For years, there was the often repeated story in the media that Muslims were throwing homosexuals off of roofs. Now it is being reported that Christians are being thrown off of roofs by Muslims in an act of persecution:
Debate is swirling in Pakistan over whether a violent attack on a Christian girl who was thrown off a roof for refusing to marry a Muslim man was a crime of jealousy or religious hatred.
Aid to the Church in Need reported that the attack on 18-year-old Binish Paul occurred on Aug. 22. The attacker, Taheer Abbas, was reportedly angry that the girl had refused to marry him and convert to Islam.
Binish Paul’s lawyer, Tabassum Yousaf, explained: “For months, Taheer had been putting pressure on Binish to convert to Islam. Over and over again, she refused. This culminated in the violent act, during which the young woman sustained severe fractures to her legs and spine.”
The girl’s family reported the crime to local police but say that the officers refused to file charges.
Yousaf added that Christians have received serious threats from the perpetrator’s family and were told that if they don’t close the case they will be accused of blasphemy, which is an offense punishable by the death penalty.
Abbas was arrested two days later, but only after the lawyer filed charges directly with the court.
“When similar attacks happen in our Church community, the main problem is that the Christians in Pakistan often belong to the poorest social groups and are not aware of their rights. For example, hardly anyone knows that you can file charges with the courts,” he explained.
“The refusal of the police to open a case, together with threats from the relatives and friends of the perpetrators, ensure that many families do not even report the crimes they have suffered.”
Others, however, have argued that the case has more to do with personal jealousy rather than religious hatred. Catholic lawmaker Anthony Naveed told Ucanews.com earlier this week that the case cannot be correctly labeled as religious persecution.
Sabir Michael, an assistant professor at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, added that treating such cases as religious hatred can create further bad feelings among communities.
“Social media activists and religious leaders have tried to paint these cases as though religion was at the heart of the conflict, when that wasn’t the case,” Michael said, arguing that such a narrative can lead to genuine religious intolerance and social unrest.
“A full and impartial inquiry should be made using reliable sources rather than letting the court of public opinion make false judgments based on incorrect information,” the assistant professor added.
“Some people do this deliberately, exploiting religion to serve their own agendas of inflicting harm on certain individuals or communities for a range of reasons that have nothing to do with Christianity or Islam.”
Christian families have suffered numerous attacks for refusing to allow their daughters to marry Muslims.
International Christian Concern reported on one such family last month who were threatened and beaten by their Muslim neighbors for the decision.
“My 19-year-old daughter Aresha then became the target,” the father told ICC. “They would follow my daughter in the streets and markets, offering her a bright and secure future if she converted, and often abused her for her Christian faith.” (source)
I have a lot of trouble believing this story.
Christian persecution is real and affects many countries, and most of the Christian persecution committed with open, blatant crimes is Muslims against Christians. There is no doubting this. However, at the same time, there are many examples of “persecution” that turn out to be fake.
I do not want to deny the reality of persecution. To the contrary, I want it reported accurately. There is no need for true “fake news” because with Islam, as with all of life, the truth is always stranger than fiction.
It was about two years ago, in 2016, that the “Muslims throw gays off of roof tops” began in Chechnya and was anti-Russian propaganda, with the assumption that because the “murders” were taking place in Russian-controlled Chechnya, it was the fault of the “big bad Russians” who allowed it, and that if one is a “good American,” one must support the sodomites.
Something that we also noted was that leading up to the election of President Trump, there were many stories about Christian persecution, and yet curiously after Trump was elected those stories suddenly disappeared. It was as though the Muslims knew there was an election coming up, and they just decided to go on a murder spree to give the American political candidates something to talk about.
Now it is 2018, a semi-important “election year” (2017 was fundamentally irrelevant in a national sense), and suddenly we are noticing, like clockwork, those persecution stories are appearing in the news headlines again.
Did Ahmed and his friends just get lazy for a year? Was Hameed too busy waging jihad against Israel and he decided he needs add some Christians to his list of murdered victims? Or were those just Democrat-voting Muslims who wanted to show the Republican party the strength of Allah?
Or, perhaps, it was that not all of these stories are true, and they are just propaganda?
Again, I want to emphasize that the Islamic persecution of Christians is real and must not be denied, and those persecuted need to be helped. However, there are patterns of behavior here too curious in light of the circumstances that one must question for the sake of intellectual honesty.
Then there was this story about Muslims throwing Christians off of roof tops.
That was it for me.
Could it have happened? Certainly it is possible. Many things are possible. However, it reminds us of the infamous sniper story that ran in the news for years. It is not as though this pattern has not been seen before, except instead of “sodomite” it is now “Christian.”
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