BRUSSELS – The recent abductions
of Syriac Orthodox Archbishop
Yohanna Ibrahim and his Greek
Orthodox counterpart, Paul
Yazigi, reflect not only the
increasing brutality of Syria’s
civil war, but also the
escalating crisis for Christians
across the Arab world — one that
could end up driving them away
altogether.
According to the International
Society for Human Rights, 80
percent of all acts of religious
persecution worldwide in 2012
were directed at Christians.
This
surge in discrimination against
Christian communities in
countries where they have lived
for many centuries can be
explained largely by increasing
Islamist militancy and the rise
of political Islam in the wake
of the Arab Spring.
As
Islamist parties have taken
power in the region, a wave of
intimidation and discrimination
has been unleashed on Christian
minority populations.
For
example, on Feb. 26, at a
garment market in Benghazi,
Libya, members of a powerful
Islamist militia rounded up
dozens of Egyptian Coptic
Christians — identified by
crosses tattooed on their right
wrists — whom they then
detained, tortured and
threatened with execution.
Among
the victims was a Coptic priest,
whom the captors beat severely
before shaving his head and
moustache. Priests have also
been assaulted in Tripoli, and
churches have been torched. All
of this sends a clear message:
non-Muslims are not safe in
Libya.
While
Libya has no significant
religious minority, hundreds of
thousands of Egyptians live and
work in the country, where
Christian proselytizing is
illegal — and where one can be
accused of proselytizing simply
for possessing a Bible. But
Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood-controlled
government does not seem
particularly eager to protect
its Christian citizens in Libya;
it offered only a half-hearted
call for the release of its
detained citizens.
This
reflects the similarly
deteriorating situation for
Christians in Egypt, where they
account for roughly 15 percent
of the population. In early
April, a funeral at St. Mark’s
Cathedral (the seat of the
Coptic Church in Cairo) for four
Christians killed in sectarian
riots days earlier descended
into chaos, with thousands of
mourners attacked as they tried
to leave after the service.
Police fired tear gas into the
compound, standing by as those
outside the cathedral launched
petrol bombs, hurled rocks and
shot at those inside. At least
two died and 80 were injured in
the five-hour clash.
Christians blame the Muslim
Brotherhood not only for
allowing Muslim Egyptians to
attack them with impunity, but
also for permitting — and
delivering — incendiary
anti-Christian rhetoric. For
example, at an open rally for
President Mohamed Morsi last
year, the cleric Safwat Hegazy
warned that Egyptian Muslims
would “splash blood” on
Christians who “splash water” on
Morsi’s legitimacy.
In
February, Egypt’s Coptic
patriarch, Pope Tawadros II,
sharply criticized the country’s
leadership in a televised
interview, calling the new
constitution discriminatory and
dismissing Morsi’s “national
dialogues” as an empty gesture.
This unusually assertive stance
reflects rising frustration
among Christians, as well as the
secular and liberal opposition,
with the Muslim Brotherhood’s
power monopoly.
Syria,
which once welcomed thousands of
Christians fleeing war-torn
Iraq, is experiencing an
analogous change, as the
country’s increasingly sectarian
civil war generates fear and
mistrust nationwide. Although
Christians have largely sought
to remain neutral in the
conflict, they have become
involved gradually, some by
taking up arms and others as
victims of kidnapping and
violence.
Melkite
Greek Catholic Patriarch
Gregorios III recently stated
that, since 2011, over 1,000
Christians have been killed and
more than 40 churches and other
Christian institutions (schools,
orphanages, and care homes) have
been damaged or destroyed. Some
estimate that 300,000 Christians
have fled Syria.
Furthermore, fallout from
relentless regional conflict is
destabilizing Lebanon, a country
that offers Christians a
constitutional guarantee of
political representation.
Some
400,000 refugees — many of them
Sunni Muslims, including
fugitive rebels — have poured
over the border from Syria,
exacerbating sectarian tensions
and threatening to disrupt
Lebanon’s delicate social and
political balance.
Given
that, as Göttingen University’s
Martin Tamcke points out, there
is no remaining alternative for
Christian refugees in the Middle
East, they are increasingly
heading to Europe and North
America.
If this
trend is allowed to continue,
the Middle East will gradually
lose its Christian
congregations. In order to
prevent such a tragic outcome,
Western leaders must take a more
active role in advocating the
protection of Christian
minorities throughout the Arab
world.
Muhammad
founded Islam to specifically to
obliterate the Church, and now
Boko Haram is following in the
footsteps of their founder. We
all focus on terrorist groups
but we seem to ignore the
biggest one on earth: Islam. iOL
news
writes:
Abuja – The commander of
Nigeria’s Islamist militant
group Boko Haram claimed in
a video released on Monday
that the group abducted
women and children from
police barracks in a town
recently attacked by his
forces.
The
undated video seen by
reporters shows Boko Haram
leader Abu Shekau with women
and children, whom he
claimed to be holding
captive in retaliation for
the arrests by Nigerian
authorities of relatives of
Boko Haram members.
Demanding the release of
sect members and their
families, Shekau said: “If
you think that you can free
these women and children
from us, then come out and
face us.”
Boko Haram, whose name means
“Western education is a
sin”, has been waging an
insurgency since 2009 in
Africa’s most populous
country.
Sitting next to an AK-47
rifle on a table covered
with a rug, Shekau said in
the local Hausa language
that the group’s mission is
to fight “the government
that is fighting with Islam,
government of democracy,
constitution and literacy”.
Wearing a military uniform,
he said Boko Haram was
fighting Christians and
anyone allied with them.
Shekau claimed
responsibility for last
week’s attack on Bama town
in Borno state in
north-eastern Nigeria. In
the attack on a police
station, at least 42 people
died, including police
officers and civilians.
Shekau denied killing
civilians during a mid-April
attack on Baga, a fishing
village on Lake Chad.
By
some reports, nearly 200
people died and more than 2
000 homes were destroyed in
Baga in Borno State – a
stronghold of the Islamist
extremists – after Nigerian
security forces allegedly
went on a rampage following
a Boko Haram attack on April
17. It was Nigeria’s
military “that went to the
town and burnt down houses
that you like and killed
people that you like”,
Shekau said.
The
military has denied the
scale of the destruction,
stating that only 36 people
died in the clashes,
including 30 insurgents.
According to New York-based
Human Rights Watch, attacks
by Boko Haram or splinter
groups and extrajudicial
killings by the security
forces have killed more than
3 600 people since 2009. –
Sapa-dp
This is an
interview
done between Jamie Glazov of
FrontPage Magazine (FP) and
Raymond Ibrahim.
FP: Raymond Ibrahim, welcome
to Frontpage Interview.
Congratulations on your new
book, Crucified Again.
It was just released last
week and is available on
Amazon.com and bookstores
across America. It certainly
is an eye-opener. You even
include several color photos
which speak for themselves.
Can you tell us a little
about the book and why you
wrote it?
Ibrahim: Thanks,
Jamie. Christian persecution
under Islam is probably the
absolute worse human rights
crisis going on in the world
today, and yet it is
virtually unknown in the
West. Thus I wrote the book
to fill the vacuum, since
the mainstream media and
others–such as the Obama
administration–have, to
varying degrees, decided to
ignore or whitewash this
otherwise growing epidemic
of human pain and suffering.
If
any other group but
Christians were being
attacked, their plight would
make international
headlines. But because from
childhood on up in
America–from high schools to
universities, from the media
to Hollywood–Americans are
conditioned to view
Christians and their history
as hypocritical, fanatical,
intolerant, the source of
the world’s woes, it is
difficult to acknowledge
that, in fact, Christians
are by far the most
persecuted religious group
around the word, especially
the Islamic world.
A
January 2013 Reuters report
estimates some 100 million
Christians around the world
are being persecuted for
their faith. Thus I wrote
this book to give
FP: Tell
us how bad it is for
Christians in Muslim
majority countries. We
definitely are not gonna
hear about this from our
mainstream media.
Ibrahim: The
situation has gone from bad
to worse, particularly in
light of the so-called “Arab
Spring” and the Obama
administration’s
enthusiastic support for it,
despite the fact that it
continually exposes its true
face as an Islamic takeover.
Almost every single country
that Obama has helped rebels
and opposition forces to
topple the ruling secular
regimes has gotten markedly
worse for Christians. Under
Gaddafi, one never heard of
Libya’s immensely small
Christian minority
suffering. Post-Gaddafi, and
thanks to Obama’s support
for the al-Qaeda linked
jihadis who were always a
part of the opposition, the
very few churches there are under
attack and bombed;
nuns are harassed and forced
to flee; Christians
possessing Bibles are
arrested and tortured (one
recently died from his
torture).
