestinians. The last two generations, it's not their choice. The new generations from Israel — if we say disregarding the existence of Israel is right or wrong, what's the guilt of those people who were born in Israel and they have no other country to go to? It's their country now, that's how they see it. And they are going to keep their resistance and defense against whomever. (They will) say, 'Get out of this land!' So the only way is for both nations to start to understand the grace, love and forgiveness of God, to be able to get out of this.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe that Israel can ever strike a peace deal with Hamas? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There is no chance. Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water? There is no chance. Hamas can play politics for 10 years, 15 years; but ask any one of Hamas' leaders, 'Okay, what's going to happen after that? Are you just going to live and co-exist with Israel forever?' The answer is going to be no ... unless they want to do something against the Koran. But it's their ideology and they can't just say 'We're not going to do it.' So there is no chance. It's not about Israel, it's not about Hamas: it's about both ideologies. There is no chance.
JONATHAN HUNT: Aren't you terrified that somebody is going to try to kill you for saying these things which would be approved of according to parts of the Koran?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: They got to kill my ideas first, (and) that's it, they're already out. So how are they going to kill my idea? How are they going to kill the opinions that I have? ... They can kill my body, but they can't kill my soul.
JONATHAN HUNT: You're not afraid?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: As a human, you know, I can be very brave now, I'm not thinking about it at this moment and I feel that God is on my side. But if this will be the challenge, I ask God to give me enough strength.
JONATHAN HUNT: Have you been threatened?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: No, not really. Honestly, most Muslims and Muslim leaders here in the U.S. community, European communities, they are trying to get ahold of me. They are calling my famiily, my mother, and asking for my contacts. They are telling her, 'We want to help him.' JONATHAN HUNT: They think you need help?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Yeah, they think that Christians took advantage of me, and this is completely wrong. I've been a Christian for a long time before they knew, or anyone knew. I love Jesus, I followed him for many years now. It wasn't a secret for most of the time, and this time I just did it to glorify the name of God and praise him. They're not dealing with a regular Muslim. They know that I'm educated, they know that I studied, they know that I studied Islam and Christianity. When I made my decision, I didn't make it because someone did magic on me or convinced me. It was completely my decision.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you miss Ramallah?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Definitely. You've been there and you know how a wonderful country (it is). Very, very beautiful. It's a very small spot and it has everything — this is why people are fighting for that piece of land. I definitely miss Ramallah. Jereusalem. The Old City. JONATHAN HUNT: Do you believe you will ever be able to go back?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I think I belong to that land, and sooner or later I'm going to go back, no matter what. If they want to kill me, they (will) do whatever they want to do. I have a family there, they love me, they completely support me now with my decisions. Maybe they don't want me to talk to the media but they believe that I made a decision that I completely believe in. So they support me, so I love my family. I'm going to go back there again one day. I love my town.
JONATHAN HUNT: Do you think you'll ever go back to a Middle East living in peace?
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: There will be a 100-person peace when Jesus comes back, when he judges everybody. His kingdom's going to be 1,000 years and it's going to be completely peaceful and it's going to be the kingdom of God.
JONATHAN HUNT: What is your basic message to any Muslim listening to this right now? MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: My message to them is, first of all, to open their minds. They were born to Muslim families — this is how they got Islam and this is just like ... any other religion, like growing up (in) a Christian family, or growing up (in) a Jewish family.
So my point is that I want those people to open their eyes, their minds, to start to understand and imagine that they weren't born for a Muslim famiily. And use their minds. Why did God give them minds? Open their hearts. Read the Bible. Study their religion. I want to open the gate for them, I want them to be free.
They will find a good life on earth just by following God and they're also going to guarantee the other life. daily telegraph Al-Qa'eda suicide bombing kills 43 in Algeria
A suicide bombing at a military college in Algeria has killed at least 43 people and injured dozens more.
By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi Last Updated: 5:12PM BST 19 Aug 2008
The bombing was the deadliest terrorist strike in the country in two years and bore the hallmarks of earlier attacks by al-Qa'eda in the Islamic Maghreb, a resurgent North African affiliate of the international Islamist network, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The midmorning attack took place at a gendarmerie training school in Issers, 35 miles east of Algiers, the capital, where dozens of teenagers were queuing to sign up for an entrance exam. Emergency services were working to free survivors from the wreckage, but that the death toll was likely to rise, the country's interior ministry said. It is the latest in a series of bombings which have killed more than 200 people in Algeria in the last 18 months and raises fears that al-Qaeda's North African wing is launching a new offensive.
