An illuminating article about the bitter situation of the Coptic Christians of Egypt. Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Is an Islamic orphanage better for children than a Christian mother? A Bitter replay," by Nader Shukry for Watani (thanks to Insubria):
It appears that 2008 is not ringing in any new beginning for Copts, but is rather proceeding with a bitter replay of the 2007 dilemmas. Last year the 13-year-old Christian twins Andrew and Mario Medhat Ramsis were the talk of Egypt since they had been officially considered by their school as Muslims and were hence required to study and sit for Islamic education examinations as an automatic consequence of their father’s conversion to Islam. Their Christian mother took their case to court demanding that the twins remain in her custody—which would allow them to remain as Christians if they chose to—following a preliminary court ruling that they be handed to their Muslim father. As for the twins, they insisted on remaining Christian, to the point of preferring to fail their exam and repeat the school year rather than give up their religion. Even though the Education Minister issued a decision to have them promoted to the following class, the court has delayed ruling in their case pending investigation on their father’s conversion.Convert father
This year’s case concerns the 12-year-old Christian girl Ashraqat and her 8-year-old sister Maria whose Christian mother Amal Mounir was ordered by the Family Court to hand them over to their Muslim convert father Wafiq Gohar in order for him to bring them up as Muslims. The father had married the mother according to the Coptic Orthodox creed in 1986 and they had four children. Two of these are today young men above 18 and thus legally free to choose their religion, and the other two are Ashraqat and Maria. The court ruling declared that: “Since the two girls are more than seven years old—the age in which they are expected to understand and rationalise religion—and since the plaintiff fears that if they remain in their mother’s custody they would cherish a religion other than Islam, eat foods [pork] that are banned in Islam, and go to church, the court has ruled in favour of the father, granting him custody of the two girls.”
The legal reasoning cites that the law grants a mother custody of her children till they are 15, following which a child is given the choice of which parent he or she wishes to live with until the child is of age or until the daughter gets married. The law does not pre-require that the custodian mother should be Muslim; it only requires that she be “rational and able to faithfully take care of the child”. The law, however, stipulates that the custody of a non-Muslim mother over Muslim children should be dropped if the child is of an age in which he or she can understand and rationalise religion—this age was estimated to be seven years old—and if it is feared that the child would cherish a religion other than Islam....
More attacks on Christian churches and monasteries in Egypt:
http://www.sonsofapesandpigs.org/2008/01/western-civilization-how-long.html
Tragic. Nobody cares...
So, basically, what is said here is that when a child is old enough to make a choice, make it impossible for the choice to be other than Islam.
If the tables were reversed you would see a firestorm of protest from the secular left in the west.
Christians are at best a despised part of society that needs to die off in the eyes of the secularists.
But Muslims are welcomed with open arms by secularists and seen as antidote to supposed Christian thuggery in the west.
Well heck, if the girl is old enough to get married she should be old enough to be forced to choose Islam.
The West should grant all Christians who live in dar al islam immediate and automatic visa and citizenship, and allow them to immigrate to dar al harb. A dhimmi life is not worth living.
Say, would they consider Obama to be a muslim?
Hummmm!!!
no US_infidel,
We need to stand up and support freedom in all lands and pressure those governments to live up to the UN standards on human rights. Also, please spare me the whine about Christians being despised and hated here. Quit it with the self pity martyr line, ask black, jews or refugees from Communist countries what real oppression is about.
Israel is going to pass legislation going after bloggers and their commentators, Ezra Levant is David vs Shirlene McGovern as Goliathe, Lionheart in hiding from the British police, as thousands of white, British muslim converts are pledging for AQ...and the noose is tightening in Ought-Eight.
...or is it Aught Eight....shucks where's the darmned poofreeder when I kneed him?
Dumbo,
It all started in the same way in the ex-commie countries. By saying the Christians to stop whining and self-pity. The ones who said that, did nothing more to the Christians, it was their children who sent them to camps, burned churches and killed priests. Some mistakes are will rather be repeated than understood.
It is also interesting what kind of pressure will extract adherence to human rights standards from a muslim country. And NO, a UN standard does not exist, and UN will become even more irrelevant with time.
And real oppression is about all those whiny victims shutting up and following the lead of the society/international community/general secretary/fuehrer/caliph. All of the above equally abominable.
I sometimes do wonder whether the Christians of the Middle East did not bring Islam, up to a point, upon themselves. The way I mean this is that the degree of fanatic religiousness amongst the Christians of the Middle East has always been extreme and still seems to be the case - the Copts, Nestorians and the Byzantines (as examples) would have been so crazily devout, so stupidly dedicated, that a religion like Islam would have been perfectly positioned either to impose itself upon them (hence "proving" that it was better) or was readily adopted, as it appeared more pure and powerful than the philosophically/mystically complex older Christianities. A lot of struggle goes on in the Middle East with people converting from one religion to the other in the Mid East (usually all arrows point to Islam, as we all well know) but in Europe and of course Asia, who in the hell generally cares for such struggles of the "religious spirit" ? Another case for keeping down all religions in the West in a powerless, token form for if you give ANY religion power, it WILL abuse it.
"...eat foods [pork] that are banned in Islam, and go to church..."
....Islam , the worlds most intolerant religion....Ban Muslim Immigration...
"Is an Islamic orphanage better for children than a Christian mother?"
....No...
The West should grant all Christians who live in dar al islam immediate and automatic visa and citizenship, and allow them to immigrate to dar al harb. A dhimmi life is not worth living.
Yes, US_infidel. I agree completely. Let as many christians who will come in, and keep all muslims out!
Dumbo, we cannot force islamic nations to "live up to UN standards on human rights". Islamic nations don't believe in human rights and never will. Personally I don't give a damn if they all wallow in their stone age hellholes. Just make them stay there.
"Is an Islamic orphanage better for children than a Christian mother?"
No, but a Christian orphanage is better than a Muslim mother and father.