British imam's daughter under police protection after converting to Christianity

A British imam's daughter is living in fear of her life under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity.

The young woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in the north of England, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago.

Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times how she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to escape an arranged marriage.

The threats against her became more serious a month ago, prompting police to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

She was speaking on the eve of the launch of a new charity in London today to promote greater religious awareness. Muslims in Britain who wish to convert to Christianity are living in fear of their lives because of Islamic apostasy laws, a senior Church of England bishop will warn at the invitaton-only launch in west London.

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, will claim "freedom to believe" is under threat in Britain because of Islamic hostility to conversion.

Hannah, now employed in multi-faith youth work and who gives talks to churches on Islam, is the daughter of a Lancashire imam whose seven other children are demanding she return to Islam. She has been in hiding,

since her home was attacked by a group of men armed with knives, axes and hammers, in 1994. She will describe today how she is in fear of her life after the death threats against her were recently renewed.

She said: "I left home and I had nowhere to go. My religious education teacher gave me somewhere to live. Even though she tried to make me stay at home on Sundays, I am quite rebellious by nature and I started to go to church with her out of curiosity."

She said she had been in hiding, on and off, ever since, and has now been given a telephone number she can call for an instant response by police should she need help. The latest threat was a text message from one of her brothers, warning he could not be responsible for his actions if she did not return to Islam.

Hannah said she was looking forward to getting married so she could change her name and escape detection by her family. Not all Muslims in Britain are this extreme, she believes.

"It is representative of some Muslims. I know the Koran says that anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate so in some ways my family are following the Koran. They are following Islam to the word. But I do not think every Muslim would actually act on that."

Earlier this year, a Policy Exchange study found that 36 per cent of British Muslims aged between 16 and 24 believed those who converted to another religion should be punished by death.

Dr Nazir-Ali will speak out on behalf of Hannah and others suffering persecution for their beliefs in the UK at today's launch of Lapido Media, a new charity which is seeking to promote "religious literacy" in world affairs.

The Bishop is expected to describe how sharia law in many countries, including parts of Britain, punishes apostasy with death and is viewed as treason by theocratic governments. Dr Nazir-Ali will call on society to offer greater protection, by increasing understanding of what makes people vulnerable.

Pakistan-born Dr Nazir-Ali, who has a Christian and Muslim background, is patron of Lapido Media, funded by donations and trusts including the Jerusalem Trust. The word ‘lapido’ means ‘to speak up for’ in the Acholi language of Northern Uganda. The charity has been named in honour of the courage of Acholi church leaders who campaigned for an end to a little-reported 20-year war there, involving the abduction of 25,000 children.

Muslim apostates threatened over Christianity

When Sofia Allam left the Muslim faith for Christianity, the response from her family was one of persecution and threats. Alasdair Palmer explores the dangers facing Islam's apostates

Sofia Allam simply could not believe it. Her kind, loving father was sitting in front of her threatening to kill her. He said she had brought shame and humiliation on him, that she was now "worse than the muck on their shoes" and she deserved to die.

And what had brought on his transformation? He had discovered that she had left the Muslim faith in which he had raised her and become a Christian.

"He said he couldn't have me in the house now that I was a Kaffir [an insulting term for a non-Muslim]," Sofia - not her real name - remembers.

"He said I was damned for ever. He insulted me horribly. I couldn't recognise that man as the father who had been so kind to me as I was growing up.

"My mother's transformation was even worse. She constantly beat me about the head. She screamed at me all the time. I remember saying to them, as they were shouting death threats, 'Mum, Dad - you're saying you should kill me… but I'm your daughter! Don't you realise that?'?"

They did not: they insisted they wanted her out of their house.
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After three weeks of bullying, and just before her parents physically threw her out, Sofia left. "They put their loyalty to Islam above any love for me," she says, her voice faltering slightly.

"It was such a shock. I remember thinking when they brought all my uncles round to try to intimidate me - all these men were lined up telling me how terrible a person I was, how the devil had taken me - I remember thinking, how can this be happening? Because this isn't Lahore in Pakistan. This is Dagenham in London! This is Britain!"

