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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; persecution</title>
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		<title>Christians and Churches Attacked in the West</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/christians-and-churches-attacked-in-the-west/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=christians-and-churches-attacked-in-the-west</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Dec 2014 05:17:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=248121</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["You have a cross on…Do you know what we do to people like you?" ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/signs.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248125" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/signs-450x281.jpg" alt="signs" width="283" height="177" /></a><strong>Reprinted from <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/">GatestoneInstitute.org</a>.</strong></p>
<blockquote class="content_preface"><p>&#8220;You have a cross on… Do you know what we do to people like you?&#8221; — Muslim in Denmark.</p>
<p>Muslim Fulani gunmen forced their way into the church, cut [the pastor], his wife and a daughter with a machete, and then tied the hands and feet of the three of them before setting the building on fire&#8230; We only found the charred remains of the three of them in the morning. I heard them shouting at the top of their voices, saying they must obliterate any traces of Christianity in the town.&#8221; — Eyewitness account, Nigeria.</p>
<p>Each year, approximately 1,000 women in Pakistan are forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. Whenever a case of this nature reaches the law courts, those women, under threat and blackmail, often declare that their conversion and marriage were decisions freely made, and the case is closed.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Muslim persecution of Christians in September started making prominent appearances not just in the Islamic world, but also in the West—in America, Australia and Europe.</p>
<p>In the United States, in Columbus, Indiana, three churches were vandalized on the same night. The words most frequently sprayed were &#8220;Infidels!&#8221; and &#8220;Koran 3:151.&#8221; The verse from the Koran states, &#8220;We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve [or "infidels"] for what they have associated with Allah [reference to Christian Trinity] of which He had not sent down [any] authority. And their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of the wrongdoers.&#8221;</p>
<p>Father Doug Marcotte of Saint Bartholomew&#8217;s Catholic Church, one of those vandalized, said, &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of bad stuff being done in the name of Allah and so when people see this happening in Columbus, whether that was truly the person&#8217;s intent or there&#8217;s something else going on, it makes people nervous. It makes people upset. It makes them scared.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Australia, AAP reported that &#8220;Church-goers in Sydney&#8217;s west have been left shaken after a stranger shouted death threats from a car bearing the Islamic State flag. The car drove past Our Lady of Lebanon Church at Harris Park on Tuesday and witnesses claim it had a flag similar to those brandished by Islamic State jihadists hanging out the window.&#8221; A church official said the people in the car threatened to &#8220;<a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/sydney-church-our-lady-of-lebanon-targeted-by-isis-threats/story-fncynjr2-1227062189328">kill the Christians&#8221; and slaughter their children</a>: &#8220;They were strong words and people were scared of what they saw.&#8221; Witnesses saw a flag outside the window with the words, &#8220;There is only one god and Muhammad is the prophet.&#8221; And as happens frequently in Muslim-majority nations, police security was later dispatched to patrol the Harris Park church while hundreds partook of the mass inside.</p>
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<p style="font-size: 82%; margin: 4px 6px;">People in a car bearing a jihadist flag verbally abused parishioners at the Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Sydney, Australia in September, threatening to &#8220;kill the Christians&#8221; and slaughter their children.</p>
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<p>In Denmark—2013&#8242;s &#8220;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/denmark-happiest-country_n_4070761.html">happiest country in the world</a>&#8220;—Christians of Middle Eastern backgrounds continued to experience &#8220;harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims,&#8221; reports TV2, especially in Muslim-majority areas, such as Nørrebro. One Christian, &#8220;Jojo,&#8221; born in Denmark of Lebanese parents, shared her experiences. Once when sitting in her parked car, several Muslims surrounded it, harassing her about her Western attire. When one of them noticed she was wearing a cross, he said &#8220;Well, you have a cross on—then <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/denmark-christians-flee-muslim-dominated-areas-they-tell-me-i-ought-to-be-stoned-to-death">you are also a Christian f***ing whore</a>. Do you know what we do to people like you? Do you know what we do to people like you? You get stoned [to death].&#8221;</p>
<p>Another Christian woman of Iranian background recounted how she and her son are harassed on the Muslim-majority block where they live—and where she stands out for not wearing a <i>hijab</i>, the Islamic veil: &#8220;My son is being called everything. I get called all sorts of things. Infidel. Filthy Christians. They tell me I ought to be stoned to death. My son was beaten at the bus stop. He was called pig, dirty potato (Muslim slang for Danes), and that &#8216;you and your mother should die.&#8221;&#8216;</p>
<p>Islamic dreams of conquering Europe were prevalent. A senior analyst in Spain warned that, because Islamists see the Iberian peninsula as being &#8220;under Spanish and Portuguese occupation,&#8221; <a href="http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/politics/2014/09/05/jihadists-want-al-andalus-back-spanish-terrorism-analyst_966e7c8a-6480-4a28-b4e1-7a63eabf2d51.html">greater risk of terrorism exists there</a> than in other Western areas. Because Iberia—or, in Arabic, Al-Andalus—was under Islamic domination for centuries, many Muslims consider it part of the Islamic world, or Dar al-Islam, which needs to be reconquered, no less than Israel, also seen as occupied Islamic territory.</p>
<p>More pointedly, in the Islamic State [IS], in a lengthy message partially addressed to the &#8220;crusaders&#8221;—a reference to the West—some members declared, &#8220;<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/islamic-state-we-will-conquer-your-rome-break-your-crosses-and-enslave-your-women-by-the-permission-of-allah">We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah</a>.&#8221; Members of the IS also invoked a statement attributed to Muhammad, that Constantinople would be conquered before Rome—and it was, in 1453. The implication was that the Eternal City of Rome would be next.</p>
<p>Around the same time, Rome responded by rejecting a motion to name a street after the late Oriana Fallaci, a veteran journalist who had once written that, &#8220;<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/rome-nixes-naming-street-after-oriana-fallaci-because-she-wrote-that-the-muslim-world-is-attempting-to-conquer-the-west">the Muslim world is attempting to conquer the West in the name of Islam</a>.&#8221; In explaining their decision, local politicians described Fallaci&#8217;s writings as containing &#8220;religious hatred,&#8221; or &#8220;Islamophobia.&#8221;</p>
<p>In Canada, while 80 special Muslims went to the trouble of attending a Muslim rally on behalf of persecuted Christians, sadly, another rally, an extremist Al Quds Day Anti-Israel Hate Fest, drew approximately 6,000 participants.</p>
<p>The rest of September&#8217;s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.</p>
<p align="center"><b>Muslim Attacks on Churches</b></p>
<p><b>East Jerusalem</b>: <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/09/attacks-on-church-in-east-jerusalem-grow-more-intense/">A Christian church was attacked numerous times</a>: On September 29, young Muslim men, with ties to a Palestinian militant group, wired shut the door of the Living Bread Church and sprayed a gaseous substance at those inside. An earlier gas attack had already occurred on September 17. Hours before the second attack, someone threw a rock through one of the windows of the church, and the day before that, Sunday, September 28, a Palestinian and others assaulted a church member as he was emptying trash into a dumpster outside the church.</p>
<p>On Sept. 21, a Palestinian militant, without warning, ran up behind a church leader, Karen Dunham, and knocked her to the pavement: &#8220;This guy charged me as fast as he could,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He came up behind me and just slammed into my back, and I fell and I hit the ground. My face is bruised. There&#8217;s bruises on the side of my cheek, on my face, on my head, on my knee, cuts on my head, and my wrist was fractured.&#8221;</p>
<p><b>Egypt</b>: A Christian priest in Egypt appealed to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to intervene on behalf of yet another church being threatened by &#8220;religious extremists.&#8221; So far, local authorities have done nothing. Four years ago, the Coptic Church of St. Abram in Shubra al-Khaima received a permit to build an additional building. During those same four years, seven &#8220;thugs&#8221;—in the <a href="http://www.copticsolidarity.org/cs-releases/2910-egypt-muslim-mob-prevents-coptic-church-building">words of the report</a>—have prevented it from being built. The &#8220;thugs&#8221; had mobilized local Muslims to threaten and demonstrate against the church. &#8220;The priest lamented that &#8216;after suffering many long years&#8217; they finally managed to acquire the permit to build, but then the next obstacle presented itself in the person of the aforementioned seven &#8216;thugs&#8217; who constantly harass, and incite Muslim mobs, against the church, whenever it tries to exercise its right to build the services building. Islamic law forbids the building of new churches or the renovation of existing churches.&#8221;</p>
<p><b>Iraq</b>: Islamic State militants &#8220;<a href="http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2014/09/25/isis-blow-up-tikrits-green-church_9ac1fb14-0ae6-417d-a4cc-b20cf9eddef2.html">completely destroyed</a>&#8221; the ancient Green Church in Tikrit. They packed the church with explosives and detonated them &#8212; <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20140925012701.htm">completely destroying the ancient church</a>, which belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East. Almost from the time it was built in the seventh century, when Islam overran Iraq, the church had been attacked, ransacked, and destroyed by Muslim rulers and others, but was restored on the orders of Iraq&#8217;s late President Saddam Hussein in the 1990s.</p>
<p><b>Nigeria</b>: Many more churches and a Christian university, <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/09/bible-college-churches-shut-down-as-boko-haram-claims-territory-in-ne-nigeria/">Kulp Bible College</a>, were forced to shut down as a result of the advances of the Islamic jihadi group, Boko Haram. In one instance, a pastor reported that &#8220;Boko Haram violence has been getting worse every day, and our members are fleeing the area by the thousands. Recent attacks in Borno and Adamawa states where our churches are located have seen Boko Haram take over the Army base. As a result, about 350 Christians have been killed.&#8221;</p>
<p>Separately, in Kaduna state, where &#8220;Muslim Fulani assailants seem driven to rid the area of Christianity and use the land to graze their cattle,&#8221; according to church leaders, 46 Christians, including two pastors, were slaughtered in raids. According to an eyewitness,</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Suddenly we heard sounds of gunshots around our village. The pastor was still in the pastorate when the Muslim Fulani gunmen forced their way onto the church premises. They cut him, his wife and a daughter with a machete, and then tied the hands and feet of the three of them before setting the house on fire. The three of them were burned to ashes in the living room of the pastorate. We only found the charred remains of the three of them the following morning&#8230;. The gunmen then came onto the church premises and began shooting. I heard them shouting at the top of their voices, saying they must obliterate any trace of Christianity in the town.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Although Muslim Fulani have historically had property disputes with Christian farmers, Christian leaders say attacks by the herdsmen constitute <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/09/two-pastors-among-46-christians-killed-in-kaduna-state-nigeria/">a war &#8220;by Islam to eliminate Christianity&#8221; in Nigeria</a>.</p>
<p><b>Sudan</b>: In the latest incident of a nearly two-year wave of church demolitions, closures and confiscations, <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/09/sudan-shutters-500-member-church-in-khartoum/">security agents padlocked a 500-member church building</a>, the Sudan Pentecostal Church [SPC] in Khartoum. The church also houses the Khartoum Christian Center (KCC). &#8220;The church is concerned that the building might be sold by the government, which renders more than 500 worshippers to have no place for worship,&#8221; a source told the <i>Morning Star News</i>. The Islamist government appears to be seeking any pretext for closing churches, sources said. In this instance, the space for the church was originally designated as &#8220;office space.&#8221; But, as one source asked, &#8220;How do you close a church building that has been in operation for 20 years in the name of the church being meant for offices?&#8221; The church has a deed showing that it owns the building and property &#8212; a situation that raises the question of the government&#8217;s right to sell it.</p>
<p>On June 30 bulldozers <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/sudanese-authorities-demolish-another-church-building/">demolished</a> the Sudanese Church of Christ in the Thiba Al Hamyida area of North Khartoum as church members watched, while security personnel threatened to arrest them if they tried to block the bulldozers, church members said.</p>
<p><b>Syria</b>: The <a href="http://armenianweekly.com/2014/09/21/der-zor/">Islamic State destroyed the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church</a> in Der Zor, seen as the &#8220;Auschwitz&#8221; of the Armenian Genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished in Der Zor and the surrounding desert during the genocide. In the summer of 1916 alone, more than 200,000 Armenians, mostly women and children, were massacred by Ottoman Turks. Armenia&#8217;s foreign minister issued a statement calling the church&#8217;s destruction a &#8220;horrible barbarity,&#8221; and referred to the Islamic State as a &#8220;disease&#8221; that &#8220;threatened civilized mankind.&#8221; The church was built in 1989-90 and consecrated a year later. A genocide memorial and a museum housing the remains of the victims of the genocide were also located in the church compound. Thousands of Armenians from Syria and neighboring countries gathered at the memorial every year on April 24 to commemorate the genocide.</p>
<p align="center"><b>Pakistani Rape and Dhimmitude</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36439-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Christian_girl_raped_the_perpetrators_film_the_violence#.VIXqaDHF9qU">Four young Muslims gang raped a 15-year-old Christian girl</a> and filmed it. The girl&#8217;s father, although he was threatened against filing a complaint, went to police, who confirmed the existence of a video that corroborates the violence. The video will apparently be introduced as evidence against the youths. A lawyer, Mushtaq Gill, issued a statement that, &#8220;Many Christian girls continue to be victims of sexual assault by young Muslims, who go unpunished&#8221; and that, &#8220;in this case there is also a video, flaunted as a trophy.&#8221;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36280-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Two_Christian_women_abducted_forced_to_convert_to_Islam_and_marry_Muslim_men#.VIXv9zHF9qU">Two Christian women were abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men</a>. Lawyer Mushtaq Gill said, &#8220;A Christian girl, Sairish, forced to marry a Muslim in 2009, in her heart never abandoned the faith and continued to pray to Jesus Christ even after her marriage. After a few years she found the courage to rebel against the situation and run away&#8230;. Her life is now in danger because if she declares herself Christian, Muslims may accuse her of apostasy and the punishment would be death.&#8221; Each year, approximately 1,000 women in Pakistan are forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. Whenever a case of this nature reaches the law courts, those women, under threat and blackmail, often declare that their conversion and marriage were decisions freely made, and the case is closed.</li>
<li>Another Christian family fled their hometown, Lahore, <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36318-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Christian_family_flees_to_save_their_daughters_from_forced_conversion_to_Islam#.VIXuVzHF9qU">to save their daughters from forced conversion to Islam</a>. According to the Justice and Peace Commission, the two sisters, aged 12 and 8, were studying in public schools, where learning to recite the Koran is mandatory. Apparently, because the girls recited the <i>shehada</i>, the Islamic declaration of faith, &#8220;an Islamic cleric, the father of a student stated that these girls had become Muslims and thus needed to be taken from their Christian parents and entrusted to adult Muslims.&#8221; The parents pulled their daughters out of school, but then the headmaster and other Muslim teachers &#8220;warned the parents to send them back to school, offering the family financial aid regarding the school fees.&#8221; The parents quit their jobs and fled the region.</li>
<li>Police arrested 15 Christians and booked 45 other members of the minority community under the blasphemy law <a href="http://www.dailypioneer.com/world/15-christians-held-in-pakistan-under-blasphemy-law.html">for allegedly desecrating Muslim graves</a> in a village in Punjab province. According to the AP, &#8220;The case was registered after a local cleric filed a complaint alleging that the Christians had desecrated over 400 Muslim graves to occupy the land in Chak village in Faisalabad, about 150 kilometres from Lahore.&#8221; Rights groups said it was a spurious charge meant to prevent the Christians from acquiring the land. In fact, the accusations were <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36294-ASIA_PAKISTAN_False_accusations_of_blasphemy_later_withdrawn_against_31_Christians_in_a_Punjab_village#.VIXvWzHF9qU">later proven false</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="center">Dhimmitude: Islamic Discrimination Against Christianity</h3>
<p><b>Egypt:</b> Iman Sarofim, a 39-year-old Christian mother of five, returned home to her family <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36441-AFRICA_EGYPT_The_Coptic_woman_who_had_disappeared_returns_home_she_did_not_convert_but_had_been_kidnapped#.VIXqsTHF9qU">after being kidnapped</a>. Initially it was believed that she had voluntarily converted to Islam and fled her family to be with a Muslim man. The woman contacted the family from Suez, where she had been brought by the kidnapper. The return of the woman was celebrated by neighbors and relatives in the city of Gabal al-Tir. Her disappearance had been the cause of clashes between Copts and police, who believed the narrative that she had voluntarily left. In retaliation, police officers entered the homes of dozens of Coptic families and violently arrested dozens of Christians. Separately, Ehab Karam, <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36416-AFRICA_EGYPT_Kidnappings_continue_to_the_detriment_of_the_Copts_a_dentist_kidnapped_killed#.VIXrhzHF9qU">a Coptic dentist, was killed</a> after he was abducted by unknown persons, most likely for ransom. The kidnapping of Copts for ransom has evidently become a regular part of life in Egypt for Christians, particularly in Upper Egypt. Last February, for instance, police dismantled a crime network that for months had been organizing kidnappings, robberies and extortion against the local Coptic community. &#8220;Unfortunately,&#8221; said the Coptic Catholic Bishop of Assist, Kyrillos William, &#8220;the phenomenon continues and there are no signs of improvement. Police operations are episodic and ineffective, they are unable to solve the problem.&#8221;</p>
<p><b>Iraq:</b> The Islamic State decreed that <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36336-ASIA_IRAQ_The_school_year_in_the_Islamic_Caliphate_the_teaching_of_Syriac_and_Christian_names_of_schools_have_been_abolished#.VIXuDTHF9qU">all schools in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain</a> which bore Christian names, some since the 1700s, must be changed. Also, the teaching of the Syriac language and culture and Christian religious education has been abolished. Reports indicate that the Islamic State took these moves &#8220;in order to erase all traces of cultural and religious pluralism in the conquered areas and turn schools into propaganda tools of jihadist ideology among the new generations.&#8221;</p>
<p><b>Saudi Arabia</b>: In the Eastern Province city of Khafji, &#8220;religious police,&#8221; or agents from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christians-detained-by-Saudi-religious-police-in-raid-on-private-home.html">raided a house where at least 27 Christians</a>, mostly expatriates from various Asian nationalities, were gathered. The Christians, including children, were accused of practicing Christianity in a house church, and were arrested and detained overnight. Authorities also confiscated musical instruments and copies of the Bible. The house had been placed under surveillance after a citizen reported that his Indian neighbor had converted his home into a Christian church. After witnessing a large number of individuals enter the home, officers raided the house. The only religion allowed to be practiced in public in Saudi Arabia is Islam. In the land of the prophet, no public places of worship for non-Muslims are permitted to exist.</p>
<p><b>Turkey:</b> According to the Armenian magazine,<i> Agos</i>, many of the primary and secondary education books being used for the current school year still <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/36339-ASIA_TURKEY_In_school_books_Christian_communities_portrayed_as_tools_of_foreign_powers_against_the_Ottoman_empire">describe the Armenians and other Christian communities as enemy forces</a> at the service of foreign powers, including Russia and England, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. One eighth-grade history book tries to whitewash the Armenian genocide, which is portrayed as a &#8220;necessary deportation,&#8221; never as a massacre.</p>
<p><b>Uzbekistan</b>: Security forces reportedly raided the home of Pastor Stanislav Kim in Chirchik, 20 miles northeast of Tashkent, the capital. They detained 11 teenagers and three adults, who had gathered there for a volleyball game, and questioned them for more than four hours before releasing them. Officials also searched the pastor&#8217;s home and <a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/33773-uzbekistan-prosecuting-pastor-son-for-unregistered-activity">confiscated a New Testament, a Bible, several other Christian books</a>, more than 100 slides of hymns, as well as some computer equipment. Voice of the Martyrs, which says there are at least 65 unregistered congregations scattered throughout Uzbekistan, said in a statement, &#8220;Please pray that this pastor and his son will not face fines, but will soon be acquitted of any perceived wrongdoing. Ask God to strengthen each believer who was present during this unwarranted raid so that they will not give in to governmental intimidation and pressure, but instead be emboldened to serve our Lord faithfully.&#8221;</p>
<p align="center"><b>About this Series</b></p>
<p>While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. &#8220;Muslim Persecution of Christians&#8221; was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.</p>
<p>It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.</p>
<p>It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/"><i>Raymond Ibrahim</i></a> <i>is author of</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=uhurnetw-20">Crucified Again: Exposing Islam&#8217;s New War in Christians</a> <i>(published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).</i></p></blockquote>
<p><b>Previous reports</b></p>
<ul type="square">
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4927/raping-beheading-faithful">August, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4846/muslim-persecution-christians-july">July, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4817/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june">June, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4763/muslim-persecution-christians-may-2014">May, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4666/raped-and-slaughtered-muslim-persecution">April, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4400/obama-muslim-persecutions">March, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4365/christians-most-persecuted">February, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4312/muslim-persecution-christians-january">January, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4252/slaughtering-christians">December, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4170/us-silent-muslim-persecution-christians">November, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4093/slaughter-in-muslim-lands">October, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4065/september-horror-christians-islam">September, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4050/christians-middle-east-august">August, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3967/christian-women-degradation-islam">June, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3904/nigeria-christians-murdered">May, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3875/christian-suffering-under-jihadi-extremism">April, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3760/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013">March, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3673/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2013">February, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3641/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2013">January, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3577/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2012">December, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3566/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012">November, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3485/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012">October, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3421/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2012">September, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3318/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">August, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3318/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">July, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3203/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012">June, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3135/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2012">May, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3065/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2012">April, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3033/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2012">March, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2949/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012">February, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2834/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012">January, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2733/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2011">December, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2676/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2011">November, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2585/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2011">October, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2491/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september">September, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2401/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011">August, 2011</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>How Western Media Enable Islamic Terrorism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/how-western-media-enable-islamic-terrorism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-western-media-enable-islamic-terrorism</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2014 05:45:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247768</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The same lies and distortions shielding Islam “over there” have come “over here.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/la-epa-egypt-unrest2-jpg-20130819.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247776" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/la-epa-egypt-unrest2-jpg-20130819-450x300.jpg" alt="la-epa-egypt-unrest2-jpg-20130819" width="315" height="210" /></a>If the West is experiencing a rise in the sort of terror attacks that are endemic to the Islamic world—<a href="http://www.wthr.com/story/26416131/2014/08/31/3-columbus-churches-vandalized-with-graffiti-overnight"><span style="color: #0433ff;">church attacks</span></a>, <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslims-sexually-enslaving-children-a-global-phenomenon/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sex-slavery</span></a> and <a href="http://midnightwatcher.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/isis-plot-to-behead-people-on-uk-streets-disrupted-after-police-arrest-four-islamic-terrorists-in-london/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">beheadings</span></a>—it was only natural that the same mainstream media that habitually conceals such atrocities, especially against Christians and other minorities under Islam, would also conceal the reality of jihadi aspirations on Western soil.</p>
<p>As The <a href="http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5433/australia_tragicomic_west_stresses_danger_of_islamophobia"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Commentator</span></a> reports:</p>
<blockquote><p>[T]he level of the [media] grovelling after the tragic and deadly saga in Sydney Australia over the last 24 hours has been astounding.</p>
<p>At the time of writing, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-30490696"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the lead story on the BBC website</span></a> is of course about that very tragedy, in which an Islamist fanatic took a random group hostage in a cafe, ultimately killing two of them.</p>
<p>He did this in the name of Islam. But you wouldn&#8217;t get that impression if you started to read the BBC&#8217;s lead story, which astoundingly managed to avoid mentioning the words Islam, Islamic, Islamist, Muslim, or any derivations thereof for a full 16 paragraphs. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/world/asia/sydney-australia-hostages.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">The New York Times</span></a>, which led by calling the terrorist, Man Haron Monis an &#8220;armed man&#8221;, waited until paragraph 11.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/15/sydney-siege-ends-police-storm-lindt-cafe-hostages-run-out"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Guardian&#8217;s main story</span></a> &#8211; whose lead paragraph simply referred to a &#8220;gunman&#8221; &#8212; you had to wait until paragraph 24.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d have blinked, you&#8217;d have missed it.</p>
<p>….</p>
<p>In the wider media, reports about Muslim fears of a &#8220;backlash&#8221; have been all but ubiquitous.</p></blockquote>
<p>If these are the lengths that Western mainstream media go to dissemble about the Islamic-inspired slaughter of Western peoples, it should now be clear why the ubiquitous Muslim persecution of those unfashionable Christian minorities is also practically unknown by those who follow Western mainstream media.</p>
<p>As with the Sydney attack, media headlines say it all. The 2011 New Year’s Eve Coptic church attack that left 28 dead appeared under vague headlines: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/world/middleeast/04egypt.html?_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">“Clashes grow as Egyptians remain angry after attack,”</span></a> was the <i>New York Times</i>’ headline; and “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/01/AR2011010102697.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christians clash with police in Egypt after attack on churchgoers kills 21</span></a>” was the <i>Washington Post</i>’s—as if frustrated and harried Christians lashing out against their oppressors is the “big news,” not the unprovoked atrocity itself; as if their angry reaction “evens” everything up.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> partially told the story of an Egyptian off-duty police officer who, after <a href="http://www1.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Security/Egypt-Christian-shot-dead-and-several-others-injured-in-train-attack_311526616347.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">identifying Copts by their crosses</span></a> on a train, opened fire on them, killing one, while screaming “Allahu Akbar”—but to exonerate the persecution, as caught by the report’s headline: <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/01/egypt-eyewitness-claims-train-attacker-did-not-target-copts-state-media-say.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">“Eyewitness claims train attacker did not target Copts, state media say.”</span></a></p>
