Islam Outside Australia.

Note: Readers should remember that the Islam world outside Australia includes very many acts of violence and intimidation. Some may proclaim that these acts are 'un-islamic',but they still take place and no Islamic leaders anywhere in the world denounce them or take any action to stop them.

Just how 'un-islamic' are these acts of violence and intimidation?

Read and learn...

28 October 2006


Attacks on Pakistani Christians increasing.


The Archbishop of Lahore has spoken out against Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws, which he says are devastating the lives of Christians there. Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha said these laws are making it difficult for Christians to live in Pakistan.

According to "Persecuted and Forgotten?", a major report published by the charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Pakistan's non-Muslims have suffered worse persecution in the last 18 months than at any other time in the last 60 years.

Archbishop Saldanha says that the blasphemy law allows people to make accusations with too little evidence, which is putting religious minorities at risk.

"There is no kind of proper trial at all. Just [an] accusation is enough. Before we know it the mob will come and attack and do their destruction and only later on they'll ask questions. So many people are lying in jail without any trial. It's very difficult to get them out afterwards," said the archbishop on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last Tuesday.

Pakistan's constitution allows everyone to practise their religion, but under the country's blasphemy laws "defiling, damaging or desecrating" the Qur'an is punishable with life imprisonment, and insulting the Prophet Muhammad carries the death sentence.

According to the Justice and Peace Commission of Pakistan's Catholic Church, 700 people have been charged under the legislation since it was tightened in 1986 and more than 20 have died subsequently, some in custody.

The ACN report cites the story of Yusif Said, a 46-year-old Christian trader in Pakistan accused of blasphemy by a man he beat at a game of cards. The man called on imams to assemble Muslims to punish the whole Christian community; a crowd burnt down two churches and their adjoining schools in Mr Said's home town, Sangla Hill in eastern Pakistan, and ransacked homes. When Mr Said turned himself into the police for the sake of his wife and children, officers handcuffed and tortured him. He was charged with desecrating the Qur'an, found guilty and imprisoned for almost four months before the ruling was overturned. Mr Said told ACN: "I know that a lot of my problems would disappear immediately if I changed my faith. But I would rather be beaten and put to death than change my faith. I kept thinking that if Christ suffered, why can't we?"

Fr Robert McCulloch, 60, an Australian Columban missionary in Hyderabad, told The Tablet that laws had created a culture of intimidation. " There's a policy of religious domination. A group of [Muslim] fundamentalists came to the door of a missionary nun, trying to put a copy of the Qur'an into her hands and cause it to fall to the ground. [If they had succeeded] it would have been taken as an insult to the Qur'an. Fundamentalists have their witnesses gathered, then demonstrations [calling for her arrest] would begin. Legal justice is one thing; mob justice is another. It all adds to the enormous insecurity Christians have to live with."

According to "Persecuted and Forgotten?" Christians are "probably the most persecuted religious group in the world" with as many as 170,000 believers killed each year for religious reasons.




Comment: The Australian government should take action to be more forthright in its defence of persecuted Christians in the world. As Christianity is a cultural and spiritual part of Western Civilization all attacks on it are a long term danger to Australia.

Serious consideration (by serious people, obviously)should be given to thsi matter.