French publication fuels Muslim anger

(Story Photo by Rae Burnett)

Egypt (MNN) ― The last day or two have been without blaring headlines describing Muslim rioting, but that could all change. 

A French magazine this week published vulgar caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, despite government entreaties not to publish the images. In response, the French government ordered embassies and schools to close Friday in about 20 countries.

The incident is likely to raise tensions that were already dangerously high. It follows days of violent protests from Asia to Africa against the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Muslims" and turned France into a potential target of Muslim rage

But don't be fooled, says Rae Burnett with Christian Aid Mission. "The film was just a pretext for the violence." She goes on to explain that the event gave a cover story for lashing out at intended targets--a theory that's been substantiated by the Libyan government. Further, says Burnett, "Since the violence has subsided, nothing has gotten better because these believers are in grave danger. They're afraid of being slaughtered because everything is intensifying."

That concern is magnified by the feeling of isolation. "They [extremists] are overtly burning churches and persecuting Christians and kidnapping their children...just terrible things far surpassing what they used to experience, and the world is silent." 

Burnett says the real story is the uncertainty. Christian Aid supports indigenous ministries who seek to engage the lost people of Egypt through holding house meetings, setting up Bible training, and doing evangelistic outreach. She explains that "one of these guys called me the first day of the rioting in Egypt and said, ‘They're burning Bibles in front of the U.S. embassy.' They were doing those kinds of things just to show their hostility, and they were burning churches and things that weren't reported."

The threat plays out on the political stage, but Burnett says, "This is all spiritual warfare. We're seeing it in a political environment because that's the environment through which this takes place. But the point is to destroy the work of the Lord and to destroy those who might come into the Kingdom, to keep people in darkness."

Given that understanding, the workers supported by Christian Aid Mission haven't fled. "It hasn't diminished any of their efforts. The main group that we help just had a conference of their workers, training their workers and praying together to ask the Lord for direction. So they are going forward in the work, but they are really discouraged about the political situation and the future of Christianity in Egypt." 

They're careful, but they won't be intimidated. Burnett says the Coptic Church is targeted because they have a noticeable presence in Egypt. However, "The people that we're helping generally meet in homes. They might have an office somewhere if they can afford that, so they're less of a target. Of course, because of their evangelistic efforts, people know who they are."

The Gospel, as she's said multiple times, is still going forward. It's about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the worn out believers of Egypt and advancing together. Burnett says, "We have to understand that and pray accordingly and act accordingly to be lights in the darkness." Pray for creative and effective approaches to spread God's Word in Egypt. Pray for open hearts. Pray for change in the chaos.

Turmoil in the Middle East spreads

(File photos courtesy SAT-7)

Middle East (MNN/SAT7) ―Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has called for a nationwide peaceful demonstration today to condemn insults to Prophet Mohammad from an amateurish film.

The announcement followed the attacks against U.S. Embassies in Libya and Egypt. Demonstrators also attacked the U.S. embassies in Yemen and Egypt (again) on Thursday. The spreading turmoil was a response to a film they consider blasphemous to Islam.

An investigation has begun into the events surrounding Tuesday's attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya, which resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Eight Libyans were injured in that violence.

Protests also erupted in Iraq and Iran, as students in Tehran protested outside the Swiss embassy. In Bangladesh, Islamists tried to march on the U.S. embassy in Dhaka but were turned back by police. There were also reported protests at U.S. missions in Tunisia, Sudan, and Morocco.

The film may have been the vehicle used to stir up tensions, especially in light of the September 11 anniversary. SAT-7 CEOTerry Ascott says, "That reaction is inflamed by people who have a vested interest, like Al Qaeda, in exploiting people's anger at the West. It's a bit of a coincidence, one might say, that this flared up all within hours in Egypt, in Yemen, in Libya, in other places. It seems somewhat orchestrated."

Security was being increased at U.S. diplomatic stations around the globe, but what about ministries? "There have been specific threats against, for example, Egyptian Christians in Yemen and churches and Christians, in general...anyone who is a ‘cross worshipper,' as they say in the street."

Ascott goes on to say, "It's not the people that are making the movies or the cartoons in the Western world that pay the price for their enjoyment of free speech. It is the Christians in the Middle East that bear the brunt of the reaction that inevitably comes."

Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it's a common belief that Christianity is a Western religion. Therefore, when trouble occurs similar to what's happened this week, entities with Western connections are targeted, and that includes ministries.

SAT-7 has an office in Cairo. When asked if there was a contingency plan for the staff, Ascott first said, "We do have heavy fences and cameras and security people around our building, but it certainly would not be enough if a mob decided to attack the building."

However, Ascott went on to explain that they're also being vigilant. "If there are signs of trouble, we would try to evacuate our staff from the premises before that got out of hand. But we don't have armed guards on the building to protect it from a riot."

Still, the staff is putting together programs that will address much of what has happened this week in the region.

