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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Pakistan: Christian couple sentenced to death for blasphemy for texts they didn’t send

Apr 4, 2014 5:23 pm By Robert Spencer

Kausar and EmmanuelHere yet again we see how Pakistan’s blasphemy law is used to victimize non-Muslims. It is a human rights abuse of catastrophic proportions, but apparently the global “human rights community” is too busy worrying about “Islamophobia” to take any serious notice. How many more innocent people will have to die before Western Christian leaders decide that speaking out against this persecution of their brethren is worth harming the wonderful “dialogue” they’re enjoying with the local Muslim groups?

“BREAKING NEWS: Pakistan Sentences Christian Couple To Death,” by Stefan J. Bos for BosNewsLife, April 4 (thanks to David):

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)– A Pakistani court sentenced an impoverished Christian couple to death for “blasphemy against Islam” on Friday, April 4, just days after another Christian was told he would be executed on similar charges, an advocacy official involved in the case told BosNewsLife.

Shafaqat Emmanuel, a crippled 38-year-old Christian man, and his wife Shagufta Kausar, 42, “were crying after being told they would be executed by hanging,” said Farrukh H. Saif, executive director of the Pakistan-based World Vision In Progress (WVIP) rights group.

Friday’s court procedure was held in the overcrowded prison of Toba Tek Singh city, where the couple was held following their arrest in nearby Gojra District on July 21 last year, he added.

Saif said WVIP and its international partner Rescue Christians, who provided lawyers to the couple, would appeal against the sentence as early as Monday, April 7.

The devoted Christians were accused by Muslims of sending blasphemous text messages with a mobile phone, charges they strongly deny. “Both have no real education. They can’t send text messages in English,” Saif explained.

MUSLIM COMPAINANTS

However the complainants, identified as Muhmmad Hussain and Anwar Mansoor Goraya, who leads the lawyers organization Tehsil Bar Association, pressured judges to agree with the death sentence.

“They were reading verses from the Koran. They also said that if the court wouldn’t sentence them to death, they would make sure they would be killed the same way as other opponents of the blasphemy legislation,” Saif said.

The death sentence came despite evidence the couple’s mobile phone was not used for the alleged blasphemous remarks about Islam, according to the defense team. “We discovered that the messages were send from another number.”

Muslims have complained about alleged blasphemous text messages.

Yet, Saif said, he was not surprised why they were detained. “These poor people are persecuted because of their strong faith in Jesus Christ,” he added.

“Shagufta Kausar worked as a maid in the local church and the church school.” Shafqat Emmanuel was staying at home since becoming crippled several years ago, but he took care for their children, Saif stressed.

“We are now supporting their four young children, three sons and one daughter. The oldest is 12, the youngest six. We are very concerned about them.”…

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Comments

  1. No1 says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    How disgraceful that the USA funds Pakistan, when it is in truth no better than Afghanistan under the Taliban’s rule. Christians and minorities are persecuted with weapons bought with American money, by a government propped up by America.

    • Angemon says

      Apr 4, 2014 at 6:13 pm

      Funding? That’s a pretty accurate description of what happened since Obama came along (before it used to be known as “protection racket”). For all i know he’s giving it knowing perfectly well how it will be used and where it will end.

      It’s the same principle as when european nations payed tribute to north african islamic rulers. Their coastal villages would still get raided, their boats would still get attacked, but overall it was cheaper than going to war.

      • bill says

        Apr 5, 2014 at 9:45 am

        I get very tired of the Obama haters using this forum to vent their spleen, things would be the same whoever was in the Oval office. it is not just the USA, the cash strapped UK govt. can always find millions to send to Pakistan and other Islamic states and I expect the rest of the EU is the same.

        • Susan Wolf says

          Apr 5, 2014 at 9:19 pm

          Get over it! We have free speech in this country (so far), and you are welcome to not visit this site if it offends you!! Again, get over it.

        • John Stefan Obeda says

          Apr 7, 2014 at 6:03 pm

          Dear Bill, I greatly hate the policies, the attitude, the anti-Christian goals, the killing of the unborn, the destruction of America as the founders created it, these policies and others of Obama. His evil ways must be, must be, proclaimed and may God still show his love for America and get rid of this evil leader of our dear country. . . . Oh, what a dreadful thought you express that any leader would do the same as Obama. If so, America is lost. But a faithful Christian would definitely do much better than the unfaithful Obama that we have now.

