‘No Parent Should Endure Such a Devastating Loss’: The Muslim Persecution of Christians, June 2024

June 23, Russia: Terrorists slaughtered several Christians, including Fr. Nikolai Kotelnikov, and torched churches and synagogues.

The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of June 2024.

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Russia: On Sunday, June 23, terrorists launched attacks on several churches and synagogues in the Muslim region of Dagestan. At least 21 people were killed and dozens wounded. One elderly and ailing Orthodox priest, Fr. Nikolai Kotelnikov, had his throat slit by the “Allahu akbar” yelling Muslims. At least one church, that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was set aflame. At another church, and in the words of one report, “Gun battles erupted around the Assumption Cathedral in Makhachkala and heavy automatic gunfire rang out late into the night. Footage showed residents running for cover as plumes of smoke rose above the city.” About 5-6 militants were killed; the rest fled. No one claimed the attack, which follows the Moscow massacre of late March, when 145 Russians were massacred, and which was claimed by ISIS.

Democratic Republic of Congo: On Friday, June 7, ISIS militants, using machetes and rifles, slaughtered more than 80 Christians and forced the closure of several churches. The terror group itself emphasized the religious identity of its victims in a post, saying that “Caliphate soldiers” killed “Christians.” According to one report, many of the slain were “very young” and were targeted for “refusing to convert into Islam.” This incident is part of a larger pattern of violence against Christians. According to one report, “nearly 150 people have been killed by the group since early June.” This includes a June 7 attack that left 41 people slaughtered; some bodies were found “tied up” and “decapitated.”

Nigeria: Some June headlines from the ongoing Muslim genocide of Christians in the African nation follow:

June 2: “Islamic Fulani Militants Kill Pastor, Wife, 3 Other Church Members.”
June 6: “Terrorists Murder 3 Abducted Christian Passengers in Borno.” (After stopping and raiding a bus, the Muslims separated the Christian passengers from the Muslims and killed them.)
June 9: “Priest Kidnapped in Kaduna State, Nigeria.
June 17: “Suspected Islamic Fulani Militants Kill 5 Christians.”
June 22: “Muslim Extremists Abduct Second Church Leader in Three Weeks.”
June 23-26: “Eight Christians Killed in Plateau State, Nigeria.”
June 21-25: “Islamic Terrorists Threaten to Kill Kidnapped Clergymen in Nigeria” (unless heavy ransoms are paid).

Germany: A roaming gang of ten “youths” savagely attacked a 20-year-old Christian of Greek origin, Phillipos Tsanis, for wearing a large pectoral cross. “They beat him to death,” Phillipos’s grieving father told reporters, “all 10 people were kicking him in the head, after he had dropped to the floor unconscious. Rushed to a hospital and placed on life support, the 20-year-old nonetheless succumbed to his injuries. “The most disturbing aspect,” another relative said, “is that they recorded the attack and are boasting about it,” adding that this incident mirrors other disturbing occurrences in the area targeting individuals perceived as Christian, including the deaths of a 26-year-old man and a policeman. The primary culprit is of Syrian origin. Phillipos’s father added that the youth was just returning from a celebratory party: “He just wanted to enjoy the graduation party with his sister and friends. His life was just beginning. The violence has to stop. This could happen to anyone’s child, and no parent should endure such a devastating loss.”

Separately, on June 28, a 15-year-old Muslim boy was sentenced to four years in prison after he confessed to planning a major terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Leverkusen. According to the report, “the boy became radicalized in the fall of 2023,” after which he and another Muslim teenager made their plans:

The suspect wanted to kill as many people as possible at the Christmas market with a rented truck. The other suspect would film it. The teenager had posted a video in a chat group announcing an attack, which also features an Islamic State symbol in the background.

Uganda: On June 18, the slain body of Richard Malinga, a 36-year-old pastor who had been receiving threats from Muslims for leading their coreligionists to Christianity, was found. According to his pastor (name withheld), “The evening of June 17, I received a short message from Malinga of being surrounded by the Muslims. I wrote back to him several times, but there was no response.” He was later found “in a pool of blood. We found the victim dead and tied with ropes.”