It
is the same now in Syria,
which, under secular
strongman Bashar Assad was
tolerant towards its
Christian minorities. Now,
the “freedom-fighters”–code
for the Obama-supported
foreign jihadis–are
targeting Christians for
killing, displacement, and
hostage taking for ransoms.
The atrocities being
committed are many and
barbaric–beheadings,
enslavements, rapes, and
wholesale massacres–filling
the over 300 pages of Crucified
Again,
including, as you point out,
in pictures.
FP: Are
Christians being persecuted
in some Muslim countries or
all of them? Is there a
pattern?
Ibrahim: Wherever
there are sizable Muslim
populations living
side-by-side with
Christians, the latter are
under attack. So, yes,
Christians are being
persecuted, to varying
degrees, in all Muslim
nations. The ultimate
deciding factor is
numbers–comparative numbers
of Muslims and Christians,
that is. The ratio of
Muslims to Christians in any
given country–or, looking at
it another way, the
proximity of Christians and
Muslims–is the primary
factor explaining which
countries see the most and
the least Christian
persecution.
For
example, Saudi Arabia, which
is vehemently
anti-Christian, generates
fewer incidents of
persecution than some Muslim
nations which are generally
deemed moderate and yet
figure prominently in Crucified
Again.
The reason for this is
simple: Saudi Arabia has
nipped the problem in the
bud by banning Christianity
altogether; there are no
churches there to bomb or
burn. On the other hand, the
very large numbers of
Christians in Egypt prompt
regular bursts of
anti-Christian persecution.
Indeed, as one of the oldest
and largest Muslim nations,
with one of the oldest and
largest Christian
populations, Egypt is a kind
of paradigm of Islam’s
treatment of Christians–both
in the present and going
back more than thirteen
centuries. Accordingly, it
figures prominently in the
book.
In
sub-Saharan African
countries where Christians
often make up half or even
more of the entire
population, persecution
gives way to genocidal
jihads as Muslims elements
of these countries try to
purge their lands of any
trace of the “infidel.” Of
course, wherever and
whenever Christians are
killed or driven out there
will be less persecution
there–simply because there
will be fewer and fewer
Christians to target, as
nations that used to have
significant Christian
populations slowly become
more like Saudi Arabia:
infidel-free and thus
ostensibly “peaceful.” In
many African nations where
Christians make up nearly
half the population–Nigeria
being a prime example–we are
being offered a rare glimpse
of early Islamic history
repeating itself, as Muslims
use violence to subjugate or
kill very large numbers of
non-Muslims in the name of
Islam and through jihad.
That is the true story of
Islam’s spread from Arabia.
FP: What
are the causes of this
widespread persecution of
Christians?
Ibrahim: The
persecution is 100% a
product of Islamic
supremacism, both doctrinal
and, as I demonstrate in the
book, cultural. For example,
consider how the Christians
being persecuted by Muslims
are identical to their
persecutors: they share the
same race and ethnicity;
speak the same languages;
are nationals of the same
countries. There is nothing
to distinguish the Christian
from the Muslim in widely
different countries like
Egypt, Nigeria, and
Indonesia–except, of course,
religion. Moreover, in all
the countries I survey in Crucified
Again,
Christians are also
politically marginalized and
poorer than their Muslim
counterparts.
Thus it is clear that Muslim
attacks on Christians and
their places of worship are
animated first and foremost
by religious hostility, as
there is no other valid or
even conceivable reason to
explain the violence daily
visited on Christians under
Islam. And yes, this
hostility has a very long
tradition in Islam and its
teachings and doctrines. The
identical patterns of
persecution alone–which
demonstrate remarkable,
unwavering continuity across
centuries and
continents–make clear that
Islam, scripturally and
culturally, is responsible
for the hate.
FP: But
what happened, Raymond?
Muslim persecution of
Christians was certainly not
this bad just a few decades
ago, when many Muslims
seemed more
Western-oriented. What went
wrong? How did we get to
this point?
Ibrahim: Quite
right, Jamie.
One
of the most overlooked
phenomena of our age is that
Muslims are returning to
Islam. This sounds redundant
and meaningless, but I speak
of a “lost history” that has
blinded the West to the
implications of this return.
In short, because Islam is a
religion that makes might
right, after the Islamic
world was subjugated by the
West beginning with
Napoleon’s easy conquest of
Egypt in 1798, Muslims began
seeing Westernization as
pivotal to success, and thus
largely turned their backs
on Islam, being “Muslim”
only in name. However,
around mid-20th century,
beginning in earnest in the
“liberal” 1960s, when
Western culture took a
nosedive, became sexually
and morally unrestrained,
apologetic for itself and
self-loathing, and seeing
Western civilization,
especially Christianity, as
the root of the world’s
sufferings, Muslims went
from respecting and trying
to emulate the West, to
having great contempt for,
and wanting nothing to do
with, it, and naturally
began returning to their own
heritage, Islam and its
Sharia–all of course to
“multicultural” Western
applause, since, to the
West, Islam and its Sharia
were, and continue to be
portrayed, as great things.
But
of course, as Muslims turn
to Islam, so too do the
things of Islam–like
Christian
persecution–return. In fact,
because I believe the
colonial and post-colonial
era and its significance are
pivotal not only to
understanding Muslim
persecution of Christians,
but the rise of Islam as a
political force, I have an
early and important chapter
titled “Lost History” in the
book, where I fully
elaborate on this important
but much misunderstood point
in history, which really
helps answer that question
that became famous after
9/11: “What went wrong?”
FP: How
has the withdrawal of US
forces impacted the lives of
Christians in Iraq and
Afghanistan?
Ibrahim: Honestly,
the withdrawal of U.S.
forces from Iraq and
Afghanistan has not really
exacerbated the sufferings
of Christians, as they were
still being persecuted even
when U.S. forces were there.
In fact, if anything, the
presence of U.S. forces
sometimes enables the
persecution of Christians.
For example, I have a whole
section in Crucified
Again explaining
the concept of collective
punishment, and how
vulnerable, indigenous
Christians are regular
attacked in response to the
actions of U.S. forces or
the West in general, as many
Muslims conflate the West
with Christianity; when
Muhammad cartoons are
published in Europe,
Christians around the
Islamic world are attacked,
their churches bombed.
Speaking of churches,
although some existed in
Afghanistan before the U.S.
invasion, a year ago thelast
church was formally
demolished by
the U.S.-installed
government–and while U.S.
troops were there.
As
for Iraq, the year following
the ousting of Saddam
Hussein, in 2004 and under
U.S auspices, jihadis went
on a church bombing spree,
destroying countless
churches and killing many
Christians who, under
Saddam, were relatively well
tolerated. Indeed, jihadis
regularly taunt Christians
by pointing out that the
West won’t do anything to
save them. Dr. Wagdi Gonium,
a popular cleric in Egypt,
mocked the nation’s
Christian Copts when, after
threatening them with
genocide, he said: “What do
you think–that America will
protect you? Let’s be very
clear, America will not
protect you. If so, it would
have protected the
Christians of Iraq when they
were being butchered!”
FP: Why
is the Obama Administration,
and the Bush Administration
before them, so unwilling to
say one word about the
horrible violence being done
to Christians across the
Islamic world? For a nation
that prides itself on
protecting the helpless, the
United States seems to have
buried its head in the sand
when it comes to the
suffering of Christians.
Ibrahim: Quite
true. There is a difference,
however subtle, between
Bush’s handling and Obama’s:
when Bush “liberated” Iraq,
and jihadis went on, among
other things, a Christian
persecution spree, it was
still unknown to most U.S.
politicians that that would
be a consequence; there
really weren’t many
precedents to go by. On the
other hand, even before
Obama came to power, the
fate of Christian minorities
in countries “liberated”
from the grip of autocrats
was known (since the ousting
of Saddam, more than half of
Iraq’s indigenous Christians
have either been killed or
fled their homeland). So
there were precedents for
the Obama administration to
go by.
Nonetheless, the
administration has done all
it can to ignore these
precedents and empower
radical Islamic forces under
the umbrella of the “Arab
Spring,” so that the same
pattern that took place a
decade earlier in Iraq–the
persecution of Christians,
not to mention jihadi
intolerance for all that is
non-Islamic–has, as
expected, come to all of
those countries where Obama
helped empower
Islamists–including Egypt,
Libya, and now Syria, where
a recent fatwa, an Islamic
decree, made it permissible
for jihadis to rape all
non-Sunni women,
as a reward for waging jihad
to empower Sharia law in
Syria.
