Thursday, December 16, 2004
CHRISTOPHOBIA COULD GET A LOT WORSE
From The Watchman Herald:
Saudi religious police arrested a 30-year-old citizen who converted from Islam to Christianity.
Emad Alaabadi, who has a wife and four children, is in prison in Jeddah after his Nov. 29 arrest in the town of Hufus, reports International Christian Concern, a Washington, D.C.-based human-rights group.
Alaabadi was driving his children home from school Nov. 29 when he was intercepted by police. The police escorted him home to drop off the children then took him to prison in Hufus before being transferred to Jeddah.
The Saudi man made contact Dec. 4 with his mother in Australia, who said he sounded very weak.
ICC said if Alaabadi's case is like others, he probably has been tortured as the religious police attemp to reconvert him to Islam.
We tend to think interreligious dialogue with Islam is a good idea, and we allow the Saudis to pour money into building mosques in the U.S., granting Muslims freedom of worship. They do not return the favor. According to the article:
The State Department's annual report says that in Saudi Arabia "religious freedom does not exist" and non-Muslim "worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation and sometimes torture for engaging in religious activity that attracts official attention."
Should we rethink our strategy? When Muslims are here in sufficient numbers, will they demand that America become Islamic? Colonization is a clever conversion strategy in a tolerant country, as Europe is learning. Are we next?
