<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Faith J. H. McDonnell</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/author/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:56:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Torture and Police Brutality in a Real Police State</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/torture-and-police-brutality-in-a-real-police-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=torture-and-police-brutality-in-a-real-police-state</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/torture-and-police-brutality-in-a-real-police-state/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2014 05:46:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brutality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[North Korea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Torture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247513</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where is Senate and media outrage about brutalized North Koreans?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/kj1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247515" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/kj1.jpg" alt="kj" width="279" height="157" /></a><em>The police beat them with clubs and metal brushes. Some of the teenagers were beaten so badly that their heads were covered with bald spots because the hair would no longer grow back from the trauma. </em>(“MJ” a missionary who with his wife sheltered North Korean orphans)</p>
<p>On December 10, 2014, Human Rights Day, the American media was salivating over the Senate Democrats’ report about enhanced interrogation of terrorists, raging over the U.S. government’s violation of jihadists’ human rights. At the same time, condemnation of America’s police forces continued to spread throughout the country, leading to well-orchestrated protests this past weekend. Meanwhile, a Capitol Hill <a href="http://www.nkfreedom.org/Events/2014-International-Human-Rights-Day.aspx">press conference</a> sought to open the eyes of the world to true torture and real police brutality.</p>
<p>The press conference, was sponsored by the <a href="http://www.nkfreedom.org">North Korea Freedom Coalition</a> (NKFC), under the chairmanship of Dr. Suzanne Scholte. The NKFC was joined by U.S. Representatives <a href="http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-royce-applauds-house-passage-north-korea-sanctions-legislation">Ed Royce</a> (R-CA) and <a href="http://democrats.foreignaffairs.house.gov/press_display.asp?id=1378">Eliot Engel</a> (D-NY) to focus on the circumstances of <a href="http://www.nkfreedom.org/UploadedDocuments/2014_PhotoLaosNinePhotos.pdf">nine North Korean teenagers</a> who were <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324682204578514772761682396">forced back</a> to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in May 2013 by the Laotian and Chinese governments. Their whereabouts has been unknown since the repatriation, but recent rumors have suggested that at least some of the seven boys and two girls may have been executed as punishment for leaving Kim Jong Un’s wonderland.</p>
<p>The young people are known as the “Laos Nine” because it was from Laos that they were returned to China and repatriated to North Korea. They had been part of the <em>kkotjebbi</em> (homeless North Korean children living on the streets in China). They were taken in by <a href="http://www.nkfreedom.org/UploadedDocuments/2014_Testimonial_MJ.pdf">a missionary “MJ” and his wife</a>, who have saved the lives of many North Korean children, in spite of the risk to themselves.</p>
<p>Police brutality is a daily reality for the <em>kkotjebbi</em> according to MJ. In a statement for the press conference, he revealed that “most of the children were eating what they could find in trash cans and were sleeping in the sewers in freezing conditions,” all the while trying to avoid the notice of the brutal Chinese border patrol guards who beat them with clubs and metal brushes.</p>
<p>MJ said that the children “had no access to medical care and begged on the streets with frostbitten and infected feet.” And yet for North Korean escapees, even facing beatings from the Chinese police and freezing to death are preferable than being caught by the Chinese government and forcibly repatriated to the police state of North Korea.</p>
<p>The missionary couple feared to remain in China with “their children.” Although North Korean defectors are recognized internationally as refugees, China routinely violates its obligations to respect the principle of non-refoulement under international refugee and human rights law and sends North Koreans back to certain imprisonment and probable death. So in April of 2013, MJ, his wife, and the nine teens began a journey from China to North Korea. After they crossed the Chinese/Laotian border they were arrested by the Laotian authorities and instead of accommodating their safe passage to South Korea, the Laotian government collaborated with the Chinese government to send the teens back to China from which they were returned to North Korea.</p>
<p>In February 2014, a <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/ReportoftheCommissionofInquiryDPRK.aspx">report</a> issued by the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/CommissionInquiryonHRinDPRK.aspx">Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea</a> echoed what human rights organizations have been saying for years. The COI’s report, under the authority of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, thoroughly details the deplorable conditions for the citizens of Kim Jong Un’s regime, and the unspeakable torture that those confined to one of the prison camps in the vast network across the DPRK. In Section 60, “Arbitrary detention, torture, executions, and prison camps,” the report reveals:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>In the political prison camps of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the inmate population has been gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture, rape and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide. The commission estimates that hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished in these camps over the past five decades. The unspeakable atrocities that are being committed against inmates of the kwanliso political prison camps resemble the horrors of camps that totalitarian States established during the twentieth century.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Congressman Royce, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, opened the December 10 press conference on the Laos Nine. He and all of the other speakers referred to COI’s report. Royce echoed the COI’s recommendations that the UN General Assembly consider a resolution to condemn North Korea for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, and that North Korea be referred to the International Criminal Court. The Chairman also stressed the immediate need for the Senate to take up a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1771?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22H.R.+1771%22%5D%7D">piece of legislation (H.R. 1771)</a> that was passed unanimously by the House of Representatives, calling for strong sanctions against North Korea.</p>
<p>H.R. 1771, the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, according to the NKFC, “calls for the harnessing of the Treasury Department’s regulatory oversight of the hub of the global financial system, blocking the accounts and revenue streams that sustain Kim Jong Un’s oppression and control of the North Korean people, along with his weapons programs, arms trafficking, proliferation, and money laundering.” The NKFC also says that the bill “blocks the funds of third-country entities that knowingly facilitation North Korea’s crimes against humanity, and its violations of U.N. Security Council sanctions.” If the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee responsible for the recent shameful report really care about human rights and stopping torture, they would work to pass immediately H.R. 1771, the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act.</p>
<p>Engel, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has worked in partnership with Royce for a number of years on a variety of human rights issues. He repeated his House colleague’s call for action in both the United Nations and the U.S. Congress. Engel also noted that the decision of the Laotian government to send the nine orphans back to China and then back to North Korea <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/09/north-korea-human-rights-cohen">violates international law</a>.</p>
<p>Thankfully, as the North Korea Freedom Coalition pointed out in a <a href="http://www.nkfreedom.org/UploadedDocuments/2014_NKFCLaos20141210.pdf">letter</a> addressed to Laotian President Lt. Gen. Choummaly Sayasone, since the incident with the Laos Nine, the Laotian government has <em>not </em>forced any other North Korean refugees – either adult or children – back to North Korea. “We urge you to continue this humanitarian policy which is consistent with international refugee law and we urge you to work with the Republic of Korea and other nations on the safe resettlement of North Korean refugees until conditions improve in that country,” the Coalition wrote.</p>
<p>Following the remarks by the members of Congress, NKFC advocates displayed photos of the nine children and told their story as told by missionary MJ. The first speaker, NKFC Vice Chairman, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, declared that it was important for the children and other North Koreans longing for freedom to know that they “are not forgotten.” Cooper held the photo of the oldest of the North Korean orphans, Moon-Chul, who was 19 at the time of repatriation. According to the little bit of biographical information, this young man:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>. . . suffered frostbite on his feet. There was no place where he could receive medical care so he had to cut his own three frostbitten toes off. Despite his difficulty walking due to his injuries and all that he suffered, he always had a kind heart which led him to take care of the young kkotjebbis and give them food that was found first. Because of Moon-Chul’s kindness in caring for Ryu Kwong-Hyuk, who was much weaker, Kwong Hyuk survived.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Another one of the NKFC advocates followed up with a photo of Ryu Kwong-Hyuk, 17 at the time of repatriation, and told of him:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>This young man was unable to beg or steal for food because he felt great shame for his condition. When Moon-Chul found him he was nearly starved to death, but Moon-Chul kept Kwong-Hyuk alive making sure he had food. Kwong-Hyuk’s dream is to get an education and one day serve the poor.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>If the mainstream media is so morally scrupulous that it is appalled by enhanced interrogation of radical jihadists, it should be doubly appalled by the deliberate starvation of human beings by their own government and the imprisonment of 100,000 men, women, and children in political prison camps under horrific conditions.</p>
<p>If the Senate Intelligence Committee could spend some $50 million to condemn the waterboarding of the mastermind of 9/11, who sawed the head of Danny Pearl…could they spare a little compassion for Noh Yea Ji, a 14 year old North Korean orphan girl who was sold as a slave in China three times, rescued along with the rest of the Laos Nine, and who has now disappeared in the torture chamber that is North Korea?</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/torture-and-police-brutality-in-a-real-police-state/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Sudan’s Lost Boys and &#8220;The Good Lie&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudans-lost-boys-and-the-good-lie/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sudans-lost-boys-and-the-good-lie</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudans-lost-boys-and-the-good-lie/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 04:40:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lost boys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[national islamic front]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Good Lie]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As children, Sudan’s Lost Boys walked 1000 miles to escape an Islamic State that was the precursor to ISIS.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/zx.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242146" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/zx-450x235.jpg" alt="zx" width="326" height="170" /></a>ISIS is late to the Caliphate-building party. Long before the “Islamic State” was on the scene slaughtering Christians and other infidels by the thousands with inconceivable violence, the government of Sudan was well into implementing its version of Islamic/Arab supremacism in Africa’s largest nation. Sudanese schoolbooks prophesy the coming Caliphate and Mahdi.</p>
<p>For decades, Sudan’s National Islamic Front (NIF) has warred against its own citizens of African ethnicity and/or Christian faith who resist the forced imposition of Sharia and Arab hegemony. And just as thousands and thousands of Christians, Yazidis, and others targeted by ISIS have become refugees, attempting to find safety from the genocidal jihad being waged against them, Sudan’s genocidal jihad has displaced millions of people, including almost thirty thousand children who became known as the Lost Boys.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thegoodliemovie.com/"><em>The Good Lie</em></a>, opening in <a href="http://enoughproject.org/events/good-lie-opening-weekend?elq=~~eloqua..type--emailfield..syntax--recipientid~~&amp;elqCampaignId=~~eloqua..type--campaign..campaignid--0..fieldname--id~~">40 cities</a> this Friday, October 3, (with national release on October 24) tells the story of Lost Boys Mamere, Jeremiah, Paul, and Mamere’s sister Abital (played by the very talented Ugandan Arnold Oceng, and South Sudanese Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal, and Nyakuoth Wiel). The three young men and the “Lost Girl” come to America in a U.S. government/United Nations resettlement initiative from the dusty Kenyan refugee camp where they have lived for ten years. There have been other films – <em>The Lost Boys of Sudan, God Grew Tired of Us, </em>and television documentaries like <em>Sixty Minutes</em> about the journey from Kakuma camp, and how the southern Sudanese negotiated the resulting culture shock. But <em>The Good Lie</em>, which also stars Reese Witherspoon as the boys’ initially-somewhat-indifferent employment counselor, is the first film to drop you into the beginning of their story.</p>
<p>In 1987, then Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi employed and armed “Baggara” or <em>murahaleen </em>(“travelers”) nomadic Arab Sudanese mercenaries to bolster Sudan’s armed forces by attacking the civilians of Bahr al Ghazal in southern Sudan. In <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Day_of_devastation_day_of_contentment.html?id=_wsQAQAAIAAJ"><em>Day of Devastation, Day of Contentment: The History of the Sudanese Church Across 2000 Years</em></a>, Roland Werner, William Anderson, and Andrew Wheeler write that at that time there “was a bloodbath across wide areas of Bahr al Ghazal. Countless villages were destroyed and their populations massacred. Crops were destroyed, cattle killed or looted, young children and women taken off as slaves.”</p>
<p>The two-pronged attack by Sudan’s helicopter gunships and <em>murahaleen</em> on horseback is heartbreakingly authentic in <em>The Good Lie</em>. As the film opens, a description runs across the screen explaining that Sudan was fighting a war “over religion and resources.” There is an idyllic pastoral scene – young Dinka boys watching herds of cattle – until thudding helicopter propellers signal the end of everything they have known. From afar the terrified boys and their sister see the galloping <em>murahaleen </em>torching houses and killing everyone in sight, including their own mother and father.</p>
<p>Over 26,000 Dinka and Nuer children – some as young as 4 years old – mostly boys, but also <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-23-lost-girls_N.htm">a small number of girls</a>, began a dazed, then determined journey to find safety. One Lost Boy, asked how they found their way to Ethiopia recounted, “We followed the bones.” And indeed, only some 17,000 out of the 26,000 of the children survived to reach Ethiopia.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pbs.org/pov/lostboysofsudan/photo_gallery_photogallery.php?photo=1#gallery-top">Thousands died</a> on the 6-10 week, 400-mile walk towards Ethiopia’s refugee camps. <em>The Good Lie</em> is faithful to every detail of this trek, including how survival sometimes comes down to drinking one’s own urine. The film’s children, powerfully depicted by South Sudanese child actors Okwar Jale (Theo), Peterdeng Mongok (Mamere), Thon Kueth (Jeremiah), Deng Ajuet (Paul), Keji Jale (Abital) and many others, lose brothers and friends (including Theo) first to hunger, dehydration, attacks by wild animals, and attacks by Khartoum’s forces. Others drown or are eaten by crocodiles <a href="http://bolaweng.com/product/crossing-the-gilo-river/">crossing the river</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/01/world/refugees-from-sudan-strain-ethiopia-camps.html">sojourn in Ethiopia</a>, lasting from 1987 until 1991, is not covered by <em>The Good Lie</em>, but the effect that the time in Ethiopia had on all of the Lost Boys is depicted in the film’s characters. Both “intense military training” of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and “daily immersion at school and in church in the narrative and the images of the Bible” were strong influences in Ethiopia. Many of the Lost Boys became Christian leaders there.</p>
<p>While, sadly, some of the former Lost Boys have not yet found healing from the horrible trauma they suffered – an experience alluded to in Paul (Emmanuel Jal) in <em>The Good Lie</em> – those who found a healing relationship with Jesus Christ saw themselves as “a chosen generation.” Even those who entered the SPLA as soldiers brought “a Christian presence,” including Bible study, prayer meetings, and Sunday worship into its ranks. <em>Day of Devastation, Day of Contentment</em> reveals that in 1988 when British Minister for Overseas Development, Chris Patten, visited the camp, he “was moved to tears as southern Sudanese school boys sang a song they had composed themselves based on Isaiah 9: 2.”</p>
<p>The impact of this spiritual growth is particularly depicted on the adult Jeremiah (Ger Duany), who is shown as an evangelist at Kakuma Refugee Camp. This realistic detail in the film honors Lost Boys who maintained their faith in a God of love and goodness in spite of the hellish conditions they endured. Many Lost Boys became pastors in various denominations. And in 2010, The Rev. Abraham Nhial Yel was the first former Lost Boy to be <a href="http://www.livingchurch.org/sites/default/files/080810.pdf">consecrated as a bishop</a> in the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS).</p>
<p>The Lost Boys and Girls were forced to leave Ethiopia in 1991 with the fall of President Mengistu Haile Mariam when the country changed its sympathies from the SPLA to the Islamist regime in Khartoum. They had to walk another 400 miles back to southern Sudan – once again losing children as they crossed rivers, encountered wild animals, and were shot at by both Ethiopian and Sudanese forces. Because they could not stay in southern Sudan, which was in the throes of war, they continued walking…all the way to Kenya. In all, the Lost Boys walked over 1000 miles.</p>
<p><em>The Good Lie </em>picks up when the surviving children are in Kakuma, where they are now grown. Mamere (Oceng), Jeremiah (Duany), Paul (Jal), and Abital (Wiel) number among the 3600 who have been chosen to come to America. The heartbreaking truth is that the lists of those going to America posted every day at Kakuma could not include everyone. There were more separations, more goodbyes, and some Lost Boys and Girls continued to live in limbo and hardship. In Kakuma, the huge, over-crowded refugee camp, in the Turkana desert-like region of northwest Kenya, the south Sudanese lived on one meal (of sorghum) a day. They were threatened by the Turkana people as well as by some of the other refugees from other countries. They had little hope of further education.</p>
<p>Those who came to America arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs, other than one prized possession, the Bible, that many of these young men clutched to their chests as they walked into American airports and their new lives. The Bible is also visible throughout <em>The Good Lie</em>.</p>
<p>Across the country, Americans in places such as Portland, Burlington, Nashville, Jacksonville, Fargo, San Diego, and, of course, Kansas City, where the U.S. portion of <em>The Good Lie </em>takes place, got to know the Lost Boys and were blessed by the relationship. Many churches and civic organizations reached out to help these young men from southern Sudan settle into life in America, but many Americans ended up finding their own lives so much richer because of their friendship.</p>
<p>In <em>The Good Lie </em>the resilience, loyalty, and faith of Mamere, Jeremiah, Paul, and Abital impact the lives of those they come to love, such as Carrie (Reese Witherspoon) and employment agency owner, rancher Jack (Corey Stoll). And the Sudanese young people continue to support each other, even in the worst of times, such as when Paul goes through a serious crisis of faith and when they must fight bureaucracy and post 9/11 fear to bring Abital from Boston where she was sent from Kakuma.</p>
<p>The culture shock experienced by Lost Boys who heard telephones ring and felt ice for the first time, discovered fast food, and learned about the independence of western women when they came to America is depicted with gentle humor in <em>The Good Lie. </em>But we also see the wanton cruelty of western waste and the loneliness of not being understood through Sudanese eyes. Jeremiah quits his supermarket job when forced by the owner to throw away food rather than give it to the poor. And Paul’s eagerness to gain the approval and friendship of his far less ambitious and skilled co-workers leads him to drug use and conflict with the other Lost Boys.</p>
<p>Time and again the Lost Boys in <em>The Good Lie</em> return to Jack’s ranch just to be in the familiar presence of cattle. As the three young men walk hand in hand towards the pasture, the film flashes back to show them as children among the magnificent long-horned cows they cared for in Bahr al Ghazal. Flashbacks of both joy and sorrow enrich the film and emphasize how the past and present of these once-lost boys is intertwined. In the same manner, past and present families are intertwined. The Americans, knowing how much it means to the Lost Boys, fight to make a reunion with Abital possible, but by their love and concern they become family to the southern Sudanese. And the sacrifice of one brother finds its courageous and redemptive echo in an act of sacrifice by another brother.</p>
<p>While <em>The Good Lie </em>has received <a href="http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/review-the-good-lie/Content?oid=2506282">some</a> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marshall-fine/movie-review-the-good-lie_b_5906326.html">glowing</a> <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/reese-witherspoons-movie-sheds-light-us-lives-sudans/story?id=25605064">reviews</a>, some film reviewers <a href="http://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/2014/09/good-lie-producers-will-give-out-keys-made-by-homeless-people-to-promote-their-horrible-movie/">criticize the film</a>for having “white saviors.” These critics probably have little experience with Sudan/South Sudan. But <em>The Good Lie </em>demonstrates how the coming of the Lost Boys to America was life-changing for both the southern Sudanese and the Americans. A tagline for the film says concerning Carrie (Witherspoon): “She opened her home. They opened her eyes.”</p>
<p>The Lost Boys in <em>The Good Lie </em>open the eyes of Carrie, Jack (Stoll), and other Americans in many ways – to the power of kindness and friendship, to selfless giving, to the value of vulnerability and trust. But there was another gift that the Lost Boys gave to many Americans who, in the pre-9/11 world, had never given that much thought to terrorism before their friendship with these young men from southern Sudan. They opened our eyes to the truth about those who are determined to build a global Caliphate and to impose their ideology on a naïve or unprepared civilization. They helped us to see that Sudan’s situation which we previously thought of as a “humanitarian” crisis was actually jihad – a term with which we would soon become much more familiar. And they taught us to connect the dots – across miles and across years – all the way from NIF to ISIS.</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs the</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=226"><em>Institute on Religion and Democracy’s</em></a><em> </em><em>Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan and is the author of</em> <a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=383">Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children</a><em>(Chosen Books, 2007).</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudans-lost-boys-and-the-good-lie/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Unity With the Persecuted</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/unity-with-the-persecuted/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=unity-with-the-persecuted</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/unity-with-the-persecuted/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 04:40:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Eric Metaxas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In Defense of Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Summit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ted Cruz]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241398</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Senator Ted Cruz and Author Eric Metaxas at the “In Defense of Christians” Summit.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/sa.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241400" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/sa-450x300.jpg" alt="sa" width="294" height="196" /></a>Addressing the “In Defense of Christians” (IDC) summit on Wednesday morning, September 10, U.S. Representative Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) <a href="http://livingchurch.org/%E2%80%98silence-full-blood%E2%80%99">declared</a> that every “freedom-loving man, woman, and child must be engaged” in the fight to defend persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Would that members of the media, particularly Christian and/or conservative journalists, had actually been engaged in this fight to defend religious minorities for a while! If they had been, they would be able to write more knowledgeably about the scourge of global jihad. They would have had experience with U.S. political leaders that have actually given more than lip service to the issue of religious persecution. And they would have known that Texas Senator Ted Cruz is regarded as a strong advocate for persecuted Christians, as well as for Israel, by those of us who actually spend our days and years working on behalf of the persecuted.</p>
<p>If that had been the case, IDC’s Wednesday evening gala with Cruz as keynote speaker might not have become such an issue. As it was, though, the messages given by other speakers in the remaining hours of the summit such as the terrific keynote on Thursday by <em>Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy </em>author <a href="http://www.ericmetaxas.com/">Eric Metaxas</a>, have been all but ignored by the media. <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/11/ted-cruz-is-no-hero-for-insulting-a-room-of-persecuted-christians/">They preferred to go after Cruz</a> for what they <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-the-middle-easts-friendless-christians.html?_r=0">perceived</a> as his insensitivity to Middle Eastern Christians. Metaxas’ speech (sermon, really) was important in its own right, but was also important as a response to what took place the night before, over the gala dinner of braised short ribs of beef and Chilean sea bass.</p>