Interestingly, the SAT-7 ARABIC team had already begun a series of programs called Forbidden, which address issues relevant to North Africa. Presenter Emad D. is a Tunisian poet and pastor. The inspiration for the program comes from John 11:35, "Jesus wept." Emad wants to show the Arab world that Jesus cares about them and weeps over them.

Emad hopes to use testimonies to demonstrate that the Church is spreading all over the world, and longs to see equality between people of all religions--with more respect for new believers. Ascott states that the program aims to overcome negative perceptions of the Church.

Another team is doing a live show on Saturday. Ascott says, "In the situation with the Middle East where there are so many agendas, so many tensions between so many different groups, we're trying to bring reconciliation through better understanding, advocacy of forgiveness, and so on--some of the things that are unique in the Christian Gospel."

Pray wisdom for the production teams. Pray for safety for the staff. Pray for peace to return. Pray for open hearts.

Arab Spring Brings the Decline of Secularism in Tunisia

Throughout the Middle East, long-standing dictators just ousted in the Arab Spring are being replaced by more oppressive forms of governance, even in the Arab world’s most liberal country, Tunisia

By Aidan Clay
Special to ASSIST News Service

TUNIS, TUNISIA (ANS) -- Widely seen as the most secular country that recently deposed long-standing leaders, many believed that Tunisia had the greatest opportunity to elect a moderate government concerned with democratic principles and human rights. However, the hopes of secularists, Christians, and other minorities were crippled in October when the Islamist Ennahda party won 41 percent of the votes for a national constitutional assembly, a one-year body charged with writing a constitution.

Uprising in Tunis that ousted President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali

Along with other Islamist movements, Ennahda – at the time called the Movement of the Islamic Tendency – had been outlawed under former President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. Robin Wright, an American foreign affairs analyst and author of Sacred Rage, described the Islamic Tendency as “the single most threatening opposition force [to Ben Ali’s regime] in Tunis.”

Ennahda’s founder and chairman is Rashid Ghannouchi. He considers himself a pupil of Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, defended the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, and supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990. In a speech given in Khartoum just before the Gulf War erupted, Ghannouchi said, “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world,” The Brussels Journal reported.

Martin Kramer, the renowned Middle East scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, labeled Ghannouchi “the most prominent Islamist in the West” during his 22-year exile in the U.K. At an Islamic Conference on Palestine attended by leaders of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 1990, Ghannouchi said, “The greatest danger to civilization, religion and world peace is the United States Administration. It is the Great Satan.”

The international community has ignored this extremist rhetoric and extolled Tunisia’s revolutionary motives for ‘greater freedoms.’ However, Ennahda is beginning to show its true colors by attacking freedom of speech and tacitly disregarding violent Islamist movements calling for an Islamic state.

Death of Free Speech

Nabil Karoui, the owner of Tunisian channel Nessma TV, is currently on trial for blasphemy after airing the French-Iranian animated film Persepolis which features a cartoon depiction of God and is considered sacrilege to some Muslims. Nearly 140 lawyers filed lawsuits against Karoui for “violating sacred values” and “disturbing public order,” Tunisia Live reported. Following the release of the film in Tunisia, a Salifist-led mob damaged Karoui’s house with Molotov cocktails on October 14. If convicted, Karoui could face three to five years in prison. His trial has been adjourned until April 19, 2012.

“I am very sad when I see that the people that burned my house are free while I am here because I broadcast a film which was authorized,” Karoui told reporters outside the courtroom. He described the trial as the “death of freedom of expression [in Tunisia],” AP reported.

While Human Rights Watch called the trial “a disturbing turn for the nascent Tunisian democracy,” Ghannouchi, the voice of the Ennahda party, backed the trial, saying, “I support the Tunisians’ right to denounce this attack on their religion,” reported The New York Times.

On February 15, in a second disturbing attack on free speech in Tunisia, a publisher and two editors of Tunisia’s Attounissia newspaper were arrested on charges of violating public morals for publishing a revealing photograph of a German-Tunisian football player with his girlfriend. 

The arrests raised further concerns among secularists that the Islamist-led government will increasingly seek to censor material it deems offensive to Islam.

Mongi Khadraoui, a senior member of the Tunisian journalists’ union, told The Independent that article 121 of Tunisia’s penal code, which was used to detain the three journalists, was introduced to arrest opponents of Ben Ali’s 23-year-old regime, and that, while the publication of the photograph was a mistake, it “should be treated as a professional error rather than a crime.”

“This issue is political and aims to quell the voice of the media and stop it [from] criticizing the government,” Jihen Lagmari, a journalist at Attounissia, told Reuters. Lagmari also said she received telephone calls threatening to burn down the paper’s headquarters.

Islamists vs. Secularists

On February 17, hundreds of Salafis – who follow the strict Wahhabi doctrine of Islam – protested in the streets of Tunis with signs calling for Islamic law and shouting “Allah Akbar” after Friday prayers, AP reported.