<p>A February 2012 NPR report titled “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/02/25/147370689/in-egypt-christian-muslim-tension-is-on-the-rise"><span style="color: #0433ff;">In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension is on the Rise</span></a>,” while meant to familiarize readers with the situation of Egypt’s Christians, prompts more questions than answers them: “In Egypt, growing tensions between Muslims and Christians have led to sporadic violence [initiated by whom?]. Many Egyptians blame the interreligious strife on hooligans [who?] taking advantage of absent or weak security forces. Others believe it’s because of a deep-seated mistrust between Muslims and the minority Christian community [what are the sources of this “mistrust”?].”</p>
<p>The photo accompanying the story is of angry Christians holding a cross aloft—not Muslims destroying crosses, which is what prompted the former to this display of Christian solidarity.</p>
<p>Blurring the line between victim and oppressor—recall the fear of “<a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2014/12/new-fbi-hate-crime-stats-another-blow-to-islamist"><span style="color: #0433ff;">anti-Muslim backlashes</span></a>” whenever a Muslim terrorizes “infidels” in the West—also applies to the media’s reporting on Muslim persecution of Christians.</p>
<p>A February 2012 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17169935"><span style="color: #0433ff;">BBC report</span></a> on a church attack in Nigeria that left three Christians dead, including a toddler, objectively states the bare bone facts in one sentence.  Then it jumps to apparently the <i>really</i> big news: that “the bombing sparked a riot by Christian youths, with reports that at least two Muslims were killed in the violence. The two men were dragged off their bikes after being stopped at a roadblock set up by the rioters, police said. A row of Muslim-owned shops was also burned…”</p>
<p>The report goes on and on, with an entire section about “very angry” Christians till one confuses victims with persecutors, forgetting what the Christians are “very angry” about in the first place: nonstop terror attacks on their churches and the slaughter of their women and children.</p>
<p>A <i>New York Times</i> report that appeared on December 25, 2011—the day after Boko Haram bombed several churches during Christmas Eve services, leaving some 40 dead—said that such church bombings threaten “to exploit the already frayed relations between Nigeria’s nearly evenly split populations of Christians and Muslims…”  Such an assertion suggests that both Christians and Muslims are equally motivated by religious hostility—even as one seeks in vain for Christian terror organizations that bomb mosques in Nigeria to screams of “Christ is Great!”</p>
<p>Indeed, Boko Haram has <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nigeria-boko-haram-torch-185-churches-captured-towns-borno-adamawa-1468763"><span style="color: #0433ff;">torched 185 churches</span></a>—to say nothing of the countless Christians beheaded—in just the last few months alone.</p>
<p>Continuing to grasp for straws, the same NYT report suggests that the Nigerian government’s “heavy-handed” response to Boko Haram is responsible for its terror, and even manages to invoke another mainstream media favorite: the poverty-causes-terrorism myth.</p>
<p>Whether Muslim mayhem is taking place in the Islamic or Western worlds, the mainstream media shows remarkable consistency in employing an arsenal of semantic games, key phrases, convenient omissions, and moral relativism to portray such violence as a product of anything and everything—political and historical grievances, “Islamophobia,” individual insanity, poverty and ignorance, territorial disputes—not Islam.</p>
<p>As such, Western mainstream media keep Western majorities in the dark about the Islamic threat, here and abroad.  Thus the “MSM” protects and enables the Islamic agenda—irrespective of whether its distortions are a product of intent, political correctness, or sheer stupidity.</p>
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		<title>Christian Extermination in the Middle East</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/christian-extermination-in-the-middle-east/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=christian-extermination-in-the-middle-east</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2014 05:25:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Chuches and communities are being terrorized into oblivion. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ISIS-Burns-Down-Church.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244875" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ISIS-Burns-Down-Church.jpg" alt="ISIS-Burns-Down-Church" width="321" height="272" /></a>The purge of ancient Christian communities throughout Iraq that started in June culminated in a show of great intolerance in July.</p>
<p>Among other things, a Christian church that had stood on the ground of Iraq for 1,800 years—a church that was erected less than 200 year after Christ—was reportedly torched by the Islamic State, according to numerous news agencies, including <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/07/20/ISIS-burns-1-800-year-old-church-in-Mosul.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Al Arabiya</span></a>.</p>
<p>Islamic State jihadis also stormed and took over an ancient monastery in northern Iraq and <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-seize-iraq-monastery-005850871.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">expelled its few monks</span></a>, telling them “You have no place here anymore, you have to leave immediately.”  The monks plead to be allowed to save some of the monastery’s ancient relics but the jihadis refused and ordered them to walk many miles along a deserted road with nothing but their clothes.  (St. Behnam monastery had stood since the fourth century and was one of Iraq’s best-known Christian landmarks.  It was built by an Assyrian king as a penance for executing his children Behnam and Sarah for converting to Christianity.)</p>
<p>The Islamic State issued a July 19 deadline for Mosul’s remaining <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/iraqi-christians-mosul-isis-convert-islam-or-be-executed"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christians either to convert to Islam or face execution</span></a>.  Islamic State members also singled out Christian homes by placing the Arabic letter for “N”—based on the Arabic word <i>Nasara</i>, or “Nazarenes,” the Koran’s pejorative for Christians—on the sides of their homes.   The result, in the words of Patriarch Louis Sako, is that “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”</p>
<p>In response to the Islamic State’s latest atrocities against Iraq’s Christian minorities, the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Mount Lebanon and Tripoli,<span style="color: #0433ff;"> George Saliba</span>, <a href="https://docs.zoho.com/writer/ropen.do?rid=fs79p4de3b9a0916c47bc898fe0713d6d0e07#bookmark=http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Jul-30/265488-syriac-orthodox-bishop-muslims-enemies-of-christ.ashx"><span style="color: #0433ff;">denounced</span></a> not just the Islamic State but Muslims in general for their long “history of violence and oppression against Christians”:</p>
<blockquote><p>What is happening in<span style="color: #0433ff;"> Iraq</span> is a strange thing, but it is normal for Muslims, because they have never treated Christians well, and they have always held an offensive and defaming stand against Christians….  We used to live and coexist with Muslims, but then they revealed their canines [teeth]….  [They don’t] have the right to storm houses, steal and attack the honor of Christians.  Most Muslims do this, the Ottomans killed us and after that the ruling nation-states understood the circumstances but always gave advantage to the Muslims.  Islam has never changed&#8230;</p></blockquote>
<p>Islamic organizations responded by denouncing the Syriac bishop’s words as “hateful” and Islamophobic, demanding an apology.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also made some telling remarks concerning the plight of Christians, <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/presbyterian-church-usa-criticizes-israel-ignores-christian-persecution/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">especially in those Mideast countries the U.S. is involved in</span></a>.  When asked if he was “troubled” by the Presbyterian Church USA’s decision to withdraw $21 million worth in investments from Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people, the prime minister said:</p>
<blockquote><p>You know I would suggest to these Presbyterian organizations to fly to the Middle East, come and see Israel for the embattled democracy that it is, and then take a bus tour, go to Libya, go to Syria, go to Iraq, and see the difference. And I would give them two pieces of advice, one is, make sure it’s an armor plated bus, and second, don’t say that you’re Christians.<i> </i></p></blockquote>
<p>The rest of July’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.</p>
<p><b>Muslim Attacks on Churches and Carnage</b></p>
<p><b>Afghanistan</b>: according to BosNewsLife, the central Asian nation’s “tiny Christian community was left in shock Friday,  July 25, after <a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/33389-news-alert-finish-christian-workers-killed-in-afghanistan"><span style="color: #0433ff;">two Finnish Christian aid workers were shot dead</span></a>.”  The attack “underscored the dangers faced by Christian aid workers.”  The two women were slain by motorcycle riding gunmen in the western city of Herat, “the latest in a series of attacks targeting Westerners, including Christian believers.  The Christians, who represented International Assistance Mission (IAM), had been working in Afghanistan since the 1990s…  They both spoke Dari well and knew and respected the culture of Afghanistan.”  Among those the aid workers were helping were people with mental disabilities and illiterate women.</p>
<p><b>Central African Republic</b>:  At least <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Help-Christians-affected-by-CAR-violence-27-killed-in-church-attack.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">27 Christians were slaughtered</span></a> during a July 7 attack on the St. Joseph’s Cathedral compound in Bambari, where thousands of people, mostly Christian, were receiving sanctuary.  The attackers were fighters from the Islamic Seleka rebel movement and Muslim civilians. The armed attackers entered the grounds at around 3pm and began shooting indiscriminately. Women and children were among those killed; over 20 people were injured.  The Islamic attackers burnt down 20 <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/Our-work/Our-current-projects/BF-Project-Categories/Buildings.html?"><span style="color: #0433ff;">buildings</span></a> within the church compound, set fire to three cars, and stole two others as well as a number of motorbikes.  Weeks earlier, on May 28, another attack on a church compound in Bangui, the capital, left around 20 people dead.</p>
<p><b>Kenya</b>: On July 5, Muslims attacked the Covenant Church, three kilometers north of Hindi, just as Bible study was closing.  As the Bible study participants fled, two men opted to hide inside the church building—and were <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/07/christians-killed-in-attacks-in-coastal-region-of-kenya/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">burned alive after the Islamic attackers set the building on fire</span></a>.  On the same night, a Catholic church building in the village of Gamba, in neighboring Tana River County, was also destroyed by attackers.   Two days earlier, 15-20 assailants armed with guns and knives attacked Gamba and the village of Hindi, killing at least 13 people, including a 12-year-old student and a 30-year-old man “who was found in a pool of blood with a Bible on his back,” reports Morning Star News. One survivor of the attacks said the invaders were heard “saying non-Muslims should get out, and if not they should convert to Islam.”  Another survivor said, “I was removed with my daughter from the house while the attackers tied my husband to the bedside before setting the house on fire.  The attackers, who spoke mainly in Somali, targeted non-Muslims, whom they tied with ropes before slitting their throats.” (Gamba is about 28 miles from Mpeketoni, another Christian town where gunmen killed at least 57 people in a <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/christians-targeted-in-massacre-by-al-shabaab-in-kenya/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">June 15 attack</span></a>.)</p>
<p><b>Lebanon</b>: A shadowy group known as the Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade, which had only recently pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State, announced on its twitter account that a “specialized group of free jihadists were tasked with cleansing the Islamic state of Bekaa in particular and in Lebanon in general <a href="http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/137260-free-sunnis-of-baalbek-brigade-vows-to-silence-church-bells-in-bekaa"><span style="color: #0433ff;">from the churches</span></a>.  We will target crusaders in the state and in Lebanon to silence the ringing of the bells.”  (According to Islamic Sharia, churches under Islamic authority are <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/western-ignorance-of-the-conditions-of-omar/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">forbidden from ringing their bells</span></a>.)  The Brigade has claimed responsibility for several rocket and bomb attacks inside Lebanon, the last of which were the suicide blasts in Dahr al-Baydar and Raouche’s Duroy Hotel.</p>
<p><b>Nigeria</b>: A <a href="https://docs.zoho.com/writer/ropen.do?rid=fs79p4de3b9a0916c47bc898fe0713d6d0e07#bookmark=http://www.smh.com.au/world/five-killed-in-bomb-attack-on-nigerian-church-20140728-zxhss.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">bomb blast inside the Saint Charles Catholic Church</span></a> left five people dead and eight injured.  The attack came shortly after Sunday mass ended, when an improvised explosive device was thrown inside the city of Kano, which has a strong presence of Boko Haram, the local Islamic terrorist organization.  On the same Sunday and also in Kano, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside a university after police prevented her from carrying out an attack.  Five officers were injured.  According to a police spokesman, “A female suicide bomber was isolated (by police) as she was walking towards the gate of the university.”  She had hidden the bomb under her “long black hijab” and was singled out for behaving strangely, said the spokesman.  Police were about to ask a female colleague to frisk the woman when she detonated the bomb, killing herself and injuring the police officers.  Also in July,<b> </b>Nicholas Okoh, primate of the Church of Nigeria, said in an interview that, despite Boko Haram’s nonstop attacks on Christians and their churches, for long “the United States did not come out to say anything about Boko Haram.  They kept talking about economic problems, [saying] that Boko Haram is fighting because of economic problems. That is not true &#8230; <a href="http://www.brnow.org/News/July-2014/Boko-Haram-s-Islamic-motives-ignored"><span style="color: #0433ff;">The United States deliberately ignored the fundamental issues of religious ideology</span></a>.”</p>
<p><b>Sudan</b>:  In adherence to Islamic law, the east African nation formally announced a <a href="http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/72207.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">ban on the construction of any new Christian churches</span></a> in the country.  This move came after several churches, some of which have been in existence for decades, were bulldozed to the ground by authorities, the most recent one, the Sudanese Christ Church at El Izba residential area in Khartoum North, on July 1. According to Pravoslavie, “The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Religious Endowments Shalil Abdullah announced that the government will henceforth not issue permits for the building of churches in the country.  Minister Shalil Abdullah told the press on Saturday [July 12] that the existing churches are enough for the Christian population remaining in Sudan after the secession of South Sudan in 2011.”  Since 1989, Sudan has been governed by a Sharia enforcing Islamic regime. Reverend Kori El Ramli, the Secretary-General of Sudan Council of Churches, criticized this move as contradicting the nation’s Constitution, adding “Yes, we are a minority, but we have freedom of worship and belief just like the rest of the Sudanese as long as we are Sudanese nationals like them.”</p>
<p><b>Turkey</b>:  A band of <a href="http://www.catholic.org/news/international/europe/story.php?id=56220"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Muslims attacked the Saint Stephanos Church</span></a> in Istanbul during a baptismal service held on July 15. Among other things, the Muslim intruders pushed their way into the baptismal service, yelling obscenities, with one waving a knife and threatening to stab a parishioner.  The attack occurred during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/ramadan-islams-holy-month-of-christian-oppression/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">often sees a concomitant rise of intolerance</span></a> in Muslim majority areas.   Speaking about the attack, one parishioner said on condition of anonymity that “It’s not the first, and it won’t be the last.”  In fact, two months earlier, men in their late teens and 20s entered the church building at night, ripped out most of its audio equipment and destroyed what they couldn’t carry away. They also took some of the ceremonial candles, lit them and started setting items in the rear of the building on fire. They stacked all remaining candles into a pile, lit them and left.</p>
<p><b>Uganda</b>: A gang of Muslims brandishing machetes stormed a church during service, <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christian-teenager-killed-by-machete-in-attack-on-church-in-Uganda.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">hacking one 18-year-old woman to death</span></a> and leaving three others, including a one-year-old baby, injured.  A group of around 20 Christians had gathered at Chali Born Victory Church in Kyegegwa district for their regular Friday night prayer session when armed Muslims burst into the building around 2 am.  Pastor Jackson Turyamureba was preaching when he saw somebody peeping through a window.  According to the pastor, “I thought he was a drunkard and told him to either enter or go away. Shortly after that I heard doors being banged and men shouting ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (Allah is great) as they stormed the church brandishing pangas (machetes) and beating worshippers….  One of the attackers followed me and threw a panga which went over my head. I ran through a garden and the man who was pursuing me fell down and gave up the chase.”  The Muslim attackers then fled to a nearby mosque; police surrounded the mosque and one officer was killed when attackers opened fire.  Two suspects were arrested.   According to the pastor<i>, </i>the church has had problems with a group of Muslims in the area who had unsuccessfully tried to convert them to Islam. Church member Polly Tashobya added that the group said they wanted to transform Uganda into an Islamic nation and would kill anyone who refused to convert.</p>
<p><b>Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom and ‘Dhimmitude’</b></p>
<p><b>Iran</b>: <a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/33301-iran-detains-evangelical-christians-bible-confiscated"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Authorities detained a pastor and two other members of the Church of Iran</span></a>, one of the country’s largest house church movements.  Pastor Matthias Haghnejad, Mohammad Roghangir, and Suroush Saraie were arrested July 5 by security forces at the pastor’s home in the city of Bandar-Anzali.  According to BosNewsLife, “Their detention comes amid an ongoing government campaign to halt the spread of Christianity in the Islamic country. Especially converts from Islam, many of whom visit the Church of Iran, have been targeted.”  Security forces reportedly confiscated the pastor’s belongings, including his Bible, and several other books.  This would be the latest setback for Pastor Matthias, who was jailed for his faith on three other occasions between 2006 and 2011.  Separately, <a href="https://docs.zoho.com/writer/ropen.do?rid=fs79p4de3b9a0916c47bc898fe0713d6d0e07#bookmark=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2702774/Christian-sentenced-Iranian-judge-lips-burnt-cigarette-eating-Ramadan.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">a judge sentenced a Christian man to have his lips burnt with a cigarette</span></a> for eating during the day in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink during daylight.  The punishment was carried out in public in a square in the city of Kermanshah.  Five other Muslim men were also flogged in public with 70 lashes for not fasting during Ramadan.  A spokesperson from The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a political coalition which opposes the government, denounced the treatment as ‘savage’ and called on Western countries to respond:  “The silence of the world community, especially of western countries, vis-à-vis these medieval punishments under the excuse of having nuclear talks with Iran has intensified the brutal and systematic violation of human rights in Iran.”</p>
<p><b>Somalia</b>: Muslim converts to Christianity who fled Somalia and reside in Kenyan refugee camps remain in mortal danger.  One convert, known only as “Abubakr,” and his wife reportedly held each other under their bed in their refugee camp as suspected gunmen from the Islamic terrorist organization Al Shabaab pounded on their door. They ordered the man to come out and called him an “infidel” (in both the Arabic and Somali languages), saying, “<a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/07/stay-or-leave-somali-christians-in-kenyan-refugee-camps-face-danger/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">We need your head</span></a>.”  When the apostate refused, they opened fire through the spaces of the poles of the couple’s hut, striking their legs.  Then they heard the attackers say, “We have killed the infidels” as they shot into the air while leaving.  The Christian couple was found two days later lying in their own pool of blood.   According to Abubakr, far from providing security for the hiding apostates, Muslim guards at the refugee camp actually help Al Shabaab militants locate them.  Another Somali convert from Islam, Abdikadir, saw Muslim relatives and other Somalis burn down his home in one of the undisclosed Dadaab refugee camps in April. They took away his wife and four children in the course of destroying his home.  He fled the camp and is now living elsewhere.</p>
<p><b>United Kingdom</b>: According to the Telegraph, “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10977187/Christians-lie-and-wives-must-have-sex-or-go-to-hell-Trojan-Horse-pupils-told.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Children were taught that all Christians are liars</span></a> and attempts were made to introduce Sharia law in classrooms as part of an alleged ‘Trojan Horse’ takeover plot of Birmingham schools, an inquiry has found.”  Commissioned by Birmingham City Council, the inquiry found “evidence of religious extremism in 13 schools as school governors and teachers tried to promote and enforce radical Islamic values.”  Among other things, schools canceled Christmas, put up posters warning children that they would “go to hell” if they did not pray, and girls were taught that women who refused to have sex with their husbands would be “punished” by angels “from dusk to dawn.”  The report found that the extremism went unchecked because the council “disastrously” prioritized community cohesion over “doing what is right.”</p>
<p><b>About this Series</b></p>
<p>The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:</p>
<p>1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.</p>
<p>2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.</p>
<p>Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam;  theft and plunder in lieu of <i>jizya</i> (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed <i>dhimmis</i>, or third-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.</p>
<p>Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.</p>
<p><b>Previous Reports</b>:</p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/isis-snuffs-out-ancient-christianity-muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2014/">June, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2014/">May, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/raped-and-slaughtered-muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2014/">April, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/obama-administration-suppresses-talk-of-muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2014/">March, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/christians-most-persecuted-group-in-world-muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2014/">February, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/becomes-chief-enabler-of-christian-persecution-muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2014/">January, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/they-are-slaughtering-us-like-chickens-muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2013/">December, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/u-s-chose-to-stay-silent-on-muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2013/">November, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">October, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">September, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2013/">August, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2013/">July, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2013/">June, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2013/">May, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2013/">April, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013/">March, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2013/">February, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2013/">January, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2012/">December, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012/">November, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012/">October, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2012/">September, 2012 </a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2012/">August, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12215/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">July, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12045/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012">June, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11930/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2012">May, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11713/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2012">April, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11604/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2012">March, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11373/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012">February, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11152/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012">January, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10989/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2011">December, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10922/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2011">November, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10724/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2011">October, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10504/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2011">September, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10247/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011">August, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2011/">July, 2011</a></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>
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		<title>Newest Prager University Course: Raymond Ibrahim on Christian Persecution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/newest-prager-university-course-raymond-ibrahim-on-christian-persecution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=newest-prager-university-course-raymond-ibrahim-on-christian-persecution</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Nov 2014 05:03:00 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[Shillman Journalism Fellow discusses the greatest human rights atrocity of the present day. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>The newest Prager University course is taught by Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. In the video-course, titled &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytdMUddGe-U">The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians</a>,” Ibrahim identifies the greatest human rights atrocity of the present day, its perpetrators, and why the media won&#8217;t talk about it. View the video below.  </strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ytdMUddGe-U" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></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>
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		<title>Christians ‘Losing Everything’ to Islam</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2014 05:30:55 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[Struggles with the relentless “Hound of Jihad.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/iraq-christian-afp.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244877" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/iraq-christian-afp-450x337.png" alt="iraq-christian-afp" width="359" height="269" /></a>Originally published by the </i></b><span style="color: #0433ff;"><b><i><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4857/christians-losing-everything">Gatestone Institute</a></i></b></span></p>
<p><i>“I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things”—</i>Philippians 3:8</p>
<p>When St. Paul wrote the above in his letter to the Christians of Philippi, he and the early church were being persecuted (Paul was eventually executed in Rome).  While today’s Western Christians still quote his words in the context of their daily struggles, an increasing number of Christians around the world, especially the Muslim world, are still literally losing absolutely everything for their faith.</p>
<p>In Uganda, matters have gone from bad to worse to murderous. The plight of Hassan Muwanguzi, for instance, a Muslim convert to Christianity—whose initial sacrifices are recorded in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=uhurnetw-20"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Crucified Again: Exposing Islam&#8217;s New War on Christians</i></span></a> (page 131)—far from abating, has only gotten worse.</p>
<p>After earning a university degree in Islamic law and then, in 2003, when he was in his early 20s, converting to Christianity, his family immediately threw him out of their home. “Enraged Muslims” beat him. Later that same year, his wife left him and he lost his job as a teacher at Nankodo Islamic School, near Pallisa.</p>
<p>This was just the beginning.  Picking up the pieces of his life and moving on, he eventually opened a Christian school, Grace International Nursery and Primary School, near Muslim-majority Mbale.  Accordingly, “The Muslims have tried to use all kinds of threats to make me close the school—first they used witchcraft,” said Hassan. “This did not work, so then they tried to discourage Muslims from bringing their children to the school, saying that the school was converting Muslim children to Christianity by teaching Christian Religious Education.”</p>
<p>When all else failed, in 2011 an Islamic teacher, Sheikh Hassan Abdalla, filed a false charge claiming that Hassan had “defiled” the sheikh’s young daughter. Together with his fellow Muslim countrymen, the Islamic cleric filed a case at the chief magistrate’s court.  Hassan was subsequently arrested and incarcerated for three weeks.</p>
<p>But because Sheikh Abdalla, his accuser, repeatedly failed to appear in court to testify, Hassan was released.  In his words:  “The judge found out it was a false accusation, hence the case was dropped.  I had been subjected to humiliation, but I forgave them for the sake of my Christian outreach in the area.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/07/mulinde-other-converts-from-islam-in-uganda-struggle-to-recover/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">next Islamic attack</span></a> came a few months after Hassan was acquitted.  First, the owner of the land where Hassan had built his Christian school denied ever having sold it, leading to a court order to close down the school in May, 2012.  This incurred great losses on Hassan.   The month after, in June, the Christian convert’s home was burnt down by three Muslims:</p>
<blockquote><p>I and my family escaped from the house by grace, but if it had not been so, then by now we would be no more….  This attack was mobilized by Muslim sheikhs, imams and family members after hearing that I had converted to Christianity after studying and completing university with a degree in Islamic law.</p></blockquote>
<p>Less than a year later, on March 31, 2013, Hassan was hospitalized in Mbale after an aunt who had called a “family gathering” slipped some insecticide in his tea.  According to Hassan:</p>
<blockquote><p>After eating and taking tea, I started feeling stomachache, then I realized that she was the one responsible for it—and I believe she did not do it alone, since they have been hunting for me directly and indirectly, because when I left them and converted to Christianity it pained them so much….  The reason they want to kill me is very clear—it is because of being a convert to Christianity; above all, to them it is like I brought shame by converting, as a [former] sheikh. But to God the Almighty Father, this was His plan for me to expand His Kingdom.</p></blockquote>
