The media sold us all on the Egyptian so-called democracy protests. It would bring peace and a secular government. Christians would not have to fear. All would be well. Those same newsmen might want to revisit Cairo today where a mob of violent Muslims attacked a Christian protest. So far we know at least 13 people were killed and around 150 have been wounded. Why were the Christians protesting? Last Friday in the village of Sole, just outside of Cairo, local Muslims decided they now had the freedom to burn down the town’s Coptic church. Without a strong Mubarak police force, they had nothing and no one stopping them. After torching the sacred place, the Muslims promised to build a mosque on that very spot (Are you listening Cordoba House/Park 51 supporters?). On Tuesday thousands of Coptic Christians protested in front of the state-ran television building in Cairo. They carried large wooden crosses and hoped to get the media’s attention of the burning down of their church (the Church of the Two Martyrs). Sadly, soon after, many of the protesters became martyrs. We were staging a peaceful demonstration for the church, but they attacked us with firearms, stones and Molotov cocktails. -Samia, a Christian protester. There was a small military force on the scene. Some reports said the military fired into the air in hopes of stopping the violence. But there are Christians who were there claiming the military aided the Muslims in attack by getting out of the way of the Muslims and even firing on the Christians. Most of the Coptics are part of a local trash collectors’ settlement, and the Muslim attackers were apparently allowed by the military to start burning down the homes of the Christians. The tanks made way for the thugs to come in. There was shooting until two o’clock in the morning. After that they burnt the houses and stole from them. They broke whatever they could not carry away. No fire engines or ambulances came. We had to take the injured to hospital in garbage trucks. – Samia In the early morning hours of Wednesday the fighting finally stopped as more military moved in. Much of the mainstream media, possibly as a way to save face for themselves and Muslims, are presenting the story as generic “sectarian violence” or an equal clash between Christians and Muslims. Just read a couple of the headlines: Somehow if Christians are ruthlessly attacked and some of them try to defend themselves, our press thinks it is equal violence. It would take a lot more than this ruthless attack for the Left to admit they might have been wrong on Egypt. But how much more innocent blood will be spilled? Such violence will sadly spark more violence. Moreover, this new temporary government doesn’t seem too concerned. Telegraph Muslim women 'should not travel more than 48 miles from home without male chaperone' Muslim women have been banned from traveling more than 48 miles from their homes without being chaperoned by a male relative, according to a fatwa issued by one of Islam's leading universities. By Dean Nelson, New Delhi 7:23PM GMT 09 Mar 2011 The ruling was made by the Darul Uloom Deoband, the leading Islamic university founded in northern India in 1866, which has millions of followers from Bangladesh and Pakistan to Muslim communities in Britain. Its fatwa was issued after a female follower had asked: "Is a married woman permitted to travel to another country with her female sibling?" In a reply on the Deoband website, she was told:"She cannot travel without a 'mehram' [male relative]. It's mentioned in the Hadees that a woman should not travel for more than 48 miles except in the company of a 'mehram' relative." Its response, which was delivered on International Women's Day, provoked anger among Muslim women activists who said it was based on conditions in the Arabian peninsula more than 1,400 years ago and no longer relevant in the modern world. The decision was defended by a Deobandi spokesman who said the increase in violent crime against women in India showed it remained relevant. "No Muslim family should have any objections," he said. Professor Akhtar-Ul-Wasay, former head of Islamic Studies at Delhi's Jamia Milia Islamia University, said the fatwa was not fit for the modern age and more thought needed to be given to current living conditions before such rulings are issued. "In those days men and women were under threat during journeys - from enemies or wild beasts. Therefore these types of instructions were issued but now we are having different types of transportation and social conditions. Women travel from one city to another on daily basis without any problem. The content of the Hadith cannot be compromised but there is always a context to which has to be considered before issuing fatwas," he said. Naaz Raza of the Muslim women's group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, said no muslim woman could follow the fatwa today. "This is rubbish. The Hadith was said 1,400 years ago and at that time there were hundreds of dangers for a women to travel alone beyond a particular limit but now traveling for women is safe. They should think a thousand times before issuing such fatwas. Islam never forces anything on anyone. Traveling alone or with or without a companion should be a personal choice," she said. Profile: Shahbaz Bhatti | | DAWN.COM  Last updated: 17 mins ago Profile: Shahbaz Bhatti  Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated on Wednesday during an attack on his vehicle in Islamabad. – AFP Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated on Wednesday during an attack on his vehicle in Islamabad. Shahbaz Bhatti, son of Jacob Bhatti was born on September 9,1968 in Lahore, Punjab. Bhatti was the first Christian parliamentarian who was offered and took oath as Federal Minister of Minorities Affairs in Pakistan. His predecessors had been offered only a state minister position Bhatti was one of the founding members of the organisation ‘All Pakistan Minorities Alliance’ (APMA) in 1985 and was considered a representative of the religious minorities in Pakistan. Bhatti joined Pakistani People’s Party (PPP) in 2002. As a political leader, he had continuously asked minority groups to fight for their rights through the system instead of using violence. He was considered great admirer of Pakistan’s founder Jinnah and a true patriot. As federal minister, Bhatti took serious steps to ensure the safety, rights and empower religious minorities while in office: • In 2002, he banned the sale of properties belonging to minorities while law enforcement authorities took action against them
• Supported the revisions of the Blasphemy Law by the end of 2010
• Supported repeal for discriminatory laws that affected minority groups
• Launched national campaign to promote interfaith and harmony through seminars, awareness groups, and workshop.
• Had planned to introduce legislation that would ban hate speech and hate literature
• Proposed to the Ministry of Education to introduce comparative religion courses as a curriculum subject
• A five per cent quota was given for all government jobs to minorities
• Four reserved senate seats
• Religious holidays and festivals are recognized by the government and respected.
• Made August 11th Minority Day in Pakistan
• Prayer room for non-Muslims in the prison system
• A 24-hour crisis hotline to report acts of violence against minorities
• A campaign to protect religious artifacts and sites that belong to minorities XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  Last updated: 22 mins ago Anglican leader shocked at Pakistani minister’s murder  - Unidentified relatives of slain Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti inspect his bullet-riddled car following an attack in Islamabad on March 2, 2011. – AFP
LONDON: The archbishop of Canterbury expressed “shock and sorrow” Wednesday at the murder of a Catholic Pakistani government minister, saying it increased fears about the security of Christians there. Archbishop Rowan Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican church, urged Pakistan to protect minorities after Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead in broad daylight in a residential area of Islamabad. “It is with the greatest shock and sorrow that we have heard of the assassination of Mr. Shahbaz Bhatti, minister for religious minorities in Pakistan,” he said in a joint statement with Archbishop of York John Sentamu. “This further instance of sectarian bigotry and violence will increase anxiety worldwide about the security of Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan, and we urge that the government of Pakistan will do all in its power to bring to justice those guilty of such crimes and to give adequate protection to minorities. “Meanwhile, we assure Mr Bhatti’s family of our prayers and deep sympathy, and promise our continuing support for all those of whatever faiths who are working for justice and stability in Pakistan.” Bhatti, a member of Pakistan’s tiny Christian community, had been a vocal opponent of the country’s controversial blasphemy law despite receiving death threats following the murder of another politicianopposed to the law. Note: The bogus nature of the claim that those with a perverted view of Islam are the problem rather than Islam itself can be seen very simply: other faiths such as Christianity, Hinduism and Budhism do not produce the same behaviour despite the fact that their members have often been the subject of colonisation and poverty. RH THE ‘MERCY’ OF MUHAMMAD,
THE PROPHET OF ISLAM
A penitent adulteress punished:
A woman came to Muhammad and said, “I have committed adultery, so purify me.” Muhammad told her, “Go away until you give birth to the child.” After she gave birth, she returned with the child and said, “Here is the child I have given birth to.” Muhammad answered, “Go away and nurse him until you wean him.”
