THE KORAN
BIBLE OF THE MUSLIM TERRORIST:
“The Wahhabis finance
thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed
into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and
other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
Koran 2:191 "slay the unbelievers wherever
you find them"
Koran 3:21 "Muslims must not take the infidels as friends"
Koran 5:33 "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam"
Koran 8:12 "Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other
than the Koran"
Koran 8:60 " Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the
infidels"
Koran 8:65 "The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight
them"
Koran 9:5 "When the opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you
find them"
Koran 9:123 "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood"
Koran 22:19 "Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron
rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies"
Koran 47:4 "Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when
you catch them".
“The tentacles of the Islamist hydra have
deeply penetrated the world. The Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a
clear threat in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood also wages its deadly campaign
through its dozens of well-established and functioning branches all over the
world.”
*
“The
Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys
are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush
Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
* We
will take advantage of their immigration policy to infiltrate them.
* We
will use their own welfare system to provide us with food, housing, schooling,
and health care, while we out breed them and plot against them. We will
Caliphate on their dime.
* We
will use political correctness as a weapon. Anyone who criticizes us, we will
take the opportunity to grandstand and curry favor from the media and Democrats
and loudly accuse our critics of being an Islamophobe.
* We
will use their own discrimination laws against them and slowly introduce Sharia
Law into their culture..
ISIS Student Plotting College Dean Attacks has ‘ISIS Imam’ as Spiritual Guide
THE KORAN
BIBLE OF THE MUSLIM TERRORIST:
“The Wahhabis finance
thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed
into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and
other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
Koran 2:191 "slay the unbelievers wherever
you find them"
Koran 3:21 "Muslims must not take the infidels as friends"
Koran 5:33 "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam"
Koran 8:12 "Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Koran"
Koran 8:60 " Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels"
Koran 8:65 "The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight them"
Koran 9:5 "When the opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you find them"
Koran 9:123 "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood"
Koran 22:19 "Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies"
Koran 47:4 "Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when you catch them".
Koran 3:21 "Muslims must not take the infidels as friends"
Koran 5:33 "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam"
Koran 8:12 "Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Koran"
Koran 8:60 " Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels"
Koran 8:65 "The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight them"
Koran 9:5 "When the opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you find them"
Koran 9:123 "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood"
Koran 22:19 "Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies"
Koran 47:4 "Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when you catch them".
“The tentacles of the Islamist hydra have
deeply penetrated the world. The Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a
clear threat in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood also wages its deadly campaign
through its dozens of well-established and functioning branches all over the
world.”
*
“The
Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys
are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush
Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
* We
will take advantage of their immigration policy to infiltrate them.
* We
will use their own welfare system to provide us with food, housing, schooling,
and health care, while we out breed them and plot against them. We will
Caliphate on their dime.
* We
will use political correctness as a weapon. Anyone who criticizes us, we will
take the opportunity to grandstand and curry favor from the media and Democrats
and loudly accuse our critics of being an Islamophobe.
* We
will use their own discrimination laws against them and slowly introduce Sharia
Law into their culture..
Was Salman Rashid working alone?
Late last month, Salman Rashid, whose family hails from Dhaka, Bangladesh, was arrested for his involvement in a conspiracy to murder the heads of two South Florida colleges. According to the FBI, Rashid, beginning this past May, sought out an individual to contact ISIS in order to carry out a revenge attack in the US for its mistreatment of Muslims. But apart from his contact, was Rashid working alone?
In November, Rashid had decided that the targets of this attack should be the deans of both Broward College and Miami Dade College, two educational institutions that had previously taken disciplinary action against Rashid. Both cases dealt with harassment of women, including stalking.
Rashid’s views about the things he has been reportedly reprimanded for are found on his Facebook page, where one can view very disturbing posts dealing with two main subjects: an intense hatred of women and a violent hatred of non-Muslims and the West.
Here are some of the more flagrant ones from this year:
February: “Americans will pay Inch by Inch For everything they have done to us and used to attempt to Force Their laws on us.” Also in February: “Feminists are a Cancer On Earth. If I had Authority, I Would Strip their skin from Flesh and Hang their Bodies In the Sun to Rot.” March: “Patience. Our time is coming. When it does, We will show Them No Mercy just as They Didn’t. Rage of A Thousand Years will Burn.”
April: “I am just waiting to see how far they can go. Let them run. When I have Allah’s Signal, I will burn everything as I see suitable.” Also in April: “I don’t even know what to say anymore at this point. These pathetic Kuffars then cry about why ISIS threw one of “these” [transsexual] abominations down from a high building and say We Muslims need ‘Psychological Evaluation.’”
May: “Some Munafiqs among Muslims are acting arrogant, refusing to acknowledge the authority of those who lead this faith… They learn this kind of arrogant, disobedient, disrespectful manners from Those Kafir Americans. It is time to deal with this problem and break their bones if necessary.”
September: “Americans Are Our Greatest Enemy After Israeli Yahuds. Any Muslim Who Denies This Fact Is A Munafiq Without Question… Whether Kafir or Munafiqs, I will make these Western Puppets Suffer.” October: “New Rule Of Our Islamic Shari’ah. Any Woman who has a Boyfriend, Whether She Slept with that Bastard or Not is a Prostitute.”
Where did Rashid get so much contempt for women, non-Muslims and America, where he resides? A big clue may come from the North Miami mosque he affiliates himself with, Masjid As Sunnah An Nabawiyyah. There, a fiery cleric named Fadi Kablawi provides sermons against non-Muslims and the West.
In January, Kablawi told the members of his congregation, “The Christian religion makes no sense… If you look at all the religions in the world, Christianity can compete for first place in stupidity.” In March, he told them, “The West is wicked.” In February, he told them, “Good news… Israel will not stay long.”
However, what is of the most interest and the most concern is something else he told his congregation, in March. Kablawi informed them that the FBI is after him, because the agency considers him to be a member of ISIS. He implied that congregants in his audience were spying on him for the Feds. He called them “snitches” and “cowards.”
Rashid’s Facebook page is littered with videos of Kablawi’s sermons. Rashid also regularly posts comments on Kablawi’s own Facebook page, including threats.
This past February, when Kablawi wrote of his feelings towards the State of the Union address, saying, “I’ve never seen that many hypocrites and evil looking people in one place like I saw tonight,” Rashid replied with a personal message to Kablawi, stating, “Same Sheikh. It is terrible to watch such a painful truth that the people of this country are being ruled by a bunch of fat headed liars and manipulative women with evil instincts. Alhamdulillah, We are free of their rules and regulations. If they try pushing them on us and force us to accept Kuffar laws, We will fight them with everything until They are brought to their knees.”
This past March, on Kablawi’s page Rashid wrote, “Americans and New Zealand government are working together to Stop the Spreading of the [New Zealand mosque] Shooting video… They don’t want to show that the Muslims are the ones that are suffering as always. They want to show everything is so beautiful how happy we are living under their Democracy and so much Freedom we have under their enslavement and Oppression in their lands while making our lives miserable on a Daily basis…” When another commenter replied, “May Allah avenge us!!” Rashid replied back to him, “Not only Allah. I will avenge it myself.”
Question: If the FBI is going to arrest and charge Salman Rashid with a crime, as they did, would it not be prudent to do the same to Rashid’s fanatical spiritual guide, whom they already know to be part of ISIS, as revealed by Kablawi, himself?