      • anObserver says

        Jun 18, 2014 at 1:32 am

        Funding Muslims & nurturing terrorism is going on since the age of Nixon & Kissinger. Obama might be a shade better – probably Americans now perceive that the funding boomerangs.
        Since the 1960s, the US has been training Pakistani Generals in its own academies (Ayub Khan at Sandhurst). Few care that these trained folks carried out a genocide in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Nixon, Kissinger happily supported Pakistan – when India had to take action in view of the millions of East Pakistani refugees & border incursions by Pakistan. So much so, that USS Enterprise breached Indian borders (claimed naval border) & threatened India to withdraw from Pakistan.

    • mortimer says

      Apr 4, 2014 at 8:22 pm

      Yes, DISGRACEFUL, SHAMEFUL and BENEATH CONTEMPT that the US government does so LITTLE to demand improvement in the human rights of minorities. The chief purpose of the Sharia blasphemy (kufr) law is PERSECUTE minorities. For that reason, it is inherently unjust.

  2. Daphdong says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:01 pm

    We pray that Jesus come quickly when we see these terrible things that the Church seems to have abandoned.
    There will be no outcry from the West, they have become dhimmis to Islamic Aggression. Our leaders are absolute gutless wonders, so willing to follow UN guidelines and acceptance of Islamic Agenda to ride over the rights of all peoples as long as they can continue to bring their worldwide Caliphate.

  3. LIVEREALFOOLED says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    This is why.

    it’s ALWAYS A good deed that people speak out today, and

    Speak about this 666 anti-Christ supposed religion.

    because.

    the western MSM keep purporting the westernised version of islam

    The version that demands NO argument.

    YET,

    ALL
    USA dhimmi’s,

    have made the USA capitulated, for the pedophile and slave rapist

    Muhammad

    curse be upon his name

    Muhammad is everybody’s sorrow and weariness.

    And there’s a reason for this its called the sunnah.

    The sunnah is an obligation for Muslims to obligate and live a lifestyle parallel to there 666 prophet

    Child molester Muhammed

    They are all cult

  4. RG says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:18 pm

    islam – kill all the innocent and hard working people. Wow, just think of what a great ummah they’re gonna have when it’s just the muslims that are left in the world!
    But, but, but when all the kaffirs are gone they won’t be able to earn their “72 virgins” anymore–since it is required by islamic law that they must kill one of us in order to go to “paradise”! Hmmm!!!

  5. duh_swami says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:25 pm

    So, that’s the future when sharia rules. Want to see the future, visit Pakistan. These people have carried the craft of evil into a high art form. And the most stupid of the stupid, declares, ‘The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam’. The Christians condemned are guaranteed no future. Evil has triumphed, because Allah wills it. We may not be able to stop it, but we can stop aiding it. Giving any aid to Pakistan, or any Islamic country, for any reason is aiding evil.

  6. eib says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:47 pm

    Same old story.
    Muslims create rumor.
    Muslims spread rumor.
    Muslims enrage themselves.
    Muslims seek scapegoats.
    Muslims kill non-Muslims.
    Islam is profane.
    Mohammed is a false prophet.
    The Ummah is the short road to hell.

  7. Wellington says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:53 pm

    Even if they did send the texts (which quite apparently they didn’t), the shame here is still on Islam, an inveterate enemy of freedom as all totalitarian ideologies are.

    The shame for wretched occurrences like this is shared also by the feeble, pusillanimous, wilfully ignorant, often just plain disgusting, Western elites—–for instance, let’s see here, Obama, Cameron, the American State Department, the BBC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, ABC, sundry academics in the West like Esposito who keep putting a happy face on Islam, et al. Ah, the list is a long one here. Very long. Way too long.

    • Jay Boo says

      Apr 4, 2014 at 10:17 pm

      Let’s also include oh-so-clever politicians like Chris Christy in the US who imply they are not for sharia when cornered but won’t actually say they are against it in order to maintain their open door policy of Islamic appeasement.
      Has anyone heard Chris Christy actually say he is against sharia?

    • ben t says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 7:42 am

      Include the Roman Catholic Church, the church in which I was brought up. WHY ISN’T THIS POPE SPEAKING UP LOUDLY, POINTEDLY, AND VOCIFEROUSLY AGAINST THE MANY MURDERS COMMITTED BY MOHAMMEDANS AGAINST CHRISTIANS???? He is as blind as any dhimmi.

