Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Christian Converts in Danger — In the Netherlands

The transcript below is taken from an undated Nova TV video and was translated by our expatriate Dutch correspondent H. Numan:

Anchor: Muslims in the Netherlands who convert to Christianity, and are used to convert other Muslims are in danger.
 During the last few months several incidents took place with these converted missionaries. The police corps in the country has been asked to be on alert for this sort of incident.
 Watch a report from Arnold Chakrabartie [name?].
Anonymous convert: We actually don’t do anything bad.
 We love everyone.
 We love everybody.
 What we do is just.
 We want to bring God’s love, the love of Jesus Christ, to see and show to men around us.
Voice: It is no more than a minor item in a regional newspaper.
 Rolde [a city in Drenthe province], last summer.
 An Iraqi man was knifed.
 The newspaper reported it was an incident within the relational atmosphere.
 But something else played a role [was going on].
Young girl: It happened in the street here.
 Near the pizzeria.
 It was about a man.
 Who had an argument with someone from Assen. [city in Drenthe]
 It was about faith.
Reporter: About faith?
Young girl: Yes. The man was Christian,
 The man from Assen was Muslim.
 He [first man] wanted the other to become Christian, because that is a good religion.
 That’s why they got an argument.
 That is why he [second man] came to Rolde and stabbed him.
- - - - - - - - -
Marco Vermin: A team member who is busy preaching the gospel amongst Iraqi Muslims, his fellow countrymen, was knifed during or after his work by a man who is Muslim.
 That was related with the fact that the wife of the assailant had converted to Christianity, and remained in contact with this missionary.
Voice: The police confirmed that the aspect of religious conversion played a role [part] in the investigation, but refuses to comment any further.
 The victim refuses to speak [to the reporter] out of fear for his life.
 [What happened in] Rolde is not an incident.
 During the last months several similar incidents took place.
 Such as in Rotterdam, Zuthpen and Hengelo.
 Achmed converted a few years ago to Christianity.
 Nowadays he works as a missionary amongst Muslims.
 He doesn’t want his true name to be known.
Achmed: My car was damaged, and stones were thrown through the windows of my house in the middle of the night.
 We were actually stoned in our own house.
Voice: Marco Vermin is the director of the “Gave Foundation”, an organization that preaches the gospel amongst Muslims.
Marco Vermin: A brother of a Turkish girl was trying to murder his sister, but was prevented by somebody else entering the room.
 We know of Iraqi people living in the Netherlands who had to move [relocate] themselves to other cities on the advice of police.
 Also a Moroccan girl was advised by the police to move to another city for the same reasons.
 Because the threats were that severe.
 Our people [the missionaries] are threatened from their home countries.
 By mail, by phone.
 It is a real danger we see here.
 I was called by an imam.
 He told me I deserved death.
 He quoted a few passages from the Koran.
 “Kill on the road of Allah. Kill, but they are alive.”
Voice: We presented this case to Driss El Boujoufi, chairman of the Contact Organization for Muslims.
 [listens to threats]
Driss El Boujoufi: This is a text from the Koran, yes.
 But the words have been wrongly interpreted.
 I believe this text has nothing to do with the incidents.
 I know for certain that someone who uses this text knows very little about Islam, and is not an imam.
Reporter: Can you explain why people are irritated or shocked?
Driss El Boujoufi: Why they use violence is something different.
 That is based on their psychology.
 Where some people use violence, others will not.
 But the shock and irritation can be explained in several ways.
 The first is for religious reasons.
 Apostasy is a mortal sin in Islam.
 So you have a situation where someone who committed this mortal sin now asks you to also commit this mortal sin.
 Second, missionary activities rarely happen amongst Muslims.
 Christian missionaries in the Muslim world are rarely successful.
 But it always creates irritation.
 In some countries this is seen as disturbing public order or perverting state security.
Marco Vermin: We want to make sure that shame or threats or any other barrier don’t prevent people from speaking about their deepest convictions.
Reporter: Don’t you take a risk for/with [?] your own people?
Marco Vermin: Now, I don’t think so. For I don’t do it (personally).
 I offer people a place, and I am there for support.
 So they can do their work in a safe environment.
 I find that threats or danger may prevent people from talking about their [religious] convictions.
Driss El Boujoufi: I want to make two calls: [very bad Dutch, barely comprehensible]
 A call to people in the missionary organizations to look at themselves first. It is not acceptable by society, and forbidden by Islam.
Anonymous missionary: I am frightened. Not for myself, but for my wife and children.


Hat tip: Frontinus.

10 comments:

Zenster said...

There is no small irony in how Islam is martyring these converted Muslims. I predict a day when the church will finally beatify a Muslim convert for lifting his Islamic brethern out of their spiritual gulag.

More than anything, these cruel murders vividly demonstrate the true nature of religious martyrdom, as opposed to the obscene mockery of it that Islam besets our world with.

A final accounting of all this will manifest in how few Muslim converts ever revert to Islam. I predict that number to be a small fraction of a percent, if that.

Should anyone doubt that Islam is a spiritual gulag, please pause to consider just how barren Islamic culture must be:

No dogs for children to play with and learn from about unconditional love and devotion.

Illiterate mothers who cannot read a bedtime story to their children or help them learn how to read.

No freedom of speech that permits healthy discussion and critical analysis of current events.

No freedom of religion that is so vital to a pluralistic society.

No graphic depiction of most living forms which curtails artistic creativity.

