Bearing False Witness: Christian woman sentenced to death for being Christian

As her religion faces persecution across the Middle East, a Christian woman explains why she faces hanging in Pakistan for the crime of ‘blasphemy’

By ASIA BIBI

“I’m innocent! It’s not true! I didn’t insult the Prophet!”

More and more people join the crowd as they push me towards the home of the village headman. I recognize the house — it’s the only one that has a garden with grass growing in it. They throw me to the ground. The village imam speaks to me: “I’ve been told you’ve insulted our Prophet. You know what happens to anyone who attacks the holy Prophet Mohammed. You can redeem yourself only by conversion or death.”

“I haven’t done anything! Please! I beg you! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

The qari with his long, well-combed beard, turns to Musarat and the three women who were there on the day of the falsa harvest.

“Did she speak ill of Muslims and our holy Prophet Mohammed?”

“Yes, she insulted them,” replies Musarat, and the others join in:

“It’s true, she insulted our religion.”

“If you don’t want to die,” says the young mullah, “you must convert to Islam. Are you willing to redeem yourself by becoming a good Muslim?”

Sobbing, I reply:

“No, I don’t want to change my religion. But please believe me, I didn’t do what these women say, I didn’t insult your religion. Please have mercy on me.”

I put my hands together and plead with him. But he is unmoved.

“You’re lying! Everyone says you committed this blasphemy and that’s proof enough. Christians must comply with the law of Pakistan, which forbids any derogatory remarks about the holy Prophet. Since you won’t convert and the Prophet cannot defend himself, we shall avenge him.”

He turns on his heel and the angry crowd falls on me. I’m beaten with sticks and spat at. I think I’m going to die. Then they ask me again:

“Will you convert to a religion worthy of the name?”

“No, please, I’m a Christian, but I beg you . . . ”

And they go on beating me with the same fury as before.

I was barely conscious and could hardly feel the pain of my wounds by the time the police arrived. Two policemen threw me in their van, to cheers from the angry crowd, and a few minutes later I was in the police station in Nankana Sahib.

In the police chief’s office they sat me down on a bench. I asked for water and compresses for the wounds on my legs, which were streaming with blood. A young policeman threw me an old dishcloth and spat out at me:

“Here, and don’t get it everywhere.”

One of my arms really hurt and I thought it might be broken. Just then I saw the qari come in with Musarat and her gang. With me sitting there they told the police chief that I insulted the Prophet Mohammed. From outside the police station I could hear shouts:

“Death to the Christian!”

After writing up the report the policeman turned and called to me in a nasty voice:

“So what have you got to say for yourself?”

“I’m innocent! It’s not true! I didn’t insult the Prophet!”

Immediately after I’d protested my innocence I was manhandled into the police van and driven away. During the journey I passed out from pain and only came back to myself as we were arriving at Sheikhupura prison, where I was thrown into a cell.

Since that day I haven’t left prison.



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/sentenced_to_death_for_sip_of_water_7zwT2vBrUGqhDzasfQxkKK/3

Pentagon Labels Founding Fathers, Conservatives and Christians as Extremists

By Todd Starnes

George Washington would not be welcome in the modern U.S. military. Neither would Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, according to Department of Defense training documents that depict the Founding Fathers as extremists and conservative organizations as “hate groups.”

The Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute training guide was obtained by Judicial Watch under a Freedom of Information Act Request. It was acquired from the Air Force but originated from the Pentagon.

“This document deserves a careful examination by military leadership,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told Fox News. “Congress needs to conduct better oversight and figure out what the heck is going on in our military.”

Included in the 133-pages of lesson plans is a student guide entitled “Extremism.”

The DOD warns students to be aware “that many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights"

Under a section titled “Extremist Ideologies,” the document states, “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”

“It’s disturbing insight into what’s happening inside Obama’s Pentagon,” Fitton told Fox News. “The Obama administration has a nasty habit of equating basic conservative values with terrorism.”

The Pentagon did not return telephone calls seeking comment on the training materials.

