Building or not a mosque in NYC ground zero it is an issue in the USA, but building a church near Kaaba in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) is far from being an issue, it is simply fiction!
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Imagine a country that wants to sell its good and services in the USA and in return they ban the imports of American products. Good business? Yes indeed, but not for the US!
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Now imagine that country arguing that the US is a free market and that everyone has the right to sell anything there under American laws. Sounds a bit hypocritical, doesnt it?
All muslims in Europe and in the Americas want to benefit from the freedom of cult and do take advantage of the fact that proselytism is allowed and defended in the Western world. Despite my opinion about Islam after having read the Koran a couple of times and after discussing with some muslim acquaintances about the fact that, among other things, according to the Koran saying that Jesus is God must be consider blasphemous and puts me in the black list together with the worst infidels and idolaters, building a mosque in NYC should be something relatively normal.
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I said "should be realatively normal" in a world were the reciproty principle applies. But according to Islam reciprocity is a word that it only applies to the punishment that must be applied to those leaving Islam (death) or to women that missbehave or to infidels that preach other religions.
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In the vast majority of muslim countries proselytism of any religion other than Islam is forbidden and actively prosecuted. Let us bring some examples of what goes on aout there:
From the web
http://www.boiseweekly.com/ Solana Pyne, GlobalPost
RABAT, Morocco — For 10 years, foreign Christians ran an orphanage called Village of Hope on the slopes of Morocco’s Middle Atlas Mountains, taking in abandoned Moroccan children and raising them in their homes.
But it took just a few hours Monday evening for Moroccan authorities to dissolve those foster families. Police gathered the 16 foreign volunteers and their biological children in a conference room and told them they had to leave the country immediately. Across the parking lot, 33 Moroccan children learned they would stay behind.
“It will be burned in my memory forever,” said Chris Broadbent, a New Zealander who worked as an administrator at the orphanage. “These kids just screamed across the car park to their parents to ask them if it was true. It was just chaos and so distressing, so terrible. I’ve never seen or experienced anything like it.”
Broadbent said Moroccan authorities took over the Village of Hope facility on Monday, but it is not yet clear whether the children will stay there or be sent somewhere else.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry claims the group “exploited some families' poverty and targeted their minor children,” violating rules on guardianship and breaking Morocco’s laws against proselytizing to Muslims.
Foreign Christian leaders in Morocco say the deportations are part of a country-wide campaign that signals a tough new stance against foreign evangelists who had been tolerated here for years.
Broadbent said the staff never tried to convert anyone, and maintained the orphanage had followed the same policies since it opened a decade ago: The children learned the Quran in school, but were raised by Christian parents.
“We were we looking after them, because nobody else would,” Broadbent said. “For 10 years they have openly, knowingly allowed us to do that and they never said we were breaking the law.”
They are not the only foreign evangelists to suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the Moroccan government. A western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities placed several dozen or more on a list for deportation.
In addition to orphanage volunteers approximately 10 other foreign Christians accused of proselytizing were deported over the weekend from cities across the country, pastors and Christian aid groups said.
Those expelled come from the Netherlands, Britain, the Congo, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and the United States.
“We were disheartened and distressed to learn of the recent expulsion by the Moroccan Government of a number of foreigners, including numerous Americans, who had been legally residing in Morocco,” U.S. Ambassador Samuel Kaplan said in a statement. “While we expect all American citizens in Morocco to respect Moroccan law, we hope to see meaningful improvements in the application of due process in such cases.”
U.S. embassy officials declined to confirm who or how many people would be expelled but said the number is likely to rise. Pastors who have lived in Morocco for years say the sheer quantity of deportations is unprecedented in recent years.
“It’s like going to sleep and waking up and all of the sudden you’re in a different country,” said Jack Wald, who has spent 10 years as pastor of Rabat International Church, a protestant congregation in the capital. “This is a change in policy from the top of the government.”
“In my nine years in Morocco, never,” said Pastor Jean-Luc Blanc, authorized by the government to preach to foreigners at the Evangelical Church of Morocco. “Each year there are one or two expulsions like this, but never so many at one time.”
But Moroccan Communication Minister Khalid Naciri maintains that the expulsions are neither new, nor limited to Christian missionaries.
“The Moroccan government today deals harshly with whoever allows themselves to manipulate the religion of the people,” Naciri said. He cited government crackdowns on radical Islamist groups and expulsions of Shi’a Muslims proselytizing in this largely Sunni country.
Still, many in the expatriate Christian community here are wondering who’s next. Police have interviewed children at another older orphanage, also run by Christian evangelists, a few miles from The Village of Hope.
“They asked 'Do you know the Quran?' and they quoted the Quran to them,” said Jim Pitts, a native Virginian, has worked at the orphanage for 51 years.
Pitts says his staff members have come only to do charitable work and have never tried to convert anyone. But he’s still unsure what the authorities will do.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with us,” he said. “We’ll see.”