As well, Rashid has cavorted with other radical Muslims. In a photo on his Facebook page that he posted in May 2015, Rashid is pictured partnering at an event with Abdul Rauf Khan, a Florida and national leader of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). ICNA is the American affiliate of South Asian Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami and has links to Kashmir-based terrorist groups. Khan, himself, has used social media to promote: Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood, anti-gay propaganda, and anti-Semitic material, including posting a link on his Facebook to a video labeling comedian talk show host Bill Maher, “Zionist Jew Bill Maher.”
Was Salman Rashid working alone in his crimes or was he guided by others, like his extremist imam Fadi Kablawi, and being used as a terrorist puppet?
It is an important question to ask, as while Rashid was taken into custody, his potential handlers could be influencing others to commit similar acts.
GOP/Democrats
Slip Amnesty for 1K Liberian Nationals into Defense Budget
'Urinated On and Cursed For Being Christian'
This report was first published by the Gatestone Institute.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The following are some of the abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of September, 2019, thematically categorized:
Separately, a Christian pastor and the wife of another pastor were killed in two separate raids by Muslim Fulani herdsmen. “After they had killed her [Esther Ishaku Katung], they were still demanding the ransom without telling her family that they had killed her,” a local Christian said. “It was only after the ransom was paid that it was found by her family that she had been killed by her abductors.” Her mutilated body was found dumped in the bushes.
Pakistan: Police in Lahore tortured Amir Masih, a 28-year-old Christian man, to death. After the employer that Amir worked for as a gardener reported an incident of theft, police contacted and told Amir and the other employees to come in for questioning. “My brother went to the police station of his own will,” Sunny Masih, Amir’s sibling, explained. “When he reached there [n August 28] the cops seized his phone, bundled him into a vehicle and spirited him to some unknown place.” Four days later, police contacted his distraught family to say Amir was ill and that they should take him to a hospital. “We rushed to the police station, where we were handed a semi-conscious Amir,” his brother continues: “He was beaten up mercilessly, and his body was full of bruises.” While en route to the hospital, Amir told Sunny that six officials, two inspectors and four constables, had tortured him for four days. “He told us that the police officials had urinated on him while cursing him for being a Christian and tried to force him to confess to the crime.” Sunny also noted that all other employees who were questioned regarding the theft were released “without a scratch,” and that his brother “was subjected to severe torture because he was a poor Christian whom police believed could be coerced into a false confession…. But my brother was innocent, and he refused to admit to something that he had not done, which further infuriated his interrogators. They increased the intensity of the violence, also subjecting him to electric shocks.” Two hours after arriving in the hospital Amir succumbed to his injuries and died. A post-mortem report indicated broken ribs and visible torture marks on the hands, arms, back, and feet. The murdered Christian is survived by a wife and two sons, aged 7 and 2-weeks-old.
In a separate incident, also in Pakistan, three Muslim men—Muhammad Naveed, Muhammad Amjad, and Abdul Majeed—participated in the slaughter of two Christian brothers, Javaid and Suleman Masih. According to Javaid’s widow, “For over a year, we have been experiencing and smelling hatred against us by our Muslim neighbors. Often their women discussed and passed insulting remarks against Christians. However, keeping our safety in view, we always kept quite [sic] and never replied…. The Muslim neighbors did not like our van, which carries a holy cross inside, to be parked next to their door. They often criticized it.” Javaid’s 17-year-old son continues: “Naveed, one of the Muslim family members, was trying to put some scratches on the wind-screen of my uncle’s van on the incident day. When I tried to stop him, he reacted in anger stating ‘whenever I step out of my house, I see this hanging stuff (holy cross) in the van – which I don’t want to see.’ He pointed out the cross in an insulting way. ‘Therefore, you must remove it,’ he ordered.” Soon thereafter, both brothers “left their house to visit a relative in the neighborhood,” Javaid’s widow resumes; “they were suddenly attacked in front of their house by the two Muslims with knives. Each received 5 – 8 attacks, which resulted into their deaths. The father of the two Muslims was provoking his sons and chanting loudly, ‘don’t spare, kill all of these Chooras!’” (Chooras is a derogatory word used for Christians in Pakistan.) Javaid is survived by his wife and four children (aged 10 to 17). Suleman was recently married; he and his wife were expecting their first child weeks after his murder.
The group issued a statement late on Saturday saying the motorcycle bombing had wounded seven Filipino Christians at a public market. It was the fourth blast in the area in 13 months, according to the Philippine military, which said a militant group operating in the mostly Christian city of Isulan in the province of Sultan Kudarat was among the suspects…. [T]hree incidents in the past year authorities said were suicide bombings by militants linked to the Islamic State.
Burkina Faso: “Christians … are currently being exterminated or expelled from their villages by Muslim extremists,” notes a September 18 report. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a local source said that the militants sometimes give Christians a chance to convert to Islam; he referred to it as “part of a program by the jihadists who are deliberately sowing terror, assassinating members of the Christian communities and forcing the remaining Christians to flee after warning them that they will return in three days’ time—and that they do not wish to find any Christians or catechumens still there.” He elaborated on the recent experiences of the village of Hitté: “At the beginning of September, 16 men arrived in the village, intercepting the villagers who were returning from the fields. Some of the men forced the people to enter the church where they threatened the Christians and ordered them to leave their homes in the next three days, while others set fire to whatever they found in their path. Now Hitté no longer has any Christians and any catechumens.” He also made an observation that has been made of militants in Nigeria: “Weapons like these [those used by the Muslim invaders] are not made in Burkina Faso. We know that the arms are supplied by international organizations. We are calling for the removal of these weapons, so that peace can return to Burkina Faso…. The situation is critical.”
Egypt: Unknown persons hurled bricks at Marina Sami Rageb, a Christian woman, as she exited her church. The 21-year-old medical student’s skull was fractured and she suffered hemorrhage from the assault. Little else is known about the incident or assailant(s). According to the report, “This type of incident, unfortunately, is common place in Egypt. Christian women are not religiously compelled to cover their hair, but are constantly pressured to do so by their Muslim peers. Uncovered women are frequently targeted for harassment, and even attacks. This underlying threat greatly impacts their ability to walk freely in Egypt and to choose their clothing preference.” One woman comments that “In Egypt, there are a lot of security threats in the streets. But I always avoid walking in the radical Muslim districts or areas, just preferring the main streets.” “I always wear long clothes,” explained another Christian woman. “In the streets, I always avoided dealing with the extremists or the radical Muslims.”
Pakistan: On September 16, Muhammad Ramiz and four other Muslim men, kidnapped a 14-year-old Christian girl, Samra Bibi, from her home while her family was away, “in what is but the latest in a long series of kidnappings and forced conversions of underaged minority girls, often obtained under threat and after sexual violence,” the report adds. Samra was subsequently forced into Islam and forced to marry her abductor. Her family rushed to the local police station on learning what happened. Police refused to open a case and instead mocked and insulted the distraught family. After two days of continued pleadings from the family and local Christian leaders, police arrested Muhammad—only to release him an hour later, in part due to pressure from Islamic clerics. According to Samra’s father, “Muhammad Ramiz had long set his sights on Christian girls and teased them. When they told him to stop, he used abusive language against them. When we were not at home, he abducted our underage girl. About ten days have passed and no one has been arrested.” Discussing this and other like incidents, a human rights activist said, “According to the law, no minor girl can be converted to any other religion but here no one has courage to challenge the radicals who are committing such crimes.” “Sometimes courts seem to be more supportive of perpetrators,” another family representative said. “For example, in Samra’s case, the girl is 14, a juvenile who cannot be married; yet police deliberately wrote in their report that she is between 15 and 16 years. We will also challenge this aspect during the trial.”
