Muslims attack Coptic Church and people

[Kollyvas]

http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/87/344 ... chnya.html

Chechen women furiously reject suggestion on polygamous family
01/16/2006 19:04
Ramzan Kadyrov, 29, the Acting Prime Minister of Chechnya, believes that Chechen men should have four wives

Acting chairman of the Chechen government, Ramzan Kadyrov, stated in one of his recent interviews with a Moscow radio station that polygamy could bring the demographic situation in the republic back to normal. "Statistically, women outnumber men in Chechnya because of the ongoing war. Polygamy could be an extremely important factor for the Chechen nation. Shariat laws allow that. That is why every man who can maintain such large families should have four wives. I can only welcome this idea," the acting prime minister of Chechnya said.

Ramzan Kadyrov will turn 29 on October 5. He is married and has five children: four girls and one boy. The son was born at the end of the past year outside Chechnya. Wealthy Chechen men prefer to send their wives to respectable and expensive hospitals outside the war-torn republic.

Mr. Kadyrov has only one wife with whom he has been living for about ten years. "She is my very special someone, she is the only one," Kadyrov said in an interview. Nevertheless, the young Chechen politician advocates polygamy. The acting prime minister believes that polygamy will help many Chechen widows find new families. The official does not think it would be necessary to change the Chechen laws: "It is up for people to decide under which family arrangements they will live. I am sure that we will not interfere into private life," said he.

Not all Chechen women share such an opinion, though. The majority of them would like to be "the only woman" for their only man, "a very special someone," like Mr. Kadyrov said. Polygamy has never been a tradition in Chechnya even when it was ruled by the Shariat law. For example, Aslan Maskhadov, the former leader of Chechen terrorists killed by the federal troops in 2005, and Shamil Basayev, the elusive Chechen terrorist No.1, have only one wife.

A contemporary Chechen female is a literate and progressive person. There is quite a number of women in the structure of Chechen authorities, both regional and republican. It seems very unlikely that some of them may wish to become one of the four wives in a polygamous household.

The Russian laws do not support polygamy either. Chapter 14 of the Russian Family Code clearly says that a person will not be allowed to conclude marriage if he or she are officially married already.

The Supreme Mufti of the Central Spiritual Directorate of Russian Muslims, Talgat Tadjuddin, supported Ramzan Kadyrov's suggestion on polygamy. "It could help us stabilize the society. This measure will also give financial support and father's care to extramarital children which many Russian men have nowadays," the mufti said.

The issue of polygamy has been raised in Russia on many occasions. Notorious Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky put forward the idea of polygamous families back in 2000. The leader of the Liberal and Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) said that Russian men could conclude another marriage without divorce.

In addition to absurd legal aspects, which Mr. Kadyrov's suggestions on polygamy contain, the acting head of the Chechen government misses another important factor. Ramzan Kadyrov believes that once a man is married to four women, he will guarantee financial and social security to his unconventional family. However, up to 314,000 people are officially registered as unemployed in Chechnya. It is one-third of the republic's entire population and about 50 percent of all able-bodied men and women.

Discuss this article on Pravda.Ru English Forum

Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov)

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6757

Officials Concerned About Muslim Converts

Muslim pilgrims exit the Great Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, in Mecca Saudi Arabia, Friday, Jan. 6, 2006. At least 2.5 million pilgrims attended the hajj. The hajj is required at least once in the lifetime of every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it. Muslims believe completing the hajj will erase their sins. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

By ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writer

Prostrating himself and touching his forehead to the ground, Mathieu Pawlak put his demons to rest. Once a practicing Catholic tormented by a spiritual void and the searching questions of youth, Pawlak embraced Islam and, he says, found peace.
"I'm the same on the outside, but inside everything has changed," said the 25-year-old restaurant cook who converted 4 1/2 years ago. He took a Muslim name, Abderrahman, and last year married a Muslim woman who cloaks herself in a dark veil.

"I found the way that Muslims pray to be truly profound. It links the body and the heart," said Pawlak during an interview at his home in this southern Paris suburb, where a large Muslim population lives.

Pawlak is one of about 50,000 French, and tens of thousands of others across Europe and North America, who have converted to the Muslim faith. Like most converts, he is a mainstream Muslim.