When she had weaned him, she came to Muhammad with the child, who was holding a piece of bread in his hand. The woman said, “Allah’s Apostle, here is he as I have weaned him and he eats food.” Muhammad gave the child to one of the Muslims and then pronounced punishment. The woman was buried in a ditch up to her chest, and the people stoned her.
Source
: HADITH (Muslim 17: 4206) See Mark A. Gabriel, Jesus and Muhammad (Florida, USA: Charisma House, 2004), pp. 185-6.
1. When Is The Aggressor Not The Aggressor? When He Has Been Forced to Defend Himself and His Lost Honor On February 12, 2009, immediately after stabbing his unarmed wife 40 times with two large hunting knives and then brutally beheading her, he became calm, relieved. For the first time in years, he felt “peaceful.” Only then did he feel “safe from the Evil Dragon Terrorist” which is how he referred to Aasiya Zubair Hassan, the wife he had viciously battered for seven years. Muzzammil Syed Hassan quietly told the police that he had killed his wife—but he immediately pleaded “not guilty” to second-degree murder. In fact, he told the police and the media what he is now telling the judge, prosecutors and jury in a Buffalo courtroom: that he, not she, was the “abused” and long-suffering spouse. How is this possible? How can a man with a long and terrible history of physically and psychologically battering three wives and physically and psychologically abusing his children as well—he once punched his 13-year-old son in the nose—say this and believe it with his whole heart? In pre-trial interviews, Hassan insisted that he suffered immense psychological abuse and humiliation during his seven year marriage to a woman who publicly nurtured a false image as a kinder and more sympathetic woman. “All abuse happens behind closed doors, thus NO witnesses,” Hassan stated in his most recent letter. “All abuse is psychological, emotional wounds are not visible, thus NO evidence. . . . What a perfect crime! Only the poorly trained abusers use physical violence and get caught, for physical abuse leaves behind evidence.” I am a good man, Aasiya…a humble and decent man, made some mistakes, please don’t punish me so hard. God likes forgiveness…I have not done anything to hurt you since Sunday… Like other batterers, he is not merely saying that Aasiya “provoked” him to kill her but that she had been torturing him for seven years: cleverly leaving no marks, while he had been suffering the torments of the damned. Finally, afraid of being exposed—either as a batterer or as a battered spouse, both humiliating possibilities for a leader of the Muslim-American community—he said that he “snapped.” He could take no more. He had to kill her to restore his peace of mind. And so, he took control. 2. Where Else Have We Heard Such Reasoning? An Al-Qaeda, Hamas, or Muslim Brotherhood leader will insist that his campaigns of murder and propaganda are really campaigns of “self defense” against the Zionist, infidel, Nazi, Apartheid Enemy. Since their holy Muslim lands (which they define as part of their honor and often as the entire world, which is, psychologically, their missing phantom limb) have been taken and occupied by infidels, Westerners, and Zionists, they must send suicide killers so that what belongs to them is returned, so that they are made whole and no longer humiliated in history. Thus, Islamist acts of beheading (journalist Daniel Pearl, would-be businessman Nicholas Berg, civil engineer Kenneth Bigley, contractor Eugene Armstrong, engineer Jack Hensley, engineer Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr., etc.), blowing up innocent civilians on aircraft, at cafes, on the streets, at work in the World Trade Center, are not “aggressive” acts, but are, rather, “defensive” acts, desperate attempts to ensure that the impure infidels will flee, so that their Muslim property, purity, and honor can be restored. Blowing up Israeli civilians is even more an act of “self-defense,” since, as they see it, there are no innocent Israelis, all are complicit in the “genocidal crimes” against the Palestinian and Arab people. Blowing up other Muslim civilians, using children as soldiers—well, some Muslims are not “true” Muslims, some Muslims are working with the enemy infidel, some Muslims are whores—and they all deserve to be killed anyway. Before we get into Muzzammil’s personal history, we need to understand something about the country he comes from: Pakistan. 3. Where Could Muzzammil Syed Hassan Have Learned That Extreme Violence Towards Women Is Normal, A Man’s God-Given Right? For the first seventeen years of his life Hassan grew up in Pakistan, where the level of violence towards girls and women was and still is barbarous and quite unbelievable. In 2009, I received an extraordinary report which documented honor killings in Pakistan. My Pakistani informant, of the SW Community Development Department, in Sind, Pakistan, sent me an unpublished paper in which he describes and explains a murderous Pakistani culture very carefully. He writes: Women in Pakistan live in fear. They face death by shooting, burning or killing with axes if they are deemed to have brought shame on the family. They are killed for supposed ‘illicit’ relationships, for marrying men of their choice, for divorcing abusive husbands. They are even murdered by their kin if they are raped. The truth of the suspicion does not matter — merely the allegation is enough to bring dishonor on the family and therefore justifies the slaying. The lives of millions of women in Pakistan are circumscribed by traditions which enforce extreme seclusion and submission to men. Male relatives virtually own them and punish disobedience with violence. According to my informant, of all of the honor killings in Pakistan, most go unreported and even more go unpunished. The isolation and fear of women living under such threats are compounded by state indifference to and complicity in women’s oppression. Police almost invariably take the man’s side in honor killings or domestic murders, and rarely prosecute the killers. Even when the men are convicted, the judiciary ensures that they usually receive a light sentence, reinforcing the view that men can kill their female relatives with virtual impunity. There are few women’s shelters, and any woman attempting to travel on her own is a target for abuse by police, strangers or male relatives hunting for her. For some women suicide appears the only means of escape. He continues: “In [Pakistani] communities an ‘honor killing’ is considered a just punishment, not a crime. This view is also shared by many Pakistanis who do not belong to tribal societies.” In these communities: Male control does not only extend to a woman’s body and her sexual behavior but all of her behavior, including her movements, her language and her actions. In any of these areas, defiance by women translates into undermining male honor and ultimately family and community honor. Severe punishments are reported for bringing food late, for talking back or for undertaking forbidden trips, etc. A man’s honor defiled by a woman’s alleged or real sexual misdemeanor or other defiance is only partly restored by killing her. He also has to kill the man allegedly involved. Since [the woman] is murdered first, the [man] often hears about it and flees, aided by the fact that unlike the woman, he is both familiar with the world outside the house and can move freely in it. But [men] who escape will not be able to return to normal life. Nobody will give such a man shelter; he remains on the run until he and his family are ready to negotiate with the victim, the man whose honour the [man] defiled. The balance is restored by negotiating compensation