As we step into 2023, did you know that currently 1.3 billion Muslims do not have the freedom to choose or change their religion? Apostasy forces people to remain in Islam and blasphemy laws punish those who disagree or dare to critique it. Kamal Fahmi is our guest this episode and he founded 'Set My People Free' in 2007, a network of individuals, churches and organizations working for the freedom of converts from Islam to live and practice their new faith, to experience equality and justice in their home...
As we step into 2023, did you know that currently 1.3 billion Muslims do not have the freedom to choose or change their religion?
Apostasy forces people to remain in Islam and blasphemy laws punish those who disagree or dare to critique it.
Kamal Fahmi is our guest this episode and he founded 'Set My People Free' in 2007, a network of individuals, churches and organizations working for the freedom of converts from Islam to live and practice their new faith, to experience equality and justice in their home countries without fear of reprisals.
It is hard to believe that the punishment for leaving Islam is death in 8 countries, so join us as Kamal gives the story of 'Set My People Free' and of the ongoing fight to legalise apostasy and blasphemy.
Kamal Fahmi is the founder of 'Set My People Free', this organisation seeks to give Muslim people the freedom to change their faith, to live out and practice their new belief, and to experience freedom, justice and equality in their homeland as non-Muslims.
'Set My People Free' is a nonviolent movement seeking freedom, justice and equality for converts, reconciliation – not victory, and is committed to the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Their goal is freedom for Muslim people to be able.....
To change their religion or belief
To worship and practice their new faith
To raise their children in their new faith
To marry (for women from a Muslim background to marry non-Muslim men)
To have freedom, justice and equality.
To abolish the crime of apostasy by removal of...
Punishment of death for the act of apostasy
Punishment of confiscation of the wealth of the convert
Nullifying his or her marriage
Punishment of disqualifying him/her of the right of the custody of his/her children
Punishment of depriving the apostate from his/her right of their inheritance
Punishment of discipline (alta'zir)
WEBSITE: https://freedom2worship.org/
Interview recorded 15.12.22
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin
To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more
https://heartsofoak.org/connect/
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW
(Hearts of Oak)
And good evening, Hearts of Oak. Thank you so much for tuning in on another interview. And it is an
absolute pleasure to have a gentleman I met, I think in Poland, maybe two months ago at the OSCE, and that's Kamal Fahmi. Kamal, thank you so much for your time today.
(Kamal Fahmi)
Yeah, I'm happy really to join you in this interview. It is a beautiful opportunity.
(HoO)
Great to have you. And the issues we're going to talk about are not ones that we offer. We discuss Islam in
different ways, but to focus on apostasy and blasphemy we haven't done.
So I'm looking forward to learning from you. And on the screen people can see the website,
freedomtoworship.org , our viewers and listeners will find a lot of information about freedoms, looking at the
Muslim world, giving stories, news items, articles. There's a whole wealth of information. I'd encourage our viewers and listeners to make use of that.
But Kamal, you're the founder of Set My People Free, which is an international NGO focused on the
abolition of apostasy and also blasphemy laws around the world. Maybe you can take a few moments and introduce yourself before we get onto the reason you set up Set My People Free, why it's needed. But first, if I can ask you to introduce yourself to our viewers.
(KF)
My name is Kamal Fahmi. Originally, I'm from Sudan.
And for the last 50 years, I was evolving in missions, mostly in the Middle East.
In... I was born in Sudan and then I have lived most of my life in Sudan. Started the ministry mainly to
reach out to people and share the gospel with them and then later I worked in the Middle East area all the way from Bahrain to Morocco and around 2008 I was challenged by the problems people who leave Islam
face especially converts from Islam to Christianity I met a couple in Yemen and they were three generation
Christian but they cannot live as Christian in their own country and of course in Yemen it is death sentence for leaving Islam and so they have to be kind of underground and I was approached by the father and he
asked me for help because he wanted to convince his son to to study Islam in school because without that they were getting into trouble and also he will not be able to pass his school. And so he wanted me to talk with him and to see if I can encourage him to do that.
