Malkin: The Religion of Pieces / What are you Praying for?

MichelleMalkin.com ^ | 3-24-06 | Michelle Malkin

[cgk]

THE RELIGION OF PIECES

By

Michelle Malkin

  ·   March 24, 2006 12:39 AM

WAKE-UP CALL (via AP/WaPo):

Senior Muslim clerics demanded Thursday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to "pull him into pieces."

..."Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

...On Wednesday, authorities said Rahman is suspected of being mentally ill and would undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial.

But three Sunni preachers and a Shiite one interviewed by The Associated Press in four of Kabul's most popular mosques said they do not believe Rahman is insane.

"He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian," said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque.

"The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed," Hamidullah said.

Raoulf, who is a member of the country's main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, agreed. "The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled."

"Cut off his head!" he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left."

...Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country.

"If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can too," he said. "We must set an example. ... He must be hanged."

..."We are a small country and we welcome the help the outside world is giving us. But please don't interfere in this issue," Nasri said. "We are Muslims and these are our beliefs. This is much more important to us than all the aid the world has given us."

Australian PM John Howard speaks for me:

The case of an Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity is ``appalling,'' Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.

``We're putting the lives of Australian soldiers on the line and this sort of thing is allowed,'' Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW today. ``When I saw the report about this I felt sick.''

Speaking of feeling sick, check al-Reuters' latest shenanigans in its coverage of the Rahman case at LGF.

***

I'm on the road Friday morning, but will be in Washington, D.C. at noon for the Support Abdul Rahman event. Come join us:

noon to 1pm
Outside the Afghan Embassy

2341 Wyoming Ave NW.
Washington DC

[cgk]

WHAT ARE YOU PRAYING FOR?

By

Michelle Malkin

  ·   March 24, 2006 04:19 PM

Abdul Rahman: Marked for death

In Afghanistan at Friday Prayers, Muslim clerics prayed for murder (via NYTimes):

Afghan clerics used Friday Prayers at mosques across the capital to call for death for an Afghan man who converted to Christianity, despite widespread protest in the West.

As the international pressure on Afghanistan grew, the clerics demanded the execution of the Afghan, Abdul Rahman 41, if he does not convert back to Islam. His conversion 15 years ago was brought to the attention of Afghan authorities as part of a child custody dispute...

...One speaker, Mawlavi Habibullah, told more than a thousand clerics and young people who had gathered in Kabul that "Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws.

"The prophet says when somebody changes religion, he must be killed" he said.

Keep an eye out for developments tomorrow:

An Afghan Christian facing possible execution for converting from Islam was likely to be released from jail "soon," a senior government official said following huge Western pressure over the case.

"He is likely to be released soon," the official said, adding there would be a top-level meeting on the matter Saturday.

Outcry rises:

Growing international pressure on Afghanistan to respect the religious freedom of a Christian convert was met in Afghanistan on Friday by calls for the man to be executed for denying Islam.

The controversy over Abdur Rahman, 40, whose trial is due to begin next week, threatens to drive a wedge between Afghanistan and Western countries that are ensuring its security and bankrolling its development.

But President Hamid Karzai cannot ignore conservative proponents of Islamic law or appear to bow too readily to outside pressure.

Religious and political figures meeting at a Kabul hotel, including former prime minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai and Shi'ite cleric Asif Mohsenia who commanded anti-Soviet forces in the 1980s, said the government should ensure that Islamic law is enforced.

It said if its demands were ignored, "the Muslim people of Afghanistan would consider struggle their legal and religious duty."

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of The Counterterrorism Blog, one of many bloggers I was honored to meet at the Abdul Rahman rally this afternoon, writes:

This case makes clear that the threat to converts out of Islam does not just come from the state, but from private citizens as well. And it makes clear that the belief that apostates deserve death is not an aberration, but is more widespread that many would like to acknowledge. The resolution of this case may well be a barometer of Afghanistan's future, and the future of democracy in the Middle East.

Nina Shea: The problem is Sharia.

Washington Times columnist Diana West, another attendee whom I was honored to meet today, has an excellent column on masking terror that begins:

Q: What's worse than Afghanistan's barbaric prosecution of Abdul Rahman for the Islamic crime of converting to Christianity? A: The muffled US. reaction.

Rally reports, pics, and video from Mary Katherine Ham, Age of Hooper, Jeff Harrell, Tom Bridge, Are We Lumberjacks?

You will not be surprised to learn that there were no members of Christian Peacemaker Teams there today. (Mike's Noise has a challenge for CPT.)

