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|  | Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the News?
« Thread Started on Sept 7, 2011, 10:52pm » | |
An article by Raymond Ibrahim of the Mid-East Forum details recent attacks and persecution worldwide by Muslims on Christians. One wonders what has to happen till the mainstream media (MSM) starts seeing it, not as isolated incidents, but an overall mindset intent on ultimate domination. So long as those like the BBC want to continue to present Islam as the religion of peace, we find they not only ignore alerting the public to this menace, but even recounting the individual events themselves.
Ask yourself when reading the individual incidents, how many, if any, were you notified of in the news?
Links to details of the incidents related below are available at either of the sites carrying the report.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: August, 2011
by Raymond Ibrahim
Hudson New York
September 7, 2011
http://www.meforum.org/3031/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011
This series was developed in order to collate some—by no means all—of the foulest instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
Intrinsically, to document that which the mainstream media does not: habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
Instrumentally, to show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is ultimately rooted in a Sharia inspired worldview.
As will become evident, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya; overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis (second-class citizens); and simple violence. Oftentimes it is a combination of the aforementioned.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the west, to India in the east, and even throughout the West, wherever there are Muslims—it is clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Sharia, or the supremacist culture borne of it.
Categorized by theme, August's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians includes (but is not limited to) the following anecdotes, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity of atrocity:
Attacks on Christian Symbols: Churches and Bibles
Indonesia: Two churches were set aflame; officials downplayed these atrocities by arguing that the buildings were "only made of board" and not real churches. A mayor also proclaimed that churches cannot be built on streets with Muslim names, even as Muslim majority regions reject the building of any churches.
Iran: Officials launched a Bible burning campaign, confiscating and destroying some 7,000 Bibles, many publicly burned. Likening their tiny Christian minority to the "Taliban and parasites," the regime also "cracked down" on Christians (who make up less than 1% of the entire population), arresting many, the whereabouts of which remain unknown.
Iraq: Two churches were bombed: the first damaged the church and wounded 23; the second damaged the church (a third church was targeted but the bomb was defused before going off).
Nigeria: Two churches were bombed, including a Baptist church no longer in use due to previous Muslim attacks; when officials arrested Islamist leaders, a third Catholic church was torched.
Apostasy and Forced Conversions
Eritrea: It was revealed that at least eight Christians have died in prisons, most under severe conditions and torture, simply for refusing to recant Christianity.
India: A female who was formerly stripped and beaten by a Muslim mob for converting to Christianity, continues to receive severe threats to return to Islam or die; likewise, Muslims held three Christian women "threatening to beat and burn them alive if they continued worshipping Christ."
Iran: A Christian pastor in Iran remains behind bars, where he is being tortured and awaits execution for refusing to recant Christianity.
Malaysia: Religious police raided a church when they "found evidence of proselytisation towards Muslims" and "receiving information that there were Muslims who attended a breaking-of-fast event at the church"; a Facebook campaign created to support the raid and to "prevent apostasy" has already drawn support from 23,000 people.
Norway: A Muslim convert to Christianity was tortured with boiling water and told by fellow Muslim inmates "If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you"; if deported, he risks death by stoning for leaving Islam.
Pakistan: Muslims openly abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl at gunpoint saying she had to convert to Islam; another Christian woman who was abducted, drugged, and tortured for two years—all while being informed she had converted to Islam—happily made her escape. In both cases, the police, as usual, are siding with the Muslim abductors. Most recently, two Christians returning from church were attacked by Muslims and beaten with iron rods for refusing to convert to Islam or pay "protection" (jizya) money.
Sudan: A 16 year old Christian girl finally escaped from her Muslim kidnappers, who "beat, raped and tried to force her to convert from Christianity to Islam"; whenever she tried to pray, she was beaten again and called an "infidel"; when her mother went to the police, they told her to convert to Islam before they returned her child.
Uganda: In accordance to Islam's Hanafi School of law, a Muslim father locked his 14-year-old daughter in a room for several months without food or water, simply because she embraced Christianity; when rescued, she weighed 44 pounds.
General Oppression, Violence, and Murder of Christians
Bangladesh: Church leaders, including an elderly pastor, were severely beaten in a police station for protesting that Muslims had illegally seized and occupied a Christian home. A previously tortured Christian activist is in hiding in Honk Kong, even as his wife and children face death threats from surrounding Muslims.
Egypt: Soon after breaking their Ramadan fast, thousands of Muslims rampaged a predominantly Christian village, firing automatic weapons, looting and throwing Molotov Cocktails at several homes; they beat a priest, plundering and torching his home; another Copt was murdered in his home, which was also ransacked. Separately, a Copt was savagely attacked by seven Muslims in front of a police station; he lost one eye and required 20 stitches in his head. And girls leaving church were sexually harassed by Muslim who hurled stones at the church shattering five windows.
Nigeria: In what is being called a "silent killing," ten Christians were slain by Muslims seeking to expunge Christianity from northern Nigeria; eyewitnesses insist that the army is assisting and enabling the slayings.
Pakistan: A Christian family consisting of 26 people, including women and children, lived in slavery for over 30 years, forced to labor on a farm belonging to a wealthy Muslim landowner; they only recently managed to regain their freedom, through the aid of the Catholic Church. Separately, a Muslim mob attacked a group of Christians watching a Jesus movie, destroying the projector. A Christian man was beaten unconscious for celebrating Independence Day, told by Muslims "How can you celebrate when you are Christian? Convert to Islam if you want to join the celebration."
Somalia: Al-Shabab ("the youth") is intentionally preventing food aid from reaching the nation's miniscule Christian minority: "Any Somali that the Islamists suspect to be a Christian, or even a friend of Christians, does not receive any food aid."
Sudan: A "humanitarian crisis is unfolding" in Sudan's border region where Christians and their churches are being targeted in a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by North Sudan's Islamist regime.
United Kingdom: A Muslim family was terrorized and threatened with death because their daughter married a Christian, a crime according to Sharia.
Uzbekistan: Authorities continue to pressure churches and Christians, fabricating evidence to punish or limit Christians' ability to practice their faith, and subjecting them to excessive fines, false accusations, and confiscating their Christian literature.
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These were just some of the stories of Christian suffering under Islam that made it to a few non mainstream media last month.
Then there are the countless atrocities that never make it to any media—the stories of persistent, quiet misery that only the victims know—such as the recent revelation that a 2-year-old girl was savagely raped in Pakistan because her Christian father refused to convert to Islam: it took five years for this story to surface. How many are the tales of woe that never surface?
Now, back to your regular scheduled MSM programming on how the perpetually misunderstood religion of Islam is really the "religion of peace"…
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thehighlandrebel
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #1 on Sept 13, 2011, 9:15pm » | |
Thanks for that, Teddy.
Googling on this topic I'm finding that Islamic attacks against Christians and Christianity is even more endemic than I first realised but, as you say, where is the media coverage?
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #2 on Sept 13, 2011, 10:49pm » | |
For the media in general to make it public, they would also have to identify the depraved backward prejudiced thinking inherent in those Muslims who commit those acts, which they're too afraid to do. Easier for them to accept terrorism against Israel and allow the pretexts and excuses given to avoid highlighting the depraved mindset here.
Simply put - they're Cowards.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #3 on Dec 4, 2011, 6:12pm » | |
We have posted about numerous occasions where Islamic violence against Christians has been under-reported or completely ignored by the BBC. This is by no means a comprehensive account of all that have taken place, nor is it meant to be, just enough to show there is a clear agenda by the BBC to appease Muslims worldwide by not showing their real mentality or actions.
Here's a few of those threads where we have detailed these accounts. Each of the stories linked to will also highlight further incidents of this nature, for anybody interested in researching this matter in more detail.
The BBC Ignoring Egypt's Attacks on Christians
BBC Avoids Mention of Violence against Christians
The View the BBC Prefers not to Disclose
The BBC Assists Those Who Incite Terrorism?
Another story, covered by Asia news but omitted entirely by the BBC is this attack by Iraqi Muslims on Christian businesses there, following an imam's sermon at Friday prayers. According to the article Iraqi Christian figures confirm that fundamentalist Islam - after the initial auspices related to "Arab Spring", which led to a cautious optimism - has become "much more aggressive and dangerous for non-Muslims."
It appears the BBC wants to preserve a foolish and naive optimism at the 'Arab Spring', however misguided, at the expense of many innocent victims at the mercy of it.
Quote:Zakho, Iraqi Islamic extremists attack Christian-owned shops and properties
In a YouTube video images of the assault that took place yesterday in Iraqi Kurdistan, a few kilometres from the border with Turkey. The violence started after Friday prayers triggered by imam’s sermon. Christian personalities: since the Arab Spring, radical Islam is "more dangerous".
Baghdad (AsiaNews) - A group of protesters linked to the Islamic extremist wing, composed mostly of young people, yesterday stormed several Christian-owned shops, a hotel and a beauty parlour. The violence erupted yesterday afternoon in the town of Zakho, about 470 km from Baghdad, Iraqi Kurdistan located a few kilometers from the border with Turkey, and caused the wounding of at least 30 people, including 20 policemen. The fundamentalist wrath was unleashed by the vitriolic sermon of an imam in the local mosque, after which punitive raids were launched across the city. Pro-government Kurdish factions have already responded to the onslaught of the xtremist groups, who burned at least six sites of the Islamic Party of Kurdistan in the city and surrounding areas.
A video posted on YouTube (click here to view it), shows the assault against Christian shops and properties. Local Christian sources interviewed by AsiaNews - anonymous for security reasons - were involved in the raid confirm that "hundreds of people, especially young people" destroyed "at least 13 liquor shops, but the number could reach 30. Witnesses added that "the police did not react" and it is likely that "the assault was pre-planned." The extremist crowd, that carried out the attack in Zakho, then headed for Sumaili - town 15 km from Dohuk, the third largest Kurdish city - where once again exercises owned by Christians and Yazidis were targeted.
In Sumaili, said the source for AsiaNews, there are at least 200 Christian families who are now terrified. The violence continued in the Christian village of Shiuz, where 180 families live, and " the Kurdish police intervened to restore calm only two hours later ". "The extremist crowd - he adds - chanted jihad, or holy war, and anti-Christian slogans."
The Christian community in the region experienced a day of panic and terror at the hands of extremists and abandoned by local authorities. "These events - warns the source - lead to the faithful fleeing their native lands. In Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad, the police took steps to protect churches and places of worship. "
Iraqi Kurdistan has long been the center of a bitter conflict between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen for control of the lands and oil fields that surround it, the dispute also involves the Christian minority, who are victims of violence and vendettas. Iraqi Christian figures confirm that fundamentalist Islam - after the initial auspices related to "Arab Spring", which led to a cautious optimism - has become "much more aggressive and dangerous for non-Muslims." (DS)
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #4 on Dec 25, 2011, 6:35pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim's update for November. There are plenty of links in the actual article for anybody wanting further details on any of the incidents mentioned.
Are you surprised at how many of these stories you were completely unaware of?
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: November 2011
"Everyone is Born a Muslim"
by Raymond Ibrahim
The so-called "Arab Spring" continues to transition into a "Christian Winter," including in those nations undergoing democratic change, such as Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis dominated the elections—unsurprisingly so, considering the Obama administration has actually been training Islamists for elections.
Arab regimes not overthrown by the "Arab Spring" are under mounting international pressure; these include the secular Assad regime of Syria, where Christians, who comprise some 10% of the population, are fearful of the future, having seen the effects of democracy in neighboring nations such as Iraq, where, since the fall of the Saddam regime, Christians have been all but decimated.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that "Christians are being refused refugee status [in the U.S.] and face persecution and many times certain death for their religious beliefs under [Islamic] Sharia [law], while whole Muslim communities are entering the U.S. by the tens of thousands per month despite the fact that they face no religious persecution."
Categorized by theme, November's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity.
Churches
Ethiopia: More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church, while screaming "Allahu Akbar" ["Allah is Greatest!"]: the church was built on land used by Christians for more than 60 years, but now a court has ruled that it was built "without a permit."
Indonesia: Hundreds of "hard-line" Muslims rallied to decry the "arrogance" of a beleaguered church that, though kept shuttered by authorities, has been ordered open by the Supreme Court. Church members have been forced to hold services on the sidewalk, even as Indonesia's leading Muslim clerics warned Christians that it would be "wise and sensible" for the church to yield to "the feelings of the local believers, specifically Muslims."
Iran: The nation's minister of intelligence said that house churches in his country are a threat to Iranian youth, and acknowledged a new series of efforts to fight the growth of the house church movement in Iran.
Nigeria: Islamic militants shouting "Allahu Akbar" carried out coordinated attacks on churches and police stations, including opening fire on a congregation of "mostly women and children," killing dozens. The attacks occurred in a region where hundreds of people were earlier killed during violence that erupted after President Jonathan, a Christian, beat his closet Muslim rival in April elections.
Turkey: The ancient Aghia Sophia church has been turned into a mosque. Playing an important role in ecumenical history, the church was first transformed into a mosque in 1331 by the jihadist Ottoman state. As a sign of secularization, however, in 1920 it was turned into a museum. Its transformation again into a mosque is a reflection of Turkey's re-Islamization.
Apostasy and Proselytism
Afghanis around the world are being threatened for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. One exile, who changed his name after fleeing Afghanistan in 2007 when an Islamic court issued an arrest warrant for his conversion, is still receiving threats: "They [Afghan officials] were very angry and saying that they will hit me by knife and kill me." Even in distant Norway last September, an Afghan convert to Christianity was scalded with boiling water and acid at a refugee processing center: "If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you," his attackers reportedly told him.
Algeria: Five Christians were jailed for "worshiping in an unregistered location." International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group investigating the case, states that the five Christians are charged with "proselytizing," "unauthorized worship," and "insulting Islam."
Iran: Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who caught the attention of the world after being imprisoned and awaiting execution for leaving Islam, remains behind bars as officials continue to come up with excuses to force him to renounce Christianity; the latest is that "everyone is [born] a Muslim." A Christian couple "who had been snatched and illegally-detained" by authorities for eight months without any formal charges, were finally released, beaten again, and have since fled the country. While imprisoned, they were "ridiculed and debased" for their Christian faith.
Kashmir: Muslim police arrested and beat seven converts from Islam in an attempt to obtain a confession against the priest who baptized them. After the grand mufti alleged that Muslim youths were alternatively being "lured" and "forced" to convert by an Anglican priest "in exchange for money," the priest was arrested in a "humiliating" manner. Recently released, his life is now "in serious danger."
Kenya: A gang of Muslims stabbed and beat with iron rods a 25-year-old Somali refugee, breaking his teeth; he was then stripped naked, covered with dirt, and left unconscious near a church. Although he was raised Christian since age 7, he was attacked on the "assumption that as a Somali he was born into Islam and was therefore an apostate deserving of death."
Nigeria: The Muslim militant group, Boko Haram, executed two children of an ex-terrorist and "murderer" because he converted to Christianity. When still a terrorist, he "was poised to slit the throat of a Christian victim" when "he was suddenly struck with the weight of the evil he was about to commit." After finding he converted to Christianity, "Boko Haram members invaded his home, kidnapped his two children and informed him that they were going to execute them in retribution for his disloyalty to Islam. Clutching his phone, the man heard the sound of the guns that murdered his children."
Killings
Egypt: After a Christian inadvertently killed a Muslim in a quarrel begun by the latter, thousands of Muslims rose in violence, "collectively punishing" the Copts of the village. Two Christians "not party to the altercation" were killed; others were stabbed and critically wounded. As usual, "after killing the Copts, Muslims went on a rampage, looting and burning Christian-owned homes and businesses." Even so, "Muslims insist they have not yet avenged" the death of their co-religionist, and there are fears of "a wholesale massacre of Copts." Many Christians have fled their homes or are in hiding.
Kenya: Suspected Islamic extremists, apparently angered at the use of wine during communion—Islam forbids alcohol—threw a grenade near a church compound killing two, including an 8-year-old girl, and critically wounding three others. The pastor of another congregation received a message threatening him either to flee the region "within 48 hours or you see bomb blast taking your life and we know your house, Christians will see war. Don't take it so lightly. We are for your neck."
Nigeria: In the latest round of violence, soon after mosque prayers were heard, hundreds of armed Muslims invaded Christian villages, "like a swarm of bees," killing, looting, and destroying virtually everything in sight; at the end of their four-hour rampage, some 150 people had been killed—at least 130 of them Christians. Another 45 Christians were also killed by another set of Muslims shouting "Allahu Akbar!," who burned, looted, and killed. Hundreds of people are still missing; the attacks have included the bombing of at least ten church buildings. Nearly all the Christians in the area have fled the region.
Pakistan: A 25 year-old Christian was shot dead by "an unidentified gunman in what his family believes was a radical Muslim group's targeting of a Christian." According to the son, "We firmly believe that my father was killed because of his preaching of the Bible, because there is no other reason." He began to receive threats "after voicing his desire to start a welfare organization for the poor Christians" of the region.
"Dhimmitude"
(General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslim "Second-Class Citizens")
November's major instances of dhimmitude come from two Muslim nations notorious for violating Christian rights—Egypt and Pakistan—neither of which is even cited in the U.S. State Department's recent International Religious Freedom report:
Egypt: Following October's Maspero massacre, when the military killed dozens of Christians, some run over intentionally by armored vehicles, Egypt's military prosecutor detained 34 Christians, including teens under 16, on charges of "inciting violence, carrying arms and insulting the armed forces"; many of the detainees were not even at the scene and were just collected from the streets for "being a Christian." Three are under 16 years of age, including one who, after having an operation to extract a bullet from his jaw, was chained to his hospital bed. Hundreds of Christians also came under attack from Muslims throwing stones and bottles, after the Christians protested against the violence at Maspero: "Supporters of an Islamist candidate for upcoming parliamentary election joined in the attack on the Copts." Meanwhile, a senior leader of the Salafi party, which came in second after the Muslim Brotherhood in recent elections, blamed Christians for their own massacre, calling "Allah's curse on them." Muslim Brotherhood leaders asserted that only "drunks, druggies, and adulterers" are against the implementation of Sharia—a clear reference to Egypt's Christians.
Pakistan: A new U.S. government commission report indicates that Pakistani school textbooks foster intolerance of Christians, Hindus, and all non-Muslims, while most teachers view religious minorities as "enemies of Islam." "Religious minorities are often portrayed as inferior or second-class citizens who have been granted limited rights and privileges by generous Pakistani Muslims, for which they should be grateful," notes the report. Accordingly, in an attempted land-grab, Muslim police and cohorts of a retired military official, beat two Christian women with "batons and punches," inflicting a serious wound to one of the women's eyes after the women spoke up in defense of their land, and shot at Christians who came to help the women. "In the last few years Muslims have made several attempts to seize the land from the Christians, usually succeeding because Christians are a marginalized minority." Likewise, under a "false charge of theft," a Christian couple was arrested and severely beaten by police; the pregnant wife was "kicked and punched" even as her interrogators threatened "to kill her unborn fetus." A policeman offered to remove the theft charges if the husband would only "renounce Christianity and convert to Islam."
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in of jizya, tribute expected from non-Muslim and therefore second-class citizens, or dhimmis; overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the west, to India in the east, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #5 on Jan 6, 2012, 6:31pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim continues his monthly series documenting the violence committed against Christians throughout the Muslim world. Relevant and copious links are available on the individual incidents on the webpage itself.
Consider again the real impact of these events, and the likely future as a result. Just the fact that the media and Church leaders make so little of it belies the importance of it.
The writings on the wall, and we continue to ignore it.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: December, 2011
"Saying Merry Christmas Is Worse than Killing Someone"
by Raymond Ibrahim
January 5, 2012 at 4:45 am
The Nigerian church bombings, in which the Islamic group Boko Haram ["Western Education Is Forbidden"] killed over 40 people celebrating Christmas mass, is just the most obvious example of anti-Christian sentiment in the Muslim world. Elsewhere in this region, Christmas time for Christians is a time of increased threats, harassment, and fear, which is not surprising, considering Muslim clerics maintain that "saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornication or killing someone." A few examples:
Egypt: The Coptic Church is being threatened with a repeat of "Nag Hammadi," the area where drive-by Muslims shot to death six Christians as they exited church after celebrating Christmas mass in 2010. Due to fears of a repetition,the diocese "cancel[ed] all festivities for New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve."
Indonesia: In a "brutal act" that has "strongly affected the Catholic community," days before Christmas, "vandals decapitated the statue of the Virgin Mary in a small grotto … a cross was stolen and the aspersorium was badly damaged."
Iran: There were reports of a sharp increase in activities against Christians prior to Christmas by the State Security centers of the Islamic Republic. Local churches were "ordered to cancel Christmas and New Year's celebrations as a show of their compliance and support" for "the two month-long mourning activities of the Shia' Moslems."
Malaysia: Parish priests or their church youth leaders had to get a police permit—requiring them to submit their full names and identity card numbers—simply to "visit their fellow church members and belt out 'Joy to the World,' [or] 'Silent Night, Holy Night.'"