for damages. Moreover, there are few safe places for a woman to escape to. Seeking help outside the family is fraught with danger for a woman. Not only does society blame a woman for being targeted for murder–the popular perception being that she must somehow deserve it–but by seeking outside help she risks being sent back to her husband or father in whose custody she is perceived to belong. Most important by seeking help outside, she adds shame to her husband and his family by making the issue public. No Kari [“black” woman marked for honor-killing] who escapes is ever forgiven, even if her innocence is recognized; some men are known to have traveled hundreds of miles to find and kill Karis, even years after the alleged misdeed. According to my informant, “The sheer scale of the phenomenon in Pakistan makes it a case apart.” In his view, although such crimes of honor are a pre-Islamic practice, the increase in religious fundamentalism has led to an increase in honor killings. Honor killing victims “remain dishonored even after death. Their dead bodies are thrown in rivers or buried in special hidden Kari graveyards. Nobody mourns for them or honors their memory by performing their relevant rights.” This is the culture that nurtured Muzzammil Hassan, the culture that also nurtured his wife Aasiya—which explains why, after she obtained an order of protection and had Muzzammil ejected from their home (his home, his land, his property), she still did his laundry and indeed, was bringing him clean clothing to his office at Bridges TV, where he lay in wait for her with his two pitiless hunting knives. 4. Can Living in America Erase the Pakistani Within? In America, he liked to be called “Mo” and “Steve,” which were short for Muzzammil Syed Hassan. The Big Guy—and he was a big guy who weighed nearly 300 pounds, or twice his wife’s weight–just wanted to fit in, be a regular American. After all, he came here when he was 17 and excelled admirably. In 1996, he received an MBA from the Business School at the University of Rochester, and he then became a banker in Buffalo, New York. Big “Mo” was ambitious. He wanted to present Muslims in a positive light. Thus, in 2004, together with his wife Aasiya, they founded Bridges TV, an English-language Islamic network to combat alleged anti-Muslim bias in the American media. He found several million dollars in backing. But Hassan could not stop being a Pakistani Muslim man. What does this mean? It means that he still felt entitled to control, monitor, harass, and physically batter his wife. When he physically punished her, it was viewed as “correcting” her mistakes. When she went to the hospital and filed a police report—when she had black eyes, bruises, cuts—he viewed her exposing him as “humiliating attacks,” indeed, as “terrorist attacks.” When she said that she was going to file for divorce, he viewed that as “killing him;” in addition, he began to fear that these police and hospital reports plus a divorce with such facts stated might jeopardize his dream of a pro-Muslim television network. Her attempts to defend herself from his physical violence, e.g. sitting on her, trying to run her car off the road (2007), beating her so viciously that his son from a previous marriage who lived with them had to use a whole roll of toilet paper to stanch the flow of blood, dragging her across their driveway, blackening her eyes, breaking windows (2009), etc., were seen by him as “abuse.” In other words, her attempt to defend herself against his violence was something he experienced as “abusive” to him. Many Pakistani men in America have killed their wives and their daughters. In my studies published at Middle East Quarterly, I found that honor killing victims comprised two very different groups: One victim group had an average age of 17; the second victim group had an average age of 36. Aasiya was 37 when Muzzammil murdered her. I also found that one feature of an honor killing is “overkill.” The victims are tortuously murdered, burned, raped, mutilated, stoned, even beheaded, as was the case with Aasiya. At trial (which is still ongoing) it became clear that Muzzammil attacked his unarmed wife with two hunting knives and stabbed her at least 40 times before he beheaded her—a signature Islamist-era gesture. For example, on September 11, 1999 in St. Clairsville, Ohio, 33-year-old Pakistani-American Dr. Lubaina Bhatti Ahmed, a physician, had her throat cut by her estranged Pakistani-American husband because she had the audacity to file for divorce after years of being a battered wife. He also murdered her father, sister, and sister’s child because they were present and morally supporting her decision to divorce him. Talk about overkill! The husband, Nawaz Ahmed, was a former pilot in the Pakistani air force. Ahmed was jailed, tried, and sentenced to death. He remains in the Ohio State Penitentiary. On July 6, 2008, in Atlanta, 25-year-old Pakistani-American Sandeela Kanwal was strangled to death by her Pakistani-American father Chaudhry Rashid because she wanted to divorce the man to whom she had been forcibly married in Pakistan. Clearly, female-initiated divorce is not acceptable, neither in Pakistan (where women are killed for less than demanding a divorce) nor in America. Muzzammil Hassan was a three-time loser with a reputation and credibility on the line. If it came out that he beat his wife, badly, and constantly subjected her to psychological torture, he feared he would lose his backers and their image of him as a good, great man. On February 6, 2009, Aasiya finally obtained an order of protection and had Hassan ejected from his home. In Pakistan, this would never happen. And, if any woman dared do this, her murder would be seen as justifiable. More, Aasiya had been mothering the two children Muzzammil brought from a previous marriage as well as their own two children. She turned to Child Protective Services on their behalf. 5. Is Muzammil Hassan “Crazy” in Western Terms? Is He Culturally “Crazy”? Is he Crazy as a Fox? Muzzammil is not only a man, he is a male batterer, who is also a Pakistani and Muslim man. What this means is that he has been brought up to believe that he is entitled to whatever he needs, thinks he needs, or wants. Anyone who deprives him of what he needs or wants, is a dangerous “terrorist” enemy, especially if she is a woman—and a woman who wants to leave him exposes his failings to the world. According to Muzzammil, he and Aasiya made a “contract” which included certain terms, i.e. that she never turn to the police, never threaten divorce, never report him to Child Protective Services. Each time she does so, he is being “killed,” his world is “collapsing,” his pride is wounded, his failure to control his wife has become known. He in no way factors in, acknowledges, relates to the harm he has done to her or to their children. Indeed, Prosecutor Colleen Curtin Gable forces him to admit that he was “not in any danger” when he attacked an unarmed woman. And she forces him to admit that he had “killed” his wife. Acidly, and precisely, she notes that “In three-and-a-half days of testimony,” Hassan spent about “two seconds on the actual murder.” That is because he wanted the judge and jury to hear “his side,” “the whole truth.” And he thus spent all his time trying to arouse pity, sympathy, understanding for how he had suffered, not how his wife and children may have suffered. He is the only one who exists for him in his own world. Also, Muzzammil takes no responsibility for his actions, how they affect others. Thus, he referred to the murder as “things happened.” As to the 40 stab wounds which preceded his beheading of her, he responds, dully, disassociated, “If the wounds are