<p>Senator Cruz’s gala speech has now been <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/12/christians-enraged-with-cruz-over-israel.html">dissected</a> and <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/16/lets-rethink-the-reaction-to-ted-cruzs-persecuted-christians-speech/">autopsied</a> (<a href="http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/a-last-word-on-the-cruz-affair/">but not buried</a>!) from Right and Left. It wouldhave been an inspirational charge for unity against all religious oppression from a political leader who has stood consistently with persecuted Christians – if he had been able to complete it. He began:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Good evening. Today we are gathered at a time of extraordinary challenge. Tonight we are all united in defense of Christians. Tonight we are all united in defense of Jews. Tonight we are all united in defense of people of good faith who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare to disagree with their religious teachings.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>The murmurs around the room, which began with that introduction by the senator, grew louder when Cruz continued:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Religious bigotry is a cancer with many manifestations. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and their state sponsors like Syria and Iran, are all engaged in a vicious genocidal campaign to destroy religious minorities in the Middle East. </em></p>
<p><em>Sometimes we are told not to lump these groups together, that we have to understand their so-called nuances and differences. But we shouldn’t try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on murderous rampage through the region. Hate is hate and murder is murder.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Instead of hearing Cruz’s remarks as a rallying cry to unity for those who are facing the same enemy, a small but very vocal group booed and heckled the statement for its support for Israel. Shouts of “Stop it!” and “No!” went up from the audience causing the senator to respond to their angry denials.</p>
<p>Although Cruz persisted for some minutes, putting aside his speech and speaking extemporaneously, he soon said that he could not stand with those “who could not stand with Israel.” “My heart weeps that the men and women here will not stand in solidarity with Jews and Christians alike who are persecuted by radicals who seek to murder them,” he said <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOOZ6aPooSk">as he left the stage</a>.</p>
<p>Senator Cruz had come to the IDC summit aware of <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/irans-dhimmi-conference-in-washington-dc">certain facts</a> of which many of the participants – even other members of Congress and some of the other speakers – were not aware. He knew, for instance, that in August a Syrian-American activist, Farid Ghadry, <a href="http://www.all4syria.info/Archive/166790">described</a> the IDC summit as “a <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cruz-headlines-conference-featuring-hezbollah-supporters/">Hezbollah-backed</a> stealth conference.”</p>
<p>Ghadry, a reform-minded Muslim, later <a href="http://ghadry.com/why-i-retracted-the-in-defense-of-christians-blog/">retracted</a> his post, but did not deny his assertion that “a Lebanese-Nigerian businessman and a Hezbollah ally named Gilbert Chagouri” was a “major backer and bankroller” of the summit.” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/nigeria/stories/corrupt060998.htm">Chagouri had a close relationship</a> with the late brutal Nigerian Islamist dictator, Sani Abacha, as well. Ghadry revealed that most of the protest against Senator Cruz came from members of the Hizb al-Kawmi al-Souri, which he called, “a political party that is a staunch backer of Arab nationalism and the Assad regime.”</p>
<p>Many <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-unfair-and-dishonest-media-attacks-on-ted-cruz/">have written</a> about this event with <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/11/ted-cruz-was-right/">varying</a><a href="http://www.redstate.com/diary/lifeofgrace/2014/09/15/sorry-erick-ross-douthat-neither-precise-right/">degrees</a> of understanding. Those who have actually <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/09/16/a-cruz-critic-at-the-new-york-times-discovers-christians-in-the-middle-east/">been working</a> in counter-jihad, anti-Sharia, religious freedom arenas, of course, <a href="http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/09/11/why-did-middle-eastern-christians-drive-sen-cruz-from-the-stage/">defended Senator Cruz</a>. One of the best was Katie Gorka<em>, </em>who <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/09/12/Why-Ted-Cruz-Was-Right-to-Walk-Out-on-In-Defense-of-Christians-Conference">pointed out</a> that to Cruz “even in as worthy a cause as defending Christians from extinction in the Middle East, we cannot compromise our fundamental commitment as Americans to the right of all people to live free from persecution and free from subjugation by totalitarian, supremacist ideologies, such as that espoused by Hezbollah.”</p>
<p>But Eric Metaxas, who offered the next day’s luncheon keynote address, did not just understand who the players were. He spoke about the critical spiritual implications of refusing to stand in solidarity with others who are persecuted. The best-selling author’s talk, “Unity with the Persecuted,” may not have been exactly what the audience was expecting, but it was what many needed to hear.</p>
<p>Before he began, Metaxas offered a prayer for both the persecuted Christians and other oppressed minorities of the Middle East and for The Rev. Dr. Canon <a href="http://frrme.org/">Andrew White</a>, the famous “Vicar of Baghdad.” White, who has lived in the community of St. George’s Anglican Church with Baghdad’s persecuted Christians, Jews, and Muslims, was to have been a speaker at the summit but had to withdraw because of illness. Even in his prayer, Metaxas was reminding the audience that not only should <em>they </em>be in unity with the persecuted, but that that persecuted should be in unity with each other – as they are in this beleaguered Baghdad community.</p>
<p>Metaxas then skillfully wove together the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his stand against Nazis and in defense of Jews with the stand that the Church today must take against evil. He quoted Bonhoeffer, saying “silence in the face of evil is evil.” He explained that he had learned in his research for Bonhoeffer that many people that “claimed to be Christians” were silent because they were more “nationalistic” than they were Christian.</p>
<p>The author never mentioned the incident of the night before, but the truth was there for those who have ears to hear. Metaxas said gently but firmly that it was never appropriate to “conflate nationalism with Christian faith.” He made three points that show why Christian identity cannot be one with nationalism:</p>
<ol>
<li>The role of the Church is to be the conscience of the State. If it is one with the State – appeasing or compromising – it is abdicating being the Church.</li>
<li>Satan is the one who divides the Church. After lightheartedly asking the audience, “you do believe in Satan, right?” Metaxas said, “We only see the true Church of Jesus Christ where there <strong>is </strong>unity.” He declared that the greatest enemy of Satan is unity in the Church.</li>
<li>The Christian’s first allegiance is to Jesus of Nazareth (“Jesus the Jew,” he added), not to his or her nation.</li>
</ol>
<p>Metaxas challenged especially American Christians to guard their remaining freedom and never take it for granted – both for their own sakes as well as for the sake of the impact that they could make for persecuted people around the world. He concluded with these words to the IDC crowd: “Speak up for your Christian faith. Speak up for your brothers and sisters. Repent of this silence. Rejoice to be in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” His talk was indeed about unity with the persecuted. But it was not about unity as a result of national identity or political solidarity – themes with which some, especially the shouters, in the IDC seemed more comfortable. It was about unity because the Church, one body around the world, is called to speak with one voice against evil, just as Senator Cruz had said the night before.</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs the</em><em> </em><a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=226"><em>Institute on Religion and Democracy’s</em></a><em> </em><em>Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan and is the author of</em> <a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=383">Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children</a> <em>(Chosen Books, 2007).</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/unity-with-the-persecuted/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Victory for Meriam</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/victory-for-meriam/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=victory-for-meriam</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/victory-for-meriam/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jun 2014 04:50:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meriam Ibrahim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[overturn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=234773</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Christian woman’s death sentence is overturned -- and what the U.S. must do now.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/unnamed.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-234774" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/unnamed-450x338.jpg" alt="unnamed" width="264" height="198" /></a>On Monday, June 23, 2014, the Appeals Court in Khartoum <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27979782"><span style="color: #0433ff;">overturned</span></a> the decision of the Shariah court that had condemned the 27 year-old Sudanese Christian mother to death. She has been cleared of all charges. Now she and her two children, Martin, almost two years old, who has been with Meriam throughout her time in Omdurman Women’s Prison, and baby daughter Maya, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/27/American-Citizen-Born-in-Sudanese-Prison-Now-the-Clock-is-Running-Down-for-Her-Mother"><span style="color: #0433ff;">born in the prison medical center</span></a> on May 27 while Meriam was in shackles, have been reunited with her South Sudanese Christian husband, Daniel Wani, who is an American citizen. They are reported to be in a safe location at present.</p>
<p>Meriam’s release is a great victory for religious freedom, but she is not out of danger yet. Her life is still threatened by the Islamists who first brought the accusations against her, including a man who claims to be her <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2014/06/08/meriam-sudan-brother-shows-no-brotherly-love-she-deserves-to-die/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">half-brother</span></a>.  It is now the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect the wife and children of American citizen, Wani, and to help them to return to Wani’s home in Manchester, New Hampshire.</p>
<p>In addition, the ideology of Shariah and jihad of the Islamists who threatened Meriam is the official ideology of the Sudanese government. This supremacist ideology still threatens the freedom, dignity, and very lives of all the Sudanese people. Meriam is the starfish flung back into the ocean when so many are stranded on the beach.</p>
<p>Khartoum’s Shariah court had <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2014/05/16/pregnant-christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sentenced Meriam to death</span></a> by hanging for the crime of apostasy. Under Shariah she was considered a Muslim because her father was a Muslim, even though she grew up as a Christian under the care of her Ethiopian Orthodox mother. She was also sentenced to receive 100 lashes for adultery for her relationship with Daniel. Under Shariah, their marriage was not recognized because a Muslim woman cannot marry a Christian man. The death sentence had been postponed for two years, to give Meriam time to breastfeed baby Maya, but she could have been subjected to the lashes at any day now, if the appeal had not been successful.</p>
<p>Meriam’s attorneys submitted an appeal soon after the sentence was confirmed by the Shariah court on May 15 and had been waiting to hear the court’s judgment.  According to <a href="http://www.meconcern.org"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Middle East Concern</span></a> in a June 23 news release, “the Appeals Court overturned the conviction on procedural grounds, on the basis that the prosecution provided insufficient evidence to prove the claims against Meriam and that the defense had not been given adequate opportunity to cross-examine witnesses or provide their own witnesses.”</p>
<p>Meriam’s courageous attorneys, who have themselves received death threats for representing her, were described as “overjoyed” at the verdict. One attorney, Al-Sharif Ali, declared that it was Meriam’s “strong personality” that “forced the Sudanese judiciary to respect religious freedom.”  When given the opportunity to renounce her faith in Christ to save her life, Meriam refused and told the Sharia court judge that she was a Christian and would remain a Christian. When he addressed her with a Muslim name she refused to acknowledge him. During her imprisonment, Muslim clerics continually tried to persuade her to recant. But Meriam was resolute.</p>
<p>Tina Ramirez, Executive Director of <a href="http://www.hardwiredglobal.org"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Hardwired</span></a>, a non-profit organization working to end global religious repression, explained the larger significance of Meriam’s release, saying, &#8220;We are witnessing a historic moment &#8211; in the three decades of President Bashir&#8217;s brutal dictatorship millions have lost their lives, yet here stands one defenseless and innocent young pregnant woman who forced President Bashir to respect her dignity and religious freedom.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ramirez continued by saying that Meriam “called Bashir&#8217;s bluff. Her victory today is a victory for all the people of Sudan fighting against religious oppression and we cannot rest until everyone is freed from this dictatorship.”</p>
<p>Amnesty International UK’s Deputy Regional Director Sarah Jackson called the Appeal Court’s ruling, “a small step to redressing the injustice done to Meriam.”</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/sudan-meriam-ibrahims-release-welcomed"><span style="color: #0433ff;">June 23 press release</span></a>, Jackson continued, “However, she should never have been prosecuted.” She stressed that “Meriam was sentenced to death when eight months pregnant for something which should not be a crime. Furthermore, her abhorrent treatment, including being shackled, violated international human rights law against ill-treatment.”</p>
<p>One Sudanese activist says that the case of Meriam sheds a very interesting light on both Sudan’s strategy and the importance of United States and global advocacy. While very happy that Meriam has her freedom, he referred to Sudan’s reversal as “brinksmanship policy.” He warned that some in the international community may reward Sudan President Bashir for Meriam’s release, “as if he did a favor to humanity” while in reality Bashir was using the focus on Meriam as a “smoke screen to hide terrible atrocities in Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile.”</p>
<p>It should not be forgotten that at the same time that the world’s attention has been fixed on Meriam, the regime in Khartoum has never ceased its jihad against its own civilians. The Sudanese government has continually bombed civilian sites in the Nuba Mountains – including the one working hospital and a medical clinic.  It has also killed and displaced thousands in Blue Nile State and Darfur. And it is perpetrating ethnic cleansing with a new hybrid militia called the Rapid Strike Force (RSF).</p>
<p>According to the Sudanese activist, the regime “has read where the danger to its survival might come from,” (i.e. it’s treatment of Meriam) “and accordingly made its move.” This demonstrates very clearly that no matter what the U.S. government might say about not having any “leverage” to change Khartoum’s behavior, “the regime in Khartoum will always stop and reverse itself when it senses that the U.S. is serious,” he explained.</p>
<p>Congress displayed its seriousness about the plight of Meriam Ibrahim with numerous bills in both the House and the Senate. On June 12, both Senator Ted Cruz and U.S. Representative Trent Franks spoke at a <a href="http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2014/06/16/human-rights-groups-call-for-release-of-condemned-sudanese-christian-meriam-ibrahim/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">demonstration</span></a> co-sponsored by 46 organizations protesting White House inaction for Meriam. And the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Sub-Committee on Africa was planning on a hearing concerning Meriam for Tuesday, June 24 that was postponed at the last minute when it was learned that the Appeals Court was going to make an announcement on Monday.</p>
<p>Members of Congress also contacted the <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/no-u-s-consular-service-for-meriam/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">State Department</span></a>, concerned that <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/video/cnsnews/state-dept-wont-say-if-they-tried-verify-daniel-wani-meriam-ibrahim-marriage"><span style="color: #0433ff;">State was not doing enough</span></a>. On June 19, 38 House members (31 Republicans and 8 Democrats) sent a letter to Secretary Kerry urging that he “prioritize” Meriam’s case. Their letter really precipitated such an occurrence as has now taken place: when Meriam is released from prison, steps need to be in place to move her and the rest of the family quickly out of the country. The members of Congress wrote to Kerry that the State Department and Department of Homeland Security should “review granting Mrs. Ibrahim Significant Public Benefit Parole, asylum, or refugee status, as appropriate.” They also requested that the State Department <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/no-u-s-consular-service-for-meriam/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">expedite the process</span></a> of registering Martin and Maya as United States citizens.</p>
<p>Now that Meriam is free, the time has come for the Khartoum regime to sense that the State Department “is serious.” The U.S. government must enable Meriam and Daniel and their children to get swiftly and safely to the United States, and then they should show Khartoum they are serious about all the rest of the starfish on the beach.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/victory-for-meriam/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>No U.S. Consular Service for Meriam</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/no-u-s-consular-service-for-meriam/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=no-u-s-consular-service-for-meriam</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/no-u-s-consular-service-for-meriam/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jun 2014 04:09:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[husband]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meriam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mistreated]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S. Embassy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233494</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[U.S. Embassy in Khartoum ignores and mistreats Meriam's U.S. citizen husband.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/meriam-in-prison-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-233495" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/meriam-in-prison-2.jpg" alt="meriam in prison 2" width="252" height="348" /></a>On YouTube there is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVXRuAaCVlY&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DEVXRuAaCVlY%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded&amp;has_verified=1">video</a> of the punishment for adultery that will soon be meted out to Sudanese Christian Dr. Meriam Yahya Ibrahim unless the United States government <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/15/Pregnant-Woman-to-Be-Executed-for-Leaving-Islam-After-Giving-Birth-State-Dept-Idle">intervenes</a> on her behalf. But some disturbing information revealed by Meriam’s husband, Daniel Wani, a naturalized U.S. citizen, suggests that “not leaving behind” this wife of an American citizen may not even be contemplated by the Obama Administration without strong pressure from caring advocates.</p>
<p>The video, featuring a terrified young Sudanese woman being whipped in front of onlookers at a Khartoum police station is so disturbing that it has been age-restricted by YouTube. Even her distress anticipating the flogging looks physically painful itself. Meriam has already had weeks to anticipate her upcoming flogging. She is to receive 100 lashes for her marriage to a South Sudanese Christian. Because the Shariah court in Khartoum considers her a Muslim, it does not recognize her marriage to Wani.</p>
<p>Meriam’s suffering will not end with the agony of lashes. That punishment will be followed within two years’ time by her execution for apostasy. The delay is because the court will wait until her newborn baby, Maya, has been weaned. Meriam will then be killed, according to Shariah, for the <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan/">crime</a> of refusing to renounce her faith in Jesus Christ and “revert” to Islam.</p>
<p>While waiting to be hanged, Meriam, 27, is shackled to the wall of the Omdurman Women’s Prison, along with her 20 month-old son, Martin. On May 27, when she <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/27/American-Citizen-Born-in-Sudanese-Prison-Now-the-Clock-is-Running-Down-for-Her-Mother">gave birth</a> to Maya, she was <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2014/06/04/faith-mcdonnell-the-release-of-christian-meriam-ibrahim-sudan/">forced</a> to endure labor on a filthy floor while still in leg irons, according to her distressed husband. Now, nursing Maya keeps her from the gallows, but she is not even permitted to nurse her baby and care for her toddler in peace. She has to <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-release-of-meriam-ibrahim/">suffer</a> the continuous visits of Muslim clerics, attempting to pressure her into conversion.</p>
<p>Current photos of the gaunt inmate Meriam holding baby Maya are shocking after viewing photos of Meriam as Daniel’s beautiful bride. Traded-for-Taliban-terrorists Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl looks in the pink after his five years with Islamists (in spite of President Obama’s excuse for negotiating a deal with the devil being concern for the soldier’s health), compared to Meriam’s deteriorating appearance after just five months in Islamist captivity.</p>
<p>Where are the President’s grand gestures to rescue this young Christian wife of an American? Will President Obama be Meriam’s knight in shining armor, as he has been for Bergdahl?</p>
<p>Sadly, there is no evidence of any planned intervention by the Obama Administration for Meriam and her children. And since Meriam’s sentencing there has been no public statement in her defense coming from that direction. There have, however, been vigorous condemnations from British Prime Minister <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/31/barbaric-david-cameron-urges-sudanese-government-to-overturn-death-sentence-of-meriam-ibrahim-4745592/">David Cameron</a>, former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMASprhLIPA&amp;feature=youtu.be">Mukesh Kapila</a>, Archbishop of Canterbury <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10867220/Sudanese-woman-Meriam-Ibrahim-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-to-be-freed.html">Justin Welby</a>, and other international leaders.</p>
<p>Wani, a biochemist who has lived in Manchester, New Hampshire since 1998, revealed that while officials from the British and Canadian Embassies and from the European Union have all expressed sympathy and been “incredibly helpful,” the officials at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum have been “entirely unhelpful.” This information has deeply concerned British advocacy organization <a href="http://www.csw.org.uk/home.htm">Christian Solidarity Worldwide</a> (CSW), which has been in ongoing consultation with Daniel and his legal team.</p>
<p>The U.S. Embassy’s neglect began in September 2013 when Meriam, Daniel, and little Martin were all arrested. Daniel’s attorney, Mohamed Mustafa Elnour, (an extremely courageous man – as is the whole legal team) told CSW that the Embassy did not answer Daniel’s call to their direct line for consular assistance or offer any consular aid to wheelchair-bound Wani, who suffers from Muscular Dystrophy. He was held by the Sudanese government for 12 hours before posting bail. Daniel also asked the Embassy for help when there was an attempt to kidnap Martin. Again, there was no response from the Embassy.</p>
<p>After his release, Daniel again sought help at the US Embassy to defend Meriam, but the Embassy told him that they couldn’t help him since Meriam was not a U.S. citizen. They suggested he hire an attorney and “deal with it through the Sudanese legal system,” which means, apparently, that the U.S. Embassy has more respect for Shariah than for the rights of a U.S. citizen.</p>
<p>Of this circumstance, CSW says:</p>
<blockquote><p> <em>It is important to note . . . that Daniel also stood accused by the courts of ‘converting a Muslim woman in order to marry her’, in violation of national law. His passport was confiscated and he was barred from travelling by the Sudanese authorities until May, when the courts accepted that he genuinely believed Meriam to be a Christian at the time of their marriage. The failure of the US Embassy to provide consular assistance to a US citizen who was facing such serious charges, along with the fact that his wife and child were imprisoned through this period, is indefensible.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>In addition to their unwillingness to help Daniel with the legal battle, the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum has refused to register Meriam and Daniel’s children as U.S. citizens unless Daniel provides DNA evidence of paternity for both Martin and newborn Maya. Daniel began the process of registering Martin as a U.S. citizen earlier this year. He informed CSW that at an interview with Embassy staff he was “told verbally” that Martin “fulfilled all the requirements.”</p>
<p>With that assurance, Daniel paid the processing fee and initiated an application for Martin’s U.S. passport. When he next presented himself at the Embassy to submit his son’s birth certificate and the payment for the passport, he was instructed to meet with an official called “Candy.” (It seems odd and somewhat condescending that all of the Embassy officials with whom Daniel and his attorneys met were only identified to him by their first name.)</p>
<p>Daniel told CSW that the tone of the interview with Candy was “very aggressive,” and “more like an interrogation.” She asked Daniel about Meriam’s degree from Sudan University, but he refused to answer that question because of Meriam’s legal case going on in the Khartoum court. In response, the Embassy suspended the application for U.S. citizenship/passport for Martin saying that “Daniel had not proven that he knew his wife well.” They told him that they would not resume the process unless Daniel provided DNA evidence of a genetic link.</p>
<p>CSW notes that the U.S. State Department’s own <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/citizenship-and-dna-testing.html">website</a> says “DNA testing is the only biological testing method currently accepted by the Department to establish a biological relationship. However, due to the expense, complexity, and logistical delays inherent in parentage testing, genetic testing generally should be used only in the absence of sufficient other evidence (documentation, photos, etc.) establishing the relationship.”</p>
<p>Daniel provided his and Meriam’s marriage certificate, the birth certificates listing him as the father, as well as family photos, to “establish the relationship.” Certainly the U.S. Embassy should consider the incarceration of both children in a Sudanese prison as complex enough of a reason to accept the already sufficient evidence that Daniel has provided in documentation and photos. In addition, if the State Department had provided a spousal visa for Meriam to travel to the United States with Daniel soon after their wedding when he had applied for it, none of these other encounters would have been necessary.</p>