And I thought maybe there is no problem, we had people who did that in Sudan.
But then when I spoke with him, I saw the Son the next day, I was touched by the Son as he was a teenager,
very smart, very handsome. And I thought I would not like my daughter to go through this. To be forced to say the Shahadah, to fast and to pray. And his father is a Christian. He himself is a Christian. And the father has
become a Christian when he was 19 and the grandfather was a Christian before the father and they cannot live as Christians in their own country. This kind of hit me, we are living in 2008 and they have left Islam,
became Christians but they cannot live and exist as Christians in Yemen and and they should face a death
sentence by the law.
And also on the side of the mother, the mother herself was a believer. Her grandfather had a problem
with his knee. Somebody prayed for him.
He was healed. He also became a Christian. So these three generations, they are not able to live as Christians.
And somehow I said, how could this be in the 20th century? that people cannot change their belief and face
this kind of challenge. And then in my mind.
I started to think of different situations. When I went to Sana'a, the capital, I met somebody who was
also in prison for about seven months or six months, who was a convert and he was arrested and he was in prison.
He was not sentenced to death, but he was under a lot of threats. And then I saw the Mahdi Dibaj in Iran,
who was also arrested just after the Islamic Revolution. He was a convert from Islam to Christianity. And he was put in jail for 10 years and he was sentenced to death, but of course they didn't apply the sentence and after a lot of international pressure he was released.
And while he was in prison he said 'im not only willing to suffer for Christ, but I am willing to die.'
And when he was released after 10 years, the guy who helped him to be released, got killed after two weeks,
who was the pastor of the Pentecostal Church.
And then later, the people said to Mahdi Dibaj, leave Iran because you will face death.
But he said, I want to serve my own people, I want to share with them about my belief.
And he was the head of the Bible Society. His only problem was that he was a convert from Islam to
Christianity.
Six months later, he was kidnapped. And a friend of mine here in Sweden, an Iranian believer said they
found him cut to pieces in a plastic bag in a park.
And so this started to hit me hard as I saw, as I looked at the situation.
I realized there is death sentence in 12 countries, Islamic countries. They have death sentence for people who
leave Islam.
And then in another 12 countries, you don't have the freedom to really leave Islam. It is a crime if you
leave, you face torture, you face imprisonment.
And it's not for all these people who converse, but even for atheists, who just leave Islam, they'll consider
apostate.
So that aged me, I felt the call that these laws should be abolished.
Because apostasy is against article 18, who is very clearly say that it's freedom.
and belief, which include freedom of religion, freedom to change belief, freedom to practice the belief
you have as an individual, as a group, and also to be able to share what you believe with others. And apostasy does not give the right for an ex- Muslim to exist. You cannot really exist in an Islamic state. They face, as I said, in 12 countries, death sentence.
Because the religion is written in the identity card, you cannot really change. So your children are automatically Muslims. If you are a woman who has a Muslim background, you are automatically also Muslim.
And you cannot marry a non-Muslim, but also you face harassment and legally you cannot exist.
You don't have the right to exist even in countries like Jordan, Egypt, Syria and also even in Morocco you face difficulty. So that was a problem. And then of course blasphemy is another bigger issue as if you say for example I don't believe in
Muhammad as a prophet of God you are considered a blasphemer and this is ridiculous because if I believe in Muhammad then I am a Muslim but I am not to believe in him as a prophet. I don't believe in him as a prophet. So even just questioning the different laws of Sharia, you are considered blasphemer.
And a good example of that is the
Governor of Jakarta, who was, his name was Foke, and he was a governor for four years.
When he was going to be elected for a second term, the Islamist in Indonesia said he cannot be elected again
because a non-Muslim cannot rule over Muslims.
There was a Hadith like that. And Hadith is a law in Islam. For example, the prayer, the five prayers, are not actually in the Quran, but it is in the Hadith.
And they practice the five prayers. And that Hadith was saying that a non-Muslim cannot rule over a
Muslim. and Foke the governor said this is a weak hadith.