there, then I did it, ma’am.” But he has “no recollection of specific things happening.” All he knows is that when it was all over, “defending himself,” he felt no “remorse,” but only “relief that he managed to escape a (diseased) terrorist.” He says: “I was face to face with evil.” Muzzammil Syed Hassan is unapologetic, brash, brazen, belligerent, incredibly aggressive. Acting as his own lawyer, he wanted to personally question the judge, the prosecutors, and his own children on the stand. (He did cross-examine his daughter Sonia, who looked down and at the jury the entire time). Muzzammil admitted that he called the district attorney “dumbo,” his wife “Darth Vader,” a “monster,” and an “evil dragon.” He also called the court “voodoo justice” and a “kangaroo court.” Muzzammil has the mind, heart, and soul of both an overly pampered baby and a domestic terrorist. But his lack of remorse, concern only for his own image, his willingness to do anything, including murder, to punish those who have tarnished his image teaches us all something about the mind of an Islamist jihadist. USA Scientist Imam threatened over Darwinist views By Tom Peck and Jerome Taylor
 Dr Usama Hasan, a physics lecturer, has received death threats from extremists A prominent British imam has been forced to retract his claims that Islam is compatible with Darwin's theory of evolution after receiving death threats from fundamentalists. Dr Usama Hasan, a physics lecturer at Middlesex University and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, was intending yesterday to return to Masjid al-Tawhid, a mosque in Leyton, East London, for the first time since he delivered a lecture there entitled "Islam and the theory of evolution". But according to his sister, police advised him not to attend after becoming concerned for his safety. Instead his father, Suhaib, head of the mosque's committee of trustees, posted a notice on his behalf expressing regret over his comments. "I seek Allah's forgiveness for my mistakes and apologise for any offence caused," the statement read. The campaign is part of a growing movement by a small but vocal group of largely Saudi-influenced orthodox Muslims who use evolution as a way of discrediting imams whom they deem to be overly progressive or "western orientated". Masjid Tawhid is a prominent mosque which also runs one of the country's largest sharia courts, the Islamic Sharia Council. In January, Dr Hasan delivered a lecture there detailing why he felt the theory of evolution and Islam were compatible – a position that is not unusual among many Islamic scholars with scientific backgrounds. But the lecture was interrupted by men he described as "fanatics" who distributed leaflets claiming that "Darwin is blasphemy". "One man came up to me during the lecture and said 'You are an apostate and should be killed'," Dr Hasan told The Independent. "I want to go back – I've been going to the mosque for 25 years. It is my favourite mosque in London, and I have been active in the community for a long time. I hope my positive contribution will outweigh their feelings towards me." But the imam's apology seems to have done little to resolve the matter. Earlier this week, the group issued a statement saying that Dr Hasan had been dismissed from his position as vice-chairman and imam at the mosque, and describing his views as a "source of antagonism in the Muslim community". Neither he nor his father were present at the meeting that voted for his dismissal. Evolution "is not a matter of iman [belief] or kufr [disbelief]," said Dr Hasan, "and people are free to accept or reject a particular scientific theory." He also attacked clerics who made pronouncements about science they didn't understand, declaring that "any such fatwas about science from people ignorant of the subject matter are null and void." Like Christianity, Islamic opinion is divided over evolution. More than a millennium before Darwin, Muslim scientists had posited ideas about species survival and generational change that bore striking similarities to Darwin's eventual theory. Most Islamic scholars have little problem with evolution as long as Muslims accept the supremacy of God in the process. But in recent years a small number of orthodox scholars, mainly from Saudi Arabia – where many clerics still preach that the Sun revolves around the Earth – have ruled against evolution, declaring that belief in the concept goes against the Telegraph New York TV executive found guilty of beheading wife The Pakistan-born founder of a Muslim-oriented New York television station was convicted on Monday of beheading his wife in 2009 in the studio the couple had opened to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. 11:46PM GMT 07 Feb 2011 Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan never denied that he killed Aasiya Hassan inside the suburban Buffalo station the couple established to promote cultural understanding. A jury on Monday rejected his claim he was the victim of spousal abuse. Hassan acted as his own lawyer during the trial in Buffalo. In court, he said nothing when the verdict was read. His reaction was blocked from view by a line of sheriff's deputies and court officers. Hassan had been served with divorce papers a week before his wife's body was found stabbed and decapitated at the offices of Bridges TV in Orchard Park, where the couple also lived. Hassan was arrested after walking into the Orchard Park police station Feb. 12, 2009, and calmly telling officers his wife was dead. Police said officers previously had responded to domestic incidents involving the couple. The Hassans had two children, then ages 4 and 6, who were outside in a van when Hassan spoke with police. After the killing, the children were sent to live with his wife's mother in Pakistan, his attorneys have said. The Hassans started the Bridges TV network in 2004, saying they wanted to counter negative stereotypes and media portrayals of Muslims in a post-Sept. 11 world and provide programming for the growing Muslim- American population. Bridges TV continues to broadcast. In the months leading up to his trial, Hassan had explored various versions of a psychiatric defence with different attorneys, who said they would pursue an acquittal by showing the killing was justified. From the start, his lawyers dismissed suggestions that culture played a role in the crime. Immediately after Aasiya Hassan's death, the manner in which she died prompted speculation her death was an honour killing. The practice is still accepted among some fanatical Muslim men, including in the couple's native Pakistan, who feel betrayed by their wives. Hassan fired three of his lawyers and then replaced a fourth with himself. He kept the fourth lawyer as an adviser, as required by law. He faces up to 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on March 9. Iran’s Decades of Christian Persecution  Posted by Faith J. H. McDonnell on Feb 4th, 2011 and filed under Daily Mailer, FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. 