Pakistan: "Intelligence reports warned of threats of terrorist attacks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day," adding that most church security is "inadequate." Christians also lamented that "extreme power outages have become routine during Christmas and Easter seasons."
Meanwhile, if Christians under Islam are forced to live like dhimmis—non-Muslims under Muslim authority, and treated as second-class citizens—in the West, voluntarily playing the dhimmi to appease Muslims during Christmas time is commonplace: the University of London held Christmas service featuring readings from the Quran (which condemns the incarnation, that is, Christmas); and "a posh Montreal suburb has decided to remove a nativity scene and menorah from town hall rather than acquiesce to demands from a Muslim group to erect Islamic religious symbols."
Categorized by theme, the rest of December's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity.
CHURCH ATTACKS
Ethiopia: A video of some 500 Muslims burning down a church on November 29 while crying "Allahu Akbar!"["Allah is the Greatest!"] appeared. The pretext for burning this church was that it had no "permit"—even though it was built on land owned by Christians for 60 years.
Indonesia: An "Islamic extremist" group is pressing to have five churches demolished, again to claims that the churches have no permit. The congregation of another "embattled church" that Muslims are trying to shut down "was forced to move its Christmas prayers to a member's house after Islamic groups assembled at the disputed site and threatened to challenge the sermon on Sunday."
Iran: While celebrating Christmas, a church was raided by State Security. All those present, including Sunday school children, were arrested and interrogated. Hundreds of Christian books were seized. The detained Christians suffered "considerable verbal abuse"; the whereabouts of others arrested, including the reverend and his wife, remain unknown. "Raids and detentions during the Christmas season are not uncommon in Iran, a Shi'a-majority country that is seen as one of the worst persecutors of religious minorities."
Nigeria: Weeks before the Christmas Day church bombings, another jihadi [holy war]attack, enabled by "local Muslims," left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed: "The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram [" Western Educatim is Forbidden"], and they in turn bombed these churches and shops."
Turkey: A large-scale al-Qaeda plot to bomb "all the churches in Ankara," was exposed. An official indictment against al-Qaeda members earlier arrested revealed the homegrown terrorist cell's plans to attack Ankara's churches and their Christian clergy.
APOSTASY, BLASPHEMY, and PROSELYTISM
Algeria: In May, a Muslim convert to Christianity was sentenced to a five-year prison term on charges of "insulting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and with 'proselytism' for giving a Muslim a CD about Christianity." Now the judge has decided "to indefinitely postpone" the man's appeal, thus "show[ing how] the judicial system keeps Christians in limbo without officially punishing or acquitting them."
Kashmir: The top Islamic clergyman launched a website against apostasy and the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. The website works to "check the conversion of young [Muslim] boys and girls [to Christianity]"; its "fundamental goal" is to "thwart catastrophic [Christian] missionary activities."
Iran: Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who caught the attention of the world after being imprisoned and awaiting execution for leaving Islam, may have to wait another year for a ruling on whether the sentence will be upheld, as authorities continue to delay a ruling in the hope that the world will forget. Meanwhile, authorities continue "to pressure Nadarkhani to recant his faith," giving him and ordering him to read "Islamic literature aimed at discrediting the Bible. The court reportedly has been told to use whatever means necessary to compel Nadarkhani to recant his faith. Another convert to Christianity recently told of his experiences: "When my family and friends learned of my decision, they didn't accept it and rejected me as a result. They made me leave our family home. In addition, my friends treated me like my family had and began calling me an apostate and an infidel. In Iran, anyone who converts to Christianity faces various problems. In spite of the love I had for my family, I had to leave my home. Everyone rejected me."
Malaysia: Lamenting that "It could be hundreds, maybe even thousands" of Muslims converting to Christianity, a former state-commissioner has been "collecting data" to "persuade" the apostates to return to Islam: "We are helping them, hoping they will come back to Islam." Likewise, the Sultan of Selangor, a Malaysian state, has ordered top-level Islamic organizations to take strategic steps against proselytism, "so that Muslims who have began distancing themselves from Islam will return to the fold and repent."
Pakistan: After a Muslim family discovered their son had converted to Christianity, not only did "his father put up a notice in local newspapers disowning him," but his family "file[d] a police complaint against him because—as a murtad or apostate deserving death—he was said to have committed "blasphemy." Likewise, after a rent-related quarrel, a Muslim landlord accused his Christian tenant of desecrating the Quran, which led to crowds of Muslims surrounding the Christian's house, making threats and hurling anti-Christian slogans; "Muslim leaders made announcements from several mosques calling for severe punishment." He was arrested and charged under Pakistan's "blasphemy" laws, which make willful desecration of the Quran punishable with life imprisonment.
VIOLENCE and KILLINGS
Kashmir: Christians imprisoned under "blasphemy" charges continue to be tortured. One was "seriously injured in a knife attack and was believed to be in a Lahore hospital on Christmas Day."
Kenya: Seven Muslims of Somali descent beat a young Somali Christian unconscious, injuring an eye, less than six weeks after a similar attack on his older brother, saying "we did not succeed in killing your brother, but today we are going to kill you." His family was presumably Muslim when he was born, so the gang beat him as an "apostate" even though he was raised as a Christian.
Iraq: A rash of attacks on Christians erupted following a Friday mosque sermon, and included Muslim "mobs burning and wrecking [Christian] businesses. Later, Muslim gunmen shot and killed a Christian couple as they were walking towards their car… Their two children were hurt but are still alive." New information has been received "on a plot against the Christian minority in Mosul during the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays.
Pakistan: A Muslim man murdered a Christian girl during an attempted rape: he had "grabbed the girl and, under the threat of a gun, tried to drag her away. The young Christian woman resisted, trying to escape the clutches of her attacker, when the man opened fire and killed her instantly, and later tried to conceal the corpse." Though the man is described as a "young drifter and drug addict," the ongoing sexual abuse of Christian women by Muslim men exposes how Christians are seen as second-class, to be abused with impunity.
Philippines: A 71-year old pastor was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen on board a motorcycle. "The [Mindanao] province is known for Christian pastors becoming victims of persecution. Just earlier this year, a lady pastor of a local Pentecostal church was hacked to death by suspected Moslem rebels in front of her daughter."
Syria: "Around 50 Christians have been killed in the anti-government unrest in Homs, Syria, by both rebels and government forces, while many more are struggling to feed their families as the violence brings normal life in the city to a halt…. In one tragic incident, a young Christian boy was killed by the rebels, who filmed the murder and then claimed that government forces had committed the act. Another Christian was seized by the rebels, taken to a house and asked, 'How do you want to die?' The man completely broke down and was released but has been left in severe psychological distress."
Uganda: Muslims threw acid on a church leader on Christmas Eve shortly after a revival at his church, leaving him with severe burns that have blinded one eye and threaten his sight in the other. The pastor "was on his way back to the site for a party with the entire congregation and hundreds of new converts to Christianity when a man who claimed to be a Christian approached him. 'I heard him say in a loud voice, Pastor, pastor, and as I made a turn and looked at him, he poured the liquid onto my face as others poured more liquid on my back and then fled away shouting, 'Allahu Akbar.'"
DHIMMITUDE
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslim "Second-Class Citizens"]
Egypt: Accusations that a 17-year-old Christian student posted a drawing of Islam's prophet on Facebook triggered Muslim violence and havoc for two days (the student insists his friends posted the picture on his Facebook page). At least three Christian homes including the youth's were burned to cries of "Allahu Akbar" and he was severely beaten by Muslim classmates prior to being taken away by police. Demands that Christians pay jizya—tribute collected from non-Muslim infidels—are increasing. Also, Rif'at al-Said, head of Egypt's Al Tagammu Party, proclaimed that Christians are right to be scared, some are packing and leaving, and that the "history of Egypt includes religious riots and oppression, and subsequent Christian emigration."
Iraq: A Christian man was kidnapped and held for three days, during which his captors demanded a $500,000 ransom. He "was blindfolded and tied down during his ordeal" until "rescued by a SWAT team … to the great relief of his 21-year-old wife Amal and the local Christian community."
Malaysia: An evangelical Christian leader may face charges of sedition following a statement he made concerning Article 153 of Malaysia's Constitution, which he likened to "bullying" for only protecting the rights of Muslims.
Philippines: In Mindanao, where Muslims make up 1/3 of the population, a 20-year-old Christian preschool learning center is being threatened with closure, over "technicalities." Mindanao "has the highest incidence of persecuted Christians doing missionary work in the Philippines and it was also in this region where a suspected man lobbed a bomb grenade at visiting Christian missionaries … priests and missionaries have also been kidnapped."
Saudi Arabia: Dozens of Ethiopian Christians were arrested for holding a prayer meeting, although under charges of "mixing with the opposite sex": "the Saudi officials are accusing the Christians of committing the crime of mixing of sexes because if they charge them with meeting for practicing Christianity, they will come under pressure from the international human rights organizations as well as Western countries."
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder of jizya, the tribute expected from non-Muslim and therefore second-class citizens, or dhimmis; overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
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thehighlandrebel
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #6 on Jan 6, 2012, 8:08pm » | |
Aye, Teddy, the response (or lack of it) from the churches, the media and the politicians to the greatest persecution of Christians in history is sad and worrying.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #7 on Jan 6, 2012, 9:31pm » | |
You know I agree THR.
Here's an example of how the BBC conceal this news in this story from today
Deadly Nigeria shooting 'targets southerners'
At least 14 people have been killed by gunmen who targeted a town hall in Mubi in north-eastern Nigeria, police say.
It's only further down the article that you get One Boko Haram faction has warned all southerners - who are mostly Christian and animist - to leave the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria.
On Thursday, at least six people were reportedly shot dead at a church in Gombe, also in north-eastern Nigeria.
So the BBC want anybody not taking the time to read the whole article and understand what's really going on there, to think that it is a struggle between North and South - not Islamists against Christians.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #8 on Feb 12, 2012, 10:22pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim continues his series with the January update. Ask yourselves, would you know this was happening if you relied on the BBC for your news?
(Links to individual stories available at the website below)
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: January, 2012
"Good Muslims Cannot Convert to Christianity"
by Raymond Ibrahim
She was flogged -- given 40 lashes as hundreds of Muslim spectators jeered -- for embracing a "foreign religion."
The beginning of the New Year saw only an increase in the oppression of Christians under Islam, from Nigeria, where an all-out jihad has been declared in an effort to eradicate the Muslim north of all Christians, to Europe, where Muslim converts to Christianity are still hounded and attacked as apostates. According to the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, "The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's increasing year by year"; in our lifetime alone, he predicts Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.
An international report found that Muslim nations make up nine out of the top ten countries where Christians face the "most severe" persecution. In response to these findings, a Vatican spokesman said that, "Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism, merits special attention. Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called "Arab spring"—a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate."
Categorized by theme, January's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.
APOSTASY
Iran: A Christian convert who was arrested in her home has been sentenced to two years in prison. Previously, she endured five months of uncertainty detained in the notorious Evin prison, where the government hoped she would come to her senses and renounce Christianity. She was convicted of "broad anti-Islamic propaganda, deceiving citizens by formation of what is called a house church, insulting sacred figures and action against national security."Likewise, Iranian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani continues to suffer in prison. Most recently, he rejected an offer to be released if he publicly acknowledged Islam's prophet Muhammad as "a messenger sent by God," which would amount to rejecting Christianity, as Muhammad and the Koran rejected it.
Kenya: Muslim apostates seeking refuge in Kenya are being tracked and attacked by Muslims from their countries of origin: An Ethiopian who, upon converting to Christianity, was shot by his father, kidnapped and almost killed, is now receiving threatening text messages. Likewise, a Ugandan convert to Christianity is in hiding, his movements severely restricted since "the Muslims are looking to kill me. I need protection and help."
Kuwait: A royal prince who openly declared that he has converted to Christianity, confirmed the reality that he now might be targeted for killing as an apostate.
Norway: While out for a walk, two Iranian converts to Christianity were stabbed with knives by masked men shouting "Infidels!" One of the men stabbed had converted in Iran, was threatened there, and so immigrated to Norway, thinking he could escape persecution there.
Somalia: A female convert to Christianity was paraded before a cheering crowd and publicly flogged as punishment for embracing a "foreign religion." Imprisoned since November, "the public whipping was meant to mark her release." She received 40 lashes as hundreds of Muslim spectators jeered. An eyewitness said: "I saw her faint. I thought she had died, but soon she regained consciousness and her family took her away." Similarly, "Somali Islamists arrested a Muslim father after two of his children converted to Christianity" and fled. He is accused of "failing to raise his sons as good Muslims, because "good Muslims cannot convert to Christianity."
Zanzibar: After being robbed, a Muslim convert to Christianity called police to his house; they discovered a Bible during their inspection. The course of inquiry changed from discovering the thieves to asking why he "was practicing a forbidden faith." He was imprisoned for eight months without trial, and, since being released, has been rejected by his family and is now homeless and diseased.
CHURCH ATTACKS
Azerbaijan: A pastor has been threatened with criminal proceedings following a raid on his church during Sunday service. Earlier, he was told that "a criminal case had been launched over religious literature arousing incitement over other faiths," and was pressured by authorities to leave the area, which he did, traveling great distances each week to lead church services.
Egypt: Before a bishop was going to inaugurate the incomplete Abu Makka church and celebrate the Epiphany mass, a large number of Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members entered the building, asserting that the church had no license and no one should pray in it. One Muslim remarked that the building would be suitable for a mosque and a hospital.
Indonesia: A sticker on the back of the car of a member of the beleaguered Yasmin church saying "We need a friendly Islam, not an angry Islam," distributed by the family of the late Muslim president, prompted another Muslim attack on the church: scores of Muslims "terrorized the congregation and attacked several church members." Since 2008, the congregation has been forced to hold Sunday services on the sidewalk outside the church and then later in the home of parishioners. Not satisfied, hundreds of Muslims later searched and found the private home where members were congregating and holding service and prevented them from worshiping even there: "It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place." A new report notes that anti-Christian attacks have nearly doubled in the last year.
Nigeria: Soon after jihadis issued an ultimatum giving Christians three days to evacuate the region or die, armed Muslims stormed a church and "opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer," killing six, including the pastor's wife. Then, as friends and relatives gathered to mourn the deaths of those slain, Muslims shouting "Allahu Akbar" appeared and opened fire again, killing another 20 Christians. Several other churches were bombed, and seven more Christians killed.
Pakistan: Enraged by the voices of children singing carols at a nearby church, Muslims praying in a mosque decided to silence them—including with an axe: "The children were preparing for mass to be celebrated the next day which was a Sunday. The loud cheers became terrified whimpers when suddenly four men, one of them with an axe, barged into the church. The men slapped the children, wrecked the furniture, smashed the microphone on to the floor and kicked the altar. "You are disturbing our prayers. We can't pray properly. How dare you use the mike and speakers?" (Islam forbids Christians from celebrating loudly in church, banning bells, microphones, and other aids). Also, a center owned by the Catholic church for 125 years, and used for "charitable purposes"—it housed a home for the elderly, a girls' school, a convent and chapel for prayer—was demolished, after it was discovered that its land was worth a considerable amount of money; in the process, demolition workers destroyed Bibles, crosses, and a statue of Our Lady.
Zanzibar: Muslims destroyed two churches: one was torched, while the other demolished—all to shouts of "Allahu Akbar."
DHIMMITUDE
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Second-Class Citizens"]
Denmark: In Muslim majority Odense, an Iranian Christian family had two cars consecutively vandalized—windows smashed, seats cut up, and set ablaze—because the cars had crucifixes hanging in them; the family has since relocated to an undisclosed location. Likewise, "Church Ministry" will change its name to "Ministry of Philosophy of Life" to accommodate Muslims.
Egypt: In the latest round of collective punishment, a mob of over 3,000 Muslims attacked Christians in a village because of a rumor that a Coptic man had intimate photos of a Muslim woman on his phone (denied by the man). Coptic homes and shops were looted before being set ablaze. Three men were injured, while "terrorized" women and children who lost their homes stood in the streets with no place to go. As usual, it took the army an hour to drive 2 kilometers to the village and none of the perpetrators was arrested.
Nigeria: Boko Haram Muslims set ablaze a Christian missionary home. Occupants of the home, mostly orphans and the less-privileged, were rendered homeless as a result. Meanwhile, a top officer allowed the mastermind behind the Christmas Day church bombings to escape, indicating how well entrenched Islamists are in government.
Pakistan: A judge has denied bail to the latest Christian charged with desecrating the Koran, under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, despite the lack of evidence against him: according to Sharia, the word of a Christian is half that of his Muslim accuser – in this case, his landlord.
Saudi Arabia: Officials strip-searched 29 Christian women and assaulted six Christian men after arresting them for holding a prayer meeting at a private home. Imprisoned last month without trial, they have not been told when or if they will be released. Authorities conducted the strip searches of the women, who insisted they had committed no crime, in unsanitary conditions. As a result, some of the women have experienced physical pain and illnesses, but authorities have provided no medical treatment.
Sudan: Authorities threatened to arrest church leaders if they engage in "evangelistic activities" and fail to comply with an order for churches to provide names and identification: "The order was aimed at oppressing Christians amid growing hostilities toward Christianity… Sudanese law prohibits missionaries from evangelizing, and converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by imprisonment or death in Sudan, though previously such laws were not strictly enforced." Accordingly, shortly after, two evangelists were arrested on spurious charges and beaten by police.
Turkey: A Christian asylum seeker who fled from Iran because of his faith "was brutally assaulted by his employer with hot water, and his body was severely burned," due to "the extreme religious views" of his Turkish Muslim employer, who "told him he had no rights and that he would not pay him any money," after the Christian asked for his agreed wages. He "is just one example of hundreds of Iranian Christian asylum seekers who are living in such situations in Turkey."
ABDUCTIONS, RANSOM, MURDER
Egypt: The abduction of a 16-year old Christian girl, who disappeared over a month ago, has become a "tug of war between the Christian family and Muslim lawyers." The court sided with the Islamists, ordering the girl to be held in a state-owned care home until she turns 18—the legal age of conversion—instead of returning her to her family. Coptic activists argue that the decision "encourages Islamists to continue unabated the abduction of Christian minors for conversion to Islam."
Pakistan: A Christian girl who was abducted in 2001 when she was 15 and forced to marry a Muslim, returned to her Catholic family after 10 years. Her case is not an isolated one: "there are at least 700 cases a year of Christian girls kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim." In the same vein, "within the past three months, nine women have been abducted and forcibly converted to Islam."
Sudan: After a large truck smashed through the gates of a Catholic Church compound, Muslims affiliated with Sudan's Islamic government kidnapped two Catholic priests, "severely beat" them and looted their living quarters, stealing two vehicles, two laptops and a safe. Later, the kidnappers forced the priests to call their bishop with a ransom demand of 500,000 Sudanese pounds (US$185,530).
Switzerland: A Muslim man hacked his daughter to death for dating a Christian: were they dating in a Muslim country, the Christian, as so often happens, would have likely received similar treatment.
Syria: The Christian community in Syria has been hit by a series of kidnappings and brutal murders; 100 Christians were killed since the anti-government unrest began; "Children were being especially targeted by the kidnappers, who, if they do not receive the ransom demanded, kill the victim, including some who are "cut into pieces and thrown in a river." These latest reports are reminiscent of the anti-Christian attacks that have been commonplace in Iraq for a decade.
Tajikistan: A young man dressed as Father Frost—the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas—was stabbed to death while visiting relatives and bringing gifts. The Muslim mob beating and stabbing him screamed "You infidel!" leading police to cite "religious hatred" as motivation.
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
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cherenkov
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #9 on Feb 13, 2012, 3:03am » | |
This is just the kind of retrograde progress, the reverse enlightenment that the self-serving priesthoods, political as well as religious have been inciting from the start of what some consider to be our last century.
If only the BBC world service had spent the last several decades attacking prejudice, scapegoating and obsolete superstitions, instead of advertising what a cool place with globally unrivalled state benefits the UK was, we might be in better shape now.
Instead two morons, one on each side of the Atlantic responded like they were the puppets of the perpetrators of 9/11 to get us to the position we are in today. Pakistan has told the Taliban that if they leave Pakistan and return to Afghanistan when the NATO troops pull out they will not be obstructed, and may even be assisted.
The Taliban aren't even fighting now. They don't need to, all they need to do is wait. However in the meantime the IUD campaign is recreationaly and obscenely effective with minimal risk to their ambitions.
The amazing thing is that the army are letting the likes of Ross Kemp in to show how utterly futile our activities are in Afghanistan, and to encourage the viewers to realise that the two morons were wrong. Everything they did was exactly what the enemy wanted them to do.
Our ignominious failure is inevitable so please, please, get these fantastic young soldiers home safe to the UK ASAP. Every death and every IUD mutilation is pointless and only adds to the triumphalism of the Taliban when they re-take the country.
