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HELP STOP IRAN KILLING PASTOR YOUCEF FOR HIS FAITH
By Philip Rosenthal
www.ChristianView.org
February 23, 2012
Yesterday, an Iranian court condemned pastor Youcef Nadarkhani to death for his faith on a charge of apostacy because he had been born into a muslim family, but professed faith in Christ. Pastor Youcef refused the courts offer that he save his life by converting back to Islam or declaring Mohammed a prophet. He became a target when he protested attempts to force his own children to receive Islamic education. Read more at http://goo.gl/Glror
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of increasing radicalisation in Islamic countries from North Africa to Afghanistan. In Pakistan, a peasant woman Asia Bibi is alo facing execution. After a religious argument with other women in her village, she was falsely accused of insulting the prophet Mohammed. Two senior government leaders who spoke up against such persecution were assassinated by Islamic radicals. She claimed a prison warder tried to strangle her.
Watch the moving interview with Pakistani Cabinet Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, just before his martyrdom - while defending her and others freedom of religion in Pakistan. http://goo.gl/pKqcl
Many Christians have been fooled by the so-called 'Arab Spring' overthrow of Middle East dictatorships into thinking the region was democratising. Actually, corrupt but relatively religiously tolerant authoritarian governments are being replaced with much more intolerant radical Islamic ones. Many are fooled by the Western occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan into thinking this means Western freedom of religion - actually, things have got much worse - there are no church buildings left standing in Afghanistan - and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled Islamic terrorism.
But why is something so far away relevant to South African Christians - shouldn't we rather just let big countries like America deal with this persecution? Don't we have enough problems of our own? Actually, South Africa does have leaverage with many of these countries - we have much commercial and sport relations with them. For example, Irancell, one of their cellular networks is co-owned by MTN and the Iranian military http://www.irancell.ir/en/layer2/?id=221. We are regularly playing cricket with Pakistan, where our brothers are at risk of being unjustly put to death for their faith. By contrast, America has comprehensive sanctions against Iran - and really they have few options left to pressure them. But that relationship with these countries gives us both an opportunity and responsibility to influence them towards respecting our faith. Okay, but why worry about something so far away? Because we are far away, we have more freedom to speak up - those who speak up in these countries, like Shahbaz Bhatti tend to get martyred.
Please email the South African ambassador in Iran asking him to speak up to save pastor Youcef tehran.political@foreign.gov.za or phone him at + 98 21 2270 2866 You can also ask MTN Irancell to speak up for Pastor Youcef at cs@mtnirancell.ir
I own one share in MTN Ltd, and as an investor have written to the company asking them to protest the conviction of Pastor Youcef. Consider also buying shares in companies so that you can speak up as an investor to influence that company's policy for good.
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