Justice, Egyptian Style...

[Seagoon]

Just got sent the following. It helped me put my own feeling that the local PD did not adequately respond to the recent roberries at our church into better perspective. Frankly at the end, I felt ashamed of my own whining when I considered what tack the police in several other countries like Egypt take in responding to crimes like attempted murder when the victims are converts from Islam. This report was taken from Journal Chretien, it was also reported by Compass Direct News. Keep in mind that woman in question Eman Al-Sayeed is 26 and married:

Eyewitnesses said family members of Shaymaa (Eman) Muhammad al-Sayed, 26, dragged her screaming from the police station where she had been closeted. According to the eyewitnesses outside Alexandria’s Bab-Sharky police station, Al-Sayed’s relatives severely beat her in the Shatby Cemetery behind the police station.

She was then forced into a family microbus and driven off toward the district of Abeis, east of Alexandria, where her father’s knitting factory is located.

On 16 July, these same family members openly threatened to kill Al-Sayed for leaving Islam to become a Christian, after spotting her walking through a fair in Alexandria.

Local police promptly took her into " protective custody,"  allegedly to prevent her physical harm at the hands of her irate Muslim relatives.

But instead of protecting her, local police and State Security Investigation (SSI) officials have subjected the threatened woman to days of severe physical and emotional torture. Her maltreatment included electrical shocks, beatings and being photographed naked.

Her repeated requests to press charges against her family for attempting to kidnap and kill her were ignored.

At one point, Col. Abdel-Ghany Hamada of the Division of Public Affairs commanded four of his officers to beat her with their shoes while he interrogated her for hours about her forged Christian identity papers.

After becoming a Christian in January 2003, Al-Sayed had obtained Christian identity papers under the name of Maryan Eleya Saleeb and married a Christian man. Egyptian law does not permit anyone born a Muslim to change his or her religion, nor can a Muslim woman marry a Christian.

On Saturday (21 July), Al-Sayed was transferred to Cairo, assumedly to be arraigned on forgery charges before the Division of Public Affairs.

But after being shuttled around Cairo from an SSI headquarters to a holding cell of the Division of Public Affairs and then to the Al-Mosky police station, Al-Sayed was sent without explanation back to Alexandria.

On Monday (23 July), authorities then transferred her from the Bab-Sharky police station to the SSI headquarters in Al-Faraana, where Lt. Col. Issam Shawki and Lt. Col. Adel Nafie continued to issue dangerous threats to her. About the same time, Lt. Col. Waleed Fayyed of the Bab-Sharky police station sent word to Al-Sayed’s father, uncle and brother to come and take custody of her from the police station.

Although fully aware of the family’s threats to kill Al-Sayed, the police failed to require her family to sign any guarantee that she would not be harmed. Despite the young woman’s legal adult status, she was unable to obtain any restraining order to secure her personal safety.

After El-Sayed’s family learned of her conversion to Christianity in January 2003, they had severely abused her as they were determined to force her to return to Islam and marry a cousin active in the Al-Salafiyeen extremist movement.

Since she fled home four years ago, her father has reportedly filed three missing person’s reports with the police in attempts to track her down.

"But she is not a minor, she is an adult," Egyptian Christian advocate Rasha Noor told Compass today. "Why did the authorities give her over to her family, when they know that her relatives want to kill her ?"

[VOR]

I am assuming the point is to be glad I don't live in Egypt. Point taken.

In fact, living anywhere that superstitious beliefs and Draconian intolerance is made law would be a real downer to put it mildly.

[Shuckins]

Seagoon,

I spent a summer in Egypt studying ancient history and modern Egyptian culture at the American University in Cairo.

While it is not against the law to practice the Christian faith, there are several restrictions on the country's Christian population.  

They cannot openly proselytze people of the Muslim faith, but Muslims may proselytze them.

They can convert to Islam but it is against the law to renounce their conversion.

No Christian temple may be as large as the largest Muslim mosque.

Christian missionaries are prohibited.

Radical Muslims often persecute Christians, and sometimes murder them, although moderate Muslims reject such actions.

Many of Egypt's ancient monuments have had the images of their gods defaced.  When questioned about this, Muslim scholars always blame it on early Christian activity, in spite of the fact that Muslims do today and have in the past defaced images of the gods of other religions, including those of Christ in Christian parks.

Despite such obvious persecution, which has been going on for centuries, ten percent of Egypt's population remains steadfastly Christian.

Regards, Shuckins

[john9001]

Muslims can not co-exist with anyone else, there is only one solution.

[rpm]

Seagoon,

I respect you and your beliefs, but this is what happens when any religion is given priority over law and human rights. Christians are responsable many attrocities in the "name of God". It really doesn't matter what brand of religion people practice, it's the quanity. Moderation is the key.

John9001 illustrates my point.

