Video: “A Persecuted World”

From: crusaderkafir

Pray for imprisoned Christians to be comforted in their loneliness and despair. Pray that they would have opportunities to fellowship and worship with other believers. Pray for christians who are beaten and tortured. Pray that this physical violence would end. Pray that these brothers and sisters would forgive their tormentors. Pray for Christians who are made slaves. Pray that their conduct as slaves will glorify God. Pray that they may escape or gain their freedom and return to their families. Pray for Christians who have lost all their possessions and cannot provide sustenance for their families. Pray that God would give boldness and faithfulness to Christians as they endure persecution. Pray that they would be encouraged to stand strong in their faith. Pray for the provision of bibles and other forms of help to Christians in restricted nations. Pray for the oppressors of Christians, that they may come to repentance and salvation. “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.” Hebrews 13:3

Link @YouTube

Iran: Christian Convert Couple Arrested, Tortured, Threatened

LOS ANGELES, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – Security police officials in Tehran this month tortured a newly converted couple and threatened to put their 4-year-old daughter in an institution after arresting them for holding Bible studies and attending a house church.

A Christian source in Iran said that 28-year-old Tina Rad was charged with “activities against the holy religion of Islam” for reading the Bible with Muslims in her home in east Tehran and trying to convert them. Officials charged her husband, 31-year-old Makan Arya, with “activities against national security” after seizing the couple from their home on June 3, forcing them to leave their 4-year-old daughter ill and unattended.

Authorities kept them in an unknown jail for four days, which left them badly bruised from beatings, with Rad “very ill” and unable to walk, said the source. Rad was released on bail of US$30,000 bail, and her husband was freed on payment of US$20,000.

“The next time there may also be an apostasy charge, if you don’t stop with your Jesus,” a female security police officer told Rad during interrogation, according to the source. Under Iran’s strict Islamic laws, Muslims who convert from Islam to another religion can be executed.

A draft law before the Iranian parliament would make the death penalty mandatory for “apostates” who leave Islam.

“They went to a court hearing just for show,” the source said, “as secret police had already taken their signatures by force with a statement that they had not changed their religion.”

The charges, however, are still open, said the source, a close friend of the couple.

The female security police official warned Rad that if she and her husband continued attending a house church and holding Bible studies, they could be imprisoned “for a very long time” and would lose their daughter, Odzhan Arya. An officer also told Rad that authorities could concoct a drug case against them, “and you will be punished as drug smugglers.”

A male security police official also threatened Rad, who along with her husband received Christ as savior about three months ago, the source said.

“He told Tina during the interrogation that if she doesn’t cooperate and tell some names and addresses, she won’t see her daughter for a long time,” the source said. “They said, ‘Next time if we catch you, you are going to miss your whole family forever.’”

An officer also told Arya that authorities could place his daughter “in a protected religious institution.”

The charge against Arya of “activities against national security” was based on his allowing Bible sessions with Muslims in his apartment and trying to go to the house church, the source said.

Confirmation from the couple’s denomination of their arrest and mistreatment was not immediately available.

Forced Statements

The couple was forced to sign a statement, the source said, that they wouldn’t go back to their house church and that they would have no contact with other Christians – and that if they did, “they will be punished by the law of Islam.”

The charges and forced statements seem to contravene the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, giving it the force of law. Article 18 of the covenant stipulates that everyone shall have the right to adopt a religion or belief, as well as freedom individually or in community in public or private to manifest one’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

The couple would forfeit their bail and their freedom if secret religious police catch them engaged in Christian activities, they were told in the court before their release.

“They were tortured psychologically and physically,” the source said. “There are a lot of blue places on their bodies. Tina can’t walk well and is very ill, and her husband Makan is still very shocked.”

The couple was arrested after a relative of Arya informed security police of the couple’s Christian activities. According to the friend of the couple, officers confiscated their personal computer, satellite dish and television set, as well as all books, videos, CDs, DVDs and even a photo album.

“Tina is very sick, and because of the pain on the right side of her head from the torture, and the shock of the whole situation, she can’t leave the house and their daughter,” the source said. “She knows for sure that they are monitored in all their communications.”

