Religion of peace and tolerance in action again.

Posted by: Dumbo at October 15, 2005 3:45 PM

"The protesters have given the church a week to apologise and dismiss its priest..."

They'll beat up the priest, of course!

Let me know when the DVD comes out with English subtitles.

Posted by: 3812Michelle at October 15, 2005 4:04 PM

Muslims are offended - Oh no, not again. I thought they were fasting and contemplating the nature of man and all that. Did'nt think thry had the time to start getting offended - yet again.

Whichever thread I go on JW or DW, at LGF, or to Fjordman's site, all I read is that muslims are offended and are extremely angry.

Cant think of how not to offend muslims. Maybe if we stopped breathing, or build a few publicly financed mosques, that may subside the anger somewhat.

Posted by: DP111 at October 15, 2005 5:24 PM

From the Religious Policeman site - a site run by a Saudi now living in London.

Read it all from the start.
--------------------------------------
Silk Purses and Sows' Ears
A certain Muslim academic is having problems with the Western Media and its "anti-Islamic bias in the aftermath of 9/11". He is Islamic scholar Zakir Naik, addressing a meeting in Riyadh. His solution is the launch of a professionally run news agency sponsored by the Muslim states to counter this bias.
...

So here are my humble suggestions for some Good Muslim News. All they need is for the "powers that be" to turn them into reality.

1. A Council of Muslim scholars today produced the definitive "New Quran". Based on the original version, it omits all that Dark Age anachronistic stuff about stoning adultresses, beating wives, beheading Kuffars, amputations, lashing, lying to unbelievers and Jews, the so-called sin of Apostacy, and eternal Jihad, and instead concentrates on the good bits about worshipping God, loving all his creatures, respecting our fellow-men, and being charitable to one and all. It will henceforth be the definitive religious text for the Faith. The "Old Quran" will be retained merely for its historic and poetic interest.

2. The Supreme Council of Imams yesterday announced that, after a fourteen-century continuous war which it finally realized it would never win, a peace treaty has been finally concluded with the Kuffars, who would henceforth be known as "fellow-humans". All territorial claims to the rest of the world have been dropped, specifically including Bali, Southern Spain, and Israel. Any acts of war or terrorism by individuals or communities will be punished by excommunication, banishment, permanent prohibition from entry to the Two Holy Mosques, and denial of burial in Muslim graveyards.

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_muttawa_archive.html

----------------------------

as well as the post titled "A wise decision"

Posted by: DP111 at October 15, 2005 5:40 PM

Yeah, this breathing business we're into really seems to piss 'em off. That might be why so many of them want to stop us.

But seriously, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a subtitled copy of this (here in Australia SBS language services takes care of most of these things) and such copies should be shown on free to air television in every non-muslim country and in every centre of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Bhuddist and Taoist worship. It should also be a mandatory part of any religion or middle east studies course.

Posted by: Razorskarr at October 15, 2005 5:43 PM

Razorskarr

Have you searched any Coptic sites? They might have one available.

Posted by: DP111 at October 15, 2005 6:09 PM

Well,muslims will always find the truth "offensive".More culture,trolls?
I find islam offensive!
DP111,I've noticed the trolls don't answer you're questions.So typical,trying to bamboozle us with thier lies.

Posted by: D.T. at October 15, 2005 6:34 PM

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/763/eg8.htm

An American foothold
Another conference in Congress concerning the problems facing expatriate Copts is angering many back home, reports Gihan Shahine

Coptic thinker and writer Gamal Asaad countered that expatriate Copts have "a different political agenda" which would not necessarily serve the demands of their compatriots back in Egypt. Asaad lashed out against expatriate Copts living in the US for providing "misleading reports" about Egypt and even likened them to "expatriate Iraqis who went back home on US tanks."

"Expatriate Copts are actually providing the US with an extra card to use in achieving its colonial interests in the region," Asaad warned. Those colonial plans, he added, centre on dividing the region into sectarian parts, as is the case in Iraq, Sudan and Lebanon. It was thanks to misguided reports by some "fanatic expatriate Copts" that, according to Asaad, the US Department issued a law on the protection of the rights of religious minorities in 1998 which seeks to give America the right to monitor the religious situation in Egypt and to impose sanctions on governments accused of violating the rights of minorities.

"Now some US institutions are testing the waters to establish a country for Copts under the leadership of the Orthodox Church in Lower Egypt," Asaad told Al-Ahram Weekly. "And the Orthodox Church, for its part, is actually helping out with those plans, assuming the role of a political spokesman for all Copts -- as was the case when Pope Shenouda III supported President Hosni Mubarak in the name of all Copts in the recent presidential elections."