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Elam, a ministry to the church in Iran, reported that armed, plain-clothed security forces broke into the homes of sleeping Christians from the evangelical house church and Armenian Christian communities early on the morning of December 26. Eleven of the twenty-five Christians known to be arrested were released after days of intense interrogation. The other fourteen remain in prison and have not been heard from since the arrest, although no official charges have been brought against them. Elam also reported that these Christians are probably being held in Interrogation Block 209 in the basement of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. This is the common practice for dealing with Christians under arrest, according to Iranian sources. Reports of as many as 60 further arrests have also come from Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan and Urumieh. These Christian prisoners join others such as Pastor Vahik Abrahamian and his wife Sonia Keshish-Avanesian, and Arash Kermanjani and his wife Arezo Teymouri, who were arrested in September. Long before the rest of the world began to get insomnia thinking about a “nuclear Iran,” Christians in the Islamic Republic were losing more than just sleep. For decades, Iranian Christians have lost their human rights, their freedom, and their lives. In the late 1970’s and throughout the 1980’s, Christian persecution in Iran was directed at the Anglican Church. In the 1990’s the Islamic regime targeted the broader church, murdering many top Christian leaders in an attempt to destroy Christianity in Iran. The danger continues today. Iranian Christians are persecuted, discriminated against, arrested, and even killed. But the Iranian church continues to grow, and reports surface of spiritual revival going on in Iran’s underground churches. Soon after the Islamic Revolution, the Anglican Church in Iran was specifically targeted because so many Anglicans were converts from Islam. The Episcopal Church USA of the same era and other western expressions of Anglicanism, such as the Church of England, were enamored by religious pluralism. Evangelism was viewed with embarrassment or even hostility. But Anglicans in Iran welcomed Muslims who wanted to know Jesus. For this the church paid a high price. The first post-Islamic Revolution martyrs were Anglicans. Islamists cut the throat of the Reverend Arastoo Sayyah, a Muslim convert, in his own office in Shiraz, southwest Iran, on February 19, 1979. In October of that same year, the Rt. Reverend Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, also a Muslim convert, and his wife, Margaret, miraculously survived an assassination attempt in their own bedroom. Dehqani-Tafti, the first Persian Anglican bishop in Iran, was forced into exile for the last ten years of his episcopate after the attack. But in May of 1980, the Dehqani-Taftis’ twenty-four year old son, Bahram, was shot to death on the street in Tehran. Bishop Dehqani-Tafti believed that the Islamic Revolution felt threatened because the Christians were building “a Persian church,” and “a strong and intelligent Christianity” complemented an authentic Persian culture more than Islam. Church property was confiscated, and other clergy, both Persian and British, were arrested and imprisoned. Many more of the Iranian clergy and church members were killed for their faith, and Anglican and other Christian churches in Iran were forced to go underground. The Iranian regime attempted to intimidate and suppress the church, but persecution produced the opposite effect. Whereas before the Islamic Revolution there were only some 200-300 Iranian converts from Islam, by 1992 Iranian Christians International (ICI) reported that there were 13,300 Iranian converts from Islam around the world, with 6,700 living right in Iran. As the church grew in the 1990’s, the regime began a concerted effort to eliminate all of the church’s top evangelical Christian leaders. Most were targeted by a death squad, widely believed to be operating on behalf of the official government, even to the level of the President, according to the analysis of testimony received by Middle East Concern, a human rights organization. Time in March 1994 reported that the decisions “to assassinate opponents at home or abroad” were made by “The Supreme National Security Council” chaired by the then President of Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Islamic law (Shari’a) became a weapon to eliminate influential Christians. One of Iran’s key evangelical leaders, Pastor Hossein Soodmand, was killed, not by a death squad, but through execution. In December 1990, Soodmand, 55, was sentenced to death in a Shari’a court in Mashad, northern Iran, charged with apostasy and with operating a Christian bookstore and an illegal church. He had converted from Islam in 1964 and had been an evangelist and Assemblies of God minister for twenty-four years. Soodmand’s fellow pastors pleaded for clemency with the Dayro-E-Tasalamat (an Ombudsman/Muslim cleric whose title means “he who hears the cries of the oppressed”). But it became increasingly clear that the Islamists in Iran were more interested in oppressing Christians than in hearing their cries. At the insistence of the Ombudsman, Pastor Soodmand was hanged on December 3, 1990 in Mashad, which in Farsi means “place of martyrdom.” He left behind a wife who going blind, and four children. In late 1993, another pastor, Mehdi Dibaj, was sentenced to death for apostasy. Dibaj was born to a wealthy, influential Muslim family, but became a Christian as a teenager. An Assemblies of God minister, he was imprisoned for more than nine years for his faith. During those years he was beaten, subjected to “mock executions,” and spent two full years in solitary confinement in a tiny, unlit cell. In addition, his wife had been forced to divorce him and marry a Muslim. Dibaj appeared before the Sari Court of Justice in Sari, northern Iran, on December 3, 1993. He firmly but compassionately told the court, “They say ‘You were a Muslim and you have become a Christian.’ This is not so. For many years I had no religion. After searching and studying I accepted God’s call and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to receive eternal life.” The General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Iran, Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, sent abroad word of Dibaj’s impending execution. He drew international attention for his fellow pastor, but put his own life on the line. Bishop Haik, as he was fondly called, was not willing to keep silent about the plight of Iranian Christians. He said: “If we go to jail or die for our faith, we want the whole Christian world to know what is happening to their brothers and sisters.” An international campaign to free Mehdi Dibaj sprang up as a result of Bishop Haik’s efforts. Advocates included members of the British Parliament and the Papal Nuncio in Iran. Thanks to pressure from around the world, instead of being executed, Dibaj was released on January 16, 1994. But then three days later, January 19, 1994, Bishop Haik disappeared from the street in Tehran. On January 30 the authorities revealed that they had “found” Hovsepian Mehr’s body on January 20. Haik Hovsepian Mehr’s murder was a terrible blow to the church in Iran. He had modeled effective and strong leadership in dealing with a hostile government, refusing to be silenced and refusing to adhere to all of the oppressive restrictions placed on the church. He was exemplary as an Armenian Iranian who reached out to and loved all Iranians, including Muslim Iranians. And he was also a gifted musician who wrote and recorded over sixty hymns in the Persian language for the church. One of Bishop Haik’s songs, sung by him, is on the Pray for Iran website, accompanying a slide show of Iran’s Christian martyrs. Today, all four of Bishop Haik’s children are involved in Christian ministry, as well as filmmaking. Then on June 24, 1994, Pastor Mehdi Dibaj disappeared after leaving a Christian retreat in Karaj to return to Tehran for his daughter Fehreshteh’s sixteenth birthday party. And while the Iranian Christians were still reeling from Dibaj’s abduction, another church leader, the Rev. Tateos Mikaelian, the senior pastor of St. John Armenian Evangelical Church (Presbyterian Church of Iran) was abducted on