Landmark Case In Pakistan

This is what happens when a Moslem nation tries to modernize:

#UPDATE Pakistan's Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Christian mother Asia Bibi who was facing execution for blasphemy in a landmark case which has incited deadly violence https://t.co/llV8bdjKV5 pic.twitter.com/X9XNnaKJvL

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 31, 2018

Pakistan: Taliban-linked cleric offers $5,800 reward for anyone who kills Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi

A hardline, pro-Taliban Pakistani Muslim cleric Friday offered a reward for anyone who kills a Christian woman sentenced to death by a court on charges of insulting Islam.

The sentence against Asia Bibi has renewed debate about Pakistan’s blasphemy law which critics say is used to persecute religious minorities, fan religious extremism and settle personal scores. Non-Muslim minorities account roughly 4 percent of Pakistan’s about 170 million population.

Maulana Yousef Qureshi, the imam of a major mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, offered a $5,800 (3,700 pounds) reward and warned the government against any move to abolish or change the blasphemy law.

“We will strongly resist any attempt to repeal laws which provide protection to the sanctity of Holy Prophet Mohammad,” Qureshi told a rally of hardline Islamists.

“Anyone who kills Asia will be given 500,000 rupees in reward from Masjid Mohabat Khan,” he said referring to his mosque.

via Hardline Pakistan cleric offers reward to kill Christian woman – The West Australian.

Background:

1. Pakistan: Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
2. Pakistan: your signature to save Asia Bibi.
3. Asia Bibi: Pope appeals for “full freedom“.
4. Pakistan: Asia Bibi NOT pardoned, protests are announced in case she is.
5. Pakistan: Both Minister of Minorities and Punjab Governor threatened by Islamists over Asia Bibi’s release.

Found here.

Cross-posted in T&P.

Some news that you could have missed

1. Afghanistan: former Muslim could be sentenced to death penalty for conversion: Sayed Mossa, an Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity, has been scheduled to stand trial today and most likely will be sentenced to death. His trial for apostasy will probably be televised in the war-torn country, and it appears Mossa may not even have adequate representation. Every lawyer, all Muslims, that has been appointed by the courts to represent Mossa have refused. They dare not defend someone who converted to Christianity. Mossa is a 45 year old, married, father of six children. His youngest is 8 and he has one disabled child. Mossa is an amputee and has spent 15 years of his life helping others with the International Red Cross. However a co-worker turned Mossa in for being a Christian convert – a crime in most Muslim nations practicing Sharia law.
2. Egypt: cleric demands death penalty for importers of female virginity-faking device. Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law. The device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to feign virginity on her wedding night.
   
3. France: another Catholic church attacked. Father Gabriel, the parish priest, speaks to the press, almost in desperation. For several months, his church has been the target of obscene and offensive tags, excrement-throwing … And last week, the cypresses adjacent to the religious building were set on fire, threatening to spread the flames to church. For this priest, “these acts have a direct link with what is happening in Iraq where Christians were attacked.” At the outset, Father Gabriel talks about inter-community tensions and denounced a “climate of increasingly aggressive and violent maintained by a small group of young people 12/13 years up to 16 years.” At first, Father Gabriel was believed to “incivility” of unemployed youth in the neighborhood. Nonsense of teenagers in need of provocation.Then a few days before the fire of cypress, a youth entered the church during mass, urinating on the porch with while shouting this terrible sentence, “We’ll toast you all, you and your church.” The parish priest complained to the police on Nov. 9.
4. Iran: Islamic religious leader expects the Pope to consider the Qu'ran as holy as the Gospels. 
5. Iraq's Christians unimportant in global politics. "We also must squarely face the unpleasant reality that terrorism done in the name of Islam is not going to disappear on its own or be resolved by dipomacy. As Fr. de Souza wrote in a National Post column earlier this week, “The blood on the altar makes it clear. No amount of goodwill, no amount of dialogue, no amount of circumlocutory evasions, no amount of supine prostrations — nothing will dissuade the jihadists. … The jihadists respect neither man nor God, not even their own. They have killed their fellow Muslims and bombed mosques. The Christians killed on Sunday were Iraqis, their fellow Arabs, their fellow citizens, their neighbors. They kill because they are seized with a murderous hatred. The least we can do is to summon a righteous anger in return.”
6. Malaysia: Dad in pork issue claims son is not Muslim. Debates and arguments in Parliament over the last two days had centred on whether or not his son Basil — raised by a Christian mother — was also Muslim. The father left Islam and now is registered as "non-Muslim".

