Faisalabad, a Christian tortured and detained on false charges of blasphemy

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) - Tortured at length by a group of Muslims, then arrested by police on charges – perfectly fabricated- that he had burned pages of the Koran. This is what happened last July1st to Imran Masih, a young Christian from Hajwary, Faisalabad district, yet another victim of blasphemy. For the director of the Commission for Interreligious Dialogue “a new wave of anti-Christian extremism” has started.

Father Yousaf Yaqub, of the parish of Hajwary confirmed to AsiaNews that the allegations “are totally invented” and the reasons for the attack originate from “business questions.” The shop belonging to the young Christian’s family, in fact, is better located and has higher revenues than others in the area. For fear of further attacks by extremists, the relatives of Masih fled to a secret hiding place.

“Imran was cleaning his fruit and vegetable shop –Fr. Yaqub reports – then he collected waste paper and burned it in the street, a common practice in the area. ” The owner of a nearby shop accused the Christian of burning pages of the Koran, calling the attention of other Muslims. Before long, a crowd began to beat and torture the young man, who was only saved by police intervention. The testimony of another Muslim also favored the opening an investigation against Masih.

The news of his arrest and spread quickly through the various mosques in the city. The prison where the young Christian was being held was besieged by thousands of furious extremists, who called for his death. The crowd blocked the main roads and burned tiresFr. Yousaf said that Christians and Muslims have lived in a peaceful way for decades in that area and had never registered incidents of this nature. Poverty, envy in business affairs and the economic crisis may have exacerbated tensions, causing confessional hatred.

Father Aftab James Paul, director of the diocese of Faisalabad’s Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, announced a meeting in the curia between Muslims, Catholics and Protestants in an attempt to dissolve the tension. According to Fr. Paul the recent attacks are a sign of “a new wave of anti-Christian extremism” in the country.

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Couple shot dead for eloping - police

RELATIVES of a Pakistani teenager who eloped and married without parental consent shot her dead in a raid on her new home which also killed her husband and in-laws, police said.

Dressed in police uniforms, dozens of relatives attacked the bridegroom’s house in the district of Charsadda, in North West Frontier Province.

“The assailants took the bridegroom out while some of the attackers climbed the wall and entered the house. They killed the bride, the mother and sister of the bridegroom,” said Charsadda district police official Saleem Jan.

“They beat them first and then shot them dead,” he told AFP.

The groom’s father was also killed, another police official told AFP from Sardheri village in
Charsadda.

The bride was aged 18 to 19 and the groom 29 to 30.

Police said the teenager, from the deeply conservative Mardan district next to Charsadda, had run away and recently married without telling her parents.

“Both the girl and man married some weeks ago,” the bridegroom’s uncle Misal Khan told reporters at the scene.

“The attackers were headed by the (paternal) uncle, cousin and maternal uncle of the girl. One of the attackers left his police uniform at the site. They also left one mobile phone in a pocket of the uniform,” he added.

Police said the main suspects were two uncles and a cousin.

“We have registered a case against three relatives of the girl and their unknown accomplices,” police official Saleem Jan tsaid.

Human rights groups have strongly condemned the practice of honour killings in Pakistan, which claim the lives of hundreds of women each year.

Amnesty International says many killings are unreported and in almost all cases the perpetrators, who are often close family members, go unpunished.

In 2005, Pakistan’s then president Pervez Musharraf introduced the death penalty for honour killings.

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What are you doing on this day?

I am in Tucson,Az celebrating July 4th that the Tucson Tea Party.  I am here with Tammy Bruce doing the radio show tomorrow from 12-2 PT which can be heard later at Tammybruce.com  We are also going to attempt to livestream the event on ustream.

I must encourage all of you.  Find a Tea Party in your area and go if you can.  You won’t regret it.  You can find a list of locations here.

The Christian Science Monitor’s Patrick Jonsson has a good recap and overview of Tea Party gatherings across the country. Tea Party Patriots organizers write:

Independence Day is upon us, and the Tea Party Patriots have over 600 events planned all across the nation! From events expecting thousands of people, like Tulare, California, and Dallas, Texas, to small town parades across the nation, the Tea Party Patriots will be out in force celebrating the birth of the greatest nation on earth.

From Ketchikan, Alaska, to Fishkill, New York; from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Sioux Falls, South Dakota; from Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi to Kihei, Hawaii, and hundreds of other locations spanning every great state of this nation, we will be out in force at Fourth of July parades, tea parties, and fireworks displays. From the country fair, to mega celebrations in the cities, the Tea Party Patriots will be present.

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Foxnews

A top Iranian cleric said Friday that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country’s disputed presidential election.

The announcement by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati came a day after the European Union demanded Iran release the staffers, who were detained on June 27. Britain is pressing EU countries to pull their ambassadors out of Tehran in protest.

Jannati, a powerful hard-liner who is close to Iran’s supreme leader, told worshippers during a Friday prayer sermon in Tehran that the detained staffers “made confessions.”

“In these events, their embassy had a presence,” he said, referring to the post-election turmoil. “Some people were arrested. Well, inevitably, they will be put on trial.”