Societal Hostilities

Following their arrest, the husband and wife also suffered at the hands of family and area Muslims.

In order to make the bail payments, Arya obtained financial help from his father – on the condition that he promise to divorce his wife.

“So he did [promise], and now of course he refuses to divorce,” the source said. “So his father gave him an ultimatum. There is discrimination even in the family against them.”

After their release, the couple found the window of their clothing shop had been smashed.

“Almost the whole street knows about them, so imagine how difficult their business is,” said the source. “They want to change the shop and go somewhere else. Every day and night they get some calls from unknown people, and their life at this moment is under invisible and visible surveillance.”

On Monday (June 23) Arya received letters at both the clothing shop and his home stating that he must place evidence on his new window pane indicating his Islamic faith by displaying a statement and photos, or else he would have to buy a new window every day.

The source said Arya displayed a photo of Islamic leaders on the window, “but they want to go somewhere else.”

Arya went to area police asking for protection, the source said, “but they told him not to lie and to ‘go do something about it if you are a real believer of Islam.’”

BANGLADESH: PASTOR’S 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER GANG-RAPED

BANGLADESH: PASTOR’S 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER GANG-RAPED

Thursday May 08, 2008

Area Muslims bent on driving Christian expansion from northern part of country.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, May 8 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim villagers in Mymensingh district eager to rid the area of the Christian work of a local pastor have gang-raped his 13-year-old daughter, the girl’s father said.

Pastor Motilal Das of United Bethany Church said that at around 3 a.m. on Friday (May 2) the villagers sexually assaulted his daughter, Elina Das, and left her unconscious in front of his house in an attempt to drive him and his Christian ministry out of Laksmipur village in Fulbaria sub-district, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital.

Local residents have long been angry with him for his ministry and evangelism, he said, and he has received death threats.

“I did not pay attention to any of the threats or hindrances – I continued evangelical and pastoral activities with prayer,” Das told Compass. “They targeted me to evict from this area to stop the Christian activities. When nothing stopped me, then they wanted to leave me scarred for life, so that I would be upset and not be able to show my face to the society for shame, and therefore I would leave the village.”

Das, who became the first Christian in the area in 1986 and has been key in an increase to more than 250 Christians and the emergence of 12 churches, said the brutal attack was pre-planned and calculated to stop further expansion of Christianity in northern Bangladesh.

“Otherwise, why would they rape such a minor girl?” he said.

Elina Das is the only Christian student at her school, he said. “Always local boys used to tease her on her way to school,” he said, “and used to tell her filthy words against Christianity and western culture.”

Five villagers attacked her when she went from her thatched house to an outdoor latrine, said investigating officer Sanwar Hossen of Fulbaria police station.

“Five people lying in ambush in the pitch-dark near the toilet snatched her by gagging her mouth with her body scarf [and taking her] to a nearby tea stall, 400 meters from the house, where they gang-raped her,” Hossen said.

Besides the religious opposition of some residents, the officer said villagers had no personal or commercial conflicts with the Das family that could serve as a motive for the assault.

“There was no family vendetta or personal clash or enmity of Motilal with the local people for which his daughter would be raped,” Hossen said. “There was even no land dispute between him and the neighbors, because he does not have any land.”

Family members found Elina Das lying unconscious in front of the house that morning.

“When I woke up in the early morning, I saw my daughter lying unconscious in front of my house,” Das said. “ A few hours after the gang rape, they had left her in front of my house.”

Das said he suspected friends of the rapists and perhaps some of the rapists themselves observed them as they went to the police station to file charges, as they later threatened to harm them if they did not withdraw the case, he said.

“I have received death threats against my entire family if I do not withdraw the case,” Das told Compass. “We, all the family members, were afraid and took shelter in the same police station, where my wife, daughter, son and I stayed for two days and one night.”

Elina Das has identified two of the rapists and could identify the others if she saw them or their pictures, said Das. Police have arrested Shebul Miah, 22. The girl identified another suspect, 32-year-old Dulal Miah, alias Dulu, who remains at large.

Fearful of his life if he returned to his home, Das relocated to the home of a friend in Dhaka on Saturday (May 3).

Derelict Police

When Das initially went to police to file charges, he said, police were reluctant to register the case.