Thanks to all who did come to show their support for Abdul Rahman.

Keep praying for his life.

***

Eugene Volokh:

The striking thing about the Abdul Rahman prosecution — in which an Afghanistan court is considering whether to execute Rahman because he converted from Islam to Christianity — is how Establishment the prosecution is. The case is before an official Afghani court. The death sentence is, to my knowlege, authorized by official Afghani law. The New York Times reports that the prosecutor, an Afghan government official, "called Mr. Rahman 'a microbe' who 'should be killed.'" The case is in a country which is close to the West, and is presumably under at least some special influence from Western principles (whether as a matter of conviction or of governmental self-interest).

We're not talking about some rogue terrorist group, or even the government of Iran, which is deliberately and strongly oppositional to the West. We're talking about a country that we're trying to set up as something of a model of democracy and liberty for the Islamic world. And yet the legal system is apparently seriously considering executing someone for nothing more than changing his religion.

This is telling evidence, it seems to me, that there is something very wrong in Islam today, and not just in some lunatic terrorist fringe...

Read the rest.

[joesnuffy]

'Those who hate God love death' Proverbs 8:36

Those who hate God worship a different god....

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

Islam is the religion of peace. (Sarcasm on)

[cgk]

Malkin ping!

Photo credit: FReeper tgsltakoma, from the DC Chapter's freep at the Support Abdul Rahman event.

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Michelle Malkin ping list...

[cgk]

[Anti-Bubba182]

If the Afghans kill this man, they will be looked upon as savages by many in the west.

[Captainpaintball]

I am glad to see "my religion of pieces" line is spreading all over the world, being used by people I admire. Mostly because it is TRUE!!!

[cgk]

Note: you think the cartoonist mispelled "Christian" as "Christain" so as not to offend Christians? LOL

[Farmer Dean]

Looks like we have more work to do there.Sniper work that is.Too bad those clerics don't think that their god is strong enough to stand up for himself when"insulted".Just a bunch of pathetic power trippers.

[EveningStar]

ping

[EveningStar]

[HighlyOpinionated]

The caricature relating to the sexual gratification of suicide bombers with virgin women suggests the return of a age-old historical islamophobic Western imagery: the association of Islam and its prophet with sexual depravity. The way in which these caricatures defames Islam has now been defined....

Well, he sounded pretty good until I got to this paragraph. HUH? The 40-white-raisin-virgins isn't some "islamophobic Western imagery" and the prophet of islam was sexually deviant. Even the imams and mullahs today are sexually deviant. This is a religious cult which has brainwashed its members just as Jim Jones brainwashed his 'flock' into drinking cyanid-laced koolade in November 1978.

What's going on in Afghanistan today is proof that islam is an intrinsic evil in this world.

[andyk]

Heh. This Christain is plenty insulted. :)

[catmanblack.]

all of islam is a death trap for the US-we need to be very careful with these people and not allow these animals to infect us with their evil-people in this country have tried for years to remove CHRISTIANITY and have nearly succeeded-leaving vast areas of our society looking for something-when a society looses sight of right and wrong evil prevails-we have more than enough evil here with communisn, drugs, cults, and pornography-we are being invaded and conquered without a shot being fired-thru our open borders we have allowed the same thing to happen as king solomon-in the name of globalism we are slowly destroying the fabric of our society-it is one thing to love thy neighbor it is another to support him-let others find a good life with the sweat of the brow-let GOD have mercy on this country i love and forgive us for sins so that our children will grow strong and know of his love.

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

If America was declared a Christian nation and we bagan to kill all of thoses not of Christ, do you think the peoples of the world would object? Where is the out cry for this man?

[tkathy]

Calling for murder is not praying in any way.

Satanic whining would be a better description.

[Farmer Dean]

Honestly,the lack of outrage and business as usual attitude of the press is so disturbing that I don't know how to express my disgust.Makes me wonder how many Muslims are held in bondage by their mullahs.How many would just walk away if there were no repercussions?

[Asfarastheeastisfromthewest...]

Heavenly Father, be with this child of yours as he walks these deep waters and give him peace and encouragement. May this be a time when your power will become so evident to all that the people around will be compelled to say as in 1 Kings 18:39.....The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.

[FormerLib]

The ethnically-cleansed Serbs from Kosovo could tell us all about the realities of The Religion of Peace!

[gotribe]

``We're putting the lives of Australian soldiers on the line and this sort of thing is allowed,'' Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW today. ``When I saw the report about this I felt sick.''

Thank God there is still a political LEADER walking this earth who will tell it like it is.