It has in the past kidnapped European tourists.
"This is the biggest attack I've seen here for some time, and you have to worry that it points in the direction of the start of something serious," a Western diplomat in Algiers said. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb grew out of earlier Algerian terror cells including the feared Groupe Islamique Armee which murdered thousands of civilians in the 1990s.
It was a small and largely unknown entity until it joined forces with al-Qaeda in September 2006, boasting of a joint war on French and American interests across North Africa, a region known to Muslims as the Maghreb.
Now, however, it has been accused of opening terror training camps deep in the Sahara, of kidnapping tourists and of recruiting Islamist fighters from as far away as Senegal and Niger.
The group is suspected or known to have carried out at least 14 attacks across Algeria since February last year. Until today, the deadliest was a double blast at strategic United Nations offices in Algiers, which killed 41 people including 17 UN staff.
Recent attacks in the past fortnight suggest that the insurgents are stepping up their offensive against the government.
A suicide car bombing killed at least six civilians in Zemmouri, also east of Algiers, on Aug 10 in an attack on a coast guard barracks and an adjacent post of the gendarmerie. The government said the attack may have been retaliation for an army ambush that killed 12 rebels in mountainous Kabylie region during the night of August 7 to 8. ?? _FrontPage Magazine_ (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8837931D-7682-4A0C-8 401-FAFF2A8519DC) Slave Brides By _Phyllis Chesler_
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=c5e19ddd-698b-40c f-af32-5aabbdb67995) Chesler Chronicles - pajamasmedia.com | Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Shaikha, a 16-year-old _Saudi girl_ (http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/08/17/55012.html) ,
drank bleach in an attempt to kill herself because her father was forcing her to marry a 75-year-old man.
And why?
So that Shaikhas father could himself marry the elderly mans 13-year-old daughter! Shaikha begged and pleaded not to be forced into this marriage even her mother supported her plea; all to no avail.
While such normalized atrocities continue in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world, Random House cancels the publication of a novel, The Jewel of Medina, based on the life of Aisha, the prophet Mohammeds beloved wife whom he married when she was either six or seven years-old.
The marriage was presumably consummated when Aisha was nine-years-old.
Can there possibly be a connection between what Mohammed did and what other Muslim men do? Is the mere suggestion heretical? Is telling the truth about Mohammed heretical?
According to the article in Al-Arabiya, Shaikha might have some redress since, according to Shariah law, both parties have to consent to the marriage or the marriage may be considered “null and void
And, a Pakistani mother and son unit in England imported a slave bride_ (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1046541/Facing-jail-Violent-husb and-beat-Muslim-slave-bride-day-arranged-marriage.html) from Pakistan whom the son, egged on by his mother,†violently beat and tormented daily.
(Oedipus and Jocasta can hold a candle to this merged pair).
Their fiendish plan was to turn the first wife into the familys slave and to procure a second wife with whom to have children. The man, Haroon Ahktar, violently beat 20 year-old Sania Bibi twice a day, sometimes more. She was forced to work 17 hours a day.
Her mother-in-law, Zafia Bibi, kept threatening to have her shot in the head
A sister-in-law threatened to have her put in an asylum and given electric shocks Haroon Ahktar threw her down the stairs, smashed her into windows, dragged her by the hair, cursed her constantly.
According to Tamara Cohen in the Daily Mail: (Ahktar) said You are not good enough for me and he would get married a second time and he would have children through his second marriage and I would have to take care of these children.
The jury of seven men and five women heard that when the teenager arrived in the UK her clothes and shoes and jewelry were immediately taken from her by her mother-in-law. She was forced to wear pajamas for her housework, and banned from answering the door, or using the telephone.
When Sania Bibi escaped and went to relatives for refuge, they turned their back on her. They told her that family honor demanded that she stay with her husbands family.
Miraculously, Ahktar was convicted of five counts of bodily harm. No matter what the sentence turns out to be, the fact that a trial took place and that a conviction was obtained constitutes a powerful triumph of western law over such normalized barbarism. I hope that the British police understand that Sania Bibi is a marked woman who may need permanent round the clock protection. More: I hope that publishers in the West understand that documenting such truths is crucial.