“Police told me that it was a false case,” Das said. “They also said that it was a fabricated drama. Police spoke with my daughter in filthy language and showed prurient interest in the details of the incident in front of us rather than filing the case quickly.”

Area Assembly of God (AG) pastor Sento Mir requested that the local denominational chairman encourage police to file charges. Following a phone call from him on Friday (May 2), police immediately agreed to investigate the incident and filed a rape case in the afternoon.

Area Muslims expressed their outrage at the brutal incident, and they are afraid that the assailants are backed by powerful people, Das said.

“We know Motilal Das as a good man in the locality, though he is a Christian,” said a Muslim neighbor, 42-year-old Ruhul Amin, who owns a tea stall in the nearby area. “He had not any personal clash or enmity with others in the village.”

Mir, the AG pastor, said Das will not be able to return to the area unless justice is served.

“If the arrested rapist is not judged properly and is released from jail without any judgment, Motilal Das cannot live in this area,” Mir said. “He along with his family members should leave the village, otherwise they will be in serious trouble.”

Likewise, he added, if the identified absconding rapist is not caught and convicted, the family will no longer be able to live in the area.

Bangladesh on ‘Watch List’

The day of the rape, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) announced annual recommendations for countries to be designated “Countries of Particular Concern,” but it did not include Bangladesh.

Rather, the commission put Bangladesh on its “Watch List” due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the government. Other countries on the Watch List are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

According to USCIRF, Islamist radicalism and violence, the threat of serious violence and continued discrimination against members of religious minority communities remain significant concerns in Bangladesh.

Video: Islamic Honor Killings and Mutilations

YouTube link

Related:

[Update 4: Reward is now $25,000!] Sarah and Amina Said’s Family Fight to Keep Their Deaths in the Public Eye

[Update 4] Texas: Dis-Honor killing of two sisters

Brigitte Gabriel on Honor Killings

When religious devotion outweighs the sanctity of life

Iraq: Teenage Girl Brutally Murdered in an “Honor Killing”

Teenage Iraqi girl who fell in love with BRITISH soldier in Basra is murdered by her own father in honour killing

An Iraqi teenage girl was brutally murdered by her father in an “honour killing” after she fell in love with a British soldier in Basra.

Seventeen-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader told her best friend how she had fallen for Paul, a 22-year-old she met at a charity where she worked as a volunteer.

When her father learned she had been seen speaking to a foreigner he rushed home and butchered her, strangling and stabbing her while screaming that he was “cleansing his honour”.

He was arrested, but Iraqi police took no action. His wife has since left him and is in hiding.

The Ministry of Defence was last night trying to trace the soldier. Officials stressed he appeared to have done nothing wrong by befriending the girl.

While there is no suggestion the two had any physical relationship, the case raises questions about the training given to British forces in understanding cultural values in a city where 47 women died in “honour killings” last year.[…]

On March 16 – two months after Rand last saw Paul – her father Abdel-Qader Ali heard from a friend that his daughter had been seen speaking to the soldier at the charity project.

Recalling Rand’s murder, her weeping mother Leila Hussein said: “I screamed and called out for her two brothers so they could get their father away. But when he told them the reason, instead of saving her they helped him end her life.”

Abdel-Qader Ali stood on the girl’s throat until she suffocated and then stabbed her, all the time shouting that his honour was being cleansed.

He was arrested and released within two hours. Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police said: “The father has very good contacts in the Basra government.”

Because her family considered her impure, Rand was given only a simple burial. Her uncles spat in her grave to show their disgust.

Two weeks later her mother demanded a divorce from Ali, and she now campaigns against honour killings.

She lives in fear of reprisals. “I was beaten and had my arm broken by him,” she said. “No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq.”[…]

H/T JammieWearingFool Via Larwyn

Related:
[Update 3: Reward doubled to $20,000] Sarah and Amina Said’s Family Fight to Keep Their Deaths in the Public Eye
[Update 4] Texas: Dis-Honor killing of two sisters

Brigitte Gabriel on Honor Killings
When religious devotion outweighs the sanctity of life

Anonymous Sinners

GOZAR : Anonymous Sinners Rap group : A Mani Turkzadeh film

PERSIANWARRIORS
visit this rap group at http://www.myspace.com/anonymousinners This song was Produced & performed by dear friends of mine & the video was made by Mani Turkzadeh. http://www.pasargodtv.com

H/T The Daily Ramble

Tehran’s Police Chief makes Spitzer look like a Boy Scout. One whore was not enough. He had an entire six pack. Hypocritical bastard.

