Release warns of persecution threat against British Muslim converts
Posted: Monday, July 7, 2008, 13:08 (BST)
A growing number of Christians in Britain from a Muslim background are facing harassment and persecution, warns Release International.
They include 'Yasmin', whose ex-husband planned to kill her. She's been attacked in the street, driven from her home and was taken under police protection.
Yasmin became a Christian after receiving a vision of Jesus during the difficult birth of her son. She tried to keep her faith a secret from her family, but eventually told her mother.
"When my mother found out I had become a Christian she went to the local mosque and told them that I had gone crazy," Yasmin told Release International, which serves the persecuted church in 30 nations.
"She went to get some holy water to heal me of my madness. A campaign was set up against me; people would come and bang on the door every ten minutes during the night."
The police set up a panic alarm but finally told Yasmin they could no longer protect her and moved her into a women's refuge.
Yasmin relocated to another part of the country, but her ex-husband tracked her down and demanded custody of their children as he objected to them being brought up by a Christian.
She says: "He continually intimidated and harassed me and hired someone to beat me in the street. Wherever we went there would always be a car following us and watching us."
Her son yielded to pressure and went to live with his dad. "He only stayed one night," says Yasmin, "as his dad told him that he had arranged for someone to kill me and was pressing my son for details of the layout of our home - where the alarm was and where I slept."
Yasmin went into hiding with her son and took out an injunction against her husband. The harassment stopped, but that was not the end of the trouble.
Have your say on this article
The comments below are readers' personal opinions and are in no way intended to reflect the editorial opinion of Christian Today.
Added: Friday, July 11, 2008, 12:58 (BST)
I am glad that we have the 2nd Amendment in America, here she could protect herself from such savages.
Colt, USA
Added: Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 14:21 (BST)
Chris Maguire
Correction - in the Iranian Parliament they announced that there are 1 million converts to Christianity in Iran - and that there was an exodus from Islam.
They have been seeking the death penalty and imprisonment for those Iranians who have converted from Islam to Christianity.
If government statistics cite 1 million converts - there could likely be 2 - 4 times this amount as most church services are held in secret within people homes.
What is worrying - is that if they start killing Christian en masse - it could amount to a genocide.
Marie, London
Added: Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 18:29 (BST)
Why do people who receive Jesus into their lives continue to remain Christians even after the most dire pressure exerted on them to recant? What is it about Jesus that holds Christians so tightly to Him?
True Christians ought to know the answer, but often we don't even know why we are Christians at all. We forget, or find ourselves in deep, comfortable ruts. And get all screwed up about women priests, or the role of the church buildings in our communities. This story should be posted on all the front doors of all our churches, and be used to shake us out of our complacency. Christianity is being squeezed and denigrated beyond what is reasonable to prick our own sense of pompousness. True Christians need to wake up.
Also, Iran has passed a law to arrest converts to Christianity, from Islam, and taken to prison until they recant. Only God knows what will happen to them to make them do that, or what may happen if they don't. And there are over 60,000 Christians in Iran - what of them?
Does the church in the UK know, or care, about it; will the General Synod, or the Lambeth Conference delegates, discuss the situation and resolve to do something about it; are Christians praying about these things effectively, or are they just relying on the tired old liturgical formularies to cover the situations? We don't know that we are alive. If persecution ever comes to these shores in a big way - you know where it could come from, just read the papers - then we Christians will be in trouble, and no amount of hand-wringing, PC, liberal kow-towing will be enough to stop it - whether the persecution is via statutary means or otherwise!
Christians, PRAY!!
Chris Maguire, Ventnor, IoW
Added: Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 9:22 (BST)
No one wants to see the suppression of human rights and death threats. However are we always aware of the major sociological problems encountered when a Muslim becomes a Christian. I sense that there are issues which need to be examined very closely before blithely talking about conversion.
For many years I was associated with the Cape Malay community in Cape Town. I found their society to be harmonious, and the support of the extended family was deeply valued by them. I am afraid I have to admit that western Christianity has very little to offer in that regard. Quite aside from that there are very good reason why Muslims have an intense hatred for all things Christian. I know many will counter 'ah yes, but that is not true christianity'. Well that may be the case, but that is the way Christians are perceived by Muslims, and we need to change that perception rather than unsettle a society which has a great deal to offer the individual.
GORDON, Haddenham, United Kingdom