Saying that it is a weak hadith was considered a blasphemy. And he was sentenced to imprisonment. I don't
remember the exact number of years now but I think it was between two and five years.
And he wanted to appeal, and people said to him, better not appeal because they want to execute you for this.
They want to punish you by death. So he pulled back, he spent the time in prison and he was released.
So from this, after he spent the sentence, and you can check this in the internet, I mean.
And so from this, from sentencing this guy to prison, because saying the Hadith is weak,
we said that a non-Muslim cannot rule over or rule over a Muslim was condemned for that.
You know then that Islam is not really believing in democracy because there is discrimination against non-Muslims. They cannot rule over a Muslim. And the second thing is that it is blasphemy and it
can be punishable to the extent of death, fortunately, because they are a little bit more moderate. You are
sentenced to imprisonment.
(HoO)
Wow. Tell us more about those laws because people think that maybe in some countries like the Gulf states,
you have more freedom. There are lots of those in the West that have gone to Dubai and UAE, obviously the World Cup at the moment is in Qatar, and they've tried to brand themselves as very open for everyone, but yet in Qatar, the death penalty is there for apostasy.
Countries are are not free and they are all based on Sharia law, Islamic law. Tell us about, because most people in the West find it difficult to even understand countries that are based simply on religious texts and don't bring any other aspect in. So can you explain that, the way Islamic law is overall everything?
(KF)
Right. It is the Islamic law is over the Constitution actually. They have this Kyro Declaration and it speaks
about freedom. They try to put all the articles which is the Universal Declaration of Human Right, but then at the end they say everything has to agree with Sharia. So it actually modifies what he said about freedom and so on but yeah this is a big problem, I have a map, you can actually look at the map in in our website where we put the countries it is in our first homepage and there is a they were about 13 countries which had descended we are thankful that Sudan had to repeal
the death sentence two years ago but the problem now with the coup which happened last year there is a
possibility that again as the Islamists took over again they go back to the same thing but the constitution was changed and then it was repealed.
And that was a great work of our Minister of Justice at that time, who is not anymore, Nasreldin
Abdelbari
But the rest, there is still a number of countries which have death sentence, in their constitution.
I mean, we have for example Mauritania, they have this sentence. And there is a fellow who was accused of
apostasy and blasphemy, mainly because he was against slavery in Mauritania. And he wrote a short article which condemned slavery and said that Sharia condones slavery. So he was accused of apostasy for that article. He was in prison for five years in solitary confinement. He was not allowed to take showers because they said he's a
kaffir, he's an infidel and they wanted to sentence him to death he said close to 1 million he said this is a
quite a large number of people came out.
asking his for his death this guy was released after a lot of pressure he is now living in France and his
name is Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir. So this is serious. Maybe they don't kill everyone right away.
But the person, the convert is under threat the whole time. And the problem is not only the 12 countries we
have in red in the map, people face danger, but actually where the law does not exist, the community does take on and apply the laws.
So you have these, we call it honour crimes. They are not in any way honour. And people get killed living in
the white areas, which we say that the laws give freedom for people to change. I mean, you can go and see a list of number of cases or victims who didn't survive.
They were killed like the in 2017 there was a Afghani woman killed in Germany because she
left Islam and the guy who killed her they said he's crazy but it is applying the apostasy law even in
the white areas but then you continue to see the red it is as you said Qatar as Satan
for leaving Islam. I mean, you are free if you are a non-Muslim to become a Muslim, but for a Muslim to
leave, then it is a crime.
It is in Yemen, it is in Somalia, it is in Iran, and it is in Pakistan for blasphemy, and it is also in
Maldive Islands, it is in Brunei.
But then you have other countries, It used to be United Arab Emirates, but we have discovered just at the
beginning of this year they have abolished it but we are trying to find out if it is just real or it is just said that it has been done but we have checked with some people as they say they did that just this year the death sentence but we need more confirmation and to see that freedom for people to really exist because many times they don't want them to come out of
of the closet. They want them to be quiet and many times they will prefer if they leave the country.
