Danish Cartoon Fiasco

Chad at In the Bullpen has been all over the Denmark-Mohammed-cartoon mess, Danish Cartoon Rage Continues. I've never seen such an outrage over a few cartoons. People make fun and humiliate Christians all the time. Just look at the Kayne West/Jesus RollingStone magazine cover this past week.

The followers of Islam say, "Islam is a peaceful religion". But when commenting on the Danish cartoons, they say, "Death to the cartoonist, death to the newspaper, death to the editors, death to Denmark". So much for peaceful.

But how open are they to people of other religions, and how open are they to other religions in general?

No churches or synagogues have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia since it was established in 1932 —because none are allowed. Those who want to establish churches "are, unfortunately, fanatics," according to the Saudi First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, in an interview with the Associated Press on March 13, 2003. He concluded: "There are no churches - not in the past, the present or future....”

Last April, 40 Pakistani Christians including men, women and children were arrested for holding prayers in a private home in Riyadh. Needless to say, their prayer-books were confiscated.

Moreover, in the 1990's, Christian religious services in the American Embassy were terminated at the Saudi government's request. And even websites devoted to other religions and to religious freedom and tolerance are blocked by the Saudi government.

In Iran, where the president has repeatedly said, "I want to stop Christianity in this country," last month, a Protestant pastor has been murdered because he himself converted from Islam. It is important to note that all five schools of Islamic law agree that the penalty for conversion - "apostasy" - is death.

In Indonesia, especially in the Moluccan islands, thousands of Christians were massacred and tens of thousands driven from their homes in the last decade alone by Islamist mobs.

In Egypt, Christians face persecution in the form of rapes, kidnappings and forced conversions as well as economic discrimination and restriction on their property and on what they can build.

Similar situations apply in most Gulf States, which were Islamized long ago. In Yemen, “the government forbids conversions, requires permission for the construction of new places of worship and prohibits non-Muslims from proselytizing.” The country has two churches in the city of Aden. One of the churches was bombed on January 1, 2001. And on December 30, 2002 - three Southern Baptist missionaries working in the Baptist Hospital at Jibla were killed.

In November 2005, Qatar allowed to construct the first church in 14 Centuries. However, no “freestanding cross” to identify the building as a church is allowed. Yet, this is seen as a big step towards reform.

[snip]

The most flagrant proponent of this hate lately is Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who not only denies the Holocaust as a historical event, but uses every opportunity to reiterate that Israel "must be wiped off the map."

Statements like this encourage not only the massacre of Jews and their holy sites, but also are responsible for the mass murder of Christians and the razing of churches worldwide—in Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan and Nigeria—which happens in in 83% of nations with Muslim majorities, according to Tom Barrett in American Daily.

To remedy the situation, the UN—as well as all other international organizations—should sanction all the countries that do not allow religious freedom and withdraw all membership privileges of all the countries that do not provide legal protection and equal rights to all their citizens. Islam’s Religious Intolerance, by By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld

Comments

[Debbie]

Thanks for the site. The slide show of cartoons is great.

[Yee]

Just in case folks haven't seen the whole set of cartoons: http://newsguy.slide.com/c/Mohammed+Cartoon+Controversy