Religious persecution of the kind Sofia suffers, however, is increasingly common in Britain today. It is hard to get an accurate notion of the scale of the problem, not least because very few of the people who leave Islam are willing to complain to the police about the way they are treated.

"Intimidation is very widespread and pretty effective," says Maryam Namazie, a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She believes that many of the deaths classified as "honour killings" are actually murders of people who have renounced Islam.

"I get threatened all the time: emails, letters, phone calls," she says. "When I returned home this afternoon, for example, there was a death threat waiting for me on my answering machine…" She laughs nervously.

"A lot of them aren't serious, but occasionally they are. I went to the police about one set of threats. They took a statement from me but that was it - they never contacted me again."

That treatment is in sharp contrast to the seriousness with which the Dutch and German police responded when members of the Council of Ex-Muslims in those countries made complaints to the police about death threats.

"The heads of the Dutch and German organisations are today both living under police protection," Ms Namazie explains.

Last week, it was reported that the daughter of a British imam was living under police protection, after receiving death threats from her family for having left Islam.

But it is not only extreme Muslim families that believe it is their religious duty to threaten, and even kill, members who renounce the religion.

"My father could not be described as an extremist," insists Sofia, who is now 31. "We read the Koran and prayed regularly together, but he never insisted on my wearing Islamic dress and he was quite happy that I went to the local comprehensive, which was all girls, but not by any means dominated by Muslims."

There were conflicts when Sofia's parents tried to arrange a marriage for her at the age of 18, but they seemed to accept her decision to continue her education.

"They even let me go away to university," she explains. "I appreciated how difficult it was for them to grant me that freedom, and I was very grateful for it. In the event, though, I only lasted three months - I just got so homesick that I had to come back to Mum and Dad."

Sofia got a job in a hotel and quickly became a manager. Her interest in Christianity was entirely self-generated. She acquired a Bible, which she hid in her bedroom. But four years ago, her mother found it.

"She confronted me one morning with, 'Are you still a Muslim?' I had to tell the truth: I didn't think I was. From that moment on, she basically disowned me. My father was shocked and saddened. But the reality was that my parents behaved to me as if they thought it would be much better if I was dead."

Most leading Muslims in Britain are unequivocal in their denunciation of British Muslim parents who threaten to kill their children for leaving Islam.

Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), says that it is "absolutely disgraceful behaviour… In Britain, no Muslim has the right to harm one hair of someone who decides to leave Islam."

Inayat Bunglawala, also a spokesman for the MCB, insists that such behaviour in Britain is "awful and quite wrong. The police should crack down on it."

And yet a significant portion of British Muslims think that such behaviour is not merely right, but a religious obligation: a survey by the think-tank Policy Exchange, for instance, revealed that 36 per cent of young Muslims believe that those who leave Islam should be killed.

There is considerable support, from the Koran and other sacred Islamic texts, for that position - which may explain why, out of the 57 Islamic states in the world today, seven have a legal code that punishes Muslims who leave the religion with death.

That number may soon increase: Pakistan is currently considering a Bill that would make apostasy a capital crime for men and one carrying a sentence of imprisonment for women.

As it is, ordinary Pakistanis take the law into their own hands and kill Muslim apostates. The same thing happens in Turkey where, earlier this year, two people were killed for "having turned away from Islam".

Patrick Sookhdeo was born a Muslim, but later converted to Christianity. He is now international director of the Barnabas Fund, an organisation that aims to research and to ameliorate the conditions of Christians living in countries hostile to their religion.

He notes that "all four schools of Sunni law, as well as the Shia variety, call for the death penalty for apostates. Most Muslim scholars say that Muslim religious law - sharia - requires the death penalty for apostasy.

"In 2004, Prince Charles called a meeting of leading Muslims to discuss the issue," adds Dr Sookhdeo. "I was there. All the Muslim leaders at that meeting agreed that the penalty in sharia is death. The hope was that they would issue a public declaration repudiating that doctrine, but not one of them did."