<p>According to the doctor who treated him, when Hassan arrived at the hospital, he had already vomited, “looked confused with slurred speech” and his “vision was getting very poor,” so that “he could not even recognize the friend who brought him in.?</p>
<p>During the family meeting, when he first began to feel ill, he telephoned a local Christian leader who advised him to leave secretly: “I knew if he were to mention to them that he was getting sick, they would harm him more,” said Bishop Kinyewa.</p>
<p>Now, most recently, on June 16, 2014, four Muslim men barged into his home with one shouting, “Today we shall kill you—you have been a trouble-maker and are not respecting our prophet’s religion.”  The “apostate” fled into a room, thinking they would not hurt his young daughter, Grace Baruka.  But then he heard the 12-year-old girl’s cries, as the Muslim invaders were strangling her.</p>
<p>When he came out of the room they seized him:  “They hit me with a blunt object, and I fell down.  I just woke up and saw neighbors surrounding me while wailing, saying that my daughter is in critical condition.”  Neighbors took Grace to a clinic but she was declared dead upon arrival.  “I am regretting why I survived the poisoning,” said Hassan.  God could have allowed me to die. My daughter has died, and I am now mourning for her death as well [as] have pain all over my body.”</p>
<p>While Hassan’s ongoing experience with the relentless “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/the-hound-of-jihad/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Hound of Jihad</span></a>” speaks for itself, the reality is that countless Christians around the world—both Muslim converts and born Christians—are quietly “losing everything” at the hands of Muslims, whether family members, “local Muslims,” Islamic regimes and courts, or Islamic terrorist organizations.</p>
<p>According to a human rights activist who recently visited the Christians fleeing the Islamic State’s advance into Mosul, “People are severely traumatized: <a href="http://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/stories/iraq_141031.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">they have lost everything</span></a>. Often they are fleeing for the second, third or even fourth time.”  One Iraqi Christian man, lamenting his ongoing struggles and sounding like Hassan, told her: “Sometimes I wish my parents had never brought me into the world.”</p>
<p>From one end of the Muslim world to the other, Christians are suffering persecution.  <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/we-need-your-head-muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2014/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Not one month goes by</span></a> without several attacks on churches, many—for example in Nigeria and Kenya—resulting in large casualties; not one month goes by without several attacks on Christians accused of apostatizing from Islam or “blaspheming.”</p>
<p>Last week a pregnant Christian mother of four and her husband, falsely accused of burning pages of the Koran, were beaten by a Muslim mob and <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/11/islamist-mob-in-pakistan-kills-christian-couple-accused-of-blasphemy/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">throw into a kiln, a fiery oven</span></a> at a brick factory, where they were roasted alive; and the world recalls the plight of Meriam Ibrahim, another Christian wife and mother who, while also pregnant, was imprisoned in Sudan and sentenced to receive 100 lashes followed by execution on the charge of apostatizing from Muhammad’s religion.  Although she has been freed, Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American, is still being held in prison in Iran for apostasy and practicing his Christian faith. His case was apparently not even raised by the Americans negotiating with Iran on its nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>As tragic as the story of Uganda’s Hassan Muwanguzi is, he is only one of countless Christians and other minorities living under, and losing everything to, Islam.</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>
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		<title>ISIS Snuffs Out Ancient Christianity</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/isis-snuffs-out-ancient-christianity/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=isis-snuffs-out-ancient-christianity</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Nov 2014 05:30:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christianity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244402</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Churches burned, Christian “apostates” and “blasphemers” slaughtered.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/christians.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244404" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/christians-450x300.jpg" alt="christians" width="318" height="212" /></a><strong><em>Originally published by the </em></strong><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4817/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june"><strong><em>Gatestone Institute</em></strong></a>.</p>
<p>During the Islamic State’s June invasion and consolidation of Mosul, Iraq–where Christians have been present since the first century—numerous atrocities against them were committed. Accordingly, the region is now reportedly empty of Christian presence.</p>
<p>Among other things, the Islamic State reinstituted the collection of jizya, the tribute conquered Christians (and Jews) were historically required to pay in order not to be killed in accordance with Koran 9:29. In one instance, three Islamic State members burst into the home of a Christian family, demanding the jizya-money. When the father of the house pleaded that he did not have the money, the intruders <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20140621123203.htm">raped his wife and daughter in front of him</a>. The man was reportedly so traumatized that he committed suicide. Four other Christian women were <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20140623185542.htm">killed for not wearing the Islamic veil</a>.</p>
<p>Soon after taking over Mosul, the Islamic State also announced that it would destroy all Christian places of worship. <a href="http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/71713.htm">Several churches were burned</a>, including the Armenian church near the Al Salam hospital and the Church of the Holy Spirit, which was first looted and desecrated. A large Virgin Mary statue disappeared.</p>
<p>Among the many Christians missing are two nuns from the Daughters of Mary Order, who managed an orphanage for girls in Mosul. <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20140630153011.htm">It is believed they have been kidnapped</a>.</p>
<p>The rest of June’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.</p>
<p><strong>Church Attacks and Slaughters </strong></p>
<p><strong>Indonesia</strong>: Another Catholic community was attacked in the world’s largest Muslim-population country. The Parish of the Sacred Heart in Pugeran, in the South of Yogyakarta, was targeted by three different groups of unknown assailants riding motorcycles during the first morning Mass. The incident coincided with the start of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, which <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/ramadan-islams-holy-month-of-christian-oppression/">often sees a rise in hostility for religious minorities</a>. The attackers, who were dressed in black and covered their faces with masks, broke through the parish gates shouting “Allah is great,” Islam’s historic war-cry. They <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Yogyakarta,-to-cries-of-Allah-is-great-unknown-assailants-attack-Sacred-Heart-parish-31488.html">attacked some Christian objects and posters</a> placed by members of the local Catholic community. Weeks earlier, on May 30, “Islamic extremists attacked a group of Catholics gathered in prayer, beating up the community leader; a week later, Pastor Niko, leader of the Protestant Christian community, was targeted by extremists ‘accused’ of having set up an ‘illegal’ house of prayer without permission,” reports Asia News: “Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Increasingly however, it has become the scene of attacks or episodes of intolerance against minorities, whether they are Christians, Ahmadi Muslims or belong to other faiths.”</p>
<p><strong>Kenya</strong>:Approximately 50 militants from Somalia’s Islamic Al Shabaab (“the youth”) network attacked two hotels, a police station and other buildings in Mpeketoni, a predominantly Christian town on Kenya’s coast during the night of Sunday June 15. They chanted “Allahu Akbar” and <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/christians-targeted-in-massacre-by-al-shabaab-in-kenya/">killed whoever could not recite verses from the Koran</a>. The militants reportedly also went door-to-door asking residents their religion and killed them if they answered “Christian.”More than 57 people were killed. Among them were six children of church pastors.</p>
<p><strong>Nigeria</strong>:Suspected <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/scores-dead-from-attacks-on-church-christian-areas-in-northeast-nigeria/">Boko Haram jihadis killed nine Christians during June 1 Sunday church service</a>, hours before a bombing of a Christian area in neighboring Adamawa state resulted in nearly 50 deaths.At least 10 gunmen attacked the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria during worship in Attagara village. The jihadis killed nine Christian members who were volunteering as security for the rest of the congregation during service.Another <a href="http://www.agi.it/flash-news/articles/201406112012-cro-ren1069-nigeria_8_christians_killed_and_church_in_flames">Christian church in Central State Plateau was set ablaze</a> by armed men who also killed at least eight Christian worshippers. According to the Italian news agency, AGI, “The police made their statement, saying that for now they have not assigned the blame for the action, even though the MO and the aims of the attack lead to presuming it was the work by the Boko Haram Islamic Fundamentalists, who have killed thousands of people since 2009.” Speaking about the June 1 church attack, one area Christian leader said the attackers were a small part of 200 assailants who have invaded Attagara and other predominantly Christian villages around Gwoza the past two weeks, destroying homes and churches:“Our church in Attagara was attacked also on Sunday,” said Dr. Rebecca Dali. “There have been 24-hour-a-day attacks on Christian communities of Attagara, Hawul, and Gwoshe around the Gwoza mountains…. <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/scores-dead-from-attacks-on-church-christian-areas-in-northeast-nigeria/">The Boko Haram Islamists have destroyed 36 churches in Gwoza area</a>, including that of Attagara attacked on Sunday. We now have only two churches that have not been affected.”</p>
<p><strong>Sudan</strong>: Authorities in North Khartoum <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/sudanese-authorities-demolish-another-church-building/">demolished another church building</a>, that of the Sudanese Church of Christ. Bulldozers came and demolished the church just one day after authorities gave verbal notice of the decision during the congregation’s Sunday worship service the previous day.   Congregation members stood by watching their church razed to the ground. About 70 security personnel armed with guns and tear gas stood by threatening anyone who dared to interfere or protest.   “They wanted to beat us or throw tear gas on us,” said one congregation member. Authorities gave no clear reason why the church, which has stood since 1983 and which has all the legal paperwork, was being destroyed. According to Rev. Kwa Shamal, the church’s pastor who questioned the commissioner, “They did not want us to ask many questions on why they were demolishing our church.” Because the government refuses to grant the church any compensation, “We will have to pray in a makeshift tent next Sunday” along the road, said the pastor.</p>
<p><strong>Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy and Blasphemy</strong></p>
<p><strong>Afghanistan</strong>: The <em>New York Times</em> told the story of “Josef,” a Muslim convert to Christianity who is on the run from Afghani family members looking to slay him.   The apostate from Islam lives in a 10-by-10 dilapidated room, his few worldly possessions a tattered Bible and wooden cross with the Sermon on the Mount written on it: “Josef’s brother-in-law Ibrahim arrived in Kabul recently, leaving behind his family and business in Pakistan, to hunt down the apostate and kill him. Reached by telephone, Ibrahim, who uses only one name, offered a reporter for <em>The New York Times</em> $20,000 to tell him where Josef was hiding.‘If I find him, once we are done with him, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/world/asia/afghanistan-a-christian-convert-on-the-run.html?_r=1">I will kill his son as well</a>, because his son is a bastard,’ Ibrahim said, referring to Josef’s 3-year-old child. ‘He is not from a Muslim father.’” Earlier, when Ibrahim first discovered Josef’s conversion to Christianity, he and his family attacked the convert, tied his hands and feet and were going to slaughter him until the father intervened calling for time to investigate matters, which Josef used to escape. Having had a long spiritual journey and closely studying all religions, the Christian convert says that “Even if I get killed, I won’t convert back.”</p>
<p><strong>Egypt</strong>: Islamic vindication against Coptic Christians accused of “blasphemy” and “apostasy” was in the air all throughout the month of June in President Sisi’s not so “new” Egypt. First, Kerolos Shouky Attallah, a young Coptic Christian man accused of blaspheming Islam for simply “liking” an Arabic-language Facebook page administered by an anonymous group of Christian converts, was <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/copt-convicted-of-blasphemy-in-egypt-for-liking-facebook-page/">sentenced to six years in prison</a>.   According to Attallah’s attorney, the Copt did not make any comments on the site, share any of the postings or upload anything to it, and removed his name from the page once he realized that it might offend Muslims. In the hours preceding the sentencing, <a href="http://www.worthynews.com/14842-islamists-torch-christian-owned-shops-in-southern-egypt">a rioting mob burned down several Christian-owned shops</a> in the area near Luxor. Safwat Samaan, chairman of Nation Without Borders, a human rights and development group headquartered in Luxor, said “The sentence today was a shock not just to Kerolos but to everyone who uses Facebook in Egypt. Any person who uses Facebook in Egypt and presses ‘Like’ on any page … can be put into prison for six years.” Also, An Egyptian appeals court upheld a blasphemy conviction against Dimyana Abdel-Nour, a Coptic Christian teacher, and <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/christian-teacher-jailed-for-blasphemy-1.1712054#.VEafKfnF9qV">sentenced her to six months</a>, overturning an earlier ruling that only imposed a fine. The appellate court in Luxor ruled that the elementary school teacher had insulted Islam in front of her pupils. Last year, three 10-year-old Muslim children complained to their parents that the Coptic teacher showed disgust for Islam when discussing it in class.And Bishoy Armia Boulous—more notoriously known as Mohammed Hegazy, the first Egyptian ever to try legally to change his religious identity from Muslim to Christian on his official ID—<a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/noted-convert-in-egypt-formerly-known-as-hegazy-sentenced-to-five-years-in-prison/">was sentenced to five years in prison</a>. (Years earlier, when he first tried to change his ID, he was also imprisoned and tortured.) The judge cited “disturbing the peace by broadcasting false information” as the reason for sentencing the apostate, who in the weeks before was documenting political unrest in Egypt brought on by numerous Muslim extremist attacks on Christians. The exact section of the nation’s criminal code that Boulous allegedly violated was not released. According to Boulous’ lawyer, the real reason he was charged and sentenced is because he abandoned Islam and became a Christian: “The officer who arrested him, when he found that he hadn’t committed a crime, made up things to keep him in prison so he could be sentenced,” said the lawyer.</p>
<p><strong>Uganda</strong>: After Muslim family members tried to poison a relative who converted to Christianity, and failed, he was attacked again by <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/06/daughter-of-poisoned-christian-in-uganda-strangled-to-death/">Muslims who killed his young daughter</a>. On June 16, four men barged into the home of Hassan Muwanguzi—a former sheikh who converted to Christianity in 2003—with one shouting, “Today we shall kill you—you have been a trouble-maker and are not respecting our prophet’s religion.” He fled into a room, thinking they would not hurt his daughter, Grace Baruka. But then he heard the 12-year-old girl’s cries, as the Muslim invaders were strangling her. When he came out of the room they seized him: “They hit me with a blunt object, and I fell down. I just woke up and saw neighbors surrounding me while wailing, saying that my daughter is in critical condition.” Neighbors took Grace to a clinic but she was declared dead upon arrival. Muwanguzi has suffered greatly for embracing Christianity: first he lost his wife and job as a schoolteacher after his conversion; then an aunt tried to poison him by putting insecticide in his tea; and now his 12-year-old daughter has been killed. Lamented the former Muslim in tears to Morning Star News: “I am regretting why I survived the poisoning. God could have allowed me to die. My daughter has died, and I am now mourning for her death as well [as] have pain all over my body.”</p>
<p><strong>Dhimmitude</strong></p>
<p><strong>Lebanon</strong>: The Abra Municipality, a predominantly Christian suburb in the coastal city of Sidon, released a memo urging all citizens—the majority of whom are Christian—to respect observant Muslims during<a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Jun-18/260627-abra-requests-citizens-to-respect-fasting-muslims.ashx?#ixzz3GnyJKU2A"> Ramadan and abstain from eating in public.In his memo, Mayor Walid Nico</a>las al-Mchantaf stressed the importance of showing consideration during the holy month and refraining from dining at restaurants and cafes during the fasting period, which begins at sunrise and ends at sunset. A large Muslim community exists in the town and has been in the spotlight since last year’s violent clashes between Islamic gunmen and the Lebanese Army.</p>
<p><strong>Germany</strong>: Muslims were granted their own section at the cemetery in the Hessian town of Seligenstadt. And they have been allowed to conduct Islamic ceremonies, in which the corpse is wrapped in cloths and buried facing Mecca. Now these same Islamic communities, including Ahmadiyyas, are <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/06/germany-islamic-organisation-demands-crosses-be-covered-during-muslim-burials">demanding that Christian symbols and crosses in the cemetery be removed or covered</a> up during Islamic funerals.</p>
<p><strong>United Kingdom</strong>: The National Health Services <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10933206/NHS-worker-who-bullied-Muslim-by-praying-for-her.html">suspended a Christian health worker on full pay for nine months for praying with a Muslim colleague</a>. Victoria Wasteney, a senior occupational therapist, was also accused of “bullying” the colleague after giving her a book about a Muslim woman who converts to Christianity. According to Wasteney, her relationship with the Muslim woman was friendly and sometimes intimidate, as the Muslim female often came to her for support; the Christian health worker did not think that she was behaving coercively or disrespectfully.   Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said the case demonstrated that “the NHS is increasingly dominated by a suffocating liberal agenda that chooses to bend over backwards to accommodate certain beliefs but punishes the Christian.”</p>
<p><strong>About this Series</strong></p>
<p>The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:</p>
<p>1)    To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.</p>
<p>2)    To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.</p>
<p>Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam;  theft and plunder in lieu of <em>jizya</em> (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed <em>dhimmis</em>, or third-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.</p>
<p>Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Previous Reports</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2014/">May, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/raped-and-slaughtered-muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2014/">April, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/obama-administration-suppresses-talk-of-muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2014/">March, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/christians-most-persecuted-group-in-world-muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2014/">February, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/becomes-chief-enabler-of-christian-persecution-muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2014/">January, 2014</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/they-are-slaughtering-us-like-chickens-muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2013/">December, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/u-s-chose-to-stay-silent-on-muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2013/">November, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">October, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">September, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2013/">August, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2013/">July, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2013/">June, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2013/">May, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2013/">April, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013/">March, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2013/">February, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2013/">January, 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2012/">December, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012/">November, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012/">October, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2012/">September, 2012 </a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2012/">August, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12215/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">July, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12045/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012">June, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11930/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2012">May, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11713/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2012">April, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11604/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2012">March, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11373/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012">February, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11152/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012">January, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10989/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2011">December, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10922/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2011">November, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10724/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2011">October, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10504/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2011">September, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10247/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011">August, 2011</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2011/">July, 2011</a></li>
<li></li>
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		<title>Islam: Victors Vanquishing Victims</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/terry-scambray/islam-victors-vanquishing-victims/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam-victors-vanquishing-victims</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2014 04:35:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Terry Scambray]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christianity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crucified Again]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Shillman Fellow Raymond Ibrahim unmasks the brutal extermination of Christianity in the Middle East. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Screen-Shot-2014-10-23-at-7.32.32-PM.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243677" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Screen-Shot-2014-10-23-at-7.32.32-PM-234x350.png" alt="Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 7.32.32 PM" width="211" height="316" /></a>Editor&#8217;s note<span style="color: #222222;">: The following book review of Raymond Ibrahim&#8217;s </span><a style="color: #1155cc;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Crucified-Again-Exposing-Islam%C2%92s-Christians/dp/1621570258/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=1MK8BDYBRZ2205D7XN83" target="_blank">Crucified Again</a><span style="color: #222222;"> first appeared in the </span><a style="color: #1155cc;" href="http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=1014-scambray" target="_blank">New Oxford Review</a><span style="color: #222222;"> (October, 2014 issue).</span></em></p>
<p>Throughout the Muslim world, from Morocco to Nigeria to Indonesia — and even occasionally in Western Europe and North America — Christians are being harassed, tortured, and murdered. Reuters reported in January 2012 that a hundred million Christians were being persecuted, while a few years earlier Britain’s Secret Service, M16, put the number closer to two hundred million. In November 2012 German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Christianity “the most persecuted religion worldwide,” a statement that elicited condemnation from many world leaders. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe estimates that a Christian is killed for his faith every five minutes.</p>
<p>What is the reason for such atrocity? By any measure, the persecution of Christians is one of the dramatic stories of our time. So why is it ignored? Raymond Ibrahim, a fluent speaker of Arabic and a fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, answers these questions and explains both the sources of Islamic violence and the infirmities that cripple the West in his new book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.</p>
<p>History provides a large part of the answer. Islam, from its beginnings, in contrast to Christianity, promised its followers worldly success and prosperity. From Mohammed’s first raids, down through the centuries of conquests that followed, Islam has been a religion of victors vanquishing victims. Contemporary Muslim lands in the Middle East and Africa include what were once great centers of Christendom, such as Jerusalem, Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, and Constantinople. Lest anyone forget, imperialism is not a Western invention.</p>
<p>Having conquered vast territory, Muslims then went on to dominate it by imposing the cruelties of Sharia law and dhimmitude, both of which reduce “infidels,” non-Muslims, to servile positions. Ibrahim provides examples of brutal conditions under Muslim rule during these early conquests when, “according to one medieval Muslim historian, over the two year course of a particularly ruthless Christian persecution campaign, some 30,000 churches were burned or pillaged in Egypt and Syria alone.” Under the Abbasid rule in A.D. 936, the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, believed to have been built atop the tomb of Christ, was burned down. Nearly a century later, Caliph Hakim bi-Amr Allah (996-1021) ordered the dismantling of what was left of the church, including the digging up of its foundations, in addition to the destruction of “Golgotha and the church of Saint Constantine as well as all the sacred grave stones. They even tried to dig up the graves and wipe out all traces of their existence.” Though apologists for Islam admit that Hakim was a madman, they coyly offer him as an aberration, implying that Christians suffered only under his rule. Not so, writes Ibrahim, for there is “no dearth of Muslim leaders throughout the whole of Islamic history that have persecuted Christians and their churches.”</p>
<p>Many of us in our youth read stories of medieval Europe in which “Mohammedans,” “Moors,” “Saracens,” and “Turks” were fearsome antagonists. When we got to high school and university, somehow that feature of European life played a less prominent role or was even absent from history courses. It seems, though, that our earliest stories were accurate, and Ibrahim provides a broad set of facts to support this.</p>
<p>In the first decades of its existence, Islam had conquered half the Christian lands in the world and appeared to be on such a roll that it would soon squash Europe into a single Islamic polity. “In fact,” Ibrahim writes, “Europe as we know it was forged in large measure by the Islamic conquests, which severed the Latin West from the Greek East, turning the once highly trafficked Mediterranean into a ‘Muslim Lake’ — so that, in the words of medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun, ‘the Christians could no longer float a plank upon the sea.’” Belgian historian Henri Pirenne makes the same point when he writes, “The classic tradition was shattered because Islam had destroyed the ancient unity of the Mediterranean” (Mohammed and Charlemagne, 1959).</p>
<p>In 1798 Napoleon invaded and handily conquered Egypt, in the heart of the Muslim world. This conquest was followed in the nineteenth century by other European powers subjugating and colonizing Muslim territories. These invasions traumatized Muslims, for prior to this their centuries-long winning streak intensified the triumphalism inherent in their religion. Muslims’ loss of confidence fell further as they witnessed close-up the power and dynamism of Western ideas and technology. Ibrahim quotes the late Osama bin Laden to the effect that “when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”</p>
<p>Muslims saw the West, synonymous for them with Christianity, as the strong horse, and they both feared and admired it. As Ibrahim writes with characteristic directness, “The reason for this admiration is simple: Islam, the quintessential religion of might makes right, teaches respect for power.” Some twentieth-century leaders like Mustafa Kemal Attaturk in Turkey, the Shah in Iran, and Gamal Nasser in Egypt attempted to emulate, at least in theory, Western ideas of nationalism, modernism, and secularization. During this time of Western confidence and hegemony, which extended to about 1950, Christians were tolerated in Muslim countries, and some even called this a “Golden Age for Christians” in the Islamic world.</p>
<p>Of course, some Muslims remained loyal to their old ways, but by the early twentieth century Western scholars saw Islam as “a spent force, an ideology on the wrong side of history.” That they would think this is understandable. After all, the much-extolled “secular city” had triumphed in the West, and it became difficult to imagine that the appetites for consumer items and sexual freedom it unleashed could abate.</p>
<p>But then the West began pulling up stakes in the Islamic world and elsewhere, while simultaneously adopting the religion of sentimentality as a replacement for Christianity. Soon, influential Westerners filled the air with mea culpas for their earlier imperialism and other alleged sins. Ibrahim shows in this book, as well as in his first book, The Al-Qaeda Reader, that the West’s orgy of self-criticism handed the Muslims all the propaganda weapons they required to rationalize the renewal of their attacks on the West. These rationalizations were so eagerly swallowed by our useful idiots that bin Laden poured it on even thicker by writing that the 9/11 attack was partly motivated by America’s failure to ratify the Kyoto treaty on climate change!</p>
<p>What few understood amid this confessional pose adopted by the West was that Islam sees imperialism as the normal exercise of power. So when Westerners began apologizing for what to Muslims were normal actions, Muslims’ respect for the West declined further. At the same time, they grabbed these propaganda clubs handed to them and proceeded to bash the infidels with their own words. Ibrahim argues further that this loss of respect spiraled downward into contempt when Islam saw “the new culture of sexual licentiousness, moral relativism, godlessness, and even the Western self-hatred that flooded Western societies in the late 1960s and 1970s, though they had roots going back decades earlier.” Sayyid Qutb, the twentieth century’s most renowned Islamic scholar and author of a thirty-volume commentary on the Koran, came to the U.S. in the 1940s. Though he had advocated that “Muslims should emulate Western science and technology,” visiting America radicalized him. Qutb insisted that, using Sharia law, Muslims must first clean up their own countries and then those of the rest of the world. Islamic supremacy and aggression, features of that old-time religion from the seventh century, were revived.</p>
<p>Nothing better exemplifies this revival than the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when Islam reasserted itself in the fiery leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini and various bearded and morose mullahs who inveighed against “the Great Satan.” Their exaltation of Islam and loathing of America led to the overthrow of the Shah and the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran — not only an act of war but also a repudiation of centuries-old international protocols. “Islam is back!” these actions screamed loudly, though many people saw them as isolated episodes, perhaps the last gasp of an antiquated ideology, rather than the harbinger of thirty-five years of terrorism. Still wallowing in ignorance, many Westerners dismiss Muslims’ ravaging and killing as merely an extended bad-hair day, a departure from Islam’s enlightened and peaceful past. But the truth is the reverse: The former period of tolerance toward Christians in Muslim lands is an exception, and the present attacks on Christians are the norm.</p>