FP: Why
do you think so many
citizens in Western nations
are unaware of the
persecution of Christians?
Every time a Jew dares to
build a house on Jewish land
in Jerusalem there is a
major protest and its
front-page news, but
hundreds of Churches have
been burned in the Middle
East, Africa and Asia
without a word in the
Mainstream media.
Ibrahim: I
discuss this at length in Crucified
Again.
In a nutshell, the
mainstream media, to a great
extent, exists to validate
its liberal narrative, a
narrative which suggests
that all violence is a
byproduct of some material,
tangible grievance. Thus the
Arab-Israeli conflict is a
favorite topic for them to
cover, for no matter how
many rockets are shot into
Tel Aviv by Hamas and
Hezbollah, that will only be
portrayed as proof positive
that Muslims in PA
territories are aggrieved
and frustrated, and thus
lashing out at their Israeli
“oppressor.” And no matter
how many times jihadi groups
articulate their rage in
purely Islamic terms, the
media will portray their
animus as a product of
grievance and land conflict.
On
the other hand, the media
finds it difficult to
rationalize away Muslim
attacks on
Christians–Christians who
are of the same race,
ethnicity, and speak the
same language as their
Muslim persecutors. In this
context, the media can’t
portray the violence as a
“land dispute” or a product
of “grievance” (if anything
it is the ostracized and
politically disempowered
Christian minorities who
should have grievances).
So
since they can’t articulate
the attacks on Christians
through the established
secular/materialistic
paradigm, their primary
recourse is not to report on
Christian persecution, for
it is a phenomenon which
throws a wrench in their
otherwise well-oiled
narrative of
“Muslim-violence-is-a-product-of
Muslim-grievance.” Other
times, when they have no
choice but to report on it–I
have in mind the most
spectacular attacks on
Christians, where dozens are
often killed–they do so, but
only after using their
entire arsenal of semantic
games and relativistic,
equivocating language that
minimizes the religious
element.
FP: How
can the United Nations claim
to be dedicated to world
peace, yet they refuse to
discuss or debate the
treatment of Christian Copts
in Egypt, the forced
conversion to Islam of
thousands of Christians, the
violent jihad against
Christian worshipers in
countries like Nigeria or
the public calls from
prominent Islamic leaders to
destroy every church in the
Arabian Peninsula?
Ibrahim: Because
most of those in the United
Nations are byproducts of
the mainstream media’s
secular and liberal
narrative so that, like many
in the Western world, they
simply cannot see Christian
persecution for what it is,
and much prefer to focus on
those peoples whom the
powers that be have bestowed
the honor of being portrayed
as persecuted people, chief
among them Muslim
Palestinians (who,
ironically, often persecute
the Christian minority in
their midst).
FP: What
do you foresee as the future
of Christianity if the West
continues to ignore the
rampant persecution and
murder of Christians across
the Middle East, Africa and
Asia?
Ibrahim: Extinction.
Many forget that, when Islam
burst out of Arabia during
the first major wave of
Islamic conquests in the 7th century,
half of the world’s entire
Christian population lived
precisely in those lands we
nonchalantly now call the
“Arab World.” Fourteen
hundred years of sporadic
jihads and dhimmitude has
seen the slow decimation and
forced conversion of
Christians to Islam, making
that region nearly purely
Islamic. With the exception
of the Christian “golden
age” during and after the
colonial era, when Muslims
were Western-leaning,
today’s jihad has resumed in
an effort to eradicate
Christianity from its
birthplace–the Middle
East–once and for all.
FP: What
can a concerned private
citizen do to help end the
persecution of Christians in
the Islamic world? Can they
do anything to help or is it
simply too late?
Ibrahim: It’s
nearly too late–in some
countries like Iraq, the
indigenous Christian
population has been
decimated, and outside of
Egypt, the whole of north
Africa has something less
than 1% of a Christian
population–but there are
many Muslim majority nations
where Christians exist and
are fighting for survival,
Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria,
Indonesia, and many African
nations, for example.
Concerned citizens should
contact their
representatives, and visit
some of the human rights
organizations that fight for
Christian survival I list inCrucified
Again.
Most importantly, they
should spread the word. At
this point, our paralysis is
fundamentally tied up to our
ignorance.
FP: Is
it just Christians who are
suffering? What about other
religious minorities.
Ibrahim: To
be sure, all non-Muslims
living in the Islamic world
are being targeted as
infidels. However, for
various reasons which I
discuss in the book,
Christians are by far the
most prone to being
attacked. At any rate, while
the book focuses on Muslim
attacks on Christians, as I
conclude, that is ultimately
a snapshot of what the
Islamic world has in store
for the rest of the world.
Christian persecution is a
picture of what Islam
does–and will do–to all
non-Muslims if and when it
achieves dominance over
them.
FP: This
has certainly been an
eye-opener, Raymond. I
strongly recommend your
book, Crucified
Again, to
all who are interested in
learning about the true fate
awaiting all who resist
Islam and it Sharia.
Ibrahim: Thanks,
Jamie. The book certainly
connects the dots and shows
why what happens “over
there” should matter “over
here.”
The man
expected to serve as Pakistan’s
next prime minister is an
Islamist. His name is Nawaz
Sharif and his coming election
will mean a future holocaust
against the Christians. Fox News
reports:
ISLAMABAD – The man set to
become Pakistan’s next prime
minister after historic
elections over the weekend
could be called the Islamist
comeback kid.
Nawaz Sharif has held the
job twice before, but the
last time didn’t end so
well. The 63-year-old was
toppled in a coup by the
country’s army chief in 1999
and sent into exile in Saudi
Arabia. He spent years in
the steamy Gulf before
brokering his return in
2007.
After serving as the
country’s main opposition
leader, Sharif came roaring
back in Saturday’s
elections, in which his
Pakistan Muslim League-N
party scored a resounding
victory.
Sharif’s supporters believe
his pro-business background
and years of experience in
government make him the
right person to tackle the
country’s many economic
woes, like growing power
cuts, painful inflation and
widespread unemployment. He
is also a main proponent of
improving ties with
Pakistan’s archenemy and
neighbor India, a step that
would likely boost his
country’s economy.
Critics worry that Sharif,
who is known to be
personally very religious,
is soft on Islamic extremism
and won’t crack down on
militants that pose a
serious threat to Pakistan
and other countries — chief
among them the Taliban and
al-Qaida-linked groups.
The
United States will be
watching Sharif closely,
since Washington relies on
help from Islamabad to fight
Islamic militants in
Pakistan and to negotiate an
end to the war in
neighboring Afghanistan.
The
son of a wealthy
industrialist from central
Punjab province, Sharif
entered politics as a
protege of Gen. Zia ul-Haq,
who seized power in a
military coup in 1977.
Sharif was prime minister
from 1990-93 and again from
1997-99.
Sharif’s second stint in
power was cut short when he
was toppled in a military
coup and sent into exile by
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who
was then serving as army
chief. The coup followed an
attempt by Sharif to fire
Musharraf by preventing his
plane from landing when he
returned from a trip abroad.
In
an ironic twist, Musharraf
is currently under house
arrest in Pakistan after
returning from self-imposed
exile, and it will be up to
Sharif’s government to
decide whether to bring
treason charges against the
former military strongman.
Following the 1999 coup,
Sharif spent seven years in
exile before Musharraf
grudgingly allowed him to
return in November 2007,
apparently under pressure
from Saudi Arabia’s king, an
important ally of Pakistan.
Former Pakistani Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto also
returned from exile around
the same time to run for
parliament, but she was
killed in a gun and suicide
bomb attack at the end of
2007, before the election.
Sharif also intended to run
in the 2008 election, but he
was disqualified by a court
because of a conviction on
terrorism and hijacking
charges, stemming from
Musharraf’s coup. Sharif
insisted the conviction was
politically motivated, and
it was overturned by the
Supreme Court in 2009.
Sharif’s party came in
second in the 2008
parliamentary election,
behind Bhutto’s Pakistan
People’s Party. The two
parties originally formed a
government together, but
after two months, Sharif’s
party became the main
opposition, accusing
Bhutto’s widower, President
Asif Ali Zardari, of
reneging on a vow to restore
judges fired by Musharraf.
Sharif put steady pressure
on the government, but wary
of army interference, never
enough to threaten its hold
on power. This attitude
helped enable the national
assembly to complete its
five-year term and transfer
power in democratic
elections on Saturday for
the first time since the
country was founded in 1947.
