Gaza Christians Protest against 'Forcible Conversions' to Islam

[Banana]

Dozens of Gaza Christians staged a rare public protest Monday, claiming two congregants were forcibly converted to Islam and were being held against their will.

The small but noisy demonstration showed the increasingly desperate situation facing the tiny minority.

Protesters banged on a church bell and chanted, “With our spirit, with our blood we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Jesus.”

Gaza police say the two are staying with a Muslim religious official at their request, because they fear retribution from their families converting to Islam. Two mediators said the two — a 25-year-old man and a woman with three children — appeared to have embraced Islam of their free will. Forced conversions have been unheard of in Gaza before.

Since the Islamic militant Hamas seized power five years ago, Christians have felt increasingly embattled, but have mostly kept silent.

There are growing fears among Gaza Christians that their rapidly shrinking community could disappear through emigration and conversions.

Their numbers appear to have shrunk from some 3,500 to about 1,500 in recent years, according to community estimates. They are a tiny minority among 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza, most conservative Muslims.

“If things remain like this, there’ll be no Christians left in Gaza,” said Huda Al-Amash, mother of one of the converts, Ramez, 25. She sat sobbing in a church hallway alongside her daughters, Ranin and Rinad, and a dozen other women. “Today it’s Ramez. Then who, and who will be next?”

Christians said the main reason for the shrinking numbers is emigration, since there are few jobs in Gaza.

Changing faith is a deeply traumatic affair in the Arab world, where religion is strongly interwoven with people’s identities and tribal membership. To convert often means to be ostracized by the community.

The two converts, Al-Amash, and Hiba Abu Dawoud, 31, could not be reached for comment. Abu Dawould took her three daughters with her, further enraging the community.

On Monday, groups of men and women stood in groups in the square of the ancient Church of Saint Porphyrius, angrily chanting, “Bring back Ramez!” One man angrily hit the church bell.

“People are locking up their sons and daughters, worried about the ideas people put in their head,” said Al-Amash’s mother, Huda.

Gaza Christians hold rare protest over ‘forcible conversions’ of 2 to Islam - The Washington Post

Palestinian Terrorists want to Erase Jews and Christians from their Holy Land.

 

[RFS_Br]

As the article itself notices, conversions are not well-accepted in the area on the part of the converts' communities. It's thus not surprising that some communities or families will overreact -- as was the case for the family of the young man mentioned on the article. The article's writer, AP correspondent Diaa Hadid, posted on her twitter account that the claims of the protesters were likely not true and that it does appear that the two Gazans converted to Islam voluntarily and sought shelter with Hamas so as to prevent hostility from their community.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, an independent group, has held meetings with the two converts and their families, and stated that no kidnapping or forced conversion took place:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights confirmed it had met with both Amash and the woman involved, 32-year-old Heba Abu Dawud.

"We held separate meetings with Ramez al-Amash and Heba Abu Dawud and her daughters at the centre, and they confirmed their desire to embrace Islam," PCHR legal unit director Iyad Alamy told AFP.

He stressed that there was "no truth at all" to claims that Amash, Abu Dawud or her daughters were kidnapped.

He said Amash had met with his parents at the centre, and his father had accepted the conversion and asked him to move back home, though his mother continued to reject her son's apparent decision.

"We're working to try to solve this issue so the young man can live with his family normally," he said.
Abu Dawud also met with workers from the centre along with her daughters, and said she had converted "of her own free will," Alamy said.

She expressed willingness "to allow her husband to see his daughters, but said she considers herself divorced on the basis of her understanding of Islamic law which does not allow a Muslim woman to marry a Christian," he added.

Plus, as the AP article itself emphasizes, Gaza, unlike India, doesn't know forced conversion of either Muslims or Christians.

 

[xdrive]

What do they expect when they live in land controlled by an islamic terrorist organization?

 

[RFS_Br]

What do they expect when they live in land controlled by an islamic terrorist organization?

Read my post before jumping onto false conclusions. There were no forced conversions, as recognized even by the author of the article the OP quotes. There were instead families disgruntled at their relatives' decision to convert. The little conspiracy theory about an unnamed Islamist group kidnapping Christians, I can only guess is their way, however odd and inappropriate, to cope with the matter.