In a separate incident, Muslims savagely beat two Christian evangelists—breaking the leg of one—for preaching Christ in their village. Once they began to preach, Tenywa Herbert, 34, and Mukisa Siraji, 30, found that “We landed among some angry Muslims who were hunting for me,” Mukisa said:

Before completing our message, one sheikh called Jaberi, the imam of one of the mosques in Kaliro, who had a big beard, ordered other Muslims to beat us and get Jannah (Paradise). We were grabbed and flogged publicly until my leg was hit with a hammer, and it got broken totally.

The Muslims culminated this punitive “ritual” by tearing their Bibles and religious tracts to pieces.

Pakistan: Blasphemy Charges, Rape, Forced Conversions and Murder of Christians

On June 4, authorities arrested Jameela Khatoon, a 62-year-old mentally ill Christian woman, after a Muslim shopkeeper, Muhammad Asif, complained that she had committed blasphemy against his namesake, the prophet of Islam. Jameela is being charged under Section 295-C, which carries a mandatory death sentence for those who insult Muhammad. Earlier that day, Jameela had entered Asif’s shop; an argument over shampoo quickly spiraled so that, after she left, he called police accusing her of “uttering derogatory remarks about Muhammad,” saying that “Christ was greater than the prophet of Islam,” and generally “screaming and shouting.” According to Jameela’s son, Sonny Gil, everyone in the neighborhood knows about her mental condition:

Ali also knows about her illness, and we are surprised as to why he filed a case against her… Ali has claimed that when he and some other Muslims tried to stop my mother from blaspheming against their prophet, she started walking towards her home but kept insulting Muhammad.

Gil said his mother’s mental health has been rapidly deteriorating for four years, adding,

We have taken her to the Punjab Institute of Mental Health several times for treatment, but she hasn’t improved much… We have tried our best to keep her in the house, but she refuses to stay confined and becomes violent… My mother didn’t know what she was saying or doing. It would be very unfair to keep her in prison with such a medical condition. We hope that the court will drop the charges against her on compassionate grounds.

Meanwhile, the rest of the 40-45 Christian families living in Jameela’s neighborhood have fled their homes, as reprisals and collective punishment against Christians is routine in Pakistan.

Separately, on June 29, an “anti-terrorism” court handed out another death sentence to Ehsan Masih, a 27-year-old Christian man for allegedly sharing a “blasphemous” video against Muhammad on a social media platform, despite lack of evidence. According to his lawyer,

The police recovered Masih’s phone from his house and sent it to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) for examination. The PFSA report concluded that no blasphemous material was found on the accused’s phone or TikTok account…. Despite there being no direct evidence against Masih, the court relied on the statements given by the prosecution witnesses and sentenced him to death, which is a gross miscarriage of justice.

In another blasphemy-related incident, an impoverished Christian rickshaw driver is facing a long prison sentence, possibly for life, for stepping out of his carriage onto some papers alleged to have been pages of the Koran. According to the report,

Dennis Albert, a 35-year-old rickshaw driver, was booked under one section of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison (Section 295-A, hurting religious sentiments), and another that mandates life in prison (Section 295-B, defiling the Quran).

Police arrested him after a Muslim passerby alleged that Dennis was standing atop Islamic scriptures. But as Dennis’s brother, Imran, said,

Dennis has studied till 10th grade, but he had no clue that the pages he was standing on had religious value. He’s a simple rickshaw driver earning an honorable livelihood for himself. He did not have any intention of hurting religious sentiments of any person or community… He’s losing hope for his freedom. He’s being kept in a special barrack reserved for blasphemy accused, and it seems after hearing their stories of prolonged imprisonment, Dennis has started thinking that the effort is futile. I keep encouraging him not to give up and remain steadfast in his faith.

What is not clear is why Muslims were not outraged that Koran scriptures littered the public streets in the first place.

In yet another incident, after her bail was denied on June 3, another Christian woman was reported as rotting in a jail cell awaiting trial for accusations of blasphemy. Stella Khawar, 28, was arrested and charged with “hurting religious sentiments of Muslims,” said her husband, Khawar Shahzad, though he does not believe that his wife is capable of the deed, or that there is any evidence. Lawyers and human rights activist believe the accusation is part of an Islamic campaign against Christians of the region.

