Religious Cleansing Among Palestinians Affects Not Only Christians But Also Muslim Sects

Apparently Christians are not the only ones the Palestinians are persecuting these days.

The West Bank Palestinians are now also persecuting other Muslims:

For more than a year, a Palestinian couple belonging to an Islamic sect rejected by many mainstream Muslims endured insults from some of their neighbours and even death threats while struggling to maintain a quiet existence in this West Bank town.


As word spread about them, things got worse. A local Islamic court branded them apostates and dissolved their marriage. The couple, Mohammed and Samah Alawneh, now live in legal limbo.

Their plight demonstrates the tensions between a still largely conservative Palestinian society and a Western-backed government expected by the international community to ensure democratic freedoms.

...The Alawnehs are members of the Ahmadi sect, an Islamic offshoot whose members are often branded traitors and face persecution in the Muslim world. Another couple — the husband is Ahmadi, the wife is not — is facing the same proceedings.

Keep in mind that we are not talking here about a tiny sect either. There are an estimated 4 million Ahmadis worldwide, the majority of them living in South Asia but also in Africa and Europe. Besides facing isolation and persecution, last year in Pakistan two of their mosques were bombed and 97 people were killed.

In the case of the Alawnehs, there is an additional victim:

Expecting their first child later this year, they will not be able to register the baby with the Palestinian Interior Ministry — meaning the child cannot go to public school or qualify for medical care. The child will be scorned as illegitimate if they remain unmarried.

And so what Sarkozy referred to the "religious cleansing" going on in the Muslim world continues--even among Muslims.

Hat tip: Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Religious Cleansing and Ahmadis and Islam and Muslim Persecution Of Christians.