But these are the countries which we still have it, the ones I mentioned now. Even Kuwait has it. This I missed it when I said the other countries and of course as I said North Sudan officially has abolished it two years ago but of course still the community puts a lot of pressure. At this point there was one convert was in jail not so long ago, the last few months,
mainly because we have now a coup of Islamists who are ruling the country.
But the laws have been changed already two years ago and so I hope they will not go back again to death sentence. Then you have orange countries in the map and and these are places like Egypt, I missed one country which is actually applying the death sentence now is actually Libya because there's a guy by the name of Bia has been in prison now over one month they want him to repent to release him, this is country number 10 here but he he's still in jail.
And they want to execute him, he's holding to his faith, he's a convert to Christianity And it is very
sad. It is not in international media. If one lady was stopped from wearing a hijab somewhere, the media are
so loud and turning the world upside down, and here somebody is sentenced to death. He's still in jail, mainly because he converted from Islam to Christianity. But nobody is talking about it. It is not out in the news. It is not news at all.
(HoO)
Well that's why with the World Cup happening in Qatar and I thought it would be the last place I would want
to go to watch any sporting event. But there were discussions on, oh there's
no alcohol and complaints about that. There were discussions on LGBT rights and freedoms there, but zero
conversation on that the law says you can die if you want to leave Islam.
And I was frustrated watching some of the media who should know better and should have used the
opportunity to talk about that injustice. But as you said, there is silence on it.
(KF)
Complete silence. They don't bring it up. And it is very sad. And I mean, it is quite serious. I was sitting in
with a group the other day and I said there should be sanction against these countries which apply death sentence for leaving Islam.
There should be freedom to believe or not to believe but they said we should not use the hammer. But I mean
this is a lot of lives of people are at stake. There is lack of freedom completely. Freedom of thought and consciousness is trampled on. And the problem it is moving even towards the West, where the basis of democracy is freedom of expression. And blasphemy, law quench freedom of expression. So you cannot say I don't believe in Muhammad, it is it is considered an insult. Or if you I don't believe in the Sharia which cuts hands off people. So this is ridiculous and I mean people are free. I mean God created us free. He gave us the choice and I mean even Jesus himself said if
you want to go to hell, go to hell. The road is wide and many people are going but if you want life there is
another way. So it is freedom I feel is very crucial and especially freedom of expression. We need to protect
it because it is the basis for democracy and without freedom of expression there is no accountability. So analytical thinking, critical thinking is very important and crucial to talk about things, discuss things and have your
opinion. The problem is we are going to a time when there is only one narrative. And this is not really the
West we were thinking about or we admire where there is freedom of thought, conscious and belief and then freedom of expression and opinion. Today you cannot have your own opinion, everyone has an opinion and so that is a problem. Blasphemy law actually strips the individual from the freedom of expression. There is a very good book actually called Silence, written by Paul Marshall and Nina Shay. And they said how apostasy and blasphemy courts are silencing or taking away freedom of expression. And they have any documented cases all over the world, which is happening because of these two laws. And so if we continue, of course it is in Saudi Arabia and you have examples of people who are in prison,
journalists like Raif Badawi and Yemen people are being imprisoned and killed. There was a guy who was at
the age of 16 and they chopped his head, they shot him mainly because they accused him of of being an apostate and the young fellow he wrote in his fair book he said to them you accused me of apostasy you see God in the graveyard, I see God in the roses and you can look for this. His name is Omar (Mohammad Bataweel). I cannot remember his second name, but his Facebook is still there and he was at the age of 16 and he was killed in Aden. And you will find him in our booklet, victims of apostasy and blasphemy law. We have a small booklet and we have the link for it in our website. You
can go there and see some of the victims. And it is sad to see the number of the victims. There was a small kid, also the age of 14, he was selling coffee in Syria during the ISIS attacks and so on. The jihadists came to him, he was selling coffee to help his family, they came to him, they said, give us coffee free.