Bro, listen… any motherf**er wants to convert to f**king Christianity, we’re both gonna f**k you up the a**, you under-f**king-stand? … We’re gonna f**ck you up the a** [moves his pelvis in a sexual act]…. Why you f**king converting for, you motherf**kers? Huh? Why you f**cking — why would you want to become Christian? You f**king baptizing sh*t motherf**kers. Ah [mocking sound] “in the Lord of Jesus”…
The above was spoken in English, of a sort, though extended portions of his tirade were in a foreign (likely Pakistani) language. “It frightens me now to identify myself as a Christian to someone that I don’t know,” said the Christian woman from Preston who reported Hussain to police; “[it’s] sad that I have to hide my religion… His threats to sexually assault those who convert to Christianity is the heart of hate speech…. I’m genuinely concerned for the welfare of the public who may not be aware of his extreme views.” Regardless, and despite the UK’s anti-hate-speech laws, police took no action, even though, as one report notes:
Hussain’s generous treatment by the authorities contrasts sharply with that meted out to Scottish comedian Markus Meechan … who was arrested, charged, and convicted in a trial without a jury for causing gross offence with a viral video in which he trained his girlfriend’s pug dog to imitate the “least cute thing that I could think of, which is a Nazi.”
Uganda: After the Muslim-in-laws of a widowed mother learned that she had converted to Christianity, they attacked her and her children, and drove them away from their home. 54-year-old Lezia Nakayiza’s problems began when her 8-year-old “told one of the relatives of the wonderful choir at church, and that we have been attending the church since March. This was the beginning of our persecution,” she said. It was not long before a “Christian neighbor informed me that the family was planning to attack us.” Soon thereafter, and “by the light from moonlight, I peeped through the window and saw many people approaching our house with sticks and other weapons with loud noise from the animals’ shed.” She heard them shouting, “Away with this infidel!” Nakayiza and her children managed to escape from the backdoor. Afterwards, “We walked on foot for two hours and arrived at the church compound around 11 p.m., and we were received by the pastor.” On the following day, the pastor learned of the “huge destruction” her deceased husband’s brothers visited on her home, including “five cows and six sheep killed, iron sheets pulled down, windows and doors destroyed…. The family has to be relocated to another place,” the pastor added. “Life for them is so hard. The children are out of school. They are very fearful of their lives. Even the church is at risk from the relatives who are radical Muslims. Our church is still too small to support the family.” Last reported, Nakayiza was offering to wash people’s clothes and/or work their land to earn enough for the basic necessities of her children, four of which are aged 15, 13, 11, and 8. “What we are going through at the moment is almost unbearable,” she said.
Iran: The Islamic republic denied two sons (17 and 15) of an imprisoned Christian pastor their high school diplomas, until such time that they complete Islamic education first. Their father, Yousef Nadarkhani, made headlines in 2009, when he was first arrested for protesting Iran’s educational requirement that all students study the Koran. The government responded by arresting him, a convert to Christianity, and charging him with the death penalty for apostasy. Due to international pressure, he was released in 2012—only to be arrested again in 2016. He is currently serving a 10 year sentence.
This decision follows an investigation which opened last December following complaints that the balconies of certain villas in the village resembled crosses. Photos show that houses had two levels and a cross shape divided the houses into four quadrants. Multiple complaints from primarily local Arab families led the houses to be destroyed on the basis of their architecture incorporating the cross…. [T]he situation is not unusual. In other locations, such as Gaziantep and Ankara, buildings have been renovated so that the cross shaped architecture is no longer visible.
Separately, on September 18, a hooded man approached and threatened the Church of St. Paul in Antalya, Turkey. The incident occurred as representatives from three churches were meeting together, in part to prepare for celebrations of the 20th anniversary of their cultural center’s founding. According to the report,
The man became verbally abusive, and made threats of physical attacks. The identity of the man is unknown, and he was careful to keep his face hidden from security cameras. … The man was shouting that he would take great pleasure in destroying the Christians, as he viewed them as a type of parasitism on Turkey. Police are investigating the incident. Hate speech is one of the primary challenges facing Turkish Christians, who are often viewed as traitors to their country since they have left Islam. While violent persecution attacks are rare, the increase of hate speech throughout Turkey does cause alarm of what it may foreshadow in the future.
A separate study published in Armenian in September found that there were a total of 6,517 incidents of hate speech in Turkish media in 2018. The two peoples most targeted were Jews and Armenians, followed by Syrians, Greeks, and other Christian groups.
Iran: The government removed tax exemption status from all non-Muslim institutions. According to one report,
The Tehran City Council will no longer consider churches and synagogues as eligible for tax exemption… Before this decision, these non-Islamic institutions were eligible for tax exemption so long as they were purely religious in nature. The city’s decision has been heavily criticized by Assyrian [Christian] parliamentarians… Iran’s constitution recognizes the freedom of religious practice only for those who can prove that their families belonged to certain non-Muslim faiths prior to the 1979 revolution. These [sic] means that, technically, Assyrian and Armenian Christians should have some (albeit limited) freedom of religious expression. The reality, however, is that Iran does not follow its own laws. All Christian groups, as well as other religious minorities, face heavy persecution from the authorities.
Algeria: Authorities shut down two more church buildings. On September 24, eight police officers arrived at the Church of Boghni, and sealed off the Protestant church’s doors and windows. “I was surprised when one of the police officers contacted me to meet them at the site where our church is,” Pastor Chergui explained. “I had not received any notice; they went straight to proceed with the closure by sealing. They could have warned us before; why didn’t they?” The building had served two separate churches—Pastor Chergui’s congregation of 190 members, and another Protestant church of nearly 200 members from a neighboring village. Police left a note explaining that they closed down the building because it was being “illegally used … to celebrate non-Muslim worship.” A separate report discussing this same closure elaborates on the law being cited:
Since November 2017, the government has been engaged in a systematic campaign against Christians. EPA-affiliated churches [the Protestant Church of Algeria] have been challenged to prove that they have licenses according to the requirement of a 2006 ordinance regulating non-Muslim worship. These regulations stipulate that all places of non-Muslim worship must be licenced. However, the government has yet to issue any licence for a church buildings under this ordinance, ignoring applications from churches to regularise their status in accordance with the ordinance.
This closure raises the number of sealed church buildings affiliated with the EPA, to eight. Another four church groups have been ordered to cease all activities. In at least two cases, authorities have pressured the landlords renting to churches to deny Christians access to the premises.
Separately, on September 26—just two days after the closure of the Church of Boghni—authorities sealed off another church which had served 70, mostly elderly, people; it also functioned as a Bible school. “They told us that they are giving us time to clear useful objects out before they come back to seal it,” church leader Ali Zerdoud said the day before. “I can only say one thing: This is an injustice.”
CS has received dozens of reports of discrimination from Coptic footballers in Egypt, indicating systematic discrimination against them based solely on faith, which prevents them from reaching the highest levels of competition. In response, CS published a report titled Discrimination Against Copts in Egyptian Sport Clubs, which we also submitted to FIFA by email and via the online complaints mechanism.
The report contains an overview of the widespread discrimination against Copts in football including ample sources and testimonies by moderate Muslims corroborating reality of the ongoing discrimination. It also includes a sampling of 25 of the cases reported to Coptic Solidarity by Coptic footballers.
The Egyptian Olympic Mission to Brazil in 2016 was completely devoid of Copts, and the same applies to the Egyptian national team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Not a single Copt can be found on either the main team or the reserve. There are currently 540 players in the top-flight soccer clubs in Egypt, and that number includes only one Coptic footballer.
Canada: The government’s immigration department sought to deport a refugee family—a mother and three children—that had fled their native country of Nigeria after they were attacked and threatened with death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. “They ran because her mother wrote her [daughter] a letter saying that she is very disappointed that she is a Christian, but she must run because her father wants to kill [her] to become higher in the organization,” a family spokesperson said. “They face a ‘fatwa’ (a pronouncement of death) against them for converting to Christianity from Islam. They believe they face certain death if they are returned to Nigeria. They are quite fearful.” According to the report, “Ironically, both Hephzibah and Rejoice [two of the children, 14 and 10 respectively] were featured in a CBC News photograph with Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau, with an accompanying caption saying they were his supporters. In reality, they and a spokesperson for the family had delivered a plea to Trudeau in person when he appeared in Niagara-on-the-Lake last month.”
Supporters of the family said the government was not taking the time to establish the family’s humanitarian status or perform a proper risk assessment. “They’re trying to boot [them] out of the country before then.” The family’s current status is unclear.
Note: Click here for previous monthly reports of Muslim Persecution of Christians, going back to July 2011.
“They Asked Him to Deny
Christ”
GOP/Democrats
Slip Amnesty for 1K Liberian Nationals into Defense Budget
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
18 Dec 201959
2:15
Senate Republicans and Democrats approved a defense budget for
Fiscal Year 2020 after slipping into it an amnesty for nearly 1,000 Liberian
nationals who will now be eligible for American citizenship.
This week, the Senate passed the 2020 National Defense
Authorization Act that includes a provision that gives amnesty to about 840
Liberian nationals and their children who would otherwise have self-deported
from the United States in March.
In early 2018, President Trump ended Deferred
Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberia, which acted as a de facto amnesty for
Liberians to stay in the U.S. since 1991. Liberians were first given the
temporary amnesty in the early 1990s due to a civil war in their nation.
After decades of renewing the temporary amnesty by Presidents
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama — despite the nation’s civil war
long having ended — Trump reviewed their DED status and determined that Liberia
is safe for nationals in the U.S. to return to.
The amnesty for
Liberian nationals slipped into the defense budget had been pushed for months
by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and a handful of Minnesota lawmakers. Effectively,
all Liberian nationals who were allowed to stay in the U.S. over the last few
decades will now be allowed to adjust their immigration status, making them
permanent residences who can eventually apply to become American citizens.
Liberian nationals will only be disqualified from the amnesty if
they have been convicted of aggravated felonies such as murder, rape, child sex
abuse, sex trafficking, and kidnapping.
Also included in the defense budget
is billions of American taxpayer money that will continue funding border security measures
in foreign countries like Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Meanwhile, less than $1.4 billion is explicitly authorized for the construction of a border
wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
'Urinated On and Cursed For Being Christian'
September’s Muslim persecution of Christians.
November 25, 2019
Raymond
Ibrahim
The following are some of the abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of September, 2019, thematically categorized:
The Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: On September 22, the jihadi group,
Boko Haram, released a video depicting the execution of
two Christian aid workers. Lawrence Duna Dacighir and Godfrey Ali
Shikagham, both members of the Church of Christ in Nations, appeared on their
knees, with three armed men behind them, who proceeded to shoot
them. Both Christians had gone to Maiduguri—near where they were
captured—to help build shelters for people displaced by Islamic extremist
violence. In the same video and “speaking in
the Hausa language, the middle one of the three terrorists says … that they
have vowed to kill every Christian they capture…” Responding to the
executions, Pastor Pofi, a cousin of the two executed Christians, said,
“Lawrence and Godfrey left Abuja for Maiduguri in search of opportunities to
utilize their skills for the betterment of humanity and paid with their
lives. We will never get their corpses to bury. The community will have
to make do with a makeshift memorial to these young lives cut short so
horrifically.”Separately, a Christian pastor and the wife of another pastor were killed in two separate raids by Muslim Fulani herdsmen. “After they had killed her [Esther Ishaku Katung], they were still demanding the ransom without telling her family that they had killed her,” a local Christian said. “It was only after the ransom was paid that it was found by her family that she had been killed by her abductors.” Her mutilated body was found dumped in the bushes.
Pakistan: Police in Lahore tortured Amir Masih, a 28-year-old Christian man, to death. After the employer that Amir worked for as a gardener reported an incident of theft, police contacted and told Amir and the other employees to come in for questioning. “My brother went to the police station of his own will,” Sunny Masih, Amir’s sibling, explained. “When he reached there [n August 28] the cops seized his phone, bundled him into a vehicle and spirited him to some unknown place.” Four days later, police contacted his distraught family to say Amir was ill and that they should take him to a hospital. “We rushed to the police station, where we were handed a semi-conscious Amir,” his brother continues: “He was beaten up mercilessly, and his body was full of bruises.” While en route to the hospital, Amir told Sunny that six officials, two inspectors and four constables, had tortured him for four days. “He told us that the police officials had urinated on him while cursing him for being a Christian and tried to force him to confess to the crime.” Sunny also noted that all other employees who were questioned regarding the theft were released “without a scratch,” and that his brother “was subjected to severe torture because he was a poor Christian whom police believed could be coerced into a false confession…. But my brother was innocent, and he refused to admit to something that he had not done, which further infuriated his interrogators. They increased the intensity of the violence, also subjecting him to electric shocks.” Two hours after arriving in the hospital Amir succumbed to his injuries and died. A post-mortem report indicated broken ribs and visible torture marks on the hands, arms, back, and feet. The murdered Christian is survived by a wife and two sons, aged 7 and 2-weeks-old.
In a separate incident, also in Pakistan, three Muslim men—Muhammad Naveed, Muhammad Amjad, and Abdul Majeed—participated in the slaughter of two Christian brothers, Javaid and Suleman Masih. According to Javaid’s widow, “For over a year, we have been experiencing and smelling hatred against us by our Muslim neighbors. Often their women discussed and passed insulting remarks against Christians. However, keeping our safety in view, we always kept quite [sic] and never replied…. The Muslim neighbors did not like our van, which carries a holy cross inside, to be parked next to their door. They often criticized it.” Javaid’s 17-year-old son continues: “Naveed, one of the Muslim family members, was trying to put some scratches on the wind-screen of my uncle’s van on the incident day. When I tried to stop him, he reacted in anger stating ‘whenever I step out of my house, I see this hanging stuff (holy cross) in the van – which I don’t want to see.’ He pointed out the cross in an insulting way. ‘Therefore, you must remove it,’ he ordered.” Soon thereafter, both brothers “left their house to visit a relative in the neighborhood,” Javaid’s widow resumes; “they were suddenly attacked in front of their house by the two Muslims with knives. Each received 5 – 8 attacks, which resulted into their deaths. The father of the two Muslims was provoking his sons and chanting loudly, ‘don’t spare, kill all of these Chooras!’” (Chooras is a derogatory word used for Christians in Pakistan.) Javaid is survived by his wife and four children (aged 10 to 17). Suleman was recently married; he and his wife were expecting their first child weeks after his murder.
Violence against and Abuse of
Christians
Philippines: In the early hours of
September 6, an explosion occurred
in the marketplace of a predominantly Christian area; several people were
injured. The Islamic State claimed responsibility. According to
one report,The group issued a statement late on Saturday saying the motorcycle bombing had wounded seven Filipino Christians at a public market. It was the fourth blast in the area in 13 months, according to the Philippine military, which said a militant group operating in the mostly Christian city of Isulan in the province of Sultan Kudarat was among the suspects…. [T]hree incidents in the past year authorities said were suicide bombings by militants linked to the Islamic State.
Burkina Faso: “Christians … are currently being exterminated or expelled from their villages by Muslim extremists,” notes a September 18 report. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a local source said that the militants sometimes give Christians a chance to convert to Islam; he referred to it as “part of a program by the jihadists who are deliberately sowing terror, assassinating members of the Christian communities and forcing the remaining Christians to flee after warning them that they will return in three days’ time—and that they do not wish to find any Christians or catechumens still there.” He elaborated on the recent experiences of the village of Hitté: “At the beginning of September, 16 men arrived in the village, intercepting the villagers who were returning from the fields. Some of the men forced the people to enter the church where they threatened the Christians and ordered them to leave their homes in the next three days, while others set fire to whatever they found in their path. Now Hitté no longer has any Christians and any catechumens.” He also made an observation that has been made of militants in Nigeria: “Weapons like these [those used by the Muslim invaders] are not made in Burkina Faso. We know that the arms are supplied by international organizations. We are calling for the removal of these weapons, so that peace can return to Burkina Faso…. The situation is critical.”
Egypt: Unknown persons hurled bricks at Marina Sami Rageb, a Christian woman, as she exited her church. The 21-year-old medical student’s skull was fractured and she suffered hemorrhage from the assault. Little else is known about the incident or assailant(s). According to the report, “This type of incident, unfortunately, is common place in Egypt. Christian women are not religiously compelled to cover their hair, but are constantly pressured to do so by their Muslim peers. Uncovered women are frequently targeted for harassment, and even attacks. This underlying threat greatly impacts their ability to walk freely in Egypt and to choose their clothing preference.” One woman comments that “In Egypt, there are a lot of security threats in the streets. But I always avoid walking in the radical Muslim districts or areas, just preferring the main streets.” “I always wear long clothes,” explained another Christian woman. “In the streets, I always avoided dealing with the extremists or the radical Muslims.”
Pakistan: On September 16, Muhammad Ramiz and four other Muslim men, kidnapped a 14-year-old Christian girl, Samra Bibi, from her home while her family was away, “in what is but the latest in a long series of kidnappings and forced conversions of underaged minority girls, often obtained under threat and after sexual violence,” the report adds. Samra was subsequently forced into Islam and forced to marry her abductor. Her family rushed to the local police station on learning what happened. Police refused to open a case and instead mocked and insulted the distraught family. After two days of continued pleadings from the family and local Christian leaders, police arrested Muhammad—only to release him an hour later, in part due to pressure from Islamic clerics. According to Samra’s father, “Muhammad Ramiz had long set his sights on Christian girls and teased them. When they told him to stop, he used abusive language against them. When we were not at home, he abducted our underage girl. About ten days have passed and no one has been arrested.” Discussing this and other like incidents, a human rights activist said, “According to the law, no minor girl can be converted to any other religion but here no one has courage to challenge the radicals who are committing such crimes.” “Sometimes courts seem to be more supportive of perpetrators,” another family representative said. “For example, in Samra’s case, the girl is 14, a juvenile who cannot be married; yet police deliberately wrote in their report that she is between 15 and 16 years. We will also challenge this aspect during the trial.”
Attacks on and Hostility for
Muslim Converts to Christianity
United Kingdom: Around mid-September,
police announced that
they would be taking no action against a Muslim man who had earlier threatened
to sodomize any Muslim who dares convert to Christianity. Zaheer Hussain,
41, made a video, which
subsequently went viral, while chatting with a laughing companion.
Speaking to the camera, Hussain said:Bro, listen… any motherf**er wants to convert to f**king Christianity, we’re both gonna f**k you up the a**, you under-f**king-stand? … We’re gonna f**ck you up the a** [moves his pelvis in a sexual act]…. Why you f**king converting for, you motherf**kers? Huh? Why you f**cking — why would you want to become Christian? You f**king baptizing sh*t motherf**kers. Ah [mocking sound] “in the Lord of Jesus”…
The above was spoken in English, of a sort, though extended portions of his tirade were in a foreign (likely Pakistani) language. “It frightens me now to identify myself as a Christian to someone that I don’t know,” said the Christian woman from Preston who reported Hussain to police; “[it’s] sad that I have to hide my religion… His threats to sexually assault those who convert to Christianity is the heart of hate speech…. I’m genuinely concerned for the welfare of the public who may not be aware of his extreme views.” Regardless, and despite the UK’s anti-hate-speech laws, police took no action, even though, as one report notes:
Hussain’s generous treatment by the authorities contrasts sharply with that meted out to Scottish comedian Markus Meechan … who was arrested, charged, and convicted in a trial without a jury for causing gross offence with a viral video in which he trained his girlfriend’s pug dog to imitate the “least cute thing that I could think of, which is a Nazi.”
Uganda: After the Muslim-in-laws of a widowed mother learned that she had converted to Christianity, they attacked her and her children, and drove them away from their home. 54-year-old Lezia Nakayiza’s problems began when her 8-year-old “told one of the relatives of the wonderful choir at church, and that we have been attending the church since March. This was the beginning of our persecution,” she said. It was not long before a “Christian neighbor informed me that the family was planning to attack us.” Soon thereafter, and “by the light from moonlight, I peeped through the window and saw many people approaching our house with sticks and other weapons with loud noise from the animals’ shed.” She heard them shouting, “Away with this infidel!” Nakayiza and her children managed to escape from the backdoor. Afterwards, “We walked on foot for two hours and arrived at the church compound around 11 p.m., and we were received by the pastor.” On the following day, the pastor learned of the “huge destruction” her deceased husband’s brothers visited on her home, including “five cows and six sheep killed, iron sheets pulled down, windows and doors destroyed…. The family has to be relocated to another place,” the pastor added. “Life for them is so hard. The children are out of school. They are very fearful of their lives. Even the church is at risk from the relatives who are radical Muslims. Our church is still too small to support the family.” Last reported, Nakayiza was offering to wash people’s clothes and/or work their land to earn enough for the basic necessities of her children, four of which are aged 15, 13, 11, and 8. “What we are going through at the moment is almost unbearable,” she said.
Iran: The Islamic republic denied two sons (17 and 15) of an imprisoned Christian pastor their high school diplomas, until such time that they complete Islamic education first. Their father, Yousef Nadarkhani, made headlines in 2009, when he was first arrested for protesting Iran’s educational requirement that all students study the Koran. The government responded by arresting him, a convert to Christianity, and charging him with the death penalty for apostasy. Due to international pressure, he was released in 2012—only to be arrested again in 2016. He is currently serving a 10 year sentence.
Contempt for Churches and
Crosses
Turkey: “A local municipality in Trabzon
(northern Turkey) has ruled that architectural elements of houses which resemble
crosses will not be tolerated,” says a report:This decision follows an investigation which opened last December following complaints that the balconies of certain villas in the village resembled crosses. Photos show that houses had two levels and a cross shape divided the houses into four quadrants. Multiple complaints from primarily local Arab families led the houses to be destroyed on the basis of their architecture incorporating the cross…. [T]he situation is not unusual. In other locations, such as Gaziantep and Ankara, buildings have been renovated so that the cross shaped architecture is no longer visible.
Separately, on September 18, a hooded man approached and threatened the Church of St. Paul in Antalya, Turkey. The incident occurred as representatives from three churches were meeting together, in part to prepare for celebrations of the 20th anniversary of their cultural center’s founding. According to the report,
The man became verbally abusive, and made threats of physical attacks. The identity of the man is unknown, and he was careful to keep his face hidden from security cameras. … The man was shouting that he would take great pleasure in destroying the Christians, as he viewed them as a type of parasitism on Turkey. Police are investigating the incident. Hate speech is one of the primary challenges facing Turkish Christians, who are often viewed as traitors to their country since they have left Islam. While violent persecution attacks are rare, the increase of hate speech throughout Turkey does cause alarm of what it may foreshadow in the future.
A separate study published in Armenian in September found that there were a total of 6,517 incidents of hate speech in Turkish media in 2018. The two peoples most targeted were Jews and Armenians, followed by Syrians, Greeks, and other Christian groups.
Iran: The government removed tax exemption status from all non-Muslim institutions. According to one report,
The Tehran City Council will no longer consider churches and synagogues as eligible for tax exemption… Before this decision, these non-Islamic institutions were eligible for tax exemption so long as they were purely religious in nature. The city’s decision has been heavily criticized by Assyrian [Christian] parliamentarians… Iran’s constitution recognizes the freedom of religious practice only for those who can prove that their families belonged to certain non-Muslim faiths prior to the 1979 revolution. These [sic] means that, technically, Assyrian and Armenian Christians should have some (albeit limited) freedom of religious expression. The reality, however, is that Iran does not follow its own laws. All Christian groups, as well as other religious minorities, face heavy persecution from the authorities.
Algeria: Authorities shut down two more church buildings. On September 24, eight police officers arrived at the Church of Boghni, and sealed off the Protestant church’s doors and windows. “I was surprised when one of the police officers contacted me to meet them at the site where our church is,” Pastor Chergui explained. “I had not received any notice; they went straight to proceed with the closure by sealing. They could have warned us before; why didn’t they?” The building had served two separate churches—Pastor Chergui’s congregation of 190 members, and another Protestant church of nearly 200 members from a neighboring village. Police left a note explaining that they closed down the building because it was being “illegally used … to celebrate non-Muslim worship.” A separate report discussing this same closure elaborates on the law being cited:
Since November 2017, the government has been engaged in a systematic campaign against Christians. EPA-affiliated churches [the Protestant Church of Algeria] have been challenged to prove that they have licenses according to the requirement of a 2006 ordinance regulating non-Muslim worship. These regulations stipulate that all places of non-Muslim worship must be licenced. However, the government has yet to issue any licence for a church buildings under this ordinance, ignoring applications from churches to regularise their status in accordance with the ordinance.
This closure raises the number of sealed church buildings affiliated with the EPA, to eight. Another four church groups have been ordered to cease all activities. In at least two cases, authorities have pressured the landlords renting to churches to deny Christians access to the premises.
Separately, on September 26—just two days after the closure of the Church of Boghni—authorities sealed off another church which had served 70, mostly elderly, people; it also functioned as a Bible school. “They told us that they are giving us time to clear useful objects out before they come back to seal it,” church leader Ali Zerdoud said the day before. “I can only say one thing: This is an injustice.”
General Discrimination against
Christians
Egypt: Coptic Solidarity, a human rights
group, took several initiatives in
September—particularly by contacting the
Fédération Internationale de Football Association, better known as “FIFA”—to
draw attention to the fact that Christian soccer players in Egypt are regularly
discriminated against. Although Christians are about 10 percent of
Egypt’s population, not a single player on the national and reserves teams is a
Christian, Coptic Solidarity noted in
a September 17 letter sent to the Normalization Committee of the Egyptian
Football Association, a portion of which follows:CS has received dozens of reports of discrimination from Coptic footballers in Egypt, indicating systematic discrimination against them based solely on faith, which prevents them from reaching the highest levels of competition. In response, CS published a report titled Discrimination Against Copts in Egyptian Sport Clubs, which we also submitted to FIFA by email and via the online complaints mechanism.
The report contains an overview of the widespread discrimination against Copts in football including ample sources and testimonies by moderate Muslims corroborating reality of the ongoing discrimination. It also includes a sampling of 25 of the cases reported to Coptic Solidarity by Coptic footballers.
The Egyptian Olympic Mission to Brazil in 2016 was completely devoid of Copts, and the same applies to the Egyptian national team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Not a single Copt can be found on either the main team or the reserve. There are currently 540 players in the top-flight soccer clubs in Egypt, and that number includes only one Coptic footballer.
Canada: The government’s immigration department sought to deport a refugee family—a mother and three children—that had fled their native country of Nigeria after they were attacked and threatened with death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. “They ran because her mother wrote her [daughter] a letter saying that she is very disappointed that she is a Christian, but she must run because her father wants to kill [her] to become higher in the organization,” a family spokesperson said. “They face a ‘fatwa’ (a pronouncement of death) against them for converting to Christianity from Islam. They believe they face certain death if they are returned to Nigeria. They are quite fearful.” According to the report, “Ironically, both Hephzibah and Rejoice [two of the children, 14 and 10 respectively] were featured in a CBC News photograph with Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau, with an accompanying caption saying they were his supporters. In reality, they and a spokesperson for the family had delivered a plea to Trudeau in person when he appeared in Niagara-on-the-Lake last month.”
Supporters of the family said the government was not taking the time to establish the family’s humanitarian status or perform a proper risk assessment. “They’re trying to boot [them] out of the country before then.” The family’s current status is unclear.
Note: Click here for previous monthly reports of Muslim Persecution of Christians, going back to July 2011.
“They Asked Him to Deny
Christ”
Muslim persecution of
Christians during August, 2019, alone.
November 1, 2019
Raymond Ibrahim
This report
was first published by Gatestone Institute. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz
Freedom Center.
The following are some of the
abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of August,
2019, thematically categorized:
Hate for and Violence against Christians
Cameroon: Militant Muslims reportedly connected with the Nigerian based
Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, “reached new heights” of
depravity, according to a report: after devastating the Christian village of
Kalagari in a raid, they kidnapped and fled with eight women. Some of the
women were later released—but only after having their ears cut off (image here). The report adds that Boko Haram
“has terrorised Christian communities in Nigeria for the last decade and has
now splintered and spread its violent ideology into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.”
Nigeria: On August 29, Chuck Holton, a CBN News reporter, aired a segment on his visit with
Christian refugees who had fled Boko Haram’s incursions into their
villages. Among the stories of death and devastation, the
following, spoken by a young man, stood
out:
“On 29 September 2014 was the
day that they attacked my village. Around ten I had a call that they have
killed my dad. They asked him to deny Christ and when he refused they cut off
his right hand. Then he refused [again], they cut to the elbow. In which he
refused, before they shot him in the forehead, the neck, and chest.” “Many of
the 1,500 Christians living in this camp have similar stories,” adds Holton.
Indonesia: A Muslim preacher in a Christian majority region referred to the
Christian cross as “an element of the devil,” prompting
outrage among Christians and some moderates. Sheikh Abdul Somad
made the comment during a videotaped sermon when he was asked why Muslims “felt
a chill whenever they saw a crucifix.” “Because of Satan! Was
his response: “There’s an evil jinn in
every crucifix that wants to convert people into Christianity.”
Christians and moderates condemned his words. Even so, “I can’t imagine
the reaction if it had been another preacher of a different religion insulting
an Islamic symbol,” observed one moderate. “There would have been a tsunami of
protests, with the perpetrator severely punished.” Sheikh Somad responded by releasing another
video; his excuse was that he was unaware that non-Muslims might hear his
words: “The Quran reciting session was held in a closed mosque, not at a
stadium, a football field, nor aired on television,” he explained. “It was for Muslims
internally. I was answering a question about statues and the position of the
Prophet Isa (Jesus) relative to Muslims.”
Burkina Faso: Although most mainstream media downplay the religious element in
Muslim on Christian violence in Africa, attacks on the Christians of Burkina
Faso have become so flagrantly based on religion that the Washington Post published
a report on August 21 titled, “Islamist militants are targeting Christians in Burkina Faso.” Its author, Danielle Paquette, explained that “A
spreading Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful
country known for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance
into a hotbed of extremism.” She noted that the jihadis have been
checking people’s necks for Christian symbols, killing anyone wearing a
crucifix or carrying any other Christian image. In a separate report discussing several deadly
attacks on Christians and their churches, Bishop Dabiré said, “If this continues without
anyone intervening, the result will be the elimination of the Christian
presence in this area and — perhaps in the future —in the entire country.
Egypt: Authorities reinstated Sheikh Yasser
Burhami, a notoriously “radical” cleric and hate preacher, to the pulpit (minbar) despite strong
opposition. Burhami had previously issued numerous fatwas—edicts based on
Islamic scriptures—that demand hate and hostility for non-Muslims, most
specifically the nation’s largest and most visible minority, the Christian
Copts, whom Burhami has referred to as “a criminal and infidel minority,” and has invoked “Allah’s curse” on
them. He once went so far as to say that, although a Muslim man is
permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women (ahl al-kitab), he must make sure he
still hates them in his heart—and show them this
hate—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his
Islam. Burhami has also stated that churches—which he
refers to as “places of polytheism (shirk)
and houses of infidelity (kufr)”—must
never be built in Egypt. He issued a separate fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi
and bus drivers from transporting Christian clergymen to their churches, an act
he depicted as being “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor
bar.” Burhami’s fatwas also include calling for the persecution of apostates, permitting
Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rape,
permitting “marriage” to 12-year-old
girls, and banning Mother’s Day.
In a video, Dr. Naguib Ghobrial, a Coptic
activist, politician, and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights
Organization—which over the years has lodged 22 separate complaints against
Burhami—repeatedly questioned Egypt’s leading religious authorities’ decision
to reinstate the hate preaching sheikh:
“Is what Burhami teaches truly
what Islam teaches—is that why no one has done anything to him [in regards to
the 22 complaints lodged against him]? Truly I’m shocked! Please
answer Sheikh of Al Azhar; please answer Grand Mufti: are the things Burhami
teaches what Islam teaches? Is this why none of you oppose him or joined
us when we lodged complaints against him?… Why are you so silent? Amazing!”
The Slaughter of Christians
Pakistan: “A ten year old Christian child who chose to work in a dangerous
scrap factory so he could support his mother who had to fend for a family of
two boys and a drug-addict husband, was raped and tortured before being killed
by his Muslim employers,” according to a report (with photos).
Badil, 10, worked at the men’s factory in order to support his impoverished
mother, Sharifa Bibi:
“I worked hard for many hours
just for the sake of my two sons so that they would not have to suffer as I
have suffered without education. My son Badil couldn’t bear to see the
struggle of his mother and insisted on working to help the family—despite my
insistence that he avoid work till he was older. Badil was such a
responsible son. Daily before leaving for work he asked me what should
bring in the evening from his wages. I insisted that he kept his money
for himself, but he brought groceries like sugar, rice, flour, ghee daily.”
Badil had to walk long
distances and work for many hours a day to earn the equivalent of one dollar a
day. Soon his employer began to cheat him on his wages. His mother
insisted that he quit, but the boy persevered; at one point he took his younger
brother, 9, with him to help. When the employers refused to pay his
brother anything for his contribution, Badil finally decided to quit—which
angered his Muslim employer. His younger brother recalls:
“As Mr Akram heard this he ran
to hit Badil but Badil ran from the shop and Akram gave chase. However, A
friend of Akram was standing nearby on his motorcycle and told Akram to sit
behind him, then both men chased Badil till they caught up with him. Akram then
got off the motorcycle and dragged Badil back to the store. They took
Badil inside the store which is full of scrap. For half an hour I was completely
unaware of what was happening with Badil inside. Eventually both men came
outside and pretended as if nothing had happened inside. I thought my
brother had also left the store from another exit so I went to look for
him. I searched vigorously for 15 minutes and then saw my mother
[approaching to walk the boys home], so I rushed to her to tell her what had
happened.”
Sharifa and her younger son
searched frantically for Badil and finally found him collapsed on the ground
near their home. They rushed to him, thinking he was exhausted from the
day’s work and subsequent thrashing, but quickly realized that he was barely
breathing: “At this point the whole situation was too much to bear for Sharifa
who began to scream and wail hysterically,” the report notes. Badil was
taken to a hospital where, seven hours later, the boy was pronounced dead. His
brother “has been traumatised following his brother’s death and hasn’t left his
house since and often screams in terror thinking the men responsible will take
him too.”
Cameroon: A Bible translator “was butchered to death on Sunday morning
[August 25] during an overnight attack while his wife’s arm was cut off,”
according to a report: “Bible translator Angus
Abraham Fung was among seven people said to have been killed during an attack
carried out by suspected Fulani herdsmen sometime during the early hours of
Sunday morning in the town of Wum, according to Efi Tembon, who leads a
ministry called Oasis Network for Community Transformation.” Fulani
herdsmen are Muslim and the chief persecutors of Christian farmers in
Nigeria. “They went into houses and pulled out the people,” Tembon explained: “They attacked in the
night and nobody was expecting. They just went into the home, pulled them out
and slaughtered them.” Fung’s wife, Eveline Fung, who had her arm hacked
off was last reported as receiving a blood transfusion at a local hospital.
Attacks against Apostates and Evangelists
Iran: Authorities sentenced a 65-year-old woman,
a Muslim convert to Christianity, to one year in prison, on the charge that she
was “acting against national security” and engaging in “propaganda against the
system.” According to the report, “The hearing was owing to her
arrest shortly before Christmas when three agents from Iranian intelligence
raided her home and took Mahrokh to intelligence offices where she endured ten
days of intensive interrogation before she was released after submitting bail
of 30 million Toman (US$2,500).” Friends of the woman said that “the judge was very
rude and tried to humiliate Mahrokh after she disagreed with him.”
Separately, a Kurdish
bookseller in Bokan, Western Azarbaijan province, was arrested for selling
Bibles. According to the August 27 report, “Mostafa Rahimi was arrested
on 11 June on charge of selling bible[s] in his bookstore, and he was released
later on bail until the court issued his sentence. Hengaw Organization for
Human Rights has learned that Rahimi is sentenced to 3 months and 1 day
imprisonment. Later in mid-August he was arrested again, and he is currently
at the central prison of Bokan.” Another report elaborates: “Iran’s government is
officially Islamic, and authorities actively restrict access to Bibles and
other Christian literature. Sharing one’s faith is categorized as a criminal
offense, usually of the national security nature. The authorities often
pressure Christians so extensively, routinely violating their human rights,
that they are given no choice but to escape their country.”
Somaliland: An August 16 report shares the experiences a
married Muslim woman, 32, underwent after her husband discovered a Bible in her
possession.
“I told my husband that I found
the Bible in Nairobi and wanted to read it,” the woman responded. “He just
pronounced the word talaq [Arabic for divorce] to me. I knew that our marriage
had just been rendered null and void because I joined Christianity, so without
wasting time I left the homestead…. There and then he took our two
daughters [ages 4 and 7] away from me and divorced me. He gave me a stern
warning that I should not come close to the children, and that if I do, he will
take the Bible to the Islamic court and I will be killed by stoning for
becoming an apostate.”
Her former husband proceeded to
expose the clandestine Christian to her Muslim family. “My brothers beat me
mercilessly with sticks as well as denying me food,” she said. “I feared to report the case
to the police or the local administration, because they will charge me with a
criminal offense of apostasy in accordance with the sharia.” She has
since relocated to an undisclosed location: “God has spared my life, and my
fellow underground Christians in other regions of Somalia have received me and
shared the little they have, but I am very traumatized.” According to the report,
“Somalia’s constitution
establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any
other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that
laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in
application for non-Muslims. Somalia is ranked 3rd on Christian support
group Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult
to be a Christian.”
Pakistan: After opening a summer education program for the youth, a
Christian family was “terrorized” and forced to shut down
on the accusation that they were clandestinely trying to convert Muslim
children to Christianity. According to a family member:
“We started a project for interfaith harmony and education teaching
marginalized children from different faiths about a year ago. In June, we
started a summer camp that provided a free program for children that have
dropped out of school. The design of this program was to provide guidance for
these children to become civilized and tolerant.” Two weeks into the
summer program, a group of men, two of whom were armed, stormed into the
academy, did violence to the property and harassed the children, and beat one
of the instructors: “They threatened us with consequences if the academy was
not shut down. They alleged that we were promoting Christianity and were
doing Christian evangelism. For safety and security, we had no other
choice but to obey the extremists and shutdown the academy…. I don’t want
to lose my son or any family member. This terrorizing incident has already put
us into trauma.”
In a separate incident in
Pakistan, around 4 a.m. of August 2, seven Muslim men stormed into a parish house, where they tied up and savagely beat
two young priests, Fr. Anthony Abraz and Fr. Shahid Boota, all while
they “humiliated and abused them for preaching the Gospel in a
Muslim-majority neighborhood.” The invaders also vandalized the
building—including by breaking windows, bookshelves, and cupboards—and
desecrated Christian objects, including Bibles, Christian literature, and
icons. Afterwards, “We were told we will have to face consequences if this
house is not vacated,” Fr. Abraz reported. “They said, ‘We don’t want a Christian center near the mosque.’”
Finally, increasing numbers of
Christian girls continue to be targeted for kidnapping, rape, and/or forced
conversion in Pakistan. According to one report,
“In August, Yasmeen Ashraf, age
15, and Muqadas Tufail, age 14, were kidnapped and raped by three men in Kasur.
The pair of Christian girls were taken when they were on their way to work as
domestic workers. Also in August, another young Christian girl, named
Kanwal, was kidnapped, raped, and forcefully converted to Islam by a group of
Muslim men and a cleric in Lala Musa, located in the Gujart District. After
reuniting her family, Kanwal shared that she had been beaten, sexually
assaulted, and threatened with the deaths of her brothers if she refused to
convert to Islam.”
In the previous month of July,
at least three similar cases occurred.
“Oppression exists in different layers for Christian girls in Pakistan. They
are suffering on the bases of gender, religion, and class. It has been
documented that young Christian girls face higher levels of sexual harassment
and are persecuted for their Christian faith,” Nabila Feroz Bhatti, a human
rights defender in Lahore, said in response to the
aforementioned incidents. Similarly, the Pontifical charity, Aid to the
Church in Need, announced in August that it
“is sounding the alarm on the plight of young Christian women, and even
teenagers, in Pakistan who are forced to convert to Islam.” “Every year
at least a thousand girls are kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam,
even forced to marry their tormentors,” elaborated Tabassum Yousaf, a
local Catholic lawyer.
Meanwhile, those who try to
protect Christian girls are punished. On August 16, Maskeen Khan and two
other Muslim men attacked the home of Bahadur
Masih, a Christian. While holding a knife, Khan and his partners tried to
rape Masih’s daughter, Rachel, but were prevented by the rudely awoken family
that immediately and desperately responded. “Since the Christian family
was defending themselves, Khan also got some injuries,” Ahsan Masih Sindhu, a
local Christian political leader, reported. “The family handed Khan
over to police and he got medical treatment. However, he later died in police
custody.” Police arrested and charged four members of the family with
murder, even though they were in their own home protecting their daughter from
violent intruders. Other members of the family have gone into hiding due
to threats from the dead would-be rapist’s relatives. “We are sad about
the death of Khan, however, the Christian family did have the right to defend,”
Sindhu explained. “The police must conduct
a fair investigation into this incident.” Instead, police are denying the
family the “right to defend” itself.
Attacks on Churches
Algeria: On August 6, police barged into a church during
worship service, evacuated reluctant worshippers, and sealed the church
building off. “I am deeply saddened by so much injustice – it breaks my
heart,” Messaoud Takilt, the pastor said. “This is not surprising
since other Christian places of worship have been closed and sealed as was the
case today. But anyway, we will continue to celebrate our services outside
while the Lord gives us grace for a final solution.” When police denied,
with a veiled threat, his request to at least let the worship service
conclude, “The assembly finally yielded and agreed to leave the premises,
but with much pain. Some went out with eyes full of tears. ” Police
proceeded to empty the premises of all furniture and sealed off every door
before the distressed pastor (picture here). Responding to this
latest church closure the World Evangelical Alliance issued a statement on August 12 calling
on Algeria to cease closing and instead reopen churches. A portion follows:
“We deeply regret that two
additional churches were forcibly closed by administrative decisions, in May
and in August 2019 in the city of Boudjima, northeast of Tizi-Ouzou in Kabylie
Region. This brings the number of forcibly closed churches to 6,
including one house church…. Many more churches are threatened with closure,
amid denial of formal registration and recognition by authorities.”
Indonesia: Muslim protestors compelled local authorities to
revoke a permit for and cease construction of a Baptist church in Central
Java. On August 1, residents went to the partially constructed church and
padlocked its fence. A meeting was later held between the church, local
residents, authorities, and others. Although the pastor displayed the
governmentally issued permit to build a church, Muslim residents insisted that
it was wrongly given, leading to a standstill in negotiations.
In the previous month, July, two other churches were shut
down in Indonesia following local protests.
Turkey: St. Theodoros Trion, an abandoned, historic church—the original
Greek congregation of which was purged by the Ottoman Empire—was vandalized,
including with genocidal slogans. According to the report,
“The vandals sprayed hate
speech across the church’s walls. The vandalism was largely a reference to the
secularism that Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, had forced into the
governmental structure…. Just a few years ago, the same church was targeted
by Islamist vandals who wrote slogans such as ‘the priest is gone, he went to
the mosque’ — a reference to the country’s genocide and the forced conversions
which occurred during this time. There are no Christians attending this church.
All of the congregants were victims of the genocide. They faced death,
deportation, and forced conversions. Those few who survived have since fled the
country. The church currently stands as a historic monument to the Christianity
that once was commonplace in the region.”
Egypt: A Christian toddler was the latest, if inadvertent, victim of
Egypt’s draconian restrictions on churches. According to an
August 21 report, Youssed Ebid, a 4-year-old
Christian boy (photo), was struck by a tractor
while waiting outdoors for a bus to take him to church in another
village. His own village is currently denied one, forcing its Christian
residents to travel long distances to attend church. Many Christians in
Egypt are in the same situation, and accidents during their long treks are not
uncommon.
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