Turkey threatens veto as Finland, Sweden to join NATO against Russia
Amid the US-led war against Russia in Ukraine, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has indicated his concerns and opposition to moves by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. For a new country to join NATO, all 30 member states must be unanimous in supporting it.
On Friday, Erdoğan said: “We are following developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but we don’t hold positive views.” Referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the Turkish state bans as terrorist, he added, “the Scandinavian countries, unfortunately, are almost like guesthouses for terrorist organizations. PKK, DHKP-C are nested in the Netherlands and Sweden. I go further; they also take part in the parliaments there.”
Erdoğan also referred to rising tensions in the Aegean and Mediterranean with French-backed Greece: “The [Turkish] governments before us made a mistake regarding over Greece’s [return] to NATO. You know the attitude that Greece has taken towards Turkey by backing NATO, so we do not want to commit a second mistake in this regard.” He was referring to the Turkish military junta’s approval of Greece’s return to the alliance’s military wing after the NATO-backed coup in 1980 in Turkey.
Erdoğan maintained this stance yesterday. Regarding today’s visit of the Finnish and Swedish delegations to Turkey, he said: “They will come to Turkey on Monday. Will they come to persuade us?” He continued, “First of all, we would not say ‘yes’ to those who imposed sanctions on Turkey to join NATO, a security organization, during this process.”
US officials have indicated they are confident that Erdoğan will ultimately capitulate to pressure from the NATO imperialist powers to admit Sweden and Finland into NATO.
“If that’s what they [Finland and Sweden] choose to do, I’m very confident that we will reach consensus on that,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters after a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Berlin on Sunday. He said, “I don’t want to characterise the specific conversation that we had either with the [Turkish] foreign minister or within the NATO sessions themselves, but I can say this much: I heard almost across the board, very strong support (for Sweden, Finland) joining the alliance.”
The Finnish and Swedish governments refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to justify joining NATO and abandoning their long-standing policies of official neutrality. This provocative move, essentially planned in Washington, Berlin and London, forms part of decades of NATO expansion, which provoked Russia into its reactionary invasion of Ukraine. The entire Scandinavian region is to be transformed into a potential war zone in a conflict with Russia.
All these attempts raise the danger of the Ukraine war escalating into a direct military conflict between Russia and NATO and a nuclear world war. However, the reaction of Erdoğan, who is the head of a country that has NATO’s second largest army and has been supporting the NATO expansion against Russia for decades, has nothing to do with principled opposition to NATO or war.
Ankara supports NATO’s Ukraine policy, including the far-right coup NATO organized in Kiev in 2014, and supplies critical Bayraktar TB2 armed drones to the Ukrainian army.
However, Ankara does not participate in the economic embargoes and sanctions against Russia. Moreover, it criticizes the policies of NATO powers, especially the US and Britain, to continue or even expand the war in order to weaken Russia.
There is mounting concern in Turkish ruling circles at the scope of NATO’s war on Russia. NATO officials have made clear they intend to forcibly break up Russia—notably seizing Crimea, which Russia counts as its sovereign territory—and topple President Vladimir Putin. The Turkish ruling elite is no doubt deeply concerned at the prospect of NATO-Russian war and of a bloody disintegration of Russia, just north of Turkey.
Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu warned: “Until the NATO meeting, we thought the war would not last long. However, after the NATO meeting, an opinion emerged. There are countries that want this war to continue. Their aim is to push Russia back.”
Turkey has broad military-economic ties with Russia. It purchased S-400 air defense systems from Russia despite US objections, and obtains nearly one-third of its natural gas directly from Russia via pipelines. Russia is currently still building the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Mersin. Turkey also imports most of its wheat from Russia. Moreover, Russian tourists are critical for Turkey’s hospitality industry to provide much-needed foreign exchange reserves.
While fearing the war’s consequences for Turkey, the Turkish bourgeoisie also sees US moves to escalate the war drive as an opportunity to advance its regional interests and bargain with the major imperialist powers. “We did not close the door for Sweden and Finland to join NATO,” Erdoğan’s spokesperson İbrahim Kalın commented, revealing Ankara’s pragmatist bargaining approach.
However, a Turkish veto of Sweden and Finland joining NATO would pose a serious challenge to the US-led imperialist war drive against Russia, and could place Erdoğan once again in the gunsights of Washington and Berlin. The two leading NATO powers backed a failed 2016 coup attempt, plotted by officers who tried to assassinate Erdoğan during the coup.
Ankara wants its NATO allies to stop supporting the Kurdish nationalist People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria. Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu said, “The reason for Turkey’s stance is quite clear. NATO is not a union, not an organisation. NATO is an alliance. What does this require? It is not just a matter of security; it requires shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity. Especially when there is a threat to security in any area. Unfortunately, the countries we mentioned openly support PKK-YPG terrorist organizations.”
Turkey is in conflict with the US on this issue. While Washington supports the YPG as a proxy force in its ongoing occupation in northern Syria against President Bashar Assad’s government, Turkey sees the YPG as a terrorist organization and part of the PKK. The Turkish ruling class considers it of strategic importance to prevent the emergence of any Kurdish state led by the YPG on its borders. For this, Ankara has repeatedly invaded Syria since 2016, occupying parts of the country.
However, NATO’s ongoing regime-change war in Syria which began in 2011 threatens increasingly to bring Turkey into conflict with Iran, another country targeted by Washington. Turkey recently held talks with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the main powers in Washington’s anti-Iran axis, while Syrian President Assad held talks with the UAE and Iran.
Unconfirmed reports claim that Russia has begun to reduce its presence in Syria due to the Ukraine war, and Iranian-backed forces have settled in these regions. This indicates a growing risk of direct confrontation between Iran-backed militias, which Israel regularly targets in Syria, and Turkish armed forces in the country.
Amid all these events, there is an upsurge of the international class struggle amid a surge in food prices, which have risen with the Ukraine war and NATO sanctions against Russia.
Mass protests erupted in Iran last week after the government announced an end to subsidies on basic foodstuffs. In Turkey, where high costs of living have become unbearable for millions of workers’ families, 2022 started with a wildcat strikes wave. This emerging class struggle points to the only social force that can put an end to the danger of world war: the international working class, fighting based on an internationalist and socialist program.
How the Palestinians Pay Terrorists as Biden Pumps Millions of Aid Dollars Into Their Government
The Palestinian Authority allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families even as the Biden administration pumps U.S. taxpayer funds into the Palestinian government, according to a non-public State Department report issued to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The report, published on May 10, details how the Palestinian government runs afoul of a U.S. law that bars it from receiving American aid dollars until these terror payments, known as the "pay-to-slay program," are stopped. The PA in 2019, the most recent reporting period available, allocated over $150 million to convicted terrorists. Another $191 million was paid to the families of terrorists who were "martyred" while conducting attacks against Israelis and Americans. There is no sign these payments will end, with Palestinian leaders voicing support on the international stage for the program.
"The PA has not terminated payments for acts of terrorism against Israeli and U.S. citizens to any individual, after being fairly tried, who has been imprisoned for such acts of terrorism and to any individual who died committing such acts of terrorism, including to a family member of such individuals," the State Department concluded. The PA makes these payments in cash as part of an effort to obfuscate its actions and stop the international community from holding it accountable for awarding terrorists and their families, according to the State Department's findings.
The report comes as the Biden administration pushes to increase U.S. aid dollars to the PA, which were terminated during the Trump administration as a result of the "pay-to-slay" program. More than $360 million in U.S. funding was given to the PA in 2021, potentially in violation of a bipartisan law known as the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits the American government from giving the Palestinians aid as long as they pay terrorists. The Biden administration maintains that the aid programs do not violate the law, though it is unclear what safeguards have been put on the funding to ensure it is not used to pay terrorists and their families. The State Department confirmed that no "economic support funds" were withheld as a result of restrictions in the Taylor Force Act.
"The Biden administration is strongly opposed to the prisoner payment system and has consistently engaged the Palestinian Authority to end this practice," a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon. The U.S. Agency for International Development's "assistance in the West Bank and Gaza is implemented consistent with U.S. law."
Republicans in Congress disagree with this assessment. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), for example, says the Biden administration cannot guarantee that the PA is not using U.S. funds as part of its terror financing program. Since the PA moved to a cash system, it is even harder to track which tranches of money are being used to fund "pay to slay."
"The Biden administration is ideologically committed to elevating the Palestinian government and pouring money into Palestinian territories," Cruz told the Free Beacon. "They've been doing this while they clearly knew that the same Palestinian government was inciting terrorism and using fungible money to reward terrorism against Israelis and Americans. It's disgraceful and unacceptable."
The PA "now makes the payments in cash and known recipients are unable to deposit the funds in bank accounts in the West Bank and Gaza" due to Israeli laws that bar financial institutions from supporting the program, according to the State Department's findings.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh endorse the "pay-to-slay" program and say they will not give in to the international community's pressure to end it. Both officials "reaffirmed the PA's commitment to continuing the payments for prisoners, including those convicted of acts of terrorism," according to the report.
In March 2021, for instance, Shtayyeh "publicly pledged his commitment to continue financial allowances to Palestinian prisoners and ‘martyrs' even if Israel continues to deduct these amounts from the PA's tax revenues," the report notes.
Abbas in a September speech before the United Nations pledged his support to terrorists and their families: "Why should we have to clarify and justify providing assistance to families of prisoners and ‘martyrs,' who are the victims of the occupation and its oppressive policies? We cannot abandon our people and we will continue striving to free all our prisoners."
The State Department also concluded that the Palestinian government still teaches violence to its children as part of official school curriculums. While portions of this agenda have been reformed, "some incitement to and glorification of violence or terrorism still exist in school textbooks." Efforts to reform the PA do not include plans to reduce incitement against Israel.
The State Department told lawmakers in its latest report that the administration "at all levels … continues to privately engage the PA to end this abhorrent practice."
Turkey plans deportation of 1 million Syrian refugees
As a far-right anti-refugee campaign in Turkey has intensified in recent weeks, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has decided to deport 1 million Syrian refugees back to Syria, where NATO’s proxy war for regime change continues to rage.
Speaking via remote connection to a conference in Idlib, the northwest province of Syria occupied by Turkish forces and their Islamist proxies, Erdoğan said: “We are preparing a new project to enable the voluntary return of 1 million Syrian brothers and sisters we have hosted in our country. We will implement this project with the support of domestic and international non-governmental organizations.”
He added, “About 500,000 Syrians have returned to the safe zones created since 2016, when Turkey launched its cross-border operations amid a deepening humanitarian tragedy in Syria.”
The “humanitarian tragedy” Erdoğan speaks of, in fact, is a product of the US-NATO imperialist war, which the Turkish government has supported since 2011, to topple the Russian- and Iranian-backed government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey invaded Syria not to end the humanitarian disaster it had helped create there but to prevent the emergence of a US-backed Kurdish nationalist enclave.
Contrary to Erdoğan’s claims, deportation would not be “voluntarily” chosen but imposed on refugees, due to the far-right anti-refugee campaign and dirty deals with the European Union. The vast majority of refugees understandably do not want to return to Syria, where the war still continues. Refugees who want to cross into Europe are blocked at the borders with Greece and Bulgaria and sent back to Turkey.
They do not even have a legal status of “refugees” in Turkey. They live in misery, deprived of basic rights, subjected to uncontrolled exploitation and targeted by the far right. The World Socialist Web Site rejects this campaign and emphasizes that it is essential for the international working class to defend the democratic rights of refugees in struggle against the bourgeoisie. In the case of Turkey, this means full citizenship rights for refugees and making education available for Arab as well as Kurdish people in their mother tongues.
Turkey hosts the highest number of refugees in the world, as a result of over 30 years of US-led imperialist wars across the region since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union. According to a report by the Association for Refugees in Turkey, there are 3.75 million Syrians living in Turkey as of March 24. According to Erdoğan’s statement last December, there are over 5 million refugees in Turkey in total.
The far-right campaign against refugees in Turkey has escalated in recent weeks, with politicians and pundits promoting anti-refugee hashtags on Twitter. Chauvinist comments are increasingly common in the bourgeois and the pseudo-left press.
The entire political and media establishment scapegoats refugees and immigrants in Turkey, and internationally, because the bourgeoisie and the affluent middle class have no progressive response to the growing economic and social crisis. The ruling class strengthens fascistic movements by taking up the old, reactionary weapon of chauvinism to divide the working class and deflect growing social opposition.
The vast majority of Turkey’s population lives with spiraling high inflation, unemployment and deepening poverty, as the pandemic continues and the danger of world war grows. And the ruling class enriches itself at the expense of the health, lives and wages of the workers.
Throughout the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine in which NATO sanctions against Russia disrupted global supply chains, the already unbearable food prices and poverty in Turkey rose even faster. Protests and strikes that broke out in January and February were only the initial expressions of growing social unrest.
Now, establishment parties spread the lie that the cause of all the problems stemming from the capitalist system and bourgeois rule is the refugees. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP), backed by the pseudo-left, criticized Erdoğan’s plan to deport 1 million refugees to Syria from the right. Adopting far-right rhetoric, he said: “Come off it! There are still flows of fugitives coming from the border. We will send the rest in two years, and we are all fed up with your fake projects.”
Right-wing parties like the fascistic Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the main ally of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), as well as the CHP’s partners—the Good Party, DEVA, Future Party and Felicity Party—also call to expel refugees from Turkey.
This bipartisan attack on defenseless refugees, who form an integral part of the working class, is clear proof that the CHP and its pseudo-left allies are no less reactionary and hostile to the working class than the Erdoğan government.
However, the most prominent in the anti-refugee campaign recently has been the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi). Founded by Ümit Özdağ, who left the far-right Good Party, this middle class party brands refugees as Turkey’s main problem and hysterically campaigns for their deportation. It claims that there would be a civil war in Turkey if refugees stay in the country, and it has started to gather far-right circles around it with its furious campaign.
On April 19, Özdağ announced a “Fortress Anatolia” project to send refugees back to their countries. This is a reference to the European Union’s Fortress Europe policy, which aims to prevent refugees from the Middle East and Africa from entering Europe. This policy has already caused thousands of refugees to drown in the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey and Greece to become refugee prisons.
Moreover, a short film named Silent Invasion, broadcast on journalist Hande Karacasu’s YouTube channel on May 3 and which Özdağ personally financed, further escalated the anti-refugee campaign. Karacasu’s fascistic film, full of distortions and lies, quickly moved to the top of the press and social media. Over 3 million saw it in three days on YouTube.
According to the script of the film which seeks to exploit the racial fears of the affluent middle class, Arabs become the majority in Turkey in the year 2043. The Turkish minority is exposed to oppression, discrimination and violence. Most Turkish youth are unemployed, and a small number of them consider themselves lucky as they have jobs. The state administration has passed into Arab hands, with Arabic made an official language. Turkish language and culture are being destroyed.
Shortly after the film was released, the Turkish National Police issued a press release, fearing that the situation would explode out of control. The press release announced that Hande Karacasu and the user of the “Militer Doktrin” Twitter account were detained and legal proceedings initiated against them for manipulation. Karacasu was released the next day.
Such far-right provocations have previously led to killings of refugees and pogrom attempts by far-right elements. Three Syrian refugees were burned to death in Izmir last November, and a far-right mob raided a Syrian neighborhood in Ankara in August.
The events in Doğankent, a district in the southern city of Adana, on May 1 are another serious warning. After a quarrel between Syrian refugees and Turkish citizens broke out, attacks were reportedly carried out on the homes of Syrians, and four people were injured.
The way forward against the growing far-right and anti-refugee campaign is through the struggle for the international socialist unity of the working class, rejecting all forms of chauvinism and nationalism. This means building the Socialist Equality Party as the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the only political tendency worldwide to uncompromisingly oppose the anti-refugee campaign.
France Deports Imam for Quoting Qur’an
Wait a minute. What do they think the rest of them are quoting?
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The French news site Fdesouche reported Tuesday that Ahamada Mmadi, an imam from Comoros who has been deported from France, has no regrets: “I have nothing to regret and nothing to apologize for as long as I have spoken the word of Allah. If I repent, I am no longer a Muslim.” Fair enough, Mmadi, but France’s action in deporting this Muslim cleric is curious. If he was really deported for speaking the word of Allah, what do French authorities think the other imams in the country are teaching?
Mmadi added: “I don’t have to apologise for the moment I spoke the word of Allah….Our sisters live a nightmarish life….and we call it a land of freedom.” Mmadi was claiming that women in France live a “nightmarish life” because they aren’t subject to the restrictions on women’s freedom that Islamic law entails. The good imam was apparently criticizing the status of women in France, as compared to the status of women in states that enforce Islamic law (Sharia), during a sermon at the Saint-Chamond mosque in the Loire department. During that sermon, he quoted a passage from the Qur’an that French authorities thought was unacceptably misogynistic.
According to the Islamic news site 5 Pillars UK, Mmadi and his family were “deported from France after he recited a verse from the Quran and quoted a Hadith which encouraged women to be chaste, stay at home and obey their husbands.” He was accused of making “comments incompatible with the principles and laws of the Republic.”
5 Pillars UK says that Mmadi quoted this passage from the Qur’an: “And stay in your houses. Do not display yourselves with the display of the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and give alms, and obey Allah and his messenger.” (Qur’an 33:33)
The Qur’an has much worse; it even calls for the beating of women that Muslim men even suspect might be contemplating getting out of line: “Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend of their property. So good women are obedient, guarding in secret what Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, give them a warning and banish them to separate beds, and beat them.” (Qur’an 4:34) But it doesn’t seem as if Mmadi even quoted that verse; the other one, calling for women to cover themselves and stay at home, was bad enough in itself for French authorities.
According to 5 Pillars UK, however, Mmadi did go a bit farther: “He also told worshippers at the mosque about an authentic Hadith in which Abu Huraira (ra) reported: ‘The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ‘If a woman prays her five prayers, fasts her month of Ramadan, guards her chastity, and obeys her husband, she will enter Paradise from any gate she wishes.’” This was the basis upon which “French authorities in the Loire region deemed his sermon, which was made at Eid prayers last year, ‘discriminatory.’”
Mmadi was defiant: “I don’t regret anything. These are not my words, they are the words of the Prophet and of God. All I did was repeat what was in the holy books.” Indeed. And so it is extraordinary that French authorities deported him for this. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of other imams in France. Do French authorities think that they don’t read the same Qur’an that contains the passage Mmadi quoted? Do French authorities assume that all other imams in France reject the Qur’an’s exhortations to violence, misogyny, and hatred for unbelievers? Do they not realize that other Muslims besides Mmadi read and believe in the Qur’an as well?
If French authorities think Mmadi is some kind of extremist outlier, they’re in for a rude awakening. They continue to insist that they want to create a new Islam with French characteristics, an Islam that will be compatible with French secularism. Yet the Qur’an also has Allah telling the believers: “This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed my favor to you, and have chosen Islam as the religion for you.” (5:3) If Islam is perfect as it is, any change will only make it worse, not better. That’s why innovation (bid’a) is a serious sin in Islam. Do French officials really think they will be able to create a new, Westernized Islam, shorn of its features that are offensive to contemporary Western sensibilities? They are indeed in for a rude awakening.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 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 book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Islamophobia: The Left Has It Backwards
The left — the progressive, socialist, communist, God-hating, atheistic left — gets just about everything either wrong or backwards, from cancel culture to the 1619 Project to racism to the environment to religion to family matters to abortion and pretty much everything else imaginable. If the left advocates any position on any subject, you're safe betting the rent money that the left got it wrong.
But where leftists go above and beyond the call of duty to put their foot in their mouth is on the subject of so-called Islamophobia.
If anyone dares to criticize Muslims for their violence, misogyny, antisemitism, intolerance, religiously sanctioned lies, and selfish arrogance, the left rushes to the microphones, keyboards, TikTok, etc. to sympathize with the poor mistreated Muslims who practice a "religion of peace" and commiserate with them on how awful it is to be subjected to the horrors of Islamophobia. It's stomach-turning at best, malicious at worst.
Islamophobia is an irrational racist hatred of Muslims and their "peaceful" religion. Islam is a religion, not a race, but we'll leave that aside for now. To be an Islamophobe these days is to be guilty of hating Muslims for no good reason. So says the left.
It also demonstrates the left's complete lack of knowledge about the Greek and Latin roots of the English language.
Greek Roots
A lot of words in English have their roots in Greek. This is especially true in the medical field. Wikipedia has a whole page of Greek and Latin roots on the subject, listed in alphabetical order. Here are just a few of the Greek ones.
- anthropo: (ánthrōpos), human, from which we get the word anthropology
- cardi: (kardía), heart, from which we get the word cardiology
- lip(o): (lípos), fat, lard, from which we get the word liposuction
The list goes on and on. There are Greek roots in every area of the English language.
Take the word "phobia" for example. It comes from the Greek name Phobos, the personification of fear, in mythology a companion of Ares. It's an "irrational fear, horror, or aversion; fear of an imaginary evil or undue fear of a real one." Hydrophobia is the fear of water, arachnophobia is the fear of spiders, acrophobia is the fear of heights, and so on. There are literally hundreds of different phobias, and the one thing they all have in common is fear — intense, unreasoning fear.
There are good reasons to be afraid of some spiders. Black widows and brown recluse spiders are venomous, for instance. There are also good reasons to be afraid of heights. A fall can kill you if you're not careful. But here the operative word is careful. As long as you're not careless, as long as you use proper precautions — when cliff-climbing, for instance — you're perfectly safe.
A phobia is different. The fear engendered by a phobia is intense and unreasoning. That is, it's a powerful fear that causes your heart to race, triggers a rush of adrenaline, causes shortness of breath, shakes, trembling, and the inability to think clearly. This leads to the second part of the phobia — the unreasoning part.
Phobias are not susceptible to reason or analysis. They're based on raw emotion and are immune to rational explanations. A person who suffers from acrophobia, the fear of heights, can't be talked onto the viewing platform on the roof of the Empire State Building for all the money in the world. Telling him there is an unbreakable Plexiglas shield around the edge to prevent accidents won't do any good. Offering a reward is pointless. There is simply no way to convince him it's safe, and there's almost nothing that can induce him to try it. Phobias are immune to reason.
Oddly enough, for all of the foregoing, phobias don't create hatred of the thing the person is fearful of. Phobias are so strong that they don't leave room for hatred. So people with hydrophobia don't hate water; they're afraid of it, but they don't hate it.
Islamophobia
Therefore, since a phobia is an intense, unreasoning fear of something, Islamophobia would be an intense, unreasoning fear of Islam.
And since phobias are so strong that they overwhelm hate, when the left says Islamophobia, is hate speech, it's a contradiction in terms. If someone suffers from Islamophobia, it's axiomatic that he doesn't hate Islam. Contrariwise, if he hates Islam, it's axiomatic that he doesn't suffer from Islamophobia. They're virtually exclusionary terms. You can have one or the other but rarely both.
There are legitimate, historical reasons to fear the actions of Islam, or more specifically, the actions of Muslims. Islam teaches a violent supremacy that is intolerant of other religions and promises instant rewards in heaven to any Muslim who dies fighting for Islam. 9/11 wasn't the result of extremists or terrorists who "hijacked" Islam; it was the perfectly logical and predictable result of Muslims following their Islamic faith to the letter. Every Muslim who charges into battle or attacks someone on the street or the workplace yelling "Allahu akbar" is faithfully following the tenets of Islam.
So there are actual reasons to fear Islam and keep an eye on it, the same as you would a rattlesnake you meet in the woods. Rattlesnakes are dangerous, but as long as you take proper precautions and keep your distance, they won't hurt you. As long as you do that, there's no need for an intense, unreasoning fear of rattlesnakes. Likewise with Islam.
Hating Islam
While there are good, rational reasons to fear the actions of Muslims following Islam, there are equally good and rational reasons to hate the actions of Muslims and Islam itself.
- It's a false religion.
- It preaches violent jihad (war) against non-Muslims and other religions.
- It justifies lying to non-Muslims.
- It prevents people from finding salvation in Christ.
- It's a totalitarian ideology.
- It traps people and makes them afraid to leave.
Leave fear of Islam to those on the godless left. You can tell they're afraid of it because it would never occur to them to insult Islam the way they insult Christianity. Leftists feel free to insult, deride, and make horrible jokes about Christianity because they know that Christians won't riot in the streets or try to kill them for it. Muslims, on the other hand, have a long and verifiable history of doing exactly that.
Just ask the French reporters at Charlie Hebdo about it. On January 7, 2015, Muslim brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of Charlie Hebdo armed with rifles and other weapons. They killed 12 reporters and injured 11 more, while shouting "Allahu akbar," to avenge years of the magazine's satire aimed at Islam.
Now try to picture Christians doing that over insults to Jesus. You can't, because you know it would never happen. The godless left knows it, too. Leftists know that Christians will turn the other cheek, but Muslims will shoot them in the cheek, head, stomach, back, and sides while yelling "Allahu akbar."
The godless leftists are the ones who suffer from Islamophobia, because they're terrified of Islam.
Michael V. Wilson is an author, freelance writer, curmudgeon, and husband who writes for the joy of it at Scribe of Texas.
Why the Koran Is Responsible for the Slaughter of a Christian Priest
Especially by way of these three verses.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
On April 7, 2022, in Egypt, a Muslim man lunged at and viciously stabbed a Christian priest thrice in the neck with a knife; Fr. Arsenius Wadid died soon thereafter. Although the murderer was instantly apprehended by passersby—the crime was committed on a crowded street—Egyptian authorities initially tried to do what their Western counterparts often do: portray the murderer as “insane,” an aberration of society.
Due to a combination of public outcry (primarily from the Copts themselves), the testimonials of seventeen eyewitnesses, and even the murderer’s own coherent responses—to say nothing of the fact that of all the people he could have “randomly” murdered he targeted the one openly professing his Christian faith by wearing a large crucifix around his neck—prosecution finally confirmed that he would be tried as sane and cognizant of his actions.
Why both Westerners and non-Westerners constantly seek to portray Muslim murderers of non-Muslims as “insane” should be clear by now: the alternative—that Islam somehow promotes such behavior—would open a massive can of worms that no one wants to deal with.
But can one really say that Islam promotes even the unprovoked slaying of a Christian clergyman, Fr. Arsenius, who was peacefully engaged in a public charitable activity with the youth of his church when he was slaughtered?
Three Koran passages would seem to answer this question in the affirmative: 1. “Kill the polytheists wherever you find them (9:5); 2. “Fight the leaders of disbelief [kufr] (9:12); 3. “When you meet the disbelievers, strike [with your blades at their] necks (47:4).
Consider how these three verses apply to the current case: A Muslim man comes across a “leader of disbelief”—that is, a clergyman, a visible representative of Christianity, as demarcated by the cross around Fr. Arsenius’s neck. It did not matter that he came across him on an open and crowded street, since Allah also commands the believers to “kill the polytheists”—and Islam categorizes Christians as polytheists due to the Trinity—“wherever you find them.” Finally, the murderer took his deity’s advice by striking directly at the neck, the jugular, which he repeatedly stabbed with a knife.
Should this rather straightforward interpretation still seem farfetched or not “nuanced” enough, keep in mind that Muslims recite the aforementioned three and many more hate-filled and violent Koran verses every single day; these scriptures are highlighted, praised, and expounded in countless books, on countless televised programs, and all throughout the mosques of the world, especially Egypt’s. In other words, these verses are ingrained in the minds of pious, observant Muslims.
Even so, one may object that, if such verses are so influential, why aren’t their more such attacks? Such an observation can only be made by someone whose information is exclusively derived from “mainstream media” sources: random attacks on “infidels” are actually quite common—not a few of them featuring knife stabs to the neck.
In Egypt alone—where a Coptic clergyman once complained that attacks on Christians happen “every two or three days”—a murder nearly identical to that of Fr. Arsenius took place in 2017: then, a Muslim man wielding a butcher’s knife was seen and videotaped chasing a Coptic bishop in broad daylight; when he finally cornered him, the Muslim repeatedly stabbed the Christian in his neck and head, murdering him. Finally, to underscore that his handiwork was religiously (Islamicly) motivated, the murderer used the bishop’s own blood to draw a cross on his forehead.
Further confirming that this killer was motivated by Koran verses such as those cited above, neighbors said that he had recently “begun praying in the street, shouting loudly and calling Christians infidels.” As for motive, one report explained that “he had decided to kill any Coptic priest, purchased a dagger, and lay in wait for one to pass by, in a street leading to the local church.”
“Lay in wait for one to pass by” sounds awfully similar to Koran 9:5, which, after calling on Muslims to kill infidels “wherever you find them,” counsels the faithful also to “capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them on every way.”
There are other such examples. In 2013, Coptic priest Mina Cheroubim was shot dead as he left his church in al-Arish, Egypt. A botched attempt occurred in 2020: while traveling to his church in Alexandria, a Coptic priest was ambushed and “nearly murdered” by a Muslim parolee. According to the report, “the parolee, nicknamed Kareem Madi, has a history of attacking Christians—especially women and girls.”
Such murderous assaults are hardly limited to Coptic clergymen who, as the saying goes, wear their faith on their sleeves. Everyday Christians are also targeted and killed in what Egyptian media present as “random attacks” (with the only constant being the religion of the murderers, Islam, and the religion of their victims, Christianity).
As just two examples, in 2020 a Muslim man crept up behind a Christian woman walking home with groceries, grabbed her hair, pulled her head back, and slit her throat with a knife. Two days later, another Muslim man went for the jugular of a Christian man with a box-cutter; he only managed to sever an ear. On being questioned concerning his motive, this Muslim confessed that he did not know the Copt, but that he simply “hates Christians.” There are many more such examples from Egypt alone (to say nothing of the rest of the Muslim world); see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Such attacks are even spilling into the West. As one example, in 2016, two Muslim men marched into a church in France during mass and slit the throat of its 85-year-old priest, Fr. Jaques Hamil, killing him.
One may still protest: if certain Koran verses call for the outright butchery of infidels, “wherever you find them,” and if at least ten percent of Egypt’s population is Christian, shouldn’t there be many more—indeed, daily—murders?
The answer to this seeming conundrum is straightforward enough. First, although certain Islamic sects, past and present, have always accepted (and enacted) such murderous verses at face value, the mainstream did not, particularly in the context of the development of Islamic law, or sharia, which, in the case of Coptic Christians, made dhimmis of them, who are only to be killed if they rejected their second-class status (which then and now can be and is interpreted differently).
More importantly, however, is that Egypt is a modern state—meaning the random killing of a citizen on the charge of being an “infidel” is strictly prohibited. As such, only the most zealous—or as they are often portrayed, the most insane—are willing to accept the consequences of impulsively enacting the hate-filled and violent verses of their holy book, which include long or even life prison sentences.
That said, such killings would certainly be much more frequent—especially on Fridays, when the more “radical” mosques repeatedly cite such verses to rile their attendees against the hated “infidels”—were they not outlawed and punished by the state.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) blasted Omar in June after the congresswoman equated the U.S. and Israel to Hamas terrorists and the Taliban, claiming she was unfit to serve in Congress.
“Omar is an antisemite who hates America and hates American troops,” he said. “She has no place serving in Congress.”
MUSLIM NEO-FASCISM IN AMERICA
Ilhan and Imran's Incredible Islamophobia Intimacy
A shared campaign to destroy the freedom of speech.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-muslim-threat-to-america-ilhan-and.html
It’s Muslim Roulette. Even the most “moderate” and “peaceful” Muslims can, out of the blue, commit the most obscene acts of violence, but with no prior warning signs. These Muslims may not act outwardly any different than they have before, but internally, they began to take Islam seriously. And the more serious a Muslim takes Islam, the more potentially dangerous he or she is. Here’s what I mean by Muslim Roulette:
A is A. Islam is Islam. There is no such thing as “Good” Islam or “Bad” Islam. Islam is a totalitarian religion, while Muslims are individual human beings who may or may not practice Islam faithfully. There are active Muslims and passive Muslims, the faithful and the unfaithful, the submitted and the un-submitted in Islam, but there is no obvious way to tell the difference between them, which has its benefits for Muslims who are committed to spreading Islam by any means necessary. Mohammad said “War is deceit” and practiced this, and Muslims have followed their leader in using deception against non-Muslims from the first days of Islam to today. When Islam, the very antithesis of peace, is sold to us by Muslims and their useful idiots as being the very definition of peace, and actually gains traction, that would have made Goebbels blush.
BIDEN MUSLIMS
Biden: 'So Many Muslims Are Targeted With Violence' and 'Oppressed for Their Religious Beliefs'
Complaining about fake violence against Muslims while ignoring real violence by Muslims.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/sociopath-lawyer-joe-biden-up-muslims.html
Congresswoman Omar Poses for Photo with 'America is Run on Hate' Guy
Imtiaz Mohammad cozies up to politicians, while belittling the US and its citizens.
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
Politicians take photos with a lot of people, and sometimes they wish they hadn’t. Given his statements belittling the US and her citizens, photos taken with Imtiaz Mohammad, founder of the American Muslim Progressive Caucus (AMPC), are probably ones that some office holders would wish they could take back. Yet, time and again, politicians smile and cozy up to him, lending themselves and their images to be shared on his social media. This was the case, when US Representative Ilhan Omar came to South Florida to speak at a CAIR event, and it has been the case for many others. Question: Do they agree with Mohammad’s contemptable views?
Imtiaz Ahmad Mohammad grew up in the Hyderabad area of Pakistan and arrived in the United States in 1991, first settling in New York, then Florida. Since coming to Florida, Mohammad has been involved in a number of ventures. He runs a plethora of South Florida beauty salons. In 2015, he incorporated and published a South Asian oriented monthly magazine, Pak Mag, which changed its name to Asian Times, in 2017, and which dissolved in 2018. He has also involved himself in the Democratic Party and different progressive causes, such as defunding police and abolishing ICE, and he had a couple of failed attempts at running for statewide office.
As well, Mohammad has attended and spoken at a number of events organized by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a group with several ties to South Asian extremism and which Mohammad calls “a humanitarian champion.” For 30-plus years, ICNA has harbored alleged death squad leader Ashrafuz Zaman Khan from the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide, and ICNA has promoted Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a banned front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). ICNA has further sponsored anti-Israel events, including a July 2014 pro-Hamas rally in downtown Miami, where rally goers repeatedly chanted “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas.”
In January 2017, Mohammad was a contact for tickets to an ICNA benefit dinner, featuring Hamas operative Monzer Taleb and community activist/agitator Linda Sarsour, whom Mohammad calls “a remarkable American Muslim.” Taleb has notoriously sung songs threatening Jews, and in June 2019, he posted a message on Facebook that Jews in Israel “should be relocated to Germany.” Sarsour, whose own antisemitism has been widely reported, in September 2019, was forced to resign from her position as National Organizer and Co-Chair of the Women’s March, due to her alleged embrace of bigotry against Jews and LGBTQ.
In November 2018, Mohammad referred to former Muslim community leader Nezar Hamze as “an American Muslim hero.” For years, Hamze was a representative for the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and, not long ago, stepped down as Executive Director of the South Florida Muslim Federation (SFMF), an umbrella group for the vast majority of radical Muslim organizations throughout South Florida.
Indeed, Mohammad’s life in Florida has been a balancing act between participation in left wing politics and engagement with Islamists, two entities that, in recent years, have become dangerously close with one another. His AMPC seems to be an effort to combine both. Proof of this can be seen in a recent attack Mohammad hurled at his fellow Democrats. In March 2019, he posted on Facebook photos of US Representatives Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, asking, “Are they representing all Americans or just one community?????” The post was an obvious bigoted reference to Deutch and Wasserman Schultz’s Jewish backgrounds.
In December 2018, Mohammad was featured on a panel discussion held at the Pembroke Pines-based Darul Uloom Institute (DUI), on the topic of ‘Religion and Politics in America.’ DUI is infamous for having been a haven for al-Qaeda operatives, including ‘Dirty Bomber’ Jose Padilla and al-Qaeda commander Adnan el-Shukrijumah, and DUI’s imam, Shafayat Mohamed, has been thrown off various county boards for his fiery rhetoric against homosexuals. During the discussion, (Imtiaz) Mohammad slammed America and her citizens, saying “America [is] run on hate” and “American people are the most uneducated nation in the world.”
Taking into account all of the above, it is a wonder that so many Democrat leaders have happily been photographed with Mohammad, yet so many have done so.
In October 2019, at a South Florida CAIR event, US Representative Ilhan Omar stood directly next to Mohammad, smiling for different shots. Mohammad has photos with US Representative Charlie Crist, late US Representative Alcee Hastings, Florida Senator Annette Taddeo, ex-Florida State Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, former Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo, ex-Florida Democrat Gubernatorial Nominee Andrew Gillam, and even Deutch and Wasserman Schultz. One photo, from August 2018, has Mohammad arm-in-arm with Broward County Commissioner Jared Moskowitz, stating about Moskowitz, “I am proud of our friendship.”
Additionally, Mohammad appears to be very involved with former Mayor of Broward County Dale Holness, who is running for US Congress.
Why would all these notable and influential officials allow themselves to be photographed with such a toxic individual as Imtiaz Mohammad? Can they all claim ignorance or do they even care? In the case of Ilhan Omar, she has a record of making brutally controversial and derogatory statements about America and Jews, but these others do not have the same history. That said, their political party has worked hard to embrace radical Islam, so there is a good chance that some if not most of them embrace it as well, as evidenced by their uncritical acceptance and proxy legitimization of this documented Islamist.
It appears that identity politics and a wish to pander to Muslims, instead of principles and integrity, are the driving force behind many Democrat politicians’ obsequious courting of Mohammad. He and his anti-democratic ideology need to be condemned, not cozied up to.
Regardless, those in positions of power, if they do not wish to be a party to extremism and bigotry, should be more cautious about who they cavort with. Otherwise, they will wind up with someone like Imtiaz Mohammad’s picture next to theirs, implying a tacit endorsement of his/their hate-filled agenda.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
Ilhan Omar Knows What She’s Doing
The Democratic congresswoman says she has always been somebody who 'understands how words can be harmful and hurtful to people.' We believe her.
The Jews can never seem to live up to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) exacting standards.
The Minnesota congresswoman’s latest broadside came Tuesday afternoon, when she told CNN’s Jake Tapper that her Jewish Democratic colleagues "haven’t been partners in justice" and have yet to apologize for their allegedly Islamophobic comments.
Omar’s statement came after Tapper asked whether she regrets her comments last month comparing the United States and Israel with terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Taliban. Her answer was unequivocal: "I don’t."
That’s funny, because Omar at the time "clarified" that statement, which elicited a rebuke from Democratic leaders and a dozen Jewish Democrats, saying that she did not say what in fact she said: "I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries." To be clear, she also believes Israel is a terrorist nation.
Omar, as the kids say, is owning her truth. Her tap dance follows a pattern that is by now well established, in which the justice-seeking congresswoman makes nakedly prejudicial remarks, pretends to walk them back in the face of muted criticism from her colleagues, characterizes the criticism itself as Islamophobic, and proceeds to reoffend.
That pattern gives the lie to the apology Omar issued after arguing that American support for Israel is "all about the Benjamins, baby": Her offenses were born of ignorance rather than prejudice, she said, and thanked her colleagues for "educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes."
Omar could give a master class on anti-Semitism, and the pattern of her offenses makes clear she is using that knowledge to perpetuate it. That’s probably why a Punchbowl News report earlier this month indicated that "a number of Omar’s fellow Democrats believe Omar is an anti-Semite, even if they don’t say so publicly."
It is, of course, the only prejudice about which Democrats are tight-lipped and the only one tolerated in the party’s ranks.
It is also the latest indication that the party is following in the footsteps of the British left, led until recently by Squad ally Jeremy Corbyn. A report from the United Kingdom's Equality and Human Rights Commission implicated not just Corbyn, whose offenses are legion, but the Labour Party itself, which "at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it."
To the extent there is resistance in the Democratic Party to Omar’s relentless attacks on Jews and her condemnations of American power and influence, surely it is driven at least in part by the shellacking the British left took in the last national election there.
Should the Democrats continue down this path, we have faith that the outcome for the left will be the same here as in Britain, and that the more they see of Omar and her allies, the dimmer their prospects become.
MUSLIM NEO-FASCISM IN AMERICA
Ilhan and Imran's Incredible Islamophobia Intimacy
A shared campaign to destroy the freedom of speech.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-muslim-threat-to-america-ilhan-and.html
It’s Muslim Roulette. Even the most “moderate” and “peaceful” Muslims can, out of the blue, commit the most obscene acts of violence, but with no prior warning signs. These Muslims may not act outwardly any different than they have before, but internally, they began to take Islam seriously. And the more serious a Muslim takes Islam, the more potentially dangerous he or she is. Here’s what I mean by Muslim Roulette:
A is A. Islam is Islam. There is no such thing as “Good” Islam or “Bad” Islam. Islam is a totalitarian religion, while Muslims are individual human beings who may or may not practice Islam faithfully. There are active Muslims and passive Muslims, the faithful and the unfaithful, the submitted and the un-submitted in Islam, but there is no obvious way to tell the difference between them, which has its benefits for Muslims who are committed to spreading Islam by any means necessary. Mohammad said “War is deceit” and practiced this, and Muslims have followed their leader in using deception against non-Muslims from the first days of Islam to today. When Islam, the very antithesis of peace, is sold to us by Muslims and their useful idiots as being the very definition of peace, and actually gains traction, that would have made Goebbels blush.
Biden: 'So Many Muslims Are Targeted With Violence' and 'Oppressed for Their Religious Beliefs'
Complaining about fake violence against Muslims while ignoring real violence by Muslims.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/sociopath-lawyer-joe-biden-up-muslims.html
Rep. Ilhan Omar Accused of ‘Shilling for Iran’ After Calling to ‘Finalize’ Iran Deal
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) took heat online after posting a message in support of an immediate finalization of the damaging Iran Deal, which she claimed would stave off a Middle East conflict.
In a Monday tweet, Omar highlighted the urgency of securing a deal to lift sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
“We are running out time in making peace in the Middle East and avoiding war,” the Minnesota Muslim congresswoman wrote. “It’s time to finalize the Iran deal!”
Despite her attempt to tie the deal to “making peace,” many took to social media to blast her support for acceding to the theocracy.
“Making peace in the Middle East has much more to do with expanding the #AbrahamAccords, allowing Israel to work together with her Arab neighbors on tourism, economic growth & diplomacy, rather than making a bad deal in Vienna to fund the #1 State sponsor of terrorism in the world,” wrote media contributor Joel M. Petlin.
“Running out of time to make peace in the Middle East? @Ilhan We suggest you google Abraham Accords and stop pushing @NIACouncil’s talking points,” wrote Iranian advocacy group Iranian Americans for Liberty (IAL).
“We had peace in the Middle East, but then you elected Biden,” wrote conservative writer and commentator Chad Greene.
“On behalf of Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, Yemenis, Saudis, Emiratis, Bahrainis, Israelis, Egyptians, Iranians oppressed by their own regime and all people who will affected by Irani regime terrorism EMPOWERED by this deal, Please SHUT UP!!!” wrote former Miss Iraq Sarah Idan.
“Tell me you’re a pro-terrorism without telling me you’re pro-terrorism,” she added in another tweet.
“You have no right to talk on behalf of millions in the Middle East, most of them refuse your dirty #IranDeal that will empower Iran’s #IRGC— that ruined Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria,” wrote Dr. Nervana Mahmoud, a regional observer and independent commentator on Middle East issues.
“Shame on you!” she added.
“Ilhan Omar opposes the #AbrahamAccords and *actual peace* in the Middle East while shilling for Iran,” wrote social media activist Emily Schrader. “Can’t make this up.”
“Who’d like to support a fundraiser to help @Ilhan realize her lifelong dream of becoming an Iranian citizen?” wrote one Twitter user.
“Nothing says a stable middle east like giving terrorists nukes,” another wrote.
Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, claims its nuclear program is for energy purposes, but world leaders, including the six nations that joined the 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity, say enriching uranium may lead to Iran’s ability to quickly create a nuclear weapon.
The Obama-led nuclear deal — deemed fatally flawed and highly one-sided by many, from which then-President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 — delineates an enrichment limit of 3.67 percent.
Iran has been accused of violating the agreement as Tehran produces more enriched uranium.
Nevertheless, current nuclear talks in Vienna may see the United States and other world powers provide Iran with economic sanctions relief in exchange for temporary restrictions on its nuclear program.
According to a former State Department official, President Joe Biden’s impending agreement to restore the Iran nuclear deal offers the regime access to $90 billion in foreign currency reserves and sanctions relief to some of the world’s worst terrorists.
In addition to being granted hundreds of billions of dollars, it will likely use for terror and aggression. The deal also will not prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.
In March, Russia’s envoy to the Iran nuclear talks admitted Tehran “got much more than it could expect” in the latest iteration of the nuclear deal.
Omar has a history of controversy, having been accused repeatedly of being antisemitic, anti-American, and supportive of terrorists.
In April, Minnesota congressional candidate Cicely Davis, a Republican challenger to Omar, accused the congresswoman of never missing an opportunity to “sow division.”
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) blasted Omar in June after the congresswoman equated the U.S. and Israel to Hamas terrorists and the Taliban, claiming she was unfit to serve in Congress.
“Omar is an antisemite who hates America and hates American troops,” he said. “She has no place serving in Congress.”
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
They Told Us to Renounce Jesus [or Else]'
The atrocities Muslims inflicted on Christians in the span of just one month.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article is reprinted from the Gatestone Institute.
The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of March, 2022:
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Iraq: Family members murdered Eman Sami Maghdid, 20, also known as “Maria.” Her “crime” was having embraced Christianity and behaving in a liberated manner, beginning four years earlier, when she abandoned the marriage she was forced into at the age of 12. Her 18-year-old brother and/or uncle responded by slaughtering her on Sunday, Mar. 6. Maria’s body was later found “tied with a tape, thrown at the side of the road, with many stab wounds,” said a local source. According to one report,
[S]he was punished by her family for leaving Islam, specifically for being emancipated and embracing the Christian religion; in short, she was ‘guilty’ of apostasy…. The young woman was well known for her activism, her struggle for women’s rights, which—together with her conversion to Christianity—led her to be condemned by her family….
News of Maria’s murder surfaced on International Women’s Day, Mar. 8. Rather than highlight this incident as evidence that much still needs to be done in the field of women’s rights, support for the murderers and abuse for their victim was evident throughout Iraq. According to one report,
[O]n the evening of March 8th, a radio interview was aired by what is one of the largest broadcasters, K24, where Maria’s brother and murderer was able to explain the motives of his cold-blooded murder for almost 15 minutes uncensored and without criticism—while he was still on the run…
For the entirety of March 8, social media comment columns were awash with people who, as always, condoned the murder. Old pictures of Maria were passed around, in which she was still wearing a hijab, and people commented, ‘see, this is what happens when you leave your faith,’ as many speculated that Maria converted to Christianity. Lies and slander were spread about her, and men and women threw themselves into a contest to see who could blame her most for her murder. By March 9, the brother was found in Kirkuk and detained, but until then, a large part of the Kurdish public managed to assassinate Marias’s character post mortem.
Uganda: Muslims publicly beat a Christian preacher to death before setting his body on fire. According to the Mar. 8 report,
John Michael Okero was quoting verses from the Koran about Christ [during an open-air evangelistic meeting] … when a Muslim identified only as Shakuuru grabbed the microphone from him. He and other Muslims started beating Okero as they accused him of blaspheming Allah by saying that he has a Son, misinterpreting the Koran, touching the Koran without ritual cleansing and disrespecting it by placing it under the Bible… They beat him to death with iron bars, stones and sticks and later burned his body to a chant in the Ateso language referring to a thief who steals people from one religion to join a bad religion, the source said. Okero was 43.
Egypt: On Mar. 1, six Muslim men killed and mutilated three Christian men (two brothers and one of their sons). The Christians were working on their field when the Muslims unexpectedly attacked and killed them, before proceeding to carve their bodies with knives while reportedly singing and dancing. It was later portrayed as a “revenge” killing for the killing of a Muslim ancestor that occurred seventy years ago—decades before the eldest of the slain Christians was even born. According to lawyer Romani Michel,
This heinous crime cannot be an act of revenge, because the method of killing involves the element of mutilating corpses, which does not happen in typical revenge crimes. Rather, the method shows that it was committed in the same way as ISIS, and therefore the security and prosecution must verify the truth of the motives behind the crime, which has the smell of murder on religious identity.
Other factors—“the village of the perpetrators turned into celebrations with drums and flutes to celebrate the killing,” even as the triumphant murderers chanted “Allahu Akbar”— further suggest that religious hostility played at least some role in the gruesome slaying.
Separately but also in Egypt, a Muslim man stabbed a Christian man seven times with a knife, after the Christian tried to save his son from the Muslim, their neighbor, who was holding the teenager against his will. Earlier in the day, the Muslim man, Mahmoud Abdel Rahman, had asked Thomas, his 17-year-old Christian neighbor, to bring him medicine because he was ill. When the youth entered Mahmoud’s premises, the Muslim lunged at and tried to stab him. Thomas managed to escape to Mahmoud’s balcony, where he locked himself in. From there, the teenager’s father, Magdy Fathy Shehata, heard Thomas’s cries for help, and rushed to his Muslim neighbor’s home. On entering, Mahmoud ambushed and began to stab him, while calling the Christian and his son infidels (kuffar) and crying “Allahu Akbar!” Magdy was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Quoting a local source, the Mar. 24 report says that Mahmoud had long targeted Christian “infidels,” including by playing “Koran recitations through loudspeakers” and “mistreating and insulting Christians.”
Germany: A Muslim migrant from Somalia living in a homeless shelter repeatedly stabbed to death and beheaded a fellow resident, in part due to his Christian background. During his trial, defense lawyers argued that the accused suffered from mental problems. According to one report,
Two therapists reported several conversations with the accused. He had told different versions of the crime… The accused had told of voices in his head and of statues standing behind him and staring at him. He was also afraid that the Christian faith [of his victim] would be inserted to him like a hard drive.
Democratic Republic of Congo: In a raid that began on Sunday, Mar. 13, and continued into the next day, members of the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamic terror organization pledged to the Islamic State, butchered 52 people in the predominantly Christian nation.
Nigeria: Some of the accounts of terrorization and slaughter that Christians experienced in the month of March follow:
On Sunday, Mar. 20, an Islamic horde of more than 100 Fulani terrorists invaded a Christian village where they slaughtered 32 Christians and torched 200 homes. Many local residents were interviewed during the aftermath. “My mum’s family houses were all razed down, and one of my cousins was burnt to death in their house,” area resident Violet Peter said. “We haven’t been able to reach some of our [other] relatives. Lord please, this is too much for us.” Flora Kundi, another local, expressed similar sentiments: “This is too much for us, my colleague has been killed.” “I’ve never experienced what I did last night,” another area resident, Favour Gimbiya, said. “We could hear the gunshots very close to us. This is not the country we were enjoying before. Our children can’t go to school today; we don’t know our fate anymore.” “Is this a war declared against Christians?” was all that Florence Tachio, another local, could say.
On Mar. 3, Islamic terrorists slaughtered three Christians and abducted four. “I have always heard of kidnapping but never knew it would come right at my doorstep,” said a survivor. “I am now a victim as my Dad, Funom Bage, 57, and elder brother, James Bage, 30, were killed right in our house.”
On Mar. 8, Muslim terrorists killed a church security guard during their abduction of the Rev. Joseph Akeke of St. John’s Catholic Church. Another man was killed in the Christian majority region as the murderers shot sporadically while making their getaway. A woman and two children were also kidnapped. In another region, a young female Christian student at the University of Jos was also abducted on that day.
Between Mar. 26 and 27, Muslim Fulani raided six villages whence they abducted 45 Christians, one of whom was a priest, the Rev. Leo Raphael Ozigi of Mary’s Catholic Church. “Activities of Fulani herdsmen and terrorist elements here in Niger state have placed so much pressure on Christians, as entire Christian communities … are in disarray,” said another pastor in response.
On Mar. 17, Muslim Fulani herdsmen kidnapped 46 Christians, including many children, during a raid in Kaduna state. “The herdsmen terrorists invaded our village, while the Christian villagers were sleeping,” an area resident said. “They trooped into our village in large numbers and began shooting indiscriminately at anyone on sight…. Please be in prayer for these Christians being held captive in an unknown location at the moment.”
Muslim Attacks on Apostates and Blasphemers
Uganda: Muslim relatives of a family consisting of a husband (38), wife (32), and daughter (13) that had recently converted to Christianity sprayed them with acid. Two weeks earlier, Muslims learned that the family had embraced Christ, and called them to a family meeting, on Mar. 8. “During the meeting,” said Juma Waiswa, the father, “we were asked about our salvation, and we affirmed to them that we had believed in Jesus and converted to Christianity. They told us to renounce Jesus, but we stood by the newly founded faith in Jesus.”
When we refused to recant our faith in Jesus, my father, Arajabu, recited some koranic verses, and after that they forcefully started beating us with sticks as prescribed in the Koran, claiming that we were apostates. As this was not enough, my father went inside the room and picked up a bottle of acid and began spraying it on us while the group started shouting, ‘Allah Akbar [Allah is greater], you deserve death,’ and then disowned us… [A]s we were fleeing for our lives, we started feeling some serious itching that continued till the pain intensified. A nearby Christian neighbor called the pastor, who arrived immediately and took us to hospital in Mbale, but our daughter was seriously affected and was referred to a hospital in Jinja.
On the following day, March 9, while all three family members were still hospitalized, Muslim relatives set their home ablaze. Last reported, the “three are still undergoing hospital treatment.”
Separately but also in Uganda, Muslims beat a former mosque leader for converting to Christianity. Soon after Swaleh Mulongo stopped appearing at the mosque, and on learning of his defection from Islam, the new mosque leader organized a manhunt for him. They eventually located the church he attends and, on Mar. 13, intercepted him before he reached it. According to Mulongo, “It was around 8 a.m. when four Muslims stopped me and began asking me so many questions regarding Christianity, but I did not respond. Then the men started beating me up with blows and sticks, but thank God when they saw some people approaching, they fled away.”
With deep and serious wounds, including to his head and back, and a broken wrist, he was rushed to a hospital. Not content, his assailants continued until they had located the home of the pastor who had led Swaleh Mulongo to Christ and slaughtered his goats and chickens. They also left a warning letter: “We know you are a deceiver, and that you converted our imam to Christianity. We shall soon get hold of you, which will be a big regret to your family and the entire church.”
Pakistan: On Mar. 16, authorities arrested, beat, and tortured a Christian man into confessing that he had made “blasphemous” remarks about Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, on Facebook, an accusation which he had rejected prior to the torture. Officials raided the home of Fansan Shahid, 54, shortly after midnight, before hauling him away to extract a confession. According to his wife, Safia, “When my husband opened the gate, over a dozen policemen rushed inside and started beating him up. My two children and I screamed and cried as they tortured Shahid and searched the rooms.” The arrest came soon after an Islamic cleric had registered a complaint against Shahid. The blasphemous remarks he allegedly made were posted by a cell phone he had lost back in 2019, his wife said: “We believe that the lost phone was misused by someone to post the blasphemous comment, because my husband did not use a passcode for its security, and his Facebook account was also logged in.” According to a legal representative, “Shahid has been charged under Sections 295-C, which calls for a mandatory death sentence for blaspheming Muhammad, and 295-A, which mandates up to 10 years in prison for ‘deliberate and malicious acts intended to outreach religious feelings.’” Because virtually every Christian in Pakistan is cognizant of these blasphemy related penalties, Shahid “would never post such comments as he was fully aware of the consequences,” his wife said, and often reminded their children “to refrain from discussing religion with Muslims.”
A separate report that appeared on Mar. 15, a day before Shahid’s arrest, seemingly confirms his wife’s claims. In an attempt to forestall discrimination and persecution against them, not only are Christian families careful not to offend Muslims, but they are going as far as to deny their Christian identities and pretend to be Muslims. One young Christian boy interviewed said that, while he is proud of being a Christian, “because of my faith, I often face challenges.” Although he used to wear a cross necklace, he has since stopped wearing it as it had exposed him for abuse. According to another interviewed Christian woman aged 40, “I changed my name because I faced discrimination by the instructors of Islamiyat classes in school. I have started to wear a hijab so people can’t find out more about me. My life has become much easier.” The experiences of her husband, the only Christian worker at a cement factory, confirmed her decision: “I was always discriminated against because of my faith,” he said, “and some of the Muslim employees used to harass me and make slogans to tease me. I resigned from the job in 2012.” He too now dresses like a Muslim. The couple have given their three children Muslim names and instructed them never to talk about religion. “My mother suggested I cover myself in school and college like other Muslim girls,” another young Christian girl that was interviewed said. “Since then my life has been free of discrimination and harassment, as no one in my class knows I am a Christian. I take Islamic Studies classes with them and pretend to be a Muslim.”
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Pakistan: A Muslim man named Muhammed Bilal Saleem climbed atop and wrapped himself around a large cross on church property and started violently swinging his body in an attempt to bring it down—all while chanting Koran verses, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” and generally threatening Christians (video here). Two other Muslim men accompanying him insulted local Christian men while ogling and making crude sexual gestures to Christian girls. According to the Mar. 19 report, Muhammad was so “intent to tip the cross over,” and “in such a religious frenzy” that “he was risking his life to do so.” Not only did his attempt fail—the cross did not come down—but he hurt himself while jumping to the ground. In response,
Church members and other Christian people rushed to his rescue and, in a country known for its religious fundamentalism, they showed a real example of love. Instead of beating the man or lynching him, which many Muslims would do for much lighter religious offence[s], the Christian community placed the man on a charpai [bed] and brought him water.
Sudan: Angry Muslims upset by its presence locked up and shut down a church. In response, authorities arrested and questioned that church’s leaders. After his release, Dalman Hassan, an evangelist of the Sudanese Church of Christ, said that “the Muslims accused church members of hostility toward Islam by holding gatherings on Fridays, the Muslim day of mosque prayer.” Or in the words of one of the charges brought to officials, “They [Christians meeting in church] cause chaos and disrespect others’ religion.” Another church member said that “hardline Muslims also charged the church with providing food to [Muslim] children to win them to Christianity…”
Egypt: On Mar. 30, Amnesty International issued a report calling on Egyptian authorities to “immediately release nine Coptic Christians who were arbitrarily detained after peacefully protesting against the authorities’ refusal to rebuild a church that had burned down over five years ago…” Discussing that incident, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, elaborated:
The Egyptian authorities have for years ignored calls to rebuild the church, leaving around 800 Coptic Christians without a place to worship in their village. Now, in their shameful efforts to silence these calls, they are arbitrarily detaining villagers, criminalizing peaceful protests, and slapping ludicrous charges on those who dare to speak out…. Coptic Christians in Egypt should be afforded the right to collectively practise their religion. For too long, their religious freedom has been undermined by discriminatory laws and practices, which place undue restrictions on the construction and renovation of churches and grant unbridled power to governors and security forces to make decisions over church repairs…. The right to freedom of religion should never be restricted on discriminatory grounds, including people’s faith, economic status or location. The Egyptian authorities must immediately repeal the country’s discriminatory church law and replace it with one that ensures the right to freedom of religion for all without imposing additional conditions and barriers on religious minorities…. Egyptian authorities have failed not only to protect Coptic Christians from repeated sectarian attacks against their communities, but also to bring those responsible for such violence to justice.
Generic Discrimination against Christians
Egypt: In an attempt to demonstrate Egypt’s advancement concerning women, the nation’s discriminatory views on non-Muslims were equally displayed. On Mar. 3, 98 female judges took the legal oath in preparation for assuming judicial roles in Egypt’s State Council. This is considered a major and unprecedented development; since its inception 75 years earlier, not a single woman has sat on the podium of the State Council court—and now 98 will. And yet, not one of them is a Christian—despite the fact that the Copts, Egypt’s most native inhabitants, amount for more than ten percent of the nation’s population, suggesting that 10 of the 98 should have, for proper representation, been Christians.
Indonesia: A few days after a Christian man and a Muslim woman got married—and photos of their wedding in a Catholic church went viral—on Mar. 9, the nation’s top Islamic clerical body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, declared that “the marriage of this couple is invalid and cannot be allowed.” According to Islamic law, or sharia, interfaith marriages are permissible only when the man (seen as the head of the woman and future children) is Muslim. The married couple responded by ignoring the clerics.
How the Koran Calls for the Murder of Christians
On April 7, 2022, in Egypt, a Muslim man lunged at and viciously stabbed a Christian priest thrice in the neck with a knife; Fr. Arsenius Wadid died soon thereafter.
Exclusive Video: London Mayor Sadiq Khan Tells Muslim Crowd They Are Trump’s ‘Worst Nightmare’
Thousands of Muslims gathered in London on Saturday to celebrate the Islamic holiday of Eid, in an event sponsored by a controversial Islamic charity and arranged by Mayor Sadiq Khan, who described the event as Donald Trump’s “worst nightmare”.
Marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, thousands of Muslims flocked to Trafalgar Square to celebrate ‘Eid in the Square’, featuring performances of traditional music, dance, comedy, and poetry.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, whose office helped coordinate the event, said that the celebration demonstrated the power of “diversity” in the British capital.
“You and I both know that Islamophobia is on the rise across the West but the key message we send to anyone is that diversity is not a weakness it is a strength. We don’t simply tolerate difference, we embrace it, we respect it and we celebrate it,” Khan claimed in a speech.
After concluding his address, the leftist mayor returned to the stage, sarcastically claiming that they had received a “complaint from America, from a chap called Donald Trump”.
“He says can you quiet down, you’re too loud. True story, I have his mobile phone number. So what I want to do is send a selfie from London and send it to him.”
“This is his worst nightmare,” Khan said in reference to the heavily Islamic crowd.
While in office, President Donald Trump and Khan engaged in several high-profile spats, with the American leader chastising the Labour Party politician as a “stone-cold loser” for his failure to tackle knife crime in the city.
Mayor Khan, for his part, called for the president to be barred from receiving a state visit in Britain.
Khan would go on to accuse Trump of deploying “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic” and said that Trump only cared about “White America”, claiming the America First campaign slogan was code for “White America First”.
Kurt Zindulka / Breitbart NewsThe event also saw the Islamic Call to Prayer, or Adhan, echo out across Trafalgar Square.
The ‘Eid in the Square’ celebration was sponsored in part by the largest Muslim charity in Britain, Islamic Relief UK, a subject of the Birmingham-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW).
The charity has come under considerable scrutiny over alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been designated a terrorist organisation in Egypt, and anti-Semitic statements made by leaders of the charity.
In 2020, the entire board of Islamic Relief Worldwide resigned after it was reported that in 2015 a former director of the charity, Dr Almoutaz Tayara, had posted an image with the phrases “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Dr Tayara was also reported to have praised the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas as a group of “great men” who took up the “divine and holy call of the Muslim Brotherhood”.
Following the revelation, the State Department under the Trump administration cut ties with the United Nations-funded organisation. Both the Netherlands and Germany also cut ties with the charity and barred the group from receiving state funding over the alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
German officials said in a statement they had enough evidence to conclude that Islamic Relief Worldwide and Islamic Relief Germany have “significant personal connections to the Muslim Brotherhood or related organisations.”
Despite allegations of anti-Semitism and connections to terror organisations, however the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission decided that it would not remove Islamic Relief’s charity status, which affords it special tax dispensations.
The regulator said that the charity had done enough to condemn the previous statements from former directors.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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