Sharif draws much of his
political support from the
middle class in urban areas
of Punjab, Pakistan’s most
populous province, because
of his pro-business
policies. But he has also
played the populist. May of
the battered yellow taxis
rattling around Pakistani
cities date from a
microfinance plan he set up
to help create jobs for the
poor. He also set a minimum
wage.
But
he is perhaps best known for
testing nuclear weapons in
response to India’s nuclear
test in 1998.
It
was an immensely popular
decision in Pakistan —
millions celebrated in the
streets — but one that was
made in defiance of U.S.
appeals for restraint.
President Bill Clinton even
intervened personally,
reportedly offering millions
of dollars in aid and a
state dinner if Sharif held
off.
Sharif’s party, which
controlled the Punjab
government for the last five
years, is more closely
aligned with hard-line
Islamist parties than the
outgoing Pakistan People’s
Party. The Pakistan Muslim
League-N has been criticized
for not going after militant
outfits in Punjab, a stance
analysts said was driven by
its reliance on banned
militant groups to deliver
key votes.
During Sharif’s tenure as
prime minister in the 1990s,
he not only supported the
Taliban regime in
Afghanistan but also tried
to vastly increase the
powers of his office while
pushing aside Pakistan’s
penal code in favor of an
Islamic justice system. Many
saw these ill-fated moves as
an attempt to “Talibanize”
Pakistan, and they eroded
his popularity.
After returning from exile,
Sharif admitted that the
pro-Afghan Taliban policy he
pursued when he was prime
minister in the 1990s was a
failure and said Pakistan
should stop trying to
influence affairs in
Afghanistan. That is the
same message the U.S. sent
to Pakistani leaders as
American troops fought the
Taliban in Afghanistan.
Pakistan and the U.S. have
had a tense relationship in
recent years, especially
following the American raid
that killed Osama bin Laden
in a Pakistani army town in
2011.
Sharif has criticized
unpopular U.S. drone attacks
targeting al-Qaida and
Taliban militants in
Pakistan, and has called the
Afghan conflict “America’s
war.” The Punjab government,
controlled by Sharif’s
party, turned down over $100
million in American aid in
2011 to protest the bin
Laden raid.
Now, many analysts believe
Sharif will take a pragmatic
view toward relations with
the U.S. and won’t want to
see ties deteriorate.
His
influence on the course of
the relationship, as well as
other foreign policy issues,
will be tempered by
Pakistan’s powerful army,
which often plays a dominant
role in national security
decisions.
Many observers are watching
closely to see how Sharif
deals with the military in
his first months as prime
minister
For
example, later this year the
term of Pakistan’s chief of
army staff Gen. Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani — the most
powerful military officer in
the country — is slated to
end. If Sharif tries to
influence the choice of the
new army chief, this could
touch off a conflict with
top commanders.
A
recent photograph has been
released showing a Syrian
rebel placing a human head
on a barbecue, grilling his
head. Here is the link of
the photo:
According to a report, the
victim was a Syrian
helicopter pilot who was
journeying to bring food to
army bases and villages
around the Marraat Noman
city in the Idleb province,
until he was shot down,
murdered and beheaded and
his head cooked on a grill.
Some say that this photo was
fabricated by the Syrian
government for the purpose
of making propaganda against
the rebels. There has been
no evidence provided to
prove that this is a
fabrication. And also, why
would this cruel barbarity
be difficult to believe? It
is absolutely not far
fetched that the Free Syrian
Army, or any other of the
jihadist groups, would
engage in this sort of
sadism.
There was a video done some
time ago showing a number of
rebels decapitating two
pilots:
By
seeing this video, why would
it then be difficult to
believe that the rebels
would place a head on a
grill?
There are many other videos
like this which I will not
show for the sake of the
reader’s sanity, but my
point is made clear.
Furthermore, the acts of
cooking a head of an enemy
is rooted deeply in the
Islamic religion. The most
famous warrior in Sunni
Islam’s history, Khalid ibn
Walid, decapitated the head
of a man named Malik ibn
Nuwayrah before raping his
wife, placed it under a
cooking pot in which he
cooked food and from which
he then ate out of it. The
Hadith for this recounts:
And
he [Khalid] ordered they
bring his [Malik's] head
and he placed it with
two other rocks and he
cooked on top of the
three a pot, and Khalid
ate from it that night
in order to terrorize
the renegade Arabs and
others.
This story is further
substantiated by the Arab
scholar Ibn Khallikan, who
writes the story thus:
“[T]he head was put in the
place of one of the three
stones which supported the
flesh-pot. Malik, as we have
said, surpassed most men by
the abundance of his hair,
which was so thick, that the
meat was cooked in the pot
before the fire had reached
the skull. …Khalid seized on
the wife of Malik,–or by
another account he purchased
her out of the booty, — and
married her.” *Ibn
Kallikan’s Biographical
Dictionary, trans. B. Mac
Gukin de Slane, pp. 649-650,
brackets and ellipsis mine*
We
must then realize what we
have been talking about for
much time now: we have not
seen the full face of Islam
yet; true Islam is more than
just terrorism with bombs
and guns, but a cultic
system which uphold
emphasizes on human
sacrifice and
cannibalization of Allah’s
enemies. My father and I
have been forewarning on
this with our past articles
on cannibalism and human
sacrifice being promoted in
Egypt, found here and here.
I
only hope that this new
addition to the inherently
Islamic pagan violence which
has been arising in the
Middle East will cause
Americans to comprehend just
how diabolical this recent
Islamic uprising truly is.
Jesus At The Check Point is
a “Christian” organization with
a “liberal socialist” twist and
will soon
be speakingat
a church near you.
They
are touring in order to muster
support for “Christian
Persecution”, or so they claim:
Their
motto is “none-violent
resistance against the Israeli
Zionist occupation”. “Zionism is
the obstacle to peace”, they write; and
they want to “educate
evangelical Christians” to
“understand the Bible from a
Palestinian Christian
perspective” which openly
supports a “divided state” as
the solution for the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The
main dynamo and sponsoring agent
of these tours is the Bethlehem
Bible College in Bethlehem
Israel. In its Second
International Conference, led
by the Palestinian Awad family,
which includes Sami Awad,
Bishara Awad and Alex Awad. They
claim to be evangelical Baptists
and have been able to appeal to
some influential figures. They
pitched several American
evangelicals for recruitment [1]
and were successful in getting
many of those evangelical
leaders to bring
theminto
American churches.
However, what many in the west
do not know is that this group
has nothing to do with being
Baptists or are even involved in
any way shape or form with
Christian persecution. There is
no mention whatsoever by this
group of any persecution by
Islamists against Christians in
the Middle East. The persecution
against Christians, they say,
emanates from the Jewish
presence in all of biblical
Judea. That Jewish presence,
they claim, is responsible for
the confiscation of Arab lands.
According to them, it’s the
Zionists – not Hamas – that
persecute Christians. These
‘Christian’ Palestinians
actually promote Hamas’s
legitimacy and fully support
terrorism, but not as their
tactic. To them, terrorism is
legitimate as a tactic for
other Palestinian groups so
long as these are resisting what
they term as “Israeli
occupation”.
We
captured their TV interview
before the evidence was removed
(which we obtained a copy) after
contacting the mega church
pastor Wayne Cordeiro of
Foursquare Gospel Church in
Honolulu Hawaii. Seven years
ago, Cordeiro invited [2]
this group and was persuaded to
call Israel “an occupation”.
Here is
Part I:
The
type of peacemaking
advocated by Awad and
Cordeiro is also typical of
the emergent church. They
each expect Christians to
confess the sins of their
fathers without exposing the
other side; such people and
movements lament the
crusaders’ persecution of
Muslims and ask Christians
to humble themselves to
Muslims, seeking their
forgiveness. When will
Christia churches finally
demand that Muslims confess their sins
of deceit? – The
Case FOR Islamophobia,
p. 190
Part II
(Watch Awad’s false prediction
in 2006 – ‘Hamas will change’):
http://youtu.be/MGbORiw4P0o
While
Alex Awad says that he “does
not support Hamas”, this
declaration has a line of
fine print; he insisted
evangelicals need to accept
the reality that Hamas is
the “legitimate
representation of the
Palestinian people”.
Cordeiro shockingly
concurred:
“We need to give them
[Hamas] a chance.” –Part
II above
Our
Arabic sources show that
besides supporting Hamas,
this group supports The Popular
Front to Liberate Palestine (PFLP),
a terrorist group. Despite
this, both organizations are
declared illegal by the
United States (see here and here).