A nurse I work with has a young fiance in the army desperate to get out there. I try to tell her to encourage him to fail a fitness test, or do anything other than go out there and waste his life on the alter of the egos of the two stupidest men who ever lived, BUSH and BLAIR, but of course I know when it comes to our brave, loyal, and fantastic soldiers I am wasting my breath.
Meanwhile the BBC has decided to give Syria the coverage at a time when the lives of our troops could be saved by a vigorous media campaign to force the government to get them out of this pointless unwinable conflict.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #10 on Feb 13, 2012, 10:18pm » | |
This is one of the issues that first got me focussed on the damage done to our society by the BBC. I wrote about it copiously on various other forums I was involved in at the time. You may find Cher that your reasons for believing what you do on this topic is largely affected by the way most of our media presented it, so I want to give you some other things to consider.
One book I highly recommend is 'The High Cost of Peace' by Yossef Bodansky. Among other things, he was the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Director of Research at the International Strategic Studies Association. He was also a senior consultant for the US Departments of Defense and State.
In brief, 9/11 didn't just happen. The build up to a major terrorist attack against the US by militant Islam was quite apparent, and Bodansky, who was monitoring closely what was going on in the Middle East at the time, predicted it. Clinton, who probably knew that to launch any kind of pre-emptive offensive would garner immense opposition, not least from a left-wing media, chose to ignore it.
One can say that all those who allowed this situation to grow as it did are 'the stupid ones'. Preferring instead to try and get through their presidency with the illusion of 'peace in the Middle East' as a possibility, which if you think about the dynamics involved, has no basis in reality. Maintaining the status quo for as long as possible was the order of the day pretty much for any president, unless it was unavoidable, like Saddam invading Kuwait.
Definitely Saddam was one of the forces within the Muslim world who was seeking to lead the Islamic domination of the world. But he was only one, and there were plenty of other regimes vying for this power, as well as individuals including Bin Laden.
Problem for us in the West is we are reliant on totally corrupt organisations like the UN, composed itself by a large faction of these regimes, to make all this clear, or our left wing media whose first reaction is always to appease. So unless one researches it for oneself, all one has is a load of misinformation and propaganda. There is also the fact that our 'allies' have financial involvements in many of the regimes, and the last thing they want to do is rock the boat. I posted a small item about this here..
I don't think for a moment that Bush Jnr really knew much about what was going on in the greater world at the time of 9/11, and this made the necessity for a 'crash course'. You can be quite sure that it was experts who made it clear to him about what was going on within the Islamic world, which would for the most part have been completely foreign to him.
The result was as you know, but the purpose was quite different than what has been mostly aired by the media. For sure it had nothing to do with WMD by Saddam, but it was a message to all the Ayatollahs and the like to say if you mess with us this is what is going to happen to you. However, this message had to be delivered in a covert way, because even regimes like Saudi Arabia were involved in this power struggle. I hope you can understand the 'diplomacy' involved in this action, and why the real reasons couldn't be aired publicly.
You will remember though how quickly Gadhafi renounced all power bids following the Iraq invasion though, as just one example of what the real effect of it was to be.
If you can also recall events at the time, Blair was also against attacking Saddam, for all the political reasons that much of the rest of the world were opposed to it. Either personal profiteering or appeasing tyrants. Then Blair was invited for a weekend to Camp David and when he returned he completely changed his tune. They clearly 'filled him in' and what was really happening in the world and that to put off action was only going to postpone the inevitable, and make it that much harder to eventually overcome. he knew too, that he couldn't state the real reasons. Between a 'rock and a hard place', or 'Iraq and a hard place' 
This is actually one of the few areas in his PM-ship that Blair displayed any kind of genuine courage or conviction.
I think the goal of Bush and Blair was to push on for as long as necessary, wherever it took them, to deal with the Islamic threat. But the action of our media, completely undermining them. pretty much tied their hands.
There is no doubt that the conflict is far from over, and not because we're in Afghanistan and Iraq, but because it didn't go as far as it needed to. You can be certain it's going to come because that's what the Islamists are doing.
Here's a well informed article on the topic..
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #11 on Mar 19, 2012, 10:44pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim continues his series. My guess is most reading this will be familiar to some extent with the goings on of this nature within the Muslim world. I'm sure you didn't get most of what you know from the mainstream media, and certainly not from the BBC.
Considering the society that pays for them, and that they are supposed to represent, how do you explain their lack of wanting to report these matters?
To highlight this point, just consider an article today by the BBC following the death of the Coptic leader in Egypt. It would be a perfect opportunity for the BBC to recount what has been happening in Egypt to the Copts since the beginning of Arab Spring. Yet all the BBC can come up with is
After attacks on Coptic Christians by Islamist militants in recent years, Pope Shenouda had urged officials to do more to address the community's concerns.
Here's the events we have highlighted specifically about Egypt's Copts in the last year.
Individual links for stories described below are available on the webpage itself.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: February 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
March 16, 2012 at 4:00 am
A pastor was attacked with acid and blinded by Muslims screaming, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!"]
Half of Iraq's indigenous Christians are gone, due to the unleashed forces of jihad [holy war]. Many Christians fled to nearby Syria; yet, as the Assad regime comes under attack from al-Qaeda and others, the jihad now seeps into Syria, where Christians are experiencing a level of persecution unprecedented in the nation's modern history. Similarly, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their native Egypt since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime; and in northern regions of Nigeria, where the jihadi group, Boko Haram, has been slaughtering Christians, up to 95% of the Christian population has fled.
Meanwhile, the "big news" concerning the Muslim world in the month of February—the news that flooded the mainstream media and had U.S. politicians, beginning with President Obama, flustered, angry, and full of regret—was that some written-in [in Islam it is forbidden to write anything in a Korans] in Afghanistan were burned by U.S. soldiers because imprisoned Muslim inmates had been using them "to facilitate extremist communications."
Categorized by theme, February's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.
Church Attacks
Algeria: Armed men raided and ransacked a church that had been formally recognized since 1958, and dismantled the crucifix. The pastor and his family, trapped inside, feared that "they could kill us." The pastor "has been repeatedly threatened and attacked since being ordained in 2007. In the summer of 2009, his wife was beaten and seriously injured by a group of unknown men. Then, in late 2011, heaps of trash were thrown over the compound walls while an angry mob shouted death threats."
Egypt: Thousands of Muslims attacked a Coptic church, and demanded the death of its pastor, who, along with "nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building." They did this because a Christian girl who, according to Islamic law, automatically became a Muslim when her father converted to Islam, fled from her father and was rumored to be hiding in the church.
Iran: Iran's Ministry of Intelligence has ordered the last two officially registered churches holding Friday Farsi-language services in Tehran—Farsi being the nation's Persian language—to discontinue the language: "Friday services in Tehran attracted the city's converts to Christianity as well as Muslims interested in Christianity, as Friday is most Iranians' day off during the week." Banning church use of Farsi prevents most Iranians from hearing the Gospel.
Kazakhstan: A new report notes that "Churches are being raided, leaders fined and Christian literature confiscated as the Kazakh authorities enforce new laws intended further to restrict religious freedom in the country."
Kuwait: A parliamentarian is set to submit a draft law banning the construction of churches. Originally, Osama al-Munawer announced on Twitter his plans on submitting a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in Kuwait. However, he later "clarified" his statement, saying that existing churches can remain, but the construction of new ones must be banned.
Macedonia: A two-century-old Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set on fire in response to "a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men dressed as women in burkas and mocked the Koran." Earlier, "perpetrators attacked a[nother] church in the nearby village of Labunista, destroying a cross standing outside" and "also defaced a Macedonian flag outside Struga's municipal building, replacing it with a green flag representing Islam."
Nigeria: A Muslim suicide bomber forced his way into the grounds of a major church, killing two women and an 18-month-old child during Sunday morning service; 50 people were injured in the blast. In a separate incident, Muslims detonated a bomb outside a church building, injuring five, one critically: "The bomb, planted in a parked car, was left by suspected members of Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia [Islamic law] throughout Nigeria."
Pakistan: A dozen armed Muslims stormed a church, seriously wounding two Christians: one man was shot and is in critical condition, the other risks having his arm amputated; another church member was thrown from the roof, after being struck repeatedly with a rifle butt. "The extremist raid was sparked by charges that [the] church was trying to evangelize Muslims in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. The community several times in the past has been the subject of assault and the pastor and his family the subject of death threats." As usual, the police, instead of pursuing the perpetrators, have opened an investigation against the pastor and 20 other church members.
Syria: Some 30 armed and masked jihadis attacked a Catholic monastery—unprecedented in Syria's modern history—demanding money. According to the Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, "the situation in the country is spiraling out of control as the armed opposition spreads its influence to different regions of the state."
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as Second-Class, "Tolerated" Citizens]
Bangladesh: Three American Christians were injured after their car was attacked by a Muslim mob who suspected they were converting Muslims into Christians: at least 200 angry locals chased the missionaries' car and threw stones at it, leaving three with cuts from broken glass.
Egypt: Rather than punishing the perpetrators who opened fire on and ran tanks over Christians protesting the constant destruction of their churches, the government arrested and is trying two priests in connection to the Maspero massacre. And although Egypt's new parliament has 498 seats, only six are Copts, even though Copts make up at the very least 10% of the population, and so should have approximately 50 seats. Finally, indicating how bad the situation is, Coptic protesters organized a demonstration on Tuesday in front of Parliament to protest "the disappearance and abduction of Coptic girls."
Indonesia: The Islamist Prosperous Justice Party complained about the Red Cross' symbol of a cross; they said it was too identifiable with Christian culture and traditions. Red Cross volunteers and activists rejected the claim, saying that any changes to the logo would be "tantamount to giving in to the extremists."
Iran: A pastor of a major house church movement began serving a five-year prison sentence for "crimes against the order." According to one activist, "His 'crimes' were being a pastor and possessing Christian materials." He is being beaten in jail and has grown ill, to the point where his hair has "turned fully gray."
Israel: A mob of around 50 Palestinian Muslims stoned a group of Christian tourists atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount, wounding three Israeli police officers in the process. The attack is believed to have been instigated by the former Muslim mufti of Jerusalem.
Pakistan: Yet another Christian woman, a teacher, has been targeted by Muslims on allegations that she burned a Koran. A mob stormed her school in an attempt to abduct her, but police took her into custody. Also, a Christian student who missed the grade to get into medical school by less than 0.1% would have earned 20 extra points if he had memorized the Koran—although no bonus points for having similar knowledge of the Bible.
Turkey: A new report notes that "Christians in Turkey continue to suffer attacks from private citizens, discrimination by lower-level government officials and vilification in both school textbooks and news media." The report adds that there is a "root of intolerance" in Turkish society toward adherents of non-Islamic faiths: "The removal of this root of intolerance is an urgent problem that still awaits to be dealt with."
Turkmenistan: A 77-year-old Christian man was detained and questioned by police for six hours after he tried to print copies of a small book of Christian poetry. He was forced to write a statement and banned from travelling outside his home region while the case is being investigated.
Uganda: Not long after a pastor was attacked with acid and blinded by Muslims screaming, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!"], his friend, another pastor, was shot at by "Islamic extremists" in what is being described as "a new wave of persecution against Christians in Uganda."
Murder, Apostasy Issues, and More
Egypt: Two Christians were killed "after a Muslim racketeer opened fire on them for refusing to pay him extortion money." The local bishop "hold[s] security forces and local Muslims fully responsible for terrorizing the Copts living there, who are continuously being subjected to terror and kidnapping."
Iran: After enduring five months of uncertainty in a prison, a Christian convert who was arrested in her home by security authorities has been sentenced to two years in prison by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Authorities further arrested six to ten Christian converts from Islam while they were meeting for worship at a home in the southern city of Shiraz.
And of course Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani awaits execution for refusing to renounce Christianity.
Nigeria: A 79-year-old Christian woman and choir singer was found dead at her home, her throat slit with a note in Arabic left on her chest reading: "We will get you soon," a message believed to be directed at her son, a pastor at a local church.
Somalia: Al-Shabaab Muslims beheaded a 26-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity who had worked for a Christian humanitarian organization that the terrorist organization had banned. He is at least the third Christian to be beheaded in Somalia in recent months.
Turkey: A 12-year-old boy, Hussein, publicly professed his Christian faith by wearing a silver cross necklace in school. Accordingly, Muslim classmates began taunting and spitting on him. When the boy threatened to report one of the bullies, the bully's father threatened to kill him. His religion teacher beat him severely: "Like in most Islamic countries, students of all faiths are required to attend Islamic studies in school. Those who refuse to recite the Koran and Islamic prayers are often beaten by the teacher. And so it was for Hussein. He said he was punished regularly with a two-foot long rod because he wouldn't say the Islamic Shahada."
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, "tolerated" citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #12 on Apr 19, 2012, 9:31pm » | |
Readers following this thread will already have an idea about how the BBC obfuscates the news when it comes to showing how aggressive are the fundamentalist and militant Muslims throughout the world.
Raymond Ibrahim identifies several of the tactics used by the media, like and including the BBC, to achieve this purpose. It should make it easy to recognise it yourselves when reading articles where the media has a particular agenda or bias.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians Whitewashed by Media
by:
Raymond Ibrahim
When it comes to Muslim persecution of Christians, the mainstream media (MSM) has a long paper trail of obfuscating. While they may eventually state the bare-bone facts—if they ever report on the story in the first place, which is rare—they do so after creating and sustaining an aura of moral relativism that minimizes the Muslim role.
False Moral Equivalency
As previously discussed, one of the most obvious ways is to evoke "sectarian strife" between Muslims and Christians, a phrase that conjures images of two equally matched—and equally abused, and abusive—adversaries fighting one another. This hardly suffices to describe the reality of Muslim majorities persecuting largely passive Christian minorities.
Recently, for instance, in the context of the well-documented suffering of Christians in Egypt, an NPR report declared, "In Egypt, growing tensions between Muslims and Christians have led to sporadic violence [initiated by whom?]. Many Egyptians blame the interreligious strife on hooligans [who?] taking advantage of absent or weak security forces. Others believe it's because of a deep-seated mistrust between Muslims and the minority Christian community [how did the "mistrust" originate?]." Although the report does highlight cases in which Christians are victimized, the tone throughout—and even from the title of the report, "In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension is on the Rise"—suggest that examples of Muslims victimized by Christians could just as easily have been found (not true). The accompanying photo is of a group of angry Christians militantly holding a cross aloft—not Muslims destroying crosses, which is what prompts the Christians to such displays of solidarity.
Two more strategies that fall under the MSM's umbrella of obfuscating and minimizing Islam's role—strategies with which the reader should become acquainted—appeared in recent reports dealing with the jihadi group Boko Haram and its ongoing genocide of Nigeria's Christians.
First, some context: Boko Haram—acronym for "Western Education is a Sin", its full name in Arabic is "Sunnis for Da'wa [Islamization] and Jihad"—is a full-throated terrorist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the secular government and establishment of Sharia law. It has been slaughtering Christians for years, with an uptick since the Christmas Day church bombing in 2012, which left at least 40 Christians dead; followed by its New Year ultimatum that all Christians must evacuate the northern regions of Nigeria or die—an ultimatum Boko Haram has been living up to: hardly a day goes by without a terrorist attack on Christians or a church, most recently on Easter day, leaving 20 dead.
Blurring the Line Between Persecutor and Victim
Now consider some MSM strategies. The first one is to frame the conflict between Muslims and Christians in a way that blurs the line between persecutor and victim, as in, for example, a recent BBC report on one of Boko Haram's many church attacks that left three Christians dead, including a toddler. After stating the bare-bones facts in a couple of sentences, the report went on to describe how "the bombing sparked a riot by Christian youths, with reports that at least two Muslims were killed in the violence. The two men were dragged off their bikes after being stopped at a roadblock set up by the rioters, police said. A row of Muslim-owned shops was also burned…" The report goes on and on, with a special section about "very angry" Christians, until one all but confuses victims with persecutors, forgetting what the Christians are "very angry" about in the first place—unprovoked and nonstop terror attacks on their churches, and the murder of their women and children.
This broadcast is reminiscent of the Egyptian New Year's Eve church bombing that left over 20 Christians dead: the MSM reported it, but under headlines such as, "Christians clash with police in Egypt after attack on churchgoers kills 21"(Washington Post) and "Clashes grow as Egyptians remain angry after attack"(New York Times)—as if frustrated Christians lashing out against wholesale slaughter is as newsworthy or of the same value as the slaughter itself, implying that their angry reaction "evens" everything up.
Dissembling the Perpetrators' Motivation
The second MSM strategy involves dissembling over the jihadis' motivation. An AFP report describing a different Boko Haram church attack—another one, which also killed three Christians during Sunday service—does a fair job reporting the facts. But then it concludes: "Violence blamed on Boko Haram, whose goals remain largely unclear, has since 2009 claimed more than 1,000 lives, including more than 300 this year, according to figures tallied by AFP and rights groups."
Although Boko Haram has been howling its straightforward goals for a decade—enforcing Sharia law and subjugating, if not eliminating, Nigeria's Christians—the media with a straight face is claiming ignorance about these goals (similarly, the New York Times described Boko Haram's goals as "senseless"—even as the group continues justifying them on Islamic doctrinal grounds). One would have thought that a decade after the jihadi attacks of 9/11—in light if all the subsequent images of Muslims in militant attire shouting distinctly Islamic slogans such as "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is the Greatest!"] and calling for Sharia law and the subjugation of "infidels"—reporters would by now know what their goals are.
Of course, the media's obfuscation of jihadi goals serves a purpose: it leaves the way open for the politically correct, MSM-approved motivations for Muslim violence: "political oppression," "poverty," "frustration," and so on. From here, one can see why politicians such as former U.S. president Bill Clinton cite "poverty" as "what's fueling all this stuff" (a reference to Boko Haram's slaughter of Christians).
In short, while the MSM may report the most frugal facts concerning Christian persecution, they utilize their entire arsenal of semantic games, catch phrases, and convenient omissions that uphold the traditional narrative—that Muslim violence is anything but a byproduct of the Islamic indoctrination of intolerance.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #13 on Apr 27, 2012, 7:19pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim with his March edition of atrocities committed by Mulsims against Christians across the world. Because of the prodigious amount of links included in his article, anyone wanting to delve deeper should click on his webpage itself.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: March, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
Originally published by the Gatestone Institute
April 25, 2012
The war on Christianity and its adherents rages on in the Muslim world. In March alone, Saudi Arabia's highest Islamic law authority decreed that churches in the region must be destroyed; jihadis in Nigeria said they "are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women"; American teachers in the Middle East were murdered for talking about Christianity; churches were banned or bombed, and nuns terrorized by knife-wielding Muslim mobs. Christians continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for allegedly "blaspheming" Islam's prophet Muhammad; former Muslims continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for converting to Christianity.
The Intersection
To understand why all this persecution is virtually unknown in the West, consider the mainstream media's well-documented biases: also in March alone, the New York Times ran a virulently anti-Catholic ad, but refused to publish a near identical ad directed at Islam; the BBC admitted it will mock Jesus but never Muhammad; and U.S. sitcoms were exposed for bashing Christianity, but never Islam.
Is it any wonder, then, that this same mainstream media ignores or at best whitewashes the nonstop persecution of Christians under Islam? Exposing such ugly truths would undermine their narrative of Islam as the "religion of peace."
Categorized by theme, March's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity:
Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism: Death and Prison
Egypt: A Christian man accused of insulting Islam's prophet Muhammad was sentenced to six years in prison. Though "defamation of religion" is a misdemeanor under Egyptian law, punishable by a prison sentence of one month to three years, the judge doubled the sentence to appease Muslims, including an angry 2,500-strong mob that terrorized the courtroom, demanding death for the Christian. Likewise, an "anti-Christianization course" by an organization that is "specializing in the resistance to Christianity"—so Muslims are not "throw[n] under the feet of the Cross"—was initiated; according to an instructor, "Reoccurring attempts at the university in Aswan to convert Muslims to Christianity or provoke them with misleading information was the drive behind the course."
India: A young woman was attacked and kicked out of her home "for daring to give thanks for healing in Christ's name" in a predominantly Muslim village; "her parents helped Islamic extremists to beat her nearly unconscious." In a village where "hard-line Muslims have threatened to kill the 25 families who initially showed interest in Christ, leaving only five frightened Christian families," the woman was attacked when returning from church, called "pagan, among other verbal abuse." The mob also harassed and threatened the Christian woman who "lured" her to convert to Christianity.
Iran: In a rare crackdown on a concentrated area, authorities arrested 12 more converts to Christianity living in Isfahan, the country's third largest city, in what is seen as a tactic to discourage Muslims from attending official churches. Among the latest known Christian converts detained in the Isfahan area is a man who was reportedly taken into custody on March 2 while returning home from his work: "Security authorities raided his home and seized him without explanation."