The reluctance to condemn sharia law is widespread. I asked Mr Bunglawala, for instance, to condemn the Islamic states that imposed the death penalty for apostasy. He did not do so, merely commenting that "it was a matter for those states".

Given the acceptance by some that Muslim religious law does indeed require that apostates be killed, it is hardly surprising that many ordinary Muslims think that it is their religious duty to carry out that punishment - or at least to threaten it.

"There can't be freedom of religion in Britain while so many British Muslims take that attitude," Sofia says. "It frightens me, because attitudes have hardened over the past decade."

Still, won't her parents eventually just recognise that she has chosen to change her religion? Won't they, in 10 years' time, accept her back? "No," Sofia says, her eyes full of tears. "That will never happen. I know it. They will never accept me the way I am."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/20...muslim109.xml&page=1

quote:

I know the Koran says that anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate so in some ways my family are following the Koran.

This is the kind of lies that is causing her to hide.

Certainly she has the right to leave. But her statement outlined by Chief needs proof...it is the sort of nonsense I hear at just about every interfaith dialogue i go to..and to my sweet innocent "could you please give me the chapter and verse"..I don't get a response. But that is when I go into high gear because then i show that in otehr religions it was sanctioned. This of coruse does not deny the fact that TODAY, most Muslims do that shyte.

quote:

Originally posted by Chief:

quote:

I know the Koran says that anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate so in some ways my family are following the Koran.

This is the kind of lies that is causing her to hide.

Shows that she doesn't know the Qur'an like she says she does. Wonder if Christianity or the Christians are teaching her to lie or is she doing is on her own.

Nevertheless, if they really love her, it would be more reasonable if they don't try to kill her since she would have died while being a non-Muslim whereas, maybe she will return to Islam and die a Muslim.

I guess this lady is speaking based on teaching from islamic countries where this brutal practice is prevalent.

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:
I guess this lady is speaking based on teaching from islamic countries where this brutal practice is prevalent.

Yah..but we muslims get pissed when they say "it is in the Qur'an."

If them skonts would read properly they would see that despite the barbaric practise, the Q tells Muhamamd "lasta alayhim bi musaytir"..and "lakum denokum"--the prophet is not responsible, and they have a choice.

quote:

Originally posted by dara shikoh:

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:
I guess this lady is speaking based on teaching from islamic countries where this brutal practice is prevalent.

Yah..but we muslims get pissed when they say "it is in the Qur'an."

it easy to say that when you are not living in an islamic country .... the second article hit home a bit more.

I agree. But I also put that things are perceived differntly in those countries. See when a person becomes a christian, it is not just a religion change. It is cultural, political etc. And in a region where there is still oppostion to european hegemony...that is the result. NOt defending the nonsense...just saying that it is not as clear cut as it sounds. WHen you see what the average missionary does and says in the Muslim countries, you want to kill...well let me speak for MYSELF ONLY..I Want to cut him into pieces. He tragets the uninformed and illiterate and TELLS them what the Qur'an says. And about all the time it is false. Of coruse they could turn a blind eye...but they don't.
Who am I to talk anyway? Rass, I would get slaughtered in Pakistan anyway.

Argy, she can't say it is in the Qur'an if she does not know that. She is lying. She should say, she heard it is in the Qur'an. Can't blame others for her blatantly lying on the Qur'an.

quote:

Originally posted by dara shikoh:
I agree. But I also put that things are perceived differntly in those countries. See when a person becomes a christian, it is not just a religion change. It is cultural, political etc. And in a region where there is still oppostion to european hegemony...that is the result. NOt defending the nonsense...just saying that it is not as clear cut as it sounds. WHen you see what the average missionary does and says in the Muslim countries, you want to kill...well let me speak for MYSELF ONLY..I Want to cut him into pieces. He tragets the uninformed and illiterate and TELLS them what the Qur'an says. And about all the time it is false. Of coruse they could turn a blind eye...but they don't.
Who am I to talk anyway? Rass, I would get slaughtered in Pakistan anyway.