Tehran police chief caught with 6 prostitutes

Reza Zarei, who was in charge of ‘moralizing the city,’ forced to step down after being caught nude in local brothel

Published:

03.12.08, 08:59 / Israel News

Tehran’s police chief, Reza Zarei, has been arrested after he was found nude in a local brothel with six naked prostitutes, the Farda news website reported Wednesday.

Zarei stepped down from his post following the raid, the report said. According to another popular Iranian website, Gooya, the order to raid the brothel was given directly by Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, chief of the judicial authorities. It is alleged that in the past six months, hundreds of young people have been arrested in Iran for not respecting the Islamic code of behavior.

Over the past year Zarei was in charge of enforcing the Islamic dress code on Iranian women with the purpose of “moralizing of the city.”

Rumors of the brothel incident had been spreading in Iran for the past two weeks, and last week Zarei was replaced after four years as chief of police in Tehran. The arrest was not reported by any of Iran’s official news agencies. Farda News, which broke the story, is a website said to be close to the mayor of Tehran and former chief of the police forces, Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf and is considered reliable.

Iranians protest Modesty Police actions

Revolutionary Guard, police forces clash with Iranian citizens in Tehran after they try to arrest a young woman for supposedly breaking Islamic dress code rules

Published:

02.25.08, 09:53 / Israel News

Clashes erupted between Iranian citizens, Revolutionary Guard forces and the Iranian Chastity Police in Tehran on Saturday, after police forces attempted to arrest a young woman they deemed “inappropriately dressed”.

The young woman reportedly resisted arrest, at which point the security forces attempted to forcibly get her in their car and began beating her.

The sight of the bloody-faced woman prompted a bystander to come to her aid, but he was beaten by the security forces as well. Dozens of Iranians who were present at the scene began rioting and setting dumpsters on fire.

The event was captured on numerous cell-phone cameras and quickly found its way to YouTube. The video clearly shows the crowds calling against the Iranian regime, shouting out “police state” and “no more Islamic regime.” The crowed reportedly called out against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Chastity Police’s efforts to enforce the Islamic dress code on Iranian women have been even more rigorous lately, as thousands of women have been detained, questioned and arrested for failing to uphold the dress code.

Ten people were arrested during Saturday’s clash.

Now for a bit of good news.
Love and other bruises @ Ian Hall

IRAN has freed a woman convicted of adultery who faced being stoned to death like her male partner whose execution by stoning last year caused international outrage, her lawyer said today.

Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who had spent a total of 11 years behind bars,…

Muslim Thugs Assault Anglican Priest

The vicious animals beat him so hard he was admitted to the hospital.

Asian youths in ‘faith hate’ attack on priest

Excerpts

An Anglican priest is in hospital after he was beaten up and insulted in what appears to be a “faith hate” assault by Asian youths.

Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head and left with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes in the grounds of his historic church in east London after he asked three Asian (Psst…P.C. code word for ‘muslim’) youths there to be quiet.

The attack at the 18th-century St George in the East Church in Stepney follows a number of apparently anti-Christian attacks in recent months in the same area.

“He was kicked and punched in the head as he lay on the ground, I believe that what was shouted was ‘you f****** priest’ before they attacked him.”

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “The suspects are Asian . . . and the incident is being investigated as an alleged faith hate crime.”

The church had previously been targeted when a brick smashed a window during a service. Allan Ramanoop, a member of the parochial church council, said: “On one occasion, youths shouted: ‘This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here’.

“Christianophobia”

The “Barbarians” Strike Again

The “Barbarians” have abducted and tortured another young Jewish man. This time the victim escaped alive. Thank God. Sadly not the case for Ilan Halimi who the “Barbarians” kidnapped and tortured to death two years ago.