<p>At Daniel and Elnour’s most recent meeting at the U.S. Embassy on June 2 they met with “Kate” and “Chris.” Attorney Elnour described the meeting as “antagonistic, with Daniel fighting for his family and the Embassy staff being totally unhelpful.” The Embassy still insists on DNA evidence that Martin and Maya are Daniel’s children even now that it knows that if Meriam is executed her children will be given to the same Muslim relatives who had her arrested. They offered no assistance to Daniel, but had him sign a “Privacy Waiver” that allows the State Department to respond to questions from Congress and the media about the case.</p>
<p>Ann Buwalda, immigration attorney and director of Christian human rights group Jubilee Campaign, <a href="http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=37816a94-3562-4057-b1c1-f1b47fa15fb5&amp;c=8af0dec0-3318-11e3-a461-d4ae5275509e&amp;ch=8b451940-3318-11e3-a4f0-d4ae5275509e">called</a> the Embassy’s demand that Daniel produce a DNA test “a reprehensible display of obstruction and contrary to mandates of U.S. immigration law.” In an email blast to <a href="http://jubileecampaign.org/">Jubilee Campaign</a> supporters, Buwalda said that the group’s Netherlands office has produced a <a href="http://origin.library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1000817942364-524/2014+JCNL-+Rapport+Meriam_EN.pdf">report</a> showing how the verdicts given in Meriam’s case contravene international law and even Sudanese law.</p>
<p>Unlike the Administration, the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/20/Senators-Call-for-Asylum-for-Imprisoned-Christian-While-State-Dept-Demands-DNA-Test">U.S. Congress</a> is attempting to help Meriam in a number of ways. Members have introduced and even already passed resolutions in both Houses. But all of these efforts need to be unified, sending the same message and asking for the same thing. If advocates for this beleaguered family want Congress to take most efficient and reliable path to saving Meriam and her children and assisting Daniel, Buwalda has several recommendations.</p>
<p>First, representatives and senators should be pressed to personally call the U.S. State Department to protest the outrageous requirement of DNA testing, to demand the immediate issuance of U.S. passports to Martin and Maya, U.S. citizen children, and to request the U.S. Consulate to issue Meriam an emergency travel document called a <a href="http://origin.library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1000817942364-528/US+DOS+Foreign+Affairs+Manual+Significant+Public+Benefit+Parole.pdf">Significant Public Benefit Parole</a>. Second, Buwalda said that Congress should be urged to pass a Private Bill granting immediate U.S. citizenship to Meriam Yahya Ibrahim. Finally, advocates should write to the Sudan Embassy to demand that Sudan release Meriam immediately since there is no legal basis for her conviction.</p>
<p>The definition of a consul includes “assisting his or her government’s citizens in a foreign country.” Sadly, neither consul nor government is assisting this U.S. citizen and his family in a foreign country. But hundreds of thousands of Americans and people around the world are outraged by the plight of Meriam, Daniel, and their children. They must be the consuls. They must use their voices, their advocacy, and their influence to assist a fellow U.S. citizen, to reunite him with his wife and children, to save Meriam.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/no-u-s-consular-service-for-meriam/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>22</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Release of Meriam Ibrahim?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-release-of-meriam-ibrahim/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-release-of-meriam-ibrahim</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-release-of-meriam-ibrahim/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jun 2014 04:40:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apostasy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meriam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[release]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226738</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Khartoum regime's charm offensive.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/mi.gif"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-226740" alt="mi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/mi-371x350.gif" width="371" height="350" /></a>The Government of Sudan is attempting a public relations outreach (a.k.a. “charm offensive”). Khartoum has been stung by the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2635074/FIRST-PICTURE-The-American-toddler-held-brutal-Sudanese-jail-pregnant-mother-sentenced-hang-Christian.html">reaction</a> of the international community to its <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan/">treatment</a> of Sudanese Christian mother Dr. Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, 27, incarcerated in a Khartoum prison with her 20-month-old son, Martin, and as of May 27, 2014, with her <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/27/American-Citizen-Born-in-Sudanese-Prison-Now-the-Clock-is-Running-Down-for-Her-Mother">newborn daughter</a>, Maya.  Khartoum’s charm offensives – in which the ruling National Congress Party officials <a href="http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110118221448/v__/images/a/a6/V_2009_Serpent-s_Tooth_S02E02_Anna_eating_large_rat.jpg">assume</a> a humane veneer, declaring their commitment to peace, always – usually are reserved for the U.S. State Department and Foreign Service personnel, naïve Christian peacemakers, and others afflicted with willful blindness. This tactic of pleasant conversation over cups of cardamom-spiced coffee, cloaking genocide in diplomacy and cultural diversity, has enabled the regime to survive for decades.</p>
<p>The Meriam Ibrahim Offensive began just days after the shocking ruling of Judge Abbas al Khalifia that Dr. Ibrahim be hanged for apostasy. The Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC released a <a href="http://www.sudanembassy.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=1073:the-case-of-mariam-is-neither-religious-nor-political-it-is-legal&amp;catid=13:news-and-events&amp;Itemid=207">statement</a> to assuage the concerns of those who heard of the death sentence. In that zany way in which President Omar al Bashir’s government lies and tells the truth simultaneously, the statement declared that “The Case of Mariam is neither religious nor political, it is Legal.” (It omitted the fact that the legal case against Ibrahim is <i>Islamic</i> law, the Shariah. Both Ibrahim’s marriage and her religious faith violate the Shariah.) The statement also reaffirmed the Government of Sudan’s commitment to human rights and freedom of belief, and very prettily thanked “all those who have raised their concern and sympathy on this issue.”</p>
<p>But the international community did not fall for this typical Sudanese diplomacy, not when it comes to shackling a pregnant mom and a toddler to a prison wall to wait for her eventual flogging and hanging. Most rational people around the world do not hear Meriam’s story and think “Oh, a law violator! She must be punished!”</p>
<p>Instead, the world sees the plight of a courageous Christian woman, who has refused to renounce her faith. It sees a little boy shackled in prison with his mother because the Sudanese government will not allow his Christian father to have custody of a child they consider to be Muslim. It sees a tiny baby girl, in squalid, disease-ridden conditions. The world sees a loving husband and father, Daniel Wani, a South Sudanese Christian who made a good life in a new country, and became an American citizen and a biochemist. They see himWani now, separated from his family, suffering from muscular dystrophy, bereft. And so <a href="http://touchstonemag.com/merecomments/2014/05/sudanese-christian-sentenced-death/">protest letters</a> and <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/sudan-more-half-million-call-free-pregnant-woman-sentenced-death-her-religious-choice-lawyers-l">petitions</a> condemning Ibrahim’s apostasy sentence continue to land at the Massachusetts Avenue doors of the Sudanese Embassy, and to also wing their way to Khartoum, in spite of the Sudanese government’s efforts to reduce a family tragedy to a “legal issue.”</p>
<p>Therefore, as of Saturday, May 31, the Khartoum regime has gone into a second phase of its charm offensive, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2644796/Sudanese-woman-facing-barbaric-death-sentence-marrying-Christian-FREED-U-turn-authorities.html">hinting</a> coyly that Ibrahim may soon be released. Foreign Ministry Under-Secretary Abdelah Al-Azrak told <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/31/us-sudan-deathsentence-idUSKBN0EB0T720140531?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=worldNews">Reuters News Service</a> that government authorities in the country are “working to release” Ibrahim “through legal measures.”</p>
<p>Al-Azrak also told <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27651483">the BBC</a> that Sudan &#8220;guaranteed religious freedom and was committed to protecting the woman.&#8221; Oddly, Ibrahim’s team of attorneys, nor her husband had not been advised of this development before the foreign ministry spoke the news agencies, nor have they been contacted since. <i>The Daily Mail</i>, which has provided some of lead reporting on Ibrahim’s treatment <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2644796/Sudanese-woman-facing-barbaric-death-sentence-marrying-Christian-FREED-U-turn-authorities.html">revealed</a> that her lawyers “do not believe the offer is genuine, and is a ploy to silence the growing outcry.”</p>
<p>Speaking to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10867220/Sudanese-woman-Meriam-Ibrahim-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-to-be-freed.html"><i>The Telegraph</i></a><i> </i>on May 31, Ibrahim’s attorney, Elshareef Ali Mohammed said,</p>
<blockquote><p>“It’s a statement to silence the international media. This is what the government does. We will not believe that she is being freed until she walks out of the prison.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Hopefully, the United States and other Western nations that are putting pressure on Khartoum will not be gullible either. Too often, the U.S. government has trusted the promises and declarations of Khartoum, and while the U.S. has acted according to the “carrots” it has promised the Sudan government for good behavior, the regime has failed to honor its promises. Whether the U.S. has offered any incentives to Khartoum to release Ibrahim is not known, but her imprisonment has drawn international outrage. It would seem possible that Khartoum has felt the sting and decided that the approval of the world for pardoning Ibrahim outweighs the approval of the hard-core Islamists who want her dead. As attorney Mohammed <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10867220/Sudanese-woman-Meriam-Ibrahim-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-to-be-freed.html#source=refresh">said</a>, “It shows our campaign to free Meriam is rattling them. We must keep up the pressure.”</p>
<p>While the world community, members of the U.S. Congress, and the British government – including both Prime Minister David Cameron and the Foreign Office, put pressure on Khartoum, the regime continues its shameless pressure on Ibrahim to renounce her Christian faith and convert to Islam. <i>The Daily Mail </i><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2644796/Sudanese-woman-facing-barbaric-death-sentence-marrying-Christian-FREED-U-turn-authorities.html">quoted</a> a spokesperson from the US-based Sudan Justice Center who said that “they have been promising Meriam money and security if she becomes a Muslim.” According the Center, Muslim clerics spend almost the whole day in her cell, telling her to give up her Christian faith. “They have said they will protect her and her family if she does what they want.”</p>
<p>In addition, <i>The Telegraph </i><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10867220/Sudanese-woman-Meriam-Ibrahim-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-to-be-freed.html">reported</a> that the Bashir government recently sent some 10 employees of the state-controlled press to see Ibrahim, photograph her, and publish a series of articles claiming that she was actually a practicing Muslim.</p>
<p>“They wrote that she prayed five times a day and read the Koran – which is totally not true,” Ibrahim’s attorney Mohammed told <i>The Telegraph</i>. “She didn’t want to talk to them but did not have the right to say no. They took photos and filmed her, and she did not like the photos. She asked them to delete the photos, but they said no.” Then they further tormented her by showing her their articles published in the government-owned <i>Hikayat</i>, <i>Al Dar</i>, <i>Al Sudani</i>, and<i> Al Intibaha</i>. <i>Al Intibaha </i>is owned by the uncle of President Bashir. Mohammed said that Ibrahim was very upset by this and that the attorneys were angry “because it could influence the court of appeal.”</p>
<p>If Ibrahim should be released, continued pressure is needed to ensure her safety and that of her children &#8212; both American citizens by virtue of Wani – and the safety of her husband and attorneys. Pressure is also needed on the other player in the matter, the U.S. State Department, to obtain the spousal visa that rightfully belongs to Dr. Ibrahim, or alternately, political asylum.</p>
<p>Wani’s pleas to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum were ignored not once, but three times. The State Department needs to be reminded that little Maya joins brother Martin as what must surely be the youngest American citizens incarcerated in a Sudanese prison. Maya probably also holds the dubious honor of being the only American citizen <i>born</i> in a Sudanese prison – and definitely the only American citizen born in a Sudanese prison to a mother who was <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2642655/Mother-facing-death-penalty-marrying-Christian-forced-birth-legs-shackled-Sudanese-jail.html">kept in shackles <i>during labor</i></a>.</p>
<p>Advocates will not relax the pressure on the Khartoum regime to halt the draconian implementation of Shariah law under which most of the people of Sudan are suffering. The treatment of this little family by the regime is not unusual. Christian persecution, Arab imperialism, slavery, and genocide which demonstrate the hypocrisy of the National Congress Party Government of Sudan’s claim that it is committed to “all human rights and freedoms of beliefs” span the length and width of the country. Khartoum is currently waging genocidal war in at least three regions of Sudan – the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile State, and Darfur. In the space of four days, May 27-30, the Sudanese air force <a href="http://nubareports.org/safbombs/">dropped 55 bombs</a> on Kauda town in the Nuba Mountains. On May 1 it <a href="http://nubareports.org/sudan-targets-only-hospital-in-nuba-mountains/">bombed</a> the only hospital in the Nuba Mountain war zone for two days in a row. And the regime is similarly waging violent jihad in Blue Nile State and Darfur.</p>
<p>Ibrahim’s situation has been a microcosm of both the abuse of human rights perpetrated by Sudan, and of U.S. foreign policy in response to that situation. There have been valiant efforts, particularly by members of Congress, and there has been neglect and apathy. But the plight of Meriam Yahya Ibrahim has put a face, actually four faces, on Sudan’s human rights abuses and enabled people around the world to witness the personal rather than theoretical implications of Shariah.</p>
<p>Is it possible that this growing, massive awareness will not only result in the kind of push needed to pressure the U.S. government to demand Dr. Ibrahim’s freedom, but also result in the kind of ongoing push required for it to no longer fall for Khartoum’s charm offensives and to take actions needed so desperately in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile State, Darfur, and everywhere that the Sudanese government is violating human rights?</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs the </em><a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=226"><i>Institute on Religion and Democracy’s</i></a><em> Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan and is the author of</em> <a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=383">Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children</a> <em>(Chosen Books, 2007).</em></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-release-of-meriam-ibrahim/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Pregnant Christian Woman Married to U.S. Citizen Sentenced to Death in Sudan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2014 04:21:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american embassy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meriam Yahya Ibrahim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sentenced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225628</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Meriam Yahya Ibrahim pleads for help from America.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/jk.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-225635" alt="jk" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/jk.gif" width="320" height="469" /></a>Sudanese doctor Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, 27, a graduate of the University of Khartoum Medical School, is the beautiful wife of an American citizen, Daniel Wani, originally from South Sudan. Their 20-month old son, Martin, whose sweet smile shines from a recent photograph, is soon to be joined by a baby brother or sister, as Ibrahim is nine months’ pregnant. Soon after Ibrahim and Wani were wed, in December 2011, Wani applied to his government, the United States government, for a spousal visa to bring his wife to America. If there were justice in the world, today the Wani family would be awaiting the birth of a new baby while enjoying the gradual coming of spring in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>There is, however, no justice in the world. Wani and Ibrahim remained in Khartoum and waited for Ibrahim’s visa to be approved, but up until today, this American citizen has not received permission to bring home his wife – and now also his son, who is by virtue of his father a U.S. citizen.  “I have tried to apply for papers to travel to the USA with my wife and child, but the American Embassy in Sudan did not help me,” Wani <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/pregnant-woman-in-sudan-could-be-executed-for-apostasy-whipped-for-adultery/">told</a> <i>Morning Star News. </i>And on Thursday, May 15, Ibrahim was sentenced to be hanged for apostasy.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/yh.gif"><img class=" wp-image-225637 aligncenter" alt="yh" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/yh.gif" width="320" height="455" /></a></p>
<p>Ibrahim has been a Christian her whole life. She was brought up, first in western Sudan, and then in Khartoum, in the Ethiopian Orthodox faith of her Ethiopian mother. But she had the misfortune of having a Sudanese Muslim father. Even though her father abandoned the family when she was 6 years old, in the eyes of Shariah, she is a Muslim. Therefore, she is an apostate for not practicing Islam. Unbelievably, she and little Martin, have been incarcerated since February at Omdurman Women’s Prison in Khartoum.</p>
<p>While Ibrahim was waiting for the U.S. government to grant her a spousal visa, Amnesty International, which is highlighting Ibrahim’s case, <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR54/006/2014/en">says</a> that a distant relative accused her of adultery and reported her to the authorities in August 2013. Ibrahim’s marriage to Wani, a South Sudanese Christian, is not recognized under Shariah. Ibrahim then attempted to defend herself by explaining that she was not a Muslim. This past February she provided to the court her marriage certificate that listed her as a Christian, and the location of the wedding as a church in Khartoum. But this resulted in the young wife and mother being charged with apostasy. The charges fall under Sudan’s Shariah-based Criminal Code, Articles 126 (apostasy) and 146 (adultery). The apostasy sentence carries a punishment of flogging – 100 lashes.</p>
<p>Because of his infidel status, Wani is not recognized as the father of his own children. It’s bad enough that Wani’s parental rights have been violated by the Islamist regime in Khartoum, but less expected has been the lack of support that he has received from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. He <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/pregnant-woman-in-sudan-could-be-executed-for-apostasy-whipped-for-adultery/">revealed</a> to <i>Morning Star News</i> that the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum expressed “no interest” in helping the family when his wife was arrested and that they have demanded a DNA test from Wani to prove he is the father of Martin before they will attempt to help the toddler.</p>
<p>“I will have to take a DNA sample in Khartoum, then send it to the USA for testing,” Wani said. “I have provided wedding documents and the baby’s birth certificate, and doors were closed on his face. My son is an American citizen living in a difficult situation in prison,” he declared sadly.</p>
<p>Wani has been prevented from seeing his wife and child since her incarceration, but reports that she has not received proper medical care for complications for her pregnancy. According to <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/pregnant-woman-in-sudan-could-be-executed-for-apostasy-whipped-for-adultery/"><i>Morning Star News</i></a>, “Ibrahim’s nightmare has included denial of bail, insufficient medical care for both her and her unborn child, beatings in prison, and a U.S. Embassy that has offered little help.” <i>Morning Star News </i>added that a prison guard has mistreated Ibrahim and not allowed visitations or medical help, and Wani informed them that “a Muslim woman in the jail has incited other Muslims to make life difficult for her.”</p>
<p>According to Sudanese human rights activist Safwan Abdalmoniem of the <a href="http://www.hardwiredglobal.org/">Hardwired organization</a>, the Christian woman’s death sentence, pronounced by Judge Abbas Mohammed Al-Khalifa, came after a three-day period given to her by Khartoum’s criminal court to attempt to persuade her to renounce her Christian faith and convert to (or as they phrase it “return to”) Islam, a process referred to as <i>istitabah</i> in Arabic. The African Center for Justice and Peace Studies <a href="http://www.acjps.org/?p=1857">revealed</a> that the court sent representatives of several Islamic organizations, including Munazzamat al-Da’wa al-Islamiia, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, to ‘counsel’ Ibrahim on her faith.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.meconcern.org/index.php/en/prayer-requests/755-sudan-update-on-believer-sentenced-to-death">Middle East Concern</a>, the constant harassment and pressure of the Muslim groups proved fruitless, though. Like untold martyrs before her, on Thursday Ibrahim calmly told the judge that she would not renounce her faith, that she was a Christian and always had been. <i>Independent Online </i><a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/woman-to-be-hanged-for-shunning-islam-1.1688618#.U3TmkMsU9Mz">noted</a> that Judge Al-Khalifa addressed Ibrahim by the Muslim name Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah, “We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged to death.”</p>
<p>Reports from the sentencing indicate that the judge instructed that her execution be carried out two years after the birth of her child. The flogging, however, will take place soon after she gives birth. <i>Morning Star News </i><a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/05/judge-in-sudan-confirms-death-sentence-whipping-for-pregnant-christian-woman/">reported</a> that Ibrahim’s attorneys will file an appeal of the sentence on Sunday (May 18). This will put off execution of any part of the sentence, including the flogging, until there is a ruling.</p>
<p>At the news of the death sentence given to the wife of an American citizen because of her Christian faith, the U.S. State Department’s deputy spokesperson, Marie Harf, released a <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/05/226201.htm">statement</a> indicating that the U.S. was “deeply disturbed” by the court’s ruling in the Sudan “Apostasy Case.” The rest of the statement is equally tepid. And the statement matches, almost word for word, including the pathetically passive “we understand that the court sentence can be appealed,” a <a href="http://sudan.usembassy.gov/">statement</a> issued by the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum on Monday, following the initial pronouncement of the death and flogging sentences.</p>
<p>Both the State Department and U.S. Embassy statements “call upon the Government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion.” They also appear to appeal to the Islamists’ better angels, calling on the Sudanese legal authorities, “to approach this case with the compassion that is in keeping with the values of the Sudanese people.” Good luck with that.</p>
<p>What is needed immediately is for pressure on the Obama Administration, particularly the State Department, and on the U.S. Congress, to respect not only Ibrahim’s right to freedom of religion, but to respect the rights of Wani and his son, and the coming baby, American citizens all. The U.S. government must act now to reunite Ibrahim and her son with Wani and to bring the family back to the United States.</p>
<p>Ibrahim’s attorney said today, “Meriam is very encouraged by the international support she is receiving from the international community. She hopes that people stand with her and her family until she gets her freedom.”</p>