The
history of this fiery
Palestinian brand of
Christianity is not new; it
was an invention by
Palestinian socialist
revolutionaries from decades
ago, which arose to recruit
Christians to join the ranks
of socialists, communists
and even terror groups like
the PFLP. To understand this
brand of theology, we
secured a dissertation for
graduation approved by the Bethlehem
Bible Collegewritten
by Yousef
Ijha (photo
of Awad and Ijha can be
seen here), entitled Study
on Christian Zionism which
stated:
“Herzl established the
first Zionist Congress
in 1897, and succeeded
in gathering the Jews of
the world around him
including the shrewdest
of Jews to issue forth
the most dangerous plan
in the history of the
world The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion
derived from sacred
Jewish teaching”.
While such extreme views
were being espoused and
given credence, The
Protocols of the Elders of
Zion was proven to be a
fraudulent document by the best
of historians.
True to the socialist
theology taught by the Awads,
Ijha became a prominent
figure who organized for
the communist leftist
group, World
Federation of Democratic
Youth, an
anti-American group that has
branches in the Middle East
and North Africa. While he
was a student of Awad, Ijha
publicly proclaimed his
allegiance to the PFLP
terrorist organization while
honoring the famous
terrorist Ahmad Saadat the
Secretary General of the
PFLP terror group:
“All
greetings to our comrade
the General Council of
Ahmad Saadat of the PFLP…and
a red greeting drenched
in the blood of the
martyrs.”
Currently Sadaat is in Israeli
custody for
his involvement in murder of
former Minister Rehavam
Ze’evi.
Indeed, the Awads will
concur with their recruits;
on May 2008 Alex Awad
attended an Islamic terror
supportingconferences hosted
in Jakarta, Indonesia. Among
the speakers at this event
was Iranian Ayatollah
Khomeini’s daughter, Zahra
Mostafavi, who has
previously urged children to
become suicide bombers. Also
included were
representatives from Hamas
and Hezbollah, which hetried
to whitewash.
This group expresses through
essays and various news
outlets how they abhor
evangelicals’ understanding
of biblical prophecy
regarding Israel. Yet, they
themselves are not devoid of
prophetic proclamations. In
2006, during Alex’s
appearance on Cordeiro’s
show, predicted that within
three to four months Hamas
would morph into a spotless
leopard. Reality today is
that Hamas is gaining
momentum after the Arab
Spring and is adding more
spots. Hamas reinstated Islamic
laws, including the:
“…prohibition of arms
for the vanquished
non-Muslims; the
prohibition of church
bells; and restrictions
concerning the building
and restoration of
churches.”
The
main deception used to
convince the naive to join
the ranks of the enemy is
first to convince
evangelicals that what
counts is the Gospel and
nothing more. While it’s
true that this is the first
priority for evangelicals,
the Bible to them does not
consist of a booklet with
the Four Spiritual Laws; it
is not devoid of Ten
Commandments, plight, land
and destiny either.
Evangelicals need to beware;
Christian Palestinianism is
designed to eradicate the
Jewish presence and not aid
persecuted Christians.
[1]
Munther Isaac announced the
team designated to do the
task of reeducating American
Evangelicals: “Bishara Awad,
Munir Kakish, Nihad Salman,
Alex Awad, Hanna Katnasho
Sami Awad, Chris Wright,
Tony Campolo, Shane
Claiborne, Ron Sider, Joel
Hunter, Lin Hybles, Gary
Berg, Stephen Sizer, John
Aortberg, Sang-Bok and David
Kim.”http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=463912
[2]
Awad was portrayed as
another Henry Opukaha’ia.
“Henry traveled from Hawaii
to New England in 1809,
became a Christian, then
heard the call to return to
his people to rescue them
for their heathen beliefs
and lifestyle of wars and
struggle.”
The
massacre of Otranto is one of
the worst killings done against
Christians by Muslims. The
bishop of the southern Italian
city was seized by the Turks and
cut in half, while every other
priest was murdered without
question. It is noble of the
Pope to give remembrance to
them. The Irish Times
writes:
Pope Francis has given the
Catholic church new saints,
including hundreds of
15th-century martyrs who
were beheaded for refusing
to convert to Islam, as he
led his first canonisation
ceremony before tens of
thousands of people in St
Peter’s Square.
The
Martyrs of Otranto are
813 Italians who were
slain in the southern
Italian city in 1480 for
defying demands by
Turkish invaders to
renounce Christianity.
The
pope also gave Colombia
its first saint: a nun,
Laura of St Catherine of
Siena Montoya y Upegui,
who journeyed with five
other women by horseback
in 1914 into the forests
to be a teacher and
spiritual guide to
indigenous people.
Colombia’s president, Juan
Manuel SantosCalderon,
was among VIPs attending
the ceremony.
The
first pontiff from South
America also canonised
another Latin American
woman. Maria Guadalupe
Garcia Zavala, a Mexican
who dedicated herself to
nursing the sick, helped
Catholics avoid
persecution during a
government crackdown of
the faith in the 1920s.
Also known as Mother
Lupita, she hid the Guadalajara archbishop
in an eye clinic for
more than a year after
fearful local Catholic
families refused to
shelter him.
The
new saints were all
approved for
canonisation in a decree
read by Pope
Benedict XVI on
February 11 during the
same ceremony in which
he announced he was
resigning as pontiff.
Benedict, the first pope
to retire in 600 years,
is now devoting himself
to prayer and living in
a monastery on the
Vatican grounds.
Francis told the crowd
that the martyrs are a
source of inspiration,
especially for “so many
Christians, who, right
in these times and in so
many parts of the world,
still suffer violence”.
He prayed that they
receive “the courage of
loyalty and to respond
to evil with good”.
The
pope did not single out
any country. But
Christian churches have
been attacked in Nigeria
and Iraq,
and Catholics in China loyal
to the Vatican have been
subject to harassment
and sometimes jail in
recent decades.
Francis, the first pope
from the Jesuit order,
which is known for its
missionary zeal, praised
the Colombian saint for
“instilling hope” in the
indigenous people. He
said she taught them in
a way that “respected
their culture.” Many
Catholic missionaries
over the centuries have
been criticised for
demanding natives
renounce local
traditions the outsiders
viewed as primitive.
The
elections are all organized to
only make Muslims more superior,
and Christians more servile.
Pakistan Christian Post
writes:
The
Pakistan Christian Congress
PCC Central Executive
Council in a meeting here
today, issued a press note
condemning these
unconstitutional and
undemocratic elections in
which 51% of Pakistani women
and 18% of Pakistani
population of religious
minorities will not exercise
their vote on May 11, 2013,
national general elections
to elect their
representatives but will
only vote for Muslim men on
272 seats who will nominate
or select 60 women and 10
minorities reserved seats in
National assembly of
Pakistan.
Dr.
Nazir S Bhatti, President of
Pakistan Christian Congress
PCC said that election 2013
are unconstitutional as
being held denying Article
226 of constitution of
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
which directs every seat in
parliament to filled with
secret ballot not with any
nomination.
“Pakistani Christian’s
decision to boycott
elections 2013 is just
because not government of
Pakistan, not Election
Commission of Pakistan and
not Supreme Court of
Pakistan paid due attention
on frequent petitions and
memorandums of Pakistan
Christian Congress PCC to
relevant authorities to
review Article 226 of
constitution before
announcing date of
elections” said Nazir Bhatti
Nazir Bhatti clarified that
election 2013 are not
elections for 20 million
Pakistani Christians but
elections of Muslim feudal
lords, business tycoons and
Islamists who term enjoying
votes of Christians, Hindus
and Ahmadiyyia communities
as Islamic and
constitutional but to vote
for them as unconstitutional
that’s why PPP, PML (N), PML
(Q), PTI, MQM, JI, JUI and
ANP have not awarded any
ticket to any Christian,
Hindu, Ahmadiyyia and Sikh
on any seat of NA or PA on
general seats.
“The religious minorities
are pushed out of mainstream
politics through these
Nomination and Selection on
10 reserved seats instead of
Elections” added Nazir
Bhatti
PCC
Chief demanded elections on
reserved seats for
minorities and women to make
these elections
constitutional and
democratic.
This shows
you what type of hell the
country called Pakistan is. The
Muscatine Journal
writes:
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Even
before reading news reports
about the religious
conflicts in Lahore,
Pakistan, the Rev. Carlton
Potts was well aware of the
persecution that Christians
were facing there.
The
Indiana pastor has been
preaching to a congregation
in that country on the other
side of the globe. Potts has
been using today’s
technology to preach a
centuries-old message. He
holds weekly sermons via
Skype.
He
said Asif Masih, the founder
and chairman of Fresh Fire
Gospel Church Ministries in
Lahore, reached out to him
in January via Facebook.
