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Egyptian Christians sentenced to death for anti-Islam film →
“The seven accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet,” Judge Saif al-Nasr Soliman said.
The crude, low-budget video, produced privately in California, denigrated the Prophet Mohammad and triggered anti-U.S. protests and attacks on Western embassies around the Muslim world.
As if there hasn’t been enough bloodshed over this stupid film we now have Egypt openly calling for murder of those that practice free speech to speak out against Islam. From the times of the revolution in Egypt I started to worry that maybe the conservative side of things could be right for a change, maybe Egypt really would descend in to an Islamic theocracy. The stories that I have continually seen coming out of Egypt worry me that those predictions are coming true and that we will only continue to see more of this.
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Soldier shot and killed for being an Atheist →
I don’t know the details of this situation beyond what this article provides but I hope that it is charged as a hate crime. If he targeted this individual specifically because of his Atheism it fits the qualification of being a hate crime and as a result will likely carry a stiffer penalty. Atheists do face real discrimination in their lives. It is simply so much easier for people to marginalize discrimination against Atheist because it is “not as bad” as what other groups receive. This is clearly dismissive, justifying, and helps to perpetuate the existence of discrimination against Atheists. No group should be discriminated, it’s not a contest of who has it worse, it simply shouldn’t happen.
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Mother Kills Daughter, Four, For Sacrifice To Allah →
Ali told her husband: “Suddenly it came into my mind that I should correct my behaviour towards Allah.
“Then a voice told me ‘if you love Allah you should sacrifice your daughter.”’
She told a doctor she strangled the child and when she was unconscious, she carried her on to the kitchen table where she used the knife to ensure the spirits were exorcised.
As she stabbed the girl, Koranic verses were played in the background on an electronic device, the court heard.
Just in case you missed it, this week we also had the heart breaking story of a 13 year old girl suffocated during an “exorcism”.
Fifty-six-year-old monk Kazuaki Kinoshita and the girl’s 50-year-old father Atsushi Maishigi were accused of what police described as “waterfall service”: strapping the victim Tomomi Maishigi to a chair and dousing her face with water.
News reports said the two men poured water over her as an “exorcism” with the father holding the girl down while the monk chanted sutras.
Miss Maishigi’s mother called an ambulance after her daughter fell unconscious, but it was too late. She was confirmed dead early the next morning.
Anyone want to be next on my list of ridiculous people that say religion doesn’t harm anyone? Sure hope not.
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Remember Islam is the religion of peace. Where only roughly 50% of the people think you should be killed if you change your mind and decide a misogynistic violent archaic religion isn’t or you. What love!
Part of Pew Research Center information released December 2010.
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Afghan Qu’ran/Koran Protests
Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who sparked up controversy last year with his announcement to burn Korans has his name once again in his news. Just a few weeks ago with little publicity or media coverage Jones and his tiny Florida church put the Koran “on trial”. As a result of this “trial” they burnt a copy for being “guilty of crimes against humanity”.
Most people in American went on not caring. Very few people paid any attention to it. Sadly the same can not be said for the rest of the world. During the last 3 days there have been large protests near Kabul, Afghanistan. As a result of these protests there have been at least 20 death so far. The majority of the deaths are U.N. workers and all are completely unrelated to the situation.
How can this kind of insanity happen? How can 20 people be dead because of the actions of one rogue foolish pastor in Florida? Is he to blame? Is the blood on his hands?
To be entirely clear I am absolutely no fan of Terry Jones but I don’t think he is to blame for these deaths. In the United States we are free to express ourselves however we chose, even if many people do it to express their ignorance. There have been countless bibles burnt in protest, for artistic purposes, and since they appear in nearly every hotel room, many just for “fun”. Terry Jones did not commit a crime, he did absolutely nothing wrong by law, and a case could hardly be made that what he did was immoral.
These people provided Terry Jones exactly what he was asking for, a violent reaction. His point has been proven. He has been able to show exactly what he was trying to tell the world, that Muslims would react violently and ignorantly to his actions. It cost 20 innocent people their lives but his point has been shown.
It’s somewhat unfortunate that this story comes at a time when the media is already flooded with headline news. Chances are this story will go mostly unmentioned. These 20 people died because of religious ignorance but that message will sadly not get across.
What do I think is to blame? I think it should be obvious sadly, it’s the religion. Not all Muslims react with outrage, not all react in protest or violence, but the fact that some did shows exactly what Terry Jones was trying to show. Especially in a place like Afghanistan, where education is extremely poor, the people reacted in an archaic and ignorant way, because they believe that is what they should do for their religion. They killed 20 people cruelly because of the burnt pages of their “sacred” text. The fact that these people are able to justify it to themselves in such a way is, I feel, what the real crime is in this situation.