Francia: se repite el caso de Ilan Halimi @ Spanish Pundit (II)

French officials voiced outrage Wednesday after it emerged a gang had locked up and attacked a Jewish youth in the same Paris suburb where Ilan Halimi (pictured) was tortured to death two years ago.

Six youths from the southern Paris suburb of Bagneux, aged 17 to 25, are accused of locking up 19-year-old Mathieu Roumi in a storage room on February 22, beating and sexually tormenting him.

Aged 17 to 25, the six youths — who knew the victim — had falsely accused him of stealing from them in order to lure him into a trap, judicial sources said.

Once he arrived in the apartment of one of his aggressors, the young man was handcuffed on a radiator and beaten.

With a pen, the aggressors scrawled “dirty Jew” and “dirty faggot” on the face of their victim. Later they forced him to swallow down cigarette butts and to suck a condom on a stick. The man’s ordeal reportedly lasted nine and a half hours.

He was later hospitalised “in a state of shock”. He lodged a complaint.

They identified themselves as members of the “Barbarians,” the same gang that kidnapped Halimi from his store, demanded ransom for his release, and when that was not forthcoming, tortured the 23-year-old over the course of three weeks. Moments after he was dumped on the street, Halimi died. Roumi told police investigators that throughout his ordeal, his assailants employed measures with sexual and sadistic connotations.

The “Barbarians”. How apropo. Monsters. Vicious sadistic barbaric monsters.

The face of a monster. A monster who acts like an animal. How can we look at him as if he is human? May he and his minions roast in hell!

_{Youssouf Fofana. ‘Brain of the Barbarians’ Photo: AP}

Gang to face trial for brutal murder of French Jew

Twenty-one suspected members of a self-styled “gang of barbarians” will be tried in France for the kidnapping and murder of a young Jewish man in 2006, a legal source said on Tuesday.Another seven suspects face trial for failing to report a crime, while one will be tried in a court for children because she was under 16 at the time of the attack on Ilan Halimi.

The kidnappers used a pretty young woman to entice Halimi into a trap, dragging the telephone salesman into a cellar where they proceeded to beat and torment him.

Police say the gang attempted a string of kidnappings of Jewish youths before capturing Halimi. They then sent a series of ransom demands to his parents, asking for as much as 450,000 euros, but lengthy negotiations failed to secure his release.

The self-proclaimed “brain of the Barbarians,” Youssouf Fofana, was eventually arrested in the Ivory Coast.

The ‘Barbarians’ are at the gate!

For years the Parisian establishment has quaked at the prospect of angry hordes invading their affluent heartland and last week that nightmare came true as gangs of hooded youths robbed and bludgeoned white students attending anti-government demonstrations.

Disquiet about the spread of barbarism across the boulevard périphérique has been fuelled by the chilling story of Yalda.

More than 30 neighbours in the building knew what was happening but said nothing about the crime, part of a worrying wave of attacks against Jews all over the country.

With that horrid news in mind. I invite you to view this video.

The Path To The Final Solution

The path to Hitler’s “final solution to the Jewish question” has branched and deviated since his death, but it’s fundamental principle remains the same.

Antisemitism did not end with WWII, and it’s seen a fresh resurgence in recent years. While some might have you believe that talk of antisemitism is merely a ploy on the part of Jews to divert attention or curry some advantage, the threat it poses cannot be ignored.

In an age of rogue nations armed with WMD, a worldwide Islamic jihad and the resurgence of various hard-left and hard-right militias, how long before someone will successfully enact Hitler’s ‘final solution’?

This video is dedicated to the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Also see this post not entirely related. But pertinent just the same.

Qassam Rocket Hit @ Dj Konservo

Even though this clip is not in English, the footage alone is enough to get the message. The video is from Israeli TV, and shows a Qassam rocket hitting a house in Sderot.

The next time you hear of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza, remember this, and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinians who commit these acts of terrorism.

Does a Form of Slavery Exist in Saudi Arabia?

Repatriated Lankan Maid Claims Torture, Nonpayment of Wages

RIYADH, 3 March 2008 — A Sri Lankan maid, who was tortured brutally by her employer’s wife, has been forcibly sent home without being paid a year’s salary.

