U.S. Copts Association

By   Amr Bayoumi   

Coptic delegations and human rights organizations met with members of the National Democratic Party (NDP) to present documents calling for unified laws on building houses of worship and to discuss issues of citizenship and equality.

Media Secretary for the NDP Alieddin Hilal, met with a Coptic delegation headed by Naguib Gobrael, head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organization, and Nabil Abdel Malek, head of the Canadian-Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, at the NDP’s headquarters two days ago.¼br> Read the rest…

By Christian Fraser
BBC News, Cairo

In the time of the Pharaohs, absolute rule that went with being king traditionally passed from father to son - though not always without a fight.

Modern-day Egyptians can be forgiven for wondering whether history is set to repeat itself.

Their president, Hosni Mubarak, has been in power for 28 years and has no designated successor. But at the age of 81, Mr Mubarak is widely believed to be grooming his son, Gamal, a banker by training, to inherit the “Throne of Egypt”.
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By   Sami Abdel Radi and Ahmed Abdel Latif   

Public prosecutors in the capital’s Giza district on Wednesday ordered the arrest of a police officer, along with 11 others, charged with kidnapping a man at gunpoint and briefly holding him prisoner in the southern Fayoum province.
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By Jennifer Riley

Christian Post Reporter

Religious converts are more active in keeping basic commitments of their new faith than non-converts, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The analysis, released Thursday, found that those who switched faiths or joined a faith after being raised unaffiliated with a religion are more likely to say religion is very important to them; say that they are absolutely certain of their belief in God; attend religious services weekly; pray daily; share their faith and views on God weekly; and say there is one true faith.

More specifically, sixty-nine percent of converts say religion is very important to them, compared to 62 percent of non-converts. And 82 percent of converts say they are absolutely certain of their belief in God, compared to the 77 percent of non-converts.
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by Tom Strode   

WASHINGTON (BP)–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke forcefully against international efforts to adopt policies outlawing the defamation of religions while presenting the Obama administration’s first report on global religious freedom.

The State Department issued its annual assessment of the conditions for religious expression in 198 countries, the first such report since President Obama took office in January. The report, issued Oct. 26, demonstrates there have been both positive and negative trends in the last year, a State Department official told reporters.
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Islam is a religion not a race. Therefore, like any religion or belief, it has to be open to criticism and even ridicule. This becomes even more important in this day and age give that it is the ideology behind a political movement that is wreaking havoc across the world. It must be criticised and ridiculed because that is how throughout history reaction has been pushed back. Our criticism is often all we have to fight this movement.
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by NICK BUNKLEY   

The New York Times

Federal agents on Wednesday fatally shot a man they described as the leader of a violent Sunni Muslim separatist group in Detroit. The 53-year-old man, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, was killed in one of three raids conducted in and around the city, in which six followers of his were taken into custody.

Mr. Abdullah, whom the agents were trying to arrest in Dearborn on charges that included illegal possession and sale of firearms and conspiracy to sell stolen goods, refused to surrender and began firing at them from a warehouse, according to a statement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States attorney’s office in Detroit. He was shot in the return fire, the statement said.
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About 10,000 Bibles from Indonesia were confiscated by authorities on Sept. 11, according to the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, according to The Associated Press. The other 5,100 Bibles, also from Indonesia, were seized in March, according to an official from the Bible Society of Malaysia, who requested that AP not identify him to avoid angering the government.

In Malaysia, Christian publications cannot use the word Allah to refer to God. The government contends the word “Allah” is exclusively for Islam, but church officials argue that Allah is not exclusive to Islam because it is an Arabic word that existed before the religion.
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An al-Qaeda sleeper agent has been jailed in the US for plotting to provide material support for terrorism.

Ali al-Marri was held two months after the 9/11 attacks. He admitted having regular contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind.

Al-Marri, a dual Saudi-Qatari national, pleaded guilty in May, having spent about six years in US custody.

Jailing him for eight years, the judge said he considered it likely al-Marri would attack the US if he could.
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Vast majority of Egyptians criticize Tantawi for being more concerned with upholding current regime than religious principles.

By Yasser Khalil - CAIRO

Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo is one of the oldest and most respected Sunni religious institutions in the world. It works hard to uphold the image of Islam by supporting tolerance, urging Muslims to avoid extremism and rendering edicts on the proper behaviour for Muslims - such as respect for one’s neighbours and the need to practice charity towards anyone in need. It also teaches the basic principles of coexistence that are entrenched in Islamic ideology and practice.

Egyptians have respected Al-Azhar scholars since the founding of the institution over 1,000 years ago; its Grand Imams have been honourable and trusted figures in society. Since Dr. Mohammed Sayed Tantawi became Grand Imam in 1996, however, Egyptians have come to distrust Al-Azhar, judging Tantawi to be more concerned with upholding the current regime than religious principles.
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by Dr Patrick Sookhdeo

Recent months have seen a number of unexpected and extremely encouraging statements coming out of the Muslim world.  Respected, mainstream Muslim leaders in a variety of countries have voiced opinions which are at odds with traditional, conservative Islam.

 They have challenged aspects of shari‘a and are calling for a liberal, modernist, enlightened Islam compatible with Western norms.  Perhaps the most significant of all is a comment by a group of British Muslims calling for an end to the apostasy law and for full freedom in all religious matters.
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by Dr. Elham Mane’a   

The Middle East Research Institute

In an article posted on the liberal website http://www.metransparent.com/, reformist Yemeni journalist Dr. Elham Mane’a came out against the appointment of Muslim American writer Dalia Mogahed to Obama’s Interfaith Advisory Board.

Mane’a claimed that Mogahed purported to represent all Muslims, but in fact represented only a limited, extremist view of Islam. This, she said, was reflected in Obama’s statement in his Cairo speech about the Muslim women’s right to wear the hijab.
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by Mary Abdelmassih
Egypt (AINA) — On Tuesday evening, October 27, a Muslim mob attacked the Church of St. George in the village of Nazlet Albadraman, located in the Deir Mawas District, Minya Province. The Priest and the congregation were held inside until they were freed by the village mayor after security forces dispersed the mob. The attack was prompted by the restoration of the Church’s tower, for which the Church holds the necessary permit.

Protestant Pastor Habib Ghattas said that the Coptic Orthodox priest Father Serabamon, phoned him from inside the Church and asked him to contact the security forces. “We need them to come and rescue us from the mob,” he told Pastor Ghattas.
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Moderate’ Islamist group had long suspected woman in Puntland was Christian.
NAIROBI, Kenya, October 27 (CDN) - Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week shot and killed a Somali Christian who declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom, according to a Christian source in Somalia.

Members of the comparatively “moderate” Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali, 45, on Oct. 19 at 9:30 p.m. in her home in Galkayo, in Somalia’s autonomous Puntland region, said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons.
¼br> Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a Christian.
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Decision to postpone concerts by orchestra from Dresden follows objection by Sherbini’s family.
CAIRO - Egypt has postponed concerts by an orchestra from Dresden, Germany after demands from the family of an Egyptian woman murdered in a courtroom there in an anti-Islamic attack, the culture minister said on Wednesday.

The Sachsische Staatskapelle Dresden was to have played a series of concerts in Cairo and Alexandria at the end of October.

The decision “to postpone comes after the killing of Marwa al-Sherbini inside a courtroom in the city of Dresden at the hands of a German extremist and the objection by Sherbini’s family,” Culture Minister Faruq Hosni said.
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