Christians Attacked in Pakistan

[freeandfun1]

Christians Attacked in Pakistan as Man is Accused of Burning Koran
Posted: Thursday, June 30 , 2005, 13:10 (UK)

The radical Muslim crowd has been reported to have attacked and burned Christian homes in three areas near Peshawar, Pakistan on Tuesday night, 28th June 2005. The attacks came after one Christian man was accused of burning papers with text from the Koran, the Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) has learned from local sources.

The accused man, Yousaf Masih is more then 60 years old, working for almost 20 years as a sweeper for the Pakistani military. One of the tasks for him that day was allegedly cleaning the office of a major in his house. He found the bag of "rough papers" as he was cleaning and was told to burn them outside.

As he was fulfiling his obligation and orders from a superior, other workers, seeing the papers said that Yousaf was burning the pages of the Koran. Yousaf, who is in fact illiterate, had no possibility to know the content of the text written on the papers.

Hearing the accusations, he ran away in fear and went to his home in the Lama Veera area of Nowshera, east of Peshawar, in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier.

Later in the afternoon at 3 p.m., police came to arrest him, since according to the effective law in Pakistan, blaspheming Islam, Prophet Mohammed or the Koran is crime punishable by death.

Many Pakistani Christians have been falsely accused of breaking this Law, report VOM; and some have even been killed by mobs after being acquitted of such charges.

During the night, the mob consisting of radical Muslims raided Yousaf's house and beat his three sons and brother. They plundered many houses, and burnt approximately 200 of them in Christian areas of Lama Veera, CMH and Saran.

Police have arrested 16 people involved in attacks and have strengthened police forces in all three areas in order to restore order.

Workers of VOM are on the way to the stricken areas to meet the immediate needs of those who lost their homes.

 

[dmp]

...b-b-but ISLAM is a religion of PEACE!!!

:arabia: :soul: :scratch:

 

[HorhayAtAMD]

I wonder if Pakistan is considering removing all references to Islam from their courthouses?

 

[Said1]

...b-b-but ISLAM is a religion of PEACE!!!

:arabia: :soul: :scratch:

It was a happy, angry mob.

 

[Gabriella84]

Christian missionaries are at risk everywhere in the world.

Wonder what would happen if the same thing happened to Muslim missionaries who did the same thing here? Probably much the same thing.

 

[Gem]

Actually, people in the United States mistreat the Bible and other Christian symbols on a seemingly daily basis...and as of yet I haven't seen crazed Presbyterians and Methodists burning down buildings or shooting up Mosques...

Gabby, open your eyes. We allow artists to display crucifixes upside down in jars of urine...Muslim fanatics kill people for mistreating their Holy Book. We allow television shows that mock the Eucharist..Muslim Fanatics stab artists to death for having the audacity to speak out against their religion. We allow Muslims to have mosques in our nation that speak out strongly against the Bush Administration and the US in general...do some research into how Christian churches have been treated by Muslim fundamentalists all over the world.

It is SO simple to say, "Yeah...well crazy Christians would do the same thing here." Unfortunately, to be the open, intelligent person you claim to be...you need to actually open your eyes and see that those things AREN'T happening here...even though Christians see their religion mocked and their religious items destroyed in the name of protest and art every day.

 

[Gabriella84]

Gem, that is EXACTLY why we shouldn't be shocked when we see stories like this. A great many countries openly practice and condone religious intolerance.
At the same time, Americans are allowed the freedom to accept or reject the religion that they choose. It is the current wave of hatred and mistrust of a certain religion in this country that I worry about.
When you go to many Muslim countries, you see people who are openly fanatical about their religion. They practice state religion, which makes other religions a crime.
We should not compare that to America, where we have freedom of religion. Their hatred and violence should not prompt our hatred and violence. Their crimes should not prompt our crimes.

 

[Gem]

Gabby Wrote:

we shouldn't be shocked when we see stories like this

I'm sorry, but I could not disagree with you more. Looking the other way, refusing to be shocked by religious intolerance and the growing frequency of violence against people who do not practice the religion the fanatics approve of, represents a level of apathy, and therefore, a passive acceptance of these actions, that no American, no human, should tolerate.

We should not shrug our shoulders at the violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition...we should study it with open eyes and curious minds, try to understand WHY Christians did what they did, what motivated them to commit their crimes against humanity, and how we can avoid such zealotry in our own time.

Similarly, although now this violence is happening in our own time, we should be intently aware of the violence perpetrated by Islamic Fundamentalists. Why is the behavior ocurring? Why is it growing more prevalent in nations that are showing no support of the United States? Why are nations such as Germany, that have experienced a huge surge in hate crimes like honor killings as their Muslim populations have increased, refused to bring it to the attention of the press, preferring instead, to hush up the incidents, such as a young Muslim woman shot to death by her brothers in a restaurant. Her crime? She divorced her Muslim husband and was dating a German man.

Stating that "We shouldn't be shocked" by this religious intolerance is, in essence, one step towards ignoring it, condoning it...patting it gently on the back of the hand and saying patronizingly, "Its ok...you're just a crazy fundamentalist...you don't know any better...we understand...we should just try to not make you angry...then you'll behave better."

We need to open our eyes now and see that these fundamentalists will not "behave" if we would just "stop making them angry." Islamic fundamentalists have killed people in nations that have done nothing to them. They have threatened nations that have shown absolute contempt towards the United States. They have shown unrelenting resolve to kill anyone who does not follow their religious beliefs...plain and simple.