But intelligence services are tracking a disturbing new phenomenon: A growing number of Westerners are giving their hearts to radical Islam and some may try to prove themselves through jihad, or holy war.

Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman who blew herself up in a suicide attack in Iraq in November embodies those fears, as does another convert, Richard Reid, the so-called shoe-bomber who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

"This phenomenon is in full expansion," Pascal Mailhos, head of the French intelligence service Renseignements Generaux, recently told the daily Le Monde. Some 1,600 converted Muslims follow the rigorous Salafist brand of Islam that breeds today's radicals — out of about 5,000 Salafists in France, he said.

Converts are seen as potentially naive, malleable and zealous in their newfound faith, easy prey for radicals. Some came to Islam for the succor that society denied them, others for revenge, experts say — stressing that such scenarios apply to a small but worrisome fringe group.

The path to Islam often starts with marriage to a Muslim or contact with the faith through Muslim friends — Pawlak's case. Others convert as part of an existential search. But prisons inmates, and people at loggerheads with society, may also take refuge in Islam.

"Islam has become the religion of the oppressed," said Farhad Khosrokhavar, a sociologist who has written books on conversions in prison and on suicide bombers.

"Nowadays, Islam is a kind of ideal means to express discontent with society and the Western world in general," he said.

The ease with which one can convert makes Islam an accessible refuge. One need only recite the "Shahada," a prayer that provides an attestation of faith, before two witnesses.

"It can be done in a cafe," said Abdelhak Eddouk, a prayer leader in Grigny, south of Paris.

The ability of the converts to blend into Western society augments the potential for danger. "They can move from one country to another and have a kind of multiple identity," Khosrokhavar said.

Pawlak and a friend, Christophe Weiss, 23, who, like him, converted to Islam, shake their heads at such notions. They ascribe any radicalization to ignorance of the Muslim faith or immaturity — or a case of mistaken identity.

"Some people will say we are extremists because we pray five times a day," said Weiss, a nursing student.

Like other Muslims interviewed, they see fingerpointing as a new attack on their faith.

"If one is troubled from the start, he will remain troubled," said Zuhair Mahmood, director of the European Institute of Human Sciences, a training center for imams, or prayer leaders, run by the fundamentalist Union of Islamic Organizations of France.

However, authorities say the danger is real.

The Dutch government, in a Dec. 2 letter to parliament, said that "various Dutch converts are experiencing a radicalization process."

French intelligence is so concerned it conducted a detailed survey of 1,610 Muslim converts who were active preachers, delinquents or had ties to radicals, according to Le Monde. The survey last June concluded that 3 percent of the converts "belong to or are in the circle of the movement of Islamist combatants," the newspaper wrote.

At least three Muslim converts in France have been convicted in recent years on terror-related charges, the most recent Lionel Dumont, given a 30-year prison term last month. He was co-leader of a gang of violent hoodlums in the northern city of Roubaix that provided Ahmed Ressam, the so-called millennium bomber, with his start in terrorism. Dumont later fought for the Muslim cause in Bosnia.

Several Muslim converts are being prosecuted in the U.S.-led war on terror. American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the United States.

In France, only several dozen converts are "potentially violent," said Jean-Luc Marret of the Strategic Research Foundation, a think-tank.

But one Islamic Internet site where al-Qaida has posted claims recently carried a chilling portrait of "the future al-Qaida soldier" — a secretly converted Muslim "born in Europe of European and Christian parents. They studied in your schools, they prayed in your churches" and now swear "to take up arms after their brothers."

For Marret, the real danger lies elsewhere: "The proselytism network across the street, in jail, in universities, in suspect mosques, in companies, this is real."

There is no simple reason to explain why even a tiny minority of converts radicalize, Marret said.

"Why do we fall in love? It's the same," he said. "Why does one become a terrorist? We can cite political, historic, ethnic, family reasons and we will have simplified reality."