<p>Perhaps if the United States government will approach this case with the compassion that is in keeping with the values long held by <i>its </i>citizens, this little family can finally get to their home in New Hampshire, the state whose motto is “Live Free or Die.”</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/christian-woman-married-to-u-s-citizen-sentenced-to-death-in-sudan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>79</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Slaughter in Nigeria &#8212; Where Is the State Department?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/slaughter-in-nigeria-where-is-the-state-department/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=slaughter-in-nigeria-where-is-the-state-department</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/slaughter-in-nigeria-where-is-the-state-department/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2014 04:35:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boko Haram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223535</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama administration clings to its narrative amidst jihadi terror. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/unnamed1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223536" alt="unnamed" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/unnamed1-450x286.jpg" width="270" height="172" /></a>An explosion devastated a busy bus station on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Monday, April 14, 2014. It was the latest in a series of terrorist attacks on Africa’s most populous nation. No group had claimed credit for the attack as of Monday, but Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan laid the blame at the feet of Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group seeking the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/nigerian-jihad/">eradication of Christians</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and the Islamization of Nigeria.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The blast took place at 6:55 a.m. </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nanngronline.com/section/general/many-die-in-abuja-park-attack">according</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">News Agency of Nigeria </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">(NAN). Reuters </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/14/us-nigeria-violence-idUSBREA3D0AF20140414">reported</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> at least 71 dead and 124 injured, but on Tuesday, </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Punch</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.punchng.com/news/sorrow-tears-as-abuja-blast-kills-89/">raised the number</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> dead to 89, including three perpetrators, with 257 injured. And this was not the week’s only attack. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Just days earlier, Boko Haram jihadists killed some 200 in Borno, a northeastern Nigerian state that has seen far more than its share of jihad terrorism. Punch </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.punchng.com/news/utme-students-killed-in-boko-haram-attacks/">reported</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that on April 9-10 attacks took place on communities in several towns, as well as on a teachers’ training college and a group of students traveling to their matriculation exams. Boko Haram seemed determined to show that “western education is forbidden.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rarer was Monday’s attack on Abuja’s Nyanya Mass Transit Park – demonstrating the terrorists’ brazenness, operating in the country’s capital, as well as the northern and middle state belts to which they have already laid claim. The blast destroyed 16 high-capacity buses and damaged another 24, as well as affecting smaller vehicles, a police spokesman told Reuters. Many of the buses were loaded with commuters, so the attack left a hellish scene of charred bodies, body parts, and twisted metal. In Tuesday’s report, Punch </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.punchng.com/news/sorrow-tears-as-abuja-blast-kills-89/">told</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of an eyewitness who said that the attack was carried out by four insurgents in a Volkswagen Golf.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to NAN, many of the commuters in this transit point for the satellite communities of the Federal Capital Territory surrounding Abuja were on their way to work and their businesses. But Nigerian attorney and human rights activist Emmanuel Ogebe pointed out that this attack took place on the first day of Holy Week in a country in which Easter is a major holiday.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“Abuja is emptying out as people travel to their home states for the long holiday,” said Ogebe. He believes the bus station was targeted deliberately on the week of Easter. This would be no surprise, as a majority of Islamist attacks in Nigeria target Christians, Christian holidays (holy days), and have occurred at churches and Christian schools and universities.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">When President Jonathan visited the scene of the carnage, Reuters said he denounced “the activities of those who are trying to move our country backwards,” mentioning Boko Haram by name. The Nigerian government has not been successful in stopping Boko Haram, nor in assisting those who have been victimized the jihadists. But even their efforts in that direction have been constantly criticized for heavy-handedness and/or unfairness by the US State Department. The State Department favors a more nuanced approach to northern Nigerian Islamists.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For years, in the face of aggressive advocacy by the Working Group on Nigeria, a coalition of Christian and human rights groups based in Washington, DC, along with some members of Congress, and even the Treasury and Justice Departments, the State Department resisted naming Boko Haram as terrorists, seeing them as victims of poverty and disenfranchisement. Then, a scant two hours before the start of a November 13, 2013 </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/joint-subcommittee-hearing-continuing-threat-boko-haram">House Joint-Subcommittee hearing</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on “The Rising Global Threat of Boko Haram &amp; US Policy Intransigence,” their policy suddenly became less intransigent and they </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/11/217509.htm">announced</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the designation of Boko Haram and Ansaru (a Boko Haram splinter faction) as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). </span></p>
<p>But even on the very day on which they called Boko Haram terrorists for the first time, the State Department displayed mixed feelings and moral equivalence regarding the jihadists. <a href="http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20131113/101479/HHRG-113-FA16-Wstate-Thomas-GreenfieldL-20131113.pdf">Testifying</a> at the House hearing, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that “Boko Haram’s activities call our attention not just to violence, but also to poverty and inequality in Nigeria.” It’s true that there is poverty and inequality in Nigeria. But none of it touches Boko Haram. They carried out their latest slaughter in two armored personnel cars and seven double cabin pickups, according to <i>Punch.</i></p>
<p>In addition, the State Department is always loath to attribute religious motivation to Boko Haram (or any other Islamists). In her testimony, Thomas-Greenfield rolled out the typical State Department talking point that Boko Haram “had killed numerous Christians and an even greater number of Muslims.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The death of every human being killed by Boko Haram, whether Muslim or Christian, is a tragedy, but the US government’s downplaying of the deliberate and strategic killing of Nigeria’s Christians is offensive. The Working Group on Nigeria refuted the erroneous statement in a November 20, 2013 letter to Thomas-Greenfield, saying: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Based on 2012 data, Nigeria alone accounted for almost 60 percent of Christians killed globally.  Our statistics also show that overwhelmingly more Christians than Muslims have been targeted and killed by Boko Haram. Last year, our database shows that attacks on Christians represented 46%, Muslims 3%, Government 20%, other categories accounted for the rest.</i></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ironically, a fellow witness at the House hearing was Northern Nigerian Christian Habila Adamu, who was shot through the face by Boko Haram on November 28, 2012. Subcommittee Chairman U.S. Representative Christopher Smith </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20131113/101479/HHRG-113-FA16-20131113-SD001.pdf">declared</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of Adamu, who was the only one of the targeted Christians to not die in the attack, “Miraculously, he survived and joins us today with one of the most inspiring examples of faith any of us will ever hear.” Unfortunately, Thomas-Greenfield did not hear Habila Adamu’s inspiring example of faith as she left the hearing immediately after her own testimony.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If data from the Working Group on Nigeria is not sufficient to expose Boko Haram’s </span><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">only</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> motivation, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau provides ongoing assurances that he kills to promote Islam and rid Nigeria of infidels. In his latest </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.newissuesmagazine.com/full-text-latest-message-boko-haram-leader-abubakar-shekau/">statement</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, published in </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">News Issues Magazine</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on March 24, 2014, Shekau threatened Nigeria’s Civilian Joint Task Force for attempting to protect people:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">I swear by Allah’s holy name that I will slaughter you. I will not be happy if I don’t personally put my knife on your necks and slit your throats. Yes! I’ll slaughter you! I’ll slaughter you! And I’ll slaughter you again and again. </i></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Shekau also threatens that “In Islam, it is allowed to take infidel women as slaves and in due course we will start taking women away and sell in the market.”</span></p>
<p>Whether or not the State Department is willing to admit that the violence of Boko Haram is religiously-based, the victims of Boko Haram are dead all the same. At Monday’s attack, a stockbroker, Abbas Adamu told NAN that he was on his way to the bus station to meet four friends that he was giving a ride north to Kaduna. All four were killed. “As I speak to you now, my friends are all dead,’’ Adamu said.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This declaration, “my friends are all dead,” could be echoed throughout Nigeria. Over five thousand people have been killed by Boko Haram from all walks of life, including members of the U.N. staff and the Nigerian government, babies and pregnant women, toddlers, Boy Scouts, students, mothers and fathers, pastors, and the elderly. There is hardly a northern Nigerian Christian who has not lost a family member, friend, or fellow church member in Boko Haram attacks. Many can state without exaggeration, “my friends are all dead,” or even “my family is all dead.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regardless of how any US official wishes to see Boko Haram, the FTO designation obliges the United States to take effective steps to help end Boko Haram’s murderous jihad.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/slaughter-in-nigeria-where-is-the-state-department/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>55</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>9/11: The End of Illusions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/911-the-atrocities-of-sudan-brought-to-america/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=911-the-atrocities-of-sudan-brought-to-america</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/911-the-atrocities-of-sudan-brought-to-america/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Sep 2013 04:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christianity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203773</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The day the atrocities of Sudan were brought to America.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Sudan-Vigil-2002-650.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203774" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Sudan-Vigil-2002-650-447x350.jpg" width="313" height="245" /></a>Five days before the jihadists we came to call “9/11 terrorists” commandeered American airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, it was the same kind of beautiful, sunny day in Washington, DC that it was on that horrible day. On that sunny September 6, 2001, former U.S. Senator John Danforth became the first-ever U.S. Sudan Special Envoy, with the mandate of trying to bring peace to that war-torn region. For decades, the Islamist government of Sudan had been attempting forcibly to Islamize and Arabize all of Sudan, and waging genocidal jihad against those African Christians, Muslims, and followers of traditional religions from the South, the Nuba Mountains, and elsewhere that resisted. Sudan’s so-called civil war had already resulted in the death of over 2.5 million people, mostly civilians, and the displacement of over 5 million.</span></b></p>
<p>Danforth was sworn in by President George W. Bush in a White House Rose Garden ceremony to which dozens of Diaspora Sudanese and their American activist friends were invited. Excitement was palpable that day. Since taking office, President Bush had made Sudan a priority. He spoke out against what he called one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, acknowledged the complicity of the Sudanese government, attempted to circumvent the orchestrated starvation of their own people by changing USAID’s methods of food distribution, and agreed to appoint a special envoy that would be his personal representative on U.S. Sudan policy.</p>
<p>We were full of hope that the appointment of Jack Danforth could eventually lead to a peace agreement that would bring about an end to the bombing, starvation, slavery, and other methods of jihad being used by the Government of Sudan against its own citizens. There were no illusions that this would be easy or quick in coming. The real work was just beginning, as we tried to see a piece of legislation, the Sudan Peace Act, passed in Congress. But although everyone was united that day in the appointment of the Sudan Special Envoy, the State Department was opposed to the stringent measures in the legislation. They particularly disliked an amendment sponsored by U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) that had already been passed by the House of Representatives, to invoke <a href="http://bachus.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=559&amp;Itemid=116">capital market sanctions </a>against companies doing business with the Government of Sudan.</p>
<p>And so, in the days following the swearing in, as Special Envoy Danforth reviewed his portfolio and familiarized himself with the situation in Sudan, we worked in a <a href="http://www.jewishpost.com/archives/news/stop-genocide-support-the-sudan-peace-act.html">coalition </a>to strengthen <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjir/3.2.10_doane.html%20">U.S. Sudan policy </a>and pass the Sudan Peace Act with the sanctions intact. As Congressman Bachus himself told the late heroic journalist <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/jul/30/20010730-024518-5400r/">A. M. Rosenthal</a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>Expanding U.S. sanctions in the area of capital markets access specifically targets what is the most significant revenue the Sudanese government has to prosecute the war. Obviously, the United States must send a new message and we must make that message stick. Stop the killing, stop the murder and torture, end the terror, or we end the investment. Can’t have it both ways. It is immoral to finance a war machine you know is wrong. America has to walk the walk.</p></blockquote>
<p>In addition to opposing the immoral financing of a regime committing terrorism against its own people, we were convinced that the Sudanese regime was complicit in <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2002/06/14328/">global terrorism and jihad</a>. While some members of Congress also believed this and said so at House hearings, successive Administrations (Clinton, Bush, Obama) continued to prefer the fantasy that the Sudan regime was a “good faith” partner both in cooperating in the War on Terrorism, and in dialoguing with their own victims in South Sudan. Intelligence received from sources on the ground in Sudan pointing to the regime’s connections to terrorists around the world was constantly downplayed or denied. So our Sudan coalition planned to publicly endorse at a press conference the House version of the Sudan Peace Act over the more watered-down Senate version. We were convinced that it was needed to stop genocide in Sudan and to help stop global Islamic terrorism. The event was to be in the Rayburn House Office Building at 9:00 A.M. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.</p>
<p>In a cab, almost at the Rayburn Building, I heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. In those days, before we could conceive of the evil of which the Islamist agenda was capable, even I, familiar as I was with the atrocities taking place in South Sudan and with persecution of Christians in the Islamic world, assumed it was some horrible accident. Up in the Rayburn Building International Relations Committee hearing room, though, things became clear. All the other speakers and Sudan coalition members’ eyes were riveted on the television screen when I got there. News came that a second plane had crashed in New York. We, who so often reported on Russian Antonov cargo planes dropping bombs on starving South Sudanese civilians waiting for their food distribution, and women and children abducted and branded like cattle, had seen this level of monstrousness in Sudan, but never before in our own country.</p>
<p>Not long after that we heard that a plane was headed towards Washington, DC – probably targeting the White House or the U.S. Capitol. We were ushered quickly out of the room by Capitol Hill police. The congressional offices were all being evacuated and closed. No one knew what was happening. We surely couldn’t conceive that two more planes full of our fellow citizens would be used against us as weapons by the terrorists, or that the Americans on one of those planes, forcing a crash in a Shanksville, Pennsylvania field, would precede our valiant military troops in doing battle against Islamic jihad. In the midst of shock, my only continual thought was how clear it all was now – that <i>now </i>they would “get it.” Now they would understand what was really happening in Sudan.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I even knew what I meant by them “getting” it. I had not yet begun to articulate even to myself the problem that I saw with U.S. Sudan policy beyond the fact that it needed to be “strengthened.” It took 9/11 to make it clear that what was taking place in Sudan was being treated as a humanitarian issue by the U.S. government and that the root cause was never addressed. It was the same root cause that we saw in the suffocating smoke, burned flesh, incinerated body parts, collapsed towers, and obscene yawning chasms that indicated that we had crossed a line in history from which we could never return.</p>
<p>I think I hoped that the policymakers would now somehow understand that to deal with Sudan’s genocide as a humanitarian crisis was as absurd as to deal with 9/11 as merely a random criminal action. Even before we learned the magnitude of 9/11, we understood that this was a deliberate attack on us for who we were and what we represented. No less was this then, and still is, true in Sudan where the regime was attempting to eradicate the culture, identity, and very lives of all those who resisted the imposition of a pure Arabist Islamist identity. But U.S. Sudan policy did not reflect that reality.</p>
<p>It still doesn’t. Every success in U.S. Sudan policy &#8212; the passage of the Sudan Peace Act, the North/South peace process, the North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and finally South Sudan’s referendum on secession leading to an independent nation of South Sudan &#8212; has happened in spite of the absurdity of negotiating in good faith with a regime that operates through denials and deception. Failure – to stop the still ongoing genocide in Darfur, to fully implement the CPA, to speak out for Sudan’s other marginalized African ethnic groups like the Beja of Eastern Sudan and the Nubian civilization in the far north, and particularly now to protect the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State once again under active genocidal war – have occurred because the regime has never been held accountable for violating and dishonoring decades of agreements.</p>
<p>That September morning people flooded out of the city and then remained for hours without moving on every street and highway. I spent most of the day lying in the hatchback of a two-seater sports car, as four of us who had been at the press conference attempted to travel back to Virginia. Soon we had news of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. When we heard of the plane, headed for DC that went down in Pennsylvania, we knew that those brave passengers well may have saved our lives.</p>
<p>I will never forget September 11, 2001. It is with me always. Remembrances of more innocent times are marred by the knowledge that they were “before.”  I wish we could go back to a time when we were naïve. I wish we had not been rudely awakened to the kind of world that the people of South Sudan knew as reality, that the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State are experiencing right now. But on 9/11 I understood the irrevocable nature of what had taken place, and even before U.S. troops set off for battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, I knew that nothing would ever be the same.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/911-the-atrocities-of-sudan-brought-to-america/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Copts March on Washington</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/copts-march-on-washington/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=copts-march-on-washington</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/copts-march-on-washington/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Aug 2013 04:37:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[copts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egyptians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=202141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Egyptian Americans protest Obama's and the media's support for the Brotherhood.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marching-from-White-House-to-Washington-Post.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-202142 alignleft" alt="marching from White House to Washington Post" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marching-from-White-House-to-Washington-Post-450x322.jpg" width="315" height="225" /></a>Hundreds of Egyptian Americans and their various supporters had barely turned the corner of Fifteenth Street, NW onto K Street in downtown Washington, DC last Thursday, August 22, before <i>Washington Post </i>writers <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/22/washington-post-lobby-locked-down-during-egyptian-anti-morsi-protest/">published an account</a> of the demonstration that had just taken place outside their doors. As <i>Post </i>staff began to recover from the trauma of their lockdown, looking through the windows and doors at signs uncomplimentary to both themselves and their beloved President, and of hearing themselves be described in chants as “supporting terrorists,” the protest moved uptown, with the end goal of the office of the military attaché at the Egyptian Embassy.</span></b></p>
<p>In their account, posted at 3:38 p.m., <i>Post </i>writers Max Fisher and Peter Hermann revealed that the newspaper building’s main lobby had been “shut down and no one was allowed in or out” during the protest. Why, one would have thought that the Muslim Brotherhood was marching on Washington! Oh wait, if that had been the case, <i>The</i> <i>Washington Post</i> would have invited them in for a cup of tea after their meeting with President Obama. At least the writers admitted that the protestors were peaceful as they chanted and waved signs.</p>
<p>The demonstration was organized by the national <a href="http://copticsolidarity.org/">Coptic Solidarity</a> organization to protest what they see as the Obama Administration’s and Republicans like Senators McCain and Graham’s <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/msm-blackout-egyptians-enraged-by-u-s-brotherhood-outreach/">blatant bias</a> towards the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Demonstrators also came to be a witness to the world, and particularly to Americans, of the <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/08/14/more-bad-news-from-egypt-muslim-brothers-and-other-islamists-wage-fresh-attacks-on-churches/">persecution of Egyptian Christians</a>. And they wanted to set the record straight about this persecution – the burnings of churches, convents, schools, Christians’ homes and shops, and the killing of Christians by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists in Egypt. These are <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356195/egypts-christians-are-facing-jihad-nina-shea">deliberate acts of jihad</a> by Islamist supremacists, not random acts of violence by a disgruntled political party.</p>
<p>Christian and Muslim Egyptian Americans arrived at Lafayette Park, the prime protest location in front of The White House, close to noon, in over thirty buses. As each bus let out its passengers – men, women, and children – some that had left at the crack of dawn from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, and North Carolina, they quickly outnumbered any other protest taking place in the coveted arena, including a dozen or so anti-fracking demonstrators.</p>
<p>Such buses will soon be able to set their automatic pilot for Washington, DC. In April, before the “People’s Coup” of July, when millions of Egyptians brought about the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, the buses had rolled into town and a demonstration had begun in that very same spot and ended at the U.S. Capitol. They also came to Washington in October 2011, after the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/coptic-christians-rally-for-human-rights/">horrific massacre at Maspero</a>. Coptic Solidarity promises that there will be more demonstrations.</p>
<p>This time, the feeling of the protestors and the message of their signs was even more urgent. Like their fellow Copts in Egypt, and like all Egyptians <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/hoping-against-hope-for-equality-in-egypt/">who supported the People’s Coup</a>, the Egyptian Americans now look to the Egyptian Army and General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi as the defenders of Egypt. They are outraged that the U.S. government continues to defend the Muslim Brotherhood and to insist that all of the Islamists should be included in the “democratic process” when these groups are perpetrating such evil in Egypt.</p>
<p>In addition to burning over 82 churches and other Christian institutions and schools, the Morsi-supporters have also burned Christian homes and businesses and killed many individual Christians, including a <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/muslim-brotherhood-accused-of-killing-10-year-old-christian-girl">ten-year-old girl</a> leaving Bible study, and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/06/egypt-coptic-priest-killed-sinai">shooting of a Coptic priest</a> and the <a href="http://facingislam.blogspot.com/2013/07/christian-man-kidnapped-and-beheaded-in.html">beheading of another Christian</a> in Sinai. The Brotherhood has also tortured and killed members of the police and armed forces. Egyptians are shocked that the U.S. would now consider stopping aid to Egypt, at a time when they finally have an opportunity to achieve true democracy and religious freedom, and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/rep-louie-gohmerts-challenge-to-america/">rout out these terrorists</a>.</p>
<p>After a demonstration that included chanting slogans condemning President Obama’s foreign policy, particularly his support for the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood and his lack of support for General Sissi, the group moved on to <i>The Washington Post. </i>Egyptians are frustrated with the mainstream media in the West. The media, they believe, is simply parroting the talking points of the State Department and The White House. All of this was reflected in their signs, and was confirmed by <i>The Washington Post </i>itself in their breathless post-lockdown story.</p>
<p>Referring to signs such as “Respect the voices of 30 million Egyptians” and “When 33 million protest, it is not a coup!” denying that the takeover from Morsi was a coup, the <i>Post </i>writers downplayed these numbers. “While the number was surely lower than this, gatherings on June 30 and after are thought to have numbered in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps beyond,” they said.</p>
<p>The reporters quoted Salwa El-Gebaly of Gaithersburg, Maryland, who declared that “Egypt is doing the entire world a favor by getting rid of the extremists.” She had “argued” that “in time, the world would learn that the hundreds of deaths attributed to the recent government crackdown of pro-Morsi sit-ins were in fact caused by <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3890/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-kills-own">Muslim Brotherhood ‘executions</a>,’” they continued, and said that “she, like others, expressed unhappiness for the violence in Egypt but said that the Brotherhood, and not Sissi or the military, was to blame.”</p>
<p>The journalists at the <i>Post </i>seemed shocked, shocked that the demonstrators “accused President Obama of directly funding the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization from which Morsi hails.” They noted that the Muslim Brotherhood “has seen hundreds of supporters killed or arrested in state security crackdowns this month.”</p>