<p>American and European opinion-makers in the universities, among the intelligentsia, and in the media began to demonize Western tradition in the 1970s and to favor “indigenous peoples” and any exotic “ethnic identity.” Thus came the growth of “multiculturalism” and “diversity,” categories implicitly justified as compensation for centuries of mistreatment. Unfortunately, many ethnic traditions include varieties of tribalism, sometimes expressed as racism or anti-Semitism. Via “noble savage” quackery, Western intellectuals broadened the pathway for once Westward-looking Muslims to return to their roots. History became a melodrama wherein the West is the villain and Islam the noble victim. Within these assigned roles, the true history of the relationship between the West and Islam reversed, with the West cast as greedy, violent crusaders who invaded peaceful, prosperous Muslim lands.</p>
<p>From such melodrama, Ibrahim reports, we get Robert Fisk, correspondent for The Independent, who follows this script of “spot the victim.” Fisk has criticized Christians for supporting status-quo candidates like Ahmed Shafiq in Egypt, not understanding that Christians are the victims and that jihadist alternatives to these regimes will kill Christians and burn their churches while imposing Sharia law. Former President Bill Clinton misreads the situation in much the same way when he relies on materialist explanations. “What’s fueling all this stuff,” he says, is “inequality and poverty.” When the Nigerian government uses force against the Boko Haram jihadist gang for killing Christians, Mr. Clinton preaches that such “violence” will not solve the problem. Violence, however, is the problem. From these ignominious examples, Ibrahim points to a pathetic irony: The Muslims presently persecuting Christians are themselves descendants of Christians who were persecuted by the same ideology and in the same terrible circumstances.</p>
<p>Raymond Ibrahim was born in America of Coptic Christian parents and has traveled widely in the Middle East. He has appeared before the U.S. Congress and on national radio and television, and he writes regularly for major newspapers and scholarly journals. His comprehensive description of the persecution of Christians by Muslims is extensively documented. While Crucified Again might not provide much comfort, it is necessary reading for those who wish to understand the dynamic that propels the Islamic threat.</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>
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		<title>Raped and Slaughtered: Muslim Persecution of Christians</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2014 04:52:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240627</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Another month, another endless list of atrocities.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/pic_giant_011814_SM_The-US-and-Christian-Persecution.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240628" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/pic_giant_011814_SM_The-US-and-Christian-Persecution.jpg" alt="pic_giant_011814_SM_The-US-and-Christian-Persecution" width="315" height="262" /></a>Originally published by the </i><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4666/raped-and-slaughtered-muslim-persecution">Gatestone Institute</a>.</i></span></p>
<p>From one end of the Islamic world to the other, the abduction and rape of Christian girls at the hands of Muslims—both terrorists and laymen—was a dominant theme in April.</p>
<p>On Easter Sunday Morning, for instance, <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Punjab:-clan-gang-rapes-seven-year-old-Christian-and-kidnaps-father-to-stop-him-reporting-them-30906.html">four Muslim men raped a 7-year-old Christian girl</a> named Sara in a Punjabi village.  Last reported, the child was in an intensive care unit in “critical.” According to Asia News, “the police, instead of arresting the culprits, helped the local clan to kidnap the girl’s father; Iqbal Masih was taken and hidden in a secret place to ‘force the family not to report the story, to reach an agreement with the criminals and to avoid a dispute of a religious background.’”</p>
<p>According to a human rights lawyer involved in the case: “Such cases are <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35620-ASIA_PAKISTAN_A_7_year_old_Christian_Girl_raped_on_Easter_Sunday">frequent</a>: abuse against women and girls by Muslim men are examples of how the minorities in Pakistan live under constant fear of persecution. We believe that many cases of violence go unreported.”  Similarly, a new report appearing in April by the Solidarity and Peace Movement—a coalition of NGOs, associations and institutions including the “Justice and Peace” Commission of the Pakistani Bishops—<a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35548-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Every_year_thousands_of_Hindu_and_Christian_girls_kidnapped_and_forced_into_Islamic_marriage_new_Report">confirmed</a> that “an estimated 700 cases per year involve Christian women, 300 Hindu girls.” Even so, “the true extent of the problem is probably much bigger, since many cases are not reported.”  (<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/the-rape-and-murder-of-pakistans-christian-children/">Click here</a> for a better understanding of the extent of this tragedy.)</p>
<p>The biggest story, however, came from Nigeria, where the Islamic terrorist organization known as Boko Haram abducted nearly 300, <a href="https://barnabasaid.org/Over-200-schoolgirls-kidnapped-from-Christian-town-in-Nigeria.html">mostly Christian</a>, teenage schoolgirls.  The group justified its actions in Islamic terms; its leader <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/05/world/africa/nigeria-abducted-girls/index.html">declared</a> on video that “I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah….There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.”</p>
<p>The so-called mainstream media, which <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/how-the-media-whitewashes-muslim-persecution-of-christians/">generally downplays</a> or ignores Boko Haram’s terror campaign, actually reported on this particular atrocity, prompting Western authorities—who are much more accustomed to, and comfortable with, pretending these sorts of things don’t exist—to respond in awkward, hypocritical and, in a word, foolish, ways.</p>
<p>Thus, Secretary of State <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nigeria-accepts-us-help-to-rescue-girls-kidnapped-by-boko-haram-too-late/">John Kerry</a>, saying the U.S. had been in touch with Nigeria “from day one” of the crisis, asserted “I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort.  And it will begin immediately. I mean, literally, immediately.”</p>
<p>It is not clear whom Kerry was referring to when he said “convinced everybody”—unless he was referring to himself.  After all, there might not have been any need for “greater effort,” the need to act “immediately. I mean, literally, immediately” had Kerry only let the Nigerian government do its job one year ago, when they were waging a particularly strong and successful offensive against Boko Haram in the very same region that the schoolgirls were recently kidnapped.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/obama-administration-calls-for-the-human-rights-of-jihadi-murderers/">Back then</a>, in May 2013, soon after Nigerian forces killed 30 Boko Haram members, Reuters reported that “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strongly worded statement [to the Nigerian president] saying: “We are … deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism” from Boko Haram.</p>
<p>As for Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who publicly bemoaned the lot of the kidnapped girls—<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/07/hillary-s-state-department-refused-to-brand-boko-haram-as-terrorists.html">saying</a> it’s “abominable, it’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible”—when she was Secretary of State and in a position to help offer “the fullest response possible” she repeatedly <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/07/hillary-s-state-department-refused-to-brand-boko-haram-as-terrorists.html">refused</a> to designate Boko Haram as a “foreign terrorist organizations,” despite the countless atrocities it had already committed, despite the fact that under her tenure Boko Haram had <a href="http://www.kkms.com/11666938/">boasted</a> it would “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women,” and despite urging from the CIA, FBI, Justice Department, and several congressmen and senators.</p>
<p>Her logic was once voiced by her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton.  Back in February 2012, Clinton declared that “inequality” and “poverty” are “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/clinton-blames-jihad-on-poverty/">what’s fueling all this stuff</a>”—a reference to Boko Haram’s terror—and warned the Nigerian government that “It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence.”</p>
<p>The rest of April’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.</p>
<p><b>Muslim Slaughter of Christians</b></p>
<p><b>Afghanistan</b>: <a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/32723-afghan-christians-mourn-americans-killed-at-hospital">Three Americans were shot and killed</a> at a Kabul hospital funded by an American Christian charity.  The murderer was a policeman employed as a security guard at the hospital.  The Taliban have claimed responsibility for similar attacks this year, but issued no comment.  Those killed were a doctor and a father and son visiting the hospital. “As they were walking out of the hospital, the security guard opened fire on them, killing three and wounding another one,” said the Interior Ministry.  The attack comes amid growing attacks against Christians and Westerners in the country. Three weeks earlier, Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus, 48, was killed and reporter Kathy Gannon, 60, wounded while they were sitting in the back of a car in the east of the country.  Also in March, a gunman shot dead Swedish journalist Nils Horner, 51, outside a restaurant in Kabul.</p>
<p><b>Central African Republic</b>: Father Labbe Christ Formane Willbona was slaughtered by Muslim herdsmen believed to be close to the Islamic rebel organization, Seleka.  Local security sources reported that <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/centra-african-republic-islamic-jihadists-murder-catholic-priest-mutilate-corpse">the corpse was mutilated before being buried</a>.</p>
<p><b>Egypt</b>: A Coptic Christian teacher in Marzouk prep school in Minya province <a href="http://www.copts-united.com/English/Details.php?I=1085&amp;A=13791">was shot in the head</a> by a student belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Eyewitnesses said that the student was caught smoking in class and was reprimanded. Apparently he decided to show his “infidel” teacher his place, and so shot him in the head while he was returning home. <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35640-AFRICA_EGYPT_Sectarian_clashes_in_Assiut_Two_Christians_killed">Two more Christian Copts were killed</a> due to, according to Agenzia Fides, “sectarian clashes” which broke out in villages near Asyut over land disputes between a Coptic family and local Muslims. On the same day of the Coptic funeral, a young Coptic entrepreneur, Mohsen Morris, was also kidnapped near Asyut. The kidnappers extracted a ransom of 250,000 Egyptian pounds from his family.</p>
<p><b>Libya</b>:  Three more Coptic Christians—all cousins—were targeted in post “Arab Spring” Libya.   One was <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/three-egyptian-cousins-go-to-libya-none-comes-back-alive/">slaughtered</a> and brought back to Egypt to be buried in a Coptic cemetery; another was carried back home in an ambulance, half dead with a bullet lodged in his skull; another cousin disappeared and is believed to have been killed by Islamic militants.  Islamic enmity for Christians has been expressing itself regularly in Libya after the U.S. supported “Arab Spring” came there: Christians—<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/three-american-teachers-slaughtered-for-christian-faith-in-muslim-world/">including Americans</a>—have been <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/mass-arrest-and-torture-of-christians-in-libya/">tortured</a> and killed (including <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/09/two-egyptian-christians-slain-in-libya/">for refusing to convert</a>) and <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/hatred-of-christians-unleashed-in-libya/">churches bombed</a>. It’s “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/open-season-on-christians-in-libya/">open season</a>” on Copts, as jihadis issue a reward to Muslims who find and kill Christians. This was not the case under Gaddafi.</p>
<p><b>Pakistan</b>: A Muslim security guard is accused of <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/family-of-christian-shot-dead-in-pakistan-doubts-suicide-claim/">murdering a Christian worker who refused to convert to Islam</a>.   According to Morning Star News,<b> “</b>Sunny Masih, a father of two, was working as a cleaner at a branch of Bank Islami under construction on Nisbat Road in Lahore. On Wednesday morning (April 16), the bank security guard informed police that Masih had shot himself in the forehead with a pump-action shotgun that the guard had left unattended before going to the washroom. The guard, Omar Farooq, of Khushab District in central Punjab Province, told police that Masih ‘looked depressed’ when he arrived at the bank.”  However, all close family members insist that Sunny was, far from depressed, lively and happy.  According to the father, “On April 15, my son told me that Farooq [the guard] had mocked his Christian faith and had asked him to ‘embrace’ Islam. He told my son, ‘You are a good-looking boy, and I don’t like to see you sweeping floors and cleaning the washrooms. If you embrace Islam, I’ll connect you with people who will take good care of you, provide you with a decent job and even get you married into a wealthy Muslim family.’”  Sunny told Farooq that he was satisfied with his Christian faith, and that he should stop nagging him. “My son told me that when he snubbed Farooq, the guard had threatened him that he would have to face the consequences for refusing the <i>Dawaat</i> [an invitation to accept Islam] said the grieving father. I took the matter lightly and told my son not to worry, as being Christians we have to face such people every second day. I told Sunny to avoid discussing religion with Farooq even if he brought up the matter and keep distance from him, and everything would be alright. Little did I know that my son would end up in a mortuary a day later.” According to a Christian activist involved in the case, Sunny “was hit on the forehead just above his eyes, and his skull and brain were completely blown away by the impact at point blank range.  The doctor said he found it hard to believe that Masih could have shot himself in the head with a big weapon such as a shotgun. This is what we want the police to find out, but instead they are trying to cover up the matter. We believe the police are showing bias in its probe because it involves a ‘righteous Muslim’ who was trying to convert a Christian.”</p>
<p><b>Syria</b>: Frans van der Lugt—a 76-year-old Jesuit priest from the Netherlands who had established a community center and farm near the city of Homs where he had worked for over forty years for the betterment of people with disabilities and for Christian-Muslim harmony—was <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27155474">shot dead</a> in the garden of the community center.  After the Islamist-led siege of Homs, the priest continued to care for the sick and the hungry. In early 2014 he made a number of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhQHg6ivGPg">YouTube videos</a>, asking the international community to help the besieged city.  Yet he chose to remain in Homs, struggling with the daily bombings and the lack of food, until he was slain.</p>
<p><b>Uganda</b>: The teenage daughter of a Muslim man managed to attend one church service after converting to Christianity before <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/muslim-in-uganda-kills-daughter-for-leaving-islam-sister-says/">her father killed her</a>. Abdul Hakim Ibanda severely beat his 17-year-old daughter and her 19-year-old sister with a blunt instrument after learning that they had attended a church service on April 6.  The surviving sister said, “On Sunday morning we arrived at the United Believers Church…  After prayers we then went to church, where the pastor introduced us to the church and that we were new members of the church. The church faithful were cheerful to receive us.”  However,</p>
<p>local Muslims who saw them enter the church immediately reported it to the father. He gathered a group of 32 “youths” to attack the church but the mob was eventually dispersed without incident.  When the girls returned home, the father, described as “furious,” began questioning and eventually beating them with a blunt object, killing the girl.  According to the pastor of the majority-Christian nation, where Muslims make some 11.5 percent, “The girl [surviving sister] is still traumatized as a result of the death of her sister and needs prayers and counseling.”<i> </i> Said the girl: “I know I cannot go back to my father because I have become a Christian.  I am grateful to the church for welcoming me and taking me as their child. I now have a new home.”</p>
<p><b>Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches</b></p>
<p><b>Austria</b>: After reportedly listening to Muslim chants, a man, known only as Ibrahim A., went on a church vandalizing spree, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/vienna-muslim-vandalizes-four-churches-after-listening-to-islamic-chants">desecrating four churches</a>.  According to the Vienna Times, “the attack left Lazaristenkirche with all of its statues and side altars largely destroyed as well as statues damaged at St. Stephen’s, the Breitenfeld church in Josefstadt and the Neuottakring church in Ottakring.” The Archbishop of Vienna described the attack on churches as “so far the worst act of vandalism in my time as Archbishop….  I am shocked by the devastation in the churches.  I hope that the perpetrator or perpetrators did not know what they were doing.”  Ibrahim A., 37-years-old, was caught in the act of vandalizing St. Stephan’s but was released at the time because police did not realize it was one of many attacks that that had been carried out that day. Police have since been unable to find him.</p>
<p><b>Nigeria</b>:  According to AP, “Witnesses and an official say <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-2593552/Catholic-church-north-Nigeria-set-aflame.html">angry Muslim youths set ablaze a Catholic church</a> and tried to destroy an attached school in northern Nigeria over an alleged insult to the Prophet Muhammad.  Witness Tukur Musa says soldiers on Monday stopped the mob from setting ablaze the school in Funtua town in Katsina state, but they arrived too late to save St. Rita Catholic Church.  He says the town was in an uproar about an examination question last week which they considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. They reported the matter to district authorities. When no action was taken, young Muslims attacked.  Deputy Police Superintendent Aminu Abubakar Saddiq confirmed the church was burned and school damaged but said no one was injured.  Religious strife [code for “Islamic supremacism”] is common in central and northern Nigeria.”  Also, during early Easter Sunday morning, unknown gunmen, later attributed to the Islamic terrorist organization, Boko Haram, launched an attack on the Christian-majority regions of Taraba State.  <a href="http://www.spyghana.com/police-and-boko-haram-massacre-over-150-dead/">The Christian Church of Nigeria was burned down</a>, as well as many Christian homes. Some 15 corpses were seen littered on the streets.</p>
<p><b>Syria</b>:    Gregorios III Laham, Greek-Melkite Catholic patriarch of Antioch, visited some of the dozens of Christian churches hit by Islamic rebels, particularly those in the historic town of Ma‘aloula, where the Christian inhabitants still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus, and where some were executed for refusing to convert to Islam.   (<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/19118">Click here</a> for several pictures of the types of desecration that churches undergo if they fall into the hands of the Islamic terrorists.  In St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church alone,  icons had their faces scratched out, church pews broken, statues of the Virgin Mary and Christ smashed, and Bibles burned.)  In the prelate’s words: “An apocalyptic spectacle presented itself. Other churches have been destroyed in Syria, but I have never seen anything like this. I cried and I sought in vain a moment of solitude to pray. I am heartbroken.  Ma‘aloula's four historic churches were hit. Our parish church, dedicated to Saint George, is riddled with bullets. The convent’s dome was damaged in two places. The walls were ripped open by cannon fire. Some parts of the convent is in danger of collapsing and must be rebuilt. The icons are scattered on the floor, dirty, or stolen. It is currently completely uninhabitable.”  The patriarch further described the wanton destruction of churches as a “war crime.”</p>
<p><b>Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism</b></p>
<p><b>Malaysia</b>: An Islamic organization known as Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia <a href="http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/now-muslim-group-complains-of-malay-language-in-easter-pageant">accused a Christian church of trying to evangelize to Muslims</a>, simply because they used Bahasa Malaysia, the national language, for an Easter pageant.  The organization’s website said that while freedom of religion for non-Muslims was guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, the open use of Bahasa Malaysia to promote the event outside the church compound was an abuse of this liberty.  The organization also called on Muslim officials “to closely monitor this Easter Musical.”  It further declared that “the notion of Easter was against Islam.”  In Malaysia—which is regularly portrayed in the West as an example of a moderate Muslim nation—any attempt to promote religions other than Islam is illegal.</p>
<p><b>Pakistan</b>: Eight days after a court in Lahore sentenced <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/03/attorneys-rights-groups-blast-death-sentence-for-christian-in-pakistan/">Sawan Masih</a>, a Christian man, to death for allegedly insulting Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, another illiterate Christian couple in Punjab Province was <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/christian-couple-in-pakistan-sentenced-to-death-for-blasphemy/">sentenced to death</a> for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages.  Along with Asia Bibi, a wife and mother incarcerated since 2010, the number of Christians on death row in Pakistan for blaspheming Islam and/or its founder is now four.  Also, a Muslim landlord <a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/32729-pakistan-christian-worker-beaten-for-observing-easter">almost beat to death</a> his Christian tenant and employee, Saleem Masih, for observing Easter.  According to Mushtaq Gill, a Christian activist and lawyer, because Saleem took time off to observe Easter, “the landlord became furious and beat him severely. He was eventually rescued and saved by some other villagers, otherwise he could have been beaten to death.”  Gill added that many other Christian field workers “are forced into bonded labour, denied minimum wages and harassed and implicated in fake cases if they try to resist the oppression of their influential masters.” As for Mushtaq Gill, the Christian lawyer who is representing the aforementioned Christians, <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35508-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Threats_to_the_lawyer_who_defends_Christians_accused_of_blasphemy">he is facing death threats</a>.  In his own words: “On April 2, a stranger came to the Lahore Court and warned me that I might be attacked or involved in some fake criminal cases or even killed.” Nor are such threats limited to “extremists,” as he received information that he could also be expelled and barred from practicing law.  Said Gill: “What am I supposed to do, stop? Psalm 118 says: ‘The Lord is with me, I have no fear of anything. What can man do to me?’ My other colleagues and I have been threatened and attacked several times by strangers because of our work for human rights in Pakistan. But we are not afraid. We know that we could be killed because we support the campaign for the abolition of the blasphemy law. But this will not close our mouth and will not stop our work on human rights. The Lord tells us to have courage.”</p>
<p><b>Uganda</b>: Muslim relatives of a convert to Christianity <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/04/convert-from-islam-in-uganda-former-sheikh-says-muslim-relatives-poisoned-him/">tried to poison him to death</a>.  Hassan Muwanguzi converted to Christianity in 2003.  Soon thereafter, his wife left him and he was fired from his job as a schoolteacher.  Most recently, he was hospitalized after an aunt put insecticide in his tea.  According to Hassan: “After eating and taking tea, I started feeling stomachache, then I realized that she was the one responsible for it—and I believe she did not do it alone, since they have been hunting for me directly and indirectly, because when I left them and converted to Christianity it pained them so much.  The reason they want to kill me is very clear—it is because of being a convert to Christianity; above all, to them it is like I brought shame by converting…” During the family meeting, when he started to feel ill, he telephoned a local Christian bishop, who advised him that he should leave secretly. “I knew if he were to mention to them that he was getting sick, they would harm him more,” said Bishop Kinyewa.</p>
<p><b>Uzbekistan</b>: Christians are being prevented from burying their dead in the state cemeteries of the Muslim-majority nation.  There have been three known cases so far this year. Most recently, the family of Gayrat Buriyev, who died on 9 April, was told by officials<i>, </i>“The cemetery is state property, but is under the management of the local mosque, and if the imam is against the burial then it will not take place.”<i> </i>And the local imam said he was “acting in accordance with sharia law,” even though Uzbekistan is officially a secular state. The imam also cursed the family for being Christians, calling them “<a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christians-blocked-from-burying-dead-in-state-cemeteries-in-Uzbekistan.html">unclean and defiled infidels</a>.”  Although they took the matter to local authorities, officials refused to intervene, siding with the imam.  (According to Islamic teaching, being buried next to an “infidel” could cause the Muslim corpse to suffer the “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/jihad-martyrdom-and-the-torments-of-the-grave/">torments of the grave</a>.”)</p>
<p><b>About this Series</b></p>
<p>The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:</p>
<p>1)    To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.</p>
<p>2)    To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.</p>
<p>Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam;  theft and plunder in lieu of <i>jizya</i> (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed <i>dhimmis</i>, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.</p>
<p>Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don't miss <strong>Raymond Ibrahim</strong> on <strong>The Glazov Gang</strong> discussing</em><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title long-title " dir="ltr" title="The Glazov Gang-Raymond Ibrahim on ISIS's Islamic Inspirations."><em><strong> ISIS's Islamic Inspirations</strong>:</em> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bFkGgNsqQ_4" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Previous Reports on Muslim Persecution of Christians</b>:</p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/obama-administration-suppresses-talk-of-muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2014/">March, 2014</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/christians-most-persecuted-group-in-world-muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2014/">February, 2014</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/becomes-chief-enabler-of-christian-persecution-muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2014/">January, 2014</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/they-are-slaughtering-us-like-chickens-muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2013/">December, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/u-s-chose-to-stay-silent-on-muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2013/">November, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">October, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">September, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2013/">August, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2013/">July, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2013/">June, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2013/">May, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2013/">April, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013/">March, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2013/">February, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2013/">January, 2013</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2012/">December, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012/">November, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012/">October, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2012/">September, 2012 </a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2012/">August, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12215/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">July, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12045/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012">June, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11930/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2012">May, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11713/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2012">April, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11604/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2012">March, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11373/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012">February, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11152/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012">January, 2012</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10989/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2011">December, 2011</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10922/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2011">November, 2011</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10724/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2011">October, 2011</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10504/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2011">September, 2011</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10247/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011">August, 2011</a></p>
<p>•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2011/">July, 2011</a></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>
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		<title>Revisiting “The Silent Extermination of Iraq’s ‘Christian Dogs’”</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/revisiting-the-silent-extermination-of-iraqs-christian-dogs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=revisiting-the-silent-extermination-of-iraqs-christian-dogs</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:30:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=239036</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A prophetic article…]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/iraqi-christians.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-239038" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/iraqi-christians.jpg" alt="iraqi-christians" width="286" height="200" /></a>Nearly three-and-a-half years ago, before the “Arab Spring” and the plight of Christians became much of a topic, I wrote a FrontPage article titled “<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/raymond-ibrahim/the-silent-extermination-of-iraq%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98christian-dogs%E2%80%99/">The Silent Extermination of Iraq’s ‘Christian Dogs.’</a>”  Revisiting it is useful, as it highlights some important points.  The article follows below in italics, with new observations interspersed in regular font:</p>
<p><em>Last week [April, 2011] an Iraqi Muslim scholar issued a </em><a href="http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5200.htm"><em>fatwa</em></a><em> that, among other barbarities, asserts that “it is permissible to spill the blood of Iraqi Christians.”  Inciting as the fatwa is, it is also redundant.  While last October’s Baghdad church attack which killed some sixty Christians is widely known—actually receiving some </em><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/8655/is-the-media-fair-and-balanced-on-christian"><em>MSM coverage</em></a><em>—the fact is, Christian life in Iraq has been a living hell ever since U.S. forces ousted the late Saddam Hussein in 2003.</em></p>
<p>The important point here is that the plight of Iraq’s Christians did not just begin under the Islamic State, as many seem to believe, but rather from the very first day the (secular) autocrat was removed.</p>