NEWSFLASH! My esteemed colleague, _Dr. Andrew Bostom_ (http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2008/08/08/romanticized-pedophilia-and- polygamy/) , points out that the Jones novel may actually glorify Mohammeds pedophilia.
However, I do not think that is the reason for the Random House cancellation.
Publishers do not routinely cancel novels because they glorify cruelty towards women and children or because they are poorly written; on the contrary, such novels often sell very well.
If you go to the Bostom website you may read the Prologue to this novel. _FrontPage Magazine_ (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6A8C0D52-478E-4265-A 613-0DA902D8B173) Chasing a Mirage By _David Solway_ (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=7a24074e-e5a5-49b e-9f5f-2c5c5ed1c17d) FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, August 20, 2008 Tarek Fatah’s _Chasing a Mirage:
The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State_ (http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Mirage-Tragic-lllusion-Islamic/dp/0470841168) is in many respects a courageous and edifying book whose bracing opposition to Left-liberal woolly-mindedness and the totalitarian mindset of political Islam is to be applauded.
A member of the intellectual vanguard known as progressive Muslims, Fatah's vigorous objection to the nuptials which a blinkered and opportunistic Left has celebrated with a sly Islamist aggressor whose purposes it has failed to understand is apt. He is perfectly correct when he warns that we must be wary of segments of the non-Muslim community in the West, especially the guilt-ridden Left that comes out in support of sharia¦ under the garb of diversity. Fatah wants us to realize before it is too late that the liberal-left custodians of fair play and equity are being taken to the cleaners by the mosque establishment and the soi-disant Islamic civil rights organizations.
But the real strength of the book resides in its stout opposition to the wholesale takeover of Islam by feuding warlords, the devastation it has wreaked among its own peoples, the intrinsic conviction of the supremacy of Arab over non-Arab Muslims, and the duplicity of current Muslim leaders consolingly affirming that jihad is only a peaceful, interior struggle of the soul when it is, in effect, a many-pronged war against liberal democracy.
Fatah takes the measure of the Muslim Brotherhood and its covert operation to infiltrate the Western public space how it has become impressively adroit at gaming the system and camouflaging its real purposes beneath pluralistic rhetoric and the cultural shibboleths du jour. All this, Fatah regards as a clear and present danger to the way of life we lazily take for granted. It is also, in his estimation, a betrayal of the true spirit of Islam as is the Islamist dream that repudiates this world for either a fictitious past or the promissory notes of paradise in the hereafter.
Yet the book is not without its flaws, and there are many. As much as Fatah is to be admired for the principled stand he has taken against the so-called Islamist project and his laudable attempt to prick the bubble of Western naivety, his defense of an authentic Islam and his attempt to launder the Koran is part of a growing movement of rehabilitation founded more in desire than in fact.
In the current ideological climate, those who adopt a jaundiced or skeptical view of Islam are often castigated as unfair, biased or even Islamophobic.
This is especially the case when it involves criticism of the Koran or many of its decrees, which is really the heart of the issue. One possible response from the Muslim community or its ostensible defenders is naked violence. Another is the recourse to what has been called “legal jihad or lawfare, the attempt to muzzle adverse commentary through the medium of the courts. And a third reaction perhaps the most effective in the long term is a presumably reasonable and balanced approach to sort out the intricacies of the Faith with the intent of demonstrating its inherently peaceful and beneficent nature, as based upon the Koran. This third option is Fatahs strategy. For example, when Fatah writes that Muhammad would have wept to see how his message was misused to consolidate power and subjugate the people, he prettifies the image of the historical Mohammed, transforming him into a kind of benign movie hero, as in Moustapha Akkads The Message or Richard Richs animated Muhammed: The Last Prophet. At the same time, he blurs the dynamic thrust of an unabrogated Holy Book and an armigerous scriptural tradition.
He produces the same effect in discussing the celebrated Treaty of Hudabiyya of 628 C.E., which stipulated a truce period of ten years but was broken by Mohammed in 630; this resonant episode, which forms the basis of much Islamic jurisprudence regarding the supposed sanctity of treaties, is subtly desubjectivized as the Treaty held only for two years.
Apart from acquitting the Prophet, Fatah does not tell us that the Mohammedan precedent gave rise to the doctrine of Mukawama, or perpetual war, which permits Muslims to sign ceasefires with their enemies in order to attack when they determine the time is ripe. And Fatah goes on by writing of the women newly empowered by the message of Islam.
