Iranian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani: A Choice of Death or Islam - The 4 Freedoms Library2024-03-28T09:09:19Zhttp://4freedoms.com/forum/topics/iranian-pastor-yousef-nadarkhani-a-choice-of-death-or-islam?groupUrl=Iran&commentId=3766518%3AComment%3A82728&groupId=3766518%3AGroup%3A773&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThe news is confusing atm. f…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-03-04:3766518:Comment:970362012-03-04T19:29:28.406ZKinanahttp://4freedoms.com/profile/Kinana
<div class="comment-author-link">The news is confusing atm. from the site that post this story is this comment:</div>
<div class="comment-author-link"><cite class="fn">lidia</cite> <span class="says">says:</span></div>
<div class="comment-meta commentmetadata"><a href="http://bluestarchronicles.com/2012/03/03/youcef-nadarkhani-executed-christian-pastor-hanged-in-iran-for-being-christian/#comment-724912">March 3, 2012 at 4:38 pm</a></div>
<p>We have removed the original erroneous report which…</p>
<div class="comment-author-link">The news is confusing atm. from the site that post this story is this comment:</div>
<div class="comment-author-link"><cite class="fn">lidia</cite> <span class="says">says:</span></div>
<div class="comment-meta commentmetadata"><a href="http://bluestarchronicles.com/2012/03/03/youcef-nadarkhani-executed-christian-pastor-hanged-in-iran-for-being-christian/#comment-724912">March 3, 2012 at 4:38 pm</a></div>
<p>We have removed the original erroneous report which came from an Arabic language website. I did not post it. The person who posted it on our wall did so with the best of intentions. It is our policy to verify information like this before we post it. We apologize for allowing unverified information to be posted. The Latest reports indicate that he is alive and Iran is saying he will not be executed. We will update as we have more information.”</p> 'animals of no intelligence'…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-03-04:3766518:Comment:970352012-03-04T19:25:19.078ZKinanahttp://4freedoms.com/profile/Kinana
<p>'animals of no intelligence' is a common accusation and is back up by <a href="http://4freedoms.ning.com/group/tiles/forum/topics/08-they-are-like-cattle" target="_self">several versus in the Quran</a>. I first heard this insult at the Harrow mosque demo in Sept (?) 2009. and <b>Al-Qaeda</b> is also keen to keep this insult alive:</p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB">'True religion does not ‘honour mankind’ .... Islam can ‘never possibly honour the Western man who rejects Allah…</span></p>
<p>'animals of no intelligence' is a common accusation and is back up by <a href="http://4freedoms.ning.com/group/tiles/forum/topics/08-they-are-like-cattle" target="_self">several versus in the Quran</a>. I first heard this insult at the Harrow mosque demo in Sept (?) 2009. and <b>Al-Qaeda</b> is also keen to keep this insult alive:</p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB">'True religion does not ‘honour mankind’ .... Islam can ‘never possibly honour the Western man who rejects Allah Almighty. Indeed, He describes him as a cow; and He has cursed him and prepared the everlasting Fire for him.’</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB">To hang</span> (the report is yet unconfirmed) Pastor Nadarkhani would be of no more consequence than slaughtering a cow which for some reason refuses to go along with the rest of the herd.</p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br/></span></p> "Will Theresa May and co take…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-03-04:3766518:Comment:969262012-03-04T12:57:07.539ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>"<span>Will Theresa May and co take notice of the report's conclusions? Will the media start shining a light on the very real threat from far-right terrorism?" </span></p>
<p>What a pillock. <strong>The media has never given the EDL good publicity, or even fair reporting.</strong> The EMRC at Exeter University claimed there was "cultural terrorism" against muslims, when it is clear that muslims, despite being 1/20th of the population of the UK are the cultural terrorists par excellence.…</p>
<p>"<span>Will Theresa May and co take notice of the report's conclusions? Will the media start shining a light on the very real threat from far-right terrorism?" </span></p>
<p>What a pillock. <strong>The media has never given the EDL good publicity, or even fair reporting.</strong> The EMRC at Exeter University claimed there was "cultural terrorism" against muslims, when it is clear that muslims, despite being 1/20th of the population of the UK are the cultural terrorists par excellence. Incidentally, according to the UN 1 in 20 is the proportion of people who were slaves in Arabia in 1951 (let's not forget that slavery is legal under islamic law supported by "socialist" Mehdi Hasan).</p>