The training guide warned that participation in groups that are regarded as extremist organizations is “incompatible with military service and is, therefore prohibited.”

“It’s craziness,” Fitton said. “It’s political correctness run amok.”

The training documents also focus on those who cherish individual liberty.

It’s not the first time the military has been caught using training materials that depict conservatives and Christians as extremists.

In April Fox News obtained an email sent by a lieutenant colonel at Fort Campbell to three dozen subordinates warning them to be on the lookout for any soldiers who might be members of “domestic hate groups” like the FRC and the American Family Association.

In a separate incident, an Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism – along with Al Qaeda and Hamas.

The same Army spokesman said the training session was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Department of the Army.”

Fitton told Fox News the military seems to be having a lot of "isolated incidents" and it appears the Pentagon is sending a message to Christians.

“They are putting out the not-welcome sign to conservative Christians,” Fitton said. “They are trying to make the military an unwelcome place for conservative Christians.”

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/pentagon-labels-founding-fathers-conservatives-as-extremists.html

USA should suspend aid to Egypt to protect Christians

Not One More Plane, Not One More Tank, Not One More Dollar, Until Egypt’s Christians are Protected
By  David French

I urge Cornerites to read Andrew Doran’s article on the homepage comparing the Muslim Brotherhood’s onslaught against Christians in Egypt to Kristallnacht. As you read his account, and as you see pathetic hand-wringing that’s overtaken much of official Washington, think about the following:

•  Egypt’s active duty military numbers over 450,000 soldiers, and many of them carry American equipment, including American small arms.
•  Egypt’s army is equipped with more than 2,600 American-designed (and largely American-built) main battle tanks.
•  Egypt’s air force flies more than 240 American fighters, most of them F-16s.
•  U.S. aid constitutes 25 percent of Egyptian defense spending.

Now, do you think we don’t have leverage?

As churches burn, as nuns are paraded through the streets by the Muslim Brotherhood, and as Christians across Egypt fear for their lives in the face of the jihadist onslaught, American policy can and should get very simple, very fast: Not one scintilla of aid until the Egyptian military demonstrates — by deeds, not just words — that it is committed to stopping this wave of persecution in its tracks, protecting the most basic human rights of its Christian citizens, and utterly defeating the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis could escalate quickly to Balkan- or Syrian-level brutality and religious cleansing, but the Egyptian military — well-stocked with equipment we purchased, made, and keep in good repair — is capable of ending the onslaught against Christians.  

The Obama administration’s dance with the Muslim Brotherhood devil is one of the shameful episodes in recent American foreign policy, but we have a chance to correct our mistake before we have no good options left. In other words, before Egypt becomes Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, the Egyptian Christians are victims of jihad, and the American-supplied Egyptian military can and should exercise decisive force.  

It’s past time to call in Egypt’s debt. They may not repay us with money, but they can repay us with actions: Protect Christians and defeat the Muslim Brotherhood, or you’re on your own.


http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356178/not-one-more-plane-not-one-more-tank-not-one-more-dollar-until-egypts-christians-are

JIHAD UNLEASHED ON CHRISTIANS

By: Raymond Ibrahim

Jihad has been unleashed on Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority—and given full sanction from any number of Islamist leaders, from “radical” al-Qaeda, to the supposedly “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood.

This anti-Christian fury is far from sated 

and has taken on genocidal proportions

Most recently, al-Qaeda’s Egyptian leader, Ayman Zawahiri, portrayed the overthrow of Muhammad Morsi and the Brotherhood as a “Crusader” campaign led by Coptic Pope Tawadros II who, according to Zawahiri and other terrorists, is trying to create a Coptic state in Egypt.

Since then, not only are Egypt’s Christians and churches now being attacked in ways unprecedented in the modern era, but new reports indicate that al-Qaeda’s black flag has been raised on some of them, specifically St. George Church in Sohag. Considering that it was al-Qaeda linked terrorists who  initiated one of the bloodiest church attacks in recent history, the 2010 Baghdad church attack where nearly 60 Christians were slaughtered (click here for graphic images), that al-Qaeda is singling out Egypt’s Christians bodes ill.