“They were desperately
looking for someone to
preach the word from outside
the country,” he said. “They
feel isolated.”
“I
was devastated,” he said of
the conflict in Pakistan.
“[And] I try to impart that
emotion and knowledge to
members of our church. So
many people in the U.S.
don’t know what it’s really
like to be persecuted
because of your religious
beliefs.”
Masih, who lives near the
neighborhood where the homes
of dozens of Christians were
recently burned by a mob.
The mob reacted to reports
that a Christian man had
committed blasphemy against
Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Christians represent a small
minority in Pakistan, where
the official religion is
Islam. About 96 percent of
the Pakistani population is
Muslim; the other 4 percent
includes Christians and
Hindus, according to the CIA
World Factbook.
Masih said Christians
experience a variety of
discrimination in employment
and education, primarily
because of the Pakistani
perception that Christianity
is associated with the
United States.
“Now (the) majority of our
Christians are less
advantaged here,” he wrote
in an email. “We are
(considered) lower or
second- or third-class
citizens here.”
Sometimes the conflict
becomes violent, he wrote.
“Last year, our 10 Christian
nurses were forced to accept
Islam and when they refused
they were forced to drink
poisonous juice,” he wrote.
“Many times our girls are
raped, kidnapped and forced
to accept Islam.”
He
also wrote that at times the
church’s prayer service is
forbidden and Christians
cannot openly express their
religious views as Muslims
do.
Potts and his church, Whole
Truth Apostolic Faith
Assembly, where he is the
assistant pastor, sent
Masih’s church $700 to help
with the crisis.
Masih wrote that members of
his church feel “oppressed”
and “ignored.”
“When they hear from a
foreigner a word of God,
they feel that there are so
many people around the world
who are Christians too,” he
wrote. “Their ego comes up,
faith (flourishes) and a
sense of being valued
develops.”
Potts said encouragement is
especially important during
these times of crisis.
“I
think that encouragement
helps gives us strength and
we pray for everyone and
there’s comfort in that
too,” he said.
If the
government of Indonesia is
obeying the Islamists then
Sharia has already sunk its
claws into the country, and it
is only a matter of time before
it devours the whole land. Watch
this video and see the horrors
Islam has wrought recently in
the country:
A good
speech from somebody who comes
from a country which was taken
over by Islam–on account of
tolerance. If you think
tolerance is the answer, just
look to his words:
Here are
the words of a Pakistani
activist in a written testimony
of just one case of persecution
toward Pakistan’s Christians
(From
Pakistan
Christian Post):
Khanewal: May 5, 2013. (PCP)
A few days ago i.e. on April
26th the Voice have reported
a case of persecution
against Christians in 31/10
R Chak, khanewal, where a
Muslim man died as a result
of cross fire by the hands
of a Christian named Kamran
Masih in self-defense. As it
was reported by the Voice
that two of the nominated
Christians were saved by the
Voice team. the Voice team
was pressurized by the
Police whereas the secret
agencies of the Police
including Regional Police
officer(RPO), District
Police officer(DPO), and CIA
were involved directly and
personally in this case. As
a result of the pressure and
threats to the Voice members
i.e. Napolean Qayyum and
Khurram Akhtar (because
Khurram was also the source
person of the Voice in this
case) the Voice had to hand
over the accused/Victims to
the police. The CIA
conducted a raid on 2nd May
2013 at Napolean’s house and
arrested illegally his
brother named Naveed.
The
police detained his brother
and threatened the family of
Napolean and Khurram that
they will also bring their
families including women and
Children from their houses
if they do not help the
police to hand over the
Victims named Asif Kaleem
and Ashar Yaqoob to the
Police. the Police also
detained the women more than
20 from the Village and from
the families of the Victim
along with 18 men in the
police station in illegal
confinement for four days
and nights. As a result of
which the Voice lawyer
Aneeqa Maria along with the
team went to Khanewal for
the pre-Arrest bails of the
victims who are completely
innocent in this matter and
are involved with malafide
intentions of the Muslim
radicals.
The
Voice team inspite of all
the threats from the police
and the Radicals reached the
District khanewal on 2nd May
and got the pre-arrest bails
from the sessions Judge.
After securing them legally
The Voice went to the DPO’s
office for the statements of
the Victims i.e. Asif Kaleem
and Ashar Yaqoob, the police
assured the Voice team that
they will let the Victims go
after taking their
statements, but until now
they are illegally confined
in the Police station. on
the other hand the Voice
team is under serious
threats from Police, our
cell-phones are on tap, and
our team members are being
followed by the Police
agents, the families of TVS
team are also under threats
and are re-located by us.
The
police wants us to leave the
case and not to interfere in
the investigation. Whereas
the police is utterly
behaving biased, they are
not getting the Medicals of
the Christian injured in the
shootout, nor they are
conducting any investigation
or registering a case
against the Muslim Culprits.
the Next date of hearing is
6th May 2012, but the Voice
team is receiving threats
not to pursue the case.
Is
there somebody who cares
about the legal rights of
Christian in Pakistan? There
is no one to help and
support Christians in dire
need; Christians are always
treated as cattle and pets.
No one considers them
humans. Christians are in a
battlefield against
persecution and injustice.
Let’s pray for a better
decision of Courts and
better fate of the
Christians confined in
police station so that they
might not get killed in the
Police station as it has
been a practice against
Christians. Please pray for
the voice team especially
when they will go to
Khanewal on hearing in the
session courts so that Lord
may protect them and gives
them courage and
fearlessness against the
Evil and Injustice.
What is also
interesting to point
out is that
Afghanistan is also
listed, which shows
the failure of the
Bush
administration’s
idea of spreading
democracy to that
nation. The fact
that Pakistan is on
the list indicates
just how severe the
treatment of
Christians occurs
there.
Dr. Katrina
Lantos Swett
speaks at a
press conference
to announce the
Defending
Freedoms project
Dec 6, 2012.
Credit: Michelle
Bauman/CNA.
Washington D.C., May 4,
2013 / 04:11 pm (CNA).-
A recent report on
international religious
liberty cautioned that
severe threats to
freedom of religion
exist in diverse
communities through the
world and should be
discouraged through
actions by the U.S.
government.
“The
Annual Report ultimately
is about people and how
their governments treat
them,” said Dr. Katrina
Lantos Swett, chair of
the commission that
released the report.
“Religious freedom is
both a pivotal human
right under
international law and a
key factor that helps
determine whether a
nation experiences
stability or chaos,” she
explained.
The
U.S. Commission for
International Religious
Freedom gathers
information throughout
the year by meeting with
government officials,
citizens, analysts and
non-governmental
organizations across the
globe in order to assess
the state of
international religious
liberty. The
independent, bipartisan
group then advises the
president, U.S. Congress
and State Department on
recommended actions to
be taken.
Issued each year, the
commission’s report
marks “countries of
particular concern” (CPCs),
which are defined as
“countries whose
governments have engaged
in or tolerated
systematic, ongoing and
egregious violations of
the universal right to
freedom of religion or
belief.” The State
Department has the
opportunity to
officially label CPCs
and decide whether to
impose sanctions or
other penalties on each
country.
The
2013 document
recommended 15 countries
to be designated as CPCs:
Burma, China, Egypt,
Eritrea, Iran, Iraq,
Nigeria, North Korea,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Vietnam.
While
all of these countries
were also listed as
serious offenders in
last year’s report, the
State Department has
only chosen to designate
eight of them as CPCs.
Examples of offenses in
these nations include
sectarian violence
against minority
Christians and Muslims
in Burma, repression of
non-state religious
groups in China, and
Iran’s imprisonment of
Christians, including
U.S. citizen Saeed
Abedini, on account of
their faith.
The
commission’s report also
lists a number of “Tier
2” nations whose
violations of religious
liberty are serious and
troubling but do not
meet all the criteria of
abuses against religious
freedom to be
recommended as a CPC.
This designation
replaces a previous
“Watch List” category in
earlier annual reports.
Countries placed in the
second tier in the 2013
report are: Afghanistan,
Azerbaijan, Cuba, India,
Indonesia, Kazakhstan,
Laos and Russia.
The
document also highlights
the status of religious
liberty in other
countries that do not
fall into either of the
two tiers. These nations
and regions include:
Bahrain, Bangladesh,
Belarus, Ethiopia,
Turkey, Venezuela and
the entirety of Western
Europe.
According to Lantos
Swett, the commission’s
annual report is
critical because
effective foreign policy
“recognizes the critical
role religious freedom
plays in each of these
nations.” In addition,
many of these countries
“top the U.S. foreign
policy agenda, and
religion is a core
component in their
makeup.”