<p><em>Among other atrocities, </em><a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20061012004656.htm"><em>beheading and crucifying Christians</em></a><em> are not irregular occurrences; messages saying “</em><a href="http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.1.1271835942"><em>you Christian dogs, leave or die</em></a><em>,” are typical.  Islamists see the church as an “</em><a href="http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news224.htm"><em>obscene nest of pagans</em></a><em>” and threaten to “</em><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/01/world/main7011759.shtml"><em>exterminate Iraqi Christians</em></a><em>.”  </em><a href="http://www.csi-int.org/desk_eibner.php"><em>John Eibner</em></a><em>, CEO of </em><a href="http://www.csi-int.org/"><em>Christian Solidarity International</em></a><em>, summarized the situation well in a recent </em><a href="http://www.csi-int.org/pdfs/obama_eibner_iraq_01_11_10.pdf"><em>letter</em></a><em> to President Obama:</em></p>
<p><em>“The threat of extermination is not empty. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, more than half the country’s Christian population has been forced by targeted violence to seek refuge abroad or to live away from their homes as internally displaced people. According to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, over 700 Christians, including bishops and priests, have been killed and 61 churches have been bombed. Seven years after the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk reports: ‘He who is not a Muslim in Iraq is a second-class citizen. Often it is necessary to convert or emigrate, otherwise one risks being killed.’ This anti-Christian violence is sustained by a widespread culture of Muslim supremacism that extends far beyond those who pull the triggers and detonate the bombs.”</em></p>
<p>Again, more confirmation that the savage persecution of Christians in Iraq—including recent acts of genocide and expulsions—is not a product of the Islamic State, but rather something more homegrown, more—how shall we say?—integral to Muslims unloosed from the grips of secularized dictators?</p>
<p><em>The grand irony, of course, is that Christian persecution has increased exponentially under U.S. occupation.  As one top </em><a href="http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0704487.htm"><em>Vatican official</em></a><em> put it, Christians, “paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship” of Saddam Hussein.</em></p>
<p><em>What does one make of this—that under Saddam, who was notorious for human rights abuses, Christians were better off than they are under a democratic government sponsored by humanitarian, some would say “Christian,” America?</em></p>
<p>Although I first suggested over three years ago that Christian minorities are the first to suffer whenever the U.S. intervenes in Islamic nations—evincing the types of people the U.S. ends up empowering—this notion is <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/confirmed-u-s-chief-facilitator-of-christian-persecution/">now an ironclad fact</a>, with other examples to add to Iraq, including Libya, Syria, and Egypt, under Obama allies, the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p><em>Like a Baghdad caliph, Saddam appears to have made use of the better educated Christians, who posed no risk to his rule, such as his close confidant </em><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/25/iraq.brianwhitaker"><em>Tariq Aziz</em></a><em>.  Moreover, by keeping a tight lid on the Islamists of his nation—who hated him as a secular apostate no less than the Christians—the latter benefited indirectly.</em></p>
<p><em>Conversely, by empowering “the people,” the U.S. has unwittingly undone Iraq’s Christian minority.  Naively projecting Western values on Muslims, U.S. leadership continues to think that “people-power” will naturally culminate into a liberal, egalitarian society—despite all the </em><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/8790/is-an-egyptian-democracy-a-good-thing"><em>evidence otherwise</em></a><em>.  The fact is, in the Arab/Muslim world, “majority rule” traditionally means domination by the largest tribe or sect; increasingly, it means Islamist domination.</em></p>
<p><em>Either which way, the minorities—notably the indigenous Christians—are the first to suffer once the genie of “people-power” is uncorked.  Indeed, </em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html"><em>evidence</em></a><em> </em><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/christmas-requiem-for-iraq-s-christian-community-1.332680"><em>indicates</em></a><em> that the U.S. backed “democratic” government of Iraq </em><a href="http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&amp;art=9206"><em>enables and incites</em></a><em> the persecution of its Christians.  (All of this raises the pivotal question: Do heavy-handed tyrants—Saddam, Mubarak, Qaddafi, et al—create brutal societies, or do naturally brutal societies create the need for heavy-handed tyrants to keep order?)</em></p>
<p>Again, a reminder that it is not just the Islamic State that persecutes Christians, but even the U.S. installed government of Iraq. Moreover, a few months after the above was written, the government of “liberated” Afghanistan <a href="http://www.charismanews.com/world/32161-christian-churches-officially-extinct-in-afghanistan">destroyed the last Christian church</a>—entirely under U.S. auspices.</p>
<p><em>Another indicator that empowering Muslim masses equates Christian suffering is the fact that, though Iraqi Christians amount to a mere 5% of the population, they make up nearly </em><a href="http://www.christiansofiraq.com/mostvulnerable.html"><em>40% of the refugees</em></a><em> fleeing Iraq.  It is now the same </em><a href="http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_5024.html"><em>in Egypt</em></a><em>: “A growing number of Egypt’s 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February.”</em></p>
<p><em>At least Egypt’s problems are homegrown, whereas the persecution of Iraq’s Christians is a direct byproduct of U.S. intervention.  More ironic has been Obama’s approach: Justifying U.S. intervention in Libya largely in </em><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/ideals-trump-interests-in-obamas-libya-policy/"><em>humanitarian terms</em></a><em>, the president recently </em><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263265/full-text-ndu-libya-speech-nro-staff"><em>declared</em></a><em> that, while “it is true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs… that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right.”</em></p>
<p>Indeed, and we have since seen what Obama’s “humanitarian” actions in Libya have led to—the empowerment of Islamists and jihadis, evinced from things like the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the dramatic rise of Christian persecution.  Since Obama “liberated” Libya, Christians—<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/three-american-teachers-slaughtered-for-christian-faith-in-muslim-world/">including Americans</a>—have been <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/mass-arrest-and-torture-of-christians-in-libya/">tortured</a> and killed (including <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/09/two-egyptian-christians-slain-in-libya/">for refusing to convert</a>) and <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/hatred-of-christians-unleashed-in-libya/">churches bombed</a>. And it’s “<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/open-season-on-christians-in-libya/">open season</a>” on Copts, as jihadis issue a reward to Muslims who find and kill Christians. This was hardly the case under Gaddafi.</p>
<p><em>True, indeed.  Yet, as Obama “acts on behalf of what’s right” by providing military protection to the </em><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/libya-rebel-strongholds-now-al-qaeda-wellspring/story?id=13266784"><em>al-Qaeda connected Libyan opposition</em></a><em>, Iraq’s indigenous Christians continue to be exterminated—right under the U.S. military’s nose in Iraq. You see, in its ongoing bid to win the much coveted but forever elusive “</em><a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1902334,00.html"><em>Muslim-hearts-and-minds</em></a><em>™”—which Obama has even tasked </em><a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-s-new-mission-nasa-reach-out-muslim-world"><em>NASA</em></a><em> with—U.S. leadership has opted to ignore the inhumane treatment of Islam’s “Christian dogs,” the mere mention of which tends to </em><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt_al_azhar_vatican_1"><em>upset Muslims</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p>And now the job is largely done, as Christians and other religious minorities are being <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/world-ignores-christian-exodus-from-islamic-world/">cleansed from large parts of Iraq</a>, not to mention much of the Islamic world.</p>
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		<title>World Ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/world-ignores-christian-exodus-from-islamic-world/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=world-ignores-christian-exodus-from-islamic-world</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Aug 2014 04:35:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[How Christian persecution exposes the Left's bigotry toward Israel. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/110682225.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238076" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/110682225-450x307.jpg" alt="110682225" width="296" height="202" /></a>Originally published by the <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4572/christian-exodus-islamic-world">Gatestone Institute</a>.</em></p>
<p>While the world fixates on the conflict between Israel and Hamas—and while most mainstream media demonize Israel for trying to survive amid a sea of Arab-Islamic hostility—similar or worse tragedies continue to go virtually ignored.</p>
<p>One of the most ancient Christian communities in the world, that of Iraq—which already had been decimated over the last decade, by Islamic forces unleashed after the ousting of Saddam Hussein—has now been wiped out entirely by the new “caliphate,” the so-called Islamic State, formerly known by the acronym “ISIS.”</p>
<p>As <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/convert-pay-tax-die-islamic-state-warns-christians-181415698--business.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Reuters</span></a> reported:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Islamist insurgents have issued an ultimatum to northern Iraq’s dwindling Christian population to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death, according to a statement distributed in the militant-controlled city of Mosul….</i></p>
<p><i>It said Christians who wanted to remain in the “caliphate” that the Islamic State declared this month in parts of Iraq and Syria must agree to abide by terms of a “dhimma” contract—a historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy known as “jizya.”</i></p>
<p><i>“We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract—involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,” the announcement said.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>The amount of <i>jizya</i>-money demanded was $450 a month, an exorbitant sum for Iraq.</p>
<p>Hours after the demand for jizya was made, Islamists began <a href="http://www.qenshrin.com/details.php?id=35341"><span style="color: #0433ff;">painting the letter “n” on Christian homes in Mosul</span></a>—in Arabic, Christians are known as “Nasara,” or “Nazarenes”—signaling them out for the slaughter to come.</p>
<p>Most Christians have since fled. A one-minute video in Arabic of their exodus appears <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=868502626513196&amp;set=vb.100000604016240&amp;type=2&amp;theater"><span style="color: #0433ff;">here</span></a>—women and children weeping as they flee their homes—a video that will not be shown by any Western mainstream media outlet, busy as they are depicting instead nonstop images of Palestinian women and children.</p>
<p>The Syrian Orthodox bishop of Mosul said that what is happening to the Christians of Mosul is nothing less than “<a href="http://arabic.rt.com/prg/telecast/700106-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%82%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B3-%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AD%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B5%D9%84-%D9%8A%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D9%88%D9%84%D9%85-%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%85%D8%B9-%D8%A8%D8%AD%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%AB-%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%88-%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">genocide</span></a>… not to mention the slaughters and rapes not being reported… Forcing more than a thousand Christian families out of Mosul, and turning Christian churches into Muslim mosques, is equivalent to genocide.”  Of course, the word genocide means to kill or make extinct a people.</p>
<p>Others were not as lucky to flee. According to Iraqi human rights activist Hena Edward, a great many older and disabled Iraqis, unable to pay the jizya or join the exodus, have <a href="http://www.linga.org/international-news/NjY2MA"><span style="color: #0433ff;">opted to convert to Islam</span></a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the jihadis continue destroying churches and other ancient Christian holy sites in the name of their religion, and murdering any Christians they can find. Among other acts, they <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/isis-torches-1800-old-mosul-church-expelling-christians-194750912.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">torched an 1800 year old church in Mosul</span></a>, stormed a fourth century monastery—formerly one of Iraq’s best known Christian landmarks—and <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-seize-iraq-monastery-005850871.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">expelling its resident monks</span></a>.</p>
<p>Most recently, in Syrian regions under the Islamic State’s control, <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.vieinter.com/themiddleeast/isis-crucifies-8-christians-in-syria-for-apostasy-from-islam/">eight Christians were reportedly crucified</a>.</span></p>
<p>The Islamic State’s call for Christians to pay <i>jizya</i> is not simply about money. It is about subjugation. Most Western media reporting on this recent call for <i>jizya</i> have failed to explain the accompanying <i>dhimma</i> contract Christians must also abide by. According to the Islamic State, “We offer them [Christians] three choices: Islam; <i>the dhimma contract</i>—involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword.”</p>
<p>The “dhimma contract” is a reference to the Conditions of Omar, an Islamic text attributed to the caliph of the same name that forces Christians to live according to third class citizen status.</p>
<p>In fact, several months back, when the Islamic State was still called “ISIS,” it applied the Conditions of Omar on the Christian minorities of Raqqa, Syria. The Islamic group had <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26366197">issued a directive</a></span></p>
<blockquote><p><i>citing the Islamic concept of “dhimma”, [which] requires Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety. It says Christians must not make renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public. Christians must not carry arms, and must follow other rules imposed by ISIS… “If they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword,” the statement said [emphasis added].</i></p></blockquote>
<p>The persecution and exodus of Christians is hardly limited to Iraq. In 2011, the <a href="http://in.christiantoday.com/articles/christians-could-disappear-from-iraq-and-afghanistan/6919.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom</span></a> noted: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt,” all Muslim majority nations.</p>
<p>Under Saddam Hussein, and before the 2003 U.S. “liberation” of Iraq, more than a million Christians lived in Iraq; Mosul had some 60,000 Christians. Today there are reportedly none thanks to the new Muslim “caliphate.”</p>
<p>In Egypt, some <a href="http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_900171.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">100,000 Christian Copts</span></a> fled their homeland soon after the “Arab Spring.” But even before that, the Coptic Orthodox Church lamented the “<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3761/guest-column-egypt-christians-distraught"><span style="color: #0433ff;">repeated incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes</span></a>, whether by force or threat. Displacements began in Ameriya [62 Christian families evicted], then they stretched to Dahshur [120 Christian families evicted], and today terror and threats have reached the hearts and souls of our Coptic children in Sinai.”</p>
<p>In late 2012, it was reported that the <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/32561?idnews=32561&amp;lan=eng"><span style="color: #0433ff;">last Christian in the city of Homs</span></a>, Syria—which had a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-plight-of-syrias-christians-we-left-homs-because-they-were-trying-to-kill-us-8274710.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis</span></a> came—was murdered. An escaped teenage Syrian girl said: “We left because they were trying to kill us… because we were Christians…. Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house.”</p>
<p>In the African nation of Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as <a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15403&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories+%28Catholic+World+News+%28on+CatholicCulture.org%29%29"><span style="color: #0433ff;">200,000 Christians fled</span></a>. According to reports, “<a href="http://www.christiantoday.com/article/appeal.for.christians.in.mali/29908.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the church in Mali faces being eradicated</span></a>,” especially in the north “where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out… there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives.” At least one pastor was beheaded.</p>
<p>One can go on and on:</p>
<p>•In Ethiopia, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes</span></a> when “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”</p>
<p>•In the Ivory Coast—where Christians have been crucified—Islamic rebels “<a href="http://www.assistnews.net/STORIES/2012/s12080114.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands</span></a>” of Christians.</p>
<p>•In Libya, Islamic rebels forced <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Islamists-chase-nuns-from-Libya,-people-pray-for-their-return-27021.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">several Christian nun orders</span></a> serving the sick and needy since 1921 to flee and killed several Coptic Christians, causing that community also to flee.</p>
<p>•In Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, where hardly a Sunday passes without a church bombing, Christians are fleeing by the thousands; one region has been emptied of <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Islamist-violence-drives-nearly-95-per-cent-of-Christians-from-Nigerian-state.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">95% of its Christian population</span></a>.</p>
<p>•In Pakistan, after a Christian child was falsely accused of desecrating a Koran and Muslims went on an anti-Christian rampage, an entire Christian village—men, women, and children—<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/30/fearful-pakistani-christians-make-home-in-forest/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">was forced to flee into the nearby woods,</span></a> where they built a church, to permanently reside there.</p>
<p>Despite all these atrocities, exoduses, and even genocides, the mainstream media seems to spend every available moment airing images of displaced Palestinians and demonizing Israel for trying to defend itself. Yet Israel does not kill Palestinians because of their religion or any other personal aspects. It does so in the context of being rocketed and trying to defend itself from terrorism.</p>
<p>On the other hand, all the crimes being committed by Muslims against Christians are simply motivated by religious hate, because the Christians are Christian.</p>
<p>It is to the mainstream media’s great shame that those who slaughter, behead, crucify, and displace people for no other reason than because they are Christian, rarely if ever get media coverage, while a nation such as Israel, which kills only in the context of self-defense, and not out of religious bigotry, is constantly demonized.</p>
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		<title>Raymond Ibrahim Discusses Muslim Persecution of Christians with Michael Coren</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/raymond-ibrahim-discusses-muslim-persecution-of-christians-with-michael-coren/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=raymond-ibrahim-discusses-muslim-persecution-of-christians-with-michael-coren</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2014 04:25:26 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[And the Western media's silence. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In Late June, Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the Freedom Center, was interviewed by Michael Coren of Sun News inside the Capitol Building, in Washington D.C., where the annual Coptic Solidarity conference was being held (Raymond chaired a panel which included Michael Coren, Erick Stakelbeck, Ryan Mauro, and Raymond Arroyo).</p>
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		<title>Presbyterian Church Slams Israel &#8212;- Ignores Christian Persecution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/presbyterian-church-slams-israel-ignores-christian-persecution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=presbyterian-church-slams-israel-ignores-christian-persecution</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jul 2014 04:35:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The warped priorities of a left-wing church. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #000000;"><em>Originally published by <a href="http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2014/07/21/presbyterian-church-criticizes-israel-ignores-christian-persecution.aspx">CBN.com</a>. </em></p>
<p><iframe src="http://cbn.com/tv/embedplayernews.aspx?bcid=3689050552001" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Days before the recent Israel/Hamas conflict erupted, the Presbyterian Church in America withdrew $21 million worth in investments from Israel because, as spokesman Heath Rada put it, the Israeli government’s actions “harm the Palestinian people.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Soon after, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and was asked if he was “troubled” by the Presbyterian Church’s move.<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX0Y2mnnsvc" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Netanyahu responded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #000000;"><em>It should trouble all people of conscience and morality because it’s so disgraceful. You know, you look at what’s happening in the Middle East and I think most Americans understand this, they see this enormous area riveted by religious hatred, by savagery of unimaginable proportions. Then you come to Israel and you see the one democracy that upholds basic human rights, that guards the rights of all minorities, that protects Christians—Christians are persecuted throughout the Middle East. So most Americans understand that Israel is a beacon of civilization and moderation. You know I would suggest to these Presbyterian organizations to fly to the Middle East, come and see Israel for the embattled democracy that it is, and then take a bus tour, go to Libya, go to Syria, go to Iraq, and see the difference. And I would give them two pieces of advice, one is, make sure it’s an armor plated bus, and second, don’t say that you’re Christians.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #000000;">It’s difficult—if not impossible—to argue with Netanyahu’s logic. Indeed, several points made in his one-minute response are deserving of some reflection.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">First, the obvious: why is it that self-professed Christians completely ignore the horrific Islamic persecution of fellow Christians in the Middle East, while grandstanding against the Jewish state for trying to defend itself against the same ideology that persecutes Christians?</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">And he is absolutely right to say that the persecution of Christians in the Mideast has reached a point of “savagery of unimaginable proportions.” Perhaps the only thing more shocking than the atrocities Mideast Christians are exposed to—the slaughters, crucifixions, beheadings, torture and rape—is the absolute silence emanating from so-called mainline Protestant churches in the U.S.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Note also the nations Netanyahu highlighted for their brutal persecution of Christian minorities: Libya, Syria, and Iraq. Indigenous Christians were markedly better off in all three nations <em>before</em> the U.S. got involved, specifically be empowering, deliberately or not, Islamist forces. Now,<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/confirmed-u-s-chief-facilitator-of-christian-persecution/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">according to recent studies</a>, Christians in all three nations are experiencing the worst form of persecution around the globe:</p>
<ul style="color: #000000;">
<li style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Libya</span>: Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Gaddafi, Christians—<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/three-american-teachers-slaughtered-for-christian-faith-in-muslim-world/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">including Americans</a>—have been <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/mass-arrest-and-torture-of-christians-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">tortured</a> and killed (including <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/09/two-egyptian-christians-slain-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">for refusing to convert</a>) and <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/hatred-of-christians-unleashed-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollwo">churches bombed</a>. It’s “<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/open-season-on-christians-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">open season</a>” on Copts, as jihadis issue a reward to Muslims who find and kill Christians. This was not the case under Gaddafi.</li>
<li style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Syria</span>: Christians have been attacked in indescribable ways—<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/largest-massacre-of-christians-in-syria-ignored/" target="_Blank" rel="nofollow">wholesale massacres</a>, bombed and desecrated churches, beheadings, <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/christians-crucified-again-for-refusing-islam/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">crucifixions</a>, and rampant kidnappings—since the U.S.-sponsored “Arab Spring” reached the Levant.</li>
<li style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Iraq</span>: After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/in-the-media/graphic-images-of-christian-persecution-under-islam/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">graphic images</a>). In the last decade, Christians have been<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/the-silent-extermination-of-iraqs-christian-dogs/" target="_blank" rel="nofolow">terrorized into near-extinction</a>, with well over half of them fleeing Iraq.</li>
</ul>
<p style="color: #000000;">If the Presbyterian Church has problems with governments that persecute people—in this case, the Israeli government’s purported treatment of Palestinians, hence the Presbyterian Church’s divestment from Israel—perhaps it should begin by criticizing its own government’s <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/obamas-proxy-war-on-mideast-christians/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">proxy war on fellow Christians</a> in the Middle East.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Christians are also being targeted in the P.A. territories—by the very same elements the Presbyterian Church is trying to defend.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">In 2012, for example, a pastor <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153747#.T40QLqvY-pe" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">noted</a> that “animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the P.A. continues to get increasingly worse. People are always telling [Christians],Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam.&#8221; And in fact, the <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://global.christianpost.com/news/christians-say-forced-conversions-to-islam-happening-in-gaza-79011/#RyZs9RbyHGSZIbWX.99" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">kidnapping and forced conversions of Christians in Gaza is an ugly reality</a>.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">More recently, nuns of the Greek-Orthodox monastery in Bethany sent a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urging him to respond to <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/33985-ASIA_HOLY_LAND_Greek_Orthodox_monastery_under_attack_The_nuns_are_appealing_to_President_Abbas#.U8buXfldVqU" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">the escalation of attacks on the Christian house</a>, including the throwing of stones, broken glass, theft and looting of the monastery property. “Someone wants to send us away,” wrote Sister Ibraxia in the letter, “but we will not flee.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Sadly, the hypocrisy exhibited by the Presbyterian Church is not limited to that denomination. <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.jta.org/2012/10/09/news-opinion/united-states/religious-leaders-call-on-congress-to-reevaulate-military-aid-to-israel" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Some time back</a>, fifteen leaders from various U.S. Christian denominations—mostly Protestant, including the Lutheran, Methodist, and UCC Churches—asked Congress to reevaluate U.S. military aid to Israel, again, in the context of supporting “persecuted” Palestinians.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Yet nary a word from these same church leaders concerning the rampant persecution of millions of Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East—a persecution that makes the Palestinians’ situation pale in comparison.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Other “leftist” Protestants do find time to criticize Muslim persecution of Christians—but only to blame Israel for it. Thus, Diarmaid MacCulloch, a Fellow of St. Cross College, wrote an article in the <em>Daily Beast</em> ostensibly addressing the plight of Mideast Christians—but <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/exploiting-christian-persecution-to-demonize-israel/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">only to argue</a> that the source of Christian persecution “ in the Middle East is seven decades of unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">In reality, far from prompting the persecution of Christians, the Arab-Israeli conflict is itself a byproduct of the same hostility Islamic supremacism engenders for<em> </em>all non-Muslims. The reason hostility for Israel is much more viral is because the Jewish state holds a unique position of authority over Muslims unlike vulnerable Christian minorities who can be abused at will (as <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/how-dare-you-the-supremacist-nature-of-muslim-grievances/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">fully explained here</a><em>).</em></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Little wonder, then, that more Arab Christians—double the number of each of the preceding three years—are now <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://time.com/15479/israeli-army-christian-arabs/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">joining the Israel Defense Forces</a>.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">They know they can count on basic human rights protection from Israel than from many of their fellow Christians in the West. After all, beyond the sophistry, distortions, and downright lies emanating from some of these Christian denominations, the fact remains: both Jews and Christians are under attack from the same foe and for the same reason: they are non-Muslim “infidels” who need to be subjugated.</p>
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		<title>Obama Administration Suppresses Talk of Muslim Persecution of Christians</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/obama-administration-suppresses-talk-of-muslim-persecution-of-christians-3/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-administration-suppresses-talk-of-muslim-persecution-of-christians-3</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jul 2014 04:35:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A month of extra atrocities is met with a month of extra U.S. indifference.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Egypt-cross.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236347" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Egypt-cross.jpg" alt="Egypt-cross" width="270" height="194" /></a>Originally published by the </i><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4400/obama-muslim-persecutions">Gatestone Institute</a>.</i></span></p>
<p>Along with an especially egregious list of atrocities committed against Christian minorities throughout the Islamic world, March also saw some callous indifference or worse from the U.S. government.</p>
