Forum 18: Old Testament is banned religious literature in Azerbaijan

Coat of arms of Azerbaijan Türkçe: Azerbaycan arması Azərbaycan: Azərbaycan Respublikasının Dövlət Gerbi Русский: Герб Азербайджана (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Panorama.am sends a notice:

On 14 July Azerbaijan's Supreme Court is due to hear a challenge by Kamran Abdiyev to a fine of 18 months' average wages, for distributing religious literature which has not undergone the compulsory state censorship. "Kamran Abdiyev has no lawyer, and will be representing himself at the hearing," Judge Gulzar Rzayeva told Forum 18 News Service.

According to the article, the five Sunni Muslims are among eight prisoners of conscience being held at the National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police Investigation Prison in Baku to punish them for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief. Two of the other prisoners of conscience are Jehovah's Witnesses women and the eighth prisoner is a Shia Muslim. State censorship of religious texts is strictly applied and the Old Testament, the writings of Islamic theologian Said Nursi, and some Jehovah's Witness texts are on a police list of banned religious literature.
The article reads that in the latest extension of the powers of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, anyone organizing foreign travel for religious purposes, including pilgrimages abroad, now requires a license from the State Committee of Azerbaijan.

Continue reading: http://www.panorama.am/en/society/2015/05/28/azerbaijan-forum18/

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Teaching permittion to kill infidels

An exercise book for 11th graders in Jombang, East Java contained notions based on the radical Wahhabi school of thought (which is dominant in Saudi Arabia). In it  the students could find that it would be all right to kill “People who worship anything other than Allah" because they "are infidels and it is permitted to kill them.” (Page 78)

It was good that soon the Indonesia’s Minister of Education and Culture Anies Rasyid Baswedan came to know what was in the book and gave the order to pull all the copies of the textbook. She  announced an investigation into the case. The government’s quick response prevented it from being distributed to the country’s schools.

 Read more:

“People who worship anything other than Allah are infidels and it is permitted to kill them.”

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Israel not building up their weaponry for nothing

Map of Israel, the Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip), the Golan Heights, and portions of neighbouring countries. Also United Nations deployment areas in countries adjoining Israel or Israeli-held territory, as of January 2004. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is Israel building up their weaponry in preparation of their defence of their nation as part of the stage  set in fulfilment of Psalm 83?

We can see the nations listed are currently the nations being mentioned in the media, Iran working at obtaining a nuclear weapon, Hamas working on plots to terrorize Israel in an attempt to provoke Israel’s hand to do the unthinkable and that is to completely destroy the Gaza strip that would cause the international community to come down hard on the nation.

For the Saudis there is the heat building up as the Sunnis and the Shias fight over who will become the dominant player in the Middle East.

We are told in Scriptures that in the end Israel will become the dominant player when Jesus returns to establish his kingdom on earth.

>

Israel is Preparing for war

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Iraqi Christians flee homes amid Islamic militant rampage

ALQOSH, Iraq –  Over the past decade, Iraqi Christians have fled repeatedly to this ancient mountainside village, seeking refuge from violence, then returning home when the danger eased. Now they are doing it again as Islamic militants rampage across northern Iraq, but this time few say they ever want to go back to their homes.

The flight is a new blow to Iraq's dwindling Christian community, which is almost as old as the religion itself but which has already been devastated since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. During the past 11 years, at least half of the country's Christian population has fled the country, according to some estimates, to escape frequent attacks by Sunni Muslim militants targeting them and their churches.

...

Iraq was estimated to have more than 1 million Christians before the 2003 invasion and topping of Saddam Hussein. Now church officials estimate only 450,000 remain within Iraq borders. Militants have targeted Christians in repeated waves in Baghdad and the north. The Chaldean Catholic cardinal was kidnapped in 2008 by extremists and killed. Churches around the country have been bombed repeatedly.

The exodus from Mosul — a Sunni-majority city that during the American presence in Iraq was an al-Qaida stronghold — has been even more dramatic. From a pre-2003 population of around 130,000 Christians, there were only about 10,000 left before the Islamic State fighters overran the city a week ago.

> Iraqi Christians flee homes amid Islamic militant rampage

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Iraqi Underclass and animosities

writes:

Previous Weekly Numbers have documented growing religious hostilities in Iraq. The missing headline -- as the Sunni-led Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda, battle Shia-dominated government forces -- is a phrase from Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign strategist James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid." But, it's not oil and the negative impact on the global economy I'm referring to.

A Pew Research survey conducted in 2012 (before ISIS gained ground) found that the large majority of Iraq's population (74%) considered unemployment to be a "very large problem" for the country. By contrast, fewer than half of the population considered conflict between religious groups to be a very large problem.

....
it highlights the dangers of a system where religion and religious identities become rallying points for other grievances. As the Shia-dominated Iraqi government favors other Shia Muslims -- long the underclass under Saddam Hussein -- this sets up new animosities that are easily grafted onto other issues, such as unemployment, inequality and unmet expectations. 

Continue reading:

Iraq: "It's the Economy, Stupid"

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