June 29. Mikaelian, who had taken over as president of the Council of Evangelical Ministers when Bishop Haik was murdered, was a scholar of philosophy and Persian literature who had translated some 60 books into Persian. On July 2, 1994, authorities called his son to say that they had found Rev. Mikaelian’s body in a freezer in a home in Tehran. The cause of death was said to be multiple gunshots to the head. Three days later, the police also informed Mehdi Dibaj’s family that they had found his body buried in a park in Tehran. He had been stabbed in the heart, but also had rope burns on his neck. Mohammed Bagher Yusefi, 34, was the seventh Iranian Christian leader martyred since the 1979 Revolution. Also a convert from Islam, Yusefi was pastor of all of the Assemblies of God churches in the northwestern province of Manzandaran. He and his wife had taken care of two of Pastor Mehdi Dibaj’s sons during the nine years while Dibaj was imprisoned for his faith. Yusefi, whose church members called him Ravanbakhsh, “Soul Giver,” had left his home in Sari, the capital of Manzandaran province, at 6:00 a.m. on September 28, 1996 to study and pray. He was found by authorities, hanging from a tree in a forest outside Sari that evening. Many other Christian leaders and church members have been killed in Iran over the past three decades, but to list them all would take an Iranian version of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Two cases deserve special attention, though, because they bear witness to the faithfulness of Iran’s Christians through succeeding generations. Happily, these did not end in martyrdom. On September 26, 2006, Fehreshteh Dibaj and her husband Amir “Reza” Montazami, leaders of an independent house church in Mashhad, were arrested at their apartment and taken to a secret police station belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Montazami, who was 35 at that time, had converted to Christianity when he was in his early 20’s, and Fehreshteh, 28 at the time of her arrest, is the youngest daughter of Reverend Mehdi Dibaj. The daughter of a martyr had become a house church leader herself rather than rejecting a dangerous faith or rejecting God for seemingly allowing such evil and injustice to take place. The Montazamis were released on October 5, 2006 after Montazami’s elderly parents posted bail by turning over the title of a $25,000 property. Then in August of 2008, a Christian pastor and youth worker at a Tehran church was ordered by the Iranian government to report to the Ministry of Intelligence office in Mashdad. The pastor, Ramtin Soodman, 35, returned to the place where his father, Hossein Soodmand, was hanged 18 years before. Soodman was arrested on August 20, 2008. The anxiety over Soodman’s incarceration was exacerbated by the Iranian Parliament’s first approval of a bill to punish apostasy with the death penalty in September. But he was released on bail on October 21, 2008. Hopefully this pattern of arrest and release upon large sums of bail will be repeated with the Christians imprisoned now. It may be extortion, but at least it is not execution. Governor Tamaddon of Tehran’s comparison of evangelical Christians to the Taliban is, of course, absurd. But it is an interesting claim he makes, none the less. Whether or not the Taliban could be described as a parasite, living off of Islam, or, as many of us believe, just a movement that exposes the true nature of Islam, evangelical Christians could never be described as parasitical. They are the heart of Iranian Christianity and its lifeblood, whether they are in the evangelical house churches or the more mainline churches. They are the salt and light of the Bible. And over the decades, through the generations, they continue to offer that salty, shining witness that has the potential to transform their nation. Faith J. H. McDonnell directs The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan, and is the author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007). Telegraph Four Russian tourists killed on way to Caucasus ski resort At least four tourists from Moscow have been killed by militants in Russia's North Caucasus region on their way to a ski resort. 11:00AM GMT 19 Feb 2011 The group were heading towards the Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia. "Two people in masks armed with automatic guns in a foreign-made car forced the minibus onto the hard shoulder, asked about passengers, then opened fire on the vehicle and fled from the scene," the Investigative Committee said in a statement. All six people in the vehicle were from the Moscow region. Three died on the spot and two were taken to hospital, it said. A message on Islamist website Islamdin.com, hosted by the militant group Caucasus Emirate, said the tourists were killed by "mujahideens" because they "came into the zone of war". The group was going skiing to the Elbrus mountain area when they were ambushed near the village Zayukovo, according to the NTV channel, adding that a fourth person died in hospital. One of the proposed resorts, Elbrus-Bezengi, is in the Kabardino-Balkaria region and would host up to 29,000 tourists per day under the plan. Telegraph Nigeria police kill Islamist sect financier Police in Nigeria shot dead a man who was financing a radical Islamist sect in northern Nigeria and arrested another man suspected of supplying the group with arms. 6:54PM GMT 27 Feb 2011 Alhaji Salisu Damaturu, was killed when a shoot-out broke out during a raid on one of the group's hideouts Damaturu and another man had been named as financing the Boko Haram sect by an arms dealer, Mohammed Zakaria, who was arrested in the town of Maiduguri on Saturday. "He fingered Alhaji Salisu Damaturu and Mohammed Goni as the group's financiers and also gave a description of the sect's enclave in the town," said Mohammed Jinjiri Abubakar, police commissioner for Borno State where the sect is based. "Many sect members escaped through the fence but Damaturu was killed in the shoot-out," he said. He said a cache of weapons was recovered from the hideout, including 12 rocket launchers, two pistols, one loaded AK-47 rifle, two detonating bomb cables and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition. Nigerian police have recovered arms and ammunition during recent raids on the hideouts of the sect in Maiduguri and nearby Yobe state. The Boko Haram sect launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault that left hundreds dead. The radical sect has been blamed for a series of attacks and hit-and-run shootings in northern Nigeria in recent months that have left dozens dead. Police say some of the killings may have been politically related ahead of April elections. Telegraph 'Huda the executioner' - Libya's devil in female form How pulling on a hanging man's legs made Huda Ben Amer one of Colonel Gaddafi's most trusted elite. By Nick Meo, Benghazi 6:00AM GMT 06 Mar 2011 When Colonel Gaddafi hanged his first political opponent in Benghazi's basketball stadium, thousands of schoolchildren and students were rounded up to watch a carefully choreographed, sadistic display of the regime's version of justice. They had been told they would see the trial of one of the Colonel's enemies. But instead a gallows was dramatically produced as the condemned man knelt in the middle of the basketball court, weeping and asking for his mother, hands bound behind his back. The crowd, many of them children, cried and yelled out "No, no" or called on God to help them as they realised what was about to happen. Two young men bravely ran up to the revolutionary judges and begged them for mercy. The worst moment came right at the end, as the hanged man kicked and writhed on