He refused to give them coffee free.
And he said, if even the prophet come down, I will not give you coffee free. And this is a saying, which they normally say in Syria.
When the jihadists took him and shot him, accusing him of blasphemy.
So look at our booklet, victims of apostasy and blasphemy laws, you will see how this law is impacting lives of many individuals. Some lost their lives, some survived, but they went through trauma for this.
We need to really stand together to see these laws abolished.
(HoO)
I want to bring up the website again, and that's what people will find. That's the book
Kamal was talking about, Victims of Apostasy and Blasphemy, Laws and Islam, and then further down that's
the map we were looking at. So everything is on the front page of freedomtoworship.org.
So please do go and make use of it. Kamau, can I ask you about you taking this message out,
I obviously met you at the OSCE conference, an intergovernmental conference, looking at human
rights, looking at the political angle.
You've been there a number of times. Do you want to let us know what you raise and the response you get
every time you've been there?
(KF)
I think we are in a kind of a battle for heart and minds. I think most of the people have, they didn't notice,
and it was an eye-opener to many.
And I think there is more people today are aware of the problem. The only thing is, and of course there
have been moves to try to stop it.
I mean, they agree, most of the people I speak with agree this is a problem.
The only thing, we are not doing anything about it.
It is not out in the mainstream media. It is not an issue which is people are trying to see change.
They are trying to use a carrot instead of putting pressure to see this issue change.
I'm thankful that they are putting some, at this point, there is a bigger change towards protecting the
freedom of expression. People realize more and more the problem.
But I think they have to take a strong step to see this stopped. I feel we are in a better situation than when
we started, but I still think we have a long way. When there was a problem of apartheid in South Africa, the whole world stood against that and worked for equality.
Now here we have even a worse situation where you are not allowed to even exist as a former
Muslim. You are not allowed to exist. And you have in front of you 12 countries where you have death
sentence.
We need to take bold steps to put pressure so Article 18 and 19 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
be applied.
Because without taking away these laws, you will still have problem with the issue of jihadists, with
the issue of terrorists, because here they want to enforce the application of these laws.
But we need to stand and say enough is enough with this.
This has to stop. We have the right to ask for the application of Article 18 and 19.
So there has not been strong steps to see this stop. You see it with what happened with Charlie Hebdo and
other journalists.
I'm very thankful that the fresh government showed what the caricatures and so on. But I think we need more steps to put pressure and say what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong.
And really stand behind the freedom of thought and conscious and belief and freedom to live, freedom not to
believe, freedom of expression and opinion. And I think we need to take more strong steps saying this is wrong. Lately there were 25 countries which have signed a letter condemning apostasy and blasphemy law. And that was through the ministerial for religious freedom and this was done like three years ago.
Of Trump when Brownback was the ambassador for the religious freedom. And lately Australia and are heading, spearheading with Holland, a campaign to end killing for religion.
And which is mainly working to abolish apostasy and blasphemy law.
So there is steps like this, but I think we need to take more steps to sanction the countries which apply it.
Because without sanctioning it and condemning it openly, this will continue.
And this impact lives of many people. I mean, you see what happened to Salman Rushdie now in New York.
And this is again application of blasphemy law. And you cannot kill somebody for the way he thinks or for
not believing. And many ex-Muslims are facing these threats
worldwide. They are under protected by the police. Even here in Sweden, they are protected because of fear
of people killing them. And so, but we have to stand together and say
enough, enough with this and this has to be stopped. I mean there is no serious steps which has been taken to
condemn this issue, condemn the issue of apostasy and blasphemy law, but I think people are more aware of
it.
Trying to do some steps, but as I said before, they want to use more, this using a carrot instead of
saying this is wrong and this has to be changed and there must be some
pressure applied, for the sake of people who suffer under this.
(HoO)
But I, I also think it's, you look at the laws and you're talking about the legislation in Muslim countries, but
also you refer to the freedoms in the West and we think people are free to choose and change their religion.
