From Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:
DUBAI: Two US missionaries detained in Dubai on suspicion of distributing Christian compact discs and Bibles in the Muslim Gulf emirate have returned to the United States, a local newspaper said.A US embassy official confirmed the report but declined to give details, citing the US privacy act.
The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, forbids proselytising by non-Muslims.
Double standard watch: imagine for a moment the international outcry that would ensue if Britain, or France, or the United States for that matter, forbade proselytising by non-Christians. Yet the chattering classes persist in retailing moral equivalence and all-religions-are-equally-capable-of-inspiring-violence arguments, despite the fact that anyone who looks at the world with an objective eye for five minutes can see that they aren't true.
The daily quoted a Dubai Justice Department official as saying the case against the two women had been dismissed but that the public prosecution department kept the 26 CDs and 19 Bibles confiscated when the women were arrested last month....In 1993 a UAE court sentenced a British man to six months in prison for handing out Christian literature to Iranians. Dubai, unlike other places in the Gulf which follow Islamic law to the letter, tries to cater to differing cultures and religions and has both churches and mosques.
That last sentence is odd. Are they "catering" to different cultures by releasing these women instead of executing them? Gee, thanks.
"imagine for a moment the international outcry that would ensue if Britain, or France, or the United States for that matter, forbade proselytising by non-Christians."
You are 100% on the money with that comment.
Look, like it or not it's their law. When in Rome...so if those make a decision to break the law, they should accept the consequences.
When in Rome...
And what's good for the goose... we too, have laws based on our value system. As I have been suggesting with respect to the Wahhabi mosques and madrassas that foment anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Christian behaviour amongst the Muslim community, the US government should compel all Arab-funded religious groups to register as foreign agents so that their activities and imams can be monitored.
Our nation accommodates freedom of religious worship but not incitement to commit violence and sedition.
Without freedom religion and democracy the war won´t be won.
Tautologies don't help here. If the law is illegitimate, one need not recognize it, only fear it. If cannibalism, incest, and Human sacrifice are the laws of the land, then we either wallow in moral relativity or we fight for universal Human rights. You take your pick. You don't get it both ways.
Sonofwalker:
I left you a message on JW on your last post!
Terminator, will go to it now and get back to you in the morning. Sorry for the delay.
The last time i was in dhubai i saw a scantily clad young blonde walking just off the Beach near some arab houses.
wearing a bikini in such circumstances is testimnony to the ignorance and idiocy of the young woman. One should have a modicum of knowledge before visiting such countries .
The moonbats who brought this material to Dhubai fall in the same category as the young bimbo.
They are probaly Bush hating peace lovers a la Guiliana Screga or rachel Corrie.
That is not to say that one is in agreement with the Duhbai laws, which are probably more liberal than any other Gulf Arab state.
Chevalier de St. George: My hat's off to those two young ladies, and I'm not sure they're Christian versions of Signorina Screga. Yes, you respect the house where you're a guest; but ultimately, as Psalm Two warns the princes of the earth, those in power who will not submit to God's Anointed (Jesus Christ) will perish in the way. Maybe that's what we're seeing even now as a proud, self-confident secular liberalism surrenders, bit by bit, to every self-destructive passion there is (homosexuality today; pedophilia tomorrow, perhaps abetted by the example of the anti-Christian false prophet who, after all, was also a rebel against the Christ of Scripture; then deliberate sexual exposure to diseased animals after that [?]). My guess is also that those two young ladies may well have been in Abu Dhabi because of Muslims sickened at what their original religion has become, to the point where they ask a lot of the same questions that many of the posters here have been asking. May God bless their peaceful witness.
Yes, you respect the house where you're a guest.
I have no respect for the sharia laws of Arab states. This is not Rome.
observing their laws is merely a question of survival.
True the Women, if in possesion of the facts about spreading Christianity in the Gulf states, were brave, if not foolhardy.
But I wonder if the Tom Cox association were honest with them regarding the risks in the same way that Guiliana went to Iraq with a luggage full of misconceptions.