For both Asaad and Habib, boosting democracy and eradicating an environment of sectarian tension are the genuine remedies for all the problems of Egypt's Copts.

Posted by: Fjordman at October 15, 2005 6:36 PM

Where can I find the DVD and does it have English subtitles?

Posted by: Voltaire at October 15, 2005 6:52 PM

I was taking a new route home one evening when I heard Europeans speaking behind a high fence off the sidewalk. I looked over top to see a six foot(two meter)sandy patch twenty feet long between a huge neo-Norman stone building and a rotting Art Deco palace. A couple dozen people dressed up and sipping fruit drinks were milling around between the buildings. Odd, thinks me, and a priest, seeing me hanging on the fence thought I was odd, so he walked up and asked what I was doing. He explained he was having a service.

He and his group, in the gap, couldn't enter their church except on Sunday, and this was Wednesday. Not allowed, he said, to give me a tour of the building next door, the church. No one could get in till Sunday when the army came by to unlock the doors and keep order.

Roman Catholics. Cairo. 2000. Yeah, you should see the Copts. It'd make you sick to see how they get treated by our allies. Why do Christians here ignore their own there? The rotten Presbyterians are at it again, trying to wreck Israel. I don't know which gang makes me sicker: Muslims or PCUSA.

Posted by: sonofwalker at October 15, 2005 7:34 PM

D.T. posted: DP111. I've noticed the trolls don't answer you're questions.So typical,trying to bamboozle us with thier lies.

I have noticed that trait whenever muslims, sometimes pretending to be Christians and once a Jewish person who had seen the light of islam, comes on DW or JW. They are quite easy to spot but we humour them by pretending that we have'nt twigged.

One gets used to it.

Fjordman

re: Al-Ahram article. Well spotted.

The Coptic apologists for Egypt are similar to Christian Arabs in the West bank. It is hard to criticise them for betrayal, as we in the West cannot comprehend the physical and mental pressure they are in. In their own eyes, they believe they are doing the best they can to protect the Coptic community in Egypt. This is quite apparant from the way they express their views. Below is an example from the link you posted.

Coptic thinker and writer Rafiq Habib said getting the help of a country which is already "in military and political conflict with Arab nations and occupying Arab lands would do Copts more harm than good because it will create sectarian rifts between Muslims and Christians."

Sectarian rifts - code for muslims attacking Copts.

He finds the idea of getting help from America far more dangerous then anything else. On further reflection, considering what has happened to Iraqi Christians after American intervention in Iraq, he may well be right.

Posted by: DP111 at October 15, 2005 7:39 PM

And a far more explicit example with clear reference to Lebanon and Iraq.

Tackling Coptic issues on a sectarian basis, according to Habib, would only "complicate matters even further and damage political life in Egypt -- as is the case in Iraq and Lebanon."

One really finds it difficult to blame such views among Copts or Palestinian Christians. The fault lies with the US, as America deliberately ignored the plight of Christians as it did not wish to be even remotely seen as a "Christian" country helping Christians.

So much Christian blood sacrificed at the altar of the god PCness.

Posted by: DP111 at October 15, 2005 7:45 PM

Muslims in Egypt can't tolerate the truth because they don't have the intellectual sophistication to be self critical of their own religious culture. They don't want to tell the truth because it might hurt Islam.

Muslims in Egypt are unwilling to examine their own history in an objective way because the truth might really tell a story that they don't want to face, namely, the powers that control and secure Islam use intimidation and threat tactics to maintain Islamic social order. Distortion of the truth is a real problem in Islamic societies.

It is a fact that Copts are marginalised and persecuted in Egypt. This has been occurring for over a thousand of years. Today, the Muslim history police that are seking to hijack Egypt and demand an apology by the Copts will continue to twist history to their advantage and deceive people about what life is really like for a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country. It wouldn't surprise me either if they use violence if the Copts hold to the truth and not apologize.

Posted by: Johnathan at October 15, 2005 7:53 PM

"King: Ooooo, I dunno. You're going to make Geoff awfully happy! He forages for such things like spelling and grammar.
Anyhow, your obfuscation and "explanation" about OT/NT is exactly what I expected. You can sit here and dissect a scripture that's not yours and come up with all sorts for reasons to hate it"

Actually King T my point is they are not the same. The Bible is solely based in Israel, re the passages you quote, to specific people in that time - I am still waiting for you to show me where that is in the Koran. The Bible passages you quote – if you read a little before and a little after – you would see that.

