let'em fight it out without the US military or our tax dollars
their war ... their problem
On Dec 8, 10:01 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> *The End of Religious Freedom*
>
> Posted By *Phyllis Chesler* On December 6, 2011 ****
>
> Time has run out for the cause of worldwide religious freedom. On November
> 18, 2011, America chose not to extend any further lifeline to persecuted
> religious minorities around the planet. On that day, the U.S. government
> shut down the work of an important and unique American effort: the U.S.
> Commission on International Religious Freedom
> (USCIRF<http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-and-briefs/annual-report/3594-2011-annu...>
> [1]).****
>
> Oddly enough, the mainstream media does not seem to have covered this
> story. I certainly did not know about it. Did you? The only article about
> this appeared at CNS
> News<http://cnsnews.com/news/article/don-t-let-religious-freedom-commissio...>
> [2].****
>
> In 1998, the U.S. government passed the Religious Freedom Act and this
> commission was one of the results. Since then, it has sent delegations
> abroad to meet with minority religious leaders in Africa, the Middle East,
> and central Asia, and released reports about their work. In 2011, their Annual
> Report<http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-and-briefs/annual-report/3594-2011-annu...>
> [1] covered countries such as Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba,
> Egypt, Eritrea, India, Indonesia, and Iran.****
>
> In 2011, Nina Shea, the head commissioner, presented
> testimony<http://www.uscirf.gov/government-relations/congressional-testimony/35...>
> [3] before members of Congress about Christian minorities under attack in
> Iraq and Egypt. In this hearing, Shea reported:****
>
> USCIRF has found serious, widespread, and longstanding human rights
> violations against religious minorities as well as disfavored Muslims.
> Confronted by these violations, the Egyptian government has failed to take
> the necessary steps to halt the discrimination and repression against
> Christians and other minorities. Too often, it has failed to punish the
> violators.****
>
> Shea discussed the New Year's Day bombing in Alexandria, which led to the
> worst attack targeting Christians in a decade. Carefully, without saying
> that Muslims or the Egyptian Muslim police were the perpetrators, she
> refered to the "Coptic Christmas shooting that killed six innocent
> Christians in Naga Hammadi." Over the last two years, the Egyptian
> government, media, and network of mosques have systematically engaged in
> violence and in the coverup of that violence against Christians.****
>
> In an interview with PJ Media, Shea said,****
>
> With the onslaught of the Arab Winter and the threat of newly politically
> empowered Islamists suppressing the freedoms of religious minorities and
> even carrying out religious cleansing campaigns against them, USCIRF is
> needed more than ever. Its voice carries official weight and it has
> vigorously and consistently raised it within and outside the government on
> behalf of a broad array of persecuted minorities and individuals around the
> world. At this time, USCIRF is winding down its work, as it is legally
> bound to do, since its authorization ends on December 16. As reported in
> the Congressional Quarterly, Senator Durbin of Illinois has blocked the
> USCIRF reauthorization for several months, reportedly in order to get an
> earmark to fund a prison in his state. He has been intractable. President
> Obama — who served with Mr. Durbin in the Senate before becoming president
> and who has expressed an interest in using the prison at issue for holding
> detainees from Guantanamo Bay – must speak up, if USCIRF is to continue.
> President Obama can make this happen and I appeal to him to do so.****
>
> Why would the American government shut down USCIRF now? Some might say that
> we are in an economic recession and must care fo our own before we can help
> others. Some secular Americans might simply want freedom *from* religion
> rather than *of* religion. They may not care about the choice to practice
> one's religion or whether or not people are being persecuted for doing so.
> And some Americans may agree with the UN
> view<http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/un-acceptable-censorship-united-na...>
> [4] that Muslims and Islam are not to be criticized and that any accurate
> portrayal of Muslim behavior may be treated as a crime.****
>
> *Next: The USCIRF's opponent still pursues its totalitarian aims with the
> blessing of the global community…*****
>
> The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Durban Follies,
> constitutes a permanent delegation to the UN. The OIC was established in
> 1969. Its position <http://oic-info.org/?q=38th-council-foreign-ministers>
> [5] is as follows: it seeks to****
>
> pursue as a matter of priority a common policy aimed at prevented
> defamation of Islam perpetrated under the pretext and justification of the
> freedom of expression in particular through media and internet.****
>
> In 2011, the 38th Conference, held in Kazakhstan, stated "deep concern over
> any activities carried out by certain governmental and non-governmental
> organizations supported by governments in order to attack OIC member states
> for political purposes and to further their foreign policy objectives in
> international forums." The conference also denounced "media campaigns and
> fabrications made by some quarters in non-member states regarding the
> mistreatment of non-Muslim minorities and communities in the OIC member
> states under the slogans of religious freedoms and so on."****
>
> In other words, attempting to help a Christian escape genocide in Egypt,
> Iraq, or Pakistan would be outlawed as would all work that reports on
> religious persecution. What I'm writing here would be criminalized. The
> Muslims who drafted this document want to do their gender cleansing without
> being exposed, stopped, or held liable for it. That's the OIC at the UN.****
>
> The United States, to its credit, shunned the UN's Durban III conference.