<p>President Barack Hussein Obama was <a href="http://www.charismanews.com/world/43327-why-is-president-obama-silent-on-religious-freedom-in-saudi-arabia"><span style="color: #0433ff;">criticized by human rights activists </span></a>for not addressing the plight of Christians and other minorities during his talks with leaders in Saudi Arabia, where Christianity is banned.</p>
<p>According to the Washington-based International Christian Concern (ICC) advocacy group, Obama did not “publicly broach the subject of religious freedom” during talks on March 28 with Saudi King Abdullah, despite a letter from some 70 members of Congress urging him to “address specific human rights reforms” both in public and in direct meetings with Abdullah and other officials.</p>
<p>“This visit was an excellent opportunity for the president to speak up on an issue that affects millions of Saudi citizens and millions more foreign workers living in Saudi Arabia,” said Todd Daniels, ICC’s Middle East regional manager, adding that it was “remarkable that the president could stay completely silent about religious freedom” despite pressure from Congress “to publicly address the issue, as well as other human rights concerns, with King Abdullah&#8230;”</p>
<p>U.S. officials reportedly responded by saying that “Obama had not had time to raise concerns about the kingdom’s human rights record.”</p>
<p>Separately, after the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) brought together the governors of Nigeria’s mostly Muslim northern states for a conference in the U.S., the State Department blocked the visa of the region’s only Christian governor, Jonah David Jang, an ordained minister, citing “administrative” problems.  The USIP confirmed that all 19 northern governors were invited, but the organization did not respond to requests for comments on why they would hold talks without the region’s only Christian governor.</p>
<p>According to Emmanuel Ogebe, a Nigerian human rights lawyer based in Washington, the Christian governor’s “visa problems” are due to <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/u-s-blocks-christian-governor-from-nigeria-peace-talks/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">anti-Christian bias in the U.S. government</span></a>:  “The U.S. insists that Muslims are the primary victims of Boko Haram. It also claims that Christians discriminate against Muslims in Plateau, which is one of the few Christian majority states in the north. After [Jang, the Christian governor] told them [U.S. authorities] that they were ignoring the 12 Shariah states who institutionalized persecution … he suddenly developed visa problems…  The question remains—why is the U.S. downplaying or denying the attacks against Christians?”</p>
<p>March’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.</p>
<p><b>The Slaughter of Christians</b></p>
<p><b>Egypt</b>: During pro-Muslim Brotherhood riots, a young Coptic woman named Mary was murdered—simply because her cross identified her as a Christian to Brotherhood rioters.  According to an eyewitness who discussed the entire event on the Egyptian program, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcFmEDb19y0&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;hd=1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">90 Minutes</span></a>, Mary Sameh George was parking by the church to deliver medicine to an elderly woman: “Once they saw that she was a Christian [because of the cross hanging on her rear view mirror], they jumped on top of the car, to the point that the vehicle was no longer visible. The roof of the car collapsed in.  When they realized that she was starting to die, they pulled her out of the car and started pounding on her and pulling her hair—to the point that portions of her hair and scalp came off.  They kept beating her, kicking her, stabbing her with any object or weapon they could find….  Throughout [her ordeal] she tried to protect her face, giving her back to the attackers, till one of them came and stabbed her right in the back, near the heart, finishing her off.  Then another came and grabbed her by the hair, shaking her head, and with the other hand slit her throat.  Another pulled her pants off, to the point that she was totally naked.”</p>
<p><b>Nigeria</b>:  A <a href="http://www.osundefender.org/?p=153414"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Muslim father allegedly slaughtered or had someone else slaughter his daughter with a machete</span></a>, wounding a pastor and four others in the attack, because she had earlier converted to Christianity. According to police reports, “the suspect allegedly sneaked into the church premises and inflicted machete cuts on the four persons” seriously wounding them and killing his daughter. Prior to that, the father had threatened his daughter to return to Islam or else, and she had taken refuge in the church.  Police had not made clear if it was the father or an accomplice who committed the assault.  Separately, Muslim Fulani herdsmen launched another night raid into a Christian majority region, <a href="http://www.spyghana.com/massacre-over-150-christians-butchered-in-south-kaduna/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">massacring over 150 people</span></a>, including a pastor, his wife and children; some 200 homes were torched.  A surviving eyewitness said that attackers were about 40 in number and were armed with knives, guns and other unidentifiable equipment.  They came in the night and began by setting fire to the homes, burning dozens of Christians alive: “Those that tried to escape were butchered or gun down.”</p>
<p><b>Pakistan</b>:  “<a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35325-ASIA_PAKISTAN_A_young_Christian_girl_killed_by_the_Taliban_for_helping_a_Muslim_converted_to_Christianity"><span style="color: #0433ff;">A young Christian girl was killed by the Pakistani Taliban</span></a> in the northern region of Pakistan,” reported Agenzia Fide: “The girl had spent a few months on the run and in hiding with her cousin, a Muslim who converted to Christianity a few years ago. Since the conversion, the man is considered an ‘apostate’ and since then he has been the target of the Taliban. In past days, some militants discovered where the two were hiding: the girl in the escape was reached by a bullet and was killed, while the man managed to escape.”</p>
<p><b>Somalia</b>: Members of the militant Islamic group, <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/03/islamic-extremists-in-somalia-behead-two-christians/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">al-Shabaab, publicly beheaded a mother of two girls and her cousin after discovering they were Christians</span></a>.  According to local sources, the Islamists “called residents to the town center to witness the executions of the 41-year-old mother, Sadia Ali Omar, and her 35-year-old cousin, Osman Mohamoud Moge.”  Before slaughtering the two women, an al-Shabaab member announced, “We know these two people are Christians who recently came back from Kenya—we want to wipe out any underground Christian living inside of <i>mujahidin </i>[jihadi] area.”  The two daughters of one of the women, ages 8 and 15, “were witness to the slaughter, sources said, with the younger girl screaming and shouting for someone to save her mother. A friend helped the girls, whose names are withheld, to relocate to another area,” saying “We are afraid that the al-Shabaab might continue monitoring these two children and eventually kill them just like their mother.”</p>
<p><b>Attacks on Christian Churches</b></p>
<p><b>Egypt</b>: After numerous death sentences were handed out to convicted Muslim Brotherhood members, their supporters protested and rioted in the streets.  According to Spero News, “Violence spilled over from demonstrations in the Cairo suburb of Ain Shams when <a href="http://www.speroforum.com/a/XIEQYRVWSJ1/74811-Egypt-Muslims-attack-Christian-church-and-kill-worshippers?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+speroforum%2Fnroq+(Spero+News)"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Muslim protesters attacked a Coptic Orthodox Christian church</span></a> on March 28. Four people were killed in the attack on the church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael. Among the dead are a 25-year-old journalist and a Coptic Christian worshipper. When Egyptian security forces intervened, violence spread throughout the surrounding neighborhood. Muslim radicals are frequently whipped up into frenzy by their religious leaders on Fridays when they gather for prayer.”</p>
<p><b>Kenya</b>: During Sunday worship service, two heavily-armed gunmen entered the Joy in Jesus Church in Monbasa—a region which according to authorities has a mosque with ties to the Somali Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab—and “<a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/03/gunmen-open-fire-on-church-in-mombasa-kenya/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sprayed the congregation with bullets, killing at least seven Christians</span></a> and leaving several others in critical condition,” including the assistant pastor, reports Morning Star News:  “As the attackers fled Joy in Jesus Church, a box holding 26 bullets dropped outside the church,” indicating that they intended for even more carnage.  According to one church leader, “We as the church feel that what happened is a retaliation for the attack [by police] that took place in Masjid Musa Mosque recently.  When the Muslims are attacked, there is a false generalization that the Christians are the ones doing it. We as the church became a scapegoat for the recent attack on the mosque.”  (This logic is very similar to the barrage of church attacks the Coptic Christians of Egypt suffered in “retaliation” after the Muslim Brotherhood and former president Morsi were ousted during the June 30 revolution.)</p>
<p><b>Pakistan</b>:  One day <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/678809/okara-residents-allegedly-vandalise-under-construction-church/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">after Christians placed a cross</span></a> on a partially constructed church that was being built on a fellow Christian’s land, a Muslim mob “damaged the building and the land by ploughing the ground with the help of a tractor” and “desecrated” the cross, reported The Express Tribune.  The chairman of the Human Liberation Commission Pakistan added that “the Christian community was not protected in Pakistan and that they face discrimination at every level.” Discussing this incident Agenzia Fides reports that “when a large group of Islamic extremists saw the Christian symbol [the cross] they arrived unexpectedly with bulldozers and started demolishing the building…. the perpetrators were not arrested, thanks to the political clout they have. Christians in the neighborhood who have asked for protection to civil authorities, on the other hand have received threats and have to <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35390-ASIA_PAKISTAN_A_church_building_destroyed_by_extremists_the_demolition_of_Christian_homes_in_the_capital_is_at_risk"><span style="color: #0433ff;">abandon the idea of the project to build a church</span></a>.”</p>
<p><b>Uganda</b>: In the predominantly Muslim districts of the Christian-majority African nation, “<a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/03/young-woman-in-uganda-hospitalized-after-father-beats-her-mulindes-sight-saved/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Islamic extremists burned down two church buildings</span></a> of the Free Church of Christ in February and the home of a church leader” in March, reported Morning Star News.  Bishop James Kinyewa, 47, recounted the atrocity: “While I was preaching, I heard loud noise, people saying, ‘Fire! Fire!’ coming from nearby neighbors.”  He found “rowdy Muslim youths with clubs and machetes” who prevented him and others from trying to put out the fire from his house. “They were shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar [Allah is greater],’” he said. “Now the same militant group is hunting for my life. My family and I are now hiding ourselves, homeless and waiting for God’s intervention.” Everything inside the two razed church buildings, which served a total of 240 people, was destroyed, leaving the bishop to lament, “My church members have no place to worship.”</p>
<p><b>Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism</b></p>
<p><b>Brunei</b>: A new penal code in the Muslim majority nation threatens school principals and schoolteachers with five years’ imprisonment and up to $20,000 in fines if they teach or speak to a Muslim child of religions other than Islam. (Future punishments may include amputation and even execution.) According to the new law, which is based on Sharia, or Islamic law, <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35353-ASIA_BRUNEI_Christian_Faith_forbidden_in_Christian_schools_if_there_are_Muslim_children"><span style="color: #0433ff;">it is a crime “to persuade, influence, incite, encourage a child with non- Islamic teaching.”</span></a>  It is also a crime to “expose the child to any ceremony or act of worship which is not Islamic or allow the child to participate in activities for the benefit of other religions.”  The new law is of especial concern to private Christian schools, where Muslim students attend.</p>
<p><b>Iran</b>: Vahid Hakkani, a Christian man who was imprisoned and sentenced to 44 months jail-time, after being found guilty of “<a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/32503-christian-on-hunger-strike-in-iran-jail"><span style="color: #0433ff;">attending a house-church, spreading  Christianity,</span></a> having contact with foreign [Christian] ministries” and “disrupting national security,” began a hunger strike in prison to protest the rejection of his conditional release appeal by the Revolutionary Court, despite concerns over his health.  Far from rethinking his sentence, according to his family, “prison authorities will transfer him to solitary confinement because he refuses to stop his hunger strike.”</p>
<p>Separately, eight more Christians were detained, blindfolded, and interrogated by security forces over their “<a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/32197-iran-detains-eight-christians"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christian activities</span></a>,” said rights activists.  Some members of the group had their personal items, including cell phones, confiscated.</p>
<p><b>Kazakhstan</b>: <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35322-ASIA_KAZAKHSTAN_Prison_for_Christian_pastor_a_threat_to_the_mental_health_of_the_people"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christian preaching is “extremely harmful to mental health of the people”</span></a>: such was the ruling of a law court which led to the sentencing of a Christian pastor, Bakhytzhan Kashkumayev, to four years in prison. According to Agenzia Fides, “the [67-year-old] Pastor, who is responsible for the Grace Church in the Kazak capital Astana was found guilty of ‘causing serious mental disorder’ to a presumed victim Lyazzat Almenova. The Pastor will also have to pay a heavy fine … for the ‘moral damage’ inflicted.” The pastor’s lawyer said that this is one of the “strangest cases he has ever come across, in terms of legality.”</p>
<p><b>Pakistan</b>: Last March, 2013, after a Christian man was accused of maligning the prophet of Islam he was arrested by police. Nonetheless, thousands of Muslims attacked Christian colonies, burning churches and homes; protesting Christians were attacked by the police, while not one of the thousands of rampaging Muslims was convicted.  Now, one year later, the blasphemer, Sawan Masih, has been <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/pakistani-christian-gets-death-blasphemy-case-170342225.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sentenced to death at a hearing held in the prison cell of the Christian</span></a>, “out of fears that Masih might be attacked on his way to court.”  Separately, two other Christians, a paralyzed, sickly man and his wife, also accused of “blasphemy via sms”—that is, <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35342-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Threats_to_judges_and_lawyers_two_Christians_accused_of_blasphemy_remain_in_jail"><span style="color: #0433ff;">blaspheming via text messaging</span></a>—remained in prison.  According to “World Vision in Progress,” the “judges of the High Court were initially convinced of what was said by the defense. But after pressure from Muslim religious leaders and the threats of extremists in Gojra, the judges denied bail, saying the case will be completed within two months. Radical Muslims had already threatened defense lawyers many times.” Concerning the aforementioned Christian man sentenced to death, Fr. James Channan OP, Director of the Peace Center in Lahore, Pakistan, said the following: “It was a dispute over a matter concerning property. But the Muslim took advantage, finding a shortcut and accused Sawan of blasphemy. The whole world knows what happened next. Over 100 Christian homes of Joseph Colony, a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, were destroyed, 2 churches burned, Bibles desecrated and Crosses destroyed by an angry mob of more than 3,000 fanatics. The Christians of Joseph Colony still live in danger and fear that the mob might attack again at any time….  After Sawan’s death sentence, I ask myself: <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35486-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Where_is_justice_A_terrible_day_for_Christians_in_Pakistan"><span style="color: #0433ff;">where is justice? Why is nothing done against these innocent Christians who have been attacked and have lost their possessions?</span></a> What about the churches which were desecrated, Bibles burned and crosses destroyed? Is this not blasphemy?”</p>
<p><b>Uganda</b>:  when a 23-year-old Muslim woman converted to Christianity and a neighbor informed her father, “My father began beating me with clubs and blows, and I started screaming in great pain,” she said. “While I was down on the floor bleeding, <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2014/03/young-woman-in-uganda-hospitalized-after-father-beats-her-mulindes-sight-saved/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">my father went looking for a knife to kill me</span></a>. A neighbor named Saleem arrived and helped me escape.”  She found lodging from a nearby church and was taken to a hospital the next day.</p>
<p><b>Dhimmitude</b></p>
<p><b>Bangladesh</b>: <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Home-of-Catholic-family-torched-in-Bangladesh-30450.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">The home of a Catholic family was torched and destroyed</span></a> during the night, and the culprits, according to residents, “could be Islamic fundamentalists.”  The family, two women and two children, managed to escape the blaze.  According to one of the women, “Three days before the fire we saw some people unknown to us behind our house. They asked around if we were Christians. We feel that this attack was premeditated by them. We have lost in [<i>sic</i>] everything, including our Bible and the crucifix. All we have left are the cloth[e]s on our backs.” A local priest adds: “This is an attack against the minority, and could be the hands of Islamic extremists. They are very powerful in the area.”</p>
<p><b>Iraq</b>: A Christian politician and member of the Assyrian Democratic Movement “denounced some officials of the Nineveh province after collecting documented evidence on the <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35326-ASIA_IRAQ_Political_leader_denounces_the_lands_of_Christians_who_emigrated_plundered_with_the_complicity_of_corrupt_officials"><span style="color: #0433ff;">corrupt system where many properties—land and houses—belonging to Christians change hands in an illegal and secret manner</span></a>, without any mandate on behalf of their legitimate owners.”  He also called on Iraqi Christians who fled their homeland to check the status of the property they left in Iraq and reaffirm their full rights on them.</p>
<p><b>Pakistan</b>: A March report by Agenzia Fides offers a glimpse of the endemic rape and sexual abuse of Christian girls at the hands of Muslims: “The rape of girls belonging to religious minorities is a very common phenomenon in Pakistan. Christian women are a prime target, because the most vulnerable and defenseless. The majority of cases are not even reported to the police and, when it happens, the perpetrators of violence often go unpunished. The Christian community is still shocked by the recent case of Sumbal, a 5-year-old Christian girl, raped by a group of Muslim men on a street in Lahore….  Another recent case … concerns a Muslim man from Lahore who attempted to rape two Christian girls, sisters, aged 1 and 3….  A few months ago another case aroused indignation: that of a 9-year-old Christian girl who suffered a gang rape by three young Muslims. Violence against children are committed with ease, explains a source of Fides that assists victims, especially because the perpetrators remain unpunished: injustice fuels the vicious cycle of violence.  In 2004, a case that caused uproar around the world was <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/35368-ASIA_PAKISTAN_Women_in_Pakistan_Christian_girls_raped_by_Muslims"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the brutal rape of a-two-year old child Neha Munir raped because her father, Munir Masih, a Christian, refused to convert to Islam</span></a>.”</p>
<p><b>Syria</b>: Al-Qaeda linked Islamic jihadis crossed into Syrian territory from the Turkish border and <a href="http://asbarez.com/121007/reports-cite-80-dead-in-kessab-churches-desecrated/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">launched a jihad</span></a> on the Christian/Armenian town of Kessab.   Among other things, “Snipers targeted the civilian population and launched mortar attacks on the town and the surrounding villages.”  Reportedly eighty people were killed.  The jihadis later made a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB_0HyPI-i4&amp;app=desktop"><span style="color: #0433ff;">video</span></a> touring the devastated town.  No translation is needed, as the main phrase shouted throughout is Islam’s triumphant war cry, “Allahu Akbar” (which, <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/video-al-qaeda-attacks-two-syrian-churches-to-cries-of-allahu-akbar/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">according to Sen. John McCain</span></a>, simply means “thank God”).  About two-thousand Armenians were evacuated to neighboring areas. While occupying Kessab, the jihadi terrorists desecrated the town’s three Armenian churches/</p>
<p><b>Turkey</b>:  Five men held in prison as suspects in the 2007 “Malatya Massacre”—when three Christian missionaries were tortured to death—were released.  The five walked free from their high-security prison because their time in detention while on trial exceeded new legal limits.  “<a href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/32191-news-alert-turkey-court-frees-alleged-killers-of-missionaries"><span style="color: #0433ff;">It is deeply disturbing to hear that the five men responsible for these brutal murders have been freed on bail</span></a>, including three who were arrested at the crime scene,” said Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s chief executive Mervyn Thomas: “We urge the Turkish authorities to take every necessary measure to ensure they remain in the country to face justice, which has been exceedingly long in coming.  This trial has been ongoing for six years with no indication of a conclusion in the near future.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims, to whom the release of these men has dealt yet another blow, no doubt leaving them with a deepening sense of uncertainty as to whether they will ever see justice for their loved ones. For their sakes, the Turkish authorities must ensure that justice is served as a matter of urgency.”</p>
<p><b>About this Series</b></p>
<p>The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:</p>
<p>1)    To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.</p>
<p>2)    To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.</p>
<p>Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam;  theft and plunder in lieu of <i>jizya</i> (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed <i>dhimmis</i>, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.</p>
<p>Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.</p>
<p><b>Previous Reports</b>:</p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/christians-most-persecuted-group-in-world-muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2014/">February, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/becomes-chief-enabler-of-christian-persecution-muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2014/">January, 2014</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/they-are-slaughtering-us-like-chickens-muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2013/">December, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/u-s-chose-to-stay-silent-on-muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2013/">November, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">October, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">September, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2013/">August, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2013/">July, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2013/">June, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2013/">May, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2013/">April, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013/">March, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2013/">February, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2013/">January, 2013</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2012/">December, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012/">November, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012/">October, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2012/">September, 2012 </a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2012/">August, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12215/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">July, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12045/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012">June, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11930/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2012">May, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11713/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2012">April, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11604/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2012">March, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11373/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012">February, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11152/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012">January, 2012</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10989/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2011">December, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10922/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2011">November, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10724/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2011">October, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10504/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2011">September, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10247/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011">August, 2011</a></p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;">•<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2011/">July, 2011</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Extremism Fuels Abuse of Christians in Mideast</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/extremism-fuels-abuse-of-christians-in-mideast/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=extremism-fuels-abuse-of-christians-in-mideast</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jul 2014 04:55:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apostasy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meriam Yehya Ibrahim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The greatest human rights violation in the world today -- and the West's silence to it. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/x_lon_sudanwedding_140529_f96260e6df43349a14c5e50462fe901b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235708" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/x_lon_sudanwedding_140529_f96260e6df43349a14c5e50462fe901b-450x341.jpg" alt="x_lon_sudanwedding_140529_f96260e6df43349a14c5e50462fe901b" width="273" height="207" /></a>Originally published by <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/03/opinion/ibrahim-persecution-of-christians/index.html">CNN.com</a>.</em></p>
<p>The world heard of the plight of a Sudanese Christian wife and mother who, while eight months pregnant, was arrested and sentenced to public flogging followed by execution. Her crime? An Islamic court in Khartoum found her guilty of apostasy, that is, leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. It&#8217;s a crime punishable by death, according to some interpretations of Islamic law.</p>
<p>Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag, 27, who is married to an American, was released, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/24/world/africa/sudan-christian-woman-arrest/index.html?hpt=hp_t2"><span style="color: #004276;">rearrested</span></a>, and then released again. It&#8217;s still uncertain whether her nerve-wracking ordeal is over yet.</p>
<p>But Meriam&#8217;s plight is nothing new or isolated. Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, <a href="http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/2013/08/28/blasphemy-in-pakistan-why-is-asia-bibi-still-in-jail"><span style="color: #004276;">has been languishing in prison since 2010</span></a>, sentenced to death in Pakistan for &#8220;blasphemy.&#8221; Her husband and children went into hiding after death threats.</p>
<p>Persecution of Christians is one of the greatest human rights violations in the world today &#8212; and certainly the one least known in the West.</p>
<p>Religious hostilities are on the rise around the world, against Muslims, Hindus, Jews, folk religion followers and more. But the situation is so bad for Christians that the normally diplomatic Pope Francis just asserted: &#8220;The persecution of Christians today is even greater than in the first centuries of the Church, and there are more Christian martyrs today than in that era.&#8221;</p>
<p>To those familiar with the true history of early persecution &#8212; when Christians were habitually tortured to death, set on fire, fed to lions and dismembered to cheering audiences &#8212; his statement may seem exaggerated. But even today, as in the past, Christians are being persecuted for their faith and even tortured and executed.</p>
<p><span style="color: #004276;"><a href="http://muftah.org/at-what-price-violence-against-egypts-christians-and-the-government-response-by-shereen-zaky/#.U6mq4-3BSS0">In Egypt, while Christians were ushering in the 2011 New Year</a></span>, Islamic terrorists bombed the Two Saints Church in Alexandria, killing 23 worshipers and injuring about 100 people. Coptic Christians and Muslims alike protested the bombing.</p>
<p>Since then, dozens of Coptic churches have been attacked, some torched to the ground. In August 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world-july-dec13-coptic_09-20/"><span style="color: #004276;">attacked and destroyed dozens of churches</span></a> in retaliation for the Coptic Church&#8217;s endorsement of the anti-Brotherhood revolution, which was joined by tens of millions of moderate Muslims.</p>
<p style="color: #004276;"><span style="color: #000000;">In 2010, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/01/baghdad-church-siege-survivors-speak">Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad was attacked during Mass</a>, with 58 worshipers killed and hundreds wounded. Lesser known is that, since U.S. forces ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/17/iraq-christians-flee-baghdad-cathedral">militants have threatened and attacked Christians so often that many have fled the country in fear.</a> In Syria and Iraq alone, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/13/isis-beheadings-and-the-success-of-horrifying-violence/">Islamists like ISIS have been making life a living hell for &#8220;unbelievers.&#8221;</a></span></p>
<p>In Nigeria, the Islamist organization Boko Haram has in recent years attacked hundreds of churches, reserving the worst attacks on Christmas and Easter church services.</p>
<p>A January, 2014, <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/01/RestrictionsV-full-report.pdf"><span style="color: #004276;">Pew Research Center study on religious discrimination across the world</span></a> found that harassment of Christians was reported in more countries, 110, than any other faith. Muslims were close behind.</p>
<p><span style="color: #004276;"><a href="http://www.worldwatchlist.us/?utm_source=opendoorsusa.org&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=wwl&amp;utm_content=homepage-banner">Open Doors, </a></span>a nondenominational Christian rights watchdog group, ranked the 50 most dangerous nations for Christians in its World Watch List. The No. 1 ranked nation is North Korea, then Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen.</p>
<p>More disturbing is that three of these countries &#8212; Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya &#8212; were &#8220;liberated&#8221; in part thanks to U.S. forces, while in the fourth, Syria, the U.S. is actively sponsoring the &#8220;rebels,&#8221; <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0310/Release-of-Syrian-nuns-belies-persecution-of-Christians-in-rebel-areas"><span style="color: #004276;">many of whom are not even Syrian and some of whom have been responsible for attacks and kidnappings of Christians.</span></a></p>
<p>It seems that when some Arab states fail, hostilities against Christians rise.</p>
<p>Of the top 50 nations documented for their persecution of Christians, 41 are Muslim majority or have sizeable Muslim populations, such as Ethiopia and Kenya. It&#8217;s important to note that Islamic extremists are the culprits within their borders.</p>
<p>Other countries, especially communist ones like North Korea, China, and Vietnam, are intolerant of Christians; churches are banned or forced underground, and in North Korea, exposed Christians can be immediately executed.</p>