Obviously you cannot comprehend the simple language and commands in the Bible - THE WHOLE part/chapter/story of the passages you quote. If I was to quote THE WHOLE - chapter/passages in the Koran - I don't see any a) Story in a specific place 2) these commands being given to specific people, as in named individuals(who are all LONG DEAD) c) Which the reason Christians AND Jews can’t use those scriptures to justify violence today.

Why won’t you address the points I raised re the Bible? What you are a worthy scholar of the Koran, and also the Bible yet you won’t show it? Without showing it - what right do you have to condemn me for my comprehension of the Koran and my hate for its 110 war and killing verses that are generically littered all through it?

OH – I can only assume by your comment above, that I am not worthy to read and comprehend a book – any book, especially one that is not “mine”. Thanks for the insult. Do you usually insult people that you cannot debate with in a reasoned way?

PS If you are not Muslim, why then do you defend and I assume, approve of sex with little nine year old girls?

Posted by: 3rdtimelucky at October 15, 2005 8:24 PM

3xlucky:

Is it not 164 Jihad verses?

As for Copts: I was told by some of them living here in Australia that those in Egypt are seriously oppressed and that they are obliged to have a cross tattooed on the back of their hand(s)

Is that correct?

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at October 15, 2005 9:08 PM

Of course. Muslims are always offended by the truth. True history shows Islam is not a "religion of peace" but a cult of death, murder, intimidation adn repression.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at October 15, 2005 11:52 PM

As part and parcel of the Dhimmi contract, the infidels are required to wear distinctive markings. “Wali el-Amer” or the Islamic ruler has the right to impose whatever markings or stigmas for the infidel that he so chooses, from wearing clownish, or effeminate clothing (the Zinar belt worn by women that was ordained for all Christian men by the Caliph Omar), and bodily markings such as branding by fire or tattooing with the Cross or the star of David. The Copts used to be branded on the back of their necks with fired lead seals when they reach the Jizzya paying age (13 or 14). A Fatmaide Caliph, the same one that sacked the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and attacked the rock tomb of Christ, ordered all Christians to be tattooed. Thereafter, it became a tradition that the Copts maintained as a witness to their faith and sign of their accepting of persecution for the sake of their Lord. On the other hand, a Copt that is not tattooed may be considered by Muslims, especially if he founds himself in a sticky situation, that he is trying to pass himself of as a Muslim, or that he is not committed to his faith, making that Copt more vulnerable to forced conversion.

"3xlucky:

Is it not 164 Jihad verses?

As for Copts: I was told by some of them living here in Australia that those in Egypt are seriously oppressed and that they are obliged to have a cross tattooed on the back of their hand(s)

Is that correct?"

Posted by: have_mercy at October 15, 2005 11:52 PM

Ex-Egyptian Cop Claims Harassment

The Associated Press

By DONNA BRYSON

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Mohammed El Ghanam says he fears for his life.

The retired police colonel is sure his former colleagues follow him, tap his phones, even bump his car in traffic. He's seeking safety in Swiss asylum but says the Egyptian government won't let him leave the country.

The reason for such harassment, El Ghanam believes, is his increasingly public denunciation of alleged corruption and human rights abuses by the government he served for two decades, which his father and grandfather served with honor before him.

``I am fighting the Egyptian regime because it is a dictatorial regime,'' he declares.

But El Ghanam's crusade is marred by some stunningly eccentric behavior, actions the government suggests lie behind his accusations.

He shot and wounded a doctor in a struggle in a government hospital in 1997, and he's accused of shooting a tax inspector in the leg in a land dispute two years later. He faces criminal charges in both cases, serious enough, the government says, to keep him in Egypt.

In addition, El Ghanam acknowledges he never thought to expose government wrong - indeed, loyally looked the other way when he saw abuse and corruption - until his father's death in the government hospital made him angry.

El Ghanam accuses police officials of wrongdoing ranging from gathering financial favors to torturing prisoners. His allegations are based as much on newspaper articles and reports from human rights groups as on any personal knowledge gleaned as head of the legal department in the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police.

In one essay printed in an opposition paper, El Ghanam discussed various newspaper reports on three prisoners who suffocated in an overcrowded jail cell in Port Said.

``If this had happened anywhere else in the world, the Interior Ministry would have been held accountable. But an Egyptian's life has no value,'' he wrote.