Thus, Islamists have used their newly gained freedoms to threaten the very freedoms and values of secularists. If Islamists continue to gain power, violations against the rights of non-Muslims and liberals will inevitably continue. However, some believe the elections – that brought the Islamist Ennahda party to power – do not accurately represent the voice of the population’s majority.

“In October 2011, when Tunisia’s first post-revolutionary national elections took place… the turnout was 80 percent; but not, as was deceptively reported by the Western media, 80 percent of the total Tunisian population, but rather 80 percent of the 50 percent who had bothered to register to vote,” British author and journalist John R. Bradley wrote in his book After the Arab Spring. “In other words: Ennahda won despite the fact that more than 80 percent of all voting-age Tunisians did not actually vote for the party.”

Tunis witnessed the secularists’ response when over 6,000 demonstrators chanted slogans “No to extremism” and “No niqab, no to Salafism” in a march for freedom of expression on January 28, Tunisia Live reported. Protestors also called for the government to stop the rise of an Islamist-based society, which would derail Tunisia’s transition to democracy and threaten the gains made by the revolution.

Mustapha Tlili, the founder of the New York-based Center for Dialogues, views the recent actions taken by Islamists as an indicator that Islamists are hijacking the revolution. “Those that staged the revolution see it being stolen and hijacked,” Tlili told Middle East Online. “The Islamists’ discourse is to withdraw Tunisia from its natural environment and make it adopt Islamist values that are not those of the majority of Tunisians. They reject these values because they are not part of their daily life or vision of Islam.”

“We’ve become the ahl al-dhimma,” Abdelhalim Messaoudi, a journalist at Nessma TV, told The New York Times in reference to the second-class status minorities have historically been subjected to in Muslim states. “It’s like the Middle Ages.”

What’s Next? An Islamic State?

On February 20, Aridha Chaabia, or Popular List, the third-largest party in Tunisia's constituent assembly, proposed drafting a constitution based on Islamic law, Reuters reported. If the proposal wins the support of more than 60 percent of parliamentarians, it could pass without a referendum. Rashid Ghannouchi’s Ennahda party, which will have the strongest voice in the vote, has already alluded to its endorsement of an Islamic-based constitution.

Protestors in Tunis

Hamadi Jebali, the Prime Minister of the Ennahda party, implied in mid-November that he sought a return of the Muslim caliphate. He further stated at a rally near his hometown of Sousse, standing side-by-side with a lawmaker from the Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas, that “the liberation of Tunisia will, God willing, bring about the liberation of Jerusalem,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

“[Ghannouchi’s] only condition for Muslim democracy to flourish is the sharing of the immutable principles of Islam as a shared set of values,” Larbi Sadiki, a senior lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, wrote in an editorial for Al Jazeera.

Samir Dilou, spokesman for the Ennahdha Party, tried to ease secularists’ concerns in an interview in May: “We do not want a theocracy. We want a democratic state that is characterized by the idea of freedom. The people must decide for themselves how they live…We are not an Islamist party, we are an Islamic party, which gets its direction from the principles of the Quran.”

But, can an Islamic party governed by the principles of the Quran value the freedoms of the country’s secularists, including its religious minorities? Katharine Cornell Gorka, the Executive Director of The Westminster Institute, does not think so.

“Of all the people in the world, Americans first and foremost should recognize the absurdity of [Dilou’s] statement,” Gorka wrote. “All the evidence is there to suggest that Tunisia’s new government will prove antagonistic both to American interests and to the values America is built on. That is not to suggest we should have intervened to create a different outcome. Tunisia’s fate is its own. But neither should we be at the front of the cheering section, applauding what will likely be a long and brutal lesson for Tunisia on what happens when religion is enchained with politics.”

Recent indicators in Tunisia suggest that Islam and democracy are not and cannot be compatible. John R. Bradley, in his book After the Arab Spring, offers an alarming glimpse into Tunisia’s future governance: “[Ghannouchi] is for democracy ‘as a system of government and a method of change’ but – and here comes the conversation stopper – only insofar as it is compatible with Islam. The Quran remains the sole authoritative bases for legislation, whose earthly manifestation are the scholars… who interpret it so that the state’s function is essentially executive in nature. To put it in a nutshell: Islam is the answer to everything, the final authority, and the sole source of legitimacy of government.”

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Aidan Clay is the Middle East Regional Manager for International Christian Concern (ICC), a Washington, DC-based human rights organization that exists to support persecuted Christians worldwide by providing awareness, advocacy, and assistance (www.persecution.org). Aidan is a graduate from Biola University in Southern California. Prior to joining ICC, Aidan worked with Samaritan’s Purse in South Sudan and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Africa and Europe. He and his wife currently live in Nairobi, Kenya. For more information, contact Aidan Clay at clay@persecution.org 

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