He did not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges. Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the nine embassy personnel originally arrested had been released, but European Union officials said they believed more than one was still being held.

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I think Obama thinks that Iran is a “tiny country” and they’re not “really a threat” like he said during the campaign.

Haaretz

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday.

According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8’s agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities’ suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hinted in a newspaper interview earlier in the week that the G8 is due to decide on new financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Berlusconi disclosed that he had spoken with the heads of the G8 nations and has discussed such steps with them.

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One American Marine has been killed as U.S. and Afghan forces on Friday continued their massive offensive deeper into Helmand River valley. The assault, the first major Afghan operation by the Obama administration, is part of an overall effort to secure militant strongholds ahead of Afghanistan’s national elections next month.

Nearly 4,000 Marines and about 600 Afghan soldiers are expanding their sweep of southern Afghanistan, securing the Garmsir, Nawa, and Rig districts.

One Marine has died in action and several others wounded in the offensive. No civilian casualties have been reported, according to the Pentagon, and U.S. and Afghan forces have refrained from using artillery and other indirect fire weapons. No air strikes were conducted, but the 82nd Airborne Division Combat Brigade provided aviation support.

Called Operation Khanjar or Strike of the Sword, the operation was launched on Thursday, two days after American forces withdrew from the cities of Iraq, and less than two months before Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 presidential elections.

Similar NATO operations are underway in other parts of Helmand and Kandahar, such as the British led Operation Panchai Palang launched last week.

Over 90 percent of Afghanistan’s opium is harvested in Helmand, where militants support their activities from one of the world’s largest poppy fields. Most of the crop is made into black tar opium and then smuggled out of the country to be processed into heroin. The province’s opium economy constitute half of miltant funding, according to the Pentagon.

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commanding general of Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, said in a statement. “The Taliban offer no future, no hope, and we will work to provide immediate security gains to the local citizens of the Helmand River Valley.”

httip: MichelleMalkin

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Also, this is the first American soldier captured in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

*Updated info below..scroll down.

KABUL (AP) — US military spokeswoman says insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan.

Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier has been missing since Tuesday. She said she could not provide further information.

Mathias said the military was using “all our resources to find him and provide for his safe return.”

The soldier was not taking part in the major military operation launched in the southern Taliban stronghold of Helmand early Thursday.

*update* Taliban speaks

CBS report:

(CBS) A Taliban commander told CBS News’ Sami Yousafzai Thursday that militants had captured one U.S. soldier and three Afghan nationals in Paktika province, near the Pakistani border.
<…>
The Taliban commander, who spoke to Yousafzai via satellite telephone from the region, said a group of militants cornered the American soldier and his Afghan counterparts near a U.S. military base and took them hostage.

He said the captives’ fate would be decided by Taliban leaders, but that the Islamic extremist group “would not mind an exchange of prisoners in this case.”

*Update*

The captured soldier was apparently “sold” to a local terrorist group.  A video is said to be coming soon.

NY Daily News

An American soldier who went missing from a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan was “sold” to a local militant group - which claims it will soon release a video of the captive and a list of demands, a U.S. military official said.

“Our leaders have not decided on the fate of this soldier,” said a commander with the Taliban’s hard-line Haqqani faction, according to Agence-France Press. “They will decide on his fate and soon we will present video tapes of the coalition soldier and our demand to media.”

The identity of the captured soldier has not been released in order to protect his safety while U.S. troops desperately comb the area for him.

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Video: Dem Congressman Moran: Iran Won The Iraq War

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), founder of the Out of Iraq caucus, criticized Dick Cheney and the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq. Rep. Moran wouldn’t declare the US the winner in Iraq, but said that Iran won the war.

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Persecution.org

07/01/09 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) - This morning 100 Christian houses and churches were set on fire by local Muslims in the city of Kasur South, east of Lahore, Pakistan. The riots were incited by broadcasts from local mosques. This incident is similar to a February 1997 attack when thousands of Christian houses and churches were burned and hundreds of Christians were injured.

ICC partners received the news this morning and went immediately to the scene to help injured Christians transferred to Lahore, renting two mini vans for this purpose. So far 9 burned women and 4 children have been transferred to Lahore for further medical treatment. All of them have been injured by throwing acid on them. Local police have arrived on the scene but the situation is out of control as thousands of Muslims have gathered for this purpose.

More details to follow. Please call the Pakistani embassy in your country to ask them to protect the Christians in Kasur South.

Pakistan Embassies:

USA:   (202) 243-6500
Canada:  (613) 238-7881
UK:   0870-005-6967

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Pastor Rick Warren to address American Muslims [Linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood]

Robert has all the details…

Interfaith dhimmitude. Does Rick Warren know or care that in 2007, ISNA was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror funding case? The Holy Land Foundation, once the nation’s largest Islamic charity, was ultimately found guilty of funneling millions of dollars in charitable contributions to the jihad terror group Hamas.

Read the rest

Look, I’m all for reaching out to decent Muslims in America, but for God’s sake, pay attention who you’re “reaching out” to! He should be speaking to Muslim groups like this one

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