No public displays of affection that lend a romantic atmosphere to daily life.

No pork or other haram foods that widen the diet and give variety to sustenance.

No beautiful or shapely women proudly strutting their stuff on the street.

No non-liturgical music to break up the monotony of constant religious worship.

No alcohol to unwind with and enhance convivial gatherings.

No co-ed intermingling that allows young people to refine their social skills.

The Muslim world is nothing short of a mental prison. It is abusive in the extreme and represents nothing less than a spiritual gulag.

Armance said...

Unfortunately, most official Christian churches in Europe are more willing to appease Islam on the grounds of "common Abrahamic faith and shared values" instead of defending and honoring the brave Christian converts whose life is in danger for acknowledging their new faith, in the West or in the Islamic world.
The only exception I can think of is Magdi Allam, the Egyptian-born Muslim baptized by the Pope (an act of courage that I appreciated, especially for the confrontational stance against the PC media which described the public baptism as a "provocation").
But I've never heard a denunciation of the fierce persecutions against the Iraqi, Somali, Egyptian, Indonesian, etc. Christians.
The Church nowadays seems incapable to recognize its martyrs, as it had done in the first centuries of Christendom - one more sign of lethal liberal weakness.

Sagunto said...

I was a bit surprised to learn that NOVA (Dutch "public" i.e. state tv) seemed to report in defence of freedom of religion, let alone on behalf of Christians. After watching the whole item, all things were back to "normal": it's just another - rather clever - way to spread the lovely news that "Islam is a ROP".

I'll copy/paste my comment from the BJ about this news programme and its stealthy islamophilia:

...

I'd like to draw some attention to the Dutch documentary (well, not quite, just an item in a news program really) that Mr. Belien mentions in his interesting article. This program, NOVA, represents the more "intelligent" form of PC-journalism, one that claims to show both sides of every coin. A magical coin at that, for it always seems to flip over to one side when they toss it ;-)

In short, the news item in question is just another opportunity given to Islamic apologists, to repeat their worn thin slogan that "..this has nothing to do with Islam", and so on. The anchorman (m/f) explicitly mentions in her elaborate announcement, that Islamic agression is exclusively directed against former Muslims who are evangelizing among Muslims. Clearly the suggestion of this would be that it's the evangelizing that is the problem, and not punishment of apostasy from Islam itself, thereby conveniently ignoring this Islamic doctrine. Yet, in the same reportage there's mention of a Moroccan girl who ran into the same agression without attempts to proselytize.
The apologetical pro-Islam perspective is further enhanced by the usual academic "expert", a known apologist for Islam, who simply recasts the whole problem in terms of emotion and impulse control, or the lacking thereof in some individual Muslims. Then, to top it off, the floor is to a chairman/spokesperson of an Islamic interestgroup, who, not entirely to anyone's surprise, claims that.. "Islam has got nothing to do with it".

So there's that folks, people's basic rights to freedom of religion are violated, but no worries, nothing to see here, please disperse, 'cause Islam is "a religion of Peace".

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.

Czechmade said...

I always loved this one:

"Apostasy is a mortal sin in Islam."...and "Who changes his religion, kill him".


Then abhor killing apostates! Save them! No. Why to bereave someone of a chance to land safely in islamic heaven months, years later? Why to close the window of opportunity?

Haha, no trust in grace of god? No grace available? Hahaha "No grace, no god" is widely implied by act and words of mohammed.

In nucleus - this is a proof islam is no religion at all. Logically one should stay alive protected as long as possible to be in position
to avoid his doom...by grace of god.

Unknown said...

Zenster, several of the items on that list puzzle me. How, for example, can anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Arabic society think that there is no non-religious music?

Zenster said...

Lucille: ... several of the items on that list puzzle me. How, for example, can anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Arabic society think that there is no non-religious music?

This is the unfortunate thing about how the hyper-puritanical sect of Wahhabism has become a sort of de facto Islam. Clearly, there is a rich legacy of laic Arabic music, but it is one that is coming under increasing assault by clerics of all stripes.

It is the same with art. While there are certain components of Islamic society that pratice pictoral portrayal, it is still frowned upon by fundamentalists.

Destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas served up excruciating notice of what awaits a world under calipate rule. Arabic music might survive but the Beatles would barely stand a chance. Likewise, Iranian miniature landscape painting might carry on but the Mona Lisa would probably be torched, if only because it depicts an uncovered woman.

Finally, while my list is not at all times and everywhere applicable—for example, there certainly are literate Muslim women—taken at its salient points, it still draws a grim picture of Muslim life. Especially so for uppity wimmens and thus Islam remains entirely unacceptable.

Czechmade said...

Cancelling any cultural ballast means only one thing - preparing for war.

Likewise mohammed cancelled and prohibited any sort of monkhood - clearly a waste of male material. No religion, no spirituality - a clear message to all.

Gregory said...

Well put Zenster. You are so spot on. I think you should post that comment on faithfreedom.orgs forum.

Czechmade said...

Cancelling any cultural ballast means only one thing - preparing for war.

Likewise mohammed cancelled and prohibited any sort of monkhood - clearly a waste of male material. No religion, no spirituality - a clear message to all.

Unknown said...

The more I look into your assertions, the less accurate they seem to be - even the ones I was inclined to agree with at the outset. There's wine production in the Islamic world. In some countries (e.g. Egypt) the literacy rate is higher for women than for men. And so on.