Father Kills Convert Daughter … And This Isn’t News?

Terry Mattingly at GetReligion.org calls our attention to this report from a Christian news source, of Christian martyrdom in Saudi Arabia :

Reports are coming in of increasing persecution of Christian believers in the Saudi Arabia. A Saudi man recently cut the tongue of his daughter and burned her to death for converting to Christianity, according to a report by the United Arab Emirates-based Gulf News. The victim frequently wrote on various Web site blogs about her conversion from Islam. It is believed that she converted to Christianity after learning about the faith on the Internet and through Christian media.

The girl’s father is an employee of Saudi Arabia ‘s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice—the arm of the government that enforces the nation’s prohibition of Christianity and conversion to Christianity. Sources close to the victim said that the father was being investigated for “honor killing” rather than murder, Gulf News reported. Shariah-ruled Saudi Arabia , where all Christian worship is forbidden, is ranked No. 2 on Open Doors’ 2007 World Watch List of nations where Christians are persecuted for their faith.

Under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, apostasy is punishable by death if the accused does not recant.

Even though it originated with mainstream-media sources in the region, the only place Mattingly could find a mainstream reference was in a column titled, ” War on Christians in the Middle East Must be Stopped ” by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Eckstein writes:

An Islamic court in Shiraz, Iran has just convicted two men of being infidels. Their crime? Converting to Christianity. The possible sentence? Death. Not too far away in Saudi Arabia, an outraged father recently hacked his own daughter to death for the same “abomination.”

In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news, there is one story of historic proportion that goes nearly unreported: the persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world’s oldest Christian communities.

But this, too, Mattingly says, is an advocacy piece. “Why,” he asks, “is this a conservative” news story? Why is this hellish subject not worth mainstream attention?”