“I was tortured severely. The sponsor’s wife burned me with an iron rod, poured disinfectant and gasoline on me and threatened to burn me alive; she also said she would cut my hair to make me ugly,” said Madhuwanthie, the 28-year-old Sri Lankan woman.

Madhuwanthie has — through the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) — sought the intervention of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh to contact her sponsor and get her salary dues.

Madhuwanthie, who worked for the household for 21 months, has only received pay for the first nine months of her employment. “Every time I asked for my salary, they would beat me and threaten to hand me over to the police on false charges,” she said in a letter to SLBFE. “I did not have the opportunity to contact the embassy since the telephone was out of my reach.”

According to a Sri Lankan Embassy official, the mission needs to come up with a system whereby it is informed when a domestic worker is sent on final exit.

“This is a clear case of sponsor deserting worker. The sponsor sent the maid home stealthily without anyone’s knowledge fearing he would be questioned for torture and nonpayment of salaries,” said the official.

He added that it would be better if the mission could tackle problems in the presence of both the employer and the employee. Third party inquiries are ineffective since both sides cannot be heard together and a firm commitment from the sponsor cannot be obtained. However, he said the mission would take up the matter with the relevant authorities.

The Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh receives an average of nine cases of runaway maids each day. The mission has opened a 24-hour cell to accommodate such cases and report them to the proper authorities. The country’s missions in Jeddah and Riyadh also run safe houses for such workers till problems are resolved. Common complaints by the maids include nonpayment of salaries, harassment and being forced to continue work beyond contract periods. Source.

H/T Doctor Bulldog

Slaves in Saudi

The unpalatable truth is that, the Ottoman and Persian empires were one of the last to abolish slavery, falling far behind their European counterparts in matters of human emancipation. Full abolition of slavery did not come until the twentieth century, with Saudi Arabia holding out until 1962. Given that desert kingdom’s shameful record on this basic human right, it was no surprise to read Human Rights Watch’s report and find that today’s migrant workers are kept in conditions of “near-slavery.”

The Muslim world is sliding backwards into medievalism, and it is time for reformers to speak openly and bravely. There is a cancer that is eating away at our soul — a disease marked by paranoia, double standards and virulent racism. While we are in full-throated cry against abuses in Iraq and Palestine, we stay completely silent when it is Muslims who are the abusers (of both non-Muslims and Muslims).

How else to explain our outpouring of sympathy for the Bosnian genocide, but our complete silence on the ongoing genocide in Sudan? In that country’s civil war between the Arab Muslim North, and the black Christian and Animist South, 2 million people have been killed to date. In a BBC profile of the hundreds of black Africans who have been raped by pro-government Janjaweed Arab militia, one victim described the attackers: “They called me Abeid (slave in Arabic).”

Shame on the Muslim world for staying silent!

BAD DREAMS:
Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia – Human Rights Watch

Summary

an excerpt

“It was like a bad dream” is the way one migrant worker from the Philippines summed up his experiences in Saudi Arabia. Another worker, from Bangladesh, told us: “I slept many nights beside the road and spent many days without food. It was a painful life. I could not explain that life.” A woman in a village in India, whose son was beheaded following a secret trial, could only say this: “We have no more tears, our tears have all dried up.” She deferred to her husband to provide the account of their son’s imprisonment and execution in Jeddah.

It is undeniable that many foreigners employed in the kingdom, in jobs from the most menial to the highest skilled, have returned home with no complaints. But for the women and men who were subjected to abysmal and exploitative working conditions, sexual violence, and human rights abuses in the criminal justice system, Saudi Arabia represented a personal nightmare.

In 1962, then-King Faisal abolished slavery in Saudi Arabia by royal decree. Over forty years later, migrant workers in the purportedly modern society that the kingdom has become continue to suffer extreme forms of labor exploitation that sometimes rise to slavery-like conditions. Their lives are further complicated by deeply rooted gender, religious, and racial discrimination. This provides the foundation for prejudicial public policy and government regulations, shameful practices of private employers, and unfair legal proceedings that yield judicial sentences of the death penalty.

The overwhelming majority of the men and women who face these realities in Saudi Arabia are low-paid workers from Asia, Africa, and countries in the Middle East.

This report gives voice to some of their stories.

