The following are examples of "tolerance," Islamic style, summarized from the archives of Compass Direct, a news service that chronicles Christian persecution:
Two Christian health workers were providing health care and AIDS prevention services for people in Bangladesh when they were hacked to death on July 29. Police and local officials blame Islamic extremists (August 3, 23, 2005).
In Indonesia three Christian women were sentenced by an Indonesia court to three years in prison for allowing Muslim children to attend their Sunday School, even though the children had their parents’ permission. The women’s lives have been threatened by Muslims (September 1, 2005).
In Lahore, Pakistan, a heroin addict disrupted an Islamic service and was accused of insulting Muhammad (a capital offense). In response, a mob of 200 Muslim protesters ransacked at least 16 Christian homes, stoned the church and threw Bibles on the floor. Police did nothing to stop the attacks (September 13, 2005).
A Pakistani Christian women testified in court that two Muslim men drugged, kidnapped and raped her, threatening to shoot her and kill her family if she did not convert to Islam. She said she’d rather die. The next morning her captors turned her over to another Muslim man who raped her for the next three days (September 27, 2005).
A Malaysian court has ruled that Lina Joy, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity, must apply to a sharia court for permission to legally renounce Islam in order to have the Muslim designation removed from her identity card. This designation prevents her from marrying a Christian (September 29, 2005).
In Nigeria, Kano state authorities demolished the Deeper Life Bible church (October 17). Christians in Kano are afraid to send their children to public schools for fear that they will be forced to convert to Islam. The government refuses to allow churches to establish their own schools in these rural areas. Christian leaders there say Christians are seen as second class citizens in this Muslim society and in one case, 15 Christians were forced to leave their homes in the Banda village because of Muslim antagonism (October 19, 2005).
In Janbashkala, Uzbekistan Christians are beaten, publicly humiliated, and hounded out of their homes and jobs for converting to Christianity (October 20, 2005).
In Faisalabad, Pakistan two men are accused of raping a 22 year old Catholic woman and threatening to kill both her and her family unless she converted to Islam. One of the suspects was arrested but later escaped (as police looked on). Both the woman and her lawyer have since received threatening phone calls from the perpetrator (October 28, 2005).
In Niger, Sardauna Anaruwa Sashi was a staunch Muslim until earlier this year when he converted to Christianity. He was arrested and severely tortured for four days until a Christian lawyer was able to intervene. Local Muslims have vowed to kill him (October 31, 2005).
Religious violence broke out in the Tungan Rogo village in Niger leaving three Christians dead after a Muslim cut off the hand of a Christian. Muslims later stormed the halls of the Federal University of Technology in an effort to enforce sharia law (November 1, 2005).
Just ten days after three Christian teenage girls were beheaded in Indonesia, unidentified assailants shot two senior high school students in the Poso district (November 9). A few days later on November 18, two women and one man were attacked with machetes and the next day, November 19, motorbike riders shot a man and woman as they left a church service (November 21, 2005).
In Iran a convert to Christianity was kidnapped, stabbed to death, and his bloody body dumped in front of his home. The local secret police arrived within hours—to search the home for Bibles and other banned Christian books. According to one source, in the last eight days ten Christians have been arrested and severely tortured in Iranian cities including Tehran (November 28, 2005).
For two years Pastor Habib had been repeatedly jailed and tortured by Egyptian police until October when a parked taxi suddenly pulled into the street and struck him from behind as he crossed the street. He died the next day (December 2, 2005).
In Pakistan’s Punjab province, Muslim clerics flanked by government officials demanded the public execution of a Christian accused of blasphemy. After being accused of burning pages from the Qur’an, Muslim rioters burned four churches and police tortured four of the Christian’s brothers until he surrendered himself to the authorities to gain their release. Witnesses say the charges are false (December 8, 2005).
In Pakistan a Christian man was tortured to death by Muslim seminary students in an attempt to get him to convert to Islam. The man’s father has requested police protection due to death threats by Muslim clerics who want him to drop the charges (December 21, 2005, January 18, 2006).
In Turkey’s fourth largest city, five young men attacked a protestant church leader, threatening to kill him with a knife unless he denied Jesus and converted to Islam. He was eventually beaten and beating him unconscious (January 20, 2006).
One Christian died when Muslims set fire to a Christian community center near the city of Luxor. (January 20, 2006).
A 60 year old Catholic priest was shot twice in the back in Trabzon, Turkey. As his assailant fled he recited the part of the Muslim call to prayer. The assailant later said he shot the priest in retaliation for the Danish cartoons (February 7, 2006).