      • judith roth says

        Apr 5, 2014 at 8:25 am

        @ ben t – when Jews were being rounded up and herded to the gas chambers during WW2, the Pope was silent, as was the world. Funny how history repeats itself!

        • ben t says

          Apr 5, 2014 at 9:15 am

          Not the same!!

          Not the same!!!The Catholic Dutch Bishops very early in the war protested vigorously which p.o. the nazis who intensified their persecutions. Pope Pius Xll has been defamed by KGB propaganda in the Church’s fight against leninism. See the story of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli. The Catholic Church bitterly condemned naziism in Pope Pope Pius Xl 1937 encyclical, “MIT BRENNENDER SORGE”. Also see, “The Myth of Hitler’s Pope” by Rabbi David G. Dalin, Regenery, 2005, which was praised by many Rabbis.

        • Wellington says

          Apr 5, 2014 at 5:44 pm

          Pope Pius XXII, judith roth, was not silent on several occasions, for instance in his Chirstmas message of 1942, which infuriated Hitler. But Pius concluded, I think quite correctly, that he could save far more Jews if he worked behind the scenes. And this is exactly what he did with great skill.

          Pius is responsible for the saving of some 800,000 Jews. No one in history, that I know of, saved more Jews than did Pius. For instance, he gave instructions to Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, who was papal legate to France, to issue baptismal certificates to Jewish children to pass them off as Christians. Pius personally intervened to save tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, again behind the scenes.

          One of the greatest injustices of the last hundred years has been the excoriation of Pius for doing nothing to help Jews during WWII. Nothing could be further from the truth. BTW, I am not a Catholic or religious at all but fair is fair

        • gravenimage says

          Apr 7, 2014 at 10:21 pm

          Very true, ben t and Wellington.

  8. duh_swami says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 7:24 pm

    The people who would punish for blasphemy, believe in jinn and an incoherent angel who whispers sweet nothings in Arabic ears. If a Mahoundian say’s, ‘I’m not sure jinn actually exist’, he is guilty of blasphemy, possibly apostasy. These men are vicious hypocrites of the highest order. They murder to protect their own twisted beliefs. No civilized country should do business with them.

  9. Lauren says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 8:18 pm

    This blasphemy law is just an excuse muslims are using to kill non-muslims. They don’t even care if there is no evidence to convict. They want them killed anyway

  10. Christian A. Beltram says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 9:41 pm

    Filing false blasphemy charges against non-Muslims is just one of the many tactics that Jihadists are resorting to in order to purge Muslim countries of non-Muslim minority groups. If and when that crime is completed, then they will begin to accelerate their destruction of countries where non-Muslims are the majority. Immigrating to those countries and converting non-Muslims in those countries to Islam are only the preludes to the global conflagration that will erupt sooner or later, possibly later, when the Muslim World thinks it has a strong enough advantage against the non-Muslim World in order to defeat and destroy it. By the time politically correct people around the world realize this sickening but true assessment of reality, it will be too late to save the world from its final destruction. The Jihadists know this and they are laughing at the stupidity of the world’s politicaly correct movers and shakers.

    • gravenimage says

      Apr 8, 2014 at 12:34 am

      Christian A. Beltram wrote:

      By the time politically correct people around the world realize this sickening but true assessment of reality, it will be too late to save the world from its final destruction. The Jihadists know this and they are laughing…
      ……………………………….

      Things are grim, Christian, but I *don’t* believe they are hopeless.

      In the 1930s, the West was full of apologists for Fascism and admirers of Hitler. The King of England was a Fascist sympathizer, there was a system of Hitler Youth Camps in the United States, and the German-American Bund held a high-profile meeting in Madison Square Garden.

      All this while Hitler consolidated his power, openly remilitarized, and became increasingly oppressive and violent towards the Jews.

      People who tried to sound the alarm, including Winston Churchill, some journalists, and a few diplomats, were dismissed as “hysterical” or even as anti-German “war mongers”.

      Things must have looked *pretty damn hopeless*—but these “premature anti-fascists” held firm, and *were* finally able to alert good people to the threat.

      Of course, the specifics are different now—but they are each time evil rears its ugly head.

      The situation is similar enough, though—to teach us both how clueless those enmired in denial and willful ignorance can be, and how influential, finally, a small percentage of good, brave, and perceptive people can be.

      We cannot afford to give in to pessimism and despair—nor should we want to.