On June 24, Haider Ali, a 27-year-old Muslim man and butcher by profession, kidnapped Alina Khalid, a 14-year-old Christian girl, and forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Her father reported the kidnapping on the same day to police but they failed to act, “giving the accused sufficient time to go into hiding,” Khalid Masih said. Then, three days later, the family learned that their daughter had been forcibly converted to Islam and married to Ali: “We came to know about Alina’s conversion and marriage after she recorded her statement in court in which she purportedly claimed that she had changed her faith and married Ali by choice.” The Islamic marriage certificate lies by recording Alina’s age as 19; it also lacks her required national identity card number.

Alina did not have a phone and never went out of the house alone, so I don’t think she had any direct contact with Ali. He has abducted her with the sole objective of exploiting her sexually. Like all other victims, Alina too was forced to do what her abductor said.

The report adds,

Typically kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of such Islamic ‘marriages’ and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children’s ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their ‘legal’ wives.

A June 13 report recounts the forced conversion attempt against a 20-year-old Christian mother of two young children The woman (name withheld) started by saying she was kidnapped from her parents’ home by five Muslim men: “I was alone in the house when the accused scaled the wall and abducted me on gunpoint.” She was taken to a deserted building and raped by the ringleader, Ali Raza, while his armed accomplices stood guard:

Ali Raza lives in the same village, and he had been trying to force me to develop illicit relations with him whenever I used to go out for chores. I told my father about this, and he had raised the issue with the village elders. However, our pleas for intervention were ignored, emboldening him further.

Her abductors next moved her to another location for several days: “During this time, Ali Raza continued to rape me on gunpoint. He beat me up when I resisted him and threatened that he would kill my parents if I screamed or called for help.” She was finally moved to Ali’s home “where he and his accomplices tried to force her to convert to Islam and marry him by forcibly taking her thumbprint as a signature on a blank paper”:

They wanted me to surrender to their demands so that if there was any legal issue, they could claim that I had eloped with Ali Raza and converted and married him with my will. Even though they tortured me to take my thumbprint, I refused to renounce my faith and told them that I will not deny Christ come what may.

She finally managed to escape, through the aid of a Muslim woman who took pity on her. When she finally called her father, it took him some days to raise the money needed to take a bus to where she was. “When I heard her voice after 10-11 days,” he said, “I cannot express how relieved I felt despite the pain of hearing what she had been through.” Of the Muslim woman who aided his daughter, he said, “I can never thank her enough for treating my daughter like her own.”

Finally, on June 6, a Muslim factory owner tortured his Christian employee to death for refusing to continue working for him. Waqas Salmat, the 18-year-old Christian worker started working for Muhammad Saleem two months earlier, but decided to quit on June 1 and search for a better paying job, to help support his family. This would not do for Muhammad. He continued pestering the young man to return and even harassed his parents, threatening to accuse the youth of theft unless he returns. Finally, when Waqas went to see another potential employer, Muhammad’s son spotted him and informed his father. Muhammad instantly sent some factory workers to collect the recalcitrant infidel; they bound him hand and foot and carried him to Muhammad’s factory. There, Muhammad, his son, and several Muslim employees began torturing Waqas for hours—including by beating him with pipes and administering electric shocks to him—until he died. He was the main bread winner for his impoverished family. According to his mother, Rubina,

Our financial condition is such that we didn’t even have enough money to arrange for his burial… Waqas was my beloved son and my biggest support. He would often tell me that he’ll work very hard to make life easier for us, but I never imagined that he would be taken from me like this. I’m very poor, and with Waqas gone, my family’s financial situation has further deteriorated. I humbly ask my Christian brothers and sisters to support us in getting justice for my innocent son.

The report adds that “Muslim employers commonly exploit impoverished Christian workers, believing they do not have the resources or status in the 96-percent Muslim country to obtain justice.”

Separately, on June 21, Rakha, the shattered widow of an elderly Christian man, Nazir Masih, who was a few weeks earlier beaten to death by a Muslim mob—also on a false blasphemy accusation—died of a broken heart. Her grieving son recalled how she could not get over and constantly obsessed over the murder of her beloved husband:

The tears in her eyes never dried. She would recall the good times they had spent together and would then cry out his name. A few hours before she passed away, my mother wept and said that life had become meaningless for her after my father’s death. She would say, ‘He has left me alone, and I can’t bear this anymore.’ … Her pain and agony apparently worsened when she overheard some family members talking about the bails being granted to the people involved in my father’s killing. We tried our best to keep this information from her, but we failed…. Our lives have been completely shattered – all family members, including our children, are suffering from depression and stress. We have lost our business, and are forced to live in our own house as refugees. The release of the people involved in the killing of my father is akin to rubbing salt on our wounds. We’ve already lost hope for justice, and now my mother has also left us.