In another commentary, he said ``tens of thousands'' of Egyptians are detained without trial, sometimes for years.

Egyptians can be jailed up to six months without trial while their cases are investigated, under emergency laws declared to combat Islamic terrorism. Additionally, prosecutors commonly have suspects released after six months and immediately rearrest them, with some people detained for years without trial.

As head of the Interior legal department, El Ghanam says he decided whether Egyptian Christians could get permits to build their churches. Muslims do not need permits to build places of worship.

``If I speak about the persecution of Christians, it will be a big problem for the regime,'' he told The Associated Press. ``If I wrote about it, I would be hit by a car the next day and killed.'' He said he would say more only when he is outside Egypt.

Swiss Embassy officials in Cairo found El Ghanam's allegations credible enough to consider his asylum request.

``I find it rather normal that for personal reasons people can change attitudes,'' said embassy counselor Livia Leu.

After a long interview at the embassy last fall, El Ghanam was granted a visa so he could make his case for asylum in Switzerland. But the Egyptian government has imposed a travel ban pending resolution of the two shooting cases.

Until his father's death in 1997, which he attributes to incompetent, corrupt medical staff, the 43-year-old El Ghanam had had little reason to oppose the Egyptian status quo. He was a high-ranking insider not only in the bureaucracy, but also in the social elite.

His father was an army colonel, his grandfather a judge. He vacationed in Europe. He graduated from the police academy and studied in Rome on a government grant. His doctoral thesis compared Italian and Egyptian sentencing procedures.

Through two decades in the police ministry, El Ghanam said, he occasionally saw or heard evidence of abuse. But before 1997, he said he spoke out only ``softly,'' for the most part in texts on police and legal procedures.

``I knew for many years that there was corruption, there was abuse of human rights. But I wasn't involved, I wasn't responsible,'' he said.

Oversized, gold-rimmed glasses perch on his round face under a military-neat haircut - the picture of self-control he admits he lost when he scuffled with his father's doctor. El Ghanam says the shooting was accidental, and he and the doctor, who was wounded in the leg, settled out of court.

But in a statement issued last month after foreign newspapers carried accounts of El Ghanam's allegations, Egyptian government spokesman Nabil Osman described the shooting as premeditated and said the case remains open.

Osman also alleged El Ghanam shot a tax inspector last year, but El Ghanam says that case was concocted by his enemies in the police ministry. As evidence, he produces what he says is an official police report that concludes the gun allegedly used against the inspector was incapable of firing.

Joseph Assad, a Middle East researcher for Freedom House, a Washington-based human rights group, has seen the report. He said Freedom House could not dismiss El Ghanam's suggestion that the criminal charges had been fabricated to stop him from speaking out.
Freedom House wrote to President Hosni Mubarak to ask that El Ghanam be allowed to leave the country. The government response cited the pending charges.

Assad expressed concern at how slowly the Egyptian government was handling the charges. He also noted El Ghanam's claims of being followed and harassed. ``It increases our worry about his safety,'' Assad said.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, on El Ghanam's behalf, demanded that the police ministry investigate allegations he had been harassed.

But the EOHR, one of the oldest and most respected of such groups in the country - its own leader has been jailed for criticizing the government - has not interviewed El Ghanam about his human rights charges or asked his help in investigating wider abuses.

``Because he is a victim, the EOHR must be careful of any exaggeration,'' said Yousry Moustafa, an EOHR researcher.

El Ghanam acknowledges the ambiguity of his crusade.

``I am trying to tell the truth,'' he said.

Posted by: have_mercy at October 16, 2005 12:02 AM

``If I speak about the persecution of Christians, it will be a big problem for the regime,'' he told The Associated Press. ``If I wrote about it, I would be hit by a car the next day and killed.'' He said he would say more only when he is outside Egypt.
El Ghanam, A police Col.

Posted by: have_mercy at October 16, 2005 12:06 AM

CAIRO (AFP) Wed May 5, 2:07 PM ET - Egyptian police deployed in strength in the southern village of Taha al-Aamida for fear of Muslim-Christian unrest in the mixed community after the deaths in custody of three Coptic Christians including a priest.

A police spokesman said the deployment was aimed at "preventing friction" between the evenly divided Copts and Muslims of the village, 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Cairo, that has more than 20,000 inhabitants.

The village priest, Ibrahim Mikhael, died Sunday along with two members of the Coptic community's council and two other Copts were seriously wounded when the car in which they were being driven away for questioning crashed.