Iraq: An American teacher was shot to death by an 18-year-old student at a private Christian academy. He "was a devout Christian who frequently praised Christianity and prayed in the classroom, and his friends in Washington said his evangelism is what motivated him to teach in Iraq." According to students, "Mr. Jeremiah's hands were still folded in prayer when he fell"; others say a day before the shooting "a heated discussion" broke out "during which the pupil threatened to kill the teacher because of conflicting religious views." In an interview, the father of the pupil condemned Christian evangelists, portraying them as "more dangerous than al-Qaeda."
Malaysia: After religious police raided a Methodist church event due to "fears that Muslims were being converted," Muslim officials created a seminar called "Strengthening the faith, the dangers of liberalism and pluralism and the threat of Christianity towards Muslims." Due to criticism of the title, a lawmaker said the reference to Christianity would be removed, but the seminar's content would remain unchanged: "The seminar is part of the right of Muslims to defend the faith of its practitioners from any action which may lead to apostasy. It is our responsibility."
Pakistan: A Muslim mob attacked a 60-year-old Christian woman who had converted to Islam, only to reconvert back to Christianity six months later: she "was tortured—her head shaved—and paraded through the streets, garlanded with shoes." Soon after, she received more threats of "dire consequences" from Islamic clerics, fleeing the region with her family. Likewise, a 26-year-old Christian woman, mother to a five-month-old girl, was falsely accused of "blaspheming" Muhammad and arrested. A few days prior, some of her relatives who converted to Islam pressured her also to do likewise: "She refused, telling them that she was satisfied with Christianity and did not want to convert," and was arrested of blasphemy soon thereafter.
Yemen: Al-Qaeda gunmen fatally shot an American teacher. The terror network's affiliate in Yemen issued a message saying, "This operation comes as a response to the campaign of Christian proselytizing that the West has launched against Muslims," calling the teacher "one of the biggest American proselytizers." He was shot eight times on a Sunday.
Church Attacks
Bethlehem: One week after the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority told an audience of Evangelicals that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities, the PA declared a Baptist Church illegal, adding that birth, wedding, and death certificates from the church are no longer valid. A pastor notes that "animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the PA continues to get increasingly worse. People are always telling [Christians], 'Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It's the true and right religion.'"
Egypt: Some 1500 Muslims—several armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt, in response to calls from local mosques falsely claiming the private school was building a church: "Two nuns were besieged in the school's guesthouse for some eight hours by a murderous mob threatening to burn them alive"; one nun suffered a "major nervous breakdown requiring hospitalization… The entire property was ransacked and looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the children. Consequently, school attendance has dropped by at least one third."
Iran: The Armenian Evangelical Church in Tehran is the latest church to be ordered to cease holding Persian service on Fridays. The officers serving the notice threatened church officials, saying that "if the order is ignored, the church building will be bombed 'as happens in Iraq every day.'" As another report summarizes, "Christians and Churches in the Islamic Republic of Iran are now banned from preaching the Gospel to non-Christians, holding Persian language services, teaching and distributing the Bible, or holding Christian classes."
Iraq: Though Kirkuk's church was recently restored after an earlier bomb attack that killed a 13-year-old Christian boy, the "reopening celebration was but a brief respite in the ongoing suffering of Iraq's Christian community, signaled by two further attacks": Another church in Baghdad was bombed, killing two guards and wounding five, and the body of a Christian was "found riddled with bullets in Mosul. He had been shot nine times at close range. The freelance photographer had been kidnapped four days earlier. Iraqi Christians are often targeted by kidnappers for ransom."
Kenya: A band of Muslims launched a grenade attack on a crowd of 150 Christians attending an outdoor church meeting, killing two and wounding more than 30. "Human-rights groups say that the Muslim attackers were hyped into action by a militant Muslim preacher holding an alternate rally only 900 feet from the Christian gathering. Further reports say that the Muslim preachers were slandering Christianity and that members of the Christian group could hear the Muslim speakers."
Nigeria: A Boko Haram suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church, killing at least 10 people. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended Mass at St. Finbar's Catholic Church in Jos, a city where thousands of Christians have died in the last decade as a result of Boko Haram's jihad, and where another church was attacked, killing three, less than two weeks earlier.
Saudi Arabia: the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, one of the Islamic world's highest religious authorities, declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region." He made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait, where a parliament member recently called for the "removal" of all churches: the delegation wanted to confirm Sharia's position on churches with the Grand Mufti, who "stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it," basing his verdict on a saying (or hadith) of Muhammad.
Sudan: Sudanese aerial strikes were aimed at church buildings in various regions. Churches in the Nuba Mountains are holding worship services very early in the morning and late in the evening to avoid aerial bombardments intentionally targeting their churches. The Khartoum regime is "doing everything possible to make sure they get rid of Christianity from the Nuba Mountains—churches and church schools are the targets of both the Sudanese Armed Forces and its militias," said an aid worker.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Denmark: In a Muslim ghetto in Copenhagen, a refugee from Africa had his door kicked-in several times and was threatened by a group of "youths" who accused him of being "both black and Christian," and tried to extort money from him. Police said they could not guarantee his safety, and he was eventually found in tears living in the streets.
Egypt: In Minya province, Christian families are "living in terror" since Salafis threatened to kidnap any Christian girl not wearing the hijab; parents are keeping their daughters indoors, missing school. Likewise, a Christian boy was abducted, his kidnappers demanding a large ransom from his family. And a court in Edfu sentenced the pastor of a church that was torched by Muslims to six months in prison for violating the height of the church building, further ordering the removal of the excess height. The church had received a license and was still under construction when it was torched by a Muslim mob in September.
Iran: After complaints about the display of Christmas trees and Santa Clauses in the streets of Tehran during the Christmas season, an official warned that the municipality will begin to seize such symbols: "Building facades in Tehran should be controlled by the municipality and the display of such symbols should not be allowed."
Iraq: Christians are running out of havens as rising security concerns and economic hardship cause them to leave the places of refuge they had found in the country's Kurdish north. The sort of attacks that initiated a mass exodus of Christians from Baghdad and Mosul are increasingly occurring in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, which once "welcomed Christians and was relatively safe." A Christian who fled there from Mosul seven years ago after retrieving his son from kidnappers said it is like history "repeating itself."
Nigeria: The Islamist organization Boko Haram declared "war" on Christians, saying it aims to "annihilate the entire Christian community living in the northern parts of the country." According to a spokesman, "We will create so much effort to end the Christian presence in our push to have a proper Islamic state that the Christians won't be able to stay." Along with constant church bombings—most recently on Easter, killing nearly 50—one of the groups new strategies is "to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women."
Pakistan: Two Christian hospital employees were abducted by "Islamic extremists": "Such cases are on the rise, as banned Islamist groups and other criminal gangs are turning to kidnappings for ransom in order to survive and procure weapons and ammunition," said a senior investigator, adding that most Islamist groups believe that Christian NGOs are involved in evangelizing "under the guise of charity," giving more incentive to abuse them.
Sudan: Over half a million people, mostly Christian and originally from South Sudan, have been stripped of citizenship in response to the South's secession, and forced to relocate: "Sudanese Christians who have barely a month to leave the north or risk being treated as foreigners are starting to move, but Christian leaders are concerned that the 8 April deadline set by Islamic-majority Sudan is unrealistic. 'We are very concerned. Moving is not easy ... people have children in school. They have homes ... It is almost impossible,' said a Catholic bishop."
Syria: The nation where many Iraqi Christians fled to as a haven is slowly becoming like Iraq, as thousands of Syrian Christians continue to flee to nearby Lebanon. "Al-Faruq Battalion, which is affiliated with the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA), is imposing jizya (an extra tax imposed on non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) on Christians in Homs Governorate" and "armed men … threaten to kidnap or kill them or members of their families if they refuse to "pay Islamic taxes"—precisely what has been taking place in next door Iraq.
Turkey: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom named Turkey—formerly hailed for its freedoms—as "one of the world's worst violators of religious freedom," due to its treatment of Christian and other minority groups. The report said that restrictions on non-Muslim communities, such as limiting their right to train clergy and own places of worship, "have led to their decline, and in some cases, their virtual disappearance," further noting "an increased number of attacks, ranging from harassment and vandalism to death threats, against Protestant churches and individuals in 2011 compared to 2010."
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
Intrinsically, to document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
Instrumentally, to show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (tribute); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed "dhimmis" (barely tolerated citizens); and simple violence and murder. Oftentimes it is a combination thereof.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the west, to India in the east, and throughout the West, wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
Previous Reports
February, 2012
January, 2012
December, 2011
November, 2011
October, 2011
September, 2011
August, 2011
July, 2011
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thehighlandrebel
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« Reply #15 on Apr 29, 2012, 12:19pm » | |
It's revealing to read the BBC 'offering' on this story which shows their agenda in a nutshell.
Dispossessed: the South Sudanese without a nationality
In the entire article there is not one mention of the fundamentalist Islamic nature of the North, or the fact that the South is comprised of Christians. It should certainly be a central point in understanding events there, and for the BBC to avoid mentioning it shows their twisted reporting.
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #16 on May 19, 2012, 11:07pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim with his April 2012 account of Christian Persecution by Muslims.
Bear in mind this man is well aware of what is going on in this realm in the world. The fact that our media, in particularly the BBC, does not convey these truths is leaving us more vulnerable with every day that passes.
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
Intrinsically, to document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
Instrumentally, to show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (tribute); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed "dhimmis" (barely tolerated citizens); and simple violence and murder. Oftentimes it is a combination thereof.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the west, to India in the east, and throughout the West, wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
Again there are so many links on this article anybody wishing to go deeper into the examples should visit his website.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: April, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
"The Christians were running in all directions for their lives, including the children who were crying in fear." One Muslim, "brandishing a sickle, chased many of them, hurling all kinds of insults and attempting to murder them all…. 500 Muslims had gathered and were watching in amusement as the extremists chased and harassed the Christians for about 90 minutes."
The Intersection
Considering that Easter, one of the highest Christian holidays, comes in April, Christian persecution in Muslim nations—from sheer violence to oppressive laws—was rampant last month: In Nigeria, where jihadis seek to expunge all traces of Christianity, a church was bombed during Easter Sunday, killing some 50 worshippers; in Turkey, a pastor was beaten by Muslims immediately following Easter service and threatened with death unless he converts to Islam; and in Iran, Easter Sunday saw 12 Christians stand trial as "apostates."
The persecution of Christians has come to regions not normally associated with it. As in Nigeria, Muslim militants are running amok in Timbuktu, Mali—beheading a Christian leader and threatening other Christians with similar treatment. Sharia law has been imposed, churches are being destroyed, and Christians are fleeing Timbuktu in mass.
Categorized by theme, the rest of April's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity:
Church Attacks
Azerbaijan: A church in the Muslim-majority nation has "become the first religious community to be liquidated by a court" since the country's "harsh new Religion Law," requiring all previously registered religious institutions to re-register, came into force in 2009. Greater Grace Protestant Church in the capital, Baku, "was stripped of its registration at a 15-minute hearing on 25 April. The decision, which was made in the absence of any church representatives, makes any activity by the church illegal and subject to punishment."
Indonesia: Gunmen opened fire on the GKI Yasmin church, causing much damage in the latest attack on the building, which has been illegally sealed off by authorities since 2088, due to Muslim demands. Another Protestant church unlawfully sealed off by the authorities—despite meeting all requirements for a permit—was met with violent opposition from Muslims for trying to hold a service on the street in front of their sealed-off church building. Muslim residents made death threats, played loud music, and even rode a motorcycle through the congregation. A church spokesman said: "We are constantly having to change our location because our existence appears to be unwanted, and we have to hide so that we are not intimidated by intolerant groups… We had hoped for help from the police, but after many attacks on members of the congregation, we see that the police are also involved in this."
Kenya: Two separate grenade attacks on churches occurred: 1) Muslims threw grenades into an open-air Christian church gathering, killing a woman and a boy, and wounding some 50 other Christians: Muslims had been holding a meeting near the gathering, and Christians could hear their preachers railing against Christianity right before the attack took place. 2) In a separate incident, a Muslim man pretending to be a worshipper at a church threw three grenades during service, killing a 27-year-old university student and injuring16. The terrorist, who, according to eyewitnesses, appeared to be of Somali origin, "looked uncomfortable and always looked down. He threw three hand grenades and only one exploded. He took off, and he fired in the air three gunshots."
Nigeria: An early morning attack on a Christian church service left at least 16 people dead: Jihadi gunmen on motorcycles stormed Bayero University in the city of Kano on a Sunday morning during a Catholic mass held in the school's theater hall, hurling improvised explosive devices, and opening fire as people fled. "The attack follows a string of violent incidents against Christians in the predominantly Muslim north."
Sudan: A Christian compound in Khartoum was stormed by a throng of Muslims "armed with clubs, iron rods, a bulldozer and fire," the day after a Muslim leader called on Muslims to destroy "the infidels' church." Shouting "Allahu Akbar [God is greater]" and "No more Christianity from today on—no more church from today on," the jihadis stormed the Bible school bookstore, burning Bibles and threatening to kill anyone resisting them. "What happened could not be imagined—it was terrible," said an eyewitness. "They burned all furniture of the school and the church as well." As usual, "Police at the compound stood back and did nothing to prevent the mob from vandalizing the compound."
Tunisia: The Christian Orthodox Church in Tunis, one of very few churches in the nation, is being "abused" and receiving "threatening messages." Church members are "living in a state of terror," so much so that the Russian ambassador in Tunis specifically requested the nation's Ministry of Interior to "protect the church." The abuse has gotten to the point where "Salafis covered the cross of the church with garbage bags, telling the church members that they do not wish to see the vision of the Cross anywhere in the Islamic state of Tunisia." Separately, a Muslim burst into a church to deliver a letter from an Islamist party inviting the archpriest to convert to Islam or to take down the church's crosses and pay jizya, Islamic subjugation tribute.
Apostasy and Blasphemy: Death and Prison
Algeria: A Christian was sentenced to five years in prison for "shaking the faith" of Muslims. He had discussed his faith with a Muslim man at a food court when the Muslim became angry and accused the Christian of "insulting Muhammad." Police arrested the man and found a large amount of Christian materials in his apartment. The judge gave him the maximum sentence of five years in prison, even though the prosecutor himself had recommended a lesser sentence.
Bangladesh: A former Muslim prayer leader who converted to Christianity was "welcomed by threats and violence." Members of his Muslim community "beat him almost to death," causing him to be hospitalized for almost two months: "the same Muslims who followed him and held him in high esteem when he was their imam now cannot accept his new status."
Egypt: Two incidents of "blasphemy" convictions occurred: 1) A juvenile court sentenced a Coptic Christian teenager to three years in prison for allegedly "insulting Islam," due to claims that he posted unflattering cartoons of Muhammad on Facebook. When the incident originally came to light, Muslims rioted, fire-bombing his home and at least five other Christian-owned homes. 2) Another judge upheld a six-year prison sentence for a Christian convicted of "blasphemy": after a Muslim had told the 49-year old Christian convict that Jesus had illegal sex with at least ten women, the Christian countered "by stating that Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic religion, had more than four wives—a view commonly held by Islamic scholars." Police subsequently arrested him and, in a 10-minute mock trial with no defense attorney present, the judge sentenced him to six years in prison for "insulting the prophet."
Iran: A Christian convert from Islam has been sentenced to six years in prison. Originally arrested in December 2010 as part of a major crackdown on the country's house church movement, "the married father of two has been held in the notorious Evin prison ever since, spending several months in solitary confinement," where he was likely goaded into returning to Islam. He is accused of "action against the regime's security, being in contact with foreign organizations and religious propaganda." In short, according to Iranian Christians, "his 'crime' was practicing his Christian faith."
Pakistan: Two incidents of "blasphemy" charges occurred: 1) A Christian man was arrested and charged with "blasphemy" for rescuing his 8-year-old nephew from a beating at the hands of Muslim boys who sought to force the boy to convert to Islam. "Seeing the attack from a distance, Masih [the man] shouted and rushed to the scene, rescued his nephew and then went to his work as a painter. Soon after the incident, a Muslim mob of about 55 led by the village prayer leader besieged Masih's house," insisting that "the blasphemer" be turned over to them. He was eventually released from prison, after being threatened and harassed by Muslim inmates and jail officials. 2) The mother of a newborn baby has been illegally jailed for over a month: authorities have failed to file a charge sheet within the mandatory 14-day period against the 26-year-old Christian woman accused of "blaspheming" the prophet of Islam. The woman was arrested after neighbors accused her of "uttering remarks against Muhammad."
Philippines: Two pastors were slaughtered by Muslim assailants: 1) A former Muslim who became a Christian pastor was murdered in front of his wife in his home: "My husband staggered into our bedroom and I was shocked because he was full of blood," she recalled. "I brought him to the hospital right away. He was operated on for eight bullet wounds, but did not survive." The Philippines is a mostly Christian nation, but in the south, "Muslim fundamentalists are trying to build an Islamic state. Christians there face persecution and even death…. This year, at least four house churches closed down after their pastors and lay leaders were killed by Muslim extremists." 2) Another pastor was shot in the head five times and killed by two "unknown gunmen" in front of his teenage daughter.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Egypt: A recent "reconciliation meeting" between members of a sword-wielding Muslim mob that earlier brutalized a Christian school proved to be "nothing less than an attempt at legalized extortion." In exchange for peace, members of the mob that stormed the school last month without provocation—holding two nuns hostage for several hours—demanded in the meetings that the school sign over land that includes the guesthouse they attacked. "Human rights groups and Coptic rights activists, say the meetings are just a way to pressure powerless groups and people into giving away what little rights they have." Likewise, the judges appointed to investigate the Maspero massacre, which claimed the lives of 27 Christians and injured 329, closed the case, due to "lack of identification of the culprits." As one Christian lawyer put it: "We said all along that it was just a show and this is the outcome we got."
India: Muslims stormed and terrorized a home where a Christian prayer meeting was being held, beating the Christians, including a 65-year-old widow. The Muslims "called them pagans as they kicked, slapped and pushed the Christians…. The Christians were running in all directions for their lives, including the children who were crying in fear," even as one Muslim, "brandishing a sickle, chased many of them, hurling all kinds of insults and attempting to murder them all…. 500 Muslims had gathered and were watching in amusement as the extremists chased and harassed the Christians for about 90 minutes."
Iran: Historical Christian monuments, including churches and Christian cemeteries, continue to be destroyed or allowed to fall into a state of decay as the Islamist authorities try to wipe out the country's Christian heritage: "It seems that Islamic Republic officials, unsuccessful in stopping the growth of Christianity among the people by pressuring them, arresting them and banning Christian converts from attending church services, want to destroy historical Christian monuments to totally wipe the Christian heritage from the face of Iran."
Pakistan: Yet another study demonstrates that Pakistani school textbooks "promote religious fanaticism, discriminate against minorities and trigger religious conflicts." Christians and Hindus "are obliged to learn the basics of Islam"—studying the Koran is mandatory—while their own religions are openly denigrated. Even in subjects like social science and linguistics, "about 20% of the content is linked to Islam"; and non-Muslim students receive "bonus points" if they excel in Islamic studies.
Syria: Almost the entire Christian population—nearly 60,000—of the city of Homs, the nation's third largest, have fled as fighting between the government and anti-government, largely Islamist, forces continues. Reportedly only 1,000 Christians remain. Opposition forces are attacking churches and other Christian centers; "Muslim neighbors are turning on the Christians. Christians have also suffered kidnappings and gruesome murders. Some Christian families, unable to pay a ransom for their relatives' release and fearing that they may be tortured, have been driven to ask the kidnappers to kill their loved ones at once."
Tunisia: After the Russian ambassador stood up for an Orthodox church under attack (see above, under "church attacks"), the Russian school located behind the church as well as the Christian cemetery in Tunis were vandalized. The walls of the school and religious frescoes were smeared with fecal matter, while the cemetery's crosses were destroyed. Meanwhile, the new "Arab-spring" government has shown its "manifest indifference with regard to minorities' right to protection."
Turkey: The nation's Greek Orthodox citizens living on the island of Gökçeada (Imbros) in the north Aegean cannot buy property on the island, though it is an easy matter for Muslims: "The Land Registry office has admitted to preventing non-Muslims from buying property, citing a National Security Council (MGK) decision, but refused to give further details."
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
Intrinsically, to document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
Instrumentally, to show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (tribute); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed "dhimmis" (barely tolerated citizens); and simple violence and murder. Oftentimes it is a combination thereof.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the west, to India in the east, and throughout the West, wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
Previous Reports
March, 2012
February, 2012
January, 2012
December, 2011
November, 2011
October, 2011
September, 2011
August, 2011
July, 2011
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #17 on Jul 3, 2012, 12:28am » | |
The May edition of Muslim Persecution against Christians worldwide is out - needless to say, so few incidents are covered by the BBC. There are so many links in this article anybody wanting to look at a specific report should go to the webpage of the article.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: May 2012
"Death to Christians!"
by Raymond Ibrahim
Elsewhere in Sub-Sahara Africa, wherever Christianity and Islam meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.
