cartoon1

cartoon1

Friday, July 13, 2012

Hope after near death; Christian thrives after attack because of her faith

Julie Aftab is a two-sided example.  One side is of the ideology that brought about her barbaric attack, and the other of her unshakable faith in God which guided her through her ordeal.  She is a true example of how the human spirit can survive the most devastating assault and rise above the act to achieve dreams.  Not even Islamic domination and hatred against non-Muslims could stop Aftab from going beyond her difficulties and achieving what she set her mind to.

Western feminists and liberals should be on the bus any time now, rushing to her side to stand in support of women everywhere, but especially in Islamic countries.  Anyone?

From the Daily Mail July 11 by Laura Cox

'They wanted to hang me... they thought it would be an insult to Islam if I lived': New beginning in Texas for Pakistani Christian woman who suffered savage acid attack by Muslim man who thought she was a traitor
Julia Aftab after 31 surgeries



A 26-year-old woman horrifically burned in an acid attack has spoken out about her trauma as she re-builds her life in Houston, Texas.

Julie Aftab was 16 and working in an office in Pakistan when a man walked in and asked her if she was Christian, spotting a small cross she wore around her neck.

She replied that yes, she was and the man became abusive, shouting at her that she was living in the gutter and would go to hell for shunning Islam.He left and returned half an hour later, clutching a bottle of battery acid which he savagely chucked over her head. As she ran screaming for the door a second man grabbed her by the hair and forced more of the liquid down her throat, searing her esophagus.

Teeth fell from her mouth as she desperately called for help, stumbling down the street.

A woman heard her cries and took her to her home, pouring water over her head and taking her to hospital.

At first the doctors refused to treat her, because she was a Christian. 'They all turned against me,' she told the Houston Chronicle.

'Even the people who took me to the hospital. They told the doctor they were going to set the hospital on fire if they treated me.'

Eventually Aftab's family found a hospital that agreed to take her in but there was little they could do.
Aftab could not speak or move her arms and the acid had burned through her skin to leave bone-deep wounds.

67 per cent of her esophagus was burned and she was missing an eye and both eyelids. What remained of her teeth could be seen through a gaping hole where her cheek had been.

The doctors predicted she would die any day.

Despite the odds she pulled through. She remained in hospital for a year, unable to speak or see for the first three and a half months.

On leaving the hospital she was labelled a pariah in her neighbourhood, her family was persecuted and their home was burnt down.

'They wanted to hang me,' she told the paper. 'They thought it would be an insult to Islam if I lived.'

But there was light at the end of the tunnel for Aftab. A nondenominational bishop arranged for her to be treated in Houston and to live with a local couple, Lee and Gloria Ervin, whom she now calls Uncle Lee and Auntie Gloria.

Supported by her host parents a now 26-year-old Aftab says the attack has made her faith stronger than ever.

'Those people, they think they did a bad thing to me, but they brought me closer to God,' Aftab told the paper. 'They helped me fulfill my dreams. I never imagined I could be the person I am today.'

Read it all

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is one example of the Muslim savagery which happens every day in Islamic lands. This woman's story is outstanding because of her escape to the USA and her triumphant spirit. Are we going to see this story anywhere in the American press or media? You know we won't. I find it mind-boggling to grasp the suffering which this woman endured.