“Runaway convert told to talk religion with Muslim parents”
AP reports:
— “A case-management plan filed Monday said Rifqa Bary and her parents should hear what each has to say about Islam and Christianity as a step toward a possible reunification.”
— “But the plan, written by Margaret Shirk, a Franklin County Children Services Board caseworker, also said ‘severe differences’ exist between the 17-year-old girl and her parents over what led Rifqa to run away to Florida over the summer.”
— “The girl has said she feared her father would harm or kill her for leaving Islam. Her father has denied the claim.”
— Religious rift still keeping Rifqa, parents apart
— Columbus Dispatch: “Everyone involved in the Rifqa case, including Children Services employees, is under a gag order. O’Leary spoke in general terms about case plans.”
— “A caseworker developed the plan with Rifqa and her parents, but only Children Services workers signed it. Rifqa and her parents disagree with the plan, and so does the guardian the court appointed for her, according to the paperwork filed with the court on Monday.”
Rifqa Bary, 17 - reports say she is threatened with death by her family in Ohio for converting from Islam to Christianity
On December 1, 2009, as groups concerned about the AIDS disease sought public awareness and prevention, the anti-freedom, extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir held its own protests in Indonesia rejecting condoms and AIDS prevention measures and demanding the creation of an extremist caliphate . AFP reports that “700 members from the Muslim Women of Hizbut Tahrir” were involved in the Indonesia protests. As AIDS continues to grow in Indonesia, Hizb ut-Tahrir is promoting an anti-condom campaign as part of its efforts to promote religious extremism in Indonesia and globally.
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s goals including ending democracy and freedom, and the promotion of an extremist caliphate, including calling for the “death penalty” for those “traitors” who leave Islam. U.S. President Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs Dalia Mogahed has joined Hizb ut-Tahrir in a public interview conducted by a supporter of the British Hizb ut-Tahrir organization.
World AIDS Day: Hizb ut-Tahrir Demonstrates Against Homosexuals, Calls for Global Supremacist Caliphate (AFP/File/Bay Ismoyo)
While AFP, MySinChew/AFP, and the Jakarta Globe have focused on Hizb ut-Tahrir’s (HT) rallies and comments regarding ending the use of condoms and enforcing Sharia law as a way to control AIDS risks, none of the mainstream media have noticed Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia’s web site report quoting Dr. Muhammad Usman and others at a Hizb ut-Tahrir event calling for “stoning to death” and “whip a hundred times” individuals as part of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s answers to the AIDS problems. The HT report also states condoms are ineffective because “whereas the pores of condoms was only able to hold the sperm, not the size of the HIV virus is much smaller.”
The Jakarta Globe reported that “Ahead of World AIDS Day on Tuesday, members of the group Hizbut Tahrir took to the streets in several major cities, including Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta and Makassar in South Sulawesi. ‘We urge everybody to support the application of Shariah in an Islamic caliphate so that, God willing, all of us will be free from the threat of HIV/AIDS,’ Hizbut Tahrir spokeswoman Febrianti Abassuni said in a statement.” Calling “homosexuals the agents of immorality,” Hizb ut-Tahrir called for an end to programs providing condoms in Indonesia.
BBC reports that “AIDS activists say promoting condom use is a huge challenge in Indonesia as there is strong resistance from religious and conservative groups.” While AIDS in Indonesia grew predominantly from drug use, increasing growth is reportedly sexual based. BBC reports that “[r]ecent data shows over 18,000 people have the disease – and that number has jumped from last year.”
While Hizb ut-Tahrir and other groups seek to prevent condom distribution and use, AIDS has spread dramatically throughout Indonesia. AFP reports that “around 270,000 Indonesians are estimated to be infected with HIV, and AIDS has claimed about 8,700 lives in the Muslim-majority nation of 228 million people, according to the UNAIDS agency.”
In a separate report, BBC reports that in the United Kingdom, 60 percent of new AIDS cases are appearing among Muslims. In the BBC report, “According to Dr Shima Tariq, who has studied the transmission of HIV, more than half of newly diagnosed patients caught HIV through heterosexual sex, and two-thirds of them are of black African origin or descent. But most of this group are not Christian: six out of 10 are Muslim.”
A woman walks past by a sign advising people to wear Muslim attire at Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh. A local lawmaker says a controverisial bill allowing Shariah-style stoning and caning has gone into effect in the province. (Photo: Heri Juanda, AP)
AP reports:
— “A 16-year-old Christian girl from southern Sudan said Friday she was lashed 50 times for wearing a skirt deemed indecent by the authorities in the north who enforce a strict version of Islamic law. The girl, Silva Kashif, said she was arrested by a plainclothes police officer in a Khartoum market last week for wearing a skirt that fell below her knees. She was convicted of offending public morality and received 50 lashes in the courtroom. Ms. Kashif’s ordeal follows the high-profile case of Lubna Hussein, a female journalist who was sentenced to 40 lashes for wearing trousers deemed indecent.”