Unlike those nations, such as Saudi Arabia, that have eliminated Christianity altogether, Muslim countries with significant Christian minorities saw much persecution during the month of May: in Egypt, Christians were openly discriminated against in law courts, even as some accused the nation's new president of declaring that he will "achieve the Islamic conquest of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam;" in Indonesia, Muslims threw bags of urine on Christians during worship; in Kashmir and Zanzibar, churches were set on fire; and in Mali, Christianity "faces being eradicated."
Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, the Ivory Coast—wherever Islam and Christianity meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.
Categorized by theme, May's assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity. Note: As Pakistan had the lion's share of persecuted Christians last month, it has its own section below, covering the entire gamut of persecution—from apostasy and blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.
Church Attacks
Indonesia encountered several church-related attacks:
A mob of 600 Muslims threw bags of urine, stones, and rotten eggs at the congregation of a Protestant church at the start of Ascension Day service; they shouted profanities and threatened to kill the pastor. No arrests were made. The church had applied for a permit to construct its house of worship five years ago. Pressured by local Muslims, the local administration ordered the church shut down in December 2009, even though the Supreme Court recently overruled its decision, saying that the church was eligible for a permit. Local Muslims and officials are nevertheless demanding that the church shut down.
After protests "by hard-line groups including the Islamic Defenders Front," nearly 20 Christian houses of worship were sealed off by authorities on the pretext of "not having permits." The authorities added that, to accommodate the region's 20,000 Christians, only one church may be built in the district in question.
The Muslim mayor who illegally sealed the beleaguered GKI Yasmin church, forcing congregants to worship in the streets, has agreed to reopen it—but only if a mosque is built next door, to ensure that the church "stays in line." "As well as opposition from the mayor, the church has faced hostility from local Muslims, who have rallied against them [the Christians], blocked them from accessing the street where the church is situated and disrupted their outdoor services. It is unlikely that they will suddenly embrace the Christians," according to the report.
France: Prior to celebrating mass, "four youths, aged 14 to 18, broke into the Church of St. Joseph, before launching handfuls of pebbles at 150 faithful present at the service." They were chased out, although, according to the report, "the parishioners, many of whom are elderly, were greatly shocked by the disrespectful act of the youths of North African origin."
Kashmir: A Catholic church made entirely of wood was partially destroyed after unknown assailants set it on fire. "What happened," said the president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, "is not an isolated case," and follows the "persecution" of a pastor who baptized Muslims. "With these gestures, the Muslim community is trying to intimidate the Christian minority."
Kuwait: Two months after the Saudi Grand Mufti decreed, in response to a question on whether churches may exist in Kuwait, that all regional churches must be destroyed, villa-churches serving Western foreigners are being targeted. One congregation was evicted without explanation "from a private villa used for worship gatherings for the past seven years;" another villa-church was ordered to "pay an exorbitant fine each month to use a facility it had been renting…. Church leaders reportedly decided not to argue and moved out."
Zanzibar: Hundreds of Muslims set two churches on fire and clashed with police during protests against the arrest of senior members of an Islamist movement known as the Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation. Afterwards, the group issued a statement denying any involvement of wrongdoing.
Pakistan: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Rape, Forced Conversions, and Oppression
A 20-year-old Christian man was arrested and charged with "blasphemy"—a crime "punishable with life imprisonment"—after vengeful Muslims accused him of burning a Koran soon after a billiard game. The Muslims kept taunting and threatening him, to which the Christian "dared them to do whatever they wanted and walked away." Days later came the accusation and arrest, which caused Muslim riots, creating "panic among Christians," who "left their houses anticipating violence."
Two years ago, after a Muslim man converted to Christianity and told his wife, she abused and exposed him, resulting in his being severely beaten. "No one was willing to let me live the life I wanted [as a Christian]—they say Islam is not a religion of compulsion, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims who don't find satisfaction in the religion become liable to be killed." He eventually divorced, escaped, and remarried a Christian woman. Now that his family has again discovered his whereabouts, they have resumed threatening him. According to his wife: "Every other day, we receive threatening phone calls…They are now asking him to abandon us and renounce Christianity, threatening that they will kill me and our child."
A new report indicates that "on average, eight to ten Christians are being forced every month by fanatic Muslims to convert to Islam, mostly in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. The victims of forced conversions are often girls from poor backgrounds who are then subjected to harrowing and traumatic ordeals. Most of the girls are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves against extremists because their community is deprived, defenseless and marginalized. Christians, who constitute about two percent of the Pakistani population, are paying a high price for being a part of the minority community." Two such cases from May follow:
In an attempt to force her to drop charges against them for raping her 13-year-old niece, a band of Muslims severely beat a pregnant Christian woman causing her to lose female twins to miscarriage. The rapists came when all male members of the Christian household were out working and beat the women "mercilessly." "They murdered our children, they raped our daughter. We have nothing left with us," lamented an older family member. As usual, police ignored both cases: both the raped Christian girl and her beaten family.
A 14-year-old Christian girl was abducted and forced to convert to Islam by her uncle, who himself had earlier converted. Pakistani police refused to liberate her, and said she converted of her own free will. According to her father: "After converting, my brother is conspiring against our family and kidnapped Mary with deception."
The investigation into the murder of the nation's only cabinet-level Christian, Shahbaz Bhatti, has become mired amid suspicions of a possible cover-up. Lax investigations, a series of freed suspects, and lack of coordination across law enforcement organizations have stalled the case after the March 2, 2011 slaying of the federal minister for Minority Affairs, who was an outspoken critic of, and targeted by, those who support Pakistan's "blasphemy" laws.
Christians are being threatened and abused for trying, since 1947, to save their community's graveyard. Despite failing to produce any proof, a retired Muslim official who claims he "recently discovered" that the land really belongs to him has already built a boundary wall, reducing the graveyard to less than a third of its original size, and turned the seized land over to agricultural use. Police, as usual, are failing to react.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Egypt: A court verdict that was criticized by many human rights groups as "unbelievable" and "extremely harsh" towards Christians was decided according to religion: all twelve Christians were convicted to life imprisonment, while all eight Muslims—including some who torched nearly 60 Christian homes—were acquitted, all to thunderous cries of "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is the Greatest!"] in the courtroom. Another Muslim judge in Upper Egypt dismissed all charges against a group of Muslims who terrorized a Christian man and his family for over a year, culminating with their cutting off his ear in a knife attack while trying to force him to convert to Islam after they "falsely accused him" of having an affair with a Muslim woman. And a new report describes the plight of Coptic girls: "hundreds of Christian girls … have been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and forced into marriage in Egypt. These incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental abuse."
Eritrea: Activists taking part in a protest outside the Eritrean embassy in London revealed that "Some 2,000 to 3,000 Christians are currently detained in Eritrea without charge or trial… Several Christians are known to have died in notorious prison camps," and "thousands of Eritreans flee their country every year," some falling "into the hands of abusive traffickers, and are held hostage in torture camps in the Sinai Desert pending payment of exorbitant ransoms, or the forcible removal of organs."
Ethiopia: A Christian man accused of "desecrating the Koran" spent two years in prison, where he was abused, pressured to convert to Islam, and left paralyzed. Now returning home, he has found that his two young children have been abducted by local Muslims: "My life is ruined—I have lost my house, my children, my health. I am now homeless, and I am limping."
Greece: Abet Hasman, the deputy mayor of Patras who recently passed away, left a message to be revealed only in his obituary—that, although born to Muslim parents in Jordan, he was "secretly baptized" a Christian (demonstrating how some Muslims who convert to Christianity, knowing the consequences of apostasy, choose secrecy).
Indonesia: A predominantly Christian neighborhood was attacked for several days by "unidentified persons," who set fire to homes and cars. Dozens of Christian families fled their homes, "many fear[ing] the involvement of Islamic extremist groups."
Iran: A prominent house church pastor remains behind bars, even as his family expresses concerns that he may die from continued abuse and beatings, leading to internal bleeding and other ailments; authorities refuse to give him medical treatment. Also, the attorney of Youssef Nadarkhani—the imprisoned Christian pastor who awaits execution for apostasy—was himself "convicted for his work defending human rights and is expected to begin serving his nine-year sentence in the near future." Meanwhile, in a letter attributed to him, the imprisoned pastor wrote: "I have surrendered myself to God's will...[and I] consider it as the day of exam and trial of my faith...[so that I may] prove my loyalty and sincerity to God."
Jordan: After the Jordanian Dubai Islamic Bank decreed that all females must wear the hijab, the Islamic veil or be terminated, it fired all female employees who refused to wear the hijab—mostly Christians, including one Christian woman who had worked there for 27 years. There are suspicions that this new policy was set to target and terminate the Christian employees, as it is they who are most likely to reject the hijab.
Lebanon: A 24-year-old woman, the daughter of a Shiite cleric, who was "physically and psychologically tortured by her father for converting to Christianity three years ago," managed to escape and be baptized by a Christian priest—who was himself then abducted and interrogated to disclose the whereabouts of the renegade woman. In like manner, Muslim assailants fired gunshots at the house of another priest and at a church -- "part of an escalating pattern of violence against local Catholics," in the words of the region's prelate.
Macedonia: After some Muslims were arrested in connection to a "series of murders of Christians," thousands of fellow Muslims demonstrated after Friday prayers, shouting slogans such as "death to Christians!," and calling for "jihad."
Mali: Ever since the government was overthrown in a coup, "the church in Mali faces being eradicated," especially in the north, "where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out….there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives."
Nigeria: Muslim gunmen set fire to a home in a Christian village and then opened fire on all who tried to escape the inferno, killing at least seven and wounding many others, in just one of dozens of attacks on Christians.
Sudan: Without reason, security officials closed down regional offices of the Sudan Council of Churches and a much needed church clinic for the poor; staff members were arrested and taken to an undisclosed location: "Their families are living in agony due to the uncertainty of their fate."
Syria: Jihadi gunmen evicted all the families of a Christian region, "taking over all the homes of the village, occupying the church and turning it to their base."
Uzbekistan: Police raided a Protestant house-church meeting, claiming "that a bomb was in the home." No bomb was found, only Christian literature which was confiscated. Subsequently, 14 members of the unregistered church were heavily fined—the equivalent of 10-60 times a monthly salary—for an "unsanctioned meeting in a private home." Between February and April, 28 Protestants were fined and four were issued warnings for the offence. Three Baptists were also fined for not declaring their personal Bibles while crossing the border from Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan. Fines and warnings were accompanied by the confiscation of religious literature.
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« Reply #18 on Jul 28, 2012, 12:26am » | |
Raymond Ibrahim continues his series. Unless you seek this news of your own volition, isn't it amazing to know how unaware you are of it from our major news provider? Don't you think it puts 'world events' into a truer perspective by knowing this is going on, and doesn't it show just how insidious the BBC truly is?
(Full links available by visiting the webpage provided)
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: June, 2012
"[Egypt's] Muslim Brotherhood prevented the Copts, at gunpoint, from voting"
by Raymond Ibrahim
July 26, 2012 at 5:00 am
Saudi Arabia officially bans all religions other than Islam.
U.S.-backed rebels are committing Christian genocide in Syria, where they are sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be cleansed from rebel-held territory. A mass exodus of thousands of Christians is taking place, even as mainstream Western reporters, such as Robert Fisk, demonize these same Christians for being supportive of the secular regime.
The bloody jihad waged against Nigeria's Christians, which has seen hundreds killed this year alone, now includes plans to kill Christians with poisoned food, as part of the Islamic organization Boko Haram's stated goal of purging Nigeria of all Christian presence.
During Egypt's presidential elections, Al Ahram reported that "the Muslim Brotherhood blockaded entire streets; prevented Copts, at gunpoint, from voting and threatened Christian families not to let their children go out and vote" for the secular candidate.
Meanwhile, under President Obama, the U.S. State Department, in an unprecedented move, purged the sections dealing with religious persecution from its recently released Country Reports on Human Rights. Similarly, the Obama administration insists that the Nigeria crisis has nothing to do with religion, even as Obama offered his hearty blessings to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president, in the midst of allegations of electoral fraud.
Categorized by theme, June's assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.
Church Attacks
Egypt: Because many visitors were in attendance, Muslims surrounded a Coptic church during divine liturgy, "demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demands were not met." The priest contacted police and asked for aid, only to be told to comply with their demands, "and do not let buses with visitors come to the church anymore." Christian worshippers exited halfway through liturgy; they were subjected to jeers outside. As the Christians drove away, Muslims hurled stones at their buses. Also, repairs to a Coptic church that was torched and gutted a year ago by rioting Muslims were woefully inadequate, leaving the congregation with a staggering debt from further necessary repairs.
Indonesia: A Muslim mob of 300 wrecked a store that was being used for a Sunday church service on the pretext that it had not obtained "permission to hold Mass." The mob wrecked the first floor of the store, breaking windows and damaging furniture. Police stopped the mob before it reached the third floor, where some 60 Christians had congregated. Twelve Christians were taken into custody for questioning; none of the Muslims was arrested.
Separately, in compliance with calls by Islamic clerics, authorities ordered 20 churches to be torn down after the closure last month of 16 smaller Christian places of worship in the same district. The congregations continue to hold services inside their sealed-off buildings as a few members stand guard outside.
Iran: Authorities ordered the closure of yet another church in the capital, Tehran, "amid a government campaign to crack down on the few recognized churches offering Farsi-speaking services," according to a human rights group. The church originally served Christians of an Assyrian background; however, "due to an increasing number of Farsi-speaking believers—mostly [MMBs] Muslim Background Believers—it [the church] has become a cause of concern for the authorities and they now ordered it to shut down."
Kashmir: A 119-year-old church was torched by Muslims. The local bishop "said that the Muslim fundamentalists want Christians to leave the state…. He said that the church had filed a case with the police but had been advised not to 'play up' such incidents." Christian minorities "are coming under growing threat from Kashmir's Muslim majority. A Christian human rights group in India said that over 400 Christians have been displaced as a result."
Kazakhstan: Land use regulations are being exploited "as a means to prevent religious communities and their members exercising freedom of religion or belief." Most recently, authorities "forced a Methodist church to close 'voluntarily'," and fined the wife of the Church's Pastor, who paid for an announcement in newspapers; it said the church was "liquidating itself," because "We do not want more punishment from the authorities."
Nigeria: Islamic militants attacked several churches with bombs and guns during every Sunday of the month; they killed dozens of Christian worshippers, and critically wounded hundreds, including many children. Growing numbers of Christians "dare not" attend church services anymore, even as reports suggest that some police are intentionally abandoning their watch prior to such attacks.
Sudan: Authorities bulldozed two church buildings to the ground and confiscated three Catholic schools, as a response to the secession of South Sudan in July 2011; the authorities said that such buildings, largely associated with the South Sudanese Christians in this Islamic-ruled country, are now unwelcome. Another church building belonging to the Full Gospel Church was destroyed in the same area two months ago, also on the claim that it belonged to the South Sudanese.
Turkmenistan: An Evangelical church in this Muslim-majority nation was raided by authorities: "All adult believers at the meeting were questioned about their faith and all of their Christian literature was confiscated." Their literature was returned two weeks later.
Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism
Egypt: A Christian student handing out Christian literature in Assuit University "raised the ire of Muslim students;" this action apparently resulted in clashes on campus, and caused many injuries "amid shouts of sectarian chants." Likewise, a Salafi leader declared on Egyptian TV that Muslims have no right "to convert to Christianity."
Iran: Five months after five Christian converts were arrested, their condition and fate remain unknown. They are accused of "attending house church services, promoting Christianity, agitating against the regime and disturbing national security." Being imprisoned for 130 days without word "is an obvious example of physical and mental abuse of the detainees…. One of the prison guards openly told one of those Christian detainees that all these pressures and uncertainties are intended to make them flee the country after they are released." In addition, a young Iranian woman, who recently converted to Christianity and was an outspoken activist against the Islamic regime, was found dead, slumped over her car's steering wheel, with a single gunshot wound to her head.
Pakistan: A banned Islamic group filed a blasphemy case against a 25-year-old Christian man, later deemed mentally retarded. Muslims had converted him to Islam two years earlier, to use him as a pretext to annex his Christian village. In the words of a witness: "These people [Muslims] do not let us live. We are poor but are working hard to survive. On the night of the incident a mob of Muslim clerics gathered [around] our colony to burn us all because of the blasphemy Ramzan [the retarded man] committed. Everyone was scared. We all have small children in our houses and we didn't know what to do. The mob surrounded our colony and shouted a slogan to burn all the houses; they had torches in their hands and petrol in the cans. We called police; thank God the police arrived just in time."
Saudi Arabia: Thirty-five Ethiopian Christians who were arrested in December for praying in a private home remain jailed, even as Saudi officials offer contradictory reasons for their arrest. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian Christians have been beaten and subjected to interrogations and strip searches. Saudi Arabia formally bans all religions other than Islam. In 2006, Saudi authorities told the United States that they would "guarantee and protect the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice."
Sudan: A Muslim woman divorced her husband, a convert to Christianity; the court therefore automatically granted her custody of their two sons. When their father tried to visit his children, his wife threatened to notify authorities. "They might take the case to a prosecution court, which might lead to my being sentenced to death according to Islamic apostasy law—but I am ready for this," said the Christian. "I want the world to know this. What crime have I done? Is it because I became a Christian? I know if the world is watching, they [the Sudanese authorities] will be afraid to do any harm to me."
United States: Two Christian men in Saint Louis, Missouri received death threats from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard, apparently for converting to Christianity and preaching it. One of the men formerly served in the Revolutionary Guard and was once even assigned a suicide mission against Israel, before converting and immigrating to the U.S. "The two men believe that Islam is a religion that could easily radicalize a Muslim into a terrorist." Similarly, in Dearborn Michigan, Christian demonstrators exercising their free speech rights were stoned by Muslims shouting, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!"].
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Indonesia: "The number of violations of Christians' religious rights in Indonesia reached 40 in the first five months of the year, nearly two-thirds the amount of anti-Christian actions in all of last year," according to the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum. The Christian minority in Indonesia faced 64 cases of violations of religious freedom last year, up from 47 in 2010." Violence against Christians also increased.
Mali: "Islamists in control of northern Mali are enforcing a strict version of Sharia law that victimizes Christians, women and other vulnerable groups." The radicals took control of northern Mali in April after ousting the armed forces of the government of Mali. "All the Christians have left Timbuktu (the main city in north Mali) because of the Sharia law as well as because of the presence of people linked with al-Qaeda," said a Christian leader who fled from northern Mali.
Pakistan: Police are siding with the Muslims accused of beating a pregnant Christian woman, causing her to miscarry twins, and gang-raping her 13-year-old Christian niece. "Muslim criminals believe police and courts will give little credence to the complaints of Christians in the country, which is nearly 96 percent Muslim," adds the report. The Christian family is "paying a huge price for being poor … and for being Christian," said the uncle. "What can we expect from the police when they are not paying heed even to the court orders? They are distorting facts and have even gone to the extent of accusing a 13-year-old [raped girl] of committing adultery with three men." Another Christian politician's ID mistook him for a Muslim, causing him to insist "on the floor of the Punjab Assembly that he was born a Christian and appealed to them and the media not to indulge in propaganda against him that could incite Muslim extremists to kill him."
Turkey: Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside the Hagia Sophia—formerly Christendom's greatest cathedral, now a museum—shouting, "Allahu Akbar!" and demanding that the building be opened as a mosque in honor of the jihadi sultan who conquered Constantinople in the 15th century.
South Africa: More than 70 students were kicked out of the Coastal KZN As-Salaam campus dormitories and are currently homeless because campus officials tried to make the students observe Islam, including by banning Bibles, which the students resisted. "All we wanted was to be free to practice our own religions and not be forced to follow Islam, but now we have been punished by being deprived of safe accommodation," said one student. |
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #19 on Aug 25, 2012, 4:56pm » | |
Good to see somebody in mainstream media picking up on this theme. Damian Thompson at the Telegraph has this to say.
Quote:Radical Islam revives an ancient hatred
By Damian Thompson
Is a new and shocking wave of anti-Semitism engulfing the Middle East and the developing world? Consider the following:
More than half the Jews in Iraq have been driven out of the country; those that remain are forced to pay a fine or leave their homes. Some are forced to marry Muslims.
In Syria, towns and villages where Jews have lived for centuries are now almost entirely Muslim; these communities have fled to safer parts of the country, where they hope to escape an anti-Semitic massacre.
In Egypt, the new regime is surreptitiously encouraging attacks on synagogues; the Jews, despised for their supposed wealth, fear that the “Arab spring” is about to release centuries of pent-up anti-Semitic hatred.
In Nigeria, Jews have been attacked and killed while studying scripture. In Bangladesh, Jewish children are being forced into madrassas. In Pakistan, the body of an 11-year-old Jewish boy was discovered this week; he’d been tortured to death and his lips sliced off.
You won’t have heard about this atrocious persecution. That’s because – forgive me – I’ve played one of the oldest tricks in the journalist’s book. For Jews, read Christians. For anti-Semitic, read anti-Christian. For synagogues read churches.
