CNN: “Muslim teen fears for life after changing religion”
Rifqa Bary, 17, ran away from her family in Columbus, Ohio, in July and took refuge …. The teenager claims her father added, “I will kill you!”
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Although Mohamed Bary said he did not expect his daughter to run away, Rifqa Bary was placed in foster care by an Orlando judge in August while the Florida Department of Children and Family investigated the threat allegations against the parents.
The allegations are certainly serious and one would not want to run the risk that they are true and she would be harmed (note: not all Muslims believe in punishing “apostates”), but why on earth does a 17-year-old need to be placed in foster care? Some reasonable age of emancipation from parental control is appropriate, but…. 18??? Why not let her live where she wants? (I am in Austria at the moment, where the voting age is 16.)
Just a guess, but if she’s in high school, the foster system would allow her to finish high-school, without concern for whether she can provide for her own material needs.
That girl is only about 17 years old. What does she know about religion to convert to christianity?. If I was her father I probably will not kill her especialy now after all the attention the case is getting. But believe me if I am the father I would be mad. Who anyone in his position wouldn’t be mad if his daughter come to him on a sunday morning and tell him she is going to church, and he is a muslim. If you ask me the truth, she is stupid and I am guessing that she want some publicity out of the whole thing.
You live in Austria, how nice. This is the United States – and we like it here. Your country has its laws, and we have our laws. Each country has set boundries about children, all with the expressed purpose of protecting the child while investigating the proffered statements. This young girl though she is 17, is not yet considered ready for emancipation due to how the law is written. She is placed in a foster home while still in High School, and a ward of the state, while considering all sides and the child’s SAFETY. Each country has its own laws, and that’s that.
So morality is relative, lynda? The laws of individual countries are sacred by merely being their own?
I think Tom’s point is that 17 seems like old enough to make your own decisions about where you want to live, what religion you want to profess, and so on and so forth, without being anyone else’s ward. (He does not “live in Austria,” but was merely in Austria when he wrote the blog post. That gave him occasion to mention that the voting age there is 16; if you’re 16, you can decide who will be the head of state and what the country’s policies will be. That boggles my mind, but I agree that 16 is old enough for most people, at the least, to decide what religion to follow and whether to live with their parents or not.)