<p>Nothing integral to the fabric of these societies makes them intrinsically anti-Christian. Something as simple as overthrowing the North Korean regime could possibly end persecution there &#8212; just as the fall of Communist Soviet Union saw religious persecution come to a quick close in nations like Russia, which if anything is experiencing a Christian Orthodox revival.</p>
<p>The reason Islamic radicals persecute Christians can be traced to culture and politics, but also to extreme interpretations of Islamic religious texts that are used to justify that persecution.</p>
<p>The majority of the world&#8217;s Muslims reject such intolerant readings, but a small minority of Islamists is enough to terrorize the even smaller number of Christians living in Muslim majority nations.</p>
<p>One reason Meriam Ibrahim was not flogged and executed might be that her case became a cause celebre, thanks to the media.</p>
<p>There is a familiar pattern. Back in September 2012, two other Christians under arrest and awaiting execution in the Islamic world were released. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/07/christian-pastor-nadarkhani-released-form-iranian-prison/"><span style="color: #004276;">Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani,</span></a> charged with apostasy and sentenced to death in Iran, was eventually released. A teenage Christian girl known as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/pakistan-girl-accused-blasphemy-canada"><span style="color: #004276;">Rimsha Masih</span></a>, charged with blasphemy in Pakistan, was freed. In each case, freedom came only after widespread international condemnation.</p>
<p>The world must condemn the persecution of all religions &#8212; all cases must be exposed to the light. It&#8217;s incumbent on nations to control religious discrimination within their borders. And if it&#8217;s the regime itself that endorses or inflames religious hostilities, the rest of the world must pay attention and denounce it.</p>
<p>Most important, Western nations must make foreign aid contingent on the rights and freedoms of minorities.</p>
<p>After all, if we are willing to give billions in foreign aid, often on humanitarian grounds, surely the very least that recipient governments can do is provide humanitarian rights, including religious freedom.</p>
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		<title>Raymond Ibrahim on the 700 Club: Christians as Persona Non Grata</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/raymond-ibrahim-on-the-700-club-christians-as-persona-non-grata/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=raymond-ibrahim-on-the-700-club-christians-as-persona-non-grata</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Jun 2014 04:05:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crucified Again]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The Freedom Center's Shillman Fellow unveils Christians' horrifying suffering in the Muslim world.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ca1.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-235061" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ca1.jpg" alt="ca" width="183" height="276" /></a>People worldwide embrace Christianity more than any other religion, and Christians are the most persecuted. Mideast expert Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the Center, warns on The 700 Club that such persecution happens most often in the Muslim world.</p>
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		<title>Egypt’s New Government Calls for Anti-Christian Measures?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/egypts-new-government-calls-for-anti-christian-measures/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=egypts-new-government-calls-for-anti-christian-measures</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jun 2014 04:00:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Outgoing president and close ally of Sisi boasts of the anti-Christian “Conditions of Omar”.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/cp.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-233975" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/cp.jpg" alt="cp" width="312" height="162" /></a>Overlooked in the midst of all the celebrations in Egypt concerning the presidential victory of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, his predecessor, President Adly Mansour—who very much shares in Sisi’s worldview and politics—made a strange comment about the place of the nation’s Christian minority, the Copts. (Sisi installed Mansour as acting president of Egypt on July 4, 2013—right after ousting former President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood party during the June 30 Revolution, which was supported by the Coptic Church.)</p>
<p>In a televised speech delivered a few days ago, Mansour addressed the Copts in a very inclusive way, one much welcomed and appreciated by Egypt’s Christians. Among other things, he indicated that they were equal citizens, “brothers” to the Muslims; that they have been an integral part of Egypt’s history; that both Copts and Muslims are victims of and enemies to “terrorism” (a reference to the Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations).</p>
<p>Then he said:</p>
<blockquote><p>I speak to you [Copts] today through the true spirit of Islam—the spirit whose values appeared in the Pact of Omar, wherein the righteous Caliph, Omar bin al-Khattab, made a covenant with the Christians of Jerusalem, after Medina opened [conquered] it in the year 638; the Pact which preserved for the Christians their churches, monasteries, and crosses, and their religion and possessions. Egypt again renews the spirit of this pact and its principles with you; Egypt, the Muslim state, which takes from the values and principles of the tolerant and true Islamic Sharia for its legislation.</p></blockquote>
<p>To those familiar with the actual text of the Pact of Omar—also known as the <em>shurut</em>, or “the conditions,” of Omar—the above speech is a strange contradiction. After all, whereas Koran 9:29 provides divine sanction to fight the “People of the Book” (namely, Christians and Jews) “until they pay the jizya [monetary tribute] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued,” the <em>Conditions</em> of Omar lay out in detail how Christians are to feel themselves subdued.</p>
<p>Below are excerpts from the <em>Conditions</em> (see <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=uhurnetw-20"><em>Crucified Again</em> </a> for my complete translation and historical discussion of the text). The conquered Christians appear to be speaking and agree:</p>
<blockquote><p>Not to build a church in our city—nor a monastery, convent, or monk’s cell in the surrounding areas—and not to repair those that fall in ruins or are in Muslim quarters;</p>
<p>Not to clang our cymbals except lightly and from the innermost recesses of our churches;</p>
<p>Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims;</p>
<p>Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims;</p>
<p>Not to congregate in the open for Easter or Palm Sunday, nor lift our voices [in lamentation] for our dead nor show our firelights with them near the market places of the Muslims;</p>
<p>Not to display any signs of polytheism, nor make our religion appealing, nor call or proselytize anyone to it;</p>
<p>Not to prevent any of our relatives who wish to enter into Islam;</p>
<p>Not to possess or bear any arms whatsoever, nor gird ourselves with swords;</p>
<p>To honor the Muslims, show them the way, and rise up from our seats if they wish to sit down;</p>
<p>We guarantee all this to you upon ourselves, our descendants, our spouses, and our neighbors, and if we change or contradict these conditions imposed upon ourselves in order to receive safety, we forfeit our <em>dhimma</em> [protection], and we become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and cause sedition.</p></blockquote>
<p>To “become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and cause sedition” simply meant that, if any stipulation of the <em>Conditions</em> was broken, the Christians would resume their natural status as non-submitting infidels who “resist and cause sedition” against Islam—becoming, once again, free game for killing or enslavement.</p>
<p>That other Muslims read the <em>Conditions</em> to mean what they plainly say—as opposed to Mansour’s portrayal of them as indicative of Islamic tolerance—consider how just a few months ago, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) tried to enforce the <em>Conditions</em> to a tee, when it issued a directive calling on “Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety.”</p>
<blockquote><p>It [<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26366197">ISIS’ statement</a>] says Christians must not make renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public.  Christians must not carry arms, and must follow other rules imposed by ISIS on their daily lives.  The statement said the group had met Christian representatives and offered them three choices—they could convert to Islam, accept ISIS’ conditions [based on <em>Conditions of Omar</em>], or reject their control and risk being killed.  “If they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword,” the statement said.</p></blockquote>
<p>To be sure, ISIS’s interpretation of the <em>Conditions of Omar</em> is more orthodox than Mansour’s—certainly more in accordance with Islamic history and doctrine. Consider, for instance, the words of Saudi Sheikh Marzouk Salem al-Ghamdi—an Islamic cleric, not a politician like Egypt’s president—once spoken during a Friday mosque sermon:</p>
<blockquote><p>If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet—there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions [reference to <em>Conditions of Omar</em>] are … that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed, that they feed for three days any Muslim who passes by their homes … that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit, that they do not imitate Muslims in dress and speech, nor ride horses, nor own swords, nor arm themselves with any kind of weapon; that they do not sell wine, do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer, that they shave their hair in front so as to make them easily identifiable, do not incite anyone against the Muslims, and do not strike a Muslim…. If they violate these conditions, they have no protection.</p></blockquote>
<p>What, then, do we make of Mansour’s reference to these medieval <em>Conditions</em>—in a speech meant to reassure Egypt’s Christians of their equality as citizens of a modern nation?</p>
<p>What do we make of the fact that Mansour’s views on the Copts—often seen as inclusive and moderate—are shared by Sisi, Egypt’s new president, who is believed to be more of a pious Muslim than his predecessor?</p>
<p>Was Mansour employing a bit of <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/tawriya-lying/">Islamic tawriya</a>, mentioning seemingly tolerant aspects of the <em>Conditions</em>—that Christians are allowed to “preserve” their existing churches, monasteries, and crosses—while ignoring the “conditions” Christians must obey in exchange for such “tolerance,” namely, that they not build or repair any churches or monasteries above the ones in existence and to keep their crosses out of sight—otherwise they lose all “protection”?</p>
<p>Through such double-talk, was Mansour trying to placate, on the one hand, the Copts, many of whom do not know much about the <em>Conditions</em>, and, on the other, hardline Salafis who do—with words and references that convey different notions to different people?</p>
<p>Indeed, from a Salafi point of view, Mansour’s declaration to the Copts that “Egypt again renews the spirit of this pact [<em>Conditions</em>] and its principles with you; Egypt, the Muslim state,” is tantamount to telling the Copts to remember their place in a medieval Muslim society and embrace their lot as <em>dhimmis</em>, third-class citizens.</p>
<p>Nor does Mansour’s use of words like “the spirit” or “values and principles” of the <em>Conditions</em> really moderate anything. For however one spins it, the most basic meaning of the <em>Conditions</em> is that Christians—because they are Christians, not Muslims—must uphold certain debilitating, discriminatory, and humiliating “conditions” in order to exist as Christians in an Islamic state.</p>
<p>Then again, could Mansour himself, a judge and former head of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court, be ignorant or incredulous of the truth concerning the <em>Conditions</em>?</p>
<p>In fact, a few days before Mansour’s speech, I <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/islamic-fatwa-husbands-should-abandon-wives-to-rapists-in-self-interest/">wrote the following</a> words which may be applicable to him:</p>
<blockquote><p>This is the fundamental problem facing all moderate Muslims: despite what they like to believe and due to a variety of historical and epistemological factors, they are heavily influenced by Western thinking … so whenever they come up against Islamic teachings they cannot fathom [such as the discriminatory <em>Conditions</em>], they collectively behave as if such teachings don’t really mean what they mean.</p>
<p>Yet the Salafis know exactly what they mean.</p></blockquote>
<p>At any rate, most Copts—despite Mansour’s disturbing references to a medieval text that historically justified Christian subjugation—believe that Egypt’s government, first under Mansour and now Sisi, is preferable to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>And most remain optimistic about Sisi.</p>
<p>Time will tell if such optimism is warranted, or if Egypt’s Christians will again be fated to watch their nation take one step forward and another one right back—the inevitable outcome of a worldview that always tries to articulate itself through Islamic terms.</p>
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		<title>Western Media and Islamic Persecution</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jun 2014 04:35:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The MSM holds enormous sway, but rarely uses it to help persecuted Christians.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/155178449__708113b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-233717" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/155178449__708113b-450x300.jpg" alt="155178449__708113b" width="260" height="173" /></a>Originally published by <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2014/06/06/sudan-mother-tip-of-the-iceberg-on-islamic-persecution.aspx">CBN News</a>.</em></p>
<p>Evidence has again emerged indicting that if Western mainstream media actually reported more on the sufferings of Christians throughout the Islamic world, their lot would likely improve.</p>
<p>Meriam Ibrahim, a woman who is imprisoned in Sudan and sentenced to death on the charge that she apostatized from Islam and converted to Christianity—and who recently gave birth to a baby girl in prison—was reportedly going to “<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27651483"><span style="color: #0433ff;">be freed in a few days</span></a>,” according to a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27651483"><span style="color: #0433ff;">BBC report</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Abdullahi Alzareg, an under-secretary at the foreign ministry, said Sudan guaranteed religious freedom and was committed to protecting the woman.</p>
<p><i>Khartoum has been facing international condemnation over the death sentence.</i></p>
<p>In an interview with The Times newspaper, British Prime Minister David Cameron<i> described the ruling as “barbaric” and out of step with today’s world </i>(emphasis added).</p></blockquote>
<p>Of course, soon after the BBC reported that Ibrahim would be freed, other <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/confusion-over-news-meriam-ibrahim-to-be-freed-in-sudan-30321145.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reports</span></a> appeared indicating that that is only a rumor—one that the BBC, which regularly tries to <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/bbc-minimizes-christian-persecution/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">minimize the specter of Muslim persecution of Christians</span></a>, jumped on—that Sudan was merely trying to save face before the international community.</p>
<p>According to the imprisoned Christian woman’s husband: “No Sudanese or foreign mediator contacted me. Maybe there are contacts between the Sudanese government and foreign sides that I’m not aware of.”</p>
<p>At any rate, why did Sudan say Ibrahim was going to be released?  After all and despite what that nation’s under-secretary says—that “Sudan guaranteed religious freedom and was committed to protecting the woman”—Khartoum’s government upholds Islam’s apostasy law, which actually guarantees that born Muslims do <i>not</i> have “religious freedom.”</p>
<p>As just one example, back in June 2012 in Sudan, a Muslim woman divorced her husband after he converted to Christianity.  The court automatically granted her custody of their two sons (according to Islamic law, children of divorced parents are to remain with the father, but if the latter is an apostate, they go to the mother). When the father tried to visit his children, his ex-wife threatened to notify authorities. “They might take the case to a prosecution court, which might lead to my sentencing to death according to Islamic apostasy law—but I am ready for this,” the Christian man had said. “<a href="http://www.christianity.com/11672481/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">I want the world to know this. What crime have I done?</span></a>”</p>
<p>And that’s the whole difference: “the world” did <i>not</i> “know this,” whereas the major media did report on Ibrahim’s plight, thereby exposing Sudan to international condemnation.</p>
<p>Precedents of this phenomenon—international outrage prompting Islamist governments to rethink their abuse of Christians—have occurred in other Muslim countries.</p>
<p>For example, back in September 2012, two other Christians under arrest and awaiting execution in the Islamic world—one, like Sudan’s Ibrahim, charged with apostasy in Iran, the other with blasphemy in Pakistan—were also released, but only after much widespread international condemnation, that is, only after the mainstream media exposed their plight.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/08/christian-pastor-once-sentenced-to-death-in-iran-is-released-group-says/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">CNN</span></a> had reported:</p>
<blockquote><p>A Christian pastor sentenced to death in Iran for apostasy was reunited with his family Saturday after a trial court acquitted him… <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10382/iran-apostasy"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani</span></a>, born to Muslim parents and a convert to Christianity by age 19, was released after being held in prison for almost three years under a death sentence…. <i>His case drew international attention</i> after his October 2009 arrest, and the 34-year-old pastor refused to recant his Christian beliefs (emphasis added).</p></blockquote>
<p>Right around the same time, Pakistani authorities <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/08/world/asia/pakistan-girl-blasphemy/index.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">released a teenage Christian girl</span></a> accused of blasphemy and facing the death penalty. Up till then, local Muslims had insisted that 14-year-old Rimsha Masih be put to death, warning that, if released, they would “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/30/pakistan-blasphemy-case-muslims-law"><span style="color: #0433ff;">take the law into their own hands</span></a>.”  Her case also reached the international community, sparking widespread outrage and condemnation of Pakistan.</p>
<p>Earlier, in 2006, one Abdul Rahman was exposed as an apostate to Christianity and subsequently arrested, incarcerated, and sentenced to death. Because his story also received widespread media attention and international condemnation—and even a phone call from U.S. Secretary of State Rice to Afghanistan’s president—Rahman was released under the pretext that he was mentally retarded, though most sources indicated he was quite sane.  (Muslim governments regularly portray apostates and blasphemers whom they wish to release as mentally handicapped, since, according to Islamic law, the insane are not responsible for their actions.  Even Pakistan’s Rimsha Masih, prior to her release, was <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Blasphemy,-Rimsha-Masih,-minor-with-mental-problems.-Bishop-of-Islamabad:-a-positive-outcome-25660.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">portrayed as mentally retarded</span></a>.)</p>
<p>The point here is that such prisoners of conscience are not released because their respective governments suddenly decided to act according to universal standards of human rights. If so, they would not have arrested the accused in the first place. Nor should such releases suggest that Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, or Sudan are rethinking Islam’s apostasy and blasphemy laws, which prescribe the death penalty.</p>
<p>After all, there are countless more Christian “blasphemers” and “apostates” rotting on death row in all three countries, not to mention all around the Islamic world.</p>
<p>As with Sudan, Christians in the aforementioned countries are habitually persecuted, imprisoned, and or killed.  In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=uhurnetw-20"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians</i></span></a>, Iran’s persecution of apostates to Christianity is so widespread that it warrants a special “spotlight” section; Pakistan also gets a special spotlight section for its frequent arrests and imprisonments of Christian “blasphemers.”</p>
<p>Indeed, just days ago a Christian couple in Pakistan, one illiterate the other disabled, <a href="http://www.gospelherald.com/articles/51428/20140530/illiterate-christian-couple-sentenced-to-death-in-pakistan-for-blasphemous-texts.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">received the death sentence</span></a> for allegedly sending “blasphemous” text messages.</p>
<p>However, unlike Sudan’s Ibrahim, Iran’s Nadarkhani, Pakistan’s Masih, and Afghanistan’s Rahman, the Western mainstream rarely if ever hears about these many unfortunates.</p>
<p>And that’s the whole difference.</p>
<p>Unlike the many faceless Christians persecuted all around the Islamic world, the Western mainstream media actually reported on these three, prompting public outrage, international condemnations, and in some instances the threat of diplomatic actions and/or sanctions.</p>
<p>For Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan such “infidels” are often too much of a liability to punish as Sharia demands—the same Sharia, incidentally, that teaches Muslims to be lax and tolerant when in their <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/7749/top-muslim-cleric-qaradawi-urges-western-muslims"><span style="color: #0433ff;">interest</span></a>, such as when the international community puts them in the spotlight.</p>
<p>Thus such freed Christians are a reminder of the important role the Western mainstream media can play in alleviating the sufferings of minorities throughout the Islamic world.  For if they were not reported on—as the overwhelming majority of persecuted Christians are not reported on—they would surely still be in prison on death row, where so many other nameless and faceless Christians remain.</p>
<p>So consider the impact the mainstream media could have if they were to report the full truth and extent of <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/becomes-chief-enabler-of-christian-persecution-muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2014/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Muslim persecution of Christians</span></a>; if they stopped portraying the few they do report on as anomalies but rather as the tips of a very big and ugly iceberg.</p>
<p>For the fact remains: the overwhelming majority of people in the West remain woefully ignorant of the sufferings of non-Muslims under Islam, thanks to <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/why-the-media-doesnt-cover-jihadist-attacks-on-middle-east-christians/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the mainstream media’s general indifference or worse</span></a>.</p>
<p>However, as precedent suggests, when enough people in the West do hear about them, they do act, prompting their governments and human rights groups also to act, prompting Islamist governments to realize that persecuting this or that Christian is simply not worth it.</p>
<p>In the case of Sudan’s Meriam Ibrahim, time will only tell if the major media will forget about or try to dismiss her story—as the BBC may be doing—or whether they will continue exposing the truth of her plight, which, at this point, is likely the only way this wife and mother who refuses to renounce Christianity for Islam can ever hope to escape execution.</p>
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		<title>Islam: ‘Appalling and Abhorrent’ in the Eyes of a Blind World?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/islam-appalling-and-abhorrent-in-the-eyes-of-a-blind-world/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam-appalling-and-abhorrent-in-the-eyes-of-a-blind-world</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2014 04:19:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apostate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Convert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Meriam Yehya Ibrahim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Why refusing to identify the problem of Islam will ensure more victims like Meriam Yehya Ibrahim.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/meriam-yehya-ibrahim-apostasy-sharia-law-sudan.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225946" alt="meriam-yehya-ibrahim-apostasy-sharia-law-sudan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/meriam-yehya-ibrahim-apostasy-sharia-law-sudan-450x254.jpg" width="315" height="178" /></a>A few days ago in Sudan, an eight-month pregnant wife and mother was sentenced to death by hanging for refusing to renounce Christ and embrace Islam.  According to the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-sudan-court-sharia-christianity-20140515-story.html"><i>LA Times</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, who has a young son and is married to a Christian from South Sudan, violated Islamic sharia law, the court said. She insists she was raised Christian, not Muslim.</span></p>
<p>The court also ordered Ibrahim to be flogged for having sexual relations with her husband, since her marriage is not recognized by officials.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ibrahim refused a court order Sunday giving her several days to renounce her Christian faith, which resulted in the sentencing Thursday….</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ibrahim, currently jailed with her son, will be allowed to give birth and raise her second child until the age of 2 years but then faces execution. Sudanese authorities refuse to allow Ibrahim’s son to reside with her husband because the husband is Christian.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Tragic as this story is, it is also immensely commonplace in Islamic countries.  Why? Because Islamic law does in fact punish the apostate from Islam—including with death—in accordance with the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.cmje.org/religious-texts/hadith/bukhari/084-sbt.php">commands of the Muslim prophet Muhammad</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.  Indeed, many Muslim clerics believe that “If the [death] penalty for apostasy was ignored, there would not be an Islam today; Islam would have ended on the death of the prophet,” as top Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUsgTzOZfsyosq4j9qVi3YWg&amp;v=917pAS-Ccjs">once declared</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on live television.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Of more significance is the Amnesty International statement concerning Meriam Ibrahim’s plight. While its criticism is aimed at Sudan’s legal system, the statement unwittingly provides a glimpse of how the international community would view Islam if it could actually understand that these human rights abuses are not products of this or that government or regime, but of Islam itself. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/sudan-abhorrent-death-sentence-woman-grounds-her-religion-2014-05-15">Amnesty International statement</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:</span></p>
<blockquote><p>The fact that a woman has been sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is <i>appalling and abhorrent</i>.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Adultery and apostasy are acts which should not be considered crimes at all. It is </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">flagrant breach of international human rights law</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.  The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which includes the freedom to hold beliefs, is far-reaching and profound; it encompasses freedom of thought on all matters, personal conviction and the commitment to religion or belief (emphasis added).</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If, as Amnesty International declares, flogging and executing a person, in this case a pregnant woman, because of her “religious choice” and marrying a man of a “different religion” are “appalling and abhorrent”; if they are a “flagrant breach of international human rights law”—what do we make of the fact that Muslim converts to Christianity are punished and sometimes killed all across the Islamic world?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Consider the following anecdotes, a few examples, most from 2013 alone (culled from my monthly “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/becomes-chief-enabler-of-christian-persecution-muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2014/">Muslim Persecution of Christians</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">” series and listed in country alphabetical order):</span></p>
<p><b>Afghanistan</b>: A member of Afghanistan’s Parliament said that all <a href="http://www.mohabatnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=7458:afghani-mp-execute-afghan-christian-converts&amp;catid=81:regions&amp;Itemid=278">Afghans who convert to Christianity should be executed</a>.  His exact words: “Afghani citizens continue to convert to Christianity in India. Numerous Afghanis have become Christians in India. This is an offense to Islamic Laws and according to the Quran they need to be executed.” As one of many live examples,  Said Musa, an amputee and father of six young children, was once charged with apostasy and <a href="https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2011/02-February/33433/">pressured to renounce Christianity</a>, but he refused. So he was imprisoned, suffering “sexual abuse, beatings, mockery, and sleep deprivation because of his faith in Jesus.”</p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Algeria</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:</span><b style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The wife of Ali Touahir, a 52-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity, left him, taking their seven-year-old daughter, and is divorcing him in court.  One of his wife’s brothers openly threated to kill apostate.  The wife’s lawyer asserted: “It is not possible that my client [the Muslim wife] still remain under the same roof with a man who has renounced his religion, as he became apostate; and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christian-convert-in-Algeria-loses-wife-faces-death-threats-for-leaving-Islam.html">we are not ignorant of the punishment that is due an apostate under sharia [death]</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.” </span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cameroon</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: Two Muslim converts to Christianity were shot dead and two others wounded, in the Christian-majority African nation where Muslims make approximately 20 percent of the population.  One of them was previously threatened by the Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram to return to Islam or “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Two-Christian-converts-killed-by-Islamists-in-Cameroon.html">face Allah’s wrath</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.” </span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Egypt</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: A court sentenced an entire family—Nadia Mohamed Ali and her seven children—to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263727/Mother-Nadia-Mohamed-Ali-seven-children-jailed-15-years-Egypt-converting-Christianity-Islam.html">fifteen years in prison for converting to Christianity</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. A born Christian, Nadia had earlier converted to Islam and married a Muslim man; reconverting back to Christianity after the death of her husband, she attempted to reflect this change formally on her identity card and her children’s, which created suspicions among security, who arrested the family.  Separately and days ago in Egypt, after a former Muslim woman on live television announced her apostasy and lack of faith in Muhammad as the “Messenger of Allah,” she was insulted, ridiculed, and thrown off the set by the host.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: Imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini was reported as “facing physical and psychological torture at the hands of captors demanding he renounce his beliefs.” The 32-year-old married father of two, who left his home in Boise, Idaho, to help start an orphanage in his former country, once detailed “horrific pressures” and “death threats” in a letter to family members: “My eyes get blurry, my body does not have the strength to walk, and my steps become very weak and shaky…  </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/22/imprisoned-american-says-iranian-captors-waiting-for-me-to-deny-christ/print">They are only waiting for one thing…for me to deny Christ</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. But they will never get this from me.”  The imprisonment and torture of Muslim converts to Christianity in Iran is quite common (recall the plight of </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/islams-predictability-apostasy-execution-and-lies/">Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">).  According to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Religion/Iran-Woman-who-converted-to-Christianity-jailed_32721259388.html">Adnkronos News</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, “renouncing the Muslim faith is punishable with the death penalty [in Iran]. Over 300 Iranian converts to Christianity have been arrested over the past two years, according to opposition websites.” </span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Kyrgyz</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: After a young Muslim girl converted to Christianity, her parents “wanted her to recant and renounce her faith in Christ, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/25344-kygyzstan-girl-burned-for-faith-in-christ">so they began to beat her systematically till she lost consciousness</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">… It was winter when all of this happened, so her parents put her into a cold room and kept her there for several days. Still they were unable to break her spirit.  They then started pulling her hair and put her face against the stove, burning her face. In spite of this, she remained faithful.”</span></p>