You SHOULD be shocked by this, Gabby. You SHOULD be saying, "Hey...we shit all over Christianity every day in this nation...yet for some reason, today's Christians aren't beheading artists on video and sending the tape to Fox News. I wonder why Christian fanatics aren't and Muslim fanatics are?"

You say:

Their hatred and violence should not prompt our hatred and violence. Their crimes should not prompt our crimes.

But what you don't seem to be understanding is that their hatred and violence HASN'T spawned hatred and violence in the United States. Their crimes HAVEN'T prompted crimes against Muslims in the United States or abroad.

The number of crimes against Muslims because of their religion in this country has been shockingly (here's something you actually can be shocked about) small. Americans in the vast majority have been NOTHING BUT UNDERSTANDING and decent towards our neighbors with different religious beliefs.

With this in mind, you shouldn't be overly concerned with Americans and/or Christians hating Muslims, there simply isn't evidence of that happening in large enough numbers to matter....but rather, you should be using that college education to ponder why Islamic fanatics are so intent on killing people...and how we stop them.

 

[Gabriella84]

With this in mind, you shouldn't be overly concerned with Americans and/or Christians hating Muslims, there simply isn't evidence of that happening in large enough numbers to matter....

I think it happens it far greater numbers than anyone realizes. It might not be reported as much, but I don't think you are going to find many Muslims in this country who do not live in fear of their lives. It is starting to remind me of what happened to Japanese living in America after Pearl Harbor. Most were interned simply because they were Japanese. Should we do the same to Muslims? You will find a significant number of Americans who feel we should.

but rather, you should be using that college education to ponder why Islamic fanatics are so intent on killing people...and how we stop them.

You are absolutely correct. And I have attempted to do this since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. I have read literature by the scores.
To understand why someone is your enemy, you first have to figure out why he is your enemy. That means reading what he has to say. And why he thinks that way. It think it is terribly one sided to merely look at someone and surmise they are thoughtless killers. Everyone has a thought process. Too many people are too lazy to understand it.
There are radical Islamic factions. They are comparable in ideology to the radical Jewish factions and the radical Palestinian factions who have sworn to fight each other to the death. It is comparable to many (if not most) of rebelling factions who are fighting civil wars in countries all over the globe.

How do we stop them? We don't, simple as that.
Terrorism is a massive forest. You don't destroy it by stripping branches from various trees. The branches grow back quickly, and in multiples.
You blunt terrorism by understanding its principles and learning to deal with them. You learn to make compromises.
Osama bin Laden himself has stated that his only hatred of the West stems from their occupation of "Holy Lands." Which means American military presence in the Middle East. bin Laden is not a secular leader, with secular ambitions. He is a religious leader. The prophet Mohammad espoused the principles of peace, but noted that those who threatened that peace must be dealt with by any means. Which is where the concept of Jihad came from. The "holy wars" are to protect territories considered sacred.
These concepts and principles are very foreign to Christians, who believe in much different ways of dealing with things. Which is why few understand their enemy.

 

[Gem]

Gabby,

I respect that you are trying to learn. But I think that you need to continue to read.

Osama bin Laden and other fundamentalists have not just threatened the United States...they have threatened and/or attacked nations and people that have never occupied lands in the Middle East. They have issued fatwahs on people who have done nothing to the Middle East aside from offend their religious views. They have stated publically that their goal is the conquering of the Western world and the creation of a Muslim one...by conversion or death, they want all people to be Muslim.

I agree...the United States has made many enemies by our military and political actions around the world. But to believe the problem would be solved by removing all the troops from the Middle East, to hope that the terrorists will take pity on us as we try desperately to appease them is hopelessly naive...and not an effective answer in how to live in the world we presently find ourselves in.

 

[Gabriella84]

They have stated publically that their goal is the conquering of the Western world and the creation of a Muslim one...by conversion or death, they want all people to be Muslim.

I have read extensively and have never seen this stated. You have to remember that bin Laden does not represent a nation. The creation of a "Muslim world" would be a secular gain. bin Laden has no interest in taking over the world. He wants to protect what he views as "his world."
The difference is ideology. If given the chance, bin Laden would prefer to work from within. He wants to spread Islam nation by nation. But his only "territorial goals" are to preserve what he views as the "Islamic state."
I believe you control bin Laden by containing him. It is the same concept as communism. I don't see us threatening China. And the Chinese are a far greater threat to world security than bin Laden.

 

[Gem]

There are different ways to deal with every situation. We do not go to war with every nation because we do not need to go to war with every nation. We do not speak diplomatically with every world leader because not every world leader would respond to being dealt with diplomatically. This is one of the reasons why invading North Korea, for example, is, at the moment, not the best course of action for the United States to take.

Bin Laden and Zarqawi have both spoken about conversion of nonbelievers to Islam or killing infidels as important to their overall version of a perfect world. Many captured terrorists have attested to similar "values." I agree with you that if Osama bin Laden is "contained," that is, if we have him in a situation in which he can not get orders out than I could care less if we catch him tomorrow or in two years. There are numerous terrorist leaders...bin Laden is just the "flavor of the month," so to speak. If we do catch him that is wonderful, but it will not be the end of anything when we do.