<p>I don't believe in the insanity defence in most cases in which it's used, and I'd like to see Breivik tried for his crimes (and executed too).</p>
<p>Let's not forget this muslim scumbag Hasan publicly supports homophobia despite being a socialist, he publicly endorses jew-hatred despite being a socialist. He thinks we are "cattle" and "creatures of no intelligence".</p>
<p>His racist, homophobic, supremacist, islamist agenda has finally surfaced in <em>The Daily Telegraph</em>. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100141065/a-witchcraft-scandal-on-our-doorstep/" target="_blank">http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100141065/a-witchc...</a> Of course, the jew-hating, islam-loving <em>Guardian</em> doesn't care to highlight the hypocrisy of this "socialist". The UAF attacked Nick Griffin when he appeared on Question Time, but they do nothing when this scumbag appears on the same programme.</p>
<p>It's really something when it is right-wing <em>Telegraph</em> exposing these jew-hating homophobic islamists and shills for islam.</p>
<p><br/> <cite>Antony said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://4freedoms.ning.com/forum/topics/iranian-pastor-yousef-nadarkhani-a-choice-of-death-or-islam?groupUrl=Iran&commentId=3766518%3AComment%3A96898&xg_source=activity&groupId=3766518%3AGroup%3A773#3766518Comment96898"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Mehdi Hasan attempts to tie in EDL with Breivik ; <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/02/terrorism-threat-breivik" target="_blank">http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/02/terrorism-thr...</a></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote> Mehdi Hasan attempts to tie i…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-03-04:3766518:Comment:968982012-03-04T12:16:48.739ZAntonyhttp://4freedoms.com/profile/Antony
<p>Mehdi Hasan attempts to tie in EDL with Breivik ; <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/02/terrorism-threat-breivik" target="_blank">http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/02/terrorism-threat-breivik</a></p>
<p>Mehdi Hasan attempts to tie in EDL with Breivik ; <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/02/terrorism-threat-breivik" target="_blank">http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/02/terrorism-threat-breivik</a></p> Here we get the same old sele…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-03-04:3766518:Comment:969212012-03-04T11:01:53.363ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>Here we get the same old selective quoting from a muslim shill. Mehdi Hasan is the same "socialist" who defended the jew-hating Jenny Tonge, who defended the right-wing homophobia of Baroness Warsi, who exculpated the would-be assassin of Stephen Timms.</p>
<p>The same liberal "socialist" who, when amongst muslims in Pakistan, described jews, christians and hindus as animals of no intelligence.…</p>
<p></p>
<p>Here we get the same old selective quoting from a muslim shill. Mehdi Hasan is the same "socialist" who defended the jew-hating Jenny Tonge, who defended the right-wing homophobia of Baroness Warsi, who exculpated the would-be assassin of Stephen Timms.</p>
<p>The same liberal "socialist" who, when amongst muslims in Pakistan, described jews, christians and hindus as animals of no intelligence.</p>
<p><iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/APAPqT3QdFU?feature=player_embedded&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br/> <br/> <cite>Kinana said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://4freedoms.ning.com/forum/topics/iranian-pastor-yousef-nadarkhani-a-choice-of-death-or-islam?groupUrl=Iran&#3766518Comment82728"><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>the article from the Guardian:</p>
This brutality is not Islam<br/>
<p> </p>
by Mehdi Hasan in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/30/this-brutality-is-not-islam" target="_blank">Guardian</a>, September 30<br/>
<p> </p>
The death sentence given to Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran is an affront to universal moral values and a disservice to Muslims<br/>
<p> </p>
<p>Freedom of religion is guaranteed by Islam’s holy book in the famous verse: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion'.</p>
<p></p>
</div>
</blockquote> He has been executed. Strang…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-03-04:3766518:Comment:967972012-03-04T10:56:41.531ZJoehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/38DD
<p>He has been executed. Strangled to death.</p>
<p><a href="http://bluestarchronicles.com/2012/03/03/youcef-nadarkhani-executed-christian-pastor-hanged-in-iran-for-being-christian/" target="_blank">http://bluestarchronicles.com/2012/03/03/youcef-nadarkhani-executed-christian-pastor-hanged-in-iran-for-being-christian/</a></p>