[GtoRA2]

Originally posted by rpm
Seagoon,

I respect you and your beliefs, but this is what happens when any religion is given priority over law and human rights. Christians are responsable many attrocities in the "name of God". It really doesn't matter what brand of religion people practice, it's the quanity. Moderation is the key.

John9001 illustrates my point.

So RPM do you have an example of a Christian country, with laws against converting to other religions and where a family will beat and maybe murder a close family member for their beliefs? Or are you just spouting the typical PC all religions are equally bad BS?

If you do find one, has anything like that taken place recently? Say in the past 50 years?

I am firmly agnostic with a strong leaning towards their being no god, but I don't KNOW so I wont claim to be an atheist since you can't prove to there is not a god.

I know a ton of Christians, some pretty hard core, and I don't know a single one who would ever consider harming a family member or anyone else over religion, so statements like yours always ring with the BS PC bell sound.  

I won't go so far as to say all Muslims are like this, not even most, but a hell of a lot more then Christians.

Don't bother with the typical IRA and abortion bomber tripe, since they are not harming direct family members and most Abortion bombings didn't involve murder they don't address my question.

[rpm]

Originally posted by GtoRA2
So RPM do you have an example of a Christian country, with laws against converting to other religions and where a family will beat and maybe murder a close family member for their beliefs? Or are you just spouting the typical PC all religions are equally bad BS?

If you do find one, has anything like that taken place recently? Say in the past 50 years?

I never put a timeframe on religious fanatisim. Because religion does not update with time.
Those that do are branded heretics, i.e. mormons, protestants.

Some examples of Christian fanatisim:

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion.


or the Salem witchhunts




or even more recently, Ireland


and our dear old O'Club

as originally posted by John9001
Muslims can not co-exist with anyone else, there is only one solution.

I'm pretty sure he's not talking about prayer and meditation.

As I said before it's not the brand, it's the quanity of the religion.

[GtoRA2]

RPM of course you won't put a time limit on it because then you would be wrong.

Ireland was not about religion really but if thats the best you got, then show me where family members murdered or beat other family members simply because they converted to the other sides religion.

Do you really live in fear that this countries Christians are going to rise up and do witch burnings again?

If so can you share what your smoking?


And religions do reform themselves, Islam hasnt but I am pretty sure Christianity has several times. Seagoon prolly could cover that better then I could though so I won't try.

As I said before it's not the brand, it's the quantity of the religion.

I don't think this is not right but is close, its not the brand but how it is taught. IE Christianity isn't a threat in the least now because no one is teaching them to blow **** up with suicide belts and telling them it will get them to heaven, though, I do not think any well of western Christians could be taught how to do this at all, since no where in the bible I can find does it advocate direct suicide in the name of the lord being a good thing. . Granted I have not touched a bible since I got kicked out of Christian school.

Also most Christians I know are far more concerned with the next American idol season then with their pastors concerns

Religions are not black and white, there are degrees to how bad or good there effect is on the world, I think Islam overall is by far worse.

John9001 is a troll first and foremost, and I am not sure if he is a christian, but even so, if he is, John, would you beat your children for going mormon if you are indeed Christian?

[Seagoon]

Hello RPM,

Originally posted by rpm
Seagoon,

I respect you and your beliefs, but this is what happens when any religion is given priority over law and human rights. Christians are responsable many attrocities in the "name of God". It really doesn't matter what brand of religion people practice, it's the quanity. Moderation is the key.

John9001 illustrates my point.

Before I get to my point, please allow me to say that I'm grateful for your respect, I truly am. I hope you know in turn that I appreciate the O'Club and its members immensely and that my desire will ever be for your good here and hereafter.

Anyway, I could camp out on points like the fact that the IRA never declared itself to be a Christian organization in its charter, or to be fighting for Roman Catholicism, how the Salem Witch trials lasted one year and resulted in the executions of at most 20 people, and so on or point out the relative antiquity of these events compared to the event I posted above and the way it is only one tiny drop of the awful misery produced by Sharia law throughout the world today. Experience though shows that none of this is compelling. It is part and parcel of an odd reaction present throughout the west. Namely that when contemporary acts of unspeakable violence are perpetrated in the name of Islam, immediately we jump to defend Islam and condemn Christianity as just as bad if not worse. One can even document the fact that the founder of Islam and his followers were incredibly violent, and contrast that with the peaceful behavior and teaching of Christ and the early Christians and yet it doesn't seem to have any impact.

Well alright then, let me try a different tack. I'm no moderate Christian, I am quite fanatical in my Christianity, I am eager to produce an equal if not greater zeal for Christ and the Christian faith in other people, and I have devoted my life to teaching and practicing the faith taught in the Bible. Many of my friends in the ministry are the same way. They are so fanatical about Christ, they are willing, for instance, to fly to Tsunami ravaged areas of Thailand and spend weeks helping to find and dispose of putrefying corpses, and feeding and clothing refugees, or conclude peace treaties with warring African clans, or sneak into southern Sudan to actually help the people we hear the candidates merely offering platitudes about and so on, all in the name of Christ (I know men who've actually done all these things). Now admittedly I'm not doing nearly as much as many of my friends, when I get really stirred up for Christ all I do are crazy things like counsel people whose marriages are falling apart or talk to drug addicts, or visit the sick, or offer the hope of the gospel to the grieving, or just hand out tracts or preach a sermon or two.