Muslim Attacks on Churches

France: On June 5, a Muslim refugee, Fataharhman Awad Allah Abdalkrem, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for engaging in a series of arson attacks in Padua over the course of three months in 2022, including the torching of the Saint-Pierre Church, as well as the torching of many cars, 16 apartments, and other buildings.

Several other churches were attacked in France in June. One was set on fire, and in another, “The cross was twisted, the altar smashed, vases of flowers were thrown against the walls, a sacred plaque on the altar was unsealed, twelve columns were torn down and the cross from the high altar was thrown on the sidewalk.”

Germany: On June 22, in a small and sleepy Bavarian town, a group of “young people” barged into a church during evening mass and began hollering “Allahu akbar”—terrifying worshippers.

Indonesia: Because it stands in close proximity to an Islamic university, authorities are, according to a June 18 report, threatening a Christian church of 150 members with closure, even though it had been functioning in the same location for nine years.

Separately, on Sunday, June 30, local officials forced a stop to a Christian wedding ceremony and banned the church where it was being held in from any further worship meetings. They claimed that the church lacked a proper permit and that, anyway, area residents were opposed to the church. According to the report, a video shows the pastor telling officials that they “might first ban the prostitution taking place in front of the village head office,” while the pastor’s wife plead: “We’re not causing any trouble, sir. We’re sorry, we ask for your understanding. We come from everywhere. We are a minority group. Our congregation is small in number. So please understand.” Authorities refused to relent, citing only that the locals were against the church—though the report states that that may not even be true, that the Muslim authorities’ are citing it as a pretext to close the church for their own reasons.

Senegal: In the 97% Muslim nation, the St Louis du Sénégal cemetery was ransacked and vandalized; several iron crosses were twisted and broken, and tomb paintings and decorations were destroyed. Fr. Louis Gomis appealed to the authorities as well as other “religious leaders”:

For a long time, especially in recent days, we have suffered a ransacking of our Catholic cemetery. This cemetery has been desecrated by unknown individuals and we are asking for help from the authorities, from religious leaders so that we can preserve the sacred place where our deceased rest.

General Muslim Persecution of Christians

Iran: According to a June 24 report, “Five Christian converts have been sentenced to a total of over 25 years in prison by the Iranian judiciary,” and “there has been no available information about the specific reason for the charge against the five Christian converts or the details of their accusations.” The report adds that while Christians are “acknowledged as a religious minority in Iran, authorities impose severe penalties, especially on those who convert from Islam to Christianity,” that is, apostates. One of those Christians sentenced, an Armenian, was given 10 years’ imprisonment. Because there was no clear evidence of any wrong doing on his part, the judges relied on a legal provision that allows punishment for “supposed” crimes. According to the report,

Hakop Gochumyan, who had been in a cell since last summer, ended up on trial for ‘proselytising activities’ defined as ‘deviant’ that ‘contradicts the sacred law of Islam’ due to his membership and leadership of ‘a network of evangelical Christianity.’

Iraq: A court told a Christian woman and her children to convert to Islam, due to the actions of the woman’s mother. Evlin Joseph was 15 when her mother, following a divorce from Evlin’s father, converted to Islam and married a Muslim man; and, according to Iraqi law, “if a parent converts to Islam, their children who are under 18 should also adopt the new faith.” As Evlin protests, however, “I am Christian. I am married to a Christian man. I have three Christian kids. My education was in our language. All my official documents are Christian. Our marriage is registered by the Church.” Lawyer Akram Mikhail said he had seen “many cases” similar to Evlin’s: “This forces someone to convert to Islam, with force. I am not an expert in Islam, but it is in Islam that one cannot force the religion onto others.” As the report explains, this development affects more than just Evlin: “The law also stipulates that if one spouse converts to Islam, then Sharia law is applicable. This means that Joseph does not have the right to marry a Christian man. The law also is applied to inheritance and custody.”

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in July 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported 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 Islamic Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of 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 thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

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