<p>“Many of the signs at today’s protest argued that the Brotherhood is a part of al-Qaeda and that Obama’s support for the Brotherhood is equivalent to funding terrorism,” the <i>Post </i>writers mused, as if this was the first time it had ever occurred to them. “Although the U.S. has been at pains to maintain neutrality in Egypt’s deepening social and political divisions, it has been accused by both sides of secretly supporting the other,” their piece confessed. Actually, it seems more as if <i>The Washington Post</i> and other media have been at pains to maintain <i>the impression</i> that the U.S. has been at pains to maintain neutrality in Egypt’s divisions, when the truth is obvious to 33 million Egyptians.</p>
<p>The <i>Post </i>article closed by describing how one protestor carrying a poster of General Sissi sought to make eye contact with all of journalists watching from inside the building. “Whenever someone would acknowledge him, he’d smile, hold the poster next to his face and give a big thumbs-up for Sissi,” says the <i>Post.</i> In this closing incident, as throughout the article, the <i>Post </i>writers focused on the political aspect of the protest and not the other key reason why the demonstrators had come. The article omitted reference to the many, many photos of burned churches and of the faces of those killed – now joining Egypt’s long list of martyrs.</p>
<p>The <i>Post </i>did not even mention the striking model of a church – blackened with smoke and stained red – representing the dozens of churches burned, and the blood of Egyptian Christians killed, by the Muslim Brotherhood and by various other Islamists over recent years and over the centuries. The model church was carried lovingly in front of the lock-down crowd by two young men. It was on a platform with poles that rested on the young men’s shoulders in a way that called to mind the manner in which the priests of Israel are described in the Bible as carrying the Ark of the Covenant.</p>
<p>In what could possibly be construed as Divine coincidence or even Divine reassurance, a small lad carrying his own sign stood close to the church-bearers. His poster was a photograph of boys about his own age praying inside the scorched wreckage of an Egyptian church. The sign declared, “You can burn down our churches, but you can never touch our faith.” This is the true witness of the Copts’ march on Washington.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/copts-march-on-washington/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Sudan &amp; Obama&#8217;s Legacy of Death</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudan-obamas-legacy-of-death/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sudan-obamas-legacy-of-death</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudan-obamas-legacy-of-death/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Aug 2013 04:12:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Darfur]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200131</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An American president turns his back on genocide.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Darfuri-Children.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-200132" alt="Darfuri-Children" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Darfuri-Children.jpg" width="251" height="191" /></a>Mohamed Suleiman, an America citizen since 1992, is a Zaghawa from the village of Um barrow in the North Darfur region of Sudan. Um barrow, <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09-27-darfur-cover_x.htm">like so many other places in Darfur</a>, was burned down and destroyed by the Sudanese government-backed Janjaweed, an Arab-Islamist militia. A refugee camp near Um barrow became the home to as many as 13,000 people displaced by the Janjaweed and the Sudan Armed Forces. This is just one of many <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/100413/inside-darfur-refugee-camp">refugee camps</a>, housing millions of displaced Darfurians. Many members of Suleiman’s family have been killed in the Darfur genocide, and his mother and siblings still live in Darfur.</span></b></p>
<p>Recently, Suleiman sent an <a href="http://actforsudan.org/act/mohamed-suleimans-letter-president-obama/">open letter</a> to President Barack Obama. The letter launched an August campaign by <a href="http://actforsudan.org/">Act for Sudan</a>, a coalition of individuals and organizations from across the political spectrum working to stop the genocide and mass atrocities against Sudan’s marginalized and persecuted populations by the government of ICC-indicted war criminal, Omar al Bashir. Conservatives and counter-jihadists, as we know, continually condemn and warn of Obama’s penchant for supporting Islamists and not true freedom-loving resistance movements. But some members of Act for Sudan have willingly put aside their own political preferences in this public call out to President Obama for letting down the Sudanese people, demonstrating that they care more about stopping genocide than they care about their political preferences.</p>
<p>The Act for Sudan <a href="http://actforsudan.org/act/obamas-stained-legacy/">Obama’s Stained Legacy campaign</a> reminds President Obama of the promises he made about Sudan, quoting his own words back at him. “While campaigning for the presidency,” says Act for Sudan, “Mr. Obama said that genocide is ‘a stain on our souls’ and promised that ‘as a president of the United States I don’t intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.’” Act for Sudan expresses disappointment with Obama’s failure to follow through on those promises, his <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-grim-anniversary-in-sudan/">failure to act on ongoing multiple genocides</a> perpetrated by Sudan’s jihadists against the black, African Sudanese in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile regions. Today, “more than four years into his presidency, President Obama continues to oversee a disastrous approach to the ongoing genocide in Sudan,” says Act for Sudan. “This approach has failed to prevent the tragic loss of countless lives and the mass displacement and starvation of countless more innocent people. Unless President Obama ACTS NOW to protect innocent civilians from their genocidal government, he will ultimately be remembered for his stained legacy on genocide,” Act for Sudan warns.</p>
<p>Suleiman’s letter will lead the way in the campaign for a series of letters from Sudanese representing the regions of Sudan that are – and have been for many years – under attack by the Islamist regime in Khartoum. The attacks are part of a repeatedly-declared genocidal jihad that first targeted<a href="https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/?ui=2&amp;ik=a929d6cd39&amp;view=att&amp;th=1406415b2b26b0ce&amp;attid=0.3&amp;disp=vah&amp;zw&amp;saduie=AG9B_P9TijVFtqY0LhzHew5Cqtih&amp;sadet=1376250587954&amp;sads=2hUG-BOfO_ziGj3P126lVPFC9YM#0.3_footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains/Blue Nile regions, resulting in the death of some 2.5 million people. The purpose of the jihad is, and always has been, to establish an Arab Islamic hegemony by eradicating both the Sudanese Christians and the indigenous black, African Muslims.</p>
<p>In his letter to Obama, Suleiman writes of the great anticipation that Obama’s words once created in the suffering, beleaguered Darfuri:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>When you were a senator and a candidate for president, you spoke often and strongly about America’s responsibility to end genocide in Darfur. Upon your first election in 2008, as the president of the United States of America, many Darfuris named their newly born boys after you – Obama. Darfur people, in their tradition, name their children after the dearest people in their lives or a person that made a significant change in their lives for the better. They were very optimistic that you were the one who would stop the first genocide in the new millennium, the genocide in Darfur.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Then Suleiman describes the current feeling of abandonment and betrayal of the Darfurians:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Today, in the summer of 2013, millions of Darfuris live, or are more accurately simply existing, in wartime conditions you really cannot imagine. They feel abandoned by you and America. One expressed the desperation of the men, women and children there saying, “We have no choice other than to fight to the death.”</i></p>
<p><i>Now, in the second term and fifth year of your presidency, the elders, grandparents, and mothers, in the nights of Darfur, pass on the horrible stories of the genocide to the younger generations. They pass on the fact that the world chose to accept and tolerate those who have committed the crime of genocide. They tell how an American president who pledged to end the Darfur genocide instead stood by when President al-Bashir effectively ended humanitarian aid in Darfur, when civilians were killed by government forces and militias, and when the government re-initiated ethnic cleansing in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. They cannot understand that you, a two-term president, may leave office with a legacy of failing to stop the Darfur genocide and failing to bring any of the responsible criminals to justice.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Obama’s failure to make good on the promises he made while campaigning for the presidency – and was <a href="http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/obama-and-darfur-the-futility-of-mere-hopefulness">condemning President George W. Bush</a> for “reckless and cynical” negotiating with Khartoum – has deeply disappointed his supporters who also care about Sudan. The President’s lack of action on Sudan became more and more unfathomable to many as the “Arab Spring” took place. Sudan activists observed the Obama Administration taking action, when it came to Egypt and Libya, and not taking action as a literal slaughter took place in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State. Not only not taking action, but censuring the civilians’ only defenders – the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/North.</p>
<p>While the Obama Administration ensured the downfall of Mubarak and Gadhafi, Sudanese in America warned that the United States was helping to replace “tyrants with terrorists” to &#8220;make those countries more like Sudan.” Although some American Sudan activists focus only on the egregious human rights violations perpetrated by Khartoum, the Sudanese connects the dots. Sudan’s Islamist regime, <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/68487/Egypt/Politics-/Sudan-road-link-to-open-soon,-Egypts-Morsi-says.aspx">Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood</a>, and the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/25/us-sudan-libya-weapons-idUSTRE7AO1R020111125">Libyan jihadists</a> are one in the same.</p>
<p>The Obama Administration seems to believe that, at least for its staunch supporters, impassioned speeches about Sudan and the creation of South Sudan (for which all the groundwork was laid during the Bush Administration) is enough to ensure a shining legacy for President Obama. But, writes Suleiman:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>If you do not adopt and promptly implement, together with U.S. allies, a revised comprehensive and coordinated policy toward Sudan, your legacy will forever be tied to failing to stop the genocide in Darfur.</i></p>
<p><i>Twenty years from the day you leave office, any time new mass graves are uncovered in a remote village in Darfur, your legacy will turn, in the books of history, into a legacy of death.</i></p>
<p><i>Fifty years from now, it will be incomprehensible to those who will learn the history of genocides that you sat as an American president for two terms, and allowed al-Bashir, the mastermind and executioner of the Darfur genocide, the first sitting head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, to continue to commit these terrible crimes. History will remember that you failed to stop the killing, displacement, rapes and other destructive consequences called genocide by the U.S. Congress and by you.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>For many people, Obama’s legacy is already a legacy of death – whether from economic policies that are dividing and bankrupting the nation; violations of conscience and religious freedom; ever-increasing restrictions on free speech; continuing erosion of the military; foreign policies that have resulted in Benghazi and Morsi, and opened the hell-gates a little wider en route to the establishment of a global caliphate; or the actual intention behind all of those policies – the fundamental transformation of America. To those people, if they consider it at all, Obama’s failure to keep his promises on Sudan is part of the same pattern. To those who believed in Obama, it may be a game-changer. But to many of the people of Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile State, it is a death sentence.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudan-obamas-legacy-of-death/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Boko Haram: Terrorists With or Without Designation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/boko-haram-terrorists-with-or-without-designation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=boko-haram-terrorists-with-or-without-designation</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/boko-haram-terrorists-with-or-without-designation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Jul 2013 04:51:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boko Haram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=198826</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why does the Obama administration refuse to call the jihadist group what it is? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Boko-Hram1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-198827" alt="Boko-Hram1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Boko-Hram1-439x350.jpg" width="263" height="210" /></a>Numerous petitions and efforts in Congress <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/christians-targeted-and-killed-by-nigeria-islamists/">have not succeeded</a> in pressuring the U.S. State Department to designate the northern Nigerian jihadists Boko Haram as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO). But on Thursday, July 25, a Washington, DC-based Northern Nigeria Task Force comprised of numerous Christian, human rights, global security, and Nigerian-American organizations<a href="https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/?ui=2&amp;ik=a929d6cd39&amp;view=att&amp;th=1402f82901c57f60&amp;attid=0.1&amp;disp=vah&amp;zw&amp;saduie=AG9B_P9TijVFtqY0LhzHew5Cqtih&amp;sadet=1375202423725&amp;sads=U7Ivuq_9oZh16dPvkMbmGo2Nnp8#0.1_endnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> released an open letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging once again the FTO designation for Boko Haram. The letter was accompanied by a 44-page brief, compiled by <a href="http://www.jubileecampaign.org/">Jubilee Campaign</a> and its Nigeria project, <a href="http://jubileecampaign.org/projects/justice-for-jos-project/">Just for Jos+</a>, detailing the origins and history of the terrorist group along with a list of atrocities committed. The brief provides ample documentation for Kerry to create the necessary administrative record to determine that Boko Haram is well within the statutory criteria for designation as a foreign terrorist organization, if he should wish to do so.</span></b></p>
<p>The release of the letter followed a <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/4105/nigeria-christians-plead-for-help-against">Capitol Hill briefing and press conference</a> with the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. CAN represents some 80 million Christians, but northern Nigeria’s Christian population has suffered severe blows from Boko Haram and other Nigerian jihadists. Pastor Oritsejafor gave a name and a story to the massive suffering of the Christians of northern Nigeria. He spoke about receiving text messages “every week” about a church being burned or a pastor killed or church members targeted in the streets. With pain in his voice, Oritsejafor told how the Secretary of CAN for Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/05/suspected-boko-haram-gunmen-kill-christian-leader-in-borno-state-nigeria/">Rev. Faye Pama Musa</a>, was dragged out of his house and shot to death in front of his daughter who had been pleading for his life.</p>
<p>Stories of these human lives snuffed out, of men and women of God martyred for their faith, of tiny children-casualties of jihad have not seemed to move the State Department to action against these terrorists. The fact that the U.S. Congress, and even the Department of Justice, has urged FTO designation has not changed the foreign policy of Foggy Bottom. The Nigerian government officially identified Boko Haram as a terrorist organization on June 4, 2013, and on July 8, the British government <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/british-government-bans-nigerian-group-boko-haram">began the process</a> of adding Boko Haram to its list of foreign and domestic terrorist organizations. But although the Obama Administration has offered a bounty for Boko Haram leader Abubaker Shekau, they have not followed suit, so in the July 25 letter to Secretary, the Northern Nigeria Task Force reminded Secretary Kerry that the “Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (&#8216;AEDPA&#8217;), 8 U.S.C. §1189 (amended 2004)” empowers him to designate any entity as a foreign terrorist organization if it meets the necessary criteria of “engaging in terrorist activity” and that such terrorist activity “threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States.”</p>
<p>The task force’s letter states that Boko Haram’s “200+ body count in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/world/africa/in-northern-nigeria-boko-haram-stirs-fear-and-sympathy.html?pagewanted=all.">January 20, 2012 massacre</a> topped the charts as the highest single death toll in any conflict worldwide exceeding Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan and was tied only with Syria.” And according to <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/start/">The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism’s </a>(START) 2012 report, “Boko Haram was the second most deadly terrorist group for the year 2012 ranking only behind the Taliban – and ahead of Al Qaeda.” While reading the task force’s letter, before he even needs to open the attached brief, Kerry would discover that since 2011, Boko Haram has killed nationals of 15 countries: Kenya, Norway, Nigeria, Italy, Germany, China, Cameroun, the United Kingdom, Mali, France, India, Ghana, South Korea, Lebanon, and Syria.</p>
<p>The brief to Secretary Kerry includes a quotation from Boko Haram leader Abubaker Shekau on the group’s desire to spread Sharia beyond the borders of Nigeria that counters <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/bounty-and-blindness/">the State Department’s premise</a> that it is poverty and marginalization that motivate Boko Haram. A direct transcription from a video of Shekau preaching declares:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>For this fact, where ever you are, you should know that it is not an ethnic war, it is not an ignorant war, it is not a war for money, it is not a war for any other reason. No, it is a religious war! This war is not meant to end in either a day, a week, or a year, but the end of this war is when we are all dead, the whole of us, and none of us is left to continue the war or it is the religion that will dictate what is to be done and this may decipher the end of the war…This is a war against Muslims and infidels. Yes! And we are ever ready to face any one that will take any step against us, be it individuals, group of persons or government or whoever may be, because we know those we aim at in this war. Therefore, we are warning every Muslim that adherents of Islam under no grounds should help any infidel in this war. If, by any chance, any Muslim helps any infidel in this war he should know that he is a dead person, yes!</i></p></blockquote>
<p>The brief states that Boko Haram “fully developed into an international terrorist threat on August 26, 2011, when it targeted its first international victims and sent a suicide bomber to drive a vehicle through two security barriers into the United Nations headquarters in Abuja killing 23 people and wounding over 115.” <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2011/09/13/un-releases-names-of-abuja-bomb-attack-casualties.html.">UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO, UNODC and UNDP all lost staff members in the bombing</a>, which occurred just after Boko Haram members returned from training at terrorist camps in Somalia.</p>
<p>The list of atrocities committed by Boko Haram goes on and on, but the task force brief also makes a point of documenting the jihadists’ international connections with other terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, AQIM, and Al-Shabaab. It also has received weapons from international terrorists. In May 2013, the brief reveals, “soldiers in Kano discovered a <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Nigeria-military-discovers-arms-cache-in-north-4563197.php#ixzz2VYbFlbMC.">hidden arms cache</a> that authorities stated belonged to three Lebanese men.” It continued, “Nigerian military spokesman Captain Ikedichi Iweha said ‘All those arrested have confessed to have undergone Hezbollah terrorist training.” The weapons, which had been packed into small coolers and concealed under several layers of concrete, included eleven anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank landmines, twenty one rocket-propelled grenades, more than 11,000 bullets and an amount of dynamite. The Nigerian Army indicated that <a href="http://www.bicom.org.uk/news-article/14796/">attacks had been planned on American and Israeli targets in Nigeria</a> by Boko Haram’s Hezbollah associates. Similar caches have come in from <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nigerian-islamist-militants-return-from-mali-with-weapons-skills/2013/05/31/d377579e-c628-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html.">Libya and from northern Mali</a>.</p>
<p>Time will tell if the Northern Nigeria Task Force’s letter and brief will have any effect upon changing the State Department’s policy on Boko Haram. State’s reluctance to designate as terrorists a group that has <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/nigerian-jihad/">declared</a> it will eradicate the Christian population in the north of Nigeria, along with State’s <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/state-department-ignores-christian-slaughter/">demand</a> that the Nigerian government share power with the same “marginalized” northern Nigerian Islamists that have declared that they will eventually impose Sharia law on the entire nation (and beyond), is part of the same crazy quilt of U.S. foreign policy seen across the Middle East and Africa (and beyond) in which the only motif appears to be deference to Islam. Considering Boko Haram leader Shekau’s threat in 2010 <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/11/boko_haram_emir_prai.php">in praise of Al Qaeda</a>: “Do not think jihad is over. Rather jihad has just begun. O America, die with your fury,” it would not seem as if Boko Haram is impressed with U.S. deference.</p>
<p><sup>1</sup> Organizations that signed the July 25, 2013 letter to Secretary of State Kerry: ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM, ADVOCATES INTERNATIONAL, ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICS IN AFRICA, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE, CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN-AMERICANS, THE FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, THE IGBO LEAGUE, THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY, JUBILEE CAMPAIGN, JUSTICE FOR JOS PLUS, &amp; WESTMINSTER INSTITUTE</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/boko-haram-terrorists-with-or-without-designation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Rep. Louie Gohmert&#8217;s Challenge to America</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/rep-louie-gohmerts-challenge-to-america/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rep-louie-gohmerts-challenge-to-america</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/rep-louie-gohmerts-challenge-to-america/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jul 2013 04:09:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[caliphate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[louie gohmert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Revolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speech]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=197773</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why we must defend global freedom and fight Islamic tyranny. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Gohmert-with-CNN-Poster.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-197774 alignleft" alt="Gohmert with CNN Poster" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Gohmert-with-CNN-Poster-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>It is not often one hears a member of the U.S. House of Representatives refer to the building of a global Caliphate in the Middle East &#8212; something which both Christians and non-Islamist Muslims in that part of the world take very seriously. The idea of a coming global Caliphate is hardly even on the radar for most members of Congress. But in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3mII4vYI0">his House floor speech</a> broadcast on C-SPAN last Friday, July 19, 2013, U.S. Representative <a href="http://gohmert.house.gov/">Louis Gohmert (TX-01)</a> did just that.</span></b></p>
<p>Speaking for almost an hour, Gohmert warned that we were witnessing &#8220;the rise of a new Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, which, unfortunately, the Obama Administration has helped jumpstart.&#8221; He also declared that the rising of the people of Egypt against a radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood government has caused the “grand scheme of building a great Caliphate” to run into a “huge problem.” The Texas Republican called for the United States government to once again be seen as supporting and defending those seeking true freedom and democracy.</p>
<p>Congressman Gohmert contrasted the so-called Arab Spring with the current &#8220;major, incredible, earthshaking revolution going on in Egypt.&#8221;  He assessed frankly the Obama Administration’s promotion of the Arab “Spring” and contrasted this with how the United States government and most of the mainstream media now appear to be at odds with those resisting the domination of radical Islam. In addition, Gohmert, who is Vice Chair of the House Judiciary subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, connected the dots between the Obama Administration&#8217;s foreign policy, United States national security, and the increasing persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities in Islam-dominated parts of the world.</p>
<p>According to foreign policy and terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares, one House observer called Gohmert’s speech &#8220;the most powerful speech in the defense of reformers, democracy seekers, seculars, Christian Copts, and Muslim moderates in Egypt in the history of the US Congress, to date.&#8221;  But the congressman’s speech was even more than that. It was a defense of reformers in Egypt and beyond, and it was an education in foreign policy for those who have ears to hear.</p>
<p>Speaking of Libya, Gohmert said that it seemed clear that Ghadafi had stopped supporting terrorism after the U.S. took out Saddam Hussein in 2003. Libya, Algeria, and Mali were actually focused on combating Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorism in the Sahel region. Gohmert recollected how they were told that the U.S. has “no national security interest in Libya” by then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, but that President Obama decided, with the support of 57 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) states, as well as NATO states that get oil from Libya, to use U.S. assets to take out Ghadafi.</p>
<p>“Consistency is very important in foreign policy, and yet we don’t seem to be very consistent in using our military powers to oust Ghadafi after he had had a &#8216;conversion experience&#8217; and was doing what he could to help us fight terrorism,” said Gohmert. This was especially troubling after there was intelligence that Al Qaeda was backing rebels. “We knew that there were radical Islamists trying to drive Ghadafi out,” Gohmert continued, “and this administration did not pause long enough to get an answer to the question: ‘If we drive Ghadafi out, would we be more safe in America or less safe?’” <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfMrxMHnSZ8&amp;list=TLYdXN-ZflVVU">Benghazi appears to have answered that question</a>.</p>
