The endemic rise of Christian persecution in the Middle East was noted in November when Pope Francis declared “We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians” and stressed the importance of “the universal right to lead a dignified life and freely practice one’s own faith” after he met with patriarchs from Syria, Iran, and Iraq, all countries where Christian minorities are under attack.
On the other hand, powers best placed to do something about the plight of Mideast Christians—namely, the U.S. Obama administration—made it clear that they would do nothing, even when well leveraged to do so.
In November, the wife of American pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been imprisoned in Iran for over a year for practicing Christianity, said she and her family were devastated after learning that the Obama administration did not try to secure the release of her husband as part of the newly signed deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
“The talks over Iran’s nuclear program were seen by his [Abedini’s] family and those representing them as one of the most promising avenues yet for securing his release,” said Fox News. “But the White House confirmed over the weekend that Abedini’s status was not on the table during those talks.”
“I don’t think we have any more leverage,” said Abedini’s wife. “We now have to consider other avenues and having other countries speak out because our country when we could have used our leverage chose to stay silent.”
The rest of November’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:
Islamic Attacks on Christian Places of Worship
Lebanon: An unidentified attacker firebombed the reception area of the newly built Christian cathedral of the town’s patron Saint, Mar Zakhya. Despite the loud boom heard in the town’s main square, there was limited damage; some building material used for the building process of the cathedral was destroyed. Although Lebanon was Christian-majority in the mid-20th century, today it is roughly 60% Muslim, 40% Christian.
Sudan: Police and security forces used a truck and two land cruisers to batter down the fence around Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church, before breaking into the church and beating and arresting the Christians present as Muslim onlookers shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is greater”). The government, which has been destroying or taking over church buildings in retaliation to the secession of the mainly Christian South Sudan in July 2011, is believed to be behind the move, on the pretext that parts of the church’s property actually belong to a Muslim business investor.
Syria: Nine children were killed and 27 people wounded after Islamic rebels targeted and fired mortar rounds at the St. John of Damascus Christian School and the school bus. Also, the aftermath of the rebel invasion and occupation of the city of Qamishli in the northeast near the Turkish border revealed and included—among other atrocities such as killing and beheading Christians and their clergy—the destruction of all Christian icons in the local church and theft of the church’s most prized possession, a reportedly two-thousand year-old icon of the face of Christ.
Turkey: Historically the oldest Christian place of worship in Istanbul, the ancient monastery of San Giovanni in Studion founded in 462, currently classified as a museum, is now going to serve as a mosque. This would be the third ancient Christian building and heritage site to be set to be transformed into a mosque. Earlier it was announced that the ancient churches of Hagia Sophia (St. Sophia) in Trabzon and in Iznik would also be turned into mosques.
Islamic Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism
India: TJ Joseph, a Christian college professor, was finally acquitted of all blasphemy charges, though he is still missing an arm. Back in 2010 he had his right hand and part of his arm cut off by a group of men, following accusations that some of his exams contained offensive questions about Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Although he had apologized, after he was mutilated, he was also fired by his college. According to one source: the most serious aspects of this episode “was the attitude of the police, who registered the complaint against him and also arrested him, and of the institution, which has suspended him from duty. Fortunately, the Mahatma Gandhi University, to which Newman College is affiliated, revoked the decision of the school authorities and has offered him his job back.”
Iran: The fate of Hossein Saketi Aramsari, a Christian known as “Stephen” among his friends, remained unknown. Iran’s secret police arrested him back in July, 2013, on suspicions that he was engaging in “evangelistic activities.” According to sources, apparently to increase pressure on him, authorities transferred him from one jail to another; he has also been in solitary confinement. Then, in October, a judge of the local Revolutionary Court “officially charged him with doing evangelism.” It is believed that he is currently held in the same prison where Benham Irani, another Christian “prisoner of conscience” is being held, abused, and refused medical treatment, also on the charge of proselytizing. Explaining this rise in crackdowns on evangelizing, Mohabat News said, “Conversion of youth and their families has become a major concern for the Iranian security authorities and Islamic leaders.” Separately, a former Muslim and drug addict who twice attempted to commit suicide before he converted to Christianity at a rehabilitation center at the hands of another former Muslim and ex-drug addict woman who had earlier become Christian, was, according to those close to him, falsely convicted of selling drugs in the facility, severely beaten, and sentenced to prison, after authorities learned that he himself had begun to proselytize in the rehabilitation center. Police also temporarily arrested Armin Davoodi’s parents at their home and confiscated his personal belongings, including the Bibles he used to take to the rehabilitation center. Relatives with strong government connections were able to get him released under numerous conditions, including a requirement that he state in writing that Christians had misled him into the faith and that he would never again go to a church or talk to other Muslims about the Gospel, and that if he did, he would be executed by the state. So he agreed to their proposal and has since fled.
