Egypt: Lawyers call for death sentence for convert from islam

by Kal El on March 2, 2009 · Comments

We all remember the mantra, “There is no compulsion in religion.”. Yet here we are again with another call for the killing of an apostate.

EGYPT: ISLAMIC LAWYERS URGE DEATH SENTENCE FOR CONVERT

In case on whether he can legally change religion, Christian is accused of ‘apostasy.’

ISTANBUL, February 26 (Compass Direct News) – In the latest hearing of a Muslim-born Egyptian’s effort to officially convert to Christianity, opposing lawyers advocated he be convicted of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, and sentenced to death.

More than 20 Islamic lawyers attended the hearing on Sunday (Feb. 22) in Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary’s case to obtain identification papers with Christianity designated as his religious affiliation. Two lawyers led the charge, Ahmed Dia El-Din and Abdel Al-Migid El-Anani.

“[El-Din] started to talk about the Quran being in a higher position than the Bible,” one of El-Gohary’s lawyers, Said Fayez, told Compass. “[El-Din said] people can move to a higher religion but not down, so people cannot move away from Islam because it is highest in rank.”

Memos submitted by opposing lawyers asserted that cases such as El-Gohary’s form part of a U.S. Zionist attack on Islam in Egypt, that Christianity is an inferior religion to Islam and that Copts protect and defend converts from Islam at their own peril.

“We received 150 pages from them that talked about religion,” said Fayez. “We are not in a position to talk about religion, we are only talking about the law.”

So much for islam respecting the Bible and the Torah, which we so often hear from islam apologists. Not to mention the question I often ask, but never get a valid answer to “If islam is so perfect and wonderful, why are people leaving in such huge numbers, and why do the heads in charge want to kill them?”.

Link to full article.

Related posts:

  1. The Christian plight in muslim Egypt
  2. Egypt: Christian Girl and Her Father on the run trying to escape death sentence of Apostasy
  3. Bangladesh: Christian convert from islam receives usual death threats
  4. Iran passes law calling for death penalty for all converts from islam
  5. Ethiopia: Convert from islam jailed for distribution of Bibles
  6. Egyptian Authorities starving Christian kids to force mom to convert back to islam
  7. Somalia: Christian convert hunted down and killed for leaving islam
  8. Somalia: Another convert to Christianity executed thanks to islam
  9. Afghanistan: Marines forced to call lawyers before approving airstrike
  10. Jordan: Court annuls Christian convert’s marriage
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  • straliangirl
    When you say the gun didnt kill the man, the person did, well consider religion like being the gun one carries around. Ready to be used against anyone by the person.
    Lets get rid of the gun!!!! The person might have to use his brain instead!
  • Tonto
    I'd rather have a gun to face an angry islamic fanatic than any peace loving rhetoric....I think a gun would be oh so much more effective as an arguement. More final too.
  • straliangirl
    Islam reminds me of Scientology, stand over merchants
  • Tonto
    A person's relationship with the "Higher Power" is that man's alone. He alone is the one who will face the reward or wrath of that Higher Power at the end of his life. No power on earth has the right to dictate, nor can they in reality, who or what any man will claim as his Higher Power.
  • undignified
    I see what you are saying. I just think the blame gets put on the cause rather than the person who committed it too often and then we forget to deal with the people and try to take on the whole cause. I guess it's like trying to shove a whole pizza in our mouths instead of taking a piece at a time. I could be wrong, i often am. Speaking and such before i really think about it. But I am a comtemplator so i would forever be thinking and never doing.
    My point exactly about being right in their own mind and being silent. But I cant presume to know what they would think or do. Just maybe that they are silent because they are afriad everything they have been taught is unraveling before them. That's a big deal. So rather than risk acknowledging that they were wrong, they remain silent. That way they don't have to deal with everything they have known and lived, the principles they have in the past defended, becoming untrue. I think people do this all the time.
  • Walter Lane
    Gee...I guess that the "highest" religion has to force people to stay IN the "highest" religion.
  • undignified
    It's like saying the gun killed a man, when it didn't, the person did. I just think to say religion causes it is viewing it in a tiny scope. People make up a religion and decide what is right or not. We are the hands that move it all. They say honor killing are religious when there is something much deeper going on. People use religion as an exuse. Religion could cease to exist and then they would find something else to pin it on.
    As for a Muslim reader responding, what could they possibly say. The most certainly won't say you were right, so by staying silent, they remain right in their own minds. I wish they would though. I would love to see how they defend this. I can just feel the war going on inside of them.
  • Kal_El
    Actually the bullet is what kills the victim. The person is merely the facilitator, if you want to get technical...
  • Undignified
    Touché. I like technical.
  • Beejj
    I disagree. "Religionists" are only too happy to claim credit for their religion when its followers perform good deeds in its name, so they must accept discredit when, as in this case, their convictions lead to evil.

    What might a "moderate" Muslim say about this case if he/she believes the action runs counter to the teachings of the Koran? Plenty. What do you mean by "right in their own minds"? Do you mean our moderate friend would think, "This is wrong, but I am not prepared to say or do anything about it"? To remain mute is to condone.
  • undignified
    Religion doesn't do this, people do this in the name of religion.
  • Beejj
    Religion is a man-made construct, so you cannot divorce it from the acts, beneficial or otherwise, of its followers. That's a cop-out. Yes, Jesus would have wept oceans to witness the vile practices of Christians over the millenia (Mohammed would no doubt be proud of his followers), so the blame for their excesses cannot be laid at his door, but the fact remains that such deeds were committed in the name of their religion, so religion was the cause.

    I wonder if any Muslim reader will write to respond to this article about the Egyptian lawyers. Bet they won't. They remain curiously silent at such times. One of them has even said that Islam does NOT sanction the death penalty for apostasy, claiming that the Koran advocates no such thing, but what was that old saying about actions speaking louder than words?
  • These people are totally crazy.
    Religion is always doing this sort of thing.
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