a religion without freedom/reformation is destined for destruction.

quote:

Originally posted by ksazma:
Argy, she can't say it is in the Qur'an if she does not know that. She is lying. She should say, she heard it is in the Qur'an. Can't blame others for her blatantly lying on the Qur'an.

it comes back to something Dara said ... just above your post. The only difference here is the lies within the islam teaching she was exposed to.

quote:

Originally posted by dara shikoh:
If them skonts would read properly they would see that despite the barbaric practise, the Q tells Muhamamd "lasta alayhim bi musaytir"..and "lakum denokum"--the prophet is not responsible, and they have a choice.

Dara...like yu run out ah vocab or wa.

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:
The only difference here is the lies within the islam teaching she was exposed to.

She is not talking about the lies within Islam teaching she was exposed to. She is NOW lying about the Qur'an. That is inexcusable. I would have thougth that Christianity would have taught her better than to lie.

As I have said before and would repeat here - all converts are the bottom-feeders of this earth!

quote:

Originally posted by ksazma:

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:
The only difference here is the lies within the islam teaching she was exposed to.

She is not talking about the lies within Islam teaching she was exposed to. She is NOW lying about the Qur'an. That is inexcusable. I would have thougth that Christianity would have taught her better than to lie.

reading what she said is .. the koran teaches punishment for apostates. That is a belief amongst many muslims.

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:

quote:

Originally posted by ksazma:

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:
The only difference here is the lies within the islam teaching she was exposed to.

She is not talking about the lies within Islam teaching she was exposed to. She is NOW lying about the Qur'an. That is inexcusable. I would have thougth that Christianity would have taught her better than to lie.

reading what she said is .. the koran teaches punishment for apostates. That is a belief amongst many muslims.

Ameen

quote:

Originally posted by Aragorn:

quote:

Originally posted by dara shikoh:
I agree. But I also put that things are perceived differntly in those countries. See when a person becomes a christian, it is not just a religion change. It is cultural, political etc. And in a region where there is still oppostion to european hegemony...that is the result. NOt defending the nonsense...just saying that it is not as clear cut as it sounds. WHen you see what the average missionary does and says in the Muslim countries, you want to kill...well let me speak for MYSELF ONLY..I Want to cut him into pieces. He tragets the uninformed and illiterate and TELLS them what the Qur'an says. And about all the time it is false. Of coruse they could turn a blind eye...but they don't.
Who am I to talk anyway? Rass, I would get slaughtered in Pakistan anyway.

a religion without freedom/reformation is destined for destruction.

The problem with Islam is that it keeps getting more and more followers....
reformation is problematic..look at how christian and jewish theologies have changed over the centuries. Muslims don't change their core theologies, and what we percieve as reform in many religions is a way of running away from their core values. Look at Christianity and its shift from adoptionism to blatant monophysitism..from predestination to freewill...look at judaism from messiahship to "a messianic age". I am not saying they are inherently wrong...just that the reason for much of what they do is problematic.
Muslims are still figuring out the process it would seem.

quote:

Originally posted by SuperMike:

quote:

Originally posted by dara shikoh:
If them skonts would read properly they would see that despite the barbaric practise, the Q tells Muhamamd "lasta alayhim bi musaytir"..and "lakum denokum"--the prophet is not responsible, and they have a choice.

Dara...like yu run out ah vocab or wa.

Bhai..dat is the only appropriate words for those who rass just like to talk about what the quran supposedly says, but forgetting to look in their own. Last week, some jackass at a synagogue was telling me that the Qur'an accused the Jews of tampering with scripture. I asked him to read Jeremiah. The place was silent. Loved it.

but the q does not even say that there is punishment for apostasy to be judged by humans.

quote:

Originally posted by dara shikoh:
but the q does not even say that there is punishment for apostasy to be judged by humans.

The Quran did mention severe punishment for them in the hereafter.