Saturday, December 4, 2010

Teenage Girl Tortured and Killed for Converting to Christianity in Somalia

As the media rush to defend Islam from criticism, another Christian is tortured and killed for leaving Islam.

NAIROBI, Kenya, December 3 (CDN) — A 17-year-old girl in Somalia who converted to Christianity from Islam was shot to death last week in an apparent “honor killing,” area sources said.

Nurta Mohamed Farah, who had fled her village of Bardher, Gedo Region to Galgadud Region to live with relatives after her parents tortured her for leaving Islam, died on Nov. 25. Area sources said they strongly suspected that the two unidentified men in Galgadud Region who shot her in the chest and head with a pistol were relatives or acting on their behest.

“Reports reached the relatives in Galgadud that Nurta Farah had converted to Christianity,” one source said. “The suspicion that the family is responsible is a solid one. The sister was killed in Abudwaq, a district in Galgadud Region, and the place where the incident took place is about 200 meters from where the sister was staying with relatives.”

Relatives buried Farah, sources said. Her parents had severely beaten her for leaving Islam and regularly shackled her to a tree at their home, Christian sources said. She had been confined to her home in Gedo region in southern Somalia since May 10, when her family found out that she had embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area (see “Family of 17-Year-Old Somali Girl Abuses Her for Leaving Islam,” June 15).

Her parents also took her to a doctor who prescribed medication for a “mental illness,” he said. Alarmed by her determination to keep her faith, her father, Hassan Kafi Ilmi, and mother, Hawo Godane Haf, decided she had gone crazy and forced her to take the prescribed medication, but it had no effect in swaying her from her faith, the source said.

Traditionally, he added, many Somalis believe the Quran cures the sick, especially the mentally ill, so the Islamic scripture was recited to her twice a week.

She had declined her family’s offer of forgiveness in exchange for renouncing Christianity, the source said. The confinement began after the medication and punishments failed.

Area Christians had reported that Farah was shackled to a tree by day and put in a small, dark room at night.

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government generally did not enforce protection of religious freedom found in the Transitional Federal Charter, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report.

“Non-Muslims who practiced their religion openly faced occasional societal harassment,” the report stated. “Conversion from Islam to another religion was considered socially unacceptable. Those suspected of conversion faced harassment or even death from members of their community.” (Source)

In case anyone is unclear on what Islam teaches about apostasy, here's a video:

10 comments:

Jabari said...

This is in keeping with my own eager desire and persistent expectation and hope, that I shall not disgrace myself nor be put to shame in anything; but that with the utmost freedom of speech and unfailing courage, now as always heretofore, Christ (the Messiah) will be magnified and get glory and praise in this body of mine and be boldly exalted in my person, whether through (by) life or through (by) death. For me to live is Christ [His life in me], and to die is gain [the gain of the glory of eternity].
Philippians 1:20-21

I'm glad that many muslims are turning to Christ from Islam, even though it will cost them their lives.

GreekAsianPanda said...

Here in the West, there are no serious consequences for converting to a different religion, but in Islamic countries, those who convert from Islam to Christianity, atheism, etc. face severe persecution and sometimes death. Why, then, do Muslims brag that they get more converts than Christianity does? Many of their own simply CAN'T convert to Christianity without being murdered. That's why I'm amazed that Muslims living in Islamic countries are converting to Christianity at all.

The Holy Spirit is at work, I see.

hugh watt said...

John 16:1 "I have told you all of this so that you will not go down the wrong path. 2 You will be thrown out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing God a favor. 3 They will do things like that because they do not know the Father or me."

Rev.21:8 But I will tell you what will happen to cowards and to everyone who is unfaithful or dirty-minded or who murders or is sexually immoral or uses witchcraft or worships idols or tells lies. They will be thrown into that lake of fire and burning sulfur. This is the second death.

It reminds me of the account in Exodus 1ff where Satan moved Pharaoh to turn against God's original people. Nothing new then.
As I read end - time texts I see Satan's desperate attempts to wipe out God's people once again.
Allah is very like Satan in this respect. Were Jews shackled and being run into the ground? Are Jews/+ians being persecuted for not bowing to Satan?

Our dear sister follows in the footsteps of Stephen. She receives a martyrs crown.

hugh watt said...

Meanwhile, Madmoud Imaginethat has vowed to do something no one has ever done before:

The detained Christians have been accused of a variety of offences including being connected with exiled opposition sources, propagating Christianity in Iran, opposing the Islamic Republic and the formation of opposition groups in and out of the country. Their family and friends say these allegations are absurd and ludicrous.
Pastor Vahik and his wife Sonia, who are in their 40s, spend much of their time helping the needy and disadvantaged. He spent 53 days in prison earlier this year after being arrested on false pretences in February. Arash and Arezo, who are in their early 30s, are new Christian converts.
It is reported that the quartet were held in isolation suffering intense physical abuse and psychological pressure at the Ministry of Islamic Guidance prison for 40 days before being moved to Hamadan prison.
The totalitarian Islamic regime in Iran is a severe persecutor of Christians, especially converts; President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly pledged to "stop Christianity in this country"

Tizita said...

John said: "i heard the cries of those who had been beheaded for Christ's sake crying in heaven how long O, Lord, how long till u avenge our blood."

And i ask the same thing.....how long O, Lord how long must those who chose u suffer?

Fernando said...

islam, as we see every day, is a barbaric religion: a mephistotelical expresion off what exists off more evelish in man... and people all around the world keep on suffering due to thate... let's pray to our beloved God, the Holy Trinity, for all these persons and whell to those who, under the influence off thate animalistic religion, behave as sub-human persons...

BOOTA SINGH said...

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
GOD BLESSES HER SOUL, AMEN.

goethechosemercy said...

She is a martyr-- one of the righteous and brave. Honor her. Honor every Muslim who has the courage to turn his back on the errancy of Islam.

Fernando said...

Maybe some muslim will come and say that apostasy is, indeed, punished by dead butt only iff the one convicted does not suffer pain dying... hummmm...

minoria said...

It is so horrible to believe that one's own family is so fanatic as to kill you for changing religion or having no religion.Such parents are worth nothing at all.One would have to be mentally sick to act like that,and you see it over and over again in Egypt,Pakistan,Sudan.

REZA ASLAN

In a debate I saw in the great blog called THERELIGIONOFCONQUEST.COM(check it out,it's great)REZA ASLAN was debating a few others,among them a Jewish man who had converted to Islam,then became a born-again Christian( DAVEED GARTENSTEIN( garden-stone in German).He wrote "My Year inside Radical Islam".

CHRISTIANS IN GUATEMALA

Aslan was talking about the violent reactions of Muslims outside the West when Muhammad/Koran are insulted.He said that it's true that Christians in the West don't react violently if Jesus/Bible are insulted.But that is because they are not as religious as Christians in other places.He said that if Christianity were insulted in GUATEMALA the reaction would be different.

I THINK HE KNEW BETTER
Aslan either has never read the NT or was saying anything to try to win a debate.The CHRISTIANS in the THIRD WORLD certainly read the NT as much as those in the West.They read that Jesus gives a Golden Rule and "love your neighbor as yourself",be patient,visit the prisonners,etc.Aslan was trying to make the audience think that Christians outside the West would(simply on hearing Jesus being insulted)somehow inexplicably become violent,evil to the same degree alot of Muslim do outside the West.Utterly fslse.

CHECK OUT THE INTERVIEW OF DAVEED GARTENSTEIN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypVKZRKXz98