Venerable Jeanpierre, the Archdeacon of Kainama, told the ICC, “It pains me to inform you that we have lost 20 Christians of the Banande-Kainama camp and our evangelist, Sobu Mundeke, is one of them. Their bodies are lying all over, and houses have been burnt down by the ADF rebels. … We have also confirmed that other people are missing, and we know they have been taken away by the Muslim fighters.”
MUSLIM-OCCUPIED FRANCE
Alleged Murderer of 12-Year-Old French Girl Lola Had Deportation Order
Dhabia B., the Algerian illegal migrant woman accused of raping and murdering 12-year-old French girl Lola last Friday, is said to have been under a deportation order and should have been removed from the country last month.
The 24-year-old Algerian illegal was arrested for the murder of 12-year-old Lola over the weekend and indicted for murder, torture, rape and acts of barbarism earlier this week by prosecutors in Paris.
However, it has emerged that the Algerian woman, who entered France under a student residence permit in 2016, was subjected to a deportation order and was obliged to leave the country before September 21st of this year, Europe1 reports.
Following her arrival in 2016, French state services lost track of the Algerian but on August 21st she attempted to fly from Paris’ Olry airport where she was arrested for lacking a valid residency permit.
She was later questioned by police and subjected to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) that day by the French Interior Ministry. Despite this, no effort was made by French authorities to actually deport the 24-year-old back to Algeria, with some noting that 12-year-old Lola may still be alive if the deportation had been carried out.
On Wednesday, a French police officer from the department of Essonne noted that deportation orders are rarely ever carried out, even if the illegal migrant has a criminal record.
“There is a non-application of the law,” the officer said and added, “When we control someone, even if he has committed a crime, the OQTF is [put on hold] because the service in charge always sends us the same decision, namely to let the person go, reminding him that we must comply with the law of the country that no longer welcomes him.”
The lack of deportations in practice comes despite promises by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin earlier this year to do more to facilitate the deportation of criminal migrants. In July, Darmanin called for reforms to allow deportations of criminal migrants no matter what their legal status was.
“Today, a foreigner who has committed serious acts is not expellable as long as he meets certain conditions, such as arriving on the national territory before the age of 13,” he said and went on to add, “We want to allow the expulsion of any foreigner found guilty of a serious act by the courts, regardless of his condition of presence on the national territory.”
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.
Radical Islamists Behead 20 Christians in Congo
By Peyton Holliday | October 19, 2022 | 12:38pm EDT![Men seriously wounded in various attacks in the Beni area rest on hospital beds in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) care unit for war-wounded at Beni General Hospital. Since October 2019 and the launch of "large-scale" military operations in Beni Territory, the armed group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has increased its deadly attacks and killed over 1,200 people and injured several thousands. The ADF, originally from Uganda and claiming to be a branch of the Islamic St](https://www.cnsnews.com/s3/files/styles/article_medium/s3/2022-10/beni%20congo%20victim%20.jpg?itok=fYs5b-Vv "Men seriously wounded in various attacks in the Beni area rest on hospital beds in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) care unit for war-wounded at Beni General Hospital. Since October 2019 and the launch of "large-scale" military operations in Beni Territory, the armed group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has increased its deadly attacks and killed over 1,200 people and injured several thousands. The ADF, originally from Uganda and claiming to be a branch of the Islamic St")
(CNS News) – Members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in Congo, a radical Islamist group, killed 20 Congolese Christians and kidnapped several others on Oct. 4 in the village of Kainama, reported the International Christian Concern (ICC), a news outlet that focuses on Christian persecution worldwide.
The 20 victims were beheaded and, according to the ICC, at least 50 Christians have been murdered by the ADF since the start of October. Kainama is in eastern Congo in a province that borders Lake Kivu.
The ADF is a terrorist operation within the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – Democratic Republic of the Congo (ISIS-DRC), according to the U.S. State Department. The group killed over 849 Congolese civilians in 2020 alone.
One of the 20 victims on Oct. 4 was Sobu Mundeke, an evangelist with the Anglican Church of Congo. He and his family had fled from the ADF in May 2022 when the Islamists attacked the village of Vido, killing 16 people.
Venerable Jeanpierre, the Archdeacon of Kainama, told the ICC, “It pains me to inform you that we have lost 20 Christians of the Banande-Kainama camp and our evangelist, Sobu Mundeke, is one of them. Their bodies are lying all over, and houses have been burnt down by the ADF rebels. … We have also confirmed that other people are missing, and we know they have been taken away by the Muslim fighters.”
According to the ICC, the aim of the ADF “is to impose Islamic rule on the Christians, and this they will do by violating the freedom of worship of believers in order to cause fear and recruit more people into Islam.”
The bishop of Beni Anglican Diocese told the ICC, “We are losing believers almost every night savagely slaughtered or shot dead by the Muslim rebels. We do not get to know all the cases, but we can verify that since the beginning of this month, 50 have been killed, and tens taken away as hostages to serve the rebels in their camps inside the forests.”
He continued, “In the Ruwenzori Sector, on the night of October 1, they killed 11 people with several cases of missing people. Again on the night of October 2, 19 people were brutally killed, and others went missing in Mambume, Mutuei, and Mangazi in the locality of Mamove, Oicha. Then on Tuesday night, October 4th, they massacred 20 people in Kainama, and several others are reported missing until now.”
To protect our security I suspended the entry of foreign refugees from terror afflicted nations. Biden has pledged a staggering 700 percent increase in refugees from the most violent terrorist hotspots anywhere on earth. If you don’t mind I’ll end that. And that was the deal, the manifesto, that he agreed to with Bernie Sanders and AOC+3 [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and three other female “progressive” reps, including Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan]..... The Biden plan would overwhelm your communities … and open the floodgates to radical Islamic terrorism. Raymond Ibrahim
Gay Palestinian Man Under Asylum in Israel Beheaded in Palestinian Territory
A gay Palestinian man who was living under asylum in Israel was allegedly kidnapped and brought to the West Bank, where he was beheaded Wednesday, according to Israeli media reports.
Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, 25, had reportedly been living in Israel for two years and seeking resettlement to Canada because of threats to his life over his sexual orientation. But on Wednesday, Abu Murkhiyeh was beheaded in the West Bank city of Hebron. The victim's friends told media outlets he was kidnapped from Israel and taken to the Palestinian city, though his family said he regularly visited them in Hebron.
Palestinian authorities arrested a suspect in the killing, who allegedly filmed the grisly murder and posted it to social media.
Rita Petrenko, founder of an Arab LGBT nonprofit, said she had helped arrange Abu Murkhiyeh's asylum papers. In comments to the Times of Israel, she contradicted the victim's family's claims that he regularly visited Hebron, saying that to her knowledge Abu Murkhiyeh had not willingly returned to the West Bank since his asylum, out of fear of violence from family members and local residents.
A spokesman for the Palestinian police described the murder as a "new kind of crime in Palestine."
Roughly 90 LGBT Palestinians live in Israel seeking asylum, according to the Times of Israel.
Palestinian Government Still Pays Terrorists as US Aid Dollars Flow
Non-public State Department report confirms Palestinians are not living up to promises
The Palestinian government is still paying imprisoned terrorists stipends and inciting violence against Israel, even as the Biden administration provides nearly half a billion dollars in American taxpayer funds to the government, according to a non-public State Department report recently furnished to Congress.
The Palestinian Authority, which committed to stop these acts to receive new tranches of U.S. aid money, "continued payments to Palestinian prisoners who had committed acts of terrorism, as well as the families of so-called ‘martyrs’ who died while committing acts of terrorism," according to the report, a copy of which was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Official Palestinian government media organizations and social media accounts also "broadcast or published content praising or celebrating acts of violence."
Details from the State Department report are likely to fuel congressional opposition to the Biden administration’s renewed funding of the Palestinian Authority, which almost immediately resumed when the Democratic administration entered office. U.S. aid was slashed by the Trump administration due to the Palestinian Authority’s support for terrorism, as well as a bipartisan U.S. law mandating that American aid be frozen until the Palestinian government ends its terrorist payment policy, also known as "pay-to-slay." That law, the Taylor Force Act, was passed in 2018 and banned the State Department from allocating aid to the Palestinian government until it could certify that payments to terrorists and incitement against Israel ceased.
A State Department spokesman said the administration opposes the Palestinian pay-to-slay program and has repeatedly pressed the Palestinian Authority to stop it. The official also said all U.S. aid is allocated consistent with the law.
Information contained in the latest State Department report indicates the requirements for aid set forth under the law are not being met. Since April 2021, the United States has provided "over half a billion dollars in assistance for the Palestinians," according to the State Department. In July, President Joe Biden announced that another $316 million would be awarded to "support the Palestinian people," according to the White House.
"First, the administration tried to mislead Congress about Palestinian terrorists and payments to terrorists, which unfortunately worked long enough for them to move money to the Palestinian government," one senior congressional official who works on Middle East issues told the Washington Free Beacon. "Now, they just don’t care."
The State Department collected evidence showing that "elements of Palestinian leadership made individual statements that appeared to support violence," according to the report. The Palestinian Authority’s "conventional media and social media also broadcast problematic comments and videos." This occurred as Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned a recent spate of terrorist attacks in Israel and "maintained a public position against incitement of violence and terrorism."
Official Palestinian government media outlets were labeled as "inconsistent" in their enforcement of prohibitions on terror incitement, according to the State Department. Social media accounts affiliated with Abbas’s Fatah Party, for instance, have "featured content praising or condoning acts of violence."
The Fatah Youth Movement at Najah University in the West Bank territory "praised the December 2021 killing" of an Israeli civilian as a "heroic operation," according to the information compiled by the State Department. Palestine TV also broadcast footage of "a young girl at a primary school in Jenin" reciting a poem "asking God to banish the Jews from the region."
In March, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, posted a celebration on Facebook of terrorist Dalal al-Moghrabi, who killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, in a 1978 attack. The outlet praised al-Moghrabi as "the icon of struggle and resistance," according to the State Department.
The Biden administration has given more than $417 million in humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is known to advocate against Israel, and terrorists have used its schools as a base of operations. The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded some $75 million in humanitarian assistance, and $20.5 million was allocated for COVID relief and "Gaza recovery assistance," according to the State Department.
Jonathan Schanzer, a regional expert and senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Palestinian Authority and its splinter groups are becoming increasingly polarized.
"Incitement continues unabated by the Palestinian Authority," Schanzer told the Free Beacon. "In recent months, this has been accompanied by violent splinter factions of entities closely tied to the P.A. All of this could backfire rather badly on the P.A., which has not exactly been popular or stable. Washington has a duty to not only enforce its own policies. It has an obligation to preserve the system that it created, which now appears increasingly brittle."
Iraqi Official With Alleged Ties to Iranian Terror Proxies Granted Entry to United States
Biden courts Iranian terror facilitator with US visit, GOP lawmakers say
An Iraqi official with alleged ties to the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies traveled this week to the United States for high-level meetings amid a global energy crisis that has sent oil prices skyrocketing.
Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail, Iraq’s oil minister and acting finance minister, is listed as an official Iraqi government participant for World Bank meetings scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., according to a list of participants published by the organization. He is also expected to hold meetings with Biden administration officials, according to sources familiar with the matter. A coalition of Republican lawmakers want to know why the Biden administration is "roll[ing] out the red carpet" for Ismail and how he was able to obtain a U.S. visa.
Three Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress are pressuring the Biden administration to reconsider engaging with Ismail, citing his alleged ties to Iran’s terrorist regime and the country’s efforts to evade U.S. economic sanctions.
Under Ismail’s leadership, Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization "has a track record of business dealings with Iran, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iranian-backed terrorist organizations Asa’ib ahl al-Haq and Katai’b Hezbollah," Reps. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), and Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) wrote on Wednesday to the White House, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The lawmakers say it is inappropriate for the United States to host an official believed to be enabling the Iranian regime’s global terrorism enterprise, particularly amid mass protests in Iran that threaten to topple the hardline government.
"Joe Biden publicly criticized Italy’s new conservative prime minister, but his administration is happy to roll out the red carpet for criminally corrupt officials with ties to Iranian terrorists," Banks, head of the Republican Study Committee, Congress’s largest Republican caucus, told the Free Beacon. "There is no low the Biden administration won’t stoop to for its disastrous proposed Iran deal and to avoid investing in American energy."
A State Department spokesman would not comment on the status of Ismail’s visa or the issue raised by members of Congress, telling the Free Beacon, "We cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases." In general, the spokesman said, "whenever an individual applies for a U.S. visa, a consular officer reviews the facts of the case and determines whether the applicant is eligible for that visa based on U.S. law."
Ismail has been a controversial figure in Iraqi politics due to allegations he is complicit in the Iranian regime’s efforts to skirt U.S. sanctions on its crude oil trade, which has brought in billions of dollars in revenue for the hardline regime in Tehran and enabled it to fund regional terrorist groups.
"The Oil Minister is known also to have facilitated illegal oil exports on behalf of Iran," the lawmakers write, citing information from the watchdog group United Against Nuclear Iran indicating that Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization has helped Tehran offload its heavily sanctioned crude as part of a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions.
Ismail is also "suspected of widescale corruption to accept bribes for the award of contracts and oil operations in Iraq," according to the lawmakers. Iraq’s al-Karkh Investigation court has already charged Ismail with 29 corruption cases and he is also "suspected of accepting bribes from the IRGC Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and international oil companies."
Given the cloud of controversy surrounding Ismail, the Republican lawmakers want to know why the Biden administration would grant him a visa and allow him to participate in high-level meetings with U.S. officials.
"At a time when the brave Iranian women are speaking out for their freedom against a ruthless regime, the Biden administration providing a visa for an individual who has long-standing relationships with multiple Iran-backed foreign terrorist groups sends a terrible message to the rest of the world," Waltz told the Free Beacon. "The Biden administration needs to isolate proxies of the Iranian regime, not embrace them by indifference towards their corruption and extensive ties to U.S.-designated terrorist groups."
Ismail, Waltz said, should be sanctioned for these ties, "not engaging in official government business in the United States."
The lawmakers are asking the White House to provide them information about who granted Ismail a U.S. visa and on what basis.
"Are you aware that this individual has been instrumental in leading Iraq’s Oil Ministry and its sub-entities to implement Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court decision which was directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to dismantle the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports, and thereby its economy and ability to serve as a bulwark to Iranian regional terrorism?" they write.
"Are you aware that he along with a range of Iraqi officials are suspected of systemic corruption, largely through the oil operations of the Iraqi state, and business relationships with existing designated terrorist groups, and facilitating the illicit export of Iranian oil and fuel products?"
They also want to know if the Biden administration has determined whether Ismail has engaged in "significant transactions with designated foreign terrorist groups." If such assessments have been made, Ismail may not qualify to receive a U.S. visa, according to the lawmakers.
CAIR Condemns ‘Racist’ Fliers That Don’t Mention Muslims or Islam
Meanwhile, CAIR doesn't like white people.
Here is a study in contrasts from South Carolina regarding the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). There were two separate broadcasts about CAIR and racist fliers in South Carolina.
CAIR is condemning racist fliers left on people’s driveways. There is quite a bit of this racist flier activity around the country. In fact, it is one of the ways CAIR representatives get on TV as often as they do. Yet the fliers have nothing to do with Muslims or Islam.
Although the TV station cautions residents against going to the website contained in the flier, your intrepid reporter managed to contact a leader of one of the groups by phone to see if they were talking about Muslims. They are not. They are exclusively talking about Jews and blacks.
Still, when these fliers showed up in the Palmetto State, CAIR reps took the opportunity to get on TV with their empty condemnations.
In the Pee Dee region of the state, WPDE saved its mention of CAIR for the end of the broadcast. It’s a common pattern: stations pivot from some legitimate authority figure such as the police to a CAIR spokesman. Newscasters place CAIR on an equal footing with the police, a mayor, or even the President of the United States.
In the Lowcountry, WCIV led off with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Council on American Islamic Relations the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights, and advocacy organization condemned the distribution of anti-Semitic fliers in Georgetown County.
Again, these fliers have nothing to do with Islam, Muslims, or CAIR. You know, if you had a product or service you wanted to promote on TV, you would kill to have the kind of access CAIR is seemingly enjoying for free. And “enjoying” is the right word. Here is CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper (pictured above) in ecstasy over the media attention CAIR receives: “78 billion potential viewers!”
This is not the first time WCIV has worked with CAIR. CAIR was on several South Carolina TV stations importuning the police to deploy extra resources to catch whoever spray-painted “utterly blessed” on the side of an Islamic center. This broadcast was noteworthy because, in at least one case, local Muslims didn’t think it was a big deal. That made this another example of the fact CAIR does not represent the “Muslim community”.
WCIV also reported on Greenville County Council Member Lynn Ballard’s apology for wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt, and gave the distinct impression that Ballard was apologizing to CAIR. Something he did not do.
WCIV has the good taste not to promote the website found in the racist fliers. But the station will promote CAIR, whose reps have referred to white people as depraved, savage, subhuman devils who should be choked.
The same thing that motivates CAIR to condemn racist fliers around the country causes them to get involved in a rumor about a girls’ high school softball game in Iowa. CAIR clearly does not like white people, and polices them with an eagle eye, while steadfastly ignoring the activities of violent Muslims.
Both WCIV and WPDE have mottos about “working for you.” In this instance, however, they are working for a tiny segment of society that couldn’t raise more than 1,000 people in support of its pet cause, Palestine.
Local newscasters around the country are going to continue to promote CAIR on TV until you tell them to stop.
Muslim ‘Officials’ Deny Persecuted Christians Refuge in Europe
“Why doesn’t your Jesus save you?”
The same Germany that took in over a million Muslim migrants in 2015, and ten thousand non-vetted Afghans in 2021—all people who, by definition, could not be experiencing religious persecution back home as they themselves were Muslim—has refused asylum to a Muslim convert to Christianity, even though one of his relatives was tortured and murdered for the same “crime” of apostasy in his native Iran.
Going under the pseudonym of “Hassan” to protect his identity, the 44-year-old applied for asylum in Germany in 2018. The authorities rejected his testimony on their belief that no one would convert to Christianity after seeing and experiencing what happens to converts in Iran. In this, they were referring to Hassan’s brother-in-law, whom Hassan said introduced him to Christianity, and was later arrested and killed in prison for participating in a house church. German authorities concluded that it was “not particularly likely” that Hassan would become—certainly not remain—a Christian after such an event, as the murder would have a “deterrent effect” on any other would-be converts, namely Hassan.
After Germany closed its doors to him, Hassan took his case to the European Court of Human Rights; it, too, recently denied his appeal. The apostate from Islam is now set to be deported back to the Islamic Republic of Iran, an act that seems the equivalent of sentencing him to death, or at the very least, abandoning him to persecution and imprisonment.
Before German authorities rejected his request for asylum, Hassan had offered the following testimonial to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees:
My wife’s brother had become a different person by becoming a Christian. We wanted to see if we would get this feeling when we became Christians…. I had had many problems in Iran…I had many [religious] questions, but I was not allowed to ask them. When I asked questions, I was beaten at school. This led me to want to know which God I was facing. One day my brother-in-law said to me and my wife that he had good news. There is a treasure, there is a living God, Jesus Christ, we are His children and not His slaves…He said there is a free salvation available.
As mentioned, his brother-in-law would go on to be imprisoned for his house church activities, and finally murdered for his faith in jail.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, it’s worth noting, is one of the worst nations to persecute Christians—especially Muslim converts. As one human rights group explained back in 2017:
A great many Iranians have been coming to Christ and it’s something which the authorities are clearly very unhappy about. So there are periodic arrests, detentions, [and] imprisonments. There have been a lot of charges lately which are suggesting an even greater clampdown—sentences of 10-15 years in some cases for Christians. And usually, the authorities will suggest that this [is] the result of undermining the state or seeking to collaborate against the state and will use more political charges than say apostasy or blasphemy laws.
Despite this oppressive climate, and rather than be “dissuaded” by the murder of his brother-in-law, Hassan, his wife and children all went on to embrace Christ. Before long, suspicious Iranian security forces stormed and plundered their home of their books, computer, passports, and Bible. Hassan and his family responded by fleeing Iran, eventually reaching Germany.
“In Germany I share the gospel, I organize prayer circles here in the accommodation,” he said. “I want to be a good example, to win the others to faith in Jesus Christ. My greatest goal would be for my children to be able to find Christ in freedom, and to do good.”
Here we come to a critically important though overlooked question: why did the German authorities find Hassan’s testimony—that he became Christian despite knowing the dire consequences—unintelligible in the first place? The simple answer is that, as atheists/materialists, German authorities simply could not believe that anyone would risk their lives just to be Christian.
As Lidia Rieder of ADF, which is assisting Hassan, observes,
There are national and international guidelines for asylum applications based on religious grounds…. Unfortunately, this guidance is being used very selectively by the German decision-makers. They do not understand that maintaining a religious belief when persecuted can be appealing to others and not just a deterrent as seen from the history of Christianity.
There could, however, be another reason that “this guidance is being used very selectively by the German decision-makers”: these decision-makers could themselves be Muslims who are avenging themselves and Islam on these Christ-loving apostates.
For starters, we already know that this exact scenario has played out before. Back in December 2019, CBN News reported:
Christian Syrian refugees … have been blocked from getting help from the United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, by Muslim UN officials in Jordan. One of the refugees, Hasan, a Syrian convert to Christianity, told us in a phone call that Muslim UN camp officials “knew that we were Muslims and became Christians and they dealt with us with persecution and mockery. They didn’t let us into the office. They ignored our request.” Hasan and his family are now in hiding, afraid that they will be arrested by Jordanian police, or even killed. Converting to Christianity is a serious crime in Jordan.
Similarly, according to Timothy, another Muslim convert to Christianity, “All of the United Nations officials [apparently in Jordan], most of them, 99 percent, they are Muslims, and they were treating us as enemies.”
Addressing this issue, Paul Diamond, a British human rights lawyer, once said:
You have this absurd situation where the scheme is set up to help Syrian refugees and the people most in need, Christians who have been “genocided,” they can’t even get into the U.N. camps to get the food. If you enter and say I am a Christian or convert, the Muslim U.N. guards will block you [from] getting in and laugh at you and mock you and even threaten you…. [saying] “You shouldn’t have converted. You’re an idiot for converting. You get what you get,” words to that effect.
Notable here is that those (Muslim) authorities who deny refuge to Christians habitually mock them and engage in sarcasm—which may well be what the German authorities who denied Hassan were doing when they denied him asylum by essentially saying that no sane person would ever become Christian in light of the consequences.
There are, in fact, many other examples of “Western decision makers” employing sarcasm and mockery in their decisions to deny asylum to persecuted converts. Consider just the United Kingdom’s Home Office, which runs its immigration program. It ridiculed an Iranian female asylum seeker in her rejection letter by writing, “You affirmed in your AIR [Asylum Interview Record] that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed that he would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted.”
Discussing her experiences, the rejected woman first explained her plight: “In my country if someone converts to Christianity their punishment is death or execution.” Concerning the asylum process, she said that whenever she responded to her Home Office interviewer, “he was either chuckling or maybe just kind of mocking when he was talking to me…. [H]e asked me why Jesus didn’t help you from the Iranian regime or Iranian authorities.”
Similarly, in his rejection letter from the UK’s Home Office, one Iranian man was told that several biblical passages were “inconsistent” with his claim to have converted to Christianity after discovering it was a “peaceful” faith. The letter went so far as to cite biblical passages—from Exodus, Leviticus, Matthew, and Revelation—to argue that the Bible is violent, before concluding: “These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge.”
In short, it seems that some Muslims in the West have gained the power and authority to do what they do in the Muslim world—discriminate against if not send Christians and apostates off to their deaths.
This article originally appeared on The Stream.
MUSLIMS ARE THE MOST BARBARIC SUBCULTURE IN THE WORLD AND MUST BE LOCKED WITHIN THEIR WALLS SO THEY CAN ONLY MURDER EACH OTHER AND NOT THE REST OF US
Gay Palestinian Man Under Asylum in Israel Beheaded in Palestinian Territory
More than 180 dead as protests grip Iran
Women in Iran are Fighting for Their Freedom, and This Imam in Texas is FURIOUS
What the real issue in the Islamic Republic is really about - and why Yasir Qadhi is in a rage.
What is happening in Iran these days is world-historical. The entire country is rising up against a brutal, violent, repressive regime that the people of Iran have endured for over forty years, and the most courageous of all are little schoolgirls who have their whole lives ahead of them and thus the most to lose. Yet while practically the entirety of what used to be called the free world is cheering on the demonstrators who are standing unarmed against ruthless security forces, one imam in Texas is not happy at all. Yasir Qadhi, one of the most prominent Muslim clerics and Islamic apologists in the United States, recently likened the protests in Iran to protesting for the right to walk around nude in Texas. Yes, he really did.
The East Plano Islamic Center’s YouTube channel, EPIC Masjid (which has nearly 300,000 subscribers), recently posted a video of Qadhi explaining that to oppose Iran’s mandatory hijab law, which some women have received ten-year prison sentences for violating, is tantamount to opposing public indecency laws in the good old USA. Qadhi said: “In the last two weeks, I have been inundated with dozens of emails with one particular focus or theme… regarding the enforcement of the hijab in a particular country, and apparently, it caused the death of somebody and whatnot.” Qadhi explained that he wasn’t a political commentator, and so he said he wasn’t going to name the country or get into the political issues involved.
Qadhi said that he received a question from one of his followers, a high-school girl: “Is it true that our religion forces the women to wear the hijab? Can an Islamic government have this right? Shouldn’t worship be done freely?” Qadhi responded by warning about getting involved in hypothetical issues that are far beyond our own responsibility: “I am not responsible for something happening five thousand miles away.” He then launched into a lengthy critique of Western secularism, comparing it unfavorably to Islamic law, and argued that all countries, including those in the secular West, enforce codes of morality; they just differ in their content.
On that basis, Qadhi then advanced a curious argument: “Even in the West,” he explained, “there are laws against indecency, and there are moral prescriptions about what one can and should and must wear.” He added: “If you show certain parts of the body, and if you show certain organs of your body, you shall be fined, and if you continue to do so, you shall go to jail. Now, the issue therefore is not over, Can the state control what you can or cannot show. The issue is, How much can you show? So some Middle Eastern countries might have a lot more. And, uh, here in America, it is a lot less. But the notion of the state telling you a minimal amount that you can wear, that is pretty much universal.”
That’s true as far as it goes, but Qadhi is ignoring the fact that women have received draconian and disproportionate sentences for not wearing the hijab, and 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly in the eyes of the security forces. That already takes the protests in Iran far beyond any question of the right of the state to make laws regarding public indecency. Nor is brutality against Muslim women who dare not to wear the hijab limited to Iran. Aqsa Parvez’s Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it. Amina Muse Ali was a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn’t wearing a hijab. Forty women were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab. Alya Al-Safar’s Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain. Amira Osman Hamid faced whipping in Sudan for refusing to wear the hijab. An Egyptian girl, also named Amira, committed suicide after being brutalized by her family for refusing to wear the hijab. Muslim and non-Muslim teachers at the Islamic College of South Australia were told they had to wear the hijab or be fired. Women in Chechnya were shot with paintballs by police because they weren’t wearing hijab. Other women in Chechnya were threatened by men with automatic rifles for not wearing hijab.
Elementary school teachers in Tunisia were threatened with death for not wearing hijab. Syrian schoolgirls were forbidden to go to school unless they wore hijab. Women in Gaza were forced by Hamas to wear hijab. Women in London were threatened with murder by Muslim thugs if they didn’t wear hijab. An anonymous young Muslim woman doffed her hijab outside her home and started living a double life in fear of her parents. Fifteen girls in Saudi Arabia were killed when the religious police wouldn’t let them leave their burning school building because they had taken off their hijabs in their all-female environment. A girl in Italy had her head shaved by her mother for not wearing hijab.
In the face of all this and more, Yasir Qadhi scoffs at “this notion of fetishizing the hijab and the headscarf, and saying ‘Oh, they have the right to not wear it,’” and asks, “Well then, why aren’t these same people fighting for the rights of nudity here in Texas? Why aren’t they fighting for the rights of no man and woman — or sorry, every man and woman — to wear nothing in every single state in Europe and every single country and city across the world?”
Maybe because no one is killing those who are guilty of public indecency in Texas. In fact, sometimes they get to play James Madison’s flute. The issue in Iran is all about a barbaric, brutal, repressive regime that kills its own people. Qadhi is just obfuscating, although he does raise an important question: can someone who supports Sharia as fully as he does accept the existence of a secular society on an indefinite basis?
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur'an and Who Lost Afghanistan?. Follow him on Twitter here, and like him on Facebook here
Afghan Evacuee in New Mexico Accused of a Crime That Isn’t a Crime in Afghanistan
The culturally sanctioned rape of boys is about to become an American problem.
Americans rescued Shah Mahmood Selab from Afghanistan last year as Old Joe Biden’s woke, distracted military was botching our withdrawal from that country. Other Americans then helped him settle in Las Cruces, N.M., and start a new life. But it looks as if Selab brought a bit too much of Afghanistan with him: he has been charged, according to a report in The Blaze on Saturday, with “a child sex crime and violent assault of a 12-year-old boy in New Mexico.”
American authorities could have and should have seen this coming as that kind of behavior is rampant and taken for granted in Afghanistan. But they didn’t. The far-Left blinders that everyone in the Biden administration wears prevented them from seeing anything so “Islamophobic.”
Selab was “charged in federal court with coercion and enticement of a minor” and consequently “faces a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison if he is convicted.” The incident in question took place last August when Selab “allegedly approached a 12-year-old boy at Youngs Park in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Selab reportedly conversed with the boy who was sitting on a bench at the park – located near a middle school.”
According to a Justice Department news release that, interestingly enough, never gives the slightest hint that Selab is an Afghan refugee, Selab “began asking the victim personal questions, and then invited the victim to sit with him on another bench in the shade. After moving to the other bench, Selab allegedly used his cellphone to show the victim photos and videos that were sexual in nature. Selab allegedly touched the victim inappropriately.”
When the boy tried to get away from Selab, who is 35, Selab went after him and “punched him in the face multiple times.” As if that weren’t charming enough, Selab then “allegedly asked the victim to get into his vehicle and offered the victim $20 to allow Selab to touch him.” At that point, the boy tried to call 911 and ran into the park restrooms, closing himself into one of the stalls.
Selab, however, “followed the victim into the restrooms and pulled him from the stall. Selab allegedly locked the restroom door to prevent the victim from leaving, began kissing the victim’s face, and put a $20 bill in the victim’s hand. Selab also allegedly attempted to force the victim to touch Selab.” At that point, however, “another person arrived at the restroom and knocked at the door,” allowing the boy to escape.
Where might Selab have gotten the idea to behave in this manner and try to molest a twelve-year-old boy? The Washington Post, of all people, reported in July 18, 2017, that “hundreds of such outposts of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a front-line force armed and funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars, and other pro-government militias are believed to have enslaved young boys for dancing and sexual companionship, many of them kidnapped.” This phenomenon is known as “bacha bazi,” which the Post defined as “the cultural practice of sexual slavery and abuse of boys who are often dressed effeminately and whose possession is seen by Afghan strongmen as a marker of power and masculinity.”
The Post added:
Institutionalized bacha bazi, described as culturally sanctioned male rape, is likely to continue unabated in the absence of any real deterrent. The United Nations has called on Afghanistan to urgently adopt legislation to criminalize bacha bazi and swiftly prosecute state officials guilty of the practice.
One senior official in Uruzgan described bacha bazi as an addiction worse than opium, saying commanders compete — and sometimes battle — one another to snatch pretty boys. Many prowl neighborhoods for boys “who have not seen the sun for years,” a cultural euphemism for unblemished beauty.
The practice is ultimately founded upon the Qur’an, which promises the believers that they will not only enjoy the famous heavenly virgins but “immortal boys” (56:17) who, “when you see them, you would take them for scattered pearls” (76:19).
Anyone who warned that some Afghan men might bring this practice with them to the United States would have been dismissed and excoriated as “Islamophobic” by the cultural Marxists who run refugee resettlement programs. And so now Shah Mahmood Selab and untold numbers of others like him are in the country, making it likely that this is only the first of many such cases we will be hearing about. If Biden’s DOJ had gotten its way, however, you would never have known that Selab was an Afghan refugee at all. There! That solves the problem, now, doesn’t it?
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur'an and Who Lost Afghanistan?. Follow him on Twitter here, and like him on Facebook here.
Gay Palestinian Man Under Asylum in Israel Beheaded in Palestinian Territory
A gay Palestinian man who was living under asylum in Israel was allegedly kidnapped and brought to the West Bank, where he was beheaded Wednesday, according to Israeli media reports.
Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, 25, had reportedly been living in Israel for two years and seeking resettlement to Canada because of threats to his life over his sexual orientation. But on Wednesday, Abu Murkhiyeh was beheaded in the West Bank city of Hebron. The victim's friends told media outlets he was kidnapped from Israel and taken to the Palestinian city, though his family said he regularly visited them in Hebron.
Palestinian authorities arrested a suspect in the killing, who allegedly filmed the grisly murder and posted it to social media.
Rita Petrenko, founder of an Arab LGBT nonprofit, said she had helped arrange Abu Murkhiyeh's asylum papers. In comments to the Times of Israel, she contradicted the victim's family's claims that he regularly visited Hebron, saying that to her knowledge Abu Murkhiyeh had not willingly returned to the West Bank since his asylum, out of fear of violence from family members and local residents.
A spokesman for the Palestinian police described the murder as a "new kind of crime in Palestine."
Roughly 90 LGBT Palestinians live in Israel seeking asylum, according to the Times of Israel.
To protect our security I suspended the entry of foreign refugees from terror afflicted nations. Biden has pledged a staggering 700 percent increase in refugees from the most violent terrorist hotspots anywhere on earth. If you don’t mind I’ll end that. And that was the deal, the manifesto, that he agreed to with Bernie Sanders and AOC+3 [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and three other female “progressive” reps, including Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan]..... The Biden plan would overwhelm your communities … and open the floodgates to radical Islamic terrorism. Raymond Ibrahim
the Biden Admin Just Made It Easier for Terrorists To Enter the United States
Lawmakers, former officials say change will let Iranian terrorists come to US
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps / Getty ImagesAdam Kredo • June 29, 2022 5:00 am
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The Biden administration altered federal law to make it easier for individuals who have worked with designated terrorist groups to legally enter the United States.
The State and Homeland Security Departments last week amended federal immigration laws to allow foreigners who provided "insignificant material support" to designated terror groups to receive "immigration benefits or other status," according to the policy published in the Federal Register. Examples of individuals who would fall into the new category, according to the announcement, include individuals who provided "humanitarian assistance" or "routine commercial transactions" to terror groups.
The policy shift is fueling concerns that the Biden administration wants to make it easier for individuals who work with or for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the country's paramilitary fighting force that has killed hundreds of Americans, to enter the country. Notice of the change came several days before the Biden administration and hardline Iranian government resumed talks aimed at securing a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear deal.
A State Department spokesman said the law was amended to help vulnerable Afghans, who might have inadvertently worked with terror groups, gain refuge in the United States following the Biden administration's bungled withdrawal that left the Taliban in power. Lawmakers and former U.S. officials, however, say the new regulations are so broadly written that they would apply to organizations like al Qaeda and the IRGC. The policy change is also raising red flags as U.S. officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, face credible death threats from Iran.
The rule does not specifically mention Afghanistan but is written to cover all U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, such as the IRGC and al Qaeda, experts told the Free Beacon. The Taliban is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization, leaving lawmakers and former U.S. officials concerned the changes extend far beyond vulnerable Afghans and cover those tied to some of the globe's most violent terror groups.
Gabriel Noronha, a State Department special adviser for Iran during the Trump administration, said that "the Biden administration is claiming this regulation is all about Afghanistan, but they didn't even mention Afghanistan once in their action, and have made no serious attempt to limit the scope to the situation there."
"Instead," said Noronha, who is a fellow with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America think tank, "this looks like a massive watering down of our immigration restrictions against members of terrorist organizations."
The State Department says the changes are limited to Afghanistan, but would not say why the country is not mentioned once in the new order.
The changes "are an effort to address issues related to Afghanistan," a State Department spokesman, speaking only on background, told the Free Beacon. "The circumstances between Afghanistan and Iran are very different." The new rules "are not applicable to people who have received military-type training from [foreign terrorist organizations], including IRGC conscripts." Rather, the administration is trying to make it easier for those tangentially tied to terrorism to legally enter the country, the official maintained.
When the Free Beacon requested additional information and an explanation as to why the IRGC or similar groups would not be covered by the changes, the State Department declined to answer, saying, "We have no further information or comments to share." This lack of clarity is fueling concerns about the policy change.
Noronha and others who spoke to the Free Beacon say the broad reference to "foreign terrorist organizations" leaves open the possibility that groups like the IRGC and al Qaeda would benefit from the relaxed immigration guidelines. The revamped guidelines do not specifically include restrictions on either of these groups. "At best this is a horribly written regulation. At worst, it's an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the American people and make it easier for terrorists to come to America," Noronha said.
Richard Goldberg, who under Trump served on the White House National Security Council as the director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction, said that any effort to loosen restrictions on terror-tied individuals is worrying amid Iran's threats to kill U.S. leaders.
"Given Iran is actively plotting to kill former American officials, the administration should carefully explain if and how this [rule] might apply to a potential affiliate of the IRGC, and provide a high-level commitment to take all necessary steps to bar any potential IRGC associate from admission to the United States," Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told the Free Beacon.
Republican lawmakers agree with this assessment. Five Republican foreign policy leaders who spoke to the Free Beacon expressed concerns the administration is trying to quietly grant concessions to Iran as it reenters nuclear talks.
"It's outrageous that the Biden administration is lifting the blanket ban on individuals who have provided support to terrorists from entering the United States," Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Free Beacon. "The timing raises concerns coming just a few days before the latest round of Iran talks. President Biden should end these failed negotiations once and for all and return to a policy of maximum pressure, rather than continuing to make concessions to the terrorist regime in Iran."
Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he and his colleagues worry the Biden administration is attempting to grant concessions to Iran via backdoor changes to American laws.
"What do Americans gain by letting members of Iran's terrorist army cross our borders?" Banks asked.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a combat veteran and also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the change is purely about "appeasing terrorist groups—whether it's the IRGC, Houthis, or Taliban."
Reps. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) and Pat Fallon (R., Texas), both Armed Services Committee members, expressed shock at how broadly written the new regulations are.
"In what world is it an acceptable decision to allow terrorists into our country?" Fallon asked the Free Beacon. "Instead of ending the nuclear talks with Iran all together, Joe Biden has decided to bend over backwards to the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. Before it is too late, I urge them to immediately reconsider this foolish decision."
Update June 29, 3:31 p.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Biden administration made no formal announcement of the policy change.
‘Allah Has Given You into Our Hands’
The Muslim persecution Christians endured during just one month.
This article first appeared on Gatestone Institute.
The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of August, 2022:
The Jihad on Christian Girls
Pakistan: After refusing to review evidence from a Christian couple trying to recover their 12-year-old daughter from a married Muslim man accused of kidnapping the girl and forcing her to convert to Islam and marry him, Muslim judge Sadaqat Ali Khan threw the case out of court on Aug. 18. Initially, when the parents first reported the kidnapping, her kidnapper, Imran Shahzad and his wife Adiba, were brought in for questioning. However, when the 12-year-old girl was produced at court and said that she had converted of her free will and married her Muslim kidnapper, the judge—ignoring the girl’s underage and distraught demeanor—ordered the accused released and the girl returned to him, even though there was lots of contrary evidence to indicate that the girl was being coerced to lie under duress, including a voice recording of her now Muslim husband threatening to butcher the girl’s two brothers if she failed to support him in court. Discussing the more recent appeals hearing, one human rights activist involved with the case, Sherkan Malik, said,
The judge dismissed our petition in under two minutes—he even refused to look at any of the evidence, which clearly showed that the minor child was threatened to give a statement in favor of the accused, Imran Shahzad and his wife Adiba… The sessions court completely ignored her birth certificate, church registration documents and school certifications which confirmed her age as 12 [the legal age to marry under the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act is 16]…. Police and judiciary tend to support those who commit crimes such as forced conversions, child marriages and sexual violence because they believe they will receive a heavenly reward for helping convert someone to Islam, regardless of how intentional or coercive the conversion is.
Egypt: On Sunday, Aug. 7, another minor Christian girl “disappeared” on her way to attend morning mass. Abigail Magdy Zakaria’s phone was later discovered turned off. Her parents quickly informed the National Security Agency, which, however, “did not give any indication of pursuing the issue,” says the report, before adding:
Disappearance of Coptic girls, a rampant phenomenon in Egypt over the past three decades, that qualifies under international law as ‘human trafficking,’ has become worse in recent years. Typically, organized Islamic groups target certain girls to lure and convert them to Islam. The police and state security agency often turn a blind eye to such crimes and may even help whisk the victim to Al-Azhar’s conversion office to complete the official conversion certificate in record time. In the rare cases where a girl is returned to her family, the culprits are never held accountable. In other words, the supposedly law-preserving authorities act as implicit, if not explicit, partner in such heinous crimes.
In response to this latest and many more kidnappings of Christian girls in Egypt, on Aug. 9, Coptic Solidarity issued the following petition (sign here):
I am writing to you out of deep concern for the safety and well-being of the indigenous Coptic women and minor girls in Egypt who have been increasingly targeted for trafficking, forced marriage, and forced conversion. This serious human rights abuse has been well-documented with former traffickers confirming that the networks are coordinated by Imams of local mosques and with the complicity of Egyptian police, and that traffickers are paid for every Coptic female they kidnapped. This targeting and forced conversion of Coptic women is an intentional form of genocide… lowering the number of Christians in Egypt and ensuring that their children are raised as Muslims. More recently Egyptian police have ‘found’ abducted women, but only after enough international pressure and media attention was garnered in specific cases such as those of married women with children such as Ranya ‘Abd al-Masih and Mary Wahib Joseph who were abducted, forced to wear a hijab and record videos claiming leaving their homes and converting to Islam of their own free will, despite the women clearly being under duress in the recordings. Several other minor girls have also been recently recovered. These women are fortunate in that they represent a very small minority of trafficked Coptic women who are recovered. YET, in every instance, the circumstances of them being ‘found’ and returned to their families is extremely murky, and not a single individual involved in the trafficking has been held to account by Egyptian police or the judiciary. I respectfully urge you to raise the epidemic of trafficking of Coptic women and girls…
Nigeria: On Aug. 14, two Muslims tried to rape a 16-year-old Christian girl, but were prevented by her mother’s forceful intervention. The Christian women were walking towards their farmland when the Muslim men approached them. “They told us to stop,” the mother said during a recent interview. “Then the Fulani [Muslim herdsmen] beat me and injured me… I was trying to stop them from raping my daughter.” While explaining, she simulated the incident by repeatedly raising her arm, which had a deep gash suffered from the militants’ hacking blades. The girl was unable to participate in the interview and “was traumatized and crying throughout the visit.” This is not the first time for the Muslim Fulani to harm these Christian women. In 2017, they raided their village and killed 29 other Christians, displacing the rest of the villagers. The mother, however, seemed only grateful to have been able to shield “her daughter from public disgrace and shame, which is often how victims of rape are viewed in their society… I have nothing to say but thank God. Please tell Christian[s] to pray for me and my daughter. Pray that we will return to our village one day because life is too expensive for us in the city.”
Jihadist Slaughter of Christians
Egypt: On Aug. 30, Muslims murdered two Christians, a father and son. The two were shot dead while working on their farm by suspected Islamic State militants in Sinai. Waheeb, the elder, left behind five children; his son, Hany, who was killed along his side, is survived by a wife and two daughters. The Islamic State, which is active in Sinai, has vowed to “wipe out” Egypt’s Christian community, and has killed many.
Mozambique: Muslims beheaded two Christians during a raid on a minibus. The murders were later claimed by the Islamic State (IS) of Mozambique, known locally as al-Shabaab (“the youth,” not to be confused with Somalia’s Islamic terror group of the same name). A statement by the jihadists declared, “By the grace of God Almighty, the soldiers of the Caliphate … killed two Christians, beheading them, and shooting them with weapons.” According to the report,
Islamists gained effective control of an area of Cabo Delgado in 2017. The province has since been termed “the Land of Fear” owing to brutal violence meted out against both Christians and moderate Muslims. Mozambican and Southern African Development Community forces had started to drive the Islamists back in late 2021. However, the Islamist insurgency now appears to be spreading. In June 2021, ISIS-Mozambique claimed responsibility for the ‘beheading of several Christians’ in Cabo Delgado. Another was beheaded during a raid on a Christian village in the neighboring province of Nampula.
Nigeria: At least 20 others Christians were slaughtered in the first two weeks of August during Islamic attacks on Christian villages. “Constant killings and maiming of innocent Christians by terrorists and herdsmen bandits [Muslim Fulani] have become very common here in Taraba state,” said Ayuba Matthew, a local. “So also, kidnappings of Christians has become a problem.” The constant depredations have further “displaced more than 10,000 people from the predominantly Christian villages.”
Discussing the ongoing jihad on Nigeria’s Christians, Johan Viljoen, director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI), of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said
I am shocked [at the spate of kidnappings] because I know many priests and religious in that part of the country. We are dealing here with a sustained campaign to wipe out Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular. No Christian is safe.
Like many other Christian leaders in Africa, he accused the Muslim president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, of being complicit in the nonstop Fulani attacks:
No ‘armed gunmen’ are ever arrested or stand trial. His government has stood for the right of ‘cattle herders’ to occupy any land. Governors who have tried to rein them in face opposition from the federal government.
Similarly, Marcela Szymanski, head of advocacy for Aid to the Church in Need International, said,
Islamist extremists and criminals in Nigeria abduct the sole providers of social services to the most vulnerable, leaving thousands destitute and hungry,” even as the Buhari government “looks the other way, and the West calls them ‘preferred partners’ because they have oil and gas!…. It is likely that members of the party in power get kickbacks from oil [companies]; they couldn’t care less about the starvation of their own citizens! We see the same pattern in most mineral-rich nations, who count among the poorest in the world.
Death to and in Churches
Egypt: On Sunday, Aug. 14, the Church of Abu Seifein—named after Saint Mercurius of Caesarea—caught fire as it was packed with over two hundred worshippers celebrating morning mass. At least 41 Christians—18 of whom were children—were either burned alive or killed by asphyxiation. Along with the officiating priest, 5-year-old triplets, their mother, grandmother, and an aunt were among those killed. According to one report, “Eyewitnesses said firetrucks and ambulances arrived to the site over one hour after signaling the fire, even though they’re stationed in [a] nearby street,” which caused more lives to be lost needlessly. Despite the fact that radical Muslims have torched or bombed hundreds of Coptic churches over the decades in Egypt—62 churches in 2013 alone—“faulty electric wiring” was presented as the official cause, minutes after the fire department finally arrived (though, and as many critics have pointed out, it takes a serious, prolonged investigation before such a determination can be made—not minutes).
Equally telling is that all throughout the month of August—particularly within the dates of an important religious season—a total of eleven Coptic churches in Egypt “caught fire,” though none of these were reported in the Western press (apparently because no one died in these fires, some of which were major, while others were minor or caught early enough to prevent serious damage, thanks to heightened vigilance among the Christians themselves). In every one of these eleven fires, Egyptian authorities denied arson as a possible cause, citing instead “natural” or accidental causes such as faulty wiring, electric overloads, etc., even though there was obvious foul play in at least one case: Two days after the fire that killed 41 Christians, on Aug. 16, witnesses saw someone on the balcony of a residential building adjacent to the Church of Saint Mary the Egyptian hurl some combustible substance onto the top floor of the church. Christians quickly put it out and called the authorities but instead of blaming the apartment in question—and thus risking worse by way of “reprisals”—the church diplomatically asked the authorities to investigate with due diligence, especially the nearby building. The only thing that came out of it was another fiery missile hurled onto the church on Aug 21.