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6797

Egyptian church clash injures 12
BBC

Pope Shenouda III, right, leads the Christmas liturgy held at the Coptic Cathedral of Saint Marcos late Friday, Jan. 6, 2006 in Cairo, Egypt. The mass is usually celebrated at the end of 43 days of Christian fasting. The Christian community represents 10 percent of the Egyptian population of 72 million people. ( AP/ Photo/Mohamad al Sehety)
At least 12 people were injured in clashes in Upper Egypt when a group of Muslims attempted to stop Christians converting a house into a church.

Security officials said the Muslims set fire to building materials for the building in Odaysat, near Luxor.

Several members of both communities were reported injured in the subsequent clashes, as well as two policemen.

It is the latest in a series of violent sectarian incidents in Egypt in the past few months.

A security source quoted by Reuters said the Christians did not have official permission to build the church.

Police arrested 10 young men and the owners of the house, reports say.

Correspondents say curbs on building churches have been one of the main grievances among Copts, although these restrictions have been eased recently by presidential decree.

The Coptic Christian community is believed to make up 10% percent of Egypt's population of about 70 million.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?News ... &PageNum=0

Wahhabism ideologist Abdulayev destroyed in Chechnya

19.01.2006, 12.26

GROZNY, January 19 (Itar-Tass) - An ideologist of Wahhabism, Supyan Abdulayev, was destroyed in Chechnya on Wednesday. He was a ringleader of the gangs in the Vedeno region and led a group with foreign mercenaries, Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov told Itar-Tass.

“Officers of the criminal investigation agency of the Grozny Regional Interior Department and the OMON of the Chechen Interior Ministry found out on Wednesday that three active participants in the gang led by Shamil Basayev were hiding in a dwelling house of the village Agishty of the Shali region,” Alkhanov said.

During a skirmish, all the theee gunmen were killed. Their identity was established in the morning. “These are Sypyan Abdulayev, a native of the Vedeno region, Movladi Magomadov and Salim Mustapayev,” the minister said.

According to the interior minister, Abdulayev was one of the closest associates of Basayev and one of the main ideologists of Wahhabism equally with Movladi Udugov and so-called minister of Shariat security Ismail Khalilov.

Besides, according to the law enforcement bodies, Abdulayev was a member of the so-called supreme spiritual council of the mejlis of Ichkeria.

According to the Interior Ministry, the deputy chief of the battalion of the Grozny rural Interior Department died and a police officer got injuries in the operation.

The gunmen had a lot of weapons with them. “Three Kalashnikov sub-machine-guns, three Makarov pistol, a Shmel flame thrower, six grenades, over 1,000 cartridges of different calibre and three radio stations were confiscated from them,” representatives the ministry said.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.bosnewslife.com/news/1803-al ... l-pastor-i

Al-Qaeda Supporters Threaten To Kill Pastor in Turkey, report
Friday, 20 January 2006 (22 hours ago)
By BosNewsLife News Center
Most people are Muslims in Turkey, but government tries to promote a secular state. Via BBC ISTANBUL, TURKEY (BosNewsLife)-- Five young men with possible ties to the Al-Qaeda network have attacked and threatened to kill a Protestant church leader in Turkey’s fourth largest city, a Christian news agency reported late Friday, January 20.

29-year-old Pastor Kamil Kiroglu was beaten unconscious twice along the street after leaving his church in Adana following Sunday worship services January 8, Compass Direct said.

Wielding a long butcher knife, one of the unidentified attackers allegedly threatened to kill him if he refused "to deny his Christian faith and return to Islam."

The four Turks involved in the attack appeared to be in their late teens but were led by a foreigner probably 10 years older who claimed to be from Turkmenistan, Compass Direct said. At one point, the group’s leader said he was acting on behalf of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, the news agency added.

The information could not be independently verified, but BosNewsLife has learned that evangelical Christians in Turkey have become increasingly worried about threats and attacks.

RENTED FACILITY

The five men reportedly showed up at the Adana Protestant Church’s rented facility near the city center 45 minutes before the Sunday service began at 2 pm.

Introducing himself as a Christian from Turkmenistan, the group’s leader allegedly said in Russian that he had "converted" the four Turks with him to Christianity, but that he did not know how to teach them. The others reportedly said they also wanted to know more.” Please teach us about Jesus," they were quoted as saying.