Pakistan: Blasphemy cases against Christians have reached an all-time high. Four such cases were reported in November, which, according to activists, is four times higher than the monthly average recorded over the past two years. Activists and clergy further stressed that the overwhelming majority of blasphemy accusations are being used as “instruments of revenge” against Christians, as a sure way to see them get punished for whatever real or imagined grievance accusing Muslims may have. Separately, Younis Masih, a 35-year-old Christian who had been imprisoned and sentenced to death on blasphemy charges since 2005, was finally released after judges decreed he did not blaspheme Islam. He and his family are still in hiding since some Muslims still seek to kill him despite his being cleared of the blasphemy charge. According to Younis: “I have four children and I have no job, no one is helping me. I live with the fear of being killed.” And in the words of his lawyer: “Christians in Pakistan fear threats, attacks, violence, discrimination and hatred. The law of blasphemy is always a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads: Their life is not safe even after their release from prison.”
Somalia: A Muslim convert to Christianity living in Mogadishu was killed by Islamic gunmen accusing him of spreading the faith. Two men armed with pistols shot Abdikhani Hassan, 35, seven times as he approached his home after closing his pharmacy. He is survived by his wife, who is pregnant, and five children ranging in age from 3 to 12. He and his wife converted to Christianity back in 2000. Before killing him, one of the assailants told a neighbor, “We have information that Hassan is spreading wrong religion to our people, and we are looking for him.” According to a source, “The men who murdered Abdikhani [Hassan] are suspected to be Al Shabaab militia,” the Somali wing of al-Qaeda which has vowed to cleanse the country of any Christian presence.
Turkey: A Christian pastor was reportedly arrested on charges of organizing human trafficking and prostitution. The Christian community of Agape (or “Brotherly Love”) Church, where Orhan Picaklar, 42, is pastor, insists that he is innocent, and that “the allegations are entirely instrumental, as the Pastor was under observation for suspected ‘illegal missionary activity.’” Later, the church where the Agape community meets was damaged by vandals, although the congregation has obtained the formal status of “association” in 2005 (as with other Christian communities in Turkey, the government does not grant official recognition of “church” to new communities).
Dhimmitude
Central African Republic: 450,000 Christians have fled their homes in the 80% Christian-majority nation since the Islamic takeover in March 2013. Then, Seleka—a coalition of local and foreign Arabic-speaking Islamic militias—seized control of the capital, Bangui, in an orgy of violence, bloodshed, and rape, against Christians. As one analyst put it, “But Seleka does not rape, loot and kill indiscriminately. Rather, Seleka attacks Christians and spares Muslims, causing traditional community trust to evaporate, and creating a sectarian tinderbox.” And in fact, Christians, who make the majority of the African nation, are fighting back, leading to an extremely volatile situation. Christian Bishop Albert Vanbuel stated “a rebellion of religious extremism with evil intentions, characterized by profanation and planned destruction of religious buildings, especially Catholic and Protestant churches” is now in power.
Egypt: Three months after the Egyptian military liberated Delga from Muslim Brotherhood supporters and sympathizers—who were forcing Christians to pay jizya, or tribute, for right of life—they continued to terrorize Christians in other towns across Egypt. Especially throughout regions in Upper Egypt like Minya, extortionists using the threat of kidnap, torture and murder seized money, land and other property from Christians. One Copt was tied by his kidnappers as they repeatedly shot an automatic rifle next to his ear. According to Morning Star News, “Besides the emotional damage he suffered, the shockwaves exiting the rifle combined with the muzzle blast shattered the Christian’s eardrums and burned his face. The Copt begged his family to gather the ransom money, and eventually they paid the kidnappers some 50,000 Egyptian pounds (US$7,260). He returned to his family shattered and unable to speak of the ordeal until recently.” According to the founder of the Maspero Union, targeting Christians in the context of seizing their money and property is seen “as a religious duty.” The director of a human rights organization in Upper Egypt said, “This past month alone, we had nine cases of kidnapping in Minya, and they all paid their ransom, which was between 100,000 and 250,000 Egyptian pounds [US$14,500 to $36,300] for each case.” Separately in Minya, after a Coptic boy was accused of being in a relationship with a Muslim girl, “Muslims burnt down the house of the boy’s father and an adjacent house.”
Nigeria: After kidnapping a teenage Christian girl named Hajja, members of the Boko Haram terrorist organization kept her as a slave, eventually putting a knife to her throat and offering her one of two choices: convert to Islam or die. “If I cried, they beat me. If I spoke, they beat me. They told me I must become a Muslim but I refused again and again… They were about to slaughter me and one of them begged me not to resist and just before I had my throat slit I relented. They put a veil on me and made me read from the Koran.” According to Reuters, “She ceremonially converted to Islam, cooked for the men, carried ammunition during an attack on a police outpost and was about to be married to one of the insurgents before she managed to engineer a dramatic escape. She says she was not raped.” Recounting how her captors used her to lure people into traps, the 19-year-old told Reuters, and “They took them back to a cave and tied them up. They cut their throats, one at a time. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest, because I was the bait.” Among those who did the slaughtering was the Muslim wife of a leader, the only other woman in the band of jihadi terrorists. Separately, a Baptist high school principal and some teachers were beaten to a “pulp” and “state of coma” at the hands of “unknown persons,” who used, among other weapons, axes. The reason was that the school had earlier sent home a female student for wearing a veil, or Islamic hijab, while on school premises. Finally, over 70 Christians were killed by what were described as “Islamic extremists”: Boko Haram terrorists killed 34 Christians in Borno state, while “Muslim herdsmen” slaughtered 37 Christians, injured dozens, and looted and destroyed their homes, in coordinated attacks on four Plateau state villages.
Pakistan: An entire Christian community has been forced to flee a Lyarni neighborhood known as the “Slaughter House,” due to the endemic killings, rapes of young girls, thefts, drug dealing, and extortions. Before surrounding Muslims began their incursions, the residential area was 90% Christian, 10% Hindu, with four churches and three temples. “It is almost empty now,” disclosed a Christian elder of a Christian family. “We all are separated now. We won’t be reunited again.” “A lot of the families have left the compound since 2008, after their daughters were kidnapped and raped,” claimed another community elder. “No one knows where they have gone.” He recalled an incident when a teenage girl, who was dancing at her brother’s wedding, was kidnapped. “Her parents, brother and relatives cried and appealed to the kidnappers but they didn’t listen,” he narrated. “She was dishonoured and was left outside the compound the next morning. That family was never seen in the city again.”
About this Series
While not all, or even most Muslims are involved, the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching pandemic proportions. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.
2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death those who “offend” Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
Previous Reports:
- October, 2013
- September, 2013
- August, 2013
- July, 2013
- June, 2013
- May, 2013
- April, 2013
- March, 2013
- February, 2013
- January, 2013
- December, 2012
- November, 2012
- October, 2012
- September, 2012
- August, 2012
- July, 2012
- June, 2012
- May, 2012
- April, 2012
- March, 2012
- February, 2012
- January, 2012
- December, 2011
- November, 2011
- October, 2011
- September, 2011
- August, 2011
- July, 2011
Mohammed’s dead hand reaches across the centuries with evil intent for his figment allah.
I’d heard people say that Christians aren’t perfect and that they are far from pure and/or innocent. Who can argue with a valid point? I don’t think that I’ve ever met a perfect person. We are all fallible, regardless of our religious persuasion.
But, that isn’t the point. The point is exactly the same as Voltaire’s point regarding free speech. To paraphrase
Voltaire,…” I may not like what you have to say, but I’ll defend to my death, your right to say it”.
I would hope that most enlightened people would get the point.
The
reality is that the original and continual nemesis to hard core Islam
has been Christianity. It’s just easier to talk about Christianity
because it is so widespread, especially in the Western hemisphere. Christianity
is more visible and “relatable” to the average “Joe”, living on this
side of the world. HOWEVER, Islam doesn’t discriminate. Judaism, Buddhism,
Hinduism,……virtually anything that differs from it or
disagrees with it, is extinguished or marginalized.
It shocks me when people talk about democratic political Islam,……it’s an oxymoron,…it’s absurd.
People who do not understand fundamental differences in world
views are bound to make dangerous mistakes. I lived the reality ( and so
did my family), but still struggled to accept the facts.
There are only 1400 years of history to back it up.
OK!
Christians say they believe in a triune God – Father, Son & Holy Spirit!
They say their God is Almighty & Omniscient!
So, for the past 1400 years he has seen his people being slaughtered & denigrated by subhuman Neanderthals & DID NOTHING to help his people!
The question must be asked,
“What kind of a God would allow his people to be killed & tortured & do nothing to help them”?
Its all very well to have faith, but surely the time has come for Christians to get off their knees & arm themselves & destroy these subhuman Neanderthal Mohammedans!
What needs to be done first, is to nuke Mecca & Medina, at its busiest time.
This will have the same effect as that which the Japs experienced, when they were nuked!
They too were acting in a subhuman, Neanderthal way, before they were nuked.
So, the call must go out to all Christians in positions of power, to start the process of nuking Mecca & Medina.
The time for praying is over!
Christians cannot depend on their God to get off his arse & help them, so they will have to help themselves!
The cultural foundation codex of the Western Democracies is based upon a Christian-Classical (Greek/Roman(a)) tradition qualified and fused in the main by bloody conflict informed by religious/secular philosophical reflections from the Enlightenment onwards.
A codex which informs an inherent contradiction autonomous ‘Man’ with unbreakable cultural strings attached Half Christian Half Secular. It is a condition which informs at the same time at either end of it’s cultural behavioral variance a monster and a saint both appearing together at either end at the same time.
It is a cultural codex which in historical terms has enabled the widest behavioral variance ever seen in human societies to date. From Cultural relativism to Fascism/Religious Theocracy. And as such clearly contains some danger for its adherents in time and space.
At the moment our Western cultural mean is down the cultural relativism end informed by “‘new’ social democracy, the ‘third way'”. Socialism Capitalism Fascism Theocracy in their pure forms have failed to deliver, even in their possible less than draconian forms they have been determined as having failed – so seeing nowhere to go the Western political elite inclusive of the religious have decided as no one cultural construct appears to have the ethical constructs which will deliver consistently in good times and bad security and a flourishing life therefore all answers to the question of what makes a good culture are valid.
It is the age of ‘Win Win’ there are to be no cultural losers. There are to be no more ‘zero-sum’ difficult conversations, every view is valid just different, despite……..
Harmony is determined to be achieved by ‘ignoring, or concealing, class (cultural) differences and economic inequalities’. Where across Western policy or potential policy making bodies enforced Win Win achieves the required “Tranquility of Silence”.
The reality rising major schism due to the fact cultures which have differing codex ethical constructs of Other inclusive of women to the Western cultural codex are being allowed without restriction into the Western Public Square. Myths religious and secular based are in my view underpinning the unfolding disaster.
These myths I explore in the attached link with a footnote detailing my view of the pathological notion of Win Win.
“For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men’s efforts than good by their own.”
http://citizensfirstasnau.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/for-as-they-have-been-successful-in.html
If it is shown with abundant certainty that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia, then the case is made out that the profession and practice of Islam as a political religion ought to be made a punishable crime, and if necessary a capital one.
The US does NOTHING for Christians being raped and murdered by Muslims. In fact, the US aids and abets the rape and murder of Christians and also Muslims that say No to the seventh century in Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, Egypt, and Syria. At least Russia helps Christians and the repair of Churches in the region; the US only helps with the repair of Mosques.
The biggest ally of the Islamist jihad against the West and the persecution of Christians is, the US and the EU!!
The Orthodox see the West for what it is, post and anti Christian, now trying to push
gay marriage onto its peoples. We see that the West very similar to how Islam sees the West: no longer Christian and ripe for conversion (for Muslims, to Islam; for the Orthodox, to insanity).