Islam; On Tolerance & Peace

Four African Christians were deported after being arrested back on June 9 for “preaching to Muslims, planting churches and gathering ladies and gentlemen together for prayer” according to Masai Wendewesen, an Ethiopian Christian working in Saudi Arabia.

The four church leaders were beaten and imprisoned for more than a month in torturous conditions. Why the beatings and deportation? Because leaving Islam, or conversion to another faith, is “apostasy” in Saudi Arabia, it’s a crime punishable by death.

On June 9, the four Christians were arrested at their Friday morning worship service in the Al-Rowaise district in Jeddah.

They were transferred the next day to a police station where they were beaten and forced to sign a 10-page document.

“We don’t know what [it was] because it was all in Arabic,” Wendewesen said. “We didn’t ask them, because we were afraid for our lives.”

Saudi officials claim that Christians are free to worship; but only in the privacy of their own homes. The Saudi kingdom has refused to grant foreign Christian workers the right to build churches. In fact, Saudi Defense minister Prince Sultan has said that: “There are no churches [in Saudi Arabia]. Not in the past, the present or future.”

But these four were actually pretty fortunate.

They were allowed to live.

Unlike Fouad Fawzy Tawfik, a Christian shoemaker in Cairo, Egypt. Tawfik was murdered by Hossam Hafez Ahmad Attay, a Muslim, simply for being a Christian. Attay was supposedly angered by a joke that Tawfik had made a few days prior. Tawfik made an offhand remark that “tomorrow America is going to invade Egypt and kill everyone in it.”

The killer, Hossam Hafez Ahmad Attaya, visited his cousin’s shoe shop, located very near Fouad Tawfik’s own store, and pretended to be interested in buying shoes. The Muslim had his cousin distract Tawfik then cowardly attacked him with a concealed knife.

The eight-inch blade sank into the Christian’s left lung and stomach, he died minutes after being stabbed, from loss of blood. He never made it to the hospital.

Behold; the Religion Of Peace.