The pastor later agreed to meet them privately, but became suspicious. Explaining that he and the other church leaders all had previous appointments, the group reluctantly started to leave, talking among themselves about a “package” they had left inside. Their leader was quoted as saying: "There is a package for you from Al-Qaeda. It is a surprise. You will soon know what it is."

Shouting to his expatriate friend, who did not understand Turkish, to run, he took out his cell phone to call the police, Compass Direct reported. However the militants apparently returned shouting "We don’t want Christians in this country.”

Ignoring the church leader’s confused foreign friend, the men chased and caught Kiroglu and began to strike him severely with their fists and feet. “I was trying to protect my face,” Kiroglu was quoted as saying, "but soon I was lying on the ground, covered in blood, and they were still kicking and beating me."

LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS

After briefly losing consciousness, he managed to get to his feet and start running again, but again the attackers caught up with him. “They were trying to force me to deny Jesus,” Kiroglu told the news agency. "But each time they asked me to deny Jesus and become a Muslim, I was saying, ‘Jesus is Lord.’ The more I said ‘Jesus is Lord,’ the more they beat me."

Kiroglu saw in one man’s hands a long butcher knife, which he later learned had been grabbed from a nearby kebap restaurant. Shoving the knife against Kiroglu’s stomach, the attacker said, “I’m asking you again, deny Jesus, or I will kill you now."

Suddenly, the Christian said, he felt two heavy blows, one on his head and the other on his spine, and everything went dark. When he regained consciousness, his attackers were gone and his friend was trying to wake him up.

Kiroglu then went directly to a nearby police station, where officers took him to the hospital for treatment. Although his assailants never stabbed him, doctors put six stitches into his bleeding mouth, and his head and other parts of his body remained swollen and painful for nearly a week after the beatings. His glasses were also shattered during the attack.

SPECIAL SQUAD

A squad of anti-terrorist police immediately searched the church building after Kiroglu told them about the “package” threat. But instead of a feared bomb, the package turned out to be a huge knife almost three feet long, wrapped up and hidden under a bench.

Kiroglu, who supports himself as a translator and interpreter, became a Christian four and one-half years ago. The Adana Protestant Church, begun in 2001, is one of three Protestant congregations in the city, two of them worshipping in Turkish.

A similar attack 14 months ago targeted a US Christian in Gaziantep’s Protestant congregation. Three teenage assailants tied and gagged their victim in his office, threatening him with a pistol and claiming they had orders from Al-Qaeda to “put him away.”

Turkish security police investigating both incidents have reportedly suggested that local extremist youths could be claiming the Al-Qaeda label in order to intimidate Turks from converting to Christianity. The tiny Protestant community of overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey consists of an estimated 3,500 Turkish Christians who worship in some 95 churches, many of
them in house churches. (With reports from Turkey).

[Kollyvas]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4660104.stm

Churches targeted in Iraq blasts

Car bombs have exploded outside the Vatican embassy and near four churches in Iraq, killing at least three people.
The apparently co-ordinated attacks took place within 20 minutes of each other, Iraqi police said.

Three of the bombs went off in the capital Baghdad, while a further two were detonated in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

All the fatalities reported were in Kirkuk, while at least nine people were wounded in the blasts.

'Co-ordinated spree'

In Kirkuk, three civilians were killed and one wounded in the attack on the Church of the Virgin, and six civilians were hurt in the blast outside an Orthodox church.

Both explosives-packed vehicles were detonated by remote control, according to a police spokesman.

In Baghdad, car bombs exploded outside St Joseph's Catholic church in the suburb of Sina'a and an Anglican church in the eastern Nidhal area.

There were no casualties reported in the attack on the Vatican embassy building in the east of the city.

Earlier on Sunday, at least 10 people were killed in a bomb attack outside a shop in a town south of Baghdad.

The blast occurred in Iskandariya, a predominantly Shia town about 40 km (25 miles) from the capital.

Christian targets

Churches in Iraq have been the target of previous bombings.

In August 2004, at least 12 people were killed and dozens injured in a spate of bombings in Baghdad and Mosul.

It was the first significant strike against Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians since the US invasion began in 2003.

Christians make up just 3% of Iraq's 26 million people.

[Kollyvas]

LOL! The infamous cartoons:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/sarticle.php?id=12146