A seventy year old Christian woman ended up with broken legs as a Muslim mob attacked the village chapel, smashing the alter, breaking windows and burning Bibles. Police refused to process the official complaint (February 8, 2006).
Muslims threatened to cut off the head of a female Christian student in Nigeria’s Sokoto state. She was accused of blasphemy and is now missing and some suspect that she was kidnapped (February 14, 2006).
In the Pakistani province of Sindh, 500 Muslims with gasoline bombs burned down two churches and a school because of rumors that a Christian threw a copy of a Qur’an in a trash can. Local sources say the charge is false. In Kasur, several thousand Muslims attacked a Christian girls’ school and attempted to attack the city’s Catholic church because of the Danish cartoons (February 20, 2006).
In Sangla Hill, Pakistan a man was declared innocent of blasphemy charges due to alleged burning of a Qur’an. The news triggered a mob of 2,000 Muslims to destroy four Sangla Hill churches (February 23, 2006).
Muslim rioters killed 10 Christians and burned nine churches in central Nigeria because of the Danish cartoons (February 24, 2006).
In Bauchi, Nigeria a student was expelled for allegedly blaspheming Muhammad. Five Muslims later broke into her home. When they didn’t find her, they raped her older sister (March 6, 2006).
In West Java a local Muslim Council has warned Christians to stop meeting together in private homes, which is increaslingly the only way Christians can meet since permits for new churches are never granted (March 21). Over 60 churches in West Java have been closed in the last two and a half years for lack of permits. In Bogor, West Java, a mob of about 200 Muslims forced Christians out of their church services one Sunday morning (March 27, 2006).
A Christian teacher in the state school in the Bauchi State in Nigeria was simply maintaining classroom discipline when she took a Qur’an away from a student who was reading it rather than paying attention to the lesson. Other students jumped on the tables and began throwing books at the teacher charging her with defiling the Qur’an. More than 20 Christians were killed in the aftermath (March 28, 2006)
Two female Christian students at a university in Kaduna, Nigeria, were beaten unconscious by a group of Muslim women have since disappeared (April 10). Muslim students regularly terrorize Christian students in this university (April 10, 2006).
Mobs of Muslims ranging from 150 to 500 forced churches to cease services in North Jakarta, West Java and Tangerang, Indonesia (May 2, 2006).
The Muslim militia leader who commands several hundred soldiers in Shatt Damam, Sudan, forced Christians to abandon their church which was half-built after it went up in flames after Christmas last year (May 3, 2006).
On May 10 seven suspected Islamic terrorists have confessed to beheading three Indonesian schoolgirls last October (May 12, 2006)
A Muslim girl who had been missing for two months reported to police that she ran away because her Muslim father had been beating her for spending time with Christians (May 17, 23, 2006).
On June 9, ten Saudi Arabian police armed with wooden clubs raided a private Christian worship meeting and arrested the four worship leaders (Jun 15, 2006).
Sehar Muhammad Shafi and her husband fled their home in Karachi, Pakistan after being attacked and raped for converting to Christianity (Jun 23, 2006).
A Pakistani Christian has spent eight years in prison on contested charges that he damaged a sign containing verses from the Quran. Three years after filing a appeal, he has still not been given a hearing (Jun 27, 2006).
In Malaysia hotels have refused to host a series of religious rights forums after angry protestors shut down the event and accused the organizers of being “enemies of Islam” (June 28, 2006).
A Pakistani Christian has appealed for asylum in Holland after facing police torture and attacks by Muslims (June 30, 2006).
Muslims overwhelmed police officers and stoned/clubbed a Christian woman to death for doing street evangelism in a town in the country of Niger (July 6, 2006).
Fifteen year old Yohanna Anche has been suffering from a brain injury for two years now after receiving a machete cut to his head when Muslim students attacked Christian students at his high school in Zaria City, Nigeria. Seven other Christian students were injured as well (July 10, 2006).
A Christian woman in Pakistan has gone into hiding after here husband beat her every day for two months for not reading the Qur’an (July 19, 2006).
Christians are commanded by Jesus to do good to those who hate us and pray for those who persecute us, but America should not be misled--Islam, as practiced by millions around the world, is anything but tolerant.
(NOTES: Compass Direct is a news service "that maintains an extensive network of news bureaus and correspondents around the world." The dates in parentheses refer to the date posted in the Compass Direct archive. The summaries above are a combination of my summaries and direct quotes from my Compass Direct source. The summaries were posted by permission from Compass Direct though no one from Compass direct reviewed the summaries ahead of time so if I have inaccurately summarized any of their news articles the fault is entirely mine).