It is based on information gathered from migrant workers and their families in mud brick houses off dirt roads in tropical agricultural areas of southwest India, in apartments in densely packed neighborhoods of metropolitan Manila, and in simple dwellings in rural villages of Bangladesh. The victims include skilled and unskilled workers; Muslims, Hindus, and Christians; young adults traveling outside their home countries for the first time; and married men, and single and divorced women, with children to support.

In Saudi Arabia, these workers delivered dairy products, cleaned government hospitals, repaired water pipes, collected garbage, and poured concrete. Some of them baked bread and worked in restaurants; others were butchers, barbers, carpenters, and plumbers. Women migrants cleaned, cooked, cared for children, worked in beauty salons, and sewed custom-made dresses and gowns. Unemployed or underemployed in their countries of origin, and often impoverished, these men and women sought only the opportunity to earn wages and thus improve the economic situation for themselves and their families.

This report is the first comprehensive examination of the variety of human rights abuses that foreign workers experience in Saudi Arabia. The voices of these migrants provide a window into a country whose hereditary, unelected rulers continue to choose secrecy over transparency at the expense of justice. The stories in this report illustrate why so many migrant workers, including Muslims, return to their home countries deeply aggrieved by the lack of equality and due process of law in the kingdom. In an important sense, this report is an indictment of unscrupulous private employers and sponsors as well as Saudi authorities, including interior ministry interrogators and shari’a court judges, who operate without respect for the rule of law and the inherent dignity of all men and women, irrespective of gender, race, and religion.

Some of the most frightening and troubling findings of the report concern mistreatment of women migrant workers, both in the workplace and in Saudi prisons. The report also provides an intimate view of the workings of Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system, through the eyes of migrant workers with first-hand experience of its significant flaws. And it is the families and friends of migrants who were beheaded, pursuant to judicial rulings, who describe how Saudi authorities kept them and consular officials in the dark until well after the executions were carried out. The mortal remains of these victims were not returned to their families, who until now have no information about what happened to the bodies.

England: Islamic Sexual Slavery of White Girls

Pakistan Ethiopia India – Christians Murdered & Persecuted

Prayers for January 22, 2008
From The Voice of the Martyrs

Newsletter

PAKISTAN Pastor Killed VOM Sources

On January 17, a pastor was shot and killed by an unknown person in Peshawar, Pakistan. According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts, the pastor had worked with the Assembly of God Church in Peshawar, for the past 10 years. He is survived by his wife and a one-year-old daughter. Pray for this grieving family and church. Ask God to comfort believers in Peshawar and for this pastor’s family to realize that to be absent from the body is to be present with Him. Psalm 27:1, Psalm 23

ETHIOPIA Christian Family’s House Bombed VOM Sources

On January 12, a home belonging to a Christian family was bombed in the southeastern city of Jijiga. According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts, “Terefe Feleke, his wife and their two children were in the house at the time of the attack, thankfully none of them were seriously hurt. The roof of the house was destroyed by the bomb blast. While searching the compound, the police found another bomb set to explode a few hours later.” Praise God, this family was kept from serious harm. Pray for Christians in Jijiga, where Muslims have recently mounted attacks against Christians in an attempt to drive them out of the region. Pray believers in this area will remain faithful and demonstrate Christ’s love to their persecutors. Joshua 1:9; 2 Timothy 1:7

INDIA Hindu Extremists Injure Nearly 100 Compass Direct News

On January 16, more than 80 people were injured in an attack on a large Christian meeting in Chhattisgarh state. According to Compass Direct News, the attack was followed by an assault on a missionary camp in Dhamtari district that hurt at least a dozen Christians. “The Hindu attacks come within weeks of unprecedented anti-Christian violence in neighboring Orissa state. In Chhattisgarh’s Durg district violence, Christians said it was no coincidence that Hindu nationalist extremists launched the attack as the political arm of the militants, the Bharatiya Janata Party, was holding a public meeting in the area,” Compass Direct reported. Pray for the safety of believers in India. Ask God to heal and encourage them to remain courageous despite attacks and increased persecution. Pray the testimonies of these faithful believers will draw non- believers into fellowship with Jesus Christ. Philippians 4:19, Isaiah 26:3