the gallows. A determined-looking young woman stepped forward, grabbed him by the legs, and pulled hard on his body until the struggling stopped. She knew Gaddafi would be watching on live television and would see her. "Sure enough, afterwards she was rapidly promoted. That terrible thing she did was the making of Huda Ben Amir's career." It was Mr Al-Shuwehdy's cousin, a young aeronautical engineer called Al-Sadek Hamed Al-Shuwehdy, who was hanged that day in 1984, aged 30. He had returned from university in America three months earlier and had started to quietly campaign against Gaddafi's brutal rule. The woman who shocked Libya by humiliating Al-Sadek in his dying moments was at that time a lowly young Gaddafi loyalist. Twenty-seven years later, Huda Ben Amir is one of the richest and most powerful women in Libya and one of the most hated, a favourite of the colonel, a member of his privileged elite, and twice mayor of Benghazi. She fled from the city as soon as the uprising broke out two weeks ago, leaving her mansion home to be burned down, but she has not yet left the colonel's side. On Wednesday she was spotted on television standing next to him at one of his rambling speeches in Tripoli, a fat woman in late middle age, squeezed into camouflage fatigues, fist pounding the air in time with his chanting supporters. For years in Benghazi she was loathed as a party boss, but nothing she did afterwards spread fear of her like her behaviour at Al-Sadek's execution. It earned her the nickname Huda Al-Shannaga – Huda the executioner. She boasted about it afterwards. "We don't need talking, we need hangings," was one of the sayings that the people of Benghazi remember her by. The young man she humiliated in death couldn't have been more different. "He was quiet and gentle. He liked everybody and everybody liked him," said Mr Al-Shuwehdy, a businessman who still lives in the city. "When Al-Sadek came back from America he got a job working as an engineer at the airport, but he didn't like what he saw in Libya. He wanted freedom, so he joined a group of friends that was peacefully campaigning against Gaddafi's rule. He said that everybody should wake up and not follow this dictator's regime." His fate was perhaps inevitable, at a time when Gaddafi's rule was at its most brutal. At 3am Al-Sadek was seized at his home by the secret police and disappeared into the night. A few months later he was hanged in public. It was the first such execution – previously the regime had shot its enemies in secret – but there were to be many more hangings in the basketball stadium, which is still in use in the centre of the town. Afterwards, Mr Al-Shuwehdy's family never received a body – they have no grave to visit – and when mourners gathered outside their house, thugs arrived and shot into the air to intimidate them until they left. For years afterwards anyone related to Al-Sadek struggled to find a decent job or a place at university. Huda Ben Amir, on the other hand, prospered. She married and had two children – "What does she tell them about Al-Sadek, I wonder?" asked Mr Al-Shuwehdy – and became a leading member of Gaddafi's Legan Thwria, the organisation of revolutionary committees he set up to reward his followers. To succeed, its members had no need for talent or capacity for hard work – only loyalty was required. Before Al-Sadek's hanging, Mrs Ben Amir was a nobody, living in a miserable two-room bungalow in central Benghazi. Afterwards her family enjoyed living in a huge home in the most upmarket part of Benghazi, with a view of the Mediterranean from the top floor. She had big houses, nice cars, and a lifestyle of parties and foreign travel. Her enemies believe she creamed off millions of pounds during her two stints as mayor of the city. She was still mayor when the uprising broke out. The people of the city hated her so much that they set fire to it on three separate occasions in the past two weeks. They also scrawled obscene graffiti about her on walls across the city. The son of her next door neighbour died in the protests, shot as he returned from the funeral of a murdered demonstrator. Ibrahim Hassan Alijoroushi, the 23-year-old brother of the dead man, said: "She never spoke to any of her neighbours. Actually we wouldn't have spoken to her. She was a devil in the form of a woman." Mrs Ben Amir was born in the small town of Al Marg, east of Benghazi, then attended the University of Garyounis in Benghazi, one of Libya's finest universities. When she became mayor, she was famous for always having a pistol on her side. She did not disguise her contempt for Benghazi, the city which Gaddafi hated. "There are no real men in Benghazi – Hura Ben Amir is the only real man in Benghazi," she said during one speech. One resident of the city said he had complained to her last year about unemployment and high prices. "What can I do – everything is decided from the top," she told him with a shrug. Mr Al-Shuwehdy only ever saw her once, last year in Tripoli where he was working as a florist, decorating the airport for the September anniversary of Gaddafi's revolution. "She was bossing people around, clearly enjoying her power. I felt fear when I saw her. I wanted to ask her why she had done that to Al-Sadek, if she ever felt sorry about it. "But of course in Gaddafi's Libya you could not ask such questions so I was silent. Inside I was burning." Years after the dreadful death of his cousin, Mr Al-Shuwehdy feels it has at last served a purpose. Last month he was one of the first demonstrators in the city, together with other relatives of men executed by Gaddafi. Their protests began the uprising which overthrew Gaddafi's rule in the east of the country. Mr Al-Shuwehdy is raising money to help the militias which have sprung up to defend Benghazi and, together with friends, is supplying spare parts for their vehicles. "We never forgot Al-Sadek and his example has inspired us all," he said. "I just wish he was alive to see this day of freedom. We are committed now. We must either be free or Gaddafi will come back and kill us all." There is no going back for Huda Ben Amir either. Her enemies believe that Gaddafi may be holding her children hostage – which they claim is a common way for the regime to control its lieutenants. Mr Al-Shuwehdy hopes she will one day go on trial for her crimes, but believes her day of reckoning may come before that. "Her place is in Tripoli now next to the colonel. His supporters have a chance to show that they can die bravely with him. Huda Ben Amir lived her life as a loyalist to him. She may have no choice now but to die a loyalist for him too." Goodbye, Good Man: Shabaz Bhatti  Posted by Faith J. H. McDonnell on Mar 8th, 2011 and filed under Daily Mailer, FrontPage.In July 2002, I received an email from my friend Shahbaz Bhatti, the president of the Christian Liberation Front in Pakistan. He had just convened a meeting of all of Pakistan’s oppressed minorities in order to work more successfully for their human rights and religious freedom. The Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmedis, Baha’is, and others from all the provinces of Pakistan formed the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) and elected Bhatti as the chairman. “Dear Sister Faith,” he addressed me in his usual style as a fellow Christian, “Pakistan’s opinion makers were noting that the religious minorities of Pakistan had made history by forming an alliance for the first time in Pakistan’s history, which would empower them ‘to resolve contentious issues which have been confronting them for decades.’” He was upbeat and hopeful when I replied to his email to congratulate him. I wish I had sent him more emails over the years.
