1. Egypt: Judge tells Christian Convert that He Would Like to Kill Her
Martha Samuel Makkar was arrested at Cairo’s airport on Dec. 13 while attempting to flee the country. Members of her extended family were threatening to kill her since she professed a belief in Jesus and converted to Christianity. It is illegal to convert from Islam in Egypt so she was arrested as her and her husband and children tried to leave the country.
In court, the judge took her aside and told her that he wished he had a knife because he would like to kill her right then and there. She was allowed bail but her chances in that court do not seem very promising, especially in front of that judge.
2. Saudi Arabia: Authorities Arrest Christian Convert
Hamoud Bin Saleh was arrested by Saudi police on Jan. 13 because of his testimony on a blog that he had converted from Islam to Christianity,and because he was critical of the Saudi regime and their human right record. Saudi officials somehow had his website: http://christforsaudi.blogspot.com, banned and blocked. Obviously Google complied since the blog is no longer available.
According to Saudi Sharia law, it is illegal to convert from Islam to another religion–it is considered to be ‘apostasy’ and punishable by death. Though U.S. State department officials claim that it has been quite a few years since someone was actually executed for religious conversion.
However, there is the tragic case of Al-Mutairi, a 26 year old woman who was killed in August 2008 by her own father, a member of the Saudi religious police. Reportedly she had also written on a blog about her conversion to the Christian faith and the reaction of her family. Her family ended up burning her to death after her own father cut her tongue out. All in the name of the wonderful religion of peace-Islam.
Response: People in the West, particularly in America consider Islam to be just another religion. Yet in those countries where it is dominant, other religions are persecuted and severely limited by law. Few seem to understand the actual long term threat that radical Islam poses for Western civilization and the freedoms taken for granted in America.