“There is no compulsion in religion,” says the Qur’an (2:256), as Islamic apologists in the West endlessly remind us, but what exactly constitutes compulsion for many Islamic supremacists is not what Westerners assume. Even in the Qur’an itself, Muslims are directed to exact a tax (jizya) from the subjugated “People of the Book,” i.e., primarily Jews and Christians, and make sure that they “feel themselves subdued,” which has been taken in Islamic law as the impetus for a whole complex of humiliating and discriminatory regulations that deny them basic rights. They can free themselves from all this humiliation, discrimination and harassment simply by converting to Islam — yet even this is not considered to be “compulsion in religion.”
“‘Hindu men being forced to embrace Islam in Pak,'” from the Times of India, August 14 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
ATTARI: The news of forcible conversion of Hindu girls in Pakistan by fundamental Muslims are often heard, but now a Pak Hindu couple has alleged that even Hindu men are forced to embrace Islam.
“Hindu boys are threatened of dire consequences, Hindu businessmen are not allowed to conduct their business or open shops and are pressurized to embrace Islam,” said Pakistani couple Anil Kumar and Poonam, who “migrated” to India on Tuesday leaving behind their business and family members on the mercy of fundamentalists. Carrying handful of their luggage, the couple started crying as they crossed the Radcliff Line on foot and reached India.
While talking to TOI, Anil Kumar said his wife had a heart problem on the basis of which, they managed to obtain a visa to India to undertake treatment at Indore. “We have had enough in Pakistan, we will not go back and live here all our life,” said Anil. He said that Hindu shopkeepers were threatened to give hafta (weekly protection money) if they wanted to open their shops and were also pressurized to embrace Islam if they wanted to make their lives better. “I have a shop in Larkana in Sindh, the Muslim fundamentalists ask for hafta and when I refused, they threatened to eliminate my family,” he said.
Poonam, whose brother-in-law was shot and brother kidnapped by Muslim fundamentalists, said: “Every Hindu in Pakistan is bearing atrocities, girls are kidnapped and forcibly converted but now, Hindu boys are being made to embrace Islam.” She said her father had lost both his legs in a bomb blast. Anil said that he had left behind eight sisters, brother and mother, besides his shop in Pakistan. “I know they will be in trouble. While living in India, I would try to help my family get visas to travel to India,” he said.
Meanwhile, resident of Daska in Pakistan Mohammad Sadiq said that killing of Indian soldiers on Line of Control was a horrible act which could have been avoided. He said that both nations should simplify the visa regime.