> However, in 2009, the Obama administration eliminated the phrases "Islamic
> extremism," "Islamic terrorism," and "terrorism" from national security
> strategy documents<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/07/obama-bans-islam-jihad-nat...>
> [6]. We have also seen a quantum increase in fears about a non-existent
> "Islamophobia" and a similar quantum decrease in "official" fears about an
> escalating anti-Semitism which in the Middle East is potentially genocidal.*
> ***
>
> Many European politically correct/anti-racist governments agree with the
> OIC Conference. For example, European governments have prosecuted "thought
> crimes" which involve criticism of Islam or any objective presentation of
> Islam (honor killing, honor related violence, forced marriage, daughter and
> wife beating, etc.) that some Muslim somewhere finds offensive — in
> Holland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Iceland etc. I myself have called this
> the death of free speech in
> Europe<http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/924/the-death-of-free-speech-in-europe>
> [7].****
>
> Recently, I was involved in the case of a Pakistani apostate, Khalid
> Saheed<http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10942>
> [8], who sought and was denied political asylum in Sweden. Predictably, he
> and his family have received death threats from Islamic fundamentalists. If
> Saheed and his family are sent back to Pakistan, they will be murdered for
> leaving Islam. This is the true state of religious tolerance in the Muslim
> world. There is no such freedom and USCRIF has boldly exposed and published
> this truth.****
>
> *Finally: What does Dick Durbin have to do with the death of the USCRIF?****
> *
>
> Perhaps there are simpler reasons involved in the death of USCRIF. The bill
> to continue funding it was held up by just one man, Senator Dick Durbin
> (D-Ill). Durbin may not necessarily oppose aiding religious minorities as
> much as he is in favor of delivering pork barrel to his constituents. Thus,
> unbelievably, only until or unless the Thomson Correctional Center in
> northwest Illinois is funded and/or funded for the purpose of holding
> Guantanamo Bay detainees, there can be no funding for religious freedom
> anywhere else on earth.****
>
> Politics is a decidedly unfunny business. I usually tell people that a
> politician is, by definition, a thief and a liar, but that he or she is
> also a balancer, a compromiser, someone who is always in a position to sell
> one cause for the sake of another, to help one person and not another, to
> borrow from Peter in order to pay Paul. This is both how democracy works
> and how things get done in non-democratic countries as well. Cronyism,
> greed, arrogance, intolerance, injustice, occasional mercy, occasional
> do-goodism characterize how humanity in the aggregate behaves.****
>
> We know that most Muslims are not friendly toward any infidel religion,
> including Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, etc. Christians have been —
> and still are — savagely persecuted in Muslim lands. I and many others have
> often written about this. Author and apostate Nonie Darwish and ex-Muslim
> secularist Ibn Warraq have both spoken out about this burning issue.****
>
> Christians are being savagely persecuted in Egypt and all across the Middle
> East and Islamic world.****
>
> In Pakistan, Christians have literally been crucified, teenaged Christian
> girls have been kidnapped, raped, and then forced to marry their rapists
> and convert to Islam. In 2010, a Muslim mob attacked a Christian man and
> slaughtered him with pick-axes for refusing to convert to Islam.****
>
> Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan do not allow Christians, Jews, or other
> "infidels" to pray openly or to build any new houses of worship.****
>
> The Arab Muslim Middle East is almost completely "Judenrein" (free of Jews)
> since more than 800,000 Arab Jews were exiled or forced to flee their
> countries between 1948-1968.****
>
> Mina Nevisa is an Iranian Muslim convert to Christianity who wrote a book
> about her experiences. Both she and her female cousin were attending an
> underground Christian church in Teheran which put them in danger. Nevis
> fled Iran together with her husband. Her cousin was not so lucky:****
>
> She was arrested on charges of apostasy and taken to Evin prison, where she
> was raped, tortured, and then killed by a firing squad. Their pastor was
> also killed.****
>
> Muslim apostates in Europe also face perilous challenges. Egyptian-Italian
> Magdi Cristiano Allam, who was converted to Catholicism by the pope, lives
> with six round-the-clock bodyguards. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the
> Somali-Dutch-American apostate-secularist, also requires a full-time
> security detail. People who do not have public profiles, who are not
> academics, intellectuals, politicians, or public speakers, also face
> similar danger.****
>
> Tomorrow, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hosts a hearing on
> the "Worsening
> Plight of Egypt's Christian
> Copts."<http://tlhrc.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=1224>
> [9] Nina Shea, the head commissioner of USCRIF, is a keynote speaker.
> Clearly, USCIRF provides invaluable information concerning the injustices
> levied against religious minorities in the Middle East and in the Islamic
> world. Congress must reinstate the US Commission for International
> Religious Freedom — to do otherwise would be immoral, dangerous,
> un-American, and unacceptable.****
> ------------------------------
>
> Article printed from PJ Media: *http://pjmedia.com*****
>
> URL to article: *http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-end-of-religious-freedom/*****
>
> URLs in this post:****
>
> [1] USCIRF: *http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-and-briefs/annual-report/3594-2011-annu...
> *****
>
> [2] CNS News: *http://cnsnews.com/news/article/don-t-let-religious-freedom-commissio...
> *****
>
> [3] testimony: *http://www.uscirf.gov/government-relations/congressional-testimony/35...
> *****
>
> [4] UN view: *http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/un-acceptable-censorship-united-na...
> *****
>
> [5] position: *http://oic-info.org/?q=38th-council-foreign-ministers*****
>
> [6] national security strategy documents: *http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/07/obama-bans-islam-jihad-nat...
> *****
>
> [7] death of free speech in Europe: *http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/924/the-death-of-free-speech-in-europe...
>
> [8] Khalid Saheed: *http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10942*****
>
> [9] "Worsening Plight of Egypt's Christian Copts.": *http://tlhrc.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=1224*****
>
> ** **
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