But I've talked to a number of converts from Islam to Christianity and they have to be extremely careful.
They have been attacked verbally, they've been attacked physically. And I think, well, this is happening in
England, which supposedly has freedom, but you realize that same understanding, that same belief system
that restricts freedoms in Islamic Countries still is within Islamic communities here in the UK and it seems to be often the law of Islam is the one that reigns and not always the law of the land in those communities.
(KF)
This is very true because we have a friend here who is a convert. that person had to be lucky because that
person could not have passed, dot their degree in their studies for Islam inside Europe, if they knew their standards, that they are converts.
They had to do it really very, very low key. That is in Sweden. And many actually under protection. And so you are right.
You are right. They face it even here. But I think we need to condemn it more openly and say enough with it.
And that really to work hard to punish any perpetrators or some people who does it. I mean, even like
Nigeria, they have death sentence in the North.
And now there has been a lot of attack against non-Muslims within Nigeria.
And nobody is speaking against what is happening there. It is the main cause of it is again apostasy and
blasphemy law and they are putting pressure on non-muslims to Christians especially. I mean blowing churches, attacking
taking their land and all these are initiated by these laws and again there is no international condemnation of
this. They use other reasons to say this is happening. And I mean, it is a problem.
And even just now, this time, even in Sudan, there is a man who has been a convert to Christianity, who is a
pastor in the church and God has been using him to heal people.
He healed some of his family, so other other Muslim flocked to the church to get healing, and God has
been healing them. And then this guy was arrested and they accused him of being a witch.
And mainly because they said he's a Christian witch, and he was imprisoned. Unfortunately, the laws because now are more free. There was a court case, he was released, but again he's under threats now by some of the Islamist community
for what he is doing and I mean he has not done anything bad and mainly because he is a convert and
because somehow lives of people have been changed, people have been flocking there because
they saw God doing something and that has made these people more open towards Christianity which made
the community upset. And so even as you said before when... so we need
we need to put pressure, these laws to be applied and that to stand together to express the importance of
freedom of expression and the right to say I don't believe in Muhammad as a prophet of God. Because I mean there is no force. You should have the freedom to believe or not to believe and which is the Creator has given this us this freedom and we have to have it and I think the freedom of choice is very key in democracy if you don't have the freedom
of choice then forget it and if you die because you choose something different That is really awful. So
I think we need to see more people work for this.
(HoO)
I just want to ask you about where, this will go just before Christmas. We are here, you said you're in
Sweden, I'm in the UK, and we have freedoms here and we've talked a lot about freedoms and freedoms that are not afforded to those who live in the Muslim world.
Tell us what that means for someone who is a Christian living in many of those countries. We have the joy of
being able to meet with other people, other Christians, many people who are not Christians still celebrate the joyous time of Christmas. And I guess in many Middle Eastern countries, in many Islamic countries, it's very different and you cannot
celebrate this time as you would here in the West.
(KF)
Yeah, I mean like Brunei for example, some years, two or three years ago, they just forbid celebrating Christmas in Brunei, completely, for everybody. And of course there is minority of Christians who come who are living there and working there. I mean in Sudan before the fall of this Islamic government, they... people were going around on the streets, we went one Christmas in 2017, I remember, no not 2017, about 2000, maybe I think 2007, and they didn't want people to say Merry Christmas to the Christians, they don't want people to celebrate it.
But, I see in many countries for the convert, they cannot openly celebrate.
Converts who have come to know Christ, yeah, they cannot openly celebrate Christmas. In these red
countries and also in the countries where it is illegal.
There was a Muslim guy who converted to Christianity.
Wanted to go into a church in Egypt. He was arrested by the police because they discovered he's a
Muslim going to a church. He was Sudanese.
They put him in jail. They sent him back to Sudan. And that was like around, it was like 80 years ago.
And so they don't have the freedom to celebrate as converts.
They have problem to go to churches.
But I think in a way, some of these countries, the orange, the red, foreigners are celebrating.
But local people who are converts, they cannot really openly celebrate Christmas and go to church or
meet together and worship openly.