I hope Jewish readers won’t take offence: I’m not denying that actual anti-Semitism is spreading like a virus throughout Arab societies. It’s just that, if these attacks against Christians were being directed against Jews, the precedent of the Holocaust would shock the world into action.
This new persecution is the result of the simultaneous revival of militant Islam in many countries. We can say that with confidence. What we can’t say, however, is that there is a co-ordinated Islamic plot to exterminate Christianity as a stepping stone to a universal caliphate.
Conspiracy theorists may derive emotional satisfaction from this idea, but it doesn’t correspond to the messy politics of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Also, it lets the “Christian” West off the hook.
We have to confront the awkward fact that, for decades, some of the world’s most despicable dictators have protected indigenous Christians from Islamic mobs. When the West withdraws its support from these rulers, Christian minorities are exposed as never before.
The removal of Saddam has eviscerated Iraqi Christian churches so ancient that they still worship in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. The fall of Mubarak means that it’s open season on Copts. Those who can afford to do so may follow the example of Palestinian and Lebanese Christians and emigrate. A key statistic: 100 years ago, the Levant was 20 per cent Christian; now the figure is 5 per cent.
The British government, despite prodding by the heroic Lord Alton, is doing a good imitation of not giving a stuff about any of this. Maybe it’s guilt: Anglo-American policies helped liberate Islamism.
As for Western Christianity, some evangelical and Catholic campaigners are drawing attention to the persecution – but they’re undermined by colleagues. For many evangelicals, Iraqi or Syrian worshippers are not “real” Christians because they venerate icons. Lefty Catholics are too obsessed with climate change and benefit cuts to spare a thought for their martyred co-religionists.
Keep an eye on Syria after Assad goes. First they’ll come for the Alawites, then the Christians. There’s a real chance that all traces of Christianity will disappear from the very place where St Paul was knocked off his horse and blinded by a vision of the risen Christ. What a horrible piece of symmetry. |
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #20 on Sept 3, 2012, 1:09am » | |
Raymond Ibrahim identifies the persecution undergone by Christians in July. Not to understand what these extremist barbarians are perpetrating throughout the world, wherever they have some power, is to allow it to grow. We already see evidence in the West where these actions are becoming more and more prevalent.
(Full links available by visiting the webpage provided)
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
Several reports appearing in July indicate that Christian minorities all around the Muslim world—especially women and children—are being abducted, tortured, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and/or enslaved. In Egypt, at least 550 such cases have been documented in the last five years, and have only increased since the revolution. Christians who manage to escape back to their families often find the government siding with the Muslim abductors. One young mother who recently testified before the Helsinki Commission explained how she was snatched in broad daylight, as her abductor shouted to bystanders while dragging her to a waiting taxi, "No one interfere! She is an enemy of Islam."
Identical reports are emerging from Pakistan, where "persecution, kidnapping and abduction of Christian women and girls," including many married women with children, are on the rise. Last year the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that 1800 Christian and Hindu girls were forcibly converted to Islam. Most recently, the sister of a pastor was "kidnapped raped and forcibly converted to Islam." She "was kidnapped around a month ago by some Muslim men while returning home from college. She was held for days, suffered sexual abuse, threats and violence. In such a state of terror and exhaustion, first she was coerced into converting to Islam, and then marriage. Her family reported the incident to the police station in Chunian, but no investigations have been conducted and instead her abductors have presented a report to the court attesting to the girl now being Muslim and legally married. Among other things, the girl is a minor and, according to the law, marriage is not permitted to minors."
The tiny Palestinian Christian community in the Hamas-run Gaza strip is also under siege, and charges that five Christians were abducted and pressured into converting to Islam. Because they made this forced conversion charge known, "members of the Christian community now fear reprisal attacks by Muslim extremists." Some have appealed to the Vatican and Christian groups and churches in the West for help. Yet "we only hear voices telling us to stay where we are and to stop making too much noise," said a Christian man living in Gaza City. "If they continue to turn a blind eye to our tragedy, in a few months there will be no Christians left in Palestine. Today it's happening in the Gaza Strip, tomorrow it will take place in Bethlehem."
Categorized by theme, July's assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.
Church Attacks
Indonesia: Muslim protesters forced a church to shut down during a Sunday worship on claims that it was operating without a permit, and hung a banner on the church's gate reading "We the people … hardily reject the use of this building … for religious activities." The church's committee secretary said the church has the necessarily permits to hold services," yet "the majority of the people still reject the church's activity."
Iran: Both the Central Assembly of God Church in Tehran and its summer campsite—once a popular site for Christian gatherings and conferences—were closed by authorities of the Islamic Republic, who also posted a large notice on the gates "warning of severe consequences should anyone try to enter the premises." These latest closures follow the official termination of Friday Persian language services and the compulsory cancellation of all Bible classes and the distribution of Christian literature. Also, as part of the crackdown on house churches, plainclothes agents of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance continued raiding, arresting, and "aggressively interrogating" assembled worshippers.
Lebanon: Ahead of the Maronite Patriarch's visit to Akker, flyers signed by the "Soldiers of the Great Prophet" threatened the Christians and churches in what has traditionally been the safest Mideast country for Christians, calling "on the infidels to stop their blasphemy ... We will start from the infidel's church in Akker and we won't stop ... this is not the end but the beginning," read the flyer.
Kenya: Seven Islamic jihadis launched simultaneous grenade and gunfire attacks on two churches, while the congregations were at prayer. Five militants attacked the Africa Inland Church, killing 17 people and wounding approximately 60, including many women and children. The other two Muslim terrorists attacked the nearby Catholic Church, wounding three.
Kuwait: After approval was issued for the construction of a church, a group of Islamic preachers, echoing the words of the Saudi Grand Mufti, reasserted that churches are not permitted to be built in Muslim countries. One sheikh "expressed displeasure" against those approving the construction of the church, "stressing that it is not permissible as per the Sharia," adding that "excuses" such as saying that the building of a church "is a matter of human rights and international norms is not acceptable, as Islam comes first, and people should respect religion first before serving humanity or anything else."
Turkey: The existence of the oldest functioning Christian monastery in the world, 5th century Mor Gabriel Monastery near the Turkish-Syrian border is at risk after a ruling by Turkey's highest appeals court. Inhabited today by only a few dozen Christians dedicated to learning the monastery's teachings, the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Jesus and the Orthodox Syriac tradition, neighboring Muslims with the support of an MP member of the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) filed a lawsuit accusing the Christians of practicing "anti-Turkish activities" and of illegally occupying land which belongs to Muslim villages. The highest appeals court in Ankara, which is close to the government, ruled in favor of the Muslim villagers, saying the land that has been part of the monastery for 1,600 years is not its property, and even claimed that the monastery was built over the ruins of a mosque, forgetting that Mohammed was born 170 years after its foundation.
Apostasy and Blasphemy
Egypt: A Christian teacher was arrested and detained after being accused of posting cartoons insulting to Islam and its prophet on Facebook. The man faces up to five years in jail if convicted of blasphemy. While admitting he manages the site in question, he said the site was hacked. Earlier in April, a Christian teenager was sentenced to three years in prison for posting cartoons perceived to mock Islam's prophet on his Face book page. Likewise, Christian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris posted Disney's Mickey and Minnie Mouse dressed in Islamic attire, which landed him in court, though he was acquitted.
Iran: Pastor Youssef Nadarkhani, who has spent over 1,000 days in prison awaiting execution for refusing to recant Christianity, is only one of many persecuted in Iran for their faith. A six-year prison sentence for pastor Farshid Fathi Malayeri—another Muslim convert to Christianity—was recently upheld following an unsuccessful appeal hearing. Also, another prominent house church pastor, Benham Irani, remains behind bars, even as his family expresses concerns that he may die from continued abuse and beatings, leading to internal bleeding and other ailments; authorities refuse to give him medical treatment. The verdict against him contains text that describes the pastor as an apostate, adding that apostates "can be killed."
Pakistan: A Christian couple have been on the run since they embraced Islam back in 2006, only to reconvert to Christianity. Upon learning that the couple returned to Christianity, neighboring Muslims attacked and persecuted them; one of the husband's best friends abducted and tortured him, while beating the wife. "[One] should have the freedom to choose the religion one wishes to follow," said the Christian husband. "They have subsequently been on the run."
Saudi Arabia: A court is looking into an apostasy case concerning a 28-year-old Muslim woman's conversion to Christianity. The father alleges that a Saudi and a Lebanese played a role in converting his daughter to Christianity and smuggling her to Lebanon, where she has received sanctuary in an anonymous church.
Jihad Death and Destruction
Nigeria: In what is described as an ongoing genocide of Christians over 65 people, including two politicians, were killed in a triple attacks on Christians. First, Muslims destroyed 43 Christian-owned farms. Nobody was arrested. Then they attacked nine Christian villages around the city of Jos, killing dozens of people. "They came in hundreds," said an official, "Some had police uniforms and some even had bulletproof vests." In one instance, Christians fleeing the violence took refuge in the house of a local church leader, which was bombed and more than 50 Christians were burned alive, including the pastor's wife and children. Then the Muslims attacked the funeral for the victims of the village raids, killing several more people. Security forces said Muslim Fulani herdsmen were responsible but Islamist militant group Boko Haram issued a statement saying: "We thank Allah for the successful attack." Separately, Islamic motorcycle assassins gunned down four Christians.
South Africa: The Islamic terror group Al Shabaab is accused of murdering 14 Christians, all Ethiopians, in the Western Cape. A Christian bishop, also a former police inspector, fears more of his flock will be targeted: "We want authorities to do something because we know this is the work of al-Shabaab. If nothing is done, the Ethiopian population will be depleted… [those who died are] holy martyrs who have died because they are Christians." Meanwhile, Father Mike Williams of the Anglican Catholic Church also revealed that members of his congregation have been targeted by gunmen "with connections to Muslim extremists," saying that "In July, we have lost seven members of our church."
Syria: Syrian "freedom fighters" continue showing their true colors as they destroy churches and kill Christians, which has resulted in the mass migration of tens of thousands of Christians, including practically the entire populations of Homs and Qusayr. Surrounding nations that once might have offered refuge—Iraq, Turkey, even now Lebanon—are also increasingly inhospitable to Christians. One Christian girl who escaped said: "They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us [Christians] away…. Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed." After making the sign of the cross, her grandmother added: "Anyone who believes in this cross suffers."
Turkey: An article titled "Who Ordered the Murder of Christians?" asserts that a Muslim undercover agent who had worked for the government "penetrated the Christian community and gathered a lot of information, while he was pretending to be a missionary. He became a church leader, and upon receiving another order, he became 'Muslim' again and launched a campaign against missionaries across the country," which culminated in the massacre of Christians.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of Non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Egypt: After a Christian laundry worker burned the shirt of a Muslim man, several quarrels ensued and culminated with the death of a Muslim. Accordingly, thousands of Muslims rampaged the village, causing 120 Christian families to flee. They looted Christian businesses and homes "despite hundreds of security forces being deployed in the village. Eyewitnesses reported that security forces did not protect most Coptic property." Family members of the deceased Muslim insist that the Christians must still pay with their lives. Also, during Ramadan, several Christians were attacked and beaten. Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, a prominent figure in Egypt's Salafi movement issued a fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi-drivers and bus-drivers from transporting Coptic Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as "more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar." And a charitable medical center that performs free heart operations on both Muslim and Christian children is under threat from some Muslims, who want it closed down because it was founded by a Christian surgeon.
Pakistan: Days after a Muslim mob doused a man with gasoline and literally burned him alive for "blaspheming" the Koran (graphic picture here), a Pakistani Christian woman, now living in the U.S., explained how when she lived in Pakistan, Muslims disfigured her in an acid attack for being Christian: After one man noticed her wearing a crucifix, he "became abusive," telling 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… 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.' … 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." Separately, Muslim landowners and their police accomplices continue annexing land owned by Christians. "The police pulled away our headscarves from heads and started hitting us with clubs and punches" reported Christian women, "after news spread that police is harassing and torturing Christian women and men … to grab their agricultural land." |
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thehighlandrebel
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #21 on Sept 4, 2012, 6:51pm » | |
Wherever I turn to on the IBC today I'm getting 'stories' about a Christian church in Gaza (or the occupied territories as they like to call it) being daubed in slogans and the pathetic cunts at the b-bbc blaming Israel settlers for it. I have it from reliable sources that this was actually done by Islamists.
A few daubs of paint and the IBC arseholes are going into overdrive yet if you look at Teddy's previous post about the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world there has not been one bloody peep from them about that.
Arseholes
Pardon my French.
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thehighlandrebel
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #22 on Sept 4, 2012, 8:07pm » | |
Apologies for the strong language in my previous post. It's wrong to let your anger take over.
In future I'll leave the 'outrage' to lower forms of animal lfe.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #23 on Sept 5, 2012, 12:04am » | |
You beat me to it on this one THR
As soon as I saw this article on the BBC website I was headed over here to make the same contrast as you have.
Also, I have a saying;
There are 2 types of beings in this world.
Some are souls
and some arseholes
The BBC and those they support are definitely the latter.
Note too in the article, what part of the sentence the BBC highlight with a link for maximum effect:said it had been horrified by "another in a long series of attacks against Christians and their places of worship"
The 'long series of attacks against Christians' is rampant in the Islamic world, but this information for the most part is what the BBC prefer to ignore as much as possible. Attacks in Israel are rare indeed, and while it is possible that they were committed by settlers, who in their way are as extremist as their Muslim counterparts, they are hardly typical of mainstream society. Since this attack occurred at 03:30am Tuesday morning, it shows the hatred being fomented by this Catholic leader via the BBC to admonish the Israeli authorities with this outburst
"What is going on in Israeli society today that permits Christians to be scapegoated and targeted by these acts of violence?" it asked.
"What kind of 'teaching of contempt' for Christians is being communicated in their schools and in their homes? And why are the culprits not found and brought to justice?"
In case you missed the first part of the last sentence, the BBC repeat it twice in the article.
Quote:Israel investigates Jerusalem monastery arson attack
Police in Israel have launched an investigation into an arson attack on a Christian monastery near Jerusalem.
Vandals also sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on the walls of the Cistercian (Trappist) monastery, the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Sept-Douleurs, at Latrun.
Christian leaders condemned the attack by what they called "forces of hatred".
Investigators are looking into whether it was carried out by extremist Jewish settlers, as the graffiti referred to the settlement outpost at Migron.
Three-hundred people were evicted from Migron last week, in line with an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that the outpost had to be demolished because it had been built on privately-owned Palestinian land.
The settler outposts are illegal under Israeli law and the government agreed to remove them under the 2003 Road Map peace plan.
'Criminal act'
The abbot at Latrun, Father Louie, said that at around 03:30 on Tuesday, a monk sleeping in one of the guest rooms had heard a noise, went outside and saw the door burning. The monks managed to put out the fire with an extinguisher, he added.
What kind of 'teaching of contempt' for Christians is being communicated in their schools and in their homes? And why are the culprits not found and brought to justice?”
Assembly of Catholics Ordinaries of the Holy Land
"I know there is some tension, but I don't understand why it has to do with us," Father Louie told Yedioth Ahronoth.
The monastery was also daubed with graffiti, including the phrase "Jesus is a monkey" and the words "mutual responsibility", along with the names of the settler outposts of Upper Migron and Maoz Esther.
The BBC's Jon Donnison in Ramallah says such vandalism is sometimes referred to as a "price-tag" attack, where settlers retaliate against Israeli government curbs on settlement growth, generally by attacking Palestinian property but occasionally by vandalising religious sites.
In a statement signed by the Latin Patriarch for Jerusalem Fouad Twal and Giorgio Lingua, Apostolic Nuncio for Jordan, the Assembly of Catholics Ordinaries of the Holy Land said it had been horrified by "another in a long series of attacks against Christians and their places of worship".
"What is going on in Israeli society today that permits Christians to be scapegoated and targeted by these acts of violence?" it asked.
"What kind of 'teaching of contempt' for Christians is being communicated in their schools and in their homes? And why are the culprits not found and brought to justice?"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also denounced the attack.
"This is a criminal act and those responsible must be severely punished," he said. "Religious freedom and worship are two of the most basic institutions in Israel." |
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thehighlandrebel
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #24 on Sept 5, 2012, 12:24am » | |
2,500,000 Chrstians butchered in the last four years by MUSLIMS in the name of ISLAM invoking the name of a pagan MOON GOD and yet the so called 'church' was silent.
Maybe if the Pope had a pair and didn't go crawling on his hands an knees to kiss the Satanic Verses and complement the people who's cult calls for Christians to be put to death then these incidents might be avoided.
It seems the paint brush is mightier than the sword when it comes to Islamic propaganda.
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #25 on Oct 11, 2012, 12:29am » | |
The latest offering in the series by Raymond Ibrahim. Links to individual incidents are available by clicking on the article itself.
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: August, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
Originally published by the Gatestone Institute
October 7, 2012
While many people are regularly persecuted by Islam's blasphemy law, one particular case made August headlines: a 14-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan, Rimsha Masih, was arrested, accused of burning pages of a Quran. Rioting Muslims destroyed Christian homes and churches, tore Bibles to pieces and broke crosses, while calling for the death penalty against her. Because this story made it to the mainstream media, widespread international condemnation caused Pakistani authorities to release her recently, not by annulling Pakistan's blasphemy law, but by finding loopholes, from characterizing the girl as retarded—Islamic law does not mandate punishment for blasphemers if they are retarded—to the unprecedented exposure of a Muslim cleric who framed her.
Because this incident prompted a widespread rampage against Pakistan's Christians, thousands have deserted their homes and are dispossessed. The Christians from Rimsha's neighborhood, including women and children, fled into the woods in fear of Muslim retribution, while others were evicted by their Muslim landlords. A few Christians sleeping overnight on the ground just miles away from Pakistani government buildings decided to build a church there and make it their permanent dwelling place. "Here it is not anybody's home, nobody's land. Let us live here in safety," said one. Another said: "We have cleared this place with our hands, and we have laid the first foundation of a small church here. Although this is a mere skeleton made of tree branches, this is the holy home of God. This should be respected."
Categorized by theme, August's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and in country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.
Jihad Killings and Christian Displacement
Iraq: What Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors, characterized as "religicide," continues unabated in the nation that was liberated by U.S. forces a decade ago: "Christians in cities like Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism. They are fleeing in droves. Today [August 16] it was reported that at least 20 people died in blasts and shootings across the country." Before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Mosul was home to some 75,000 Christians, but now the number has dropped to around 25,000. Christian homes are set on fire, bombs placed in their cars; other Christian families are receiving letters threatening them to leave Iraq or be kidnapped or killed.
Ivory Coast: As part of the civil war, Muslim rebels "massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands" of predominantly Christian supporters of Laurent Gbagbo. Since the attack, when their homes were taken by rebels, some 5,000 predominantly Christian ethnic Guere have been forced to flee into the ungoverned, inhospitable bush, or to the Catholic mission in Duekoue. The priest there reported that the mission has also been threatened by "crowds of angry youths."
Mali: As many as 200,000 Christians are fleeing to Algeria and Mauritania, where they are seeking a safe haven from Islamic terrorists linked to al-Qaeda, who have become increasingly active in the northern regions of the nation.
Nigeria: The Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram [Western Education is a Sin] continued its jihad [holy war] to purge north Nigeria of all Christians. In one instance, gunmen murdered a 57-year-old evangelist of a Pentecostal church. When he was threatened earlier, he had said "I leave everything in the hands of God."
Syria: Some 12,000 people were blockaded in the predominantly Christian town of Rableh by anti-government forces; they killed several people trying to leave and refused the entry of food and medical supplies. Government forces had reportedly driven out the opposition by August 24. Christians were also given an ultimatum to leave the nearby cities of Qusayr and Homs, which has been almost entirely cleansed of its 50,000-60,000 Christian population. The predominantly Christian part of Aleppo was also hit by heavy fighting earlier this month; and a car bomb was detonated in the predominantly Christian area of Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus, as "a crowd of faithful, families, elderly people, women and children, were heading to the cemetery to bury two young people who had died a day earlier, on August 27, also victims of an IED. Twelve died (other sources say as many as 27), including five children, and injuring more than 50 people." Further, "a family of Armenian Christians was found murdered, and all members of the family horribly decapitated."
Church Attacks
Azerbaijan: The highest appeals court upheld the decision to close Greater Grace Church, "the first religious community to be liquidated by a court since the country's harsh new religion law came into force in 2009." The church, registered since 1993, had provided a place for Christian worship and teaching for almost 20 years; and with a congregation of nearly 500, was one of the larger Protestant churches in the country.