This happens in Morocco a country that pretends to have an image of tolerance and appear as a moderate muslim country...I am a bit sick of those people that still believe, need or want to believe I gess, that there are such things as moderate and radical Islam.
There are muslims who follow Islam and there are others who don´ follow it, period.
Proselytizing is banned in all muslim countries, but proselytizing is a must for muslims according to Koran so as they understand it since Islam is the right choice preaching other religions must be forbidden. So in the minds of Mohamed followers it makes sense to "protect" muslims from the infidels and their "evil" teaching while they carry on spreading their "good news".
Interesting how a Moroccan man that has spent 50 years in the US sees the expelling of US missionaries:
Considering the boiling religious conflicts and how Moderate Islam has been put on the defensive by fatalistic and hateful extremists from the three Abrahamic faiths, Morocco’s action to remove the evangelists is appropriate. Sadly to say, while this action is entirely justifiable from a national security standpoint, it has prompted numerous negative reactions. The call for due process should not serve as an excuse to overlook the dangerous situation the evangelists put themselves in. On balance, the due process interests of the evangelists does not outweigh concerns for their personal safety and the national security interests of Morocco, indeed the global security interests of us all. Few would gain by Morocco’s failure to protect Christians against extremists, thereby ruining Morocco’s foundation as land of religious understanding and tolerance.
And he goes on further down saying:
The subject matter of a trial would have been whether the evangelists were proselytizing in contravention of Moroccan law. The parade of witnesses testifying in such a trial would serve only to enflame the already heated emotions of religious extremists at a time that calls for cool heads, not more fuel. Moreover, fueling religious confrontation is a likely outcome of such a trial. The very creed of evangelical Christianity is proselytizing, or converting others to their faith. The distorted views of Islam on the part of the evangelical leader Reverend Franklin Graham that have recently come to light are not an aberration, but rather reflect evangelical beliefs.
As a Moroccan and Moderate Moslem, I personally do not want to see the diplomatic and security cooperation attained between Morocco, the United States, and the countries in Europe and elsewhere from which the evangelists came to be damaged by a hasty reaction calling for due process while the evangelists are safe in their home countries. Nor do I want to see Morocco, my beloved country, suffer negative consequences, particularly when it has practiced religious tolerance long before such tolerance was popular.
The Moroccan authorities should be supported for their swift action as well as congratulated for their relentless, continuing protection of the tens of thousands of non-Moslems, Christians and Jews, living in Morocco, observing their faiths, and respecting Moroccan laws.
Mr. Motapha Chtaini spent almost 50 years living in the US with frequent return trips to Morocco. He taught Urban Studies and City Planning at the University level for 20 years and served as Washington Bureau Chief of the Moroccan News Agency ( Maghreb Arabe Presse) for 20 years.
What Mr Motapha is transmitting here is:
-He is a moderate moslem.
-Expelling evangelist from Morocco is a good decision
-These evangelist will be better in their home countries because they were at risk.
-Morocco is a tolerant regime towards Christians and Jews
-He reckons that Moroccan laws forbid proselytizing
Yeah!
Such a lovely person this Mr. Motapha! He knows what is best for these American citizens and for those children they were looking after! But of course Moroco is such a tolerant country as long as you dont dare to give any moslim a Bible. He should have added that these things would have never happened if these folks would have not gotten in trouble being missionaries.
I am sure Mr Motapha, like many other "moderate" muslims supports the building of the mosque in NYC ground zero regardless of what most Americans may think of it, all for the sake of tolerance and good will!
I am a bit fed up, honestly, when "moderate" muslims defend things such as:
a.- A muslim male can marry a non muslim female, whereas a non muslim male cannot marry a muslim woman. They argue that since men are stronger and somehow have a larger capacity to influence (those "poor helpless" females) than women it is fine that a muslim man marry a christian woman because she will never be able to change her husband´s faith nor the faith that their children (compulsory) have: Islam.
b.- The penalty for the conversion of a muslim person into another faith is simple: Death. No problem for those who convert to Islam, all are welcome. Now imagine that the Pope would say that death is what christians will face if they become muslims; all muslims would critizice him for that.
Let´s not allow these hypocrites fool us with their boring speech:
"Hey you infidels, watch out because if you do not help us moderate muslims the bad bad guys will take us over and you will be in trouble. Help us Western world, but dont expect reciprocity by any means!"
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Mr. Barack Mohamend Obama, please ask the Muslim world for respect, for TRUE respect, ask for reciprocity, true reciprocity and do not support the building of any mosque until churches, pagodas, sinagogues etc can be built in muslim countries. Show strength, the same strength we, unfortunately will never see in our down on her knees before Islam President Zapatero.
Meanwhile, please zero mosques in ground zero!
Yesterday 2 Spanish "Guardia Civiles" (a police force with military status) and an Afghan translator were murdered by the driver they had been assigned inside the Spanish militar base at Qala-i-Now (Afghanistan).