  11. citycat says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 10:29 pm

    Islam, you should not do unto others as you would that others don’t do unto you.
    I’m sure it is coming back to you.

  12. Jay Boo says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 10:36 pm

    AWKWARD ISLAMIC SILENCE

    After an attack
    Islam apologists talk about Islamophobia not just to change the topic.
    The main purpose is to provide a blanket cover excuse for the (not my problem) awkward silence of the so-called moderate Muslim communities in the West.

    • eib says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 11:21 am

      Kind of like a battering husband to his wife.
      They always change the subject.
      The beating was the wife’s fault.
      Yeah right.

  13. Mary Vanderkooi says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 12:18 am

    How can we help people like this? Is there any organization that actually uses money to help these kind of folk, rather than using it to build its own empire?

    • dumbledoresarmy says

      Apr 6, 2014 at 6:45 am

      Try “The Barnabas Fund”.

      http://www.barnabasfund.org/

      There’s also the British Pakistani Christian Association, which operates on a shoestring.

      http://britishpakistanichristian.blogspot.co.uk/

  14. Jay Boo says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 12:21 am

    Muslims, why do you drink from the river of resentment?

    Fear not your enemies Muslims, for it is your ‘Muslim friends’
    that will turn against you.
    Muslims need enemies just to make friends.
    Kinda says a lot about Islam, Huh.

  15. Saleem Smith says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 4:09 am

    To openly criticize the Islamic religion or Muhammad the prophet of Islam in any Mohammedan country on earth means certain death.

    We ex-Muslims know that MOST OF THE MUSLIM POPULATION OF THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT became Muslim by rape. Islam permits both slavery and rape.

    THE QURANIC SANCTION OF SLAVERY

    The institution of slavery in Islam was formalized in the following Quranic verse, in which Allah distinguishes free human beings or masters, who exercise justice and righteousness, from the dumb, useless and burdensome ones, the slaves:

    Quran 16:76:

    Allah sets forth (another) Parable of two men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good: is such a man equal with one who commands Justice, and is on a Straight Way?

    Allah warns the believers against taking the slaves as equal partner in status and in sharing their wealth, lest they have to fear them as anyone else:

    Quran 30:28:

    …do ye have partners among those whom your right hands possess (i.e., slaves, captives) to share as equals in the wealth We have bestowed on you? Do ye fear them as ye fear each other?

    Allah recognizes some human beings, namely the masters, as more blessed by Himself than the less favored slaves as part of His divine plan. He warns Muslims against sharing His gifts to them equally with their slaves. Those who would take slaves as equal, warns Allah, would deny Him:

    Quran 16:71:

    Allah has bestowed His gifts of sustenance more freely on some of you than on others: those more favoured are not going to throw back their gifts to those whom their right hands possess, so as to be equal in that respect. Will they then deny the favours of Allah?

    Allah does not only sanction the institution of slavery, He also gave divine blessing to masters (Muslim men only can own slaves) to have sex with the female slaves:

    Quran 70:29–30:

    And those who guard their private parts, Except in the case of their wives or those whom their right hands possess—for these surely are not to be blamed

    Quran 23:5–6

    And who guard their private parts, except before their mates or those whom their right hands possess, for they surely are not blameable

    Therefore, if there are women amongst the captives or slaves, Muslims are divinely sanctioned to have sex with them as they do with their wives. This verdict of Allah founded the institution of sex-slavery or slave-concubinage in Islam, which was widespread in the pre-colonial Muslim world and continued well into the mid-twentieth century. As far as legal marriage is concerned, there is a limitation of four wives for a man at one time [Quran 4:3], but no such limitation on the number of sex-slaves.

    Allah also gave a divine sanction to Muslims for acquiring female slaves for sexual engagement by waging wars against the infidels:

    Quran 33:50:

    O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war…

    Muslims can engage in sex with the captured slave women even if they are married, but not with the married free Muslim women:

    Quran 4:24:

    Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess…

    There are other verses in the Quran that talks approvingly of slaves and capturing them in wars. Thus, according to the divine commands of the Islamic God as enshrined in the holy Quran, Muslims are allowed to keep slaves. They can amass slaves by waging wars, have sex with the female slaves, and of course, use them as they wish. For Muslims, having sex with female slaves is as legal as having sex with their married wives. Slavery appears to be one of the most desired divine privileges in Islam, since Allah took the pain of reminding Muslims about this divine right time and again in so many verses.

    http://www.islam-watch.org/authors/65-khan/809-islamic-slavery-part-1.html

    • eib says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 11:23 am

      Stay safe, Saleem.
      May God keep you right in his hand.