<p><b>Morocco</b>: A fatwa, or Islamic decree, by the government’s top religious authority, <a href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/05/christians-in-morocco-fear-fatwa-portends-harsher-treatment/">calls for the execution</a> of those Muslims who leave Islam, causing many Christian converts to live in fear. Lamented one Christian: “The fatwa showed us that our country is still living in the old centuries—no freedom, no democracy.  Unfortunately, we feel that we aren’t protected. We can be arrested or now even killed any time and everywhere. The majority of the Christian Moroccan leaders have the same feeling.  We are more followed now by the secret police than before. Only the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ gives us courage and peace.”</p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Pakistan</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: A 16-year-old Muslim boy who converted to Christianity was abducted in Peshawar by Taliban-linked Islamic militants “and his fate may already be marked, as he is considered ‘</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/33854-ASIA_PAKISTAN_A_young_Christian_boy_converted_from_Islam_reported_missing">guilty of apostasy</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.’” As one Pakistani pastor explained, “If a young Muslim converts to Christianity in Pakistan, he is forced to live in hiding. Every Muslim might feel compelled to kill him. The change of religion is not punished by the civil law, it is punishable by Islamic law. For this reason cases of Muslim conversion to Christianity are very rare and some convert in secret.”   Muhammad Kamran, a Muslim convert to Christianity, exemplifies the pastor’s words.  After he told his wife of his conversion, she abused and exposed him, resulting in his being severely beaten by local Muslims.  In his words: “No one was willing to let me live the life I wanted [as a Christian]—</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2012/05-May/article_1539631.html/">they say Islam is not a religion of compulsion</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims who don’t find satisfaction in the religion [such as myself] become liable to be killed.” </span></p>
<p><b>Saudi Arabia</b>:  After a woman was exposed as having converted to Christianity, she was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes.  Although she managed to flee the nation and went into hiding, the Christian Lebanese man accused of introducing her to Christianity <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/05/13/Father-to-contest-sentence-in-daughters-conversion-to-Christianity/UPI-70861368461098/">received six years in prison and 300 lashes</a>.</p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Somalia</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:  The Al-Qaeda linked Al Shabaab (“The Youth”), which has vowed to cleanse the Horn of Africa of all Christian presence, has slaughtered countless Muslim converts to Christianity—men, women, and children—in the last few years.  Most recently, Al Shabaab </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/04/christian-widow-in-somalia-killed-four-months-after-husband-slain/">shot to death</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> 42-year-old Fartun Omar, a widow and mother of five, for converting to Christianity.  Months earlier, they had killed her husband for the same “crime,” and had been hunting for the wife. In a separate incident, Al Shabaab </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/06/islamic-extremists-in-somalia-kill-christian/">publicly executed a 28-year-old man after determining that he had in fact become a Christian</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.    Al Shabaab Muslims also seized Hassan Gulled, 25, for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/04/muslim-extremists-in-somalia-seize-torture-convert-from-islam/">imprisoned him, and tortured him</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.  According to local sources, “Al Shabaab have been torturing him to see whether he would deny his Christian faith. Since last week, no information has surfaced concerning Gulled. There is a possibility that he could have been killed.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Tanzania</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: At the time pregnant and with three children, Lukia Khalid explained how when she told her Muslim husband that she had converted to Christianity, “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/04/pregnant-mother-in-tanzania-forced-out-of-home-for-putting-faith-in-christ/">He threatened to kill me</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> if I was to stay with him. I then decided to escape that night with my three children to a neighbor’s house….  We left only with the clothes that we were wearing.  The command was so urgent that we could not wait any longer. We had to leave immediately.”  Last heard, they were living in destitute conditions.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">One can go on and on with examples (see </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=uhurnetw-20"><i>Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, pages 96-135, for a more thorough expose, including on the doctrine and history of apostasy in Islam, and dozens of more recent examples). </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Returning to Meriam Ibrahim, the pregnant Sudanese mother set to be executed for refusing to recant Christ and embrace Islam, some questions and observations are in order:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Are all the other anecdotes listed above not equally “appalling and abhorrent”—to use Amnesty International’s words describing Meriam’s specific plight?  Are they not all a “flagrant breach of international human rights law”?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If so, and if the international community is actually serious about putting a stop to them, should it not try to ascertain the true source behind them? </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">After all, considering that Muslim converts to Christianity are being attacked all throughout the Islamic world—including in nations as diverse as Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Kyrgyz—surely the source is not something as simple as “Sudan’s legal system.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The fact is, Muslim converts to Christianity are even under attack in Europe.  In Norway alone, for example, two Iranian converts out for a walk were </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/01/norway-two-iranian-converts-from-islam-to-christianity-stabbed-called-kuffar.html">stabbed with knives by masked men shouting “infidels!”</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> One of the men stabbed had converted in Iran, was threatened there, and immigrated to Norway, thinking he could escape Islam’s apostasy penalty.  Earlier, an Afghan convert to Christianity was scalded with boiling water and acid at a Norwegian refugee processing center: “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.mohabatnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=3365:afghan-christians-in-danger-at-home-and-abroad&amp;catid=81:regions">If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">,” his attackers told him.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Of course, the true source for all these attacks on Muslim converts to Christianity—in nations that do not share race, language, culture, politics, or economics—is Islam itself.  Anyone with common sense, anyone with the ability to be honest with oneself, must concede as much.  There is no other reasonable way to explain such identical patterns of abuse in such a wide array of nations. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But so long as the international community and human rights organizations fail to employ some common sense and honesty—fail to call a spade a spade—so will they ensure that countless more innocent humans like Meriam Ibrahim continue to suffer “appalling and abhorrent” treatment, simply for trying to exercise their “right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” under Islam. </span></p>
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		<title>Raymond Ibrahim on CBN News: ‘Will Egypt’s el-Sisi Protect Christians?’</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/raymond-ibrahim-on-cbn-news-will-egypts-el-sisi-protect-christians/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=raymond-ibrahim-on-cbn-news-will-egypts-el-sisi-protect-christians</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Apr 2014 04:45:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Abdel Sisi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[An uncertain future for Egypt's most persecuted minority. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On April 24, CBN News Senior International Reporter <a href="http://blogs.cbn.com/globallane/archive/2014/04/24/will-egypts-al-sisi-protect-christians.aspx">Gary Lane interviewed Raymond Ibrahim</a>, a Shillman Fellow at the Freedom Center, on Egypt’s Abdel Sisi, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Christian persecution.  The interview, presented in three parts, follows:</p>
<p>Part #1: The Egyptian mob mentality:</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/elBGg0mEqco" height="315" width="560" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Part #2: Thoughts on the upcoming election:</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/shXEFvfQ9Bc" height="315" width="560" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Part #3: The vacant U.S. Ambassador to Egypt position:</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/q9l2nQpWt1g" height="315" width="560" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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		<title>‘They Are Slaughtering Us Like Chickens’</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Apr 2014 04:30:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christmas]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Christmas under Islam. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/islam_2024369c.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223025" alt="islam_2024369c" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/islam_2024369c-450x280.jpg" width="270" height="168" /></a>Originally published by the <a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4252/slaughtering-christians">Gatestone Institute</a>.</em></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As happens at Christmas every year throughout the Muslim world, Christians and their churches were especially targeted—from jihadi terror strikes killing worshippers, to measures by Muslim authorities restricting Christmas celebrations.  Some incidents follow:</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iraq</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:  “Militants” reported the Associated Press, “targeted Christians in three separate Christmas Day bombings in Baghdad, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/christmas-day-bombings-iraqs-capital-kill-37">killing at least 37 people</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, officials said Wednesday.  In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church in the capital’s southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said. Earlier, two bombs ripped through a nearby outdoor market simultaneously in the Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21.” </span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:  Five Muslim converts to Christianity were arrested from a house-church during a Christmas celebration. Plain clothes Iranian security authorities raided a house where, according to Mohabat News, “a group of Christians had gathered to celebrate Christmas on Tuesday, December 24.” Before arresting the five apostates, authorities “insulted and searched those in attendance, and seized all Christian books, CDs, and laptops they found. They also took the Satellite TV receiver.”  The original report received by Mohabat stated: “These Christians had gathered to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://mohabatnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=7963:iranian-christian-converts-arrested-as-they-celebrated-christmas&amp;catid=36:iranian-christians&amp;Itemid=279">worship and celebrate [the] birth of Jesus</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Indonesia</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: Muslims in the Aceh province </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000100568&amp;story_title=indonesian-muslims-protest-christmas">protested against Christmas and New Year celebrations</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and called on authorities to ban them. Days earlier, an influential Islamic cleric organization, the Ulema Consultative Assembly, issued a fatwa, or edict, “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000100568&amp;story_title=indonesian-muslims-protest-christmas">prohibiting Muslims from offering Christmas wishes or celebrating on New Year’s Eve</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">,” said the Associated Press.  Aceh is the “only province in predominantly Muslim Indonesia that is allowed to implement a version of Islamic Shariah law.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Kenya</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: “Youths,” reported Reuters, “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://news.yahoo.com/kenyan-police-seek-youths-over-christmas-day-church-070024614.html">threw petrol bombs at two Kenyan churches on Christmas day</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> … in the latest bout of violence against Christians on the country’s predominantly Muslim coast.”  The attacks occurred “in the early hours of December 25 after churchgoers held services to usher in Christmas.”  The churches were located in Muslim-majority regions. One church was “completely destroyed.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Somalia</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: The more “moderate” government—as it is often portrayed in comparison to Al Shabaab (“The Youth”) opposition—</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=296213">banned Christmas celebrations</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. Hours before Christmas Day, the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs released a directive banning any Christian festivities from being held in the east African nation.  In the words of one ministry official: “We alert fellow Muslims in Somalia that some festivities to mark Christian Days will take place around the world in this week. It is prohibited to celebrate those days in this country.”  All security and law enforcement agencies were instructed to quash any Christian celebrations.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Pakistan</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:  During Christmas Eve services, “Heavy contingents of police were deployed around the churches </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/650736/christmas-celebrated-amid-security/">to thwart any untoward incident</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.”  In some regions, “prayer service at major churches focused on remembering the Pakistani Christians who lost their lives in terror attacks.” For example, three months earlier, Islamic suicide bombers entered the All Saints Church compound in Peshawar following Sunday mass and </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/bloody-weekend-trend-of-muslim-rage-against-infidels-continues/">blew themselves up</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in the midst of some 550 congregants, killing some 130 worshippers, including many Sunday school children, women, and choir members, and injuring nearly 200 people.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Even in Western nations like </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/denmark-islamic-demonstration-on-christmas-eve-allahu-akbar">Denmark</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Christmas Eve witnessed Islamic demonstrations and cries of “Allahu Akbar” (or “Allah is greater”).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Also in December, Syria’s Greek-Catholic Church declared that it had </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/For-Gregory-III,-Syria%27s-Greek-Catholic-Church-has-three-true-martyrs-29707.html">three “true martyrs”</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">—men from the small town of Ma’loula, an ancient Christian site where the inhabitants still spoke the language of Christ.  According to Asia News, “When the town fell [in September, to al-Qaeda linked rebels], a climate of fear was imposed&#8230; When three men refused to repudiate their religion, they were summarily executed in public, and six more were taken hostage. This was followed by a failed attempt by Syrian government forces to retake the town.”  In the words of Patriarch Gregorios III to Pope Francis in a meeting: “Holy Father, they are true martyrs. Ordered to give up their faith, they proudly refused. Three others however gave in and were forced to declare themselves Muslim, but later returned to the faith of their ancestors.”  According to the families who fled from Ma’loula, “some of their Muslim neighbors took part in the attack that devastated this historic village where people still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Muslims are approximately one third of the population of the village…”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The rest of December’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Islamic Attacks on Christian Places of Worship </b></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Egypt</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: After a Coptic Christian priest from the village of Tarshoub, Upper Egypt, left to service a new location and a new priest was sent to Tarshoub, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/coptic-church-forced-to-close-due-to-violence-from-muslim-brotherhood-backed-aggressors-111555/">Muslim Brotherhood supporters rioted and attacked the village Christians</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, including by throwing stones at their homes, burning property, and calling for the closure of the village church, which has been in existence for 40 years.  The church was subsequently closed and the priest prevented from entering the village.   The Christian Post reported that Christian villagers were “getting close to the New Year celebrations and Christmas, and yet they are not able to open the church….  security authorities have not arrested the aggressors, while Copts were forced to close the church for fear of more attacks, especially in light of continued incitement by the Muslim Brotherhood.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Indonesia</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.persecution.org/2013/12/19/new-rash-of-church-closings-sweeps-across-indonesia/">Five more churches were closed by authorities</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, leaving thousands of Christians without a place of worship.  First, claiming that the existence of a Protestant church in North Sumatra was illegal, hundreds of Muslims belonging to the Islamic Defenders Front attacked and disrupted its Sunday services, creating so much havoc that police had to escort Christians home.  Then, two new churches—one in West Java, the other in South Sulawesi—were sealed off.  The Sulawesi church was subsequently demolished by authorities.  A few days later, two more churches near Jakarta were forced to stop holding services. According to International Christian Concern, “The reason behind this month’s rash of church closures, especially after seven months of relative quiet, is not exactly clear. It may be that the coming Christmas holiday has ignited always simmering anti-Christian sentiment among radical groups. In 2000, 16 were killed by bomb attacks on churches over the Christmas holiday.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Russia</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: In December it was revealed that </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Russia:-seven-churches-burned-in-one-year-in-Tatarstan-29713.html">seven Christian churches were torched</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in 2013 in a Muslim-majority republic in Russia, according to Asia News: “Churches burned, attacks foiled and increased pressure on Christians to convert to Islam. In Tatarstan—autonomous republic of the Russian Federation, with a Muslim majority—the extremism alarm is increasing.”  Although the culprits setting fire to churches are “unidentified extremists,” Father Dmitri Sizov, pastor of Pestrechinsky, said that “the whole community knows that it is the work of the Wahhabis [Islamic literalists]” who “roam, inviting the faithful to convert to Islam.” But “the priests remain silent because they are afraid of being accused of incitement to religious hatred,” added Fr. Dmitri.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Syria</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: Islamic rebel forces fired multiple mortar shells on a church in the southern province of Daraa, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-12/22/c_125895988.htm">killing 12 people</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and injuring many others, including church volunteers who were there distributing charity aid to the locals. Separately, five young children were </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/31296-news-alert-syria-militants-target-christian-schools">killed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> when rebels fired two rockets at a Christian school.  According to the Patriarch of the Church of Antioch, more than 450,000 Christian Syrians have been displaced from the conflict, and more than a thousand have been killed.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Islamic Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Proselytism, and Dhimmitude</b></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cameroon</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: David Dina Mataware, a Christian missionary, was slaughtered by neighboring Nigeria’s Islamic group Boko Haram.  On the same day and in the same area that the missionary’s murder took place, a French priest, Father Georges Vandenbeusch, was also kidnapped. The slain missionary, whose throat was slit, had worked in a Nigeria-based mission agency in Cameroon for some fourteen years, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.christianheadlines.com/articles/nigeria-s-boko-haram-strikes-again-in-cameroon.html">bringing the Gospel to remote tribes</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Egypt</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: “The nation’s most well-known convert from Islam” to Christianity was arrested, including for allegedly inciting “sectarian strife,” and “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/12/noted-convert-in-egypt-arrested-likely-tortured/">is likely being tortured</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">,” reported Morning News.  Bishoy Armia Boulous, 31—popularly known by his former Muslim name, Muhammad Hegazy—was arrested while in a café.  Authorities claim that he was working with a Coptic satellite station to create a “false image” of violence against Christians in Minya, Upper Egypt, where attack on Copts are most common. However, human rights activists close to Bishoy say “his arrest had nothing to do with any reporting work but constituted retaliation for becoming a Christian” and possibly for evangelizing to Muslims.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Iran</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:  While raiding their home, the Islamic republic’s feared secret police </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bosnewslife.com/31396-breaking-news-iran-secret-police-assault-wife-of-jailed-pastor-irani">assaulted the wife and children</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of jailed evangelical Pastor Behnam Irani.  According to a source assisting the family with advocacy, “They confiscated her laptop computer and Christian materials… While the secret police were in her home they were yelling at her and doing their best to scare her.  This really frightened the children, Rebekah and Adriel” and was apparently meant to create enough “fear to silence them.”  The raid came after the imprisoned evangelical leader—and former Muslim—was told by a court to remain behind bars because he “did not change.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Syria</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:  The anti-Christian strictures of Sharia, or Islamic law, continued to be applied onto Christians by Islamic rebels.  According to Agenzia Fides, “Kanaye [a Christian region] has been invaded by Islamist militants that terrorize the population, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/34907-ASIA_SYRIA_Kanaye_another_Christian_village_invaded_by_jihadists_that_impose_the_Islamic_law">threaten a massacre</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and have imposed the Islamic law…  This has become a pattern that repeats itself and that in recent weeks has focused on a number of Christian villages: armed guerrillas penetrate into the village, terrorize civilians, commit kidnappings, kill, sow destruction.”  Father George Louis of the village of Qara, which has been devastated and burned, explained: Maalula [the aforementioned Ma’loula], Sednaya, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/largest-massacre-of-christians-in-syria-ignored/">Sadad</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Qara and Deir Atieh, Nebek: armed jihadists target a village, they invade it, kill people, burn and devastate it.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Turkmenistan</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: Police and Secret Service agents in Dashoguz, a northern city, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Ashgabat-,-imams,-police-and-intelligence-services-ban-Bibles-and-Christian-songs-29874.html">raided a group of believers of the Church of the Light of the East</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, a Protestant community.  Forces raided two houses of prayer, seizing religious materials, including Bibles. An official of the Department of Religious Affairs, who is also an imam at the local mosque, went on to inform the pastor that his faith “is wrong” and warned him to convert to Islam, adding “Christianity is a mistake … it’s not a religion, but a myth.”  Moreover, Christians practicing hymns for Sunday service were told by officers that “the songs of praise to God are banned here.” Adds Asia News: “Meanwhile, an increasing number of people are being incarcerated for crimes of opinion and defense of religious freedom.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Carnage of Christians</b></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Central African Republic</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: In just two days of violence, at least 1,000 people were killed in Bangui, CAR’s capital, following the chaos that has engulfed the nation after Seleka, a coalition of Muslim militia, whose members include many foreigners, ousted the Christian president—the nation is Christian-majority with a significant Muslim-minority—and installed a Muslim ruler.  Because some Christians tried to resist with violence, killing some 60 Muslim males in combat, the Islamic group “retaliated on a larger scale against Christians in the wake of the attack, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bangui-christian-muslim-clashes-killed-1-000-amnesty-070820068.html">killing nearly 1,000</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> men over a two-day period and systematically looting civilian homes. A small number of women and children were also killed,” reported Amnesty.  Tens of thousands of Christians fled from machete-wielding Muslims, many now living in desperate conditions around churches and bishoprics. “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/french-operations-launch-central-african-rep">They are slaughtering us like chickens</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">,” said one Christian.  “We have had enough of Seleka killing, raping and stealing,” said another, adding that he was not sure whether he could ever go back and live among Muslims. “We are angry,” he said.  “The Muslims should go back where they came from.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Nigeria</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">: Islamic Fulani herdsmen </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/12/at-least-205-christians-killed-by-fulani-herdsmen-in-benue-state-nigeria/">killed at least 205 Christian farmers</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in the latter half of 2013, while ten thousand more Christians were displaced and many of their churches destroyed or closed.   As for motive, Christian leaders, “had no doubt the Muslim assailants aimed to demoralize and destroy Christians,” said Morning Star News. Several of the attackers appear to be mercenaries from outside the area, explaining how the Fulani farmers became so heavily armed.  “Life has become unbearable for our church members who have survived these attacks, and they are making worship services impossible,” said a Roman Catholic bishop.  Another area Christian leader said that “Many of our Christian brethren have been killed. The Muslim gunmen that are attacking our Christian communities are numerous; they are so many that we can’t count them. They are spread across all the communities and unleashing terror on our people without any security resistance.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">About this Series</b></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching pandemic proportions.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">1)    To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.</span></p>
<p>2)    To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death those who “offend” Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">jizya</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">dhimmis</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Previous Reports</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/u-s-chose-to-stay-silent-on-muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2013/">November, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">October, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2013/">September, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2013/">August, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2013/">July, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2013/">June, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2013/">May, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2013/">April, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013/">March, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2013/">February, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2013/">January, 2013</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2012/">December, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012/">November, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2012/">October, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2012/">September, 2012 </a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2012/">August, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12215/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012">July, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/12045/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012">June, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11930/muslim-persecution-of-christians-may-2012">May, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11713/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2012">April, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11604/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2012">March, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11373/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012">February, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11152/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012">January, 2012</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10989/muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2011">December, 2011</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10922/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2011">November, 2011</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10724/muslim-persecution-of-christians-october-2011">October, 2011</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10504/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september-2011">September, 2011</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/10247/muslim-persecution-of-christians-august-2011">August, 2011</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2011/">July, 2011</a></p>
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