<p>Gohmert warned of similar inconsistency in actions being contemplated in Syria. The congressman revealed that “it looked like initially these were <i>not</i> al Qaeda backed rebels in Syria, and if we had acted quickly enough, and had someone who did not vote ‘present,’ we could have helped rebels who were not al Qaeda rebels.” But the situation has degenerated, Gohmert lamented. “You have a tyrant leader on one hand, and you have radical Islamists – most of whom would like to destroy the United States as well – challenging him,” he declared. “Where in the world is the interest in spilling American blood or treasure in getting into Syria?” he demanded.</p>
<p>Returning to Egypt, Gohmert described President Morsi’s overreaches of power, the brutality towards the Copts and other Christians, and the drafting of an Islamic constitution in November 2012 that was boycotted by the Christians and liberal secularists alike. These led to the pro-democracy and freedom group <i>Tamarud’s </i>petition for Morsi to step down and for new elections to be held. Ensuring that Egyptian revolution statistics will be enshrined in the congressional record, Gohmert told how that petition garnered over 22 million signatures and noted the 33 million protesters at one demonstration. He exclaimed, “There has never been a demonstration of as many as 20 million people! But the people of Egypt rose up. They recognized that radical Islamists in charge of their country were not a good thing, even if the leaders of our country in the Executive Branch could not see the obvious.”</p>
<p>Gohmert also described the Egyptian people’s anger that their revolution was being described as a &#8220;military coup&#8221; and that &#8220;they were furious at how CNN seemed to take the side of the Muslim Brotherhood over and over.&#8221; Gohmert wanted the American people to know what really is happening in Egypt and its significance and so returned to the looming danger of a global Caliphate and how the “major, incredible, earthshaking revolution,” of moderate Muslims, Coptic Christians, and liberal secularists who oppose radical Islam “rose up in greater numbers than has ever arisen anywhere in the world in the whole history of mankind.”<i> </i>And in contrast to anything that U.S. foreign policy was doing, because of “these incredible, freedom-desiring Egyptians,” said Gohmert, “this grand scheme of building a great Caliphate, a new Ottoman Empire, ran into a huge problem.” The American people need to recognize, and be encouraged, not by the Arab winter that was originally called an Arab “Spring,” but by “the true Spring that is now happening in Egypt as moderate Muslims and Coptic Christians and caring secularists have arisen together and said &#8216;No!&#8217; to radical Islam,” he said.</p>
<p>Gohmert displayed photographs showing the millions and millions of people who demonstrated for freedom. There were also examples of posters denouncing Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, radical Islam, and, thanks to U.S. foreign policy, posters condemning not just CNN, but President Obama and U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, as Muslim Brotherhood supporters and labeling Patterson the &#8220;New Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.&#8221; Gohmert said that he did not support the signs nor think that they were correct, but that it was important to know what the people of Egypt&#8217;s perceptions are about the United States government, based upon our actions. “Of course, the United States government does not support terrorism,&#8221; he remonstrated, but “this nation, this Administration, has supported terrorists in Libya, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2S1mJAxMzA&amp;list=TLWppGvHohx5A">in Egypt</a>, and is now trying to get support for terrorists in Syria,” so it is understandable that Egyptians would accuse us of supporting terrorism.</p>
<p>Issuing a call for the United States to return to a position of strength, Gohmert voiced concerns about the weakening of American national security, caused by the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists throughout the United States government. Using <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZNciYuclDU&amp;list=TLy0GL3JZAvGY">the Boston bombing</a> as an example, Gohmert talked about how we were “given information that was not properly utilized because of the handcuffing that has gone on” within the FBI, the intelligence community, and the State Department, in the purging of training material. He quoted one intelligence officer who said that this action kept us “from seeing who our enemy is.”</p>
<p>Gohmert also explained that a strong United States, supporting reformers that we can trust and hold accountable would be a help to Christians around the world who are facing increasing persecution, torture, and death. “This great nation, that arose based on Judeo-Christian ethics,” stood “idly by,” while there was still a vast American presence, said Gohmert, as the last Christian church in Afghanistan closed and as the last publicly-declared Jew left the country. Gohmert invoked the memory of John Quincy Adams arguing for the freedom of the Africans of the Amistad in the old Supreme Court chamber below them, and also invoked the “Judge of all judges” to hold America accountable &#8220;to stand with free nations and be friends of free nations.&#8221;</p>
<p>“Some of us have a fear that if we do not do more to support truth and justice and the American ideals that this country was founded on, there <i>will</i> come a day of judgment,” Gohmert confessed in his closing remarks. On national security and the U.S. government’s obligation to support the Constitution and protect it from all enemies, foreign and domestic, Gohmert spoke of how before Morsi’s arrest, a Muslim Brotherhood official in Egypt had boasted that there are “six Muslim Brotherhood members that are high level confidantes” in important advisory positions in this administration. He explained that the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States did not need to use violence because they were so effective at infiltrating the government.</p>
<p>Gohmert blasted the acquiescence to the Islamism in America that is threatening our national sovereignty. “The truth is that anyone . . . that wants to subvert our Constitution to Shariah Law is an enemy of the United States,” he declared. These are the people “from whom we took an oath to protect our Constitution and this country,” he continued. Gohmert contrasted the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists with the people of Egypt who, he said, had arisen and made clear that they did not want radical Islamists running their country, nor to see Christians persecuted. “Those are the kind of people this nation should befriend,” Gohmert declared, “and not try to rush in and shore up those who would persecute, torture, and kill Christians, and Jews, and secularists who just want to be free.”</p>
<p>Congressman Gohmert’s message was not new information to many, but what was new, and quite earthshaking in its own way, was the fact that this speech was given by a U.S. representative on the floor of the House and before the C-SPAN cameras. The congressman’s words have been a great encouragement to the Egyptian people. Walid Phares reported that Gohmert’s speech has been widely viewed in Egypt. Phares also said that because of the speech, “a number of members of the European Parliament will be making stronger comments about Egypt and asking their governments to side with civil society and shift away from the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood).” Just as the Egyptian people launched a freedom revolution, one House observer declared that “Gohmert has launched a moral revolution in U.S. foreign policy.” But he needs all the help he can get from Americans who understand the truth of what he says because getting his colleagues in Congress to rise up and support that revolution may prove more difficult than mobilizing 33 million Egyptians to fight for freedom.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/rep-louie-gohmerts-challenge-to-america/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>21</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Hoping Against Hope for Equality in Egypt</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/hoping-against-hope-for-equality-in-egypt/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hoping-against-hope-for-equality-in-egypt</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/hoping-against-hope-for-equality-in-egypt/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Jul 2013 04:30:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Revolution]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=196735</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Christians help win the battle of the People’s Revolution -- but the struggle is far from over.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/myu.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-196737" alt="myu" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/myu.jpg" width="315" height="225" /></a>&#8220;At last, Egypt is now free from the oppressive rule of the Muslim Brotherhood!&#8221; This exclamation came from the Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, the Bishop of the Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa. Bishop Anis, who is also the current President-Bishop of The Episcopal/Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, expressed his joy, the joy of millions of Egyptians, upon the overthrow and arrest of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi in a <a href="http://www.friendsanglicandioceseegypt.org/PDF/Mabruk%20ya%20Misr.pdf">statement</a> from the Diocese on July 3, 2013 entitled <i>Mabruk ya Misr </i>(Congratulations, Egypt!).</p>
<p>Sharing his statement with the entire Anglican Communion (and probably hoping that Anglicans will then influence wrong-headed political leaders), Anis recounts how &#8220;The Armed Forces took the side of the millions of Egyptians who demonstrated in the streets since the 30th of June against President Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood.” As so many others have said, Anis says that the Armed Forces “responded to the invitation of the people to intervene and force the President to step down <i>at the request of the people of Egypt</i>.” Anis and the 30 million Egyptians who marched against the Muslim Brotherhood <a href="http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=80665&amp;pageid=16&amp;pagename=Opinion">see the result as a People&#8217;s Revolution</a>, created by the people of Egypt – including some eight million Christians. Now, if only the Muslims who participated in the revolution against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood would acknowledge the rights of the Christians and other religious minorities and include them in the new plans for a new Egyptian government.</p>
<p>Just days before, on June 27, Anis had sent out an <a href="http://www.friendsanglicandioceseegypt.org/PDF/Statement%20from%20Bishop%20Mouneer%20Anis%20(27%20June%202013).pdf">urgent request for prayer</a>, entitled “Egypt is on the edge of. . . ?” He said that “Egypt is at the verge of violent demonstrations, another revolution, or civil war.” Then he went on to describe how the situation for Christians had deteriorated under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and that “Egyptians became divided between Islamists and non-Islamists.” Anis felt that this division was due to two things in particular. First, there was the Sharia-compliant constitution, which was “written and approved in haste.” The second reason for the division between Islamists and non-Islamists was the marginalization of moderate Muslims, Christians, and other from “participation in the political life” of the country. Also troubling was the appointment of Islamists “as ministers in the Cabinet and other prominent posts.”</p>
<p><a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/06/24/bishop-mouneer-anis-on-the-crisis-facing-egyptian-christians/">Interviewed in April</a> by The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Jeff Walton, Anis had described the majority of Egypt’s Muslims as “ordinary, normal people without an agenda except to live peacefully.” But the remaining Egyptian Muslims are the Islamists “who primarily seek political power.” Within the Islamists, he explained, are the Salafis who “are more militant than the broader Islamist group, reject the use of modern things, and want to return to the ways of the ‘fathers.’” And within the Salafis are the Jihadists, “militant Muslims who count terrorists among their numbers and have an agenda to create an Islamic nation – the Caliphate.”</p>
<p>Anis told Walton that in spite of the fact that following the Arab “Spring” elections, the Egyptian parliament has been dominated by Salafis, and other Islamists were holding 70% of the seats, it is the more general Islamists who pose the greatest threat to Christians. “The Islamists have a much wider base of support within the population,” he explained, and they do not possess the same “anti-modernist teachings (such as opposition to women in the workplace) that make the vocal and self-defeating Salafis out of tune with Egyptian voters.”</p>
<p>In his June 27 call for prayer, Anis revealed the threats by those same Islamists towards those who were showing signs of rebellion against the Muslim Brotherhood government. He mentioned the “<i>Tammarod” </i>(Rebellion), a movement that formed in April and called for mass demonstrations against President Morsi. “They claim to have gathered the signatures of 15 million supporters,” he said. In response, he said, the Islamists held demonstrations in support of Morsi and threatened the <i>Tammarod </i>not to demonstrate against the President on June 30, saying, “Anyone who will sprinkle water at the President will be sprinkled with blood.” The Islamists also specifically threatened the Christians, Anis said, warning that “those who would demonstrate are ‘kafiroon’ or ‘godless’ and deserve to be fought against.” He concluded his June 27 statement with another plea for prayer for Egypt.</p>
<p>In the bishop’s July 3 statement he declares that prayers had been answered concerning the days of protest and the revolution by the Egyptian people. He added that several moves by the Egyptian Armed Forces signaled hope for the future. Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-SiSi &#8220;<a href="http://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/218283">invited His Holiness Pope Tawadros II and The Grand Imam of Egypt Dr. Ahmed el-Tayyib, and other political leaders, to discuss the roadmap for the future of Egypt</a>.&#8221; As a result of the meeting, Anis continued &#8220;it was announced that the head of the constitutional court will be an interim leader of the nation&#8221; and that &#8220;the current controversial constitution is now suspended.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;As soon as Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced this, millions of Egyptians on the streets went around rejoicing, singing, dancing, and making a lot of fireworks,&#8221; said Bishop Anis. &#8220;I have never seen Egyptians rejoicing in such a way! They deserve this joy as they insisted to write their own history!&#8221; he declared. Sadly, it would seem that Egyptians are continuing to write an Islamist history. In National Review on July 10, Nina Shea <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/353100/copts-stand-lose-egypt-again-nina-shea">writes</a> that the <i>new </i>draft constitution “appears to give more even greater prominence to sharia by invoking its principles in the very first article of the draft, in an apparent move to appease Salafis.” She quotes her Hudson Institute colleague, Egypt analyst Samuel Tadros, who says, “By putting it there, the military has basically sent the message that the Salafis are more important than everyone else. It makes it harder to remove in the next phase.” The Coptic activists’ “Maspero Youth Union” has <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/76182/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-Maspero-Youth-Union-says-constitutional-dec.aspx">declared</a> the constitution “shocking” and not compatible with the ideals of the 30 June uprising&#8230; that went out for a civil state that upholds religious and cultural diversity.&#8221;</p>
<p>In a solemn foreshadowing of what was to come, in his July 3 statement Bishop Anis asked for prayer for the healing of the divisions in Egypt that had taken place with the ascendency of the Muslim Brotherhood, and for protection against violent backlash from the supporters of Islamic supremacism. It turns out that prayers are definitely in order. Shea said that “Egypt’s various Christian communities are experiencing continuing attacks by jihadists, Salafis, (who joined them in the anti-Morsi coalition), and angry Morsi-supporters, alike.” Raymond Ibrahim has also written about this in his July 11 <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/muslim-brotherhood-out-killing-christians-in/">article</a> for <i>Front Page Magazine.</i></p>
<p><i>MidEast Christian News</i> (MCN) is another source for details about Copts and other Christians under siege since Morsi’s overthrow. They <a href="http://www.mcndirect.com/showsubject.aspx?id=47433#.UeA4zxXD-3s">report</a> that on July 5, many Copts in the village of Dabaaya, in Luxor, Upper Egypt were attacked by Islamic militants. With no police presence anywhere to be found, the Islamists killed 4 people and burned 23 homes of Christians.</p>
<p>MCN also provided <a href="http://www.mcndirect.com/showsubject.aspx?id=47430#.UeA8axXD-3s">further information</a> about the beheading of a Coptic businessman, Magdi Lamie, in Sheikh Zowaid, North Sinai. Lamie’s body was found on Thursday, July 11 “beheaded with the hands tied with chains from the back and signs of beating and dragging.” A priest interviewed by MCN said that contrary to most reports, Lamie’s murder was not because his family refused to pay a ransom. After an initial demand when Lamie was abducted from his shop on July 6, the family never heard again from the kidnappers. “It is clear that the kidnapping was not for a ransom but the victim was slaughtered in an inhumane way because he is a wealthy Copt,” the priest said. He said that the goal was to displace the Copts in the region and declare Sinai “an independent Islamic emirate.”</p>
<p>Bishop Anis and all of Egypt’s Christians continue to hope against hope for an Egypt in which they have religious freedom and equality, but so far, there seems to be little consideration for their rights. Most of the Islamists in Egypt would like to see <i>all</i> of Egypt as an Islamic emirate – whether they or not they would go to the lengths of the Islamists in Sinai to make it happen. &#8220;[On 30 June] we went out to bring down the failed constitution that built a state of hate and violence,&#8221; the Maspero Youth Union said in their statement. &#8220;We did not take to the streets to give legitimacy to religious-based political parties that were about to erase Egypt&#8217;s identity,&#8221; the statement continued. Unless the United States and other Western political powers start to support those who truly want freedom and secular democracy, not only will Egypt’s identity be erased, but the region will be redrawn as key element of the worldwide Caliphate.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/hoping-against-hope-for-equality-in-egypt/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Grim Anniversary in Sudan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-grim-anniversary-in-sudan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-grim-anniversary-in-sudan</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-grim-anniversary-in-sudan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Jun 2013 04:25:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuba Mountains]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sudan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=194445</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two years of Islamists' genocidal jihad -- with the U.S.'s tacit approval.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_194460" style="width: 280px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Time-is-Running-Out.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-194460" alt="Time is Running Out" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Time-is-Running-Out-450x298.jpg" width="270" height="179" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.operationbrokensilence.org/2013/06/field-update-land-of-the-hungry/" target="_blank">Operation Broken Silence</a>, taken in the Nuba Mountains, May 2013, during an End Nuba Genocide coalition relief operation.</p></div>
<p><em>“The students go to class, and when they hear the Antonovs coming they run to hide in the caves.”</em></p>
<p>This is how a teacher describes a typical school day for children in Acheron, a village in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan State. With the Nuba Mountains now entering a third year of genocidal jihad waged by the Sudanese National Congress Party (NCP) government in Khartoum, the young teacher says “war bombardment has become normal.” “Class” is gathering in the open air. School buildings have gone the same way as those in the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudan-ethnic-cleansing-begins-again/"><i>first </i>genocide</a> in the 1990s: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/jihad-on-the-children/">bombed to smithereens by Khartoum</a>. But the desire to learn remains alive, and so two volunteer teachers – barely out of secondary school themselves – are risking their own lives to ensure that Nuba children receive an education.</p>
<p>In May 2011 the Islamist regime stole South Kordofan’s <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article38822">gubernatorial election</a> from Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) war hero Commander Abdelaziz Adam al Hilu and gave it to ICC-indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun. Providing voter statistics showing a clear al Hilu victory, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) for South Kordofan wrote to the UN Security Council on May 20, 2011, saying, “We participated in these elections genuinely, but the NCP proved the lacking of the will to implement any agreement.” The SPLM warned, “The aim of the NCP is to bluff the world and use elections to gain fake legitimacy.”</p>
<p>June 5, 2013 marked the second anniversary of <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/do-the-nuba-of-sudan-have-a-prayer/">Khartoum’s second jihad against the black, African Nuba people</a>. On June 5, 2011, Sudanese president ICC-indicted war criminal Omar al Bashir launched a genocidal jihad against the Nuba in the state capital of Kadugli. Khartoum’s security forces began house-to-house searches for Christians and other non-Muslims, ethnic black African Nuba, and members of or sympathizers with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) or other opposition parties.</p>
<p><a href="http://persecutionproject.org/">Persecution Project Foundation</a> (PPF) founder and president Brad Phillips <a href="http://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/testimony_bradford_phillips.pdf">told the US Congress</a> that “more than 5,000 ethnic Nubans who sought refuge in the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) compound were dragged out by NCP security forces and slaughtered at the gate while Egyptian UNMIS forces watched and in some reports actually laughed.” Images provided by <a href="http://www.satsentinel.org/blog/two-years-satellite-evidence-sudanese-government%E2%80%99s-war-crimes-crimes-against-humanity-and-torture">the Satellite Sentinel Project</a> and internal UN reports reveal that the bodies of thousands of innocent Nuba men, women, and children lie in mass graves around Kadugli.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/Al-Bashir-orders-Sudan-army-to,39397">This was only the beginning</a>. In the 1980s-‘90s the Khartoum regime attempted to eradicate the Nuba for aligning with the SPLA. Following the ethnic cleansing of Kadugli, the regime began a similar eradication campaign featuring aerial bombardment and a ground war by the Islamist militia Popular Defense Force (PDF) <a href="http://www.nubareports.org/reports/sudan-forces-responsible-burning-village-um-bartumbu-residents-say">to burn homes, schools, churches, markets and crops</a>. This scorched earth strategy is responsible for malnutrition and starvation that has affected tens of thousands. Nuba who have not fled to refugee camps in South Sudan or Kenya <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc_1yyNoMEM">must flee to caves</a> in the sides of the hills when the daily bombing takes place. <a href="http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2013/04/09/here-is-what-the-lucky-ones-eat-bugs-this-is-why-i-am-putting-the-spotlight-on-the-country-of-chad-to-arrest-pres-bashir-now-he-is-there/">Most have no food but leaves and insects</a>, and little access to clean drinking water. The Sudanese government prevents international provision of aid to those in desperate need of food and medicine.</p>
<p>In his congressional testimony, Brad Phillips criticized the US and other governments’ inaction and surmised that if not for the protection of the SPLA-North, “led by their inspirational leader, Abdelaziz Adam Al Hilu, we would be witnessing another Rwandan-style genocide.” Instead, for two years, we have witnessed Sudanese style genocide – in which those committing genocide have seen no evidence that they need to fear meaningful outside intervention.</p>
<p>From Day One <a href="http://splmnsudan.net/en/two-years-of-intensive-killing-and-torturing-and-thirty-years-of-denying/">the evil intentions of the al Bashir regime</a> were far clearer than those of either Egypt’s Mubarak or Libya’s Gadhafi. And the intensity of the regime’s attack against innocent Nuba civilians far surpassed the Mubarak and Gadhafi responses to the Arab “Spring.” Nevertheless, today Mubarak is gone, thanks to President Obama’s intervention, and an Islamist supremacist Muslim Brotherhood controls Egypt without having had to fight for “freedom.” Gadhafi is dead, and thanks to US intervention, the “freedom fighters” that sodomized and murdered him and that attacked the American consulate in Benghazi, are free to impose Sharia on all of Libya. Likewise, the US is poised to provide weapons to yet more Islamists in Syria.</p>
<p>In contrast, over 750 days after the Khartoum regime announced its plan to eradicate the black, African Nuba, to “sweep out the trash” that the racist Arabist regime considers black-skinned African people to be, not only does the genocide continue, but the US State Department still insists that only a “diplomatic solution” will bring peace to Sudan. With such a response from the Obama Administration, it is not surprising that Khartoum has felt free to expand the genocide to Blue Nile State, starting in September 2011, and to ramp up the action against the innocent men, women, and children of Darfur once again.</p>
<p>The SPLA-North and its Darfuri allies fight as the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), winning almost all of the ground battles with the more well-armed regime. AFP <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20130427-sudan-rebels-widen-offensive-attack-five-areas">reported</a> on April 27, 2013 that the “rebels” had attacked five government-held areas in North and South Kordofan States. They quoted an anonymous regional political expert who said that the rebel action is aimed to demonstrate strength and is &#8220;very threatening for the government.” So threatening, in fact, that the regime went whining to the international community, and particularly to the US government, demanding condemnation of the attacks and sanctions on the rebel-controlled regions. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the Obama Administration denounced the SRF’s actions, even though, in the words of Brad Phillips, “it is US coddling of Bashir that has ultimately forced the SPLM-N to action before their people are further ground down by famine and privation.”</p>
<p>The State Department has encouraged the SRF to become more “inclusive” of <i>all</i> so-called opposition groups, including those that share the regime’s dream of an Islamic Caliphate. But State has shown less concern for the inclusion of hundreds of thousands of Sudan’s other ethnic African people groups. In Sudan’s far north, home to more pyramids than exist in Egypt, the regime is building dams to drown the memory of the ancient Nubian kingdoms and to displace today’s Nubians, selling their land to Islamists from Egypt. In eastern Sudan, Khartoum has marginalized and oppressed the indigenous Beja people for decades, and is pushing them into the desert, allowing Rashaida Arabs to claim the region.</p>