Indonesia: Two churches were the latest to be forcibly closed in West Java: First, a "large tent" used for services by St. Johannes Baptista Church in Bogor was sealed off by authorities on August 7. The congregation had been using the tent since 2006 as a temporary location while they awaited a permit for a proper building, for which it had applied in 2000. Police threatened to "tear down" the tent if the Christians continued to use it; the church leader suspects the hostility is linked to the growth of the congregation, which now numbers around 500. Second, Batak Karo Protestant Church in Bandung was sealed off by protesters who claimed that the congregation had earlier agreed not to use the building, even though it now has all necessary permits to hold service.
Kenya: After a fight ensued between the supporters of a Muslim cleric who had died and the police, a church near the mosque where the funeral was being held was set on fire, and another church was attacked. Separately, another church was attacked and looted "by an armed mob," believed to be sympathizers of the al-Shabaab terrorist organization. In the words of the pastor who witnessed the pillage, "attackers armed with guns stormed the compound and immediately began pulling down one iron sheet after another, and soon 60 iron sheets were gone. It was a terrible sight to watch the walls of the church come down, [but] I could not shout for help because the attackers could gun me down. Shocked and dismayed, the church's 60 congregants arrived for worship the next day to find their church building in ruins." Police were told that there were threats of an attack and that local Muslims were saying things such as "we do not want infidels in this area," but did nothing. These latest attacks "came only one week after al-Shabab militants hurled grenades into the African Inland Church of Garissa, in eastern Kenya, and opened fire on congregants, killing 17 people, including 15 worshippers. Grenades were also thrown at the local Catholic church." More than 14 churches have been attacked in Kenya since April.
Nigeria: Gunmen, probably connected with the jihadi organization Boko Haram, "stormed the Deeper Life Church, where Christian worshippers were gathered in prayer, and surrounded the church in the middle of a worship service and opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles on the worshippers." At least 19 of them were killed, including the pastor. The following day, an unexploded bomb was discovered at Revival Church.
Syria: Gunmen attacked the Catholic monastery of Mar Musa, which dates from the 4th century, and is located north of Damascus. None of the monks was hurt, although the monastery was, in the words of Father Dall'Oglio, "sacked," and "gunmen stole everything they could steal," including tractors and other agricultural tools.
Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism
Egypt: A Christian man accused of defaming Islam was arrested after a complaint in which he was accused of posting opinions in Facebook which insulted Muhammad. Insults to Islam and the prophet are considered crimes in Egypt under Article 98(f) of the Penal Code, which states: "Confinement for a period of not less than six months and not exceeding five years… shall be the penalty inflicted on whoever makes use of religion in propagating, either by words, in writing, or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purpose of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it, or damaging national unity."
Pakistan: After a Pakistani flag with the name of "Allah" on it accidentally blew from a Christian's property to a Muslim's, the Muslim accused the Christian of deliberately trying to blaspheme the name of Allah. This accusation was advertised in the local mosques, and prompted enraged Muslims to threaten to burn down the homes of the 15 Christian families in the area. Also, a Christian pastor, who had preached among Muslims, some of whom showed interest in converting, was threatened and subsequently kidnapped.
Tanzania: A 17-year-old girl, Eva Abdullah, who had abandoned Islam three years ago to convert to Christianity, was sentenced to two years in prison after being accused of desecrating the Quran. Her parents had disowned her and "a group of radicals" tried to "persuade" her to renounce her Christian faith. When she refused, they falsely accused her of desecrating a Quran.
Tunisia: The nation's ruling Islamist party filed a bill to criminalize offenses against "sacred values." "Crimes" would mandate prison terms and fines for broadly worded offenses, such as insulting or mocking the "sanctity of religion." Among other things, the bill also codifies the levels of offense to religious feelings, including "insults, profanity, derision and representation of Allah and Mohammed."
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of Non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Egypt: The nation's jihad organizations dropped leaflets calling on Muslims to kill Christians wherever they found them. Coptic shop owners who sell Christian icons and statues received threatening letters. Muslim "gangs" plundered and kidnapped for ransom Christians. Islamists in the Constituent Assembly demanded that the Coptic Church's funds be placed under state financial control, a measure categorically rejected by Copts: the state in no way funds the Church, even though mosques are funded by taxpayers, including Christians. Condemning the proposal, the acting Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church said the demand has only one meaning: "that Copts are clearly persecuted." Despite promising greater representation for Egypt's Copts, President Morsi broke his word and allowed only one Copt, a female, to represent the nation's 10-14% Christians in the newly formed Cabinet: "We had expected an increase in the representation of Copts especially after the number of ministries increased to 35. But the formation ignored all the known rights and concepts of citizenship," said the acting Patriarch: "It is not right that Copts get treated in this way." When Egypt's Constituent Assembly proposed a law to criminalize "forced labor, slavery, the trafficking of women and children, human organs, and the sex trade," from which Christians, especially females, would benefit, the Islamist party complained.
Iran: According to Mohabat News, authorities "raise[d] unsubstantiated charges" against five arrested converts to Christianity to "pressure" and "intimidate" them, including by falsely accusing them of desecrating the Quran, and holding them for indefinite periods. "Although their situation is still unclear six months after their arrest, there is no doubt that the Christians' only crime is related to their faith in Jesus Christ."
Pakistan: Eleven Christian student nurses were poisoned with mercury in their tea. It is believed that the Christian women were targeted as punishment for drinking tea while their Muslim colleagues were fasting during the month of Ramadan. And a 56-year-old Christian woman at the Karachi Press Club recounted how she and her family were enslaved and forced to work without pay, and tortured and beaten. Muslim "feudal lords" are threatening her and her extended family, with, among other charges, accusations of blasphemy: "Please protect us," they said. "We don't want to go back."
Saudi Arabia: The last of the 35 Ethiopian Christians held in detention since December after being arrested for holding a prayer meeting in a private home was deported home: "We have arrived home safe," one of the released said: "We believe that we are released as the result of the pressure exerted by ICC and others. The Saudi officials do not tolerate any religions other than Islam. They consider non-Muslims unbelievers. They are full of hatred towards non-Muslims."
Syria: A number of Melchite Greek Catholic priests, including the archbishop, fled to Lebanon after their offices were ransacked. According to Fides, "unidentified groups who want to feed a religious war and drag the Syrian population into sectarian conflicts" attacked the Christian area in the old quarter of Aleppo. A Byzantine Christian museum and an office of the Maronite Christian faith were also damaged.
Turkey: The chairman of Parliament's education committee is accusing the French government of "planting seeds of hate" with its move to include the Armenian genocide in history and geography books used in French secondary schools. Armenia, backed by many historians, says that about 1.5 million Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War I in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government.
Uzbekistan: A 26-year-old Christian woman, paralyzed from youth, and her mother were violently attacked by six men with sticks who broke into their home at 4 a.m. The men ransacked the home, confiscating icons, bibles, religious calendars and prayer books. When the paralyzed woman furtively tried to phone for help, she was beaten again. They were all taken to the police department, where the woman was "offered to convert to Islam." She refused, and the judge eventually "decided that the women had resisted police and had stored the banned religious literature at home and conducted missionary activities. He fined them 20 minimum monthly wages each." |
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #26 on Nov 8, 2012, 8:00pm » | |
Raymond Ibrahim continuing his monthly series of incidents against Christians in the Muslim world.
(links to individual stories available by going to the webpage)
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: September, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
Swedish authorities are actually trying to find the 28-year-old Saudi woman, Maryan, who converted to Christianity, to extradite her back to Saudi Arabia to face Sharia justice, possibly including execution.
The aftermath of collective punishment for Pakistan's Christians—the inevitable byproduct of the notorious Rimsha Masih blasphemy case, concerning a possibly mentally challenged, 14-year-old Christian girl falsely accused of desecrating a Quran—was more dramatic than the blasphemy case itself. Indeed, knowing what was in store for them, some Christians even held a symbolic funeral procession, carrying a Christian leader in a coffin and digging a grave for the "deceased."
Their apprehension proved too true—especially after another pretext for Muslims to riot emerged: the YouTube Muhammad video. After Friday prayers, Muslims attacked, killed, and robbed the Christians in their midst, who account for a miniscule 1.5% of Pakistan's population. St. Paul's Church in Mardan was attacked by hundreds of Muslims armed with clubs and sticks. After looting and desecrating the church, they set it on fire (see picture here). Next, Muslims raided a nearby church-run school; they looted and torched it, as well, and burned down a library containing more than 3,000 Christian books. Although the library also contained thousands of books on Islam—making the Muslim mobs' actions blasphemous under Pakistan's law—"the attack continued for more than three hours, with minimal efforts by the authorities to stop it."
Separately, gunmen on motorbikes dressed in green (Islam's color) opened fire on the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Cathedral in Hyderabad , where they murdered at least 28 people. Their immediate target appears to have been a nun, Mother Christina. Days later, unknown men reportedly threatened workers at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad. "We will teach a lesson to the Christians," they said, and destroyed the hospital's windows and doors. Naeem Samuel, the bishop of Trinity Evangelical Church was assaulted, severely beaten, and injured as he exited his church.
Meanwhile, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, far from condemning such outrages, validated them by falsely accusing the Muhammad movie for all the violence—even as they exposed their double standards by refusing to denounce paintings offensive to Christians, such as "Piss Christ." The New York Times also exposed its bias by defending the anti-Christian "Piss Christ" as "art," while condemning the anti-Muslim Muhammad movie as hate-speech.
Categorized by theme, the rest of September's stories of Christian persecution around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and in country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.
Church Attacks
Bahrain: Long considered the most tolerant nation in the Arabian Peninsula, with a 30% non-Muslim population of foreign workers, Bahrain is the latest Muslim nation to exhibit intolerance toward churches: Sunni clerics strongly opposed the planned construction of a Catholic church, "in a rare open challenge of the country's Sunni king. More than 70 clerics signed a petition last week saying it was forbidden to build churches in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam." One prominent cleric, Sheik Adel Hassan al-Hamad, proclaimed that "anyone who believes that a church is a true place of worship is someone who has broken in their faith in God."
Egypt: Kasr El-Dobara, the largest evangelical church in the Middle East, located in Egypt, was besieged by "unknown people" hurling "stones and gas bombs." The first gas bomb thrown at the church was described as an "error" by police, but it was soon followed by other bomb attacks, which lasted through midnight until early Friday. Worshippers locked themselves inside the church and put on masks to avoid gas poisoning. Some of those trapped inside looked for help by trying to contact politicians, journalists, and even the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood. All the Brotherhood did was announce on TV that the attackers were not members of the Muslim Brotherhood. After the men conducting the siege finally left, and the trapped Christians finally came out, not a single police or security agent to counter the attacks or protect the church could be found.
Indonesia: The several-year-long campaign against GKI Yasmin Church took another turn for the worse, as authorities ordered the congregation to relocate—a demand that abrogated a previous agreement which had permitted the church to exist, provided that a mosque would be built next door, and to which the church had agreed. Moreover, a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 ordered the GKI Yasmin's building to be reopened; it had been shut down in 2008 by local Muslims who, along with the mayor, to this day still refuse to comply with Supreme Court ruling. As one church leader said, "The rule of law in Indonesia has collapsed." Since its forced closure, the congregation has been holding services in the street in front of its half-constructed building or in private homes.
Lebanon: Two unknown assailants opened fire on the Saint Joseph Church in the town of Bqosta near Sidon; they damaged the building's windows.
Nigeria: A suicide bomb attack on Saint John's Catholic Church claimed three lives, including those of a woman and a child; 44 others were seriously injured. Another report describes the typical aftermath of church attacks in Nigeria: "One month after gunmen opened fire inside Deeper Life Bible Church [August 7] … members of the church have yet to resume worship services and other activities. 'All of us are traumatized by this attack. [There is] no family in this church that is not affected by this incident,' said Stephen Imagejor, an assistant pastor whose wife, Ruth, was killed, and their two daughters, Amen, 12, and Juliet, 9, hit by bullets and hospitalized. In all, 19 died. Church members say they were attacked specifically because of their Christian faith. They may have been a target, they say, because some of the dead include former Muslims who had converted to Christianity. And in the aftermath. 'Many are now saying that they can no longer come to the church,' Imagejor said. 'But we will eventually try to see how we can get those of us that have survived the attack to return to the church for worship services. But, I do visit them to encourage them to remain steadfast in the faith in spite of the persecution.'"
Spain: In Catalonia, a Catholic church was attacked by Moroccan Muslims, who, along with two other Moroccan Muslims, have been detained and charged with multiple assaults and robberies, including using clubs used to rob, terrorize and beat local Spaniards.
Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism
Egypt: The U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a press release saying it had "credible information suggesting terrorist interest in targeting U.S. female missionaries in Egypt. Accordingly, U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance." Also, an Egyptian court sentenced a Christian teacher to six years in prison after convicting him of the blasphemy of "insulting Prophet Muhammad"—and defaming the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, Muhammad Morsi, on his Facebook page.
Maldives: Airport customs officials seized 11 books about Christianity from a Bangladeshi expatriate who came to the Maldives by way of Sri Lanka. Later the same day, another Maldivian national was caught with more Christian books, after he arrived in the Maldives also from Sri Lanka. The pair were handed over to police. According to the Maldives Religious Unity Regulations, "It is illegal in the Maldives to propagate any faith other than Islam or to engage in any effort to convert anyone to any religion other than Islam. It is also illegal to display in public any symbols or slogans belonging to any religion other than Islam, or creating [sic] interest in such articles. It is also illegal in the Maldives to carry or display in public books on religions other than Islam, and books and writings that promote and propagate other religions…"
Saudi Arabia: The hunt continues for a 28-year-old Saudi woman, Maryan, who embraced Christianity and fled the country, first gaining sanctuary in a Lebanese church, and then fleeing to Sweden. Earlier, the woman had said that, although she "was raised to hate Judaism and Christianity she has come to love those religions since finding peace in Christianity." Two men, a Christian Lebanese and a Muslim Saudi are accused of proselytizing, and helping her escape. Prosecuting lawyer, Humood Al-Khaldi, said that while in Islam it is clear that the penalty for apostasy is death, "the roles played by the two men, the Saudi and Lebanese, in making the girl become Christian should be taken into consideration," meaning that they, too, must be brought to judgment. Swedish authorities are actually helping to find her to extradite her back to Saudi Arabia to face Sharia justice, including possible execution.
Somalia: Muslims shot three converts to Christianity. The men had converted while in Ethiopia in 2005, but when Muslims began noticing they were not serious about attending mosque prayers, the men were attacked by "militants," who burst into their home and opened fire. Similarly, another family that had embraced Christianity fled their village after receiving death threats. Still another convert, who fled to Kenya, said "Pastors and Christians are very afraid. I know people, mainly Christian converts, who had to leave their homes and their families because of pressures from these terrorists." The messages of the Islamists include statements such as, "Stop your harmful ideologies and preaching to the Muslims," and, "Some Somali Muslims are already affected by this cancer of Christianity… they will be under the sword of the mujahedeen (holy warriors)... We know where you are... We ask Allah to help us make his purpose reign... We are reaching millions of youth to join our jihad against the enemy of Islam and to terrorize by any means we can to make them understand that they are nothing but lowly infidels."
Uzbekistan: A disabled Christian woman, who walks with crutches, and her mother were brutally beaten with sticks in a violent police raid on their home. The officers turned the home upside down, seizing Bibles and other religious literature. At the police station, officers tried to pressure them to accept Islam, saying it was better than Christianity, and that a married man could marry them because Muslim men are allowed to have four wives. When the women refused to comply, the officers beat them again. The court ordered the destruction of the literature.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse and Suppression of Non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Bangladesh: A new report indicates that some 300 Christian children were recently abducted and forcibly converted to Islam: So-called intermediaries visit poverty-stricken communities, where they convince families to send their children to a mission hostel, charging them the equivalent of US$ 500 to $1,200 for school and board. "After pocketing the money, the intermediaries sell the children to Islamic schools elsewhere in the country 'where imams force them to abjure Christianity.'" http://www.asianews.it/files/img/BANGLADESH_OK.jpgThe children are then instructed in Islam and beaten; after full indoctrination, they are asked if they are "ready to give their lives for Islam," presumably by becoming jihadi suicide-bombers.
Iran: Pastor Behnam Irani, imprisoned for "holding house church services and leading Muslims to Christ," continues to suffer health problems, while receiving no aid: "First, his eyesight is dimming and he has not been given access to a doctor to get prescription lenses. Second, he has a bleeding ulcer in his intestines. This has caused him to have bloody stool, vomiting blood, resulting in unconsciousness at one point. Third, from an accident several years ago, he had metal placed in his knee, and according to a family member it needs to be replaced every so often."
Syria: Christians fleeing to the Lebanese border are still being targeted, kidnapped, and in some cases murdered for ransom money. One report said 280 were held hostage by "armed gangs" taking advantage of the chaos of the war. Some of those kidnapped are later found slaughtered on the road.
Turkmenistan: A new report indicates how "the situation [for Christians] has got markedly worse since July and we don't know why." Among other reports, Christian homes were raided and Bibles confiscated; Christians were threatened for not participating in Muslim prayers; they lost their jobs and businesses; Christian children are being harassed and discriminated against in schools. In one instance, "secret police officers raided a flat where five elderly Christian women had gathered for worship, as was their regular practice. They were so frightened by the incident that they have stopped meeting together."
Uzbekistan: A former Uzbek Muslim who converted to Christianity and eventually became an active Protestant house church leader, was subsequently persecuted by the state, and fled with his family to Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan wants him to return to face charges that he practiced religion "outside state regulation." Because of its evangelical nature, Protestantism is banned in Uzbekistan. His case now rests before the country's highest court, which has yet to set a hearing date.
Pakistani Dhimmitude
Pakistan continues to show that it is one of the absolute worst nations for Christians and other non-Muslims; it requires its own section for September:
A 16-year-old Christian girl, Shumaila Masih, was gang-raped for hours by Muslims—joining the countless Christian girls and boys raped and murdered in Pakistan. Three Muslim men met her on the street, trying to persuade her to go with them. When she refused, she was forcibly abducted and taken to the home of one of the men, who took "turns raping her for hours. The attack took place at 11 am, in broad daylight, but no one intervened to save Shumaila, despite her desperate cries and pleas for help." Around 5 pm, her father and his cousins began searching for her; when they came to the rape-house, they heard her cries and rushed to it: "At the sight of the men, the three young Muslims fled, leaving Shumaila naked and in pain on the bed."
According to a new report, as many as 2,000 women and girls from various minority sects, especially Christianity, were forcibly converted to Islam through rape, torture and kidnappings, and 161 people were charged with blasphemy in 2011. "The actual number is larger as many cases go unreported… For instance, policemen are involved in more than 60 percent of sexual abuse cases of street children."
A separate report discussing the murder of a Christian youth by Muslims, notes that "Christians are harassed by criminal gangs and Islamic terrorist groups of ethnic Pashtuns: armed to the teeth, the militants enter the area to collect jizya [extortion money imposed on Christians and Jews, according to Quran 9:29]. Militants raid houses, steal and abuse women and children for fun. The local population is terrorized."
Another 16-year-old Christian girl, Sumbal, a maid working for Muslims, was "beaten harshly" by the family with "pipes and iron rods … afterwards, she was taken to the washroom and terribly tortured there." When the child's parents learned of the incident, they went to retrieve their daughter but were told by the family that they did not know her whereabouts. According to Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association: "Yet again we have violence against a teenage Christian maid. The fact that the family are refusing her mother access is very disturbing. What are they covering up? Is it the fact that the girl was murdered, as in a recent case where a senior lawyer in the same city tortured to death a young Christian girl servant? Is it to try and concoct a story about her condition, or has she been raped and forced to marry and convert as so many young Christian girls are?"
Soon after a Muslim opened a madrassa [Islamic school] near where Christians held their tent church worship, Muslims began harassing the Christians; they sprayed bullets on the Christians' homes saying things like, "Convert to Islam or leave this neighborhood." The Muslims also tried to trick a pastor into admitting he proselytized Muslims; and they gather in front of the church and harass Christian girls as they exit after services. |
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #27 on Dec 11, 2012, 11:36pm » | |
The series continues with the account for October.
(full links available on website)
When you consider that the BBC has journalists or contacts in all of these areas so are not unaware of them, yet few if any of these stories will have been reported by them, let alone the thread that binds them, do you see a pattern here?
And Paxman's concept of despair lies in Gaza.
Criminal!
Quote:Muslim Persecution of Christians: October, 2012
by Raymond Ibrahim
Despite promises to reform the school textbooks, the Saudi education system continues to indoctrinate children with hatred and incitement, especially against Christians and Jews. The textbooks teach -- among a long list of hate-filled passages, all of which originate in the Qur'an or the Hadith -- that "Christians are the enemies of the Believers," and that "the Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians."
These reports of the persecution of Christians by Muslims around the world during the month of October include (but are not limited to) the following accounts, listed by form of persecution, and by country, in alphabetical order—not according to severity.
Church Attacks
Canada: As happens regularly in Egypt (see below), a Molotov cocktail was hurled through the window of a newly opened Coptic church near Toronto. Unlike in Egypt, however, firefighters came quickly and little damage was done: "Police have no suspects or motive in the incident."