They mostly meet in secret. But I mean at least some of course they have decorations, Christians are
celebrating where traditionally there were Christians.
I mean the Christians from Christian background in Egypt or in Jordan or in Syria, they celebrate Christmas
in Iraq.
But if they are a convert they have difficulty to do that. But some countries have made it even difficult for
even the minorities or the Christians from other countries who are living in their country to celebrate.
But converts, they don't have the chance at all to do that. And so it had been going in a way from one country
to the other.
I mean, I passed through Qatar once, flying back during Christmas. They had no decoration for
Christmas in the airport, not anywhere.
I don't know how it is with the foreign churches.
If they had, they can celebrate in the church, maybe in their own meeting or within the church compound,
maybe in their homes, it should be possible.
But there were no signs of celebrations. other airports in Dubai and so on you find a lot of decorations and
Christmas things I think and the local, the minorities who are from other countries also they celebrate but I think
converts always will have problems, I know Brunei for sure doesn't allow Christmas celebration because it came out strongly, I think Somalia will be another place which will be very difficult to celebrate Christmas.
The same is with Mauritania and of course even in Nigeria they face problems because the churches are attacked many times they are doing this and so it is hard to say Tunisia maybe is more open, we don't have it here with any of the colours, but still I think they face pressure from the community, but according to the law, now the church has been accepted in Tunisia. But as I think generally, where there is traditional Christians from the beginning, because actually Christianity started in this area and it has died in many of these countries, but where it still exists, they celebrate. But for comfort, it is very difficult. Most of them, they have to be underground in the orange and the red countries in the map. They cannot really have the freedom to openly express their faith in Christ. It is also similar sometimes, of course, even in the West, you find a convert from Christianity or from atheist to Islam, they always have their faces out that they
speak. But if you have a convert from Islam to Christianity, they don't appear. Because then their life is in danger. And of course, you had the story of the guy who had Merry Christmas in his shop who was killed even in London once. So it is harder for the converts or for the more tolerant people within, but I think in a number of these countries where they were traditionally Christians sometimes of course because we have to separate between somebody, I mean it is like
Somebody saying all the West are Christians of course some aren't, the same are some of the Muslims are not
practicing Muslims, they're more terrorists, but if they are serious is their faith they can be
dangerous. So it is not... so you can be nominate and some of these maybe are more open and tolerant with
others and open to have relationship and I mean through my life of course I had a lot of friends who are from a Muslim background but the thing is the ideology we have to think about and the more you are practicing the ideology then you are in more trouble and difficulty, I mean you cause more problems. So we have always to think of that. So apostasy and blasphemy law are part of the Sharia and when they are applied then of course it is a big problem and it is actually applied as we saw here in these 12 countries where you have death sentence for leaving Islam.
And other countries where it is a crime to do that. But I think where there is traditional Christians, there is
more freedom because the church existed there for a long time.
(HoO)
Kamal, thank you so much for your time. It's a subject that does not get a lot of attention, and that's why I
was very keen to have you on. To the viewers and to the listeners,
please go and make use of the website, freedomdoworship.org. You can sign up to the newsletter, you can
donate, you can support the work there, and all the news items information is there. So it is a great resource
to help educate those of us who live in countries that are free
and realize that the world isn't all like that. So Kamal, thank you so much for your time today. It's been
wonderful to have you on.
(KF)
I would like just to end with one sentence. What Martin Luther King had said once, he said, "at the end, I
will not remember the words of my enemies, but the silence of my friend."
And my plea for whoever watched this program, to speak up for justice, for these people who are facing
death threat through their life,
just because they refuse to believe.
Or because they wanted to change, they wanted to become Athiests, they wanted to become
Christians, they wanted to leave Islam.
And so, please speak out, because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. And we need to stand for
justice, for freedom, and please stand for
the application of article, universal declaration of human rights article 18 and 19.
(HoO)
That's a perfect way to end, to call for people to get involved and to speak up. Thank you so much.