Nine years later, Wednesday morning, March 2, 2011, I received word of my friend’s brutal slaying by jihadist proponents of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. He was 42. Bhatti, a Catholic who became Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities in 2008, was the only Christian government minister in the country. Amid numerous death threats, he had been working for years to overturn the draconian blasphemy laws in the country’s Criminal Code. The cowardly gunmen ambushed him just outside his mother’s home in Islamabad and riddled his car with bullets, according to reports. Reports also indicate that the gunmen appeared to know Bhatti’s movements and to know that he was without security that morning. He had not been given a bullet-proof vehicle by the government, although he requested one. Bhatti had battled tirelessly defending the rights of the minority peoples of Pakistan. He was a voice for the marginalized, such as the 4% of Pakistan’s population that are Christians, who are deprived of education, and whose only jobs are sweeping the dung off the streets, cleaning sewers, living in a brickyard building bricks, or other such work. He was an advocate for Pakistani Christian parents whose daughters have been abducted, raped, and forced to marry their Muslim rapists, and for those children’s Muslim employees have decided it is easier to murder them than to pay them. But in his battle to reform his country’s blasphemy laws, Bhatti was not only an advocate for all of Pakistan’s non-Muslim ethnic groups, but for Muslim victims of the laws as well. In fact, the blasphemy laws have been used as a weapon against Muslims more frequently than against Christians and other minorities. Their application has been capricious, vindictive, and irrational. They are used as a weapon to settle personal arguments and business and land disputes. The laws, a component of the Shariah, make any perceived insult of Mohammed, the Koran, or Islam itself, a crime punishable by death. The accusation against an enemy is enough. Then the burden of proof is on them to defend themselves, amid the chaos of a half-crazed mob already screaming for their blood. Although no person charged with this capital crime has so far been executed by the state, many have been killed by mobs of enraged Muslims (what exactly they are enraged about is hard to say) or died in prison while awaiting trial. Any lawyer knows that his or her own life is at risk defending someone accused of blasphemy. And more than one judge, as well as the governor of Punjab State, Salman Taseer, has been assassinated for criticizing the trumped-up cases of blasphemy. Sherry Rehman, a liberal Muslim woman Member of Parliament who was working with Bhatti and Governor Taseer to overturn the blasphemy laws is now in hiding. And even those charged with the “crime,” who do manage acquittal and release, have been forced to leave the country and even change their identity – usually because of a charge that was not true in the first place. The first time the organization where I direct the religious liberty program, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, worked to save the life of a Christian accused of blasphemy against Mohammed made us aware of the absolute vulnerability of the tiny Christian community in Pakistan. In 1995, a 13 year old Christian boy, Salamat Masih was sentenced to death for blasphemy, after a Muslim neighbor accused him of writing insults about Mohammed on the outside of a mosque two years before. Masih’s complete illiteracy did not even faze his accusers. They merely countered that a demon must have inspired his writing. Because Pakistan was violating the U.N. convention on the rights of the child, of which it was a signatory, and because of tremendous international pressure, Masih was released and fled the country with his family. But others accused of blasphemy have not been as fortunate. Nor have been those who have attempted to help them. Shahbaz Bhatti knew that he would not be here long. He told my friend Nina Shea, a Commissioner of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and director of the Religious Freedom Center at the Hudson Institute, that “he had never married because he did not think it would be fair to a wife and children to subject them to this concern.” Accepting USCIRF’s Religious Freedom Medallion in September 2009 he said, “I personally stand for religious freedom, even if I will pay the price of my life. I live for this principle and I want to die for this principle.” Bhatti recorded a video with the BBC four months ago and left instructions for it to be released if he were killed. In it he said, “I believe in Jesus Christ who has given His own life for us. I know what is the meaning of “Cross,” and I am following the Cross, and I am ready to die for a cause.” Since Bhatti’s death, condemnations of the appalling tragedy have come from many leaders across the globe. President Barack Obama said that he was “deeply saddened” by Bhatti’s assassination. “Those who committed this crime should be brought to justice,” he continued, “and those who share Mr. Bhatti’s vision of tolerance and religious freedom must be able to live free from fear.” Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd condemned the murder and said the “cowardly and brutal act is a blow to tolerance and moderation in Pakistan.” Others, like British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle made similar statements. Now it remains to be seen who among these world leaders will actually take action for the beleaguered minorities of Pakistan, as well as making strong-sounding statements. Who will defend the Christians of Pakistan, now that this great, good man is gone? Faith J. H. McDonnell directs The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan, and is the author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007). Telegraph Dubai royal family aide lifts lid on UK palace 'sex secrets' An aide to Dubai’s royal family was sacked after refusing to spy on a dignitary suspected of conducting an affair at one of their British palaces, a tribunal has heard. The unfair dismissal case launched by Ejil Mohammed Ali has thrown a rare spotlight on life in the royal household, including allegations of extra-marital relationships and drug addiction. Mr Ali, 32, alleges that superiors told him a dignatry from Dubai staying at one of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's royal palaces was having an affair with a personal aide several years their junior. He also claims that Sheikh Rashid, the eldest son of the multi-billionaire racehorse owner, recently underwent drug rehabilitation. As the stores supervisor at the family's sprawling Longross Palace near Chertsey, Surrey, Mr Ali claims he came into regular contact with the Arab family, describing them as “very down to earth people." But he alleges that his career came to an abrupt end when he refused demands from his bosses to spy on the dignitary, who they believed was being unfaithful with another member of staff. He claims that when he refused, he was bullied, harassed and eventually dismissed from his £60,000-a-year job. The dignitary cannot be named because the tribunal imposed a gagging order preventing details of the alleged affair being published. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Sheikh Mohammed, who is the world's most influential racehorse owner through his Godolphin stables, or any of his family. Mr Ali claims he was a “trusted servant of the royal family”, working for UK Mission Enterprises Ltd – a company which provides logistics exclusively for the royal family. He alleges that in June 2009 he was summoned to a meeting with the firm’s managing director Abdulla Shakeri, and Abdullah Al-Mansoori, a diplomat for the United Arab Emirates. He claims that the pair asked him to exploit his “privileged access” at the palace to spy on a dignatary they suspected of having an affair. As a sweetener, he was offered the chance to buy Mr Al-Mansoori’s £15,000 convertible BMW car for just £1,000, the tribunal was told. “They suspected that [the dignitary] was having an affair with [a] personal assistant and wanted me to find out the truth for them,” Mr Ali said. “They wanted me to spy on [them] when [they] were visiting Longcross.” The father-of-one said he refused the “mission” because he thought it was illegal and that when he threatened to call the police, Mr Al-Mansoori replied: “I’m a diplomat, nobody can touch me.” He claims he was suspended in September 2009 and sacked four months later following a “sham dismissal process” in which he was accused of racism, theft, Islamic extremism, and threats to kill colleagues. Mr Ali also claims that before he was sacked, his employers sent henchmen to follow him and vandalise his home, leaving he and his family fearing for their safety. Two of his colleagues, Edwin Amagua and Olatunji Faleye, are also claiming unfair dismissal and discrimination respectively, alleging that they were forced out of their jobs after refusing to sign false statements about Mr Ali’s conduct. The three claimants, from London, are collectively suing UK Mission Enterprise Ltd, Mr Shakeri, Mr Al-Mansoori and Yousuf Mohammed, a former colleague. The respondents deny all the allegations. They claim the men were dismissed because their work did not meet the required standards. They also deny that Mr Ali was ever asked to spy on the dignitary or that he ever came into contact with the person. Sheikh Mohammed, 61, is Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and reportedly has a personal fortune of £8 billion. His elder wife, Sheikha Hind, who is rarely seen in public, is thought to be in her 50s and the mother of 12 of Sheikh Mohammed’s children. His second wife is Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, a 36-year-old international showjumping champion, who gave birth to a son in 2007. The Sheikh’s vast UK property empire includes numerous homes in and around London, including Longcross - thought to be worth around £75 million – as well as his own palace, thousands of acres of land, and stables near Newmarket, Suffolk – the home of British horseracing. The hearing at the Central London Employment Tribunal continues. Want your politics with the cant taken out? Then try my blogs: |
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