Two weeks ago the Supreme Administrative Court issued a ruling allowing Christian-born converts to Islam who revert to their original Christianity to be officially registered as Christian. The ruling gives them the right to be cited as Christians in ID cards, but with explicit mention that the holder had previously converted to Islam. The same court issued a ruling the week before in favour of the right of Baha’is to leave the religious affiliation box blank on official documents.
Analysts, Presidents, and ordinary people all over the world have had various thoughts on Fidel Castro’s decision not to seek another term as President. In Egypt however his decision had a different impact. Besides the usual news stories in the newspapers, Castro leaving power had another impact on Egypt.
Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking the rhetorical question: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg."
That pretty much sums up the recent unilateral declaration of independence by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Several countries, disgracefully led by the United States, have recognized Kosovo. Major media have hailed creation of the "world's newest country." But calling Kosovo a country doesn't make it one.
OSLO, Norway: Violence by Islamic extremists will pose a significant challenge to Norwegian security in coming years, partly due to the Nordic nation's participation in NATO-led peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, the national police intelligence agency said Tuesday.
Dreams stifled, Egypt's young turn to Islamic fervor
By Michael Slackman
CAIRO: The concrete steps leading from Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid's first-floor apartment sag in the middle, worn down over time, like Sayyid himself. Once, Sayyid had a decent job and a chance to marry. But his fiancée's family canceled the engagement because after two years, he could not raise enough money to buy an apartment and furniture.
Government paints bull's-eye on Christians Egyptian court makes converts from Islam show 'previous Muslim identity' on ID cards
Egypt
WorldNetDaily
An organization that reaches out to persecuted Christians worldwide, International Christian Concern, says a new Egyptian court ruling allowing 12 Christians who converted to Islam to return to Christianity actually isn't religious freedom, and will place them in grave danger.
Egypt’s ongoing problem of Anti Semitism seems to be increasing lately. The last example was published just yesterday in El Gomhoria newspaper, which is a government, owned and run newspaper. Mohamed Abu Hadid writes a weekly column in the newspaper that covers nearly one whole page. He usually writes a long article on a topic and after that writes small one line comments on important news of the week. In his article on the 10th of January the comments section included this line that read as follows: “Insisting on confirming its bias, the US Congress has sent to us a member to visit Egypt by the name of Steve Israel”.
Germany and the rest of Europe have had a long standing policy of appeasement to Dictators and Tyrants all over the world. One would think that a country that has suffered so much from tyranny and that saw the results of dictatorship would have learned the lesson, but no such lesson was obviously been learnt.
Archbishop Rowan Williams’ lecture and interviews have created a justified furore. This is profoundly regrettable, as some of the issues he was raising in his densely argued lecture were very important and need widespread discussion.
One important point he was making is that many deeply enshrined beliefs and values of our Judaeo-Christian tradition have been overridden in recent legislation by secularist politicians, forging policies which are binding on followers of all faith traditions but which may violate some of their fundamental beliefs. This issue of accommodating minority groups’ values in a democracy deserves public debate and political consideration.
Egyptian Converts Win Case but May Face Discrimination
High court ruling requires Christian converts to note former faith on documents.by Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, February 11 (Compass Direct News) – Egypt’s top administrative court has ruled in favor of 12 converts to Islam seeking to return to Christianity but has left the group vulnerable to discrimination by mandating their former religion be noted on official documents.
'Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
What Rowan Williams wishes upon us is an abomination and I write here as a modern Muslim woman. He lectures the nation on the benefits of sharia law – made by bearded men, for men – and wants the alternative legal system to be accommodated within our democracy in the spirit of inclusion and cohesion.
From: His Eminence Abba Seraphim, Metropolitan of Glastonbury
The response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recently reported comments on Sharia law shows the deep concerns held by many British people about the growth of Islam in the United Kingdom and its impact on our society.
Posted by Christopher Howse Tags: Islam, Muslims, Archbishop of Canterbury, Sharia law, Rowen Williams
The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have lost the use of his senses. He told the BBC today that the application of Sharia in Britain "seems unavoidable". This would entail lashing for fornication and amputation for theft.
The rights of women have moved on, says Dr Williams
The Western church’s growing tendency to blur theological differences and not uphold the absolute truth is contributing to the threat of radical Islam to the Western world, said a highly respected expert on Islam.
Patrick Sookhdeo, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, said churches are moving away from central doctrines that teach about separation and instead conforming to secular society’s ideology of inclusion.
The CEO of Al Ahram newspaper, the official government newspaper, Mosry Atallah, has written an article on the 24th of November 2007 expressing his disapproval of how Egyptian newspapers are highlighting the problems in Egypt.
My previous post on Anti-Semitism in Egypt created a lot of debate and was criticized by many people. That was not entirely unexpected.
I believe that people are blinded by their hatred to Israel and do not see that it has turned to hatred to Jews as Jews. This growing Anti-Semitism in Egypt and the Arab world in general largely remains unchallenged.
As an Egyptian I am totally frightened by the situation in the past couple of days in Sinai and along the border with Gaza. This is not an over alarmist position. The situation in Sinai now poses the greatest threat to Egypt’s national security.
Islamist Debate: Are Muslim U.K. Visa Holders and Muslim U.K. Citizens Permitted to Carry Out Attacks in Great Britain?
Recent discussions in the online Islamist forums regarding the benefits of attacking France have sparked a religious debate among Islamist forum members.(1) At the core of the debate is the Islamic concept of "assurance of protection" (aman), which is referred to in the discussion below as "the covenant of security." In this case, the covenant of security pertains to the aman granted to a Muslim by a non-Muslim, whereby if a Muslim enters a non-Muslim country, or even an enemy country, with an assurance of protection from that country (e.g. as a merchant or a tourist) he must not violate this covenant by harming the country in any way.(2)
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