Koran 4:34 asserts the superiority of men over women and the right to administer punishment to fractious wives—the Arabic word used in this passage, idribuhunna, derived from daraba, is variously translated as beat, hit, strike,Flog. (Abdullah Yusuf Ali tries to soften the blow in his recent Amana translation of the Koran, opting for Spank (lightly), and Laleh Bakhtiar in her The Sublime Quran, mentioned favorably by Fatah, decides for to go away from, substitutions that have been dismissed by many respectable scholars.)
The many verses specifying the inferiority of non-Islamic peoples and licensing their suppression or extirpation are similarly disregarded or mitigated.
In this regard, Fatahs apodictic statement that Islams essence is its quest for equality and social justice is at the very least debatable.
A parallel tendency is to deflect the more disturbing portions of the Koran, such as its countenancing of slavery, by resorting to the strategy of temporal contextualizing. “Perhaps Allah in his wisdom knows that socio-cultural progress is better achieved by evolution than by revolution…Perhaps we have to keep in mind the psyche of a desert society of the distant past.
But the Koran is accepted by all true believers as an uncreated text, its physical embodiment only a reflection of the eternal original. It cannot be located along the timeline of a gradual progressivism. Today I have perfected your religion for you, reads Koran 5:3, an ayaa repeated several times in Fatahs book.
Just as disconcerting, Fatah passes far too lightly over the history of Islamic conquest across the centuries, the relentless warfare against the infidel, the massacres, the religious discrimination and persecution, the economic deprivation of its non-Muslim subject populations, the imposition of slavery and the eradication of entire peoples and cultures.
Rather, he tends to focus on intra-Islamic strife, “tragedies where Muslims killed fellow Muslims a dangerous move within the Islamic framework but a safe one among the community of academics, intellectuals and readers who would prefer not to have to deal with the specter of Islamic imperialism. Fatahs well-intentioned but problematic distinction between Muslims and Islamists, between a state of Islam (good) and an Islamic state (bad) and his belief that Islamists¦have ridden roughshod over Quranic principles and the Prophets message of equality are not persuasive. All one has to do is read the Koran to put paid to his claim. His notion that Equity and social justice run through every fibre and gene of the Muslim psyche is a piece of untenable hyperbole that is deflated by Fatah himself when he later writes that
So deeply ingrained is the idea of replicating the so-called Golden Age of the Rightly Guided Caliphs that few are willing to consider the implications of what they are asking for, or when he bemoans the permanent gash in the Muslim psyche, a festering wound brought on by the struggle for power.
Which is it, deeply ingrained error or enlightenment?
One is puzzled by the contradiction inherent in his admonition that Muslims stop chasing an Islamic State on the one hand and his evident approval of the Palestinian struggle for an independent and sovereign state, which would be nothing if not Islamic, on the other.
Also troubling is his appreciative quotation from a Pakistani historian who speaks of the solemn averment that Islam spread peacefully in India when the carnage visited upon the subcontinent by the invading Islamic armies is an order of magnitude higher than the Holocaust itself.
Fatahs animus against the United States also seems rather facile and not altogether thought through. When he writes that The invasion of Iraq was manna from heaven for Al-Qaeda, it is clear that he has not been following the course of events or the evening News nothing has weakened al-Qaeda more than the Iraqi conflict and it is now, as the Press has it, on the run.
For Fatah, the US is no different from the Mongol hordes led by the savage Hulagu who in 1257 invaded Baghdad and pitt[ed] the Shia population against the Sunni caliph.
The fact that the Sunni caliph†of 2003 was Saddam Hussein, himself a contemporary Hulagu, is a matter of no consequence.
Nor am I sure what he is getting at when he denounces American fundamentalism equally with bin Ladens species of fundamentalism; I cannot see even the faintest semblance of an equivalence between the two nor can I understand how American fundamentalism, whatever that may be, poses a threat to Western civilization.
These various instances of parti pris are not mere surface blemishes; they detract seriously from an otherwise timely and important work. Notwithstanding, Fatah is undeniably one of the brighter lights among the crowd of todays pro-Islamic intellectuals and polemicists, but the light is not sufficiently ambient to take in the geopolitical world outside of Islam proper.