<p>Recently, Brad Philllips <a href="http://persecutionproject.org/general/staring-into-wonderland/">wrote</a> that the “US government and International Community (IC) have responded to all the death, all the torture, all the rape, all the indiscriminate bombings, all the cruelty, all the displacement, and all the persecution by continuing to endorse the very government committing these acts.” He acknowledges some international sanctions are still in place against Khartoum, and that “there has been diplomatic wrist-slapping when Bashir’s behavior is simply too atrocious to be ignored.” But Bashir “has successfully convinced the US and IC that any alternative to his administration would plunge the nation into chaos and Sudan would become another Somalia.”</p>
<p>Phillips continues that his response to the “it could be worse” argument is “stunned silence.” He says that all he can see in his mind “are 3 million corpses, thousands of children missing limbs, untold thousands of women raped, and a completely failed state being propped up by an International Community which fears something ‘worse’.” But something worse is exactly what we have wrought in Egypt and Libya, and to which we seem headed in Syria. Something worse is when a country becomes<i> </i>more like Sudan.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-grim-anniversary-in-sudan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bounty and Blindness</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/bounty-and-blindness/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bounty-and-blindness</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/bounty-and-blindness/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jun 2013 04:25:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boko Haram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=192411</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The State Department offers a reward for the capture of a terrorist leader -- but won't call his group a "terrorist" organization.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/abubakar-shekau.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-192412" alt="NIGERIA-CAMEROON-FRANCE-KIDNAP" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/abubakar-shekau-450x340.jpg" width="270" height="204" /></a>On June 3, 2013, the U.S. Department of State made the surprising and welcome announcement that its “Rewards for Justice” program is <a href="http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/index.cfm?page=main&amp;language=english">offering a bounty</a> on information leading to the capture of key leaders of terrorist organizations in West Africa. The top reward, up to $7 million, is for <a href="http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/index.cfm?page=shekau&amp;language=english">Abubakar Shekau</a>, leader of Boko Haram. Boko Haram is the brutal Jihadist group working to eradicate the Christian presence in northern Nigeria and impose Sharia law on the whole nation.</p>
<p>It is commendable (did I mention surprising?) that the State Department is taking this step to capture Shekau and other Islamist terrorists. Bounty for Yahya Abu el Hammam, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader, and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Signed-in-Blood Battalion leader, is up to $5 million each. Information leading to the location of Malik Abou Abdelkarim, another AQIM leader, and Oumar Ould Hamaha, spokesperson for the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) will net an informer up to $3 million for each. The State Department has prioritized the capture of Boko Haram leader Shekau. But why not target the entire organization?</p>
<p>The U.S. House of Representatives’ <a href="http://homeland.house.gov/press-release/homeland-security-committee-report-details-emerging-homeland-threat-posed-africa-based">Committee on Homeland Security</a> and the <a href="http://homeland.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-boko-haram-emerging-threat-us-homeland">Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence</a> have deep concerns about Boko Haram. They have <a href="http://homeland.house.gov/press-release/king-meehan-urgently-request-secretary-clinton-designate-boko-haram-foreign-terrorist">urged State to designate it a Foreign Terrorist Organization</a> (F.T.O.) so that it can be more closely monitored, and the U.S. can be more helpful to the Nigerian government in trying to dismantle this Islamist menace. But the State Department does not see Boko Haram the same way.</p>
<p>The State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism’s <a href="http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2012/209979.htm">annual report</a> stated that “The militant sect ‘People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet&#8217;s Teachings and Jihad,’ better known by its Hausa name Boko Haram (BH), conducted killings, bombings, kidnappings, and other attacks in Nigeria, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and the widespread destruction of property in 2012.” Noting that “attackers killed Nigerian government and security officials, Muslim and Christian clerics, journalists, and civilians,” the terrorism report calls “on the Nigerian government to employ a comprehensive security strategy that is not predicated on the use of force.” Nigeria should also address “the economic and political exclusion of vulnerable communities in the north,” chides the report.</p>
<p>Even while reporting on <i>terrorism </i>by the “people committed to the propagation of the prophet’s teaching and <i>jihad</i>,” the State Department appears blind to why Boko Haram does what it does. “This is a Jihad not inspired by pecuniary or unequal motives but one that is driven by fanatical and dogmatic religious ideology of doing away with Christianity in Nigeria,” says <a href="http://odili.net/news/source/2013/may/31/340.html">Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor</a>, the president of the <a href="http://cannigeria.org/">Christian Association of Nigeria</a> (CAN). The Counterterrorism Office is correct that Nigeria should address the vulnerable communities in the north that have suffered from economic and political marginalization, but that is not Boko Haram! It is the Christians in northern Nigeria who are most neglected and poverty-stricken – all the more so now, as family breadwinners have been slaughtered, hospital bills must be paid, and homes, churches, and businesses have been burned to the ground by Boko Haram.</p>
<p>Western media is no better. On May 31, 2013, <i>The Washington Post</i> <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-31/world/39642133_1_northern-mali-boko-haram-nigerian-islamist">reported</a> that Nigerian Islamist militants who had traveled to northern Mali last year for training had now returned to northern Nigeria, laden “with sophisticated weapons and tactics learned on the battlefields.” The article mentions assaults on mosques and the killing of over 3000 people since 2009, but has a breathtakingly complete lack of mention of Christians, churches, or religious persecution.</p>
<p>Christians are Boko Haram’s most frequent targets. Leader Shekau’s declaration that he has no more compunction about killing ‘anyone that God commands’ him to kill than he would to killing a chicken reflects the whole group. Boko Haram declared an ultimatum to Christians in January 2012 ordering them to leave the north or face attacks.  Over 300 people died that month as the Jihadists attempted to fulfill their threat. According to <a href="http://factsnigeriaviolence.wordpress.com/spreadsheet/2013-2/">data compiled by Jubilee Campaign USA</a> from reports on the ground, between 2010 and 2013, Boko Haram initiated attacks against Christians 297 times. In 2012 alone, the jihadist group killed 1,726 people and injured 613 more. So far in 2013 Boko Haram has killed 785 people and injured 182 more.</p>
<p>The killing and destruction continue today in spite of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s efforts to crack down on the militants, declaring a state of emergency in three northern states on May 14. CAN released a <a href="http://odili.net/news/source/2013/may/31/340.html">statement</a> on May 30 giving examples of ongoing persecution such as the murder the previous week of a pastor and church member shot dead by gunmen, a Muslim security guard who “was mistaken for a Christian and shot dead,” and a church burned down by Boko Haram on May 26. CAN President Oritsejafor revealed that “the military operations were yet to effectively secure Christians and their churches,” and urged “the military to redouble their efforts to restore normalcy in the affected states and other parts of the north, where fundamentalists have continued to kill Christians.”</p>
<p>These efforts have been criticized sharply by Secretary of State John Kerry and other administration officials. On May 30, <i>Townhall </i>columnist Armstrong Williams <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/armstrongwilliams/2013/05/27/america-should-support-nigeria-in-its-fight-against-islamists-n1607067/page/full">lamented</a> that during Kerry’s first official trip to sub-Saharan last week, “he had the opportunity to publicly bolster a key U.S. ally.” Instead, said Williams, “he singled out Nigeria for criticism at the very time the country is engaged in a pitched battle to defend itself against radical Islamic terrorists who have pledged to overthrow the government and replace it with an Islamic state.” Williams advises that “public chiding is not what Nigeria needs. It doesn’t help Nigeria in its fight and ultimately does not best serve American interests.” He explains that President Jonathan’s state of emergency is necessary for Nigeria “to retain its grip on three northern states, preventing Boko Haram from solidifying its grip on the region.”</p>
<p>Like Williams and other advocates for religious freedom and human rights in northern Nigeria, Oritsejafor urged “friends of Nigeria, to join forces with the Federal Government in this struggle to save Christians from being exterminated.” CAN’s U.S. partner, the Christian Association of Nigerian Americans (CANAN) has also issued a plea to the Obama Administration. &#8220;Is President Obama not aware that they are cutting the throats of innocent Nigerians who are simply practicing their faith?&#8221; they demanded. Nice of CANAN to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but offering a reward for Abubakar Shekau has not cured the State Department’s willful blindness towards Nigeria’s Islamist jihad.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/bounty-and-blindness/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Day in the Life of a Russian Christian Dissident</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-russian-christian-dissident/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-day-in-the-life-of-a-russian-christian-dissident</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-russian-christian-dissident/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 May 2013 04:38:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alexander Ogorodnikov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dissident]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gulag]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Soviet Union]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=189885</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The story of one man's relentless heroism in the face of communist terror. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/alexander-ogorodnikov-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-190127" alt="alexander ogorodnikov 2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/alexander-ogorodnikov-2.jpg" width="279" height="420" /></a>Those of us who worry about such things today see Islamist supremacism as the greatest threat to freedom in general and to religious freedom in particular. Not long ago, though, that particular honor belonged to Soviet-style Communism. The Soviet Union seemed unstoppable. And freedom for those who languished in the Gulag? Many prayed for this, but when freedom came it was still quite a shock.</p>
<p>I still remember the shock of joy I felt at the news of the release of one such prisoner in February of 1987. Christian dissident Alexander Ogorodnikov had spent almost nine years in the Gulag for his leadership of the <a href="http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rcl/08-2_092.pdf">Christian Seminar</a>, an underground movement that had sprung up in answer to the needs of young Christians of many denominations who had found faith in Jesus Christ and were hungry for a way of following Him in their daily lives that the institutional churches could not offer. It was because of this authenticity and practicality that the movement, which encompassed thousands across Russia, so threatened the Communist authorities that they arrested and imprisoned its leaders.</p>
<p>For years advocates had prayed, written letters to Congress, and sent “Return Receipt Requested” missives to Soviet government authorities and Gulag officials on Ogorodnikov’s behalf. At conferences and special gatherings we all added our names and personal messages on letters to Ogorodnikov himself – which he rarely received, but of which the Soviet authorities kept meticulous track.</p>
<p>In late 1986, I was one of a few dozen participants in a <a href="http://libserv23.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/cgi-bin/princetonperiodicals?a=d&amp;d=TownTopics19891108-01.2.157&amp;e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN-----">conference</a> at Princeton University, hosted by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-River-Kwai-Ernest-Gordon/dp/0842343563/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1368668207&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=miracle+on+the+river+kwaihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Gordon">Dr. Ernest Gordon</a>, retired dean of the school’s chapel, and founder of the Christian Rescue Effort for the Emancipation of Dissidents (CREED). Rolling his R’s in disgust as only a Scotsman can do, Gordon read aloud <a href="http://www.roca.org/OA/63/63d.htm">a letter that Ogorodnikov had written to his mother</a> in May, but only now had reached the West. As a former Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders infantry regiment officer and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243609/">prisoner of the Japanese</a> during WWII, on the Burma Railway, Gordon understood Ogorodnikov’s agony.</p>
<p>Ogorodnikov was in the depths of despair. He had already been in Soviet prison camp for seven and a half years. We were heartbroken as Gordon read how Ogorodnikov begged his mother to appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to order his execution by firing squad. As an Orthodox Christian, he would not commit suicide. “This is the only way for me to end the prospect of lifelong, painfully slow torture,” Ogorodnikov explained.</p>
<p>Soviet authorities intended to break Ogorodnikov because of his refusal to compromise, be silent, or even leave the Soviet Union rather than be sent to the Gulag as they had suggested when he was arrested in 1978. He suffered from malnutrition and related diseases. As a result of beatings and other mistreatment he was left partially paralyzed in his face and arm. His eyesight was also damaged because of the deliberate darkening of his cell.</p>
<p>Frequently Ogorodnikov was thrown into the <i>shizo</i>, punishment cell, where the temperature was below freezing. He wrote to his mother that he was “systematically deprived of books” and “constantly tortured by hunger and cold.”  He revealed that he was forbidden to pray and that his cross had been brutally torn from his neck 30 times.</p>
<p>“I have spent a total of 659 days on hunger strikes to protest their refusal to let me have a Bible and a prayer book,” he said. Forced feedings were often administered brutally during hunger strikes. The Soviet government had destroyed Ogorodnikov’s marriage to Yelena Levashova, the mother of his son, Dima, pressuring her to leave him by indicating that he would never be free. And they made him feel alone and forgotten by the world and his fellow Christians by keeping from him all the letters that had been sent to him over the years.</p>
<p>There was deep concern over Ogorodnikov’s fate in the notorious Perm Camp 36 if the United States and the world community did not intervene. And the <a href="http://www.csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.Download&amp;FileStore_id...">United States</a> and the world did – including President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who successfully linked human rights to national security in their foreign policy. On February 14, 1987, Ogorodnikov was informed that General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had personally ordered his release. Later that year, I met Ogorodnikov – the flesh-and-blood answer to prayer – when he was the surprise guest at Dr. Gordon’s next CREED conference.</p>
<p>After his release, Ogorodnikov never rested. He <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/21/world/freed-dissidents-in-moscow-urge-more-releases.html">fought for justice for other dissidents</a> and raised funds to take care of those who had been physically and/or mentally broken by the Gulag. He also ministered to Armenian refugees who had fled from Islamist-dominated Nagorno-Karabakh. Even in freedom he was constantly harassed by the KGB, but he continued his work. He founded a new political party, the Christian Democratic Party, and an associated organization, the Christian Democratic Union of Russia (CDUR) that established the first private school in the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>In January of 1991, I was part of church two-week mission team to Moscow to encourage and help Ogorodnikov as he prepared to open the first soup kitchen in the Soviet Union. Ogorodnikov took us to see the building that would serve as the new soup kitchen, and he took us to see orphans in State custody that would soon be taken care of in a private, Christian orphanage. Our team provided hundreds of pounds of food to Ogorodnikov and his helpers who were already feeding the homeless on the streets and in the train station and feeding the old-age pensioners in their own flats. Our presence was also a declaration to the Soviet authorities that Ogorodnikov had <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=3HAUh5DS_WwC&amp;pg=PA1300&amp;lpg=PA1300&amp;dq=Alexander+Ogorodnikov+U.S.+House+of+Representatives&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=qpTdxXFrMA&amp;sig=4R2DCbq7lbU-A-qtw10MkcP6p1g&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=ko6WUY6-MaP94APg-YCYAQ&amp;ved=0CDwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&amp;q=Alexander%20Ogorodnikov%20U.S.%20House%20of%20Representatives&amp;f=false">friends and supporters</a> of all that he was doing for Russia.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sasha-and-me1.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-190130 aligncenter" alt="Sasha-and-me" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Sasha-and-me1.jpg" width="320" height="238" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>My meeting with Sasha</strong>.</p>
<p>A new biography <a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6743/dissident-for-life.aspx"><i>Dissident for Life: Alexander Ogorodnikov and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Russia</i></a>, by Koenraad De Wolf (English edition 2013, Eerdmans) is a tribute to Ogorodnikov and all of those steadfast believers – in freedom, in human dignity, in God – “crushed, but not destroyed” by the Soviets. Their oppression and persecution was eloquent testimony, exposing the lies at the foundation of the Communism system and helping to bring down its edifice.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/dfl.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-190129 aligncenter" alt="dfl" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/dfl.jpg" width="272" height="408" /></a></p>
<p><i>Dissident for Life</i> brought back all the memories of my own experience of Alexander Ogorodnikov. But it also made me reflect on the significance of that experience as I had never realized while it was happening and wonder what experiences, what relationships in today’s ongoing cosmological fight for our freedom may ultimately be those that will make a similar difference.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-russian-christian-dissident/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Pushes Funds for Islamists &#8212;- Trashes Their Christian Victims</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/obama-pushes-funds-for-islamists-trashes-their-christian-victims/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-pushes-funds-for-islamists-trashes-their-christian-victims</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/obama-pushes-funds-for-islamists-trashes-their-christian-victims/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2013 04:39:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boko Haram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genocide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state department]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=188928</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the State Dept. is promoting the funneling of money to Nigeria's jihadist butchers. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Boko-Haram-Violence.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-188930" alt="Boko-Haram-Violence" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Boko-Haram-Violence-450x286.jpg" width="270" height="172" /></a>The “Islamist apologist choir” described in Cinnamon Stillwell’s recent story <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-boston-bombing-blame-right-wingers-islamophobia-and-blowback/" target="_blank">“Profs on Boston Bombing”</a> doesn’t sing solely on behalf of Chechnya and Cambridge. Some of that choir’s most dreadful caterwauling today is in support of Nigeria’s yet-undesignated terrorists, Boko Haram. The choir stalls are located in the U.S. State Department, which not only refuses to designate the jihadists as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), but maligns and defames Boko Haram’s Christian victims, as well.</p>
<p>Boko Haram’s latest attack, killing at least 42, took place on Tuesday, May 7, in the already battle-worn town of Bama, in Nigeria’s northeast Borno State. Borno, one of 12 states under Sharia, has suffered heavy losses under the Islamists. Some believe that <a href="http://www.weeklytrust.com.ng/index.php/top-stories/12338-boko-haram-taking-over-northern-borno" target="_blank">Boko Haram has taken over northern Borno State</a> much as Islamists took over northern Mali. At least 277 had been killed by Boko Haram in Borno State in <a href="http://factsnigeriaviolence.wordpress.com/spreadsheet/2013-2/" target="_blank">2013</a> before this attack.  According to an <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/authorities-42-dead-nigeria-extremist-attacks" target="_blank">AP story</a> the Tuesday event involved “coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns” in multiple locations around Bama. The jihadists also raided a federal prison, freeing 105 inmates.</p>
<p>Military spokesman Lt. Colonel Sagir Musa told AP that “some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria&#8217;s beleaguered army.” Musa, who said two soldiers and 10 insurgents died in the attack, revealed that the attackers “came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers.” The Islamists killed 14 prison guards. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate&#8217;s court, and local government offices, according to Lt. Col. Musa. Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar reported that at least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in the attacks.</p>
<p>Boko Haram frequently attacks Nigeria’s police and military forces. In <a href="http://factsnigeriaviolence.wordpress.com/spreadsheet/2012-3/" target="_blank">2012</a> as documented by the Facts on Nigeria Violence website, there were at least 67 attacks, almost exclusively by Boko Haram, against military barracks, police stations, prisons, and other government facilities, as well as against individual soldiers, policemen, and civil servants. But Boko Haram’s main targets are northern Nigeria’s Christians and churches.</p>
<p>The official name of Boko Haram, Jamā&#8217;a Ahl al-sunnah li-da&#8217;wa wa al-jihād, can be translated “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” Its goal is to establish a pure Islamic state in northern Nigeria, removing the Christian presence – either by conversion, expulsion, or extermination. Boko Haram appears to prefer the third option. According to the World Watch Monitor (WWM) <a href="http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2013/01-January/article_2000482.html/" target="_blank">report</a> on global Christian persecution, Nigeria had a higher death toll from anti-Christian persecution and violence than the rest of the world combined. WWM concluded that Nigeria is “the most violent place on earth for Christians.”</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamas-commission-on-religious-freedom-whitewashes-muslim-genocide/" target="_blank">Front Page Magazine article</a>, Daniel Greenfield exposed the unfortunate moral equivalence found in the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) 2013 report on Nigeria. While much of the report is very good and condemns Boko Haram, impunity, and the forced imposition of Sharia, USCIRF appears to have developed the same pathological impulse that afflicts the rest of the federal government, to never blame Islam. As a result, portions of the report mischaracterize certain acts of violence by both Boko Haram and other Islamists targeting Christians, and criticize northern Nigerian Christian leaders for calling the situation what it is: persecution.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.uscirf.gov/images/Nigeria%202013%20AR.pdf" target="_blank">USCIRF’s</a> egregious observations and recommendations are actually State Department policy. For instance, USCIRF parrots former Asst. Sec. of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, who <a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Carson_Testimony.pdf" target="_blank">declared in a congressional hearing</a>, “It is important to note that religion is not the primary driver behind extremist violence in Nigeria” and that “the Nigerian government must effectively engage communities vulnerable to extremist violence by addressing the underlying political and socio-economic problems in the North.” USCIRF reports that “The U.S. government consistently has urged the Nigerian government to expand its strategy against Boko Haram from solely a military solution to addressing problems of economic and political marginalization in the north,” says USCIRF, “arguing that Boko Haram’s motivations are not religious but socio-economic.”</p>
<p>Responding to Carson’s testimony at a House Subcommittee on Africa hearing in July 2012, Subcommittee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), remonstrated that poverty alone does not drive people to violence. And in any case, Boko Haram is well funded by outside Islamists. “Heavy machine guns” and “buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns” are just the latest examples to show that Boko Haram is not just a motley crew of impoverished, marginalized local Muslims. In February 2013 it was <a href="http://www.nigeriaintel.com/2013/02/06/boko-haram-training-camps-found-in-mali/" target="_blank">revealed</a> that hundreds of Boko Haram members had trained for months in terrorist camps in northern Mali with the local “Ansar Dine” al Qaeda of Mali. Their former chef, explained that he cooked for over 200 Nigerians who had “arrived in Timbuktu in April 2012 in about 300 cars, after al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) swept into the city.”</p>
<p>In its 2013 Nigeria briefing, human rights group <a href="http://jubileecampaign.org/projects/justice-for-jos-project/" target="_blank">Justice for Jos +</a>, a project of <a href="http://jubileecampaign.org/" target="_blank">Jubilee Campaign USA</a>, remarked, “Ironically, in northern Nigeria, it is Christians who are totally disenfranchised politically, economically, and socially in their own states and by their own ethnic groups due to their religious identity.” This is worse than just “political marginalization,” Mr. Carson! Justice for Jos + continues, “Christians are regarded as inferior to Muslims and suffer ongoing, systematic and comprehensive discrimination even by local and (Sharia) state governments.”</p>