The Islamic terrorist organization’s incitements against the Copts are just the latest to emanate from Islamists—from the top of the Brotherhood leadership to the bottom of the “Muslim street”—creating something of an “open season” on Egypt’s Christians.

Days after the overthrow of Morsi, the supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badie, was first to attack by name Coptic Pope Tawadros for supporting the popular June 30 Revolution, which saw tens of millions of Egyptians take to the streets. After Badie’s demonization of the Copts, assaults on Christians began in earnest. Many churches were attacked and burned and several Christians were murdered in Upper Egypt; over in the Sinai, a young Coptic priest was shot dead, while the body of Magdy Lam‘i Habib, a Christian, was found mutilated and beheaded. Due to the many death threats to Pope Tawadros, he has left the papal residence at the St. Mark Cathedral—which was earlier savagely attacked, when Morsi was stillpresident.

This anti-Christian fury is far from sated and has taken on genocidal proportions. While Al Jazeera was covering (and distorting) events in Egypt, a Libyan man named Tamar Rashadcalled in and said “I want to offer the good news to [Pope] Tawadros that, Allah willing, the day is coming when no Copt will ever again tread the ground of Egypt—and no churches.  We will no longer allow churches to exist.” When the TV host appeared to protest, Rashad interrupted him saying, “It’s already decided, take your cameras and go to the churches and you’ll see what’s going to happen soon, Allah willing.”

To make matters worse, Sheikh Yusif al-Qaradawi, one of the Islamic world’s leading preachers and spiritual father of the Muslim Brotherhood, has given his formal stamp of approval to persecute Copts, recently posting a video saying that “Christians” and others “were recruited [by Egypt’s military] to kill innocent Muslims.”

As expected, all these incitements against the Copts issued by several top Islamist leaders have so upped anti-Copt sentiment that it has become difficult in the last few days to keep up with the attacks on them—so many and nonstop are the reports emanating from Egypt. All throughout Upper Egypt—in Minya, Asyut, Sohag—Christians and their churches are under attack; dozens of Coptic homes and businesses have been set on fire.  Due to the risk to Christian lives, many churches are no longer holding regular worship services.

The situation has gotten so dire that Ibrahim Eissa, a popular Egyptian journalist and TV personality, apparently unable to keep silent over the plight of the Copts, recently said on live TV: 

“The Christians have suffered in Egypt, over the course of 2 ½ years. Their churches have been burned, their children killed.  The Maspero Massacre occurred, where several Copts were slain.  Catastrophic fatwas appeared, calling them infidels and inciting against them….  No one has suffered as much as they. Today, if any Christian attempts to join a protest, he does so at the risk of defying dozens of fatwas calling for his death and decapitation and the burning of churches, especially in Upper Egypt.”

With the ouster of Muhammad Morsi, Egypt’s Islamists have finally gotten the pretext they need to cleanse the nation of its Christian minority, the Copt’s—ironically, Egypt’s most native sons.

The unprecedented hate currently being visited on them is fueled by Islam’s “How Dare You?” phenomenon: As conquered non-Muslims, Christians must live as dhimmis, that is, according to traditional Islamic teaching, barely tolerated “infidels” who must be humble and submissive—to the point that they are not permitted to raise their hands to Muslims even when attacked.

Far from assuming their “proper place,” Egypt’s Christians supported the June 30 Revolution against the will and threats of the Brotherhood. Thus, to Egypt’s disenfranchised and bitter Brotherhood and its supporters, Egypt’s Christians, beginning with their pope, are all now free game.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/08/08/jihad-unleashed-on-egypts-christians/

Islamist jihadist threatens Catholics with destruction over next two weeks

Colorado Police are alerting churches that Christopher Dewitt Craig, an Islamist jihadist, is claiming that Catholics would be "destroyed” in the next two weeks.

On more than one occasion, Craig was seen entering a classroom at Eastern Arizona College and yelling obscenities after asking the professor if he was Mormon or Catholic.

Despite this, Police claim there’s no immediate public danger.