<p>Time for Terry Jones to get hold of his box of matches. </p>
<p>He has been executed. Strangled to death.</p>
<p><a href="http://bluestarchronicles.com/2012/03/03/youcef-nadarkhani-executed-christian-pastor-hanged-in-iran-for-being-christian/" target="_blank">http://bluestarchronicles.com/2012/03/03/youcef-nadarkhani-executed-christian-pastor-hanged-in-iran-for-being-christian/</a></p>
<p>Time for Terry Jones to get hold of his box of matches. </p> So to all those that don't un…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-02-25:3766518:Comment:965232012-02-25T15:17:02.394Zpaul collingshttp://4freedoms.com/profile/paulcollings
<p>So to all those that don't understand. To keep the peace you must be a muslim, or you must die. How wonderfully simple. If you wish to cause sane men to go berserk and start killing innocent people, (including yourself) then find away to insult Allah the one true god (unless you can prove theres another one) and mohhamad his last hobbit. Which shouldn't be hard, just say 'i'm not a muslim' and away they'll go spitting, cursing and killing till the sun goes down... And sometimes even later!…</p>
<p>So to all those that don't understand. To keep the peace you must be a muslim, or you must die. How wonderfully simple. If you wish to cause sane men to go berserk and start killing innocent people, (including yourself) then find away to insult Allah the one true god (unless you can prove theres another one) and mohhamad his last hobbit. Which shouldn't be hard, just say 'i'm not a muslim' and away they'll go spitting, cursing and killing till the sun goes down... And sometimes even later! depends if they gotta get a couple of prayer sessions in before bed.</p>
<p> </p> An update on the fate of this…tag:4freedoms.com,2012-02-24:3766518:Comment:965152012-02-24T14:04:09.573ZKinanahttp://4freedoms.com/profile/Kinana
<p>An update on the fate of this man's ongoing persecution and suffering:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Iranian Christian pastor to be hanged ‘immediately’</b></p>
<p> </p>
<p>By <a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/ed/" title="Posts by Ed West">Ed West</a></p>
<p>Thursday, 23 February 2012</p>
<p>Youcef Nadarkhani, the Iranian Christian pastor sentenced to death for apostacy, is to be hanged “imminently”, an American human rights group is reporting.</p>
<p>The American Center for Law and…</p>
<p>An update on the fate of this man's ongoing persecution and suffering:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Iranian Christian pastor to be hanged ‘immediately’</b></p>
<p> </p>
<p>By <a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/ed/" title="Posts by Ed West">Ed West</a></p>
<p>Thursday, 23 February 2012</p>
<p>Youcef Nadarkhani, the Iranian Christian pastor sentenced to death for apostacy, is to be hanged “imminently”, an American human rights group is reporting.</p>
<p>The American Center for Law and Justice has been informed by contacts inside the Islamic republic that an execution order has been issued for Mr Nadarkhani, who has refused to recant his Christian faith and return to Islam.</p>
<p>Jordan Sekulow, executive director for the American Center for Law and Justice, told American news site msnbc.com yesterday evening that “At this point, we can confirm that he is still alive,” but that “We know that the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, must approve publicly held executions, but only a small percentage of executions are held in public — most executions in Iran are conducted in secret,” he said. “We are calling on the Iranian government to release the pastor immediately.”</p>
<p>Mr Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old father of two, was arrested and sentenced to death in Iran’s northern city of Rasht in 2009.</p>
<p>An appeals court upheld his sentence last year after he refused to reconvert to Islam, after he had been given three chances to recant. A member of the Protestant evangelical Church of Iran, Mr Nadarkhani was never formally a Muslim but came from a Muslim background.</p>
<p>The sentence has been widely condemned around the world, by among others US president Barack Obama, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. In October the Iranian state media claimed that Nadarkhani is facing the death sentence for rape and extortion, not for apostasy and evangelism.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p> First the Christians, then th…tag:4freedoms.com,2011-10-02:3766518:Comment:822982011-10-02T04:12:09.902ZAlan Lakehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/AlanLake
First the Christians, then the leftists. (In case you're wondering, they've already done the Gays).<br />
I'm not gloating, I'm just observing.