Some
signs of hope were seen
across the globe. The
report found that Turkey
is “moving in a positive
direction with regard to
religious freedom.” Due
to the reforms it has
enacted, the nation was
removed from the
recommended list of
“countries of particular
concern,” although its
status is still being
monitored by the
commission.
Overall, however, the
status of global
religious freedom is
“increasingly dire,”
said Lantos Swett.
She
pointed to factors
contributing to the
instability, which
“include the rise of
violent religious
extremism coupled with
the actions and
inactions of
governments.”
“Extremists target
religious minorities and
dissenters from majority
religious communities
for violence, including
physical assaults and
even murder,” she added.
“Authoritarian
governments also repress
religious freedom
through intricate webs
of discriminatory rules,
arbitrary requirements
and draconian edicts.”
Other
broad concerns raised in
the report include
constitutional changes
that fail to adequately
protect religious
liberty, anti-blasphemy
laws, restrictions of
religious freedom in
former Communist
countries, imprisonment
of conscientious
objectors and religious
freedom problems in
non-governmental
organizations.
Lantos Swett called for
swift action by the
federal government to
acknowledge and address
severe offenders of
religious liberty, as
well as the forces that
add to instability.
“We
recommend that the White
House adopt a
whole-of-government
strategy to guide U.S.
religious freedom
promotion and that
Secretary of State Kerry
promptly designate CPCs,
before currently
designated actions
expire later this year,”
she said.
This
article
by the Lahore Times criticizes
the international relief
agencies but points to Rescue
Christians as an exception (I
put in bold where it talks about
our organization):
Help persecuted Christians
in Pakistan; is a slogan of
many INGOs working on
persecution.
The
general perception among
Pakistani Muslims that UN,
USAID, Christian diplomats
and other foreigners are
helping Pakistani
Christians, but the reality
is different. We have given
the facts like;
On February 6, 1997, a
religiously charged mob
attacked village Shantinagar,
district Khanewal in which
about 800 houses including
churches, hostels were
torched. In November 2005,
in Sangla Hill, about 100
Christian houses, schools,
hostels, and Christian
Clinic were burnt. On 1st
August 2009, Christians were
attacked in Gujra and 8
persons of a family were
burnt alive and about 130
houses were turned to ashes.
On30th June, 2000,
Christians were attacked in
village Bahnamiwala,
District Kasur in which
about 102 houses were
destroyed. On 21st
September, 2012, Church,
school and pastors
residences were turned to
ash. On March 9, 2013, over
200 homes of the Christians
community of Joseph Colony
in Lahore were burnt and the
most recent Francis Abad, a
Christian colony was
attacked in Gujranwala.
Ironically none was punished
under the law for such gory
episode; these barbaric
attacks have sent a grave
message to the already
marginalized Christians. The
sense of insecurity has
alarmingly grown beyond
proportions. The blasphemy
law has been repeatedly used
for settling personal
scores, religious
persecution, professional
rivalry and for land
grabbling.
This is not the end; large
numbers of Christians
accused of Blasphemy cases
getting their lives rusted
in the jails for years and
years and there is no future
to their children or other
family members.
We
are freelance journalist,
Christian by faith and a
social activist working for
a democratic, tolerant and
progressive social order and
for socio economic and
political rights of
religious minorities
especially for the
Christians of Pakistan. We
have devotedly served in the
field of human rights during
the last decade and have
been raising their issues,
persecutions, and rights
through my writings, without
any support.
Role of our churches, local
and International NGOs: It’s
time to think twice that
what NGOs under, Church
umbrella and Christian
social and political
leadership are doing? Where
all funds are going which
Christian civil society,
Churches have been receiving
in the name of poor
Christians. How many
Christian institutions are
facilitating Persecuted
Christian? Why western
governments are denying
visas to acquitted blasphemy
victims? It made me to
think; are USAID, UN, even
Church World Service and
many such organizations
are only for Muslims
in Pakistan? USAID, their
slogan is “From the American
People” is all American
people donating for Muslims?
If not, then why Christian
youth is not receiving
scholarships for education,
funds for business,
employment in their offices?
Why there is no program for
Christian youth? Why western
human rights champions keep
silent on rape and enforced
conversion of Christian
women? They only publish
such news on their blogs to
collect millions of dollars.
Some of them claim that they
are actively working in
Pakistan and Other Islamic
Countries where Christian
are being persecuted because
of their faith. But the
truth on ground is very
different.
Why
a common Christian has no
reach to embassies and if
someone applies for visa,
why is he/she refused,
because, a poor Christian
has no property and no
strong background? Isn’t it?
Why UNO is silent on killing
of Christians and attacks on
Christians worship places?
Millions of Christians are
crying in Pakistan against
blasphemy law,
discriminatory laws in the
constitution of the country,
extrajudicial killings,
wrongful confinements and
discrimination if different
shapes but UNO seems silent.
It’s just an example; We
worked for “People to People
International” PTPI and
didn’t receive even a single
penny on the other hand a
Muslim guy running a chapter
named “Punjab chapter” in
Gujranwala Pakistan, have
got thousands of dollars and
have done nothing on ground.
He got visas dozens of times
and taken many Muslims with
him to many other countries
dozens of times. We applied
visa for US in 2010 and was
refused because we don’t
have heaving bank account
and huge property to show
them, not only this but my
“Islamabad Chapter” was
revoked just because of this
reason, that US embassy has
refused your visa and it
made bad impression on our
name. (Should we asked them,
are you paying my tickets or
offered my free board and
lodging?)
In
all UN and USAID offices in
Pakistan, there are 90%
Muslim employs and 99% of
them are Pathans. Delegates
used to hire Muslims
coordinators for their
documentary work during
their stay in Pakistan.
No
one dare to ask to NGOs ILAP
or its donor agency,
governed under Christian
supervision in Islamabad,
that how many Christian
employs they have? When they
claim that they are helping
Pakistani poor Christians.
No one bother to pursue when
Christian institutions in
Rawalpindi pushed out
Christian students for not
paying their fees. Are these
institutions are just for
business purposes or is
there any sense of
security/realization for
Christians students? How
many Christian’s students
are studying in Jesus and
Marry Convent in
Islamabad/Rawalpindi
Pakistan? We don’t have
right to ask our Christian
politicians, what they have
done for Pakistani
Christians. As they were
selected ones, they didn’t
come in through their votes
but through paying huge
funds (collected on poor
Christians name) to Muslims
Parties and this practice is
still going on……. They are
so many Christians looking
for gate way through paying
funds to Muslim political
parties.
It’s not long when the
relentless incidents within
period of one month like
Joseph Colony, burnt
in Lahore by Muslim
extremist mob protesting
against blasphemy case and
Francis Abad Gujranwala
incident in early days of
April, 2013. There are
plenty of Pakistani
organizations claiming that
they are helping Pakistani
Christians and eliminating
persecutions in the country
and many international
organizations claiming the
same.
Still Christians
in Pakistan are deprived of
their basic human rights
that count expression of
freedom, and basic social
and legal rights but they
are outnumbered by
influential culprits who
always get security in sake
of observance of their
religion. Usually INGOs
claim that they are
helping Pakistan through the
generosity.
On
the other hand; only few are
providing safe-houses, food,
and various assistances to
persecuted Christians
in Pakistan.
Blasphemy laws, forced
conversion, rape and
abduction are at a very high
level in Pakistani society.
Only few local organizations
provide legal assistance and
safe houses for the victims
of religious persecution
in Pakistan. While
international organizations
collect huge funds on
persecution but deliver a
little, like providing
Bible, Gospel books, some
food items, etc. Whereas
Christians and other
Religious Minorities are
looking for some serious
steps should be taken rather
than these materialistic
accessories
While, surfing on Internet
we found one latest appeal
made by international
organization on poor
Pakistani Christian name.
Given link: http://www.persecution.com/actionpacks requested
material for poor Pakistani;
an action pack which
included; blanket, jacket,
light sweater, gloves and
knit hat, etc for these
persecuted and vulnerable
Christians.
It’s quite surprising, “need
assessment” is the first
step taken in any
organization. We couldn’t
understand, if these people
had worked on it, and then
asking for these items. What
we see here instead of the
action pack INGO better take
serious steps like
reallocation, legal
assistance, and protection
the persecuted Christians.
Helping Pakistani Christians
through providing these
material things is good but
it’s not permanent solution
to the problems.
It doesn’t mean that
every INGO is just point
securing, there are
organizations like :US
based organization “Rescue
Christians” is working on
ground realities worldwide
and their expats are
assessing the needs and
seemed serious in helping
Pakistani Christians
according to their need.