Translated report from Al-Arabiya:
— “Lawyer said a girl from southern Sudan and her family, Friday, 27/11/2009, said the girl whipped with 50 lashes because they wore a skirt a judge ruled it obscene, and in the latest issue highlights the application of Islamic law in Sudan.”
— “…the girl’s mother detector Silva, aged 16 years, it intends to sue the police who arrested her daughter and the judge who issued the verdict, adding that her daughter, a minor and a Christian.”
— “The Douro, which her family hails from the town of Yambio, southern Sudan, said her daughter was arrested while on the way to the market near her home in the suburb of Kalakla in Khartoum last week.”
— “She added that her little girl but the policeman pulled in the market as if it were a criminal and that this is true, and pointed out that Silva was taken to court where Kalakla convicted and punished by the police before a judge.”
Iraq: Church and convent bombed in Mosul — ACN News reports: “CHRISTIANS in Iraq were lucky to escape with their lives after bomb attacks on a Catholic church and a convent of Sisters.
St Ephrem’s Chaldean Church, in the northern city of Mosul, was reduced to a blackened shell when attackers walked in and detonated high explosives.
The building, and the nearby presbytery which was also attacked, were both empty at the time of the attacks and nobody was hurt.
Shortly after the explosions on Thursday morning, 26th November morning, a further bomb attack took place at St Theresa’s Convent, a few minutes’ drive away, also in the Al Jadeda district of New Mosul, in the west of the city.
At least five Sisters were in the building when the attack took place but they got out unharmed.
They were not in the part of the convent damaged by the bomb which was thrown at the complex.
Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, one of the Sisters described the attack.”
— “extremist sermonizing leads to altercation at barbershop in South Waziristan”
— “A young Christian man is in hiding in Pakistan from Taliban militants who seek to kill him for ‘blasphemy’ because he defended his faith.”
— “In February Jehanzaib Asher, 22, was working in a barbershop his family jointly owns with his cousin in Wana, South Waziristan – a Taliban stronghold in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan’s northwest – when the Islamic militants showed up to try to convert him to Islam.”
— “It was not the first time the Taliban’s Noor Hassan had delivered strident sermons to him and his relatives, and this time Asher decided not to listen silently. He defended Christianity by citing verses from the Bible, and Hassan and another Islamic militant viciously beat him – breaking his left leg and some ribs and leaving his left hand non-functional.”
— “He told Compass that he only defended Christianity and did not comment on Islam.”
— “Nearby Muslims helped him and two cousins ward off the attack. Soon the Taliban militants began spreading the word to local residents that Asher and his cousin Christopher Masih had blasphemed Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.”
— “Before the Pakistani military’s recent offensive against the Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, Asher said, his picture was posted at check-points in an attempt to help the Taliban and other Islamists identify and kill him.”
— “Asher’s cousin, Zaib Masih, managed to get Asher and Christopher Masih (Zaib Masih’s brother) into a vehicle, and they fled the market area where their two barbershops are located. As barbers they were targeted for the Islamic sermonizing and attack due to the Taliban’s opposition to shaving of beards, he said.”
Canada: “Don’t dismiss honour killing claim: judge” — Roohi Tabassum case
National Post reports:
— “A Federal Court judge has ordered the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration to consider the credibility of a woman’s claim that she will be the victim of an “honour killing” if deported to her home country of Pakistan.”
— “Justice Michael Kelen found that an immigration officer reviewing evidence in the case of Roohi Tabassum, a 44-year-old Mississauga hair stylist who has been fighting to stay in Canada since 2001, made a mistake by characterizing as “not threatening” letters purportedly from Ms. Tabassum’s husband in which he promised to “finish” Ms. Tabassum if she returned to Pakistan.”
While giving the appearance of being “signatories” to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in fact, many of these OIC and Islamic-majority nations are allowing extremists to reject such universal human rights for children, including religious freedom – while UNICEF is promoting “events” by such nations allegedly demonstrating their support for “children’s rights” in the Middle East and North Africa and in South Asia — support that in fact does not exist.
Afghanistan:
— “The Government of the Republic of Afghanistan reserves the right to express, upon ratifying the Convention, reservations on all provisions of the Convention that are incompatible with the laws of Islamic Shari’a and the local legislation in effect.”
Algeria:
— interprets children’s rights based on “Islam is the State religion” and “Islamic morality”
Bangladesh:
— “subject to the existing laws and practices in Bangladesh”
Djibouti:
— “[The Government of Djibouti] shall not consider itself bound by any provisions or articles that are incompatible with its religion and its traditional values.”
Pakistan:
— “Provisions of the Convention shall be interpreted in the light of the principles of Islamic laws and values.”