In a recent program dedicated to discussing the plight of churches in Egypt, the prolific Egyptian writer and researcher, Magdi Khalil, made some important observations. Of the 3,000 or so churches in Egypt, hundreds, he said, have been torched over the past 50 years. Meanwhile, and although there are at least half a million mosques and prayer halls in Egypt, none have ever burned due to “faulty electric wiring,” etc. These numbers further underscore the extreme discrimination against churches in Egypt: about 90 million Muslims have half a million mosques, whereas 10 million Christians have a mere 3,000 churches. Little wonder churches are always cramped fire hazards. At one point, after pointing out that those who target Christians in Egypt rarely if ever suffer any consequences, Khalil exclaimed, “Incitement against the Copts is daily in Egypt! Accusing the Copts of being infidels [kuffar] is daily in Egypt! Mockery of Christianity and the sacred things of Christianity and the accusation that the Bible is distorted [moharraf] occurs daily in Egypt!”
Nigeria: A Muslim gang “shot their way onto the site of St. Agnes Catholic Church in Dinya village.” According to the parish priest, the Rev. Lawrence Awua,
[The] terrorists broke into the premises of our church on Sunday, Aug. 14, as we were already in our bedrooms. They were shooting indiscriminately in the premises of the church. Our catechist, Mr. Gideon Tsehemba, was forcefully dragged out of the church with a gun pointed at him. I was already in my bedroom, but they thought there was no one around except the catechist.
Elsewhere in Nigeria on that same Sunday afternoon (Aug. 14), Muslims shot and severely wounded a Christian. According to a local, “Mr. Faga was returning to his home from his church after worship service at about 2 p.m. when the terrorists shot him. He’s currently receiving treatment in a local hospital here.”
Generic Hate for and Abuse of Christians
Uganda: Muslims cut off the hand of an apostate from Islam. More than a month earlier, on June 17, Musa John Kasadah, a 42-year-old married father of six children, left Islam and embraced Christianity after attending an open-air event comparing both religions. Before long, local Muslims, including some siblings, noticed that he and his family had stopped attending Friday mosque prayers. The pastor who led Musa and his family to Christ began to receive threatening messages, including: “It has come to our attention that Musa Kasadah and the family are attending your church. This should stop immediately, otherwise your church is at risk.” The pastor responded by helping Musa and his family clandestinely relocate to the plantation of a local official. The persistent jihadists managed to track them down, however. On July 26, four Muslims intercepted and accosted Musa and his family in a field near their temporary home:
You thought that we shall not get hold of you? We have been tracking you from the house of [the local official] to here, and today is your last day to be alive. Allah has given you into our hands.
“They started beating my husband and then got hold of me and tied me up,” said Musa’s wife, Asiya. “They forced me to sing Christian songs as they began chopping off my husband’s hand.” During this torture session, one of the Muslims “took a long Somali sword and began cutting off his hand, intending to kill him. After chopping off his hand and part of his forearm, a truck arrived with sugarcane workers, and the assailants disappeared into the plantation.” The truck drivers helped and arranged for an ambulance to take the family to a nearby hospital. Apparently fearful of worse repercussions, the “family has yet to file a police report.”
Egypt: Authorities seized a four-year-old child from his adoptive Christian parents on a technicality of Islamic law. Four years ago, a Coptic priest heard cries emanating from inside his empty church. He discovered a newborn baby boy, apparently abandoned by a mother who bore him out of wedlock. The priest entrusted the newborn babe to a childless couple from his congregation. Considering that they had been praying for 29-years to give them a child, they joyously embraced the boy as their own and baptized and named him Shenouda, a popular Coptic name. For the next four years everything went well. Shenouda became the pride and joy of his adoptive parents’ lives. Seeing him as a “gift from God,” they spared no care or expense on his upbringing. Then the Egyptian state learned about this otherwise happy development and authorities seized the 4-year-old child from his loving parents’ arms and sent him to an orphanage. Although adoption is illegal in Egypt (based on an innovation of Muhammad’s) there are state-approved ways for families to take custody of orphan children. In the present case, however, the primary argument being used by the state against Shenouda’s adoptive parents’ legal attempts to reclaim the boy revolves around religion. Because Islam teaches that every human is born as a sort of prototypical Muslim (until their parents conform them to their own religion), and because the religious identity of Shenouda’s biological parents is unknown, he must, therefore, be considered Muslim; and entrusting Muslim children to non-Muslim parents is strictly forbidden. Since being transferred to an overcrowded and underfed orphanage, the child was forcibly “returned” to Islam. He was issued a birth certificate—marked “Muslim” under religion—and given an acceptable Muslim name, Yusuf. Meanwhile, logic suggests that Shenouda was born to a Christian mother—or at least to a mother who thought Christians would best know how to raise her unwanted child. Otherwise, why abandon the babe in a church?
Pakistan: A recent video report found that, although Christians make up only 1.6% of the Muslim nation’s population, they account for 90% of Islamabad’s sanitation workers. This is thought to be in keeping with Koran injunctions, especially Koran 9:29, which calls on Muslims to fight “the People of the Book,” meaning Christians and Jews, until they pay tribute (jizya) and are always made to feel “fully humbled.” This is also why many sanitation job listings in Pakistan often advertise “for non-Muslims only”: working in garbage all day is for “infidels,” not ritually clean Muslims. Another report sheds light on this institution:
Most sanitation workers in Pakistan are Christian…. Christian sanitation workers are routinely called derogatory terms such as Choora [slur for “Christian” and/or “low class” people]… and face sexual harassment, discrimination, nonpayment of salaries, irregular work contracts and extortion by senior officers…. Christian workers, particularly women, also have to face harassment by Muslim supervisors… They know that these poor workers cannot do anything against them, hence the harassment is continuing unabated … Social security law guarantees compensation for those who die on duty, but the families of Christian sanitation workers are not paid the full amount.
In one instance, a Christian sanitary worker died because observant Muslim doctors who were fasting for Ramadan recoiled from treating the “unclean” infidel after the 30-year-old fell unconscious while cleaning sewage and was rushed to a governmental hospital. “The doctors refused to treat him because they were fasting and said my son was napaak [unclean],” said the mother of the deceased.
In another instance, a 20-year-old Christian sanitation worker was murdered after he refused to work on Sunday due to religious reasons. “Many Muslims find it hard to accept refusal by a ‘lowly’ Christian,” a Christian rights activist said. “This is not the first time a Christian sanitary worker has been killed or subjected to violence for refusing to comply with unjust demands of persons from the Muslim majority.”
Qatar: Although deemed by some Westerners as a relatively progressive Arab nation, Qatar continues to indoctrinate its children with hate for and violence against “infidels,” including Jews and Christians. In 2020, a study found that Qatari textbooks and curriculum promoted several hate-filled ideas against Jews and Christians. On revisiting them in a more recent report, however, the same organization found that, while making some improvements in regards to how the other monotheists are portrayed, Qatari texts and curriculum were still problematic, including by teaching children the “great virtues” of jihad and martyrdom, as well as the importance of never befriending—but rather always hating—Jews, Christians, and all non-Muslims, whom it still refers to collectively as “infidels” (or kuffar, Islam’s natural born enemies).
Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