As a history of Islam, its origins, its sects and schisms, its self-slaughterings, its major personalities, its formative texts, its trajectory across the millennia, Chasing a Mirage is a masterful achievement, hewing closer to the actual events which most Muslim writers are content to evade or fearful to record.
Its critique of the millennial tendency to use [Islam] as an instrument of political power is acute and unflinching, and for this reason alone it is worth its price and more. As I have indicated, however, there are several debilitating problems with this fascinating book.
First, it sanitizes the impact of the Koran by too selective and convenient a reading of its pages. Secondly, its analysis of the wider historical tableau is too often skewed and oversimplified, or simply deficient in range. And thirdly, its version of the putatively “real†Islam is a fairy tale that exists nowhere except in the casuistry of the apologist or the imagination of the true believer.
There is no doubt that Fatah has taken a great risk in writing this book, which will surely earn him the influential animosity of the mainstream Left whose ineptitude he holds up to contempt, not to mention a possible fatwa from the Islamic extremists he dissects. (A 2006 death threat prompted him to resign as communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress.)
At the same time, Fatahs forensics are compromised by the soft hermeneutics of his underlying methods and assumptions, which could lead to a subliminal restoration of precisely that which we are striving to demilitarize.
Tarek Fatah rightly takes exception to the current excesses of what is called Islamism, but he is nonetheless an apologist: back to the Koran, or rather an expurgated and watered-down version of it.
In reading such attempts at bleaching clearly hortatory texts, one might be permitted to wonder on what doctrinal grounds centuries of invasive warfare and the current worldwide jihad are based.
Perhaps we are suffering from a collective delusion. Perhaps Islam really is a gentle, socially advanced and peace-loving faith that has been wrenched from the keeping of moderate Muslims by a small band of radical and bloodthirsty madmen. Perhaps the Koran really is the supernal book of sandaled amity and universal concord.
Would that it were so. source: newscode=8355&PHPSESSID=53a6224980e69191315bf2cf4f8def33 On Sunday (August 17) a Muslim mob stormed a church service in Cipayung, East Jakarta, forcing Christians to flee and then erecting banners in the street declaring a ban on churches and religious services.
As about 20 church members were celebrating the nations Independence Day at the service, the angry assailants arrived at the Pentecostal Church of Indonesia in Pondok Rangon village, Cipayung, at 9:30 a.m. shouting Allahu Akbar! or God is greater!
Some in the mob were neighbors, but the majority were not local residents, according to pastor Chris Ambessa. Church members tried to close the gate leading into the church compound, but the mob forced its way in, storming into the welcoming room of the church and overturning furniture.
Ambessa managed to close a roller door protecting the room where services were held. But the attackers then chased church members out into the street, warning them not to return for future services. The intruders then erected large banners in the street declaring a ban on churches and religious services in the village.
Technically prior approval from district officials is required to erect such banners, but Public Order official Hadi Sumantri and plainclothes policemen present made no attempt to intervene or remove them. Two days prior to this incident, Ambessa sought permission from district officials to hold a special thanksgiving service on Independence Day. Officials gave verbal approval, despite contention over the existence of the church. Demolition Order Ambessa has been in the middle of a dispute over his house church.
On July 3 the Cipayung civil engineering department had ordered Ambessa to dismantle the second floor of his home, and on July 13 it ordered him to cease religious activity for an indefinite period following neighborhood protests against the house church. Neighbors had demanded that Ambessa completely demolish the building. Ambessa, whose home has functioned as a legally recognized house church for the past 12 years, built the second floor extension to accommodate his growing congregation.
Realizing the prohibitive cost and difficulty of obtaining a Religious Building Permit (IMB), and on grounds that the building was a residential home, Ambessa had proceeded with the extension without applying for the IMB. Ambessas lawyer, August Pasaribu, told Compass he planned to challenge the demolition order, since the demand was in breach of local regulations. Construction of the extension was completed on May 17. On May 21, a neighborhood group threatened Ambessa and forced him to sign a document stating that he would cease holding church services in his home.
Ambessa told Compass that he had signed the document under duress, fearing attacks on his wife and daughters. Ambessa had planned to rent a separate building for church services in another location, at a cost of 8 million rupiah per year (US$862). After Sundays attack, however, Ambessa said he felt disheartened and saw little point in reporting the incident to the local police station since he did not expect positive intervention.
Posts