Indonesia:
— “The 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia guarantees the fundamental rights of the child irrespective of their sex, ethnicity or race. The Constitution prescribes those rights to be implemented by national laws and regulations. The ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Republic of Indonesia does not imply the acceptance of obligations going beyond the Constitutional limits nor the acceptance of any obligation to introduce any right beyond those prescribed under the Constitution.” (Freedom of religion conspicously absent.)
Iran:
— “The Islamic Republic of Iran is making reservation to the articles and provisions which may be contrary to the Islamic Shariah, and preserves the right to make such particular declaration, upon its ratification”.
— “The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right not to apply any provisions or articles of the Convention that are incompatible with Islamic Laws and the international legislation in effect.”
Iraq:
— “The Government of Iraq has seen fit to accept [the Convention] … subject to a reservation in respect to article 14, paragraph 1, concerning the child’s freedom of religion, as allowing a child to change his or her religion runs counter to the provisions of the Islamic Shariah .”
Jordan:
— ” The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan expresses its reservation and does not consider itself bound by articles 14, 20 and 21 of the Convention, which grant the child the right to freedom of choice of religion and concern the question of adoption, since they are at variance with the precepts of the tolerant Islamic Shariah.”
Kuwait:
— “[Kuwait expresses] reservations on all provisions of the Convention that are incompatible with the laws of Islamic Shari’a and the local statutes in effect.”
Malaysia:
— “The Government of Malaysia accepts the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child but expresses reservations with respect to articles 1, 2, 7, 13, 14, 15, […], 28, [paragraph 1 (a)] 37, […] of the Convention and declares that the said provisions shall be applicable only if they are in conformity with the Constitution, national laws and national policies of the Government of Malaysia.”
Maldives:
— “1) Since the Islamic Shariah is one of the fundamental sources of Maldivian Law and since Islamic Shariah does not include the system of adoption among the ways and means for the protection and care of children contained in Shariah, the Government of the Republic of Maldives expresses its reservation with respect to all the clauses and provisions relating to adoption in the said Convention on the Rights of the Child.
— “2) The Government of the Republic of Maldives expresses its reservation to paragraph 1 of article 14 of the said Convention on the Rights of the Child, since the Constitution and the Laws of the Republic of Maldives stipulate that all Maldivians should be Muslims.”
Mauritania:
— “In signing this important Convention, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania is making reservations to articles or provisions which may be contrary to the beliefs and values of Islam, the religion of the Mauritania People and State.”
Morocco:
— “Article 6 of the Constitution, which provides that Islam, the State religion, shall guarantee freedom of worship for all.”
Oman:
— “A reservation is entered to all the provisions of the Convention that do not accord with Islamic law or the legislation in force in the Sultanate and, in particular, to the provisions relating to adoption set forth in its article 21.”
— “The Sultanate does not consider itself to be bound by those provisions of article 14 of the Convention that accord a child the right to choose his or her religion or those of its article 30 that allow a child belonging to a religious minority to profess his or her own religion.”
Qatar:
— “Whereas the Government of the State of Qatar ratified the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child on 3 April 1995, and entered a general reservation concerning any of its provisions that are inconsistent with the Islamic sharia;”
Saudi Arabia:
— ” [The Government of Saudi Arabia enters] reservations with respect to all such articles as are in conflict with the provisions of Islamic law.”
Syria:
— “The Syrian Arab Republic has reservations on the Convention’s provisions which are not in conformity with the Syrian Arab legislations and with the Islamic Shariah’s principles, in particular the content of article (14) related to the Right of the Child to the freedom of religion, and articles 20 and 21 concerning the adoption.”
— “reservations of the Syrian Arab Republic to article 14 of the Convention are restricted only to its provisions relating to religion”
United Arab Emirates:
— “The United Arab Emirates shall be bound by the tenor of this article to the extent that it does not conflict with the principles and provisions of Islamic law.”
Djibouti, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Syrian Arab Republic
[Same text, mutatis mutandis, as the objection made with regard to Iran (Islamic Republic of) under “Objections”.]
Sharia Police Harassing Young Girls in Indonesia
Excerpts from the Convention on the Rights of the Child: “Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
“Bearing in mind that the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”
“Recognizing that the United Nations has, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenants on Human Rights, proclaimed and agreed that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”
“Recalling that, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance”
“1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.”
“2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members.”
U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke gave an interview to Der Spiegel telegraphing the intentions of the U.S. administration to abandon a human rights cause for equality and liberty in Afghanistan, stating that “We’re not in Afghanistan to build a perfect democracy,” and stating the U.S. sought to work those who support extremism.
Holbrooke told Der Spiegel that “very clearly that the majority of the Taliban do not support Mullah Omar’s extreme views and that there is room for them to rejoin the social and political fabric of Afghanistan if they renounce al-Qaida and reintegrate peacefully into Afghanistan,” further adding that “We’re not seeking to destroy every person who supports the Taliban, that’s not a credible goal.”
