Madam, - The following statement has come from the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference: "Muslims have noted with concern that the values of tolerance are eroding and there is now shrinking space for others' religious, social and cultural values in the West."
Meanwhile, the following incidents have recently been reported in five member-states of the OIC: Muslim rioters in Nigeria destroyed 18 Christian churches; an Indonesian Muslim mob burned a church to the ground; Palestinian Arab rioters attacked seven Christian churches; a teenage Christian in Pakistan faces life imprisonment on a false charge of defacing the Koran (a standard accusation); and the Saudis have just deported (after a month of beatings) four East African Christians for leading a prayer service in Jeddah.
One could add the treatment meted out regularly to Christians in Muslim lands, the imprisonment or execution of members of minority faiths, the expulsion of Jews from so many Muslim countries, or the bulldozing of Baha'i holy places in Iran, and much else. Values of tolerance? Or even of basic human rights and freedom?
Let's have some real reciprocity, as Pope Benedict suggested. - Yours, etc,
TOM CAREW, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.