Saudi Arabia: Indonesian maid escapes execution

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

Just three weeks ago, Darsem binti Dawud Tawar was facing execution by beheading in Saudi Arabia for murder, which she claims was an act of self-defense. Now, finally back home in Indonesia, she is a free woman — after the Indonesian government paid more than $500,000 in “blood money.”

Holding her young son tightly, as she faced the glare of the media, Darsem was reunited with her family on Wednesday at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry in Jakarta. She first left her West Java hometown for a job as a maid in the Middle East in 2006, when her son was just a baby.

Horn of Africa: 400,000 crammed into refugee camp fleeing worst regional drought in six decades

We’ll see what effects this has, on Islamism and Islamic terrorism:

An outdoor school at Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Image via Wikipedia

Fleeing the worst regional drought in six decades, some 400,000 people have left Somalia and other nations of the Horn of Africa for a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Thousands are now arriving every day at the camp, whose capacity is only 90,000.

“More than two million babies in the Horn of Africa are malnourished and need urgent assistance to save their lives, L’Osservatore Romano reports. “A half a million of these babies are in imminent danger for survival, with long-term consequences for their physical and mental development. More generally, it is estimated that ten million people need immediate humanitarian assistance, more than double the number that UN agencies are currently able to assist.”

via Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : ‘The worst disaster’: 400,000 crammed into refugee camp.

Germany: Muslims call for imams in the military

Image via Wikipedia

Two of the main umbrella groups representing Germany’s estimated 4.3 million Muslims said in remarks published Wednesday that such a move would be a good step forward for integration.

“That would have a great significance for integration,” the chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, told the online news portal, News.de.

While Protestants and Catholics have about 90 priests each providing spiritual support to soldiers, there is no Muslim imam or counsellor, even though there are about 1,200 Muslims serving in the Bundeswehr, according to website.

via Muslims call for imams in the German military – The Local.

Pravda writes:

US: Govt’s Order To Shutdown Millions Of Christian Websites Shocks World

Remember the weapons to be sold by US to Egypt even if the Muslim Brotherhood comes into power? Remember Clinton has said the US would welcome dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood (more on the MB here) and that there have been “informal contacts” with them? Well, if this is true (I would like to know how many actual non-threatening websites have been shut down and how many Christian ones in particular), we are into another stage on the infiltration by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi spoke some days ago: “We have infiltrated America and the UK“.

Patriarch Kirill I. Image via Wikipedia

A shocking report authored by the office of Russia’s top religious leader Patriarch Kirill I states that this past week the United States ordered over 10 million Christian websites destroyed that they claimed were a “threat” to their National Security and that the American Internet giant Google quickly responded by making them all disappear.

USA: Muslim woman says feds should force mosques to “end gender apartheid”

Image by Inkyhack via Flickr

Asra Q. Nomani, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, argues that the Internal Revenue Service should move to deny tax-exempt status to any place of worship that holds to different roles for men and women. In “End Gender Apartheid in U.S. Mosques,” Nomani writes, “I’ve come to the difficult decision that women must use the legal system to restore rights in places of worship…”

“Nomani writes out of her own experience as a Muslim woman in the United States,” reports Mohler.

As she relates in her article, she has joined with a movement that has launched “Pray Ins” at several mosques in the Washington, D.C. area, protesting the practice of separating Muslim men and women for prayers.

via USA Today: Muslim woman says feds should force mosques to “end gender apartheid” – Beliefnet News.

Nigeria : 2nd church bombing in Nigerian city

A bomb was thrown at a Protestant church in the central Nigerian city of Suleja on the evening of July 11 as a prayer service was being held. No one was injured in the attack, though the bomb damaged the church’s walls.

The attack follows a July 10 church bombing in the same city; three died in the first attack.

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram–which means “Western education is sin”–is suspected in the attacks.

via Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : 2nd church bombing in Nigerian city.

Related articles

• Nigeria: Protestant Church bombed, Boko Haram suspected (teaandpolitics.wordpress.com)
• You: At least 25 killed during Nigerian military raid: Amnesty (france24.com) At least 25 people were killed during a Nigerian military raid after a bomb blast blamed on Islamists and many others have been reported missing, a statement from Amnesty International said Friday.

Iraq: anti-Christian violence hit new peak in 2010

Saint Eijah's monastery, Mosu, Iraq. The oldest monastery in Iraq. Image via Wikipedia

Anti-Christian violence in Iraq left 92 dead and 47 wounded in 2010, making the year the worst to date for the Christian minority, according to the human-rights group Hammurabi.

Hammurabi reports that all of Iraq’s Christian churches have been badly hurt by violence and by the emigration of families leaving the country to find security elsewhere. More than 800 Christians have been killed in the years since the start of the US-lead military intervention.

Nevertheless the group found that the Christians remaining in Iraq who a strong sense of commitment. On July 4 the Chaldean Catholic Partiarch Emmanuel III paid a courtesy call on Ali al Sistani, Iraqi’s leading Shi’ite cleric, to demonstrate ‘the unity of Iraq and of Iraqis, Muslims and Christians.”

via Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Iraq’s anti-Christian violence hit new peak in 2010.