First the Christians, then the leftists. (In case you're wondering, they've already done the Gays).<br />
I'm not gloating, I'm just observing. the article from the Guardian…tag:4freedoms.com,2011-10-01:3766518:Comment:827282011-10-01T13:24:58.129ZKinanahttp://4freedoms.com/profile/Kinana
<p>the article from the Guardian:</p>
This brutality is not Islam<br />
<p> </p>
by Mehdi Hasan in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/30/this-brutality-is-not-islam" target="_blank">Guardian</a>, September 30<br />
<p> </p>
The death sentence given to Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran is an affront to universal moral values and a disservice to Muslims<br />
<p> </p>
<p>Freedom of religion is guaranteed by Islam’s holy book in the famous verse: ‘Let there be no compulsion in…</p>
<p>the article from the Guardian:</p>
This brutality is not Islam<br />
<p> </p>
by Mehdi Hasan in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/30/this-brutality-is-not-islam" target="_blank">Guardian</a>, September 30<br />
<p> </p>
The death sentence given to Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran is an affront to universal moral values and a disservice to Muslims<br />
<p> </p>
<p>Freedom of religion is guaranteed by Islam’s holy book in the famous verse: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion'.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 1948, most of the world's Muslim-majority nations signed up to the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>, including <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a18">article 18</a>, "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" which includes, crucially, the "freedom to change his religion or belief". The then Pakistani foreign minister, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zafarullah_Khan">Muhammad Zafarullah Khan</a>, wrote: "Belief is a matter of conscience, and conscience cannot be compelled."</p>
<p>Fast-forward to 2011: 14 Muslim-majority nations make conversion away from Islam illegal; several – including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Sudan – impose the death penalty on those who disbelieve. The self-styled Islamic Republic of Iran has sentenced to <a href="http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16079451">death by hanging a Christian pastor, born to Muslim parents, for ap...</a>. At the time of writing, Youcef Nadarkhani, head of a network of Christian house churches in Iran, is on death row for refusing to recant and convert back to Islam.</p>
<p>The decision to execute Nadarkhani beggars belief. For a start, the sentence handed down by judges in the pastor's home city of Rasht a year ago, and affirmed by the country's supreme court in June, is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but Iran's own constitution. <a href="http://www.unesco.org/most/rr3iran.htm">Article 23</a> is crystal clear: "The investigation of individuals' beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief."</p>
<p>Pleas for clemency from the archbishop of Canterbury, the UK's foreign secretary and Amnesty International, among others, have fallen on deaf ears in Tehran. Meanwhile the silence from the world's Muslims – especially the UK's usually voluble Muslim organisations and self-appointed "community leaders" – has been shameful. The irony is that I have yet to come across an ordinary Muslim who agrees that a fellow believer who loses, changes or abandons his or her faith should be hanged. Yet frustratingly few Muslims are willing to speak out against such medieval barbarism. We mumble excuses, avert our eyes.</p>
<p>There is a misguided assumption among many Muslims that such an abhorrent punishment is divinely mandated. It isn't. Classical Muslim jurists wrongly conflated apostasy with treason. The historical fact is that the prophet Muhammad never had anyone executed for apostasy alone. In one well-documented case, when a Bedouin man disowned his decision to convert to Islam and left the city of Medina, the prophet took no action against him, remarking only that, "Medina is like a pair of bellows: it expels its impurities and brightens and clears its good".</p>
<p>Nor does the Qur'an say that a Muslim who apostasises be given any penalty. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by Islam's holy book in the famous verse: "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256). Apostasy is deemed a sin, but the Qur'an repeatedly refers to punishment in the next world, not this one. Take the 137th verse of chapter 4: "Those who believe then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, God will never forgive them nor guide them to the Way" (4:137). This verse, which explicitly allows for disbelief, followed by belief, followed once again by disbelief, suggests any punishment is for God to deliver – not judges in Iran, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the judgment in the Nadarkhani case is based not on Qur'anic verses but the fatwas of various ayatollahs. Fatwas, however, differ. For example, the late <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein-Ali_Montazeri">Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri,</a> a grand ayatollah and one-time heir apparent to Ayatollah Khomeini, argued that the death penalty for apostasy was originally prescribed to punish only political conspiracies against the nascent Islamic community; Montazeri believed Muslims today should be free to convert to another religion.</p>
<p>The decision to execute Nadarkhani, therefore, is both an affront to universal moral values and a disservice to the cause of Islam. There can be no freedom of religion without the freedom to leave or change one's religion. To try to control a person's mind and heart, their thoughts and beliefs, is the ultimate negation of individual freedom. It is totalitarianism, pure and simple.</p>
<p>It also doesn't work. Another late Iranian ayatollah, and high-profile ally of Khomeini, Murtaza Muttahari, once wrote of the sheer pointlessness of any and all measures to compel belief upon a Muslim (or ex-Muslim!), arguing that it was impossible to force anyone to hold the level of rationally inspired faith required by the religion of Islam. "It is not possible to spank a child into solving an arithmetical problem," proclaimed Muttahari. "His mind and thought must be left free in order that he may solve it. The Islamic faith is something of this kind." Muslims have to ask ourselves: Is the God we worship so weak and needy that he requires us to force our fellow humans to worship him? Is our religion so frail and insecure that it cannot tolerate any rejection whatsoever? And why are we silent as an innocent Christian is sentenced to death in the name of Islam? To hang a man for refusing to believe in Islam is theologically and morally unjustifiable; it is not just unIslamic but anti-Islamic.</p>