Pakistani Christians are
working on to eliminate the
violence against religious
minorities and we should
take some serious steps on
it, interfaith harmony,
cross cultural dialogue and
mutual understanding is
required to be addressed.
Its
amazing to see how much
destruction and turmoil Islam
has caused in Nigeria, and yet
we in the West continue to
fanatically uphold
multiculturalism.
NIGERIA – The publicly
reported Christian
casualties in Nigeria last
year were greater than the
Christian casualties of
Pakistan, Syria, Kenya and
Egypt combined. In fact,
Nigeria alone accounted for
almost 70 percent of
Christians killed globally.
This makes Nigeria the most
lethal country for
Christians by a huge margin.
While media reports do not
tell the whole story, and
death tolls are not the only
factor in persecution, such
a great list of martyrs
demands our attention. In
2012, more than 900
Christians were killed in
Nigeria in attacks that
specifically targeted
Christians for their faith.
By the first quarter of this
year, at least 128 people
have been killed in northern
Nigeria, mostly Christians.
Much of the violence in 2012
was attributed to the
Jihadist terror group Boko
Haram. With 3,000 casualties
affecting citizens from a
dozen countries in three
years, Boko Haram has earned
a dubious distinction as one
of the top five lethal
terrorist organizations in
the world. In the last three
years, however, the three
most deadly incidents of
anti-Christian persecution –
with triple-digit casualties
– in Nigeria were the March
7, 2010, massacre in Jos,
Plateau state, the April 16,
2011, pogrom in the
country’s Sharia (Islamic
law) states and the Jan. 20,
2012, onslaught in Kano. Two
of these three incidents
were not the handiwork of
terrorists but of average
northern Nigerian Muslims.
While Boko Haram’s bloody
terrorist tactics certainly
merit serious concern, the
focus on this group has
overshadowed a pattern of
systemic religious violence
in Nigeria. It obfuscates
the pervasive history of the
killing of Christians by
Muslims in northern Nigeria
going back over a quarter
century.
Transferred
aggression
In
1999, after a pro-democracy
movement successfully ended
military dictatorship and a
Christian was elected
president, 12
Muslim-controlled states in
northern Nigeria reacted by
imposing Islamic sharia law
in open violation of
Nigeria’s constitution. This
resulted in horrific
violence the following year
that left thousands dead
when Christians protested
peacefully.
Such acts of violence
continue to this day with
virtual impunity. In
November, for instance, the
mispronunciation of a dress
style by a non-Muslim tailor
led to his death – along
with several other
Christians – and church
burnings in spontaneous
riots. This ultimately fatal
fashion mistake was not the
handiwork of terrorists but
of average northern Nigerian
Muslims.
Persecution in Nigeria is
discernible in three
widening concentric circles:
sect, state and street
levels. While much has been
said regarding the smallest
circle – sect-level actors
such as Boko Haram – most
analysts overlook the
ongoing and serious
persecution in the wider
state and street circles,
which provide an enabling
environment for groups like
Boko Haram.
Street-level
aggression
Consider the street level.
The most serious attack on
the Christian community in
Nigeria’s recent history was
not carried out by Boko
Haram or any organized
Islamic sect. Rather, it was
an act of ordinary Muslims
across most northern states.
This anti-Christian pogrom,
referred to as the
“post-election violence,”
deserves examination as a
bellwether of the real
conditions in Nigeria’s
tottering political union.
In
April 2011, in what was
dubbed one of the “freest
and fairest” elections in
Nigeria’s recent history,
Goodluck Jonathan was
elected president. Before
his victory was announced,
violence erupted in the 12
northern sharia states –
again.
The
final toll for the Christian
community was staggering. In
a 48-hour period, 764 church
buildings were burned, 204
Christians were confirmed
killed, more than 3,100
Christian-operated
businesses, schools, and
shops were burned, and more
than 3,400 Christian homes
were destroyed. While there
have been similar death
tolls in certain incidents
in terms of scope and
coordinated scale of
destruction, there has been
no equivalent attack against
the church in recent
decades, with the possible
exception of
government-backed genocides
in Sudan.
Yet
this was not a
government-backed endeavor.
Instead, thousands of Muslim
youths in 12 states gathered
together with machetes,
knives, matches and gasoline
and carried out this pogrom.
The “freest and fairest”
elections resulted in some
of the “fiercest and most
ferocious” violence against
innocent Christians that
Nigeria has seen.
In
several states that our
fact-finding teams visited,
taxis were randomly stopped
by rampaging Muslims and the
Christians ferreted out for
murder. In one instance a
taxi driver, despite the
pleas of sympathetic Muslim
passengers, drove a pastor
to a mob and handed him over
to be killed.
This was clearly an
anti-Christian pogrom.
Muslim rioters in the city
of Zaria would enter a
federal campus and attack
only the Christian chapel,
leaving the other buildings
untouched. People were
randomly required to recite
the Koran or be killed.
Throughout northern Nigeria,
this violence was carried
out along religious lines,
with Muslims attacking
unsuspecting Christians.
More church buildings were
destroyed than any
properties associated with
the ruling party, the
government or any other
category.
The
post-election violence only
scratched the surface of the
street-level persecution
suffered by northern
Nigeria’s Christians. In
several months of
fact-finding across northern
Nigeria, investigators from
aid and advocacy
organization Jubilee
Campaign interviewed pastors
whose church buildings have
been burned half a dozen
times or more in the last
decade. In one case, police
even watched as Christian
women were raped on church
premises and did nothing.
State-level
oppression
The
U.S. State Department, among
others, claims that the
Muslims of northern Nigeria
have been marginalized
politically and economically
by the federal government
and have responded to
“legitimate grievances” with
violence. This has been used
to give unconscionable
justification to violence
against Christians in
northern Nigeria, whether by
terrorist actors such as
Boko Haram (sect level) or
the Muslim community at
large (street level). The
facts surrounding
state-level persecution
reveal this undeserved
justification.
For
most of its independent
history, Nigeria has been
ruled by dictators from
prominent northern Muslim
families. Suspect census
figures and dubious
redistricting have bloated
the federal revenues that go
to northern states. On an
economic front, the
corruption of these
dictators and the amounts of
money that they funneled
back to their home states –
as well as to Swiss accounts
– is a matter of public
record. Africa’s richest
billionaire, according to
Forbes magazine, is from
northern Nigeria. Inspired
by this decades-long
hegemony, many in the north
reject Western education,
leaving their children in
the hands of wandering
mallams (Islamic clerics) to
be instructed in Islam while
begging for their bread.
This practice has produced
millions of unemployed and
unemployable youths who in
anti-Christian riots are
ready foot-soldiers – and,
with the rise of Boko Haram,
suicide bombers.
The
true victims of
marginalization in northern
Nigeria are Christians who
are totally disenfranchised
politically, economically
and socially in their own
states and by their own
ethnic groups due to their
religious identity.
Discrimination against
indigenous Christian
communities is endemic in at
least 16 of the 19 northern
states (three Christian
majority or co-equal states
did not report state-level
persecution), encompassing
more than just political
disenfranchisement.
Christians are denied equal
rights, most state jobs and
promotions. The level of
discrimination is such that
many Muslim managers refuse
to hire a Christian
outright.
Christian neighborhoods are
frequently overlooked for
development or basic
maintenance. In Sabon Gari,
a Christian ghetto in Kano
City, the roads, water lines
and other basic services
have not been updated for
decades. Many northern
cities leave such outer
enclaves to “infidels” as a
way of separating them out.
In
Tafawa Balewa, a Christian
area of Bauchi state, the
state government refused to
maintain public schools and
finally shut them down,
community leaders say, to
deprive Christian children,
particularly Christian
girls, of education. Many
private Christian mission
schools have historically
been confiscated by the
governments and stripped of
their faith-based roots. The
state legislature of Bauchi
relocated the capital of
Tafawa Balewa, a Christian
community, to a
Muslim-dominated town in
violation of the
constitution. When the Hon.
Rifkatu Samson, the member
representing the community,
objected, the state
legislature suspended her
from parliament. That was a
year ago. She was the only
woman and the only Christian
in the parliament.
Any
public signs of Christian
identity, such as crosses,
bells, or identifiable
church buildings, are
prohibited in practice.
Governments require permits
to construct new church
buildings or to repair old
ones. These permits are not
granted while existing
church buildings have been
seized via eminent domain.
The Muslim community is so
determined to prevent
Christians from having
church buildings that, when
selling land to Christians,
official land deeds commonly
include the