Egypt: A Muslim mob, consisting mostly of Salafis, surrounded St. George Church in the Beni Suef Governorate. Armed with batons, they assaulted Christians as they exited the church after Sunday mass; five were hospitalized with broken limbs. The Salafi grievance is that Christians from neighboring villages, who have no churches to serve them, are traveling and attending St. George. The priest could not leave the church for hours after the mass, even though he contacted the police; they came only after a prominent Coptic lawyer complained to the Ministry of the Interior concerning the lack of response from police. "I want the whole world to know," he said, "that a priest and his congregation are presently held captive in their church, afraid of the Salafi Muslims surrounding the church." Separately, a group of Muslims, led by Mostafa Kamel, a prosecutor at the Alexandria Criminal Court, broke into the Church of St. Mary in Rashid near Alexandria and proceeded to destroy its altar, on claims that he bought the 9th century church; in fact it had earlier been sold to the Copts by the Greeks, due to the Greeks' dwindling numbers in Egypt. Two priests, Fr. Maximos and Fr. Luke, rushed to the police station to try to bring the police to help. Kamel and his two sons also came to the police station, where they openly threatened to kill the two priests and their lawyer. "We stayed at the police station for over six hours with the police, "Fr. Maximos said, "begging prosecutor Kamel and his two sons not to demolish the church." Fr. Luke said that the prosecutor had so far lost all the cases he brought against the church, "So when this route failed, he tried taking the matter into his own hands."
Indonesia: On a Sunday, "unknown assailants" set fire to the Madele Pentecostal Church in the city of Poso by dousing a collection box with petrol and setting it alight. Flames eventually spread to the pastor's residence. Only the intervention of the fire department and volunteers prevented the blaze from causing major damage to the two buildings. Weeks earlier in the same region, Christian homes were attacked and bombed. Also, two law enforcement agents who were investigating a recent attack on the Christian community were kidnapped; their murdered bodies were later found dumped near an "extremist Muslim" group's training ground. Because Poso has a large Christian presence, Muslim attacks are frequent, including the 2005 beheading of three Christian girls going to school. Meanwhile in Aceh, Indonesian officials, using the famous pretext that a permit had not been issued, shut down nine [more] Christian house-churches and six Buddhist temples; they argued that homes cannot be used "for religious ceremonies or functions." According to the report, "Local Muslim extremists welcomed the decision. Yusuf Al-Qardhawy, head of the Aceh branch of the Islamic Defence Front (FPI), called on other jurisdictions to follow Banda Aceh and enforce Islamic law and stop any non-Muslim worship activity that is not approved." Further, the province of Aceh is the only one "which is subject to Sharia. Compliance is ensured by the 'morality police,' a special force that punishes violations in dress and behaviour."
Iran: Security forces dismantled a network of four underground house churches and arrested seven Christians on a Sunday night. Iranian propaganda media described the churches as a "network of criminals" affiliated with "Zionist propaganda." Sunday's arrests are the latest in a wave of detentions in Shiraz. In the past few weeks, Iranian Intelligence Ministry agents in the city have arrested around 30 Christian converts and transferred them to detention centers. According to another report, "State security agents have been permanently stationed at two churches in Esfahan, Iran, in the latest effort by the Islamic regime to frighten people off Christianity. The agents constantly interfere in the activities of St. Luke's and St. Paul's, and harass those present. They order the pastors around and stop church elders from talking to Muslim seekers. They also try to frighten away visitors by warning them of dire consequences if they continue attending, and create tension among the members by spreading false rumours. The children of church members are also threatened and often forbidden from attending…. This campaign of harassment by the Islamic authorities is not confined to churches in Esfahan. Similar tactics have been deployed at the central Assemblies of God church in Tehran."
Kazakhstan: Two Protestant churches were raided, according to members, under the ruse of a criminal case launched 15 months ago. First, masked police raided Grace Church and seized computers, valuables and religious books they insisted were "extremist;" then police requested church members to give blood samples, to see if the church uses "hallucinogenic" substances for communion. Nine days later the New Life Church was raided, also under the pretext of the unrelated criminal case: "Members of both churches fear the authorities will use the case to prevent them gaining the mandatory re-registration," which critics say is being used to shut down Protestant churches.
Kenya: A grenade was thrown into the Sunday school building of St. Polycarp Anglican Church; it blew off the roof, killing one boy and injuring eight other children who were attending Sunday school; some required surgery. The attack came soon after a Somali member of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Shabab, who had earlier targeted four other churches, was sentenced to prison after he confessed to planning attacks on Parliament. According to the mother of one of the children, "We are in Eastleigh [a region with a large Somali population]. Many Christians, including myself, thought that something might happen. Every week we'd wonder 'What if it's this Sunday?' But we'd still go to church." Likewise, a parliament member said, "The life of an innocent child has been taken and others have been cruelly injured and traumatised in what should be the safest of places. The sanctity of life has been heartlessly breached in a sanctified place. Such acts seem to be designed to spark civil unrest and intimidate the Christian church. In the face of such an outrage we ask, with the prophet Habakkuk, 'O Lord, how long?' and let us trust that God in his mercy will bring justice and relief as we cry out to him."
Nigeria: After a renewed spate of church attacks, thousands of Christians continue to flee northern areas of Nigeria, which are predominantly Muslim, and where the jihadi organization Boko Haram holds sway. An Islamic suicide bomber rammed an SUV loaded with explosives into St. Rita Catholic Church holding Sunday Mass; he killed eight people and wounded more than 100. One "journalist saw the bodies of four worshippers lying on the floor of the church after the blast, surrounded by broken glass. The body of the suicide bomber had been blasted into nearby rubble." The church building, charred black, was devastated. Also, the Church of Brethren was raided by Islamic gunmen who killed at least two people and set the church ablaze. Many churches, fearing further attacks, are shutting down.
Pakistan: The Catholic Church of St. Francis, the oldest of the archdiocese of Karachi, was attacked by a Muslim mob of 600, who destroyed property but did not manage to break through the front door. According to a priest: "Fr. Victor had just finished celebrating a wedding, when he heard noises and shouting from the compound of the church. Immediately all the faithful, women and children were sent to the parish house. The radicals, shouting against the Christians, broke into the building and started devastating everything: cars, bikes, vases of flowers. They broke an aedicule and took the statue of the Madonna. They tried to force the door of the church, throwing stones at the church and destroying the windows." Police arrived an hour later, giving the terrorists plenty of time to wreak havoc. The Archbishop of Karachi lamented that "the church of San Francesco has always served the poor with a school and a medical clinic run by nuns. For nearly 80 years it carries out a humble service to humanity without any discrimination of caste, ethnicity or religion. Why these acts? Why are we not safe? "
Syria: Two churches were attacked. One bomb was detonated near the historical gate of Bab Touma ("Thomas' Doorway") which is largely populated by the nation's Christian minority. The bomb exploded as people were going to their churches for Sunday Mass; up to 10 people were killed. "Terrorists are doing this," said George, a Christian who, like many residents in Bab Touma, lives in fear of the rebel fighters trying to gain control of the capital. Another car bomb exploded in front of the only Syrian Orthodox Church in the town of Deir Ezzor, currently under opposition control. Five people near the church were killed. In September, the same church was desecrated and vandalized by armed gangs.
Tanzania: Muslim mobs burned several church buildings in various parts of the nation after an argument by two children concerning the supernatural powers of the Quran allegedly led a Christian boy to defile Islam's holy book: two church buildings were set ablaze, while the roof of another one was destroyed. On the island of Zanzibar, Muslim rioters also demolished a building belonging to the Evangelical Assemblies of God; and in Dar es Salaam, three more church buildings were set on fire and another destroyed. "We shall continue attacking the churches until they are no more in Tanzania" was echoed in several mosques in Tanzania," said one source.
Rape and Murder of Christians
Egypt: Ali Hussein, a Muslim gang leader—accompanied with his two ex-convict brothers—broke into the home of a Christian family on a Sunday morning, demanding that Hiyam Zaki, a mother of two children, to "come and live with him." Earlier, Hussein had demanded that the family either pay him one million Egyptian pounds, or forfeit the Christian woman to him. Because the family had refused his demands, the gang opened fire indiscriminately, killing one of her relatives and her father. Earlier, to terrorize the inhabitants of the village, the Muslim gang went to the stables and slaughtered all the animals. Hussein was killed under the hail of bullets, although it is not clear who shot him. A Muslim mob then surrounded the hospital demanding revenge for the "Christian killing of a Muslim man," even as they chanted that Hussein the gangster is "the beloved of the Prophet." Similarly, although the abduction and forced Islamization of Christian minor girls is common in Egypt, especially with the ascendancy of Muslim Brotherhood, the case of 14-year old Sarah, who was kidnapped on her way to school by the son of a Salafi leader, actually caused a stir. After filing a missing persons report with police, Sarah's father received an anonymous call telling him that he will never see his daughter again. Security is believed to know the girl's whereabouts but is not acting. After several human rights organizations called for the girl's release, "the Salafist Front issued a statement on October 28, warning human rights organizations, especially the National Council for Women, not to attempt to return Sarah to her family, as she has converted to Islam and married a Muslim man." Moreover, Salafis projected Islamic mores on the Christian family by saying that if Sarah returns to her family, she will be "killed" by her father," to which her father replied, "I want my child back in my arms, even if she became a Muslim."
Nigeria: Up to 30 Christian college students were shot or had their throats slit at a university in the Muslim-majority north. During the night, masked gunmen went door-to-door in the off-campus housing section of Federal Polytechnic College in the city of Moby: "the gunmen separated the Christian students from the Muslim students, addressed each victim by name, questioned them, and then proceeded to shoot them or slit their throat." Among motives cited are reprisals against the fact that former Boko Haram Muslims, renouncing terrorism, converted to Christianity. Other former Boko Haram members have not converted to Christianity but have seen the "goodness of the Christian religion" and now warn Christians before there is an attack.
Pakistan: A 14 year-old Christian girl, Timar Shahzadi, was kidnapped by Muslim men as she was returning from school. According to the pastor close to the family, the girl was with friends when the abductors pounced and dragged her away, and her family fears that she will be "forcefully converted to become a Muslim and then married off if immediate steps are not taken." The family reported the incident to the local police station, but police have not yet conducted any investigation. Also, a court decreed that a Christian girl, known as Rebecca—who was kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, and married to her abductor—to be returned to her kidnapper "husband," despite her father's pleas and the girls traumatized presence in court. And 24 year-old Shumaila Bibi, another Christian woman, was "seized at dawn, forced to endure sexual abuse and to marry the young Muslim man who abducted her with the help of his family" and forced the woman to convert to Islam. Days later, Shumaila managed to escape. However, with the help of his family, her "husband" denounced her flight and, reversing the facts, reported her family as "kidnapping" her. The police accepted his version of the facts and opened an investigation claiming that the girl converted and married "of her own free will." The future of Shumaila is hanging by a thread. Kidnapping and forcing girls to convert to Islam and/or be sex-slaves sold to wealthy Muslims is a common occurrence in Pakistan. Read here for a list concerning the "Rape and Murder of Pakistan's Christian Children."
Sudan: Asia Omer, a Christian mother of seven, the youngest of which is four months old, was killed in an aerial bombardment near a church by "Sudanese government forces as they continue a ruthless campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing in the predominantly Christian regions of the Nuba Mountains." Another Christian mother of seven sustained a critical injury but did not receive medical care. Other Christians were also wounded in the bombing, including the teenage son of a church leader. "President Omar al-Bashir's forces have been targeting the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan state, which has one of the largest Christian populations in Sudan, since June 2011. The Islamic regime is trying to 'cleanse' the region of non-Arabs and non-Muslims as Khartoum pushes forward its plans for a '100% Islamic"' constitution."
Syria: A Greek Orthodox priest, Fr. Fadi Jamil Haddad, was kidnapped by armed groups from among the opposition. Days later, his body, which was "horribly tortured and his eyes gouged out," was found dumped near the place he was abducted. Earlier, the kidnappers had asked the priest's family and his church for a ransom of 50 million Syrian pounds (over $550,000 euros)—a sum impossible to raise. A source of Fides condemns "the terrible practice, present for months in this dirty war, of kidnapping and then killing innocent civilians." Also, the last remaining Christian in the center of Homs, an 84 year-old Greek Orthodox, was killed, and the convent of the Jesuits hit again. A top Russian Orthodox official expressed the church's concern, saying "We are deeply worried by what is going on in Syria, where radical forces are trying to come to power with the help of Western powers. Where they come to power, Christian communities become the first victims."
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse and Suppression of Non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Bosnia: According to a new report, Christians are leaving the Muslim majority nation in mass "amid mounting discrimination and Islamization." Currently there are just 440,000 Catholics left in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure. As standard in Muslim nations, "while dozens of mosques were built in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, no building permissions were given for Christian churches. The cardinal already waits 13 years on permission to build just a small church." "Time is running out as there is a worrisome rise in radicalism," said one authority, who added that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina were "persecuted for centuries" after European powers "failed to support them in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire."
Egypt: On Al Hafiz TV, a Muslim cleric explained why it is that Christianity cannot be taught in Egyptian classrooms: because, among other things, it bans polygamy and divorce, and allows females an equal inheritance with the male -- all things that contradict the teachings and practices of the Muslim prophet. The cleric complained that, based on such Christian teachings, Muslim men who try to exercise their Islamic rights—including polygamy, double-inheritance, and easy divorce (including via text-messaging)—become "criminals, and the religion [Islam] that taught them such things taught them crimes." Two Christian boys, one 10 the other 9 years-old, were arrested under accusations from a local cleric that they defiled a copy of the Quran. After the boys were released, the Egyptian media, following the claims of the Muslim Brotherhood, credited President Morsi with their release, even though the boys' lawyer insisted that the Islamist president had nothing to do with their release.
Iran: Many reports more than usual, are appearing of Christian men and women, especially Evangelical Protestants and Muslim apostates, being "dragged to prisons". According to a council member of the Church of Iran house-church movement, "We have learned that at least 100, but perhaps as many as 400 people, have been detained over the last 10 days…. [I]t has become clear that Protestant Christians are now viewed as enemy number one of the state." Some of those arrested, after serving time and being tormented, are "forced to say that in exchange for freedom, they will no longer attend church services." At least five apostates were confined in cells housing dangerous criminals on charges of "creating illegal groups," "participating in a house church service," "propagation against the Islamic regime," and "defaming Islamic holy figures through Christian evangelizing."
Maldives: Customs officials at the Male' Ibrahim Nasir International Airport seized 11 books about Christianity, from a Bangladeshi expatriate who came to the Maldives via Sri Lanka. According to the Maldives Religious Unity Regulations, "it is illegal in the Maldives to propagate any faith other than Islam or to engage in any effort to convert anyone to any religion other than Islam. It is also illegal to display in public any symbols or slogans belonging to any religion other than Islam, or creating interest in such articles." Violation of the Religious Unity Act is subject to two to five years in prison and fines.
Pakistan: A 16 year-old boy, Ryan Stanten, was arrested on "charges of blasphemy, terrorism, and cybercrimes," because he forwarded text messages to his friends which were intercepted and deemed blasphemous by Muslims. Accordingly, a "furious Muslim mob" attacked the boy's home, setting furniture on fire and shouting "death to the blasphemer" and "kill Christian infidels." Other Christians in the region fled.
Saudi Arabia: Despite promises to reform school textbooks, the Saudi education system continues to indoctrinate children with hatred and incitement, especially against Christians and Jews. The textbooks teach – among a long list of hate-filled passages, all of which originate in the Qur'an and the Hadith [stories of the life and sayings of Mohammed] -- that "Christians are the enemies of the Believers" and that the "the Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians."
Switzerland: Muslims in the nation are complaining about a billboard campaign from Swiss International Airline, which has a logo taken from the Swizz flag, of a cross, with the words "the cross is trumps." According to the report, "Muslims in Switzerland have responded negatively to the advertising, which they believe promotes Christianity over other religions…. Many Muslims feel this Christian slogan (of Swiss) is a provocation and an assault against Islam." The airline maintains that its ad campaign does not carry any religious or political message—in fact, that the word "trumps" is a pun for a Swiss card game—and apologized for upsetting Muslims.
Turkey: A history textbook used in 10th grade classrooms portrays the nation's oldest most indigenous inhabitants, the Christian Assyrians, as traitors. Although objections were raised back in 2011 and the Turkish Ministry of Education eventually issued a statement promising to revise the texts in the next printing of the book in 2012, the books were reprinted without any changes. "In fact, the negative and slanderous portrayal of Assyrians has increased in the new edition. The book now not only portrays Assyrians as traitors in the past but says the Assyrians continue their betrayal of Turkey today."
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #28 on Dec 24, 2012, 9:03pm » | |
Christian leaders condemned the attack by what they called "forces of hatred" and asked: "What is going on today that permits Christians to be scapegoated and targeted by these acts of violence?"
This is an excerpt from a BBC article in October. After reading the Ibrahim account of Islamic incidents against Christians in October, which country do you think the BBC are portraying for their 'acts of violence'?
Well as it happens, they are not referring to an Islamic regime, but the only one in the area where Christians are actually safe - Israel.
And what is the despicable acts of 'violence' that these 'forces of hatred' perpetrated against Christians?
Some 'price tag' vandals spray painted a Church with slogans.
But the BBC have no problem venting the wrath of the Church when Israel is at the butt end of it. But when it comes to murder, torture, threats and real violence at the hands of Islamic thugs, they prefer to keep quiet about it.
This one example encapsulates BBC bias in this area completely.
Quote:Anti-Christian graffiti sprayed on Jerusalem convent
An Israeli police spokesman said they were investigating the incident
Vandals have spray-painted anti-Christian graffiti on the main door of a Franciscan convent in Jerusalem, Church officials have said.
Photographs published online showed blue graffiti denigrating Jesus at the Convent of Saint Francis on Mount Zion.
Also spray-painted on the door were the words "price tag".
Jewish settlers and extremists have been carrying out so-called "price-tag" attacks in retaliation for Israeli government curbs on settlement growth.
'Forces of hatred'
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attack on the convent happened in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
"We're investigating the incident," he told the AFP news agency.
The graffiti, which read "Jesus, son of a bitch, price tag", had already been removed by mid-morning, AFP reported.
Last month, vandals set fire to the door of a Cistercian (Trappist) monastery, the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Sept-Douleurs, at Latrun, west of Jerusalem, in another apparent price-tag attack.
At the time, Christian leaders in the Holy Land condemned the attack by what they called "forces of hatred" and asked: "What is going on in Israeli society today that permits Christians to be scapegoated and targeted by these acts of violence?"
The Israeli government also denounced the "criminal act" and promised that those responsible would be "severely punished".
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Teddy Bear
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| | Re: Islamic Attacks on Christians - Where's the Ne
« Reply #29 on Dec 25, 2012, 9:14pm » | |
Just to contrast the above article in a different way.
Today, Christians the world over are celebrating the birth of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth as he is referred to in the bible, being the place where he spent his early life, and where the archangel Gabriel told Mary that she would have Jesus as a son.
The spot, according to Christians, where Gabriel told Mary of the forthcoming birth is now a Church - Church of the Annunciation, and understood accordingly to be one of the holiest sites for Christians. The Hebrew word for Christian is Nazir, and is believed to be derived from Nazareth.
Clearly the area has much more meaning to Christians than that Muslims claim as their 'third holiest site' in Jerusalem, the Al Aqsa Mosque, which just happens to sit atop what Jews regard as their most holiest site - Temple Mount. Especially too as the Muslim site, or even Jerusalem itself, has no mention at all in their Koran.
Without going into how ridiculous the Muslim claim to this as a holy site for them, and the reason they chose the holiest Jewish site to be the one for them, certainly the likes of the BBC will never be the ones to scoff at such an idea. If ever a notion was begging for some humour to be levelled at it, this is one, but don't wait for any what passes for a comedian on the BBC to use it for material.
So imagine if either Jews or Christians were to put up a banner on the Al Aqsa Mosque promoting their own religions, and kept it there by threat. Do you think the BBC would run an article on it?
In a heartbeat!
One can imagine the furore this would create in the Islamic world, and the BBC would have no hesitation in being on their side, and accusing the perpetrator of all the evil qualities they could conjure up for doing such a thing.
This is a country whose majority is Christian, regardless of whether practising or not, and whose heritage, tradition and values is based on this. This majority is who pay for the BBC to 'represent' them.
Now look at this picture.
![[image]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tMijjqDhJOw/TauxHpWBtyI/AAAAAAAAEFA/Z6n0Mk0xkbk/s400/kinneret2.jpg "[image]")
The banner is situated in front of the Church of the Annunciation and has been put there by the Islamic Movement of Nazareth. It has been there for some years, and the only reason the Church there has not made too much of an outcry about it is because of fear that if they did what might result would be worse.
So what's stopping the BBC reporting on it, in the same way they did about some Israeli vandals spray painting a church?
Think the BBC represents our society?
(hat-tip - Hadar)
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