Letters | 9 January 2010

Freedom fights fanaticism

Sir: John Deverell (Letters, 19 December) is right to draw attention to the precarious position of Christians in the Middle East: though the implication seems to be that if we keep quiet about the Islamification of Europe, the Islamists penetrate further into Europe; while if we speak out, the Islamists tighten their grip on the Middle East.

The deeper issue is the lack of religious freedom in the Muslim world. Christians, Zoroastrians, animists and Hindus are forced either to emigrate or to endure humiliating persecution. The apostasy law imprisons Muslims in Islam as surely as any Berlin Wall; while the laws against the defamation of Islam prevent Muslims from hearing any rational criticism of their religion.

Realists will say that our own interests are restricted to defeating al-Qa’eda and international terrorism, and that it is mere sentimentality to want to bring religious freedom to the Middle East. Al-Qa’eda itself thinks rather differently, if (as is reported) it has placed a $60 million bounty on the head of Father Zakaria Boutros, the Egyptian television journalist who asks informed questions about Islam.