  16. bill says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 9:37 am

    Muslims love death, they frequently say that exactly. They love to die (for allah of course) and they love to kill. They even kill their wives and children. rarely do you hear of a wife killing her husband because he has shamed the family! They scream for the death penalty on the slightest rumour and in many cases carry it out themsleves. That would be called a lynching in most countries but in Islam it is doing god’s will. They are the most bloodthirsty religious people in the history of the world.

    • eib says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 11:25 am

      Without life, death is meaningless.
      Muslims die mechanically, they kill others mechanically.
      They don’t think because they have submitted their free will to the Ummah.
      The tendency of Muslims to favor death tells me only that they are MISERABLE.

  17. Betty says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    hey Robert why is your page printer friendly? but yet you can not print any thing.

  18. voegelinian says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 1:44 pm

    According to surveys of Egyptian Muslims

    86% favor apostasy
    http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

    88% agree with the al-Qaeda goal of Islamic law
    http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/opinion-polls.htm

    • voegelinian says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 5:51 pm

      woops, 86% favor EXECUTION for apostasy (Salah would have us believe my typo was correct lol)

      • Salah says

        Apr 5, 2014 at 11:42 pm

        I don’t believe politically motivated polls. Remember, the U.S. administration WANTED the Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt and elsewhere. So, everything else has to follow this “great” vision, including Polls, MSM, PC elites etc.
        The only poll I believe in is this:
        30 million Egyptians saying NO to the MB and to their evil sharia.
        Look at the pictures, watch the videos … this is the poll I believe in.

        http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-end-of-muslim-brotherhood.html

        • RodSerling says

          Apr 6, 2014 at 2:43 am

          Salah,

          I don’t think you understand how this research works. If there were any such extreme undue influence on the research as you are implying, to the extent that the data are fictional, basically an inversion of reality, this would probably never get past the researchers themselves. It’s extremely unlikely. Someone would probably eventually leak it and there would be a big scandal. You assume the worst of the Pew researchers–that they are corrupt and liars–and the best of Egyptian Muslims–that they are overwhelmingly against sharia and the basic elements of Islam such as punishments for blasphemy, apostasy, adultery, and the like. You are assuming the best of a population that has, in overwhelming percentages, mutilated the genitals of their own girls, voted overwhelmingly for Islamic parties, overwhelmingly hate the Jews, and the majority of whose men admit outright that they’ve sexually harassed and assaulted Egyptian women (nearly 100% say they’ve been at least sexually assaulted or harassed). You are cooing over crowds that contain significant numbers of people who would think nothing of viciously mass raping and torturing any white Western-looking female who was naive and unfortunate enough to get stuck in the crowds. This has been shown over and over again. It keeps happening in part because people like you keep spewing bromides about how wonderful and moderate Egyptian Muslims are.

          To postulate a research conspiracy of the sort you are implying at least requires some evidence on your part. However, it seems you are dismissing the evidence simply because it doesn’t conform to your beliefs. Pew is not part of, nor is it funded by, the U.S. government. Even if it were though, the U.S. gov’t under both Republican and Democratic leadership is promoting the idea that Islam and Muslims are predominantly moderate. Thus, if they were going to have an undue influence on the process or reporting of this research, they’d present results that showed Muslims to be moderate–much like the Gallup poll led by Esposito and Mogahed showed Muslims to seem moderate. But even that soft-and-fuzzy Gallup poll couldn’t hide reality: The vast majority of Muslims want sharia. But with the Pew polls, aside from containing a lot of ambiguous and softball questions, there were included some specific and concrete questions, such as those asking about support or opposition to the death penalty for apostasy and adultery. The Obama administration would not want it to be the case that 88% of Egyptian Muslims supported the death penalty for apostasy; the Pew data severely undermines practically everything Obama and co. claim about Islam and Muslims, at least in Egypt and many other places. Even Pew itself, in my estimation, is leaning in the direction of presenting Islam in a moderate light, mainly by asking ambiguous and soft-ball questions of Muslims. Thus, if bias had any influence on the results, it would be in the direction of presenting Muslims as being less supportive of sharia and specific punishments like the death penalty for apostasy. Indeed, they wouldn’t even want to ask about apostasy punishments and the like. The last thing Pew or the American administration would want is to present scary-looking data those from Egyptian Muslims.