<p>As in many Islam-dominated regions, the northern Nigerian Sharia state governments require permits to construct new churches or repair old ones. But churches are disappearing from the northern Nigerian landscape because the permits are not granted and the existing churches are being demolished or burned in anti-Christian riots and Boko Haram attacks. “The Muslim community is so determined to prevent Christians from having churches to meet in, that when selling land to Christians they commonly include the proviso ‘Not to be used for a bar, a brothel, or a church’ on official deeds,” Justice for Jos + reveals.</p>
<p>Thanks to pressure from the U.S. State Department, Nigeria’s Christian President appears more concerned with demonstrating that he is not biased in favor of his fellow Christians than seeing justice done for those who have suffered (even to the point of considering <a href="http://www.punchng.com/opinion/the-boko-haram-amnesty-debacle/" target="_blank">offering amnesty</a> to Boko Haram). The State Department has pressured President Jonathan to give more federal resources and create a special ministry for “northern affairs.” Justice for Jos+ reports that at the same time that federal resources have provided the northern states with “millions in public funds on forced mass weddings for widows, pilgrimages to Mecca, rams for sacrifice at Islamic celebrations, and payments to terrorists’ families,” there has been no compensation to the families of Christian victims.</p>
<p>In their many <a href="http://www.punchng.com/news/were-behind-plateau-mass-killings-boko-haram-%E2%80%A2-says-christians-should-accept-islam-if-they-want-peace/" target="_blank">publicly released statements</a> and videos, Boko Haram has never declared poverty and marginalization to be a motive for their actions. On the contrary, they state clearly that their actions are a “jihad (Holy War).” They said that “Christians in Nigeria should accept Islam, that is true religion, or they will never have peace,” and that they “do not have any agenda” other than working to establish an Islamic Kingdom like during the time of Prophet Mohammed.”</p>
<p>Could this be the reason why, in the disapproving words of the USCIRF report, “a number of prominent Nigerian Christian leaders . . . believe that Boko Haram has a significant sectarian dimension, and in particular, seeks to eradicate Christian communities in central and northern Nigeria”? USCIRF, <a href="http://www.uscirf.gov/images/Nigeria%202013%20AR.pdf" target="_blank">again echoing the State Department policy</a> worries, “This chasm in perspective is a serious concern. If Nigeria’s most prominent Christian leaders view the ongoing violence as sectarian, the faithful communities who follow their lead may also embrace this view, adversely affecting tolerance and respect across religions.” This is offensive not just in casting the Christian community as the villain of the piece, but in its lack of acknowledgement of the unbelievable restraint that Christians have shown in the face of the slaughter of their family, friends, and co-religionists.</p>
<p>In April 2012, former Asst. Secretary Carson <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/tag/asst-sec-of-state-johnnie-carson/" target="_blank">told an audience</a> at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the US would soon open a consulate in Kano, one of the full-Sharia northern states, to join the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and the existing consulate in Lagos. Three months earlier, Boko Haram had carried out numerous simultaneous attacks on the security agencies in Kano – police stations, army barracks, intelligence headquarters – leaving some 200 dead. What a great place to build a new U.S. consulate. Kano is about 200 miles from Abuja. About half as far as Benghazi is from Tripoli.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/obama-pushes-funds-for-islamists-trashes-their-christian-victims/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>21</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Administration to Welcome Genocidal Sudanese Leaders for Talks</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/obama-administration-to-welcome-genocidal-sudanese-leaders-for-talks/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-administration-to-welcome-genocidal-sudanese-leaders-for-talks</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/obama-administration-to-welcome-genocidal-sudanese-leaders-for-talks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 04:37:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[KHARTOUM]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NCP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=187871</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Founder of Khartoum’s “Ghost Houses” (torture chambers) invited to DC.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/work.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-187873" alt="work" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/work.jpg" width="298" height="225" /></a>In a makeshift shelter of plastic tarps in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, an American linguist, Deborah Martin, interviewed dozens of Darfurian refugees. The year was 2006, and some two thousand Darfurians had <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2006/10/23/blaming-bush-for-darfur">fled the Islamist Sudanese regime’s genocidal war</a> against them and walked over 900 miles to the Nuba Mountains. At that time, just after the signing of the 2005 North/South peace agreement, the area <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-year-of-bombs-and-silence/">now once again a killing field of the Islamist regime</a> was relatively safe.</p>
<p>One young Darfuri woman told Martin she had witnessed the rest of her family, including her 80 year-old grandmother, “sliced up like meat” by the Janjaweed (Arab militia). Other refugees had similarly horrific tales. And common among all the testimonies were four names – either whispered in terror or spat out in defiance. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Vice President Ali Osman Taha, Arab Janjaweed militia leader Musa Hilal, and former Chief of National Intelligence and Security Services/presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie – these were the men they held responsible for the Darfur genocide, and for the regime’s atrocities far beyond Darfur.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senior-sudanese-delegation-headed-to-us-for-rare-high-level-diplomacy-between-nations/2013/04/23/60c1f59c-ac33-11e2-9493-2ff3bf26c4b4_story.html">the Obama Administration has invited</a> Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie and other high-level officials from Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to Washington, DC. State Department spokeswoman Hilary Renner defended the visit as the opportunity for a “candid discussion on the conflicts and humanitarian crises within Sudan.” But in the Sudanese press, the NCP <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article46324">crowed</a> that the invitation is a call “for the development of relationships between Sudan and the U.S.” Nafie assured his fellow hardliners that he was <i>not </i>going to the U.S. in order to discuss Sudan issues, saying that the regime knew what it was doing in that regard. <a href="http://helpnuba.net/2013/04/23/when-the-nazis-met-with-the-state-department-in-washington/">Writing of the visit</a> Rabbi David Kaufman, founder and co-chair of “Help Nuba,” said it was similar to inviting Heinrich Himmler to the U.S. to discuss the “humanitarian crisis” during the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Nafie eschewed training in plant genetics (he studied at UC Riverside, receiving a Ph.D. in 1980, thank you, USA!) for training in terrorism. According to the <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?mot494"><i>Sudan Tribune</i></a>, Nafie travelled to Tehran in 1981 “on the apparent pretext of conducting further studies in the field of agriculture.” During the 1980’s, he also spent time in Afghanistan and the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon where he gained the expertise and contacts to develop Sudan’s own security apparatus, import weapons, and establish secret desert training camps. The <i>Sudan Tribune</i> says that it is also believe that during this time, Nafie coordinated with his former Iranian mentors “to supply arms to those opposing the American and French presence in Somalia.”</p>
<p>As Chief of National Intelligence and Security Services for Omar al-Bashir’s National Islamic Front regime, Nafie perfected the art of torture. <i>Sudanese Online</i> <a href="http://www.sudaneseonline.com/articles-and-analysis/6755-stop-sudanese-war-crimes-criminals-visiting-european-countries.html">says</a>, “Dr. Nafie is by far the most brutal security official the Sudan has ever seen.” And the <i>Sudan Tribune</i> <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?mot494">explains</a> that he is notorious for the creation of Sudan’s “ghost houses” (<i>buyut al-ashbah</i>), unofficial detention and torture chambers run by Sudan’s security services.</p>
<p>Typical ghost house treatment was given to Nafie’s old colleague from the University of Khartoum, science professor and human rights activist, Farouk Mohammed Ibrahim. Ibrahim was arrested and taken blindfolded to a Khartoum ghost house where he was held for 12 days with no charges. According to his <a href="http://www.redress.org/case-docket/redress-on-behalf-of-dr-farouk-mohamed-ibrahim-v-sudan">statement seeking redress</a> from the Sudanese government, Ibrahim revealed he “was subjected to interrogations about courses taught and about colleagues.” During the interrogations, he “was repeatedly kicked, beaten and flogged, subjected to a prolonged bath in ice water, threatened with rape and death and deprived of sleep for up to three days.” Ibrahim told the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/26/world/fg-sudan26"><i>Los Angeles Times</i></a> that Nafie “was administering the whole thing. He did it all in such a cool manner, as if he were sipping a coffee.”</p>
<p>Condemning the upcoming visit and urging that Secretary Kerry rescind the invitation, Sudan advocacy alliance <a href="http://www.actforsudan.org/">Act for Sudan</a> noted that Nafie “helped design the regime’s strategy to eliminate or expel indigenous African people by bombing, attacking, raping, and starving innocent civilians. <a href="http://www.sudaneseonline.com/articles-and-analysis/6755-stop-sudanese-war-crimes-criminals-visiting-european-countries.html"><i>Sudanese Online</i></a> adds, “Dr. Nafie has expelled international aid agencies from eastern Sudan, Nuba Mountains of Kordofan, Darfur and Blue Nile provinces.”</p>
<p>Recently, Nafie, who is also the deputy chairman of the ruling National Congress Party, addressed a graduation ceremony of the paramilitary Popular Defense Forces (PDF), the jihadists used by Khartoum to <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/sudan-ethnic-cleansing-begins-again/">conduct the purge</a> of black, African people in the Nuba Mountains. He said of those in Sudan who want equality for all Sudanese and a secular democracy, that they “are traitors for collaborating with rebels to overthrow the regime, and for preaching a secular system.” The opposition “has dug its own grave” by rejecting “the principles of Islamic Sharia law” and seeking to “establish a secular state like the Western countries,” he declared. He vowed to the graduating PDF members that 2013 will be a decisive year in which they would wage a war like that fought by Mohammed at the <a href="http://asianhistory.about.com/od/warsinasia/a/battleofbadr.htmhttp:/www.thereligionofpeace.com/muhammad/myths-mu-badr.htm">Battle of Badr</a>, a battle that ushered in the beginning of Islamic expansion.</p>
<p>The Obama Administration is not happy about the backlash it is receiving because of the invitation to Nafie Ali Nafie. Perhaps is has forgotten how frequently Senator Barack Obama and his supporters criticized President George W. Bush’s Sudan policy. Bush’s policies merely saved hundreds of thousands threatened by starvation and disease, brought about the Nuba Mountains ceasefire, created a presidential-level Sudan Special Envoy, and helped to bring about a peace agreement leading to the establishment of the nation of South Sudan. But since he couldn’t bring perform the additional miracle of ending the genocide in Darfur, Obama accused the Bush Administration of not doing enough.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Statement_from_Barack_Obama_on_Darfur,_Sudan">speaking about Darfur</a> in October 2004, Senator Obama said, “There must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing.” Where is that pressure today, when an architect of genocide is invited to Washington, DC?</p>
<p>In a February 2006 <a href="http://obamaspeeches.com/052-Darfur-Current-Policy-Not-Enough-Obama-Speech.htm">speech</a> on Darfur, Obama confided that “for more than a year now, I’ve been working with other Senators to see what we can do <i>to really push the Administration to take this as seriously as it warrants.</i>” (Emphasis added). He was disturbed that “the United States government seems to be backing off a little bit, the commitment that it made to deal with the problem.” Today, many Sudan activists are disturbed. Members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), have <a href="http://www.wolf.house.gov/press-releases/wolf-criticizes-president-obama-for-inviting-sudanese-presidential-adviser-to-washington/">written to the President</a>, questioning his overarching Sudan policy.</p>
<p>Finally, in April 2008, with the Presidential election drawing closer, Obama again <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=91065">criticized Bush Sudan policy</a>, saying, “I am deeply concerned by reports that the Bush Administration is negotiating a normalization of relations with the Government of Sudan.” He warned that “this reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments.”</p>
<p>Today, in justifying the invitation to Nafie, the Obama Administration challenges the idea that a trip to America for diplomatic discussion can be considered a “reward.” And it posits only three alternatives in U.S. Sudan policy: go to war with Sudan, engage in diplomacy, or be irrelevant. But there could be another alternative for U.S. Sudan policy. In his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Revolution-Struggle-Freedom/dp/1439178372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1367358648&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+coming+revolution"><i>The Coming Revolution</i></a>, Dr. Walid Phares advises the U.S. government to support the freedom and democracy-loving sections of civil society within totalitarian and Islamist regimes to foster democratic transformation. In the case of Sudan, the U.S. government could also quietly support the opposition forces that want regime change and a free, equal Sudan. In fact, Senator Barack Obama mentioned this possibility in his 2004 speech when he said that we should be “providing resources . . . including logistical support like airplanes, helicopters, trucks, and other resources that are needed to deliver humanitarian aid.”</p>
<p>But although the Obama Administration was willing to take strong actions to bring about the downfall of Egypt’s Mubarak and Libya’s Qaddafi, (and facilitate the takeover by Islamists) in this case, when the downfall of the regime could mean the downfall of the Islamist agenda in Sudan and the wider region, it prefers diplomatic engagement. Could that not be construed as a “reckless and cynical initiative”? Bringing Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie and other high-level officials of the Sudanese government to Washington, DC threatens to once again reward a regime that not only continues to have a record of failing to live up to its commitments and of committing brutal atrocities against its own citizens, but of pursuing an agenda of global jihad and Islamist supremacism.</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs the </em><a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=226"><i>Institute on Religion and Democracy’s</i></a><em> Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan and is the author of</em> <a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=383">Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children</a> <em>(Chosen Books, 2007).</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/obama-administration-to-welcome-genocidal-sudanese-leaders-for-talks/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>24</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nigeria Wins Cup of Nations, but Islamists Continue Killing</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/nigeria-wins-cup-of-nations-but-islamist-continue-killing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=nigeria-wins-cup-of-nations-but-islamist-continue-killing</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/nigeria-wins-cup-of-nations-but-islamist-continue-killing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:29:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boko Haram]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cup of nations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[football]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[soccer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=177596</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Victory comes just hours after the north suffers wrath of jihadists. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/nigeria-wins-cup-of-nations-but-islamist-continue-killing/victor-moses/" rel="attachment wp-att-177598"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177598" title="Victor Moses" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Victor-Moses.png" alt="" width="307" height="230" /></a>On Sunday, February 10, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nigeria’s national football (soccer) team, the Super Eagles, beat the Burkina Faso Stallions 1-0 <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/2013/2/10/3973680/africa-cup-of-nations-final-2013-nigeria-vs-burkina-faso-final-score-result">to win the prestigious African Cup of Nations title</a>. Back home in Nigeria, the Super Eagles’ victory came just hours after northern Nigeria once again felt the wrath of Islamist terrorists &#8212; most likely the group responsible for thousands of deaths, Boko Haram.</p>
<p>On Friday, terrorists killed one male and eight female health workers in two attacks in Kano. BBC News Africa <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21381773">reported</a> that first, polio vaccinators “were shot dead by gunmen who drove up on a motor tricycle.” In a second attack, gunmen shot the polio workers at a clinic at the town’s edge as they were starting work.</p>
<p>The BBC report reveals that “analysts”  believe<em> </em>that the killings are the work of Boko Haram. Although the group has not yet claimed credit, it would make sense that the killings were the work of the Islamists whose name translates as “western education is forbidden.” Some Muslim leaders oppose vaccines which they claim cause infertility. Sounds like a good way to cover up their own shortcomings.</p>
<p>On Saturday, the terrorists murdered three North Korean doctors in Potiskum, Yobe State, slitting the throats of two and beheading a third. According to the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/attackers-kill-3-north-korean-doctors-nigeria-133426830.html">Associated Press,</a> the bodies were found in the house that they shared with their wives in a quiet neighborhood off the grounds of the hospital. AP reported that when soldiers arrived, they found the doctors’ wives unharmed, but “cowering in a flower bed outside their home.” The doctors were part of a technical exchange program between the two countries and had been living in Yobe since 2005.</p>
<p>For one of the Super Eagle players, who prevailed over the past to become an international soccer star, the weekend’s events may seem a sad reminder that some things never change. Twenty-two year old Victor Moses, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/sports/soccer/nigeria-captures-first-africa-cup-of-nations.html?_r=3&amp;adxnnl=1&amp;seid=auto&amp;smid=tw-nytimessports&amp;adxnnlx=1360621325-lI+5gyGmIUemeu+ozTuSzQ&amp;">voted Best Player in Sunday’s match</a>, is a rising star from the famous <a href="http://www.chelseafc.com/first-team/player/42181/title/victor-moses">Chelsea Football Club</a> in London, but he was born in Kaduna, in northern Nigeria. He and two other Nigerian Chelsea players returned to Africa <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Moses-proves-key-for-Nigeria-in-African-Cup-final-4266950.php">to play the tournament with the Super Eagles</a>.</p>
<p>Moses had not been back to Nigeria since November 2002, when Islamists <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-11-22-nigeria-riots_x.htm">protesting the Miss World beauty pageant</a> being held in Nigeria <a href="http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/nwabuzor/112302.html">turned Kaduna</a> and other nearby areas to piles of ashes and corpses. After sacking the local offices of <a href="http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/884.cfm">This Day</a>, a national Nigerian newspaper whose <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/17/gender.pressandpublishing">reporter had dared to say</a> that Mohammed probably would have chosen a wife from the Miss World contestants, the mob had moved on to targeting Christians. According to <a href="http://www.domini.org/openbook/nigeria20021125.htm">reports</a> from The Barnabas Fund, the rioters barricaded the streets with burning tires and burned down Christians’ houses, shops, and churches.</p>
<p>Sadly, this not a new situation for northern Nigeria. The region has long been on a path to what one <a href="http://eastandsouth.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/nigeria-pakistanizationafghanization-of-a-country/">writer</a> calls the Pakistanization/Afghanization of the country. Hundreds were killed in these riots in contrast to the thousands (possibly as many as 5,000) who were killed during a previous series of <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/nigeria0703/1.htm">riots in Kaduna in 2000</a>. But to the victims and the families of the victims of the <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/nigeria0703/3.htm">2002 riots</a>, there was no noticeable difference. Death is death.</p>
<p>Among those killed were Pastor Austin and Josephine Moses, the soccer star’s parents. Naija Football 247 <a href="http://www.naijafootball247.com/2011/03/how-wigan-athletics-victor-moses.html">reported</a> that Moses “had his own church” and was therefore “a target of the Muslim extremists.” The rioters, mostly young men fueled by hate sermons from the local mosques, murdered both the pastor and his wife in their home. Eleven-year-old Victor was out playing football in the streets, unaware of what was going on, when his uncle found him. After hiding the boy with friends for a week, while the city – including Victor’s own house – smoldered around them, his uncle took him to England where he has lived ever since.</p>
<p>Even as a secondary school student recently arrived from Nigeria, Moses was a star footballer. One <a href="http://seyisanchez.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/story-of-victor-moses/">blogger</a> tells how in a 2005 game with his school, Whitgift, against a school whose players wore red shirts, the local newspaper quipped, “Holy Moses! Wonder Player Parts Red Sea!” The word-play on his Biblical name continues even today. <a href="http://allsports.com.ng/2013/01/29/moses-leads-nigeria-to-the-promise-land/">Headlines</a> after Nigeria’s victory read, “Moses leads Nigeria to the Promised Land.”</p>
<p>Moses, who declared, “It has been a long journey [from Nigeria] and I just want to keep strong and work hard for myself, whether it’s football or not football,” is proud of his Nigerian identity. He should also be proud of his ability to rise up from the ashes of Kaduna with the strength and determination that have kept him going in spite of the horrible, wrenching grief of having his parents and his home taken with such violence. His birth country is proud of him, and many find inspiration not only in his successes, but in his willingness to return to Nigeria.</p>
<p>A popular culture website <em>Trendy Africa</em> in a <a href="http://trendyafrica.com/sports/victor-moses-pro-soccer-player-inspiring-story/">story</a> on the young soccer star exclaimed ironically that Moses has brought joy “to every Nigerian, including those who may have inspired his parent’s death.” <em>Trendy Africa </em>observed that “On Sunday, Moses would stand for the National Anthem and pledge allegiance” but, in a sad commentary on Nigeria, “to a country that couldn’t defend his parents.” And as the ongoing killings by Boko Haram indicate, Nigeria still can’t defend the parents of hundreds of children who have been left as orphans by jihadists.</p>
<p>Moses’ ability to forgive the country in which his parents were killed just for being Christians is commendable. But what is unforgiveable is the U.S. State Department’s refusal to most effectively help stop Boko Haram’s terrorism, by designating them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Last year, then Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) wrote to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the designation. Meehan’s Subcommittee had just released a bi-partisan report on Boko Haram as “an emerging threat to the U.S. Homeland.” But the State Department <a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Carson_Testimony.pdf">response</a>, as delivered by Asst. Sec. of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, was to see the terrorists as victims of poverty and marginalization and to downplay the targeting of Christians.</p>
<p>The threat has only grown as <a href="http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/boko-harams-international-connections">connections have emerged</a> between Boko Haram and other jihadists such as Ansar Dine, al-Shabab, AQIM, and the Janjaweed in Darfur. But some in the media are pushing the State Department’s talking points. Reuters reporter Tim Cocks offered up a <a href="http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE91409Q20130205?irpc=932">cock-and-bull story</a> on February 5. Cocks declared that “Rage over bad governance fuels Nigeria’s Islamists,” in spite of Boko Haram’s own <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/violence-against-christians-moves-nigeria-no-7-list-terror-affected-nations">insistence</a> that it will cleanse northern Nigeria of Christians and extend Sharia across the whole country, and that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan must convert to Islam or step down. He says that Boko Haram “pledged to revive the 19th century rule of Islamic scholar Usman Dan Fodio, who led a revolution to overthrow Hausa kings he saw as corrupt and idolatrous,” but does not reveal that the reason Fodio, a bloodthirsty killer, saw them as corrupt and idolatrous was because they were “infidels” – like Christians in Nigeria today.</p>
<p>The General Secretary of the <a href="http://cannigeria.org/">Christian Association of Nigeria</a> (CAN), Dr. Musa Asake, has observed that there have been <a href="http://jubileecampaign.org/continued-inaction/">so many bombings and other attacks on churches and individual Christians</a> by Boko Haram that when families go to church, they don’t if they will come back home the same way they went, or even if they will come home at all. In addition to deaths, hundreds of northern Nigerian Christians have been grievously wounded, losing arms and legs in Boko Haram’s suicide bombing attacks, or mentally and emotionally scarred by trauma.</p>
<p>As Nigeria glories in winning the African Cup of Nations and in the particular triumph of one of its young sons, Victor Moses, the grief suffered by Moses, and by countless other sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers of Christians killed by Islamists in northern Nigeria, should not be forgotten. Perhaps President Jonathan will take advantage of the changing of the guard at the State Department to strengthen his own resolve not to allow American political correctness and appeasement politics to influence his response to Boko Haram. The House Committee on Homeland Security and the entire U.S. Congress should renew its calls to the State Department to designate the group as an FTO, and begin in earnest to root out this threat.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/nigeria-wins-cup-of-nations-but-islamist-continue-killing/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 1422/1471 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 08:40:12 by W3 Total Cache -->