Now, can you explain to me how this fanaticism and the fanaticism of the family of Eman Al-Sayeed are equally bad? It's not going to happen, but if there was suddenly a country that developed the same kind of Christian fanaticism that I've caught, do you really think it would look even remotely like Egypt or Afghanistan?

- SEAGOON

[GtoRA2]

Sea,
 I am sure people will come back and tell you that of course a religious state run by Christians would be just as evil.

its the same lack of login that the anti gun types fall into, they decide guns or God are evil and stop thinking about the issue.

Guns or god do not make people commit evil acts. Evil is a part of man, man blames everything but the real culprit for it.  MAN.

It does pose an interesting question.

I do not think a Christian nation would go around attacking family members over something like mentioned above but how would it treat people like gays who are un repetitive sinners?

I honestly do not know, if you base it on the model of the Church running the show completely you have allot of evidence that man would screw it up and make it just as evil in other ways. A certain type of man wants to be in control of others, they end up in politics, when religion and politics meet you end up with these men, some evil, running things in the name of god, thats a bad combo.  I honestly would not want to live in such a place.

I think our founding fathers got it right, no state religion. Though I agree with you that it is being taken to far.  People with the no religion in the public sqaure clearing miss the point of the 1st.  Religious leaders have as much right to the public sqaure as the commie protesters or gay rights parades. Allowing the to push their ideals in the public square is what is not supposed to be infringed on. The government just cant push one religion over the other and can not adopt any religion.

If I had a choice between christian fanatics and Muslim fanatics as neighbors, I would chose the Christians every time. I know for a fact they wouldnt murder me for saying something like **** Jesus. They may dislike me for it, but I wouldnt be worried about being attacked or killed.

I can't say the same thing about Muslims.

What about you RPM, given the two choices who would you chose?

[Sixpence]

Originally posted by GtoRA2
Ireland was not about religion really ?

Oh yes it was, and still is

[Elfie]

I do not think a Christian nation would go around attacking family members over something like mentioned above but how would it treat people like gays who are un repetitive sinners?

I can answer this one.

If the Christian leaders actually followed the things that Christ taught, gays would not be persecuted. The Bible tells us to love thy neighbor as thyself  and judge not lest ye be judged. The Bible commands us to love our neighbors and to not judge them.

[SteveBailey]

Originally posted by rpm
Seagoon,

I respect you and your beliefs, but this is what happens when any religion is given priority over law and human rights. Christians are responsable many attrocities in the "name of God". It really doesn't matter what brand of religion people practice, it's the quanity. Moderation is the key.

John9001 illustrates my point.

rpm= extremist apologist.

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by SteveBailey
rpm= extremist apologist.

One of the dumbest statements ever.

[LYNX]

Religion aside I think there's a different and to some degree a more fundamental aspect that bewilders us here in the "west".  It's evolution over stagnation.

You'll have to forgive my simplistic terms in the following theory.  I'm not academic and I certainly don't have an in depth knowledge.

When you look at human history we are reminded of the Greeks, Romans, persians and so on. We are also reminded of philosophers, astronomers, mathematicians and so on.  All have played an important role in humanities building blocks here in the "civilized" world.

Humanity has gone through several stages like that of a real person.  Infancy, childhood, adolescence to all most adult hood.  You can relate these aspects in time scales of mankind as it has evolved.

I see the present "west" as being on the brink of adult hood.  Where as other parts of our planet are still stuck in the dark ages or medieval periods.  Infancy and childhood respectively.

The present "west" has done or did things 400 to 500 years ago that places like middle east are just going through now.  The problem is exacerbated because we're selling them AK's and other technology that's out of the time scale for the mentality.  Could you imagine King Henry the Eighth with AK's when reforming the church?  Hold that thought a moment.  Could you imagine the catholics with AK's meeting the reformers ?  Here's another thought for you.  Could you imagine a Japanese Emperor who is a God ?  Time scales man!

Some time ago religion in the "west" was put firmly in second place where ruling a nation was concerned.  Unfortunately these back arsed nations as I like to call them just ain't evolved yet.  They haven't gotten to the stage in humanity where religion is seen to be put in it's place.  

Now don't take me wrong.  I'm not saying religion of what ever kind is bad.  What I'm saying is it has a place but that place not the "be all end all".

There's a medieval mind set out there and it needs to evolve.

Then again I could be an illiterate geezer talking bar room bollocks.