Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
The pope pleaded with Pakistan yesterday to abrogate its blasphemy law which allows the killing of those who “insult” Muhammad or the Koran; a senior Pakistani leader, Salman Taseer, was assassinated recently for protesting the death sentence of a Christian woman for the “crime” of converting. The pope was immediately condemned by a senior Muslim cleric for “interfering” in the “Islamic ideological state,” and the leader of the most powerful Islamic party accused the pope of “insulting” Muslims worldwide. Prior to this, more than 500 “moderate” Muslim clerics and scholars defended the assassin. Not only did 50,000 Pakistanis take to the streets last Sunday in support of the assassination, according to a distinguished Pakistani journalist, “educated and articulate Pakistanis chided Taseer, even in death, for writing his own death warrant.” And these were the educated ones!
On Christmas Eve, 38 Christians were killed in Nigeria (2,000 were murdered earlier in the year); on Christmas Day, a Catholic chapel was bombed in the Philippines by an al-Qaida funded group; on Dec. 30, there were 11 bomb attacks on Christians in Iraq (58 were murdered on Oct. 31 at a Catholic cathedral); during the Christmas season, Iran arrested dozens of Christians who were former Muslims; and on New Year’s Day, at least 23 Catholics were killed during Mass in Egypt (the killings were justified by clerics in Mauritania, and Iran’s official TV organ blamed Jews). Moreover, Saudi Arabia makes it illegal to practice Christianity; Yemen is threatening to expel Christian workers; Christians who feed starving Somalis are targeted for murder; churches in Indonesia have been ravaged; and two million Christians have been murdered by Sudanese Muslims over the past two decades (many were crucified).
According to Open Doors, which monitors Christian persecution, of the top ten most violent places on earth for Christians to live, eight are run by Muslims, and an estimated 100 million Christians worldwide live in fear.
The central problem is the “Islamic ideological state.” There is no such thing as the “Christian or Jewish ideological state.” Let’s face it—Muslim barbarism has been mainstreamed in the name of Islam.