7. 

   Asia Bibi

   Pakistan: Christian woman sentenced to death on blasphemy charges: Some of the women workers had reportedly been pressuring Bibi to renounce her Christian faith and accept Islam. During one discussion, Asia Bibi (pictured) responded by speaking of how Jesus had died on the cross for the sins of humanity and asking the Muslim women what Muhammad had done for them. She is married and has 4 children. Her sentence has been appealed. There is an internacional campaign to help her.
8. Obama praises Jew-free Indonesia.
9. Saudi Arabia: Facebook blocked for not conforming with values. The official announced that Saudi’s Communications and Information Technology Commission blocked the site and an error message shows up when Internet users try to access it.
10. Spain: Violent Muslim occupation of Cordoba Cathedral did not Violate Law against Offending Religious Sentiments, Judge Says.“There isn’t so much an intention to minimize or harm the religious sentiments of the Catholic religion so much as an attempt to favor, not to say clearly impose, in a false gesture of tolerance, the possibility of carrying out joint worship [in the cathedral],” the judge declared. “It doesn’t act to demerit or discredit the Catholic religion, but rather in favor of joint use.
11. Sri Lanka: maid alleges nail torture while working in Kuwait. he doctor said the woman had told surgeons that her Kuwaiti employers drove the nails into her hands and left leg – some as long as 3.5 centimetres (1.5 inches) – when she asked for her salary after working for six months. (AFP)
12. Uk: Tower Hamlets' Luftur Rahman puts fundamentalist sympathiser in charge of the money. The four posts (in Tower Hamlets’ council) Lutfur has filled are all from the ranks of the councillors who defected from Labour to him before the election. They include Alibor Choudhury, a man with even closer links than Lutfur to the Muslim supremacist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe. Alibor has, incredibly, been given the key post of cabinet member for resources – that is, he will be in charge of the money.
13. UN: Iran, Turkey could be frontrunners for nuclear disarmament. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Islamic Republic and Turkey have potentials to be forerunners of international nuclear disarmament, the local English language satellite Press TV reported on Thursday.”Iran and Turkey can be flag-bearers of nuclear disarmament in the globe to establish a world free from nuclear weapons,” Mottaki said in a meeting with head of Turkish Parliament’s Commission for Foreign Relations Murad Marjan in Tehran on Wednesday. Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base.
14. West Bank: Blogger faces potential life prison sentence for "insulting Islam". Husayin faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for “insulting the divine essence.” Many in this conservative Muslim town say he should be killed for renouncing Islam, and even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.”He should be burned to death,” said Abdul-Latif Dahoud, a 35-year-old Qalqilya resident. The execution should take place in public “to be an example to others,” he added.

Egypt: "Some Qu'ran verses were added after Mohammed's death", Coptic Bishop says

From Bivouac:

A senior official of the Coptic Church caused an uproar in religious circles in Egypt after suggesting that some verses of the Koran, have been inserted after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, reported the press.

Muslims believe the Koran contains the words that God has revealed to Prophet Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel, over 23 years until his death. If someone says that some verses were added a posteriori, he is then putting into question their validity.

At a recent meeting with the Egyptian ambassador to Cyprus, Bishop Bishoy, secretary of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Church (Egyptian Christians), said he believed that some verses contradict Christian faith, had been added after Muhammad's death, by one of his successors. These remarks have provoked strong reactions in Muslim communities and Christian leaders have expressed fear of communal tensions. But last Wednesday Bishoy said he was misunderstood.

"My question was whether the verses of the Koran were inserted after the death of the prophet, not a criticism," he said. "It's just a question about a certain verse, which I believe is at odds with the Christian faith," Bishop said, quoted by the daily al-Masri al-Youm. "I do not understand how this could turn into a criticism against Islam," he said.

But in Islam is such a proposition a real blasphemy: the Quran is uncreated word of God.

Sources in the prestigious institution Sunni Al Azhar in Cairo, told the newspaper that the comments had made its, chief Sheikh Ahmed Al Tayeb "very angry".

The government itself became involved, through the voice of Salem Abdel Geleel, Vice-Minister of Awqaf, who said in a statement: "The faith of Muslims is a red line and in no case can it be discussed by a non-Muslim".

Speaking about separation of religion and State...

Sources: Afp-LeFigaro. ElWatan. ChrétientéInfo.

Cross-posted from T&P.

Pakistani Anti-Christian Bigotry