"Converting from Islam to any other religion is illegal in Yemen and can be punishable by death."
Muhammad said, "If anyone changes his religion, kill him." "Official: Yemen Detains 9 People for Converting to Christianity," from the Associated Press, August 20:
SAN'A, Yemen — Yemeni police have detained at least nine people this year for converting from Islam to Christianity, a security official said Tuesday.
The nine were arrested between May and early August and remain in police custody, said the official.
Converting from Islam to any other religion is illegal in Yemen and can be punishable by death. But in previous cases, those arrested are usually released after they revoke their new faith and pledge to return to Islam.
Three of the nine were detained in west of the capital, San'a, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He declined to provide details about the others.
A family member of one of the detained said he fears those arrested could face torture or abuse in prison. The family member, who declined to be named because of security concerns, said Hani el-Dahayni, 30, was detained in May after police stormed his office and confiscated computers and compact discs.
Separately, police detained six Iranians who are followers of the Baha'i faith and have lived in Yemen for three decades, the security official said. The six were accused of being members of a rebel group, he said.
Though not officially banned in Yemen, the Baha'i religion is considered by some Muslims as heresy.
The Baha'i faith was founded by the Persian nobleman Baha'u'llah, who claimed to be a new prophet in the series that included Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Islam considers Muhammad to be the last of the prophets.
Mansour Hayel, vice president of the Omar al-Gawi Political Forum that advocates for human rights and civil liberties in Yemen, blamed the arrests on the growing influence of extremist Muslim groups in Yemen.
But that doesn't explain how the law got on the books, let alone how big the growing Tiny Minority of Extremists has become, how many of them are in the government as opposed to "moderates," or exactly where the line would be drawn between the two categories.
Mr. Hayel, dear Sir, it's called Islam. No modifiers, no adjectives. Islam, plain and clear, as spelled out by your Profit Muhammed.
You can scream all day long from the nearest mountain top of "human rights" and "civil liberties", but no one is going to hear you.
Robert, Marisol, Hugh and Raymond
It would be immensely helpful if you published a table listing islamic countries and their despicable sharia-inspired laws such as the above, and had a link easily available on this site. Then instead of the endless 'but christianity is just as bad' arguments, we could simply e-mail our friends a link to the table and say "whatever you think of christianity in the past, these are laws based on islam, oppressing people right now".
What do you think?
And I wonder what Associated Press thinks about the gross abuse of religious freedom, or more broadly, of freedom of conscience, that has just been displayed?
Do the reporters think that it is good, or right, that someone should be arrested, and imprisoned, and most likely tortured and abused, simply because they chose one religion rather than another?
"Converting from Islam to any other religion is illegal in Yemen and can be punishable by death."
" But in previous cases, those arrested are usually released after they revoke their new faith and pledge to return to Islam."
And that's all right? That someone who has chose to leave one religion (Islam) for another religion - Christianity - which, it must be assumed, the person thought to be better, is going to be pressured into returning to their old belief system, the one they'd decided they didn't agree with? And by pressure such as *this*? -
"A family member of one of the detained said he fears those arrested could face torture or abuse in prison."
How about the editors at Associated Press do some research? Because then we might have got something like this:
"Islam, which is the only religion officially recognised in Yemen, teaches that any Muslim who converts to another religion, or becomes an atheist, must be executed."
Or, more succinctly,
"Islam teaches that anyone who apostasises from Islam must be killed".
Let's try a thought experiment. Let's imagine that this was about a Tibetan Buddhist monk, arrested and tortured in China and made to renounce his beliefs and embrace official Atheism.
Or let's imagine that it's the Cold War, and AP is reporting on the imprisonment and probable torture of a Russian dissenter, and his or her confinement to a psychiatric hospital.
Would the arrests and abuses be reported so blandly, with so little sense of anger at the appalling injustice and totalitarian denial of human freedom, that is being perpetrated?
They can make Christians (or anyone else) say shahada, but that makes no difference to God. The real God, or gods, as the case may be, does not demand human sacrifice.
Only the silly, childish, fiendish, crybaby, filthy-minded Allah demands murder and martyrs.
No facet of the genuine Deity would be put off or fooled by the ridiculous statement that "there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet", no matter who says it.
I can only imagine how galling it is for converts, happy in their new faith, to be slapped down by having to say shahada, to save their lives. But God doesn't expect us to throw our lives away, especially not on the whim of Mo' Mad's monkey men.
No one can steal another person's faith.
"The Baha'i faith was founded by the Persian nobleman Baha'u'llah, who claimed to be a new prophet in the series that included Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Islam considers Muhammad to be the last of the prophets."
Baha'u'llah's new faith was thought to be a reaction to the corruption he found in Islam.
All the Baha'is I've met are nice folks, wish I could say the same about...........
It is imperative that high-profile political and public personalities in the West intercede on behalf of the Yemeni nine. A strong message MUST be sent, that the Christian world cares for its own, that Muslim demands for fair treatment in the West must involve reciprocity in the treatment of Christians in Dar ul Islam, that minimal standards of freedom enshrined in the UN charter, including 'freedom of conscience', MUST be upheld. CAIR & ISNA should be put on the hotseat to engage the Yemenis and call for the release of the 9.
The ball is in our court. Bush, Rice, Sarkozy, Pope Benedict,...er, um, yes, even Barry Obama, have an obligation to speak out on behalf of the Yemeni 9.
Actually, apart from the arrest, this is good news. The Gospel is spreading even in the hard ground of the most bigoted Islamic countries.
I propose Yemen for a seat on the UN Human Rights' Council. It seems to fulfill all the appropriate criteria.
Where is Bush or some of the other influential theocons on this one? A word from the White House about such atrocities and violations of human rights could go a long way. For all the carping about Obomo, hw would probably be more effective.
I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses and trust me at the end of every month, reports of the activites of their work in every muslim country are announced at meetings in free countries and their is much work that is being carried out clandestinely (hope I spelled that right) in such countries and the numbers of converts is growing at a rapid rate. There are many people in muslim countries who want to leave islam and are doing so in rates that are not fully appreciated because to publically do so would endanger their lives. But it is happening belieive me.
So, technically [and Islam is nothing if not overly technical], anyone who converts to Islam should be killed, also.