The police officer who was driving the car jumped out of the vehicle and escape unhurt.

The local bishop, Bevnetius, said the priest and other Copts were repairing a mud-brick wall around church land that was destroyed in a storm when they were detained on the grounds they had not sought authorisation for the work.

Copts account for at least 5.8 million of Egypt's 70 million population, according to official figures. However, the Coptic Church says its flock numbers as many as 10 million.

Armed clashes between the Coptic and Muslim communities are a common occurrence in southern Egypt.

In January 2000, 20 Copts and a Muslim died in fierce clashes in Kosheh, near the town of Sohag, after a row between a Coptic merchant and his Muslim customer.

Posted by: have_mercy at October 16, 2005 12:20 AM

Pope Shenouda III: We appeal the verdict to God alone
God who said to the first killer, Cain" The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground"Genesis 4: 10
To His justice, the blood of twenty Copts, which was shed on the ground of
al-Kosheh, upper Egypt, cries out.
With them the blood of their brethren in Abu Qurqas, Deir al-Moharak,
Deirut, Sanabu, Samalout, Minshat Dimlo and in other places, also cries out for God's divine justice.
If it doesn't receive justice on earth, it seeks justice in God alone, He
is the source of all justice.
The verdict that was delivered in al-Kosheh case was a source of
disappointment to all Copts. It left a deep wound in their souls and a
scar in their memory that time will not erase.
Thus, they turn to God who have never forgotten Abel's blood.
For, He establishes justice and provides comfort.

Posted by: have_mercy at October 16, 2005 12:25 AM

More on what actually happened, from

http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com/
Scroll down to 15th October.
---
A low-circulation news-paper ( read: tabloid) broke out the story of the offensive play, which of course got widlely circulated by the MB and started this whole mess. What the newspaper and Al Jazeera report failes to mention, is that this play was presented in that church 2 years ago, before it got banned by the church for its offensive content. DVD's of the performance, however, are still avaible and reprotedly circulated amongst christians in Egypt. The newspaper got ahold of one of those DVD's and wrote the story in a way that gives the impression that the play was still performed to this day, which it isn't.

What the Al Jazeera report also failed to mention, was that while 3000 muslims are there demnonstrating, it wasn't what they were doing earlier. Reportedly muslims praying in a nearby mosque came out after the Afternoon prayer and broke into the church and beat up the priests and people in attendance, and had their colleagues surround the church to prevent them from escaping or getting out. They then proceeded to terrorize all the christians in the neighbourhood and the passerbys to the degree that every christian who owns a store closed it and fled the neighbourhood. The nearby mosque, under the urging of the local MB MP Mohamed El Badrasheeny, continued to fan the flames by urging the muslims to attack the christians using the mosque's speakers. It is important to note that Mohamed El Badrasheeny almost lost in the last elections against a christian candidate in that specific circut, so it's in his best interest to turn up the anti-christian sentiment to the extreme amongst the area's muslims to guarntee winning his re-election in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Nice, no?

--

Good old Friday, the most violent day of the week. I wonder why.

Posted by: Silvester at October 16, 2005 1:42 PM

We want speech freedom and we want religion freedom now.

Posted by: Franze at October 16, 2005 2:10 PM

The Copts - and all non-muslims in islamic countries - need to be brought out. Send us your oppressed masses, indeed. Moreover they know Arabic, the language of - let's not say enemy, for many muslims aren't, but let's say that they know the language of the other solitude, to use a Canadian term.

Bring them out.

Prophet Geoff
BBUH

Posted by: Geoff at October 16, 2005 5:03 PM

I like that two solitudes stuff. That's the kind of thing you get in a country where people really care. It's like that exaggerated exactitude, no doubt expressive of a keen desire not to offend, but possibly a little comical in that Aim to Please Through Anthropologically and Linguistically Absolutely Correct Orthography, when what our ancestors were satisfied to write as "Micmac" (and the Americans still do -- but what did you expect?) in Canada is now carefully and self-consciously written as "Mi'qmaq."

Two solitudes. It's what happens when you and a friend go into a large Canadian Tire store looking for a hatchet or a handsaw, and one of you takes a wrong turn, and goes down another aisle and then another, and then each of you is desperately alone, in that giant wilderness-supply emporium, alone over here and alone over there. And each afraid to holler to the other, as one could fearlessly do in the real wilderness. Two solitudes.

Posted by: Hugh at October 16, 2005 11:09 PM