          Your accusation also doesn’t explain the range and distribution of results. On the apostasy question, there were many Muslim majority countries (e.g., in Central Asia and South-Eastern Europe) in which the support for the death penalty for apostasy was quite low. Yet in the Palestinian Territories and Jordan, two of the Middle Eastern/ North African countries also surveyed with this particular question that are physically close to Egypt, the levels of support for the death penalty for apostasy were 62% and 83%, respectively.

          Your accusation also doesn’t account for the convergence of the Pew results with those from other research organizations such as World Public Opinion, which showed that the majority of Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere (Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia) agree with al Qaeda’s goal (those words were used in the contextual framing of the question) of implementing a strict application of sharia in every Muslim country and setting up a Caliphate uniting all Muslim countries.

          You rave over and over again about this so-called 30 million Muslims in Egypt who are allegedly rejecting Islam. Where’s the evidence that it is 30 million? Where’s the evidence that…
          …they were marching against Islam, as you claim, and not just against the performance of one particular political party (one Muslim party among other Muslim parties) and for the military to step in?
          …Egyptian Muslims are clamoring in any significant numbers to abolish the punishments for apostasy, blasphemy, atheism, etc., that are already on the books and enforced there?
          …significant numbers of Egyptians are demanding a halt to the practice of female genital mutilation?
          …Egyptian Muslim men in massive numbers are opposed to sexually assaulting and harassing women in public?
          …Egyptian Muslims are calling for peaceful coexistence as equals with Jews in neighboring Israel?

        • RodSerling says

          Apr 6, 2014 at 1:39 pm

          Ross,

          You present one anecdotal statistically rare “half-Muslim” friend as evidence of what?

          “Actually the election process that saw the MB take power in Egypt was even more corrupt than that which saw Obama (also MB) retain power in 2012.”

          The major alternatives are not anti-Islam and are not secular. All major political parties in Egypt with any substantial support in Egypt are pro-Muslim. The MB itself is not even the most “Islamic” of the popular parties; the Salafists are more Islamic.

          “Huge numbers of Copts and moderate Egyptians were either intimidated into voting MB or had their papers taken off them or were simply turned away from the polls.”

          Perhaps, but the vast majority of Egyptian Muslims are pro-Islam (should I even have to say that?) and pro-sharia. All the polls that ask questions about sharia and elements of sharia show this to be the case.

          “The MSM continually reporting the MB as the legitimately elected government is outrageous and infuriating.”

          Of course the MSM are pro-MB. But the polling before the election showed strong support for the MB.

          “My “moderate” Mate in Egypt Ali, technically a Muslim but married to a Christian Russian girl”

          That he married a Christian woman is perfectly in accord with sharia.

          “He like the Egyptian Army is 100% secular.”

          How do you know he’s 100% secular? Have you asked him a series of critical questions? As for the army, there is no evidence whatsoever that they are “100%” secular. Al Sisi:
          http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2013/08/11/why-egyptian-putschist-general-al-sisis-anti-secular-u-s-army-war-college-thesis-matters/
          Also keep in mind that this is the army that ran over and killed Copts with military vehicles.

          “The fact that the MB mongrels have been bowled over means that the vast majority of Egyptians are also at least a bit like Ali.”

          No it doesn’t. I’ll believe they are against Islam when they start criticizing Islam and Muhammad, and stop mutilating girls’ genitals, stop sexually assaulting women in public, abolish the laws that punish apostates, blasphemers, atheists; when they repudiate the Cairo Declaration, etc.

          “Hence the Egyptian Army cooperates with the Israelis.”

          Because they are not suicidal, and they want to keep U.S. aid coming in.

    • RodSerling says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 6:06 pm

      Voeg,

      It’s 88% support among Egyptian Muslims overall for the death penalty for apostasy. The link you provide shows the figures only for the subset of Muslims who supported sharia in general. (Pew caused a lot of confusion last year through this presentation). On the linked page, click on complete report pdf, then go to the data for Muslims overall on the apostasy question on page 219.
      http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf

      Among Pakistani Muslims, the overall support is 75% for the death penalty for apostasy. That’s the same percentage that supports that country’s harsh blasphemy punishments (see page 199); and only 6% express objection to those laws.

      • BlueRaven says

        Apr 5, 2014 at 6:40 pm

        I don’t put much faith in the Pew findings, because the Muslims will not tell the truth to any infidel. In the report there appear to be several contradictions: “In Pakistan, for example, three-quarters of Muslims say that non Muslims are very free to practice their religion, ….. Yet 84% of
        Pakistani Muslims favor enshrining sharia as official law. ”

        How can people practice any other religion than Islam under Sharia? Pakistan’s Sharia courts are a classic example.

        • RodSerling says

          Apr 5, 2014 at 7:41 pm

          Blue Raven,

          There are different issues that need to be distinguished. The problem of Muslims (or anyone else) lying to pollsters is one, but when 75% and 88% are admitting to pollsters that they support the death penalty for apostasy, lying doesn’t seem to be much of an issue in those cases. Granted, they could be lying to make Muslims’ beliefs seem even more barbaric than they really are, or perhaps to not contradict the country’s laws, but that doesn’t seem likely in these particular cases. Importantly, the trend of deception among Muslims tends to be of the apologist type, i.e., making Islam and Muslims’ beliefs look modern and tolerant to non-Muslims.

          “In the report there appear to be several contradictions: “In Pakistan, for example, three-quarters of Muslims say that non Muslims are very free to practice their religion, ….. Yet 84% of Pakistani Muslims favor enshrining sharia as official law.”

          That’s not necessarily a contradiction, because the interpretation of “free” is subjective and relative. To establish a contradiction, you need first of all to compare responses to clear questions. The main problem there is not necessarily lying respondents. It is the ambiguity which Pew deliberately afforded in wording the questions. Pew asks a lot of fuzzy and ambiguous questions like that. For example (from other polls), if you ask Pakistani Muslims if they support freedom of expression, most say yes. If you ask them if they support the harsh blasphemy laws (death penalty or life imprisonment, depending on which type of blasphemy), most also say yes. That is because most Muslims’ notion of freedom of expression doesn’t include criticizing Muhammad or Islam. (For comparison, if you asked most Westerners if they support free expression, most would say yes. But if you ask them whether they support the freedom to make serious death threats, or defamation (false allegation) that results in someone’s loss of a job, business, or marriage, then most would say no. That’s because most Westerners’ notion of free expression doesn’t include death threats and defamation that causes real damages).
          So I don’t put much stock in results for fuzzy or ambiguous questions like that, but I put more stock in answers to more specific and concrete questions, such as those that ask for opinions on punishments for apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, etc.

          “How can people practice any other religion than Islam under Sharia?”

          Under the limits imposed under the dhimma, or something like the dhimma, which most Muslims probably think provides non-Muslims with all the freedom they rightfully deserve.

    • gravenimage says

      Apr 8, 2014 at 1:04 am

      Voegelinian wrote:

      According to surveys of Egyptian Muslims

      86% favor apostasy
      ………………………

      That shocking statistic, of course, is Egyptian Muslims who favor *death* for apostasy. I believe the figures are the same for Pakistan.

      Hope you’re doing well, Hesp.

  19. B lueRaven says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 5:31 pm

    blasphemy = GENOCIDE

  20. BlueRaven says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 5:44 pm

    My commets are getting lost…

  21. gravenimage says

    Apr 7, 2014 at 10:12 pm

    Pakistan: Christian couple sentenced to death for blasphemy for texts they didn’t send
    ………………………………..

    It doesn’t matter wether they sent them or not—in Islam, the accusation is what counts. These poor innocent people—and their poor children.

    More:

    “They were reading verses from the Koran. They also said that if the court wouldn’t sentence them to death, they would make sure they would be killed the same way as other opponents of the blasphemy legislation,” Saif said.
    ………………………………..

    The “they” is vague here—clearly it refers to the couple. This is also mainstream Islam—if the Islamic state does not execute “blasphemers”, then the Ummah will do the bloody deed.

    But these pious thugs may also be threatening the judge and court officers. *This* is very common, as well, where if Muslim authorities do not punish “blasphemy”, then they are considered “insufficiently Islamic”, and are fair game for slaughter, as well.

    This is what happened to Governor Salman Taseer, who merely suggested that the blasphemy law might be reviewed. He was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, who was literally showered with rose petals when he left court.

    Is the West going to do *anything* about this latest barbarism—like suggest that Pakistan might release this couple and poor Asia Bibi—also under a death sentence for “blasphemy”—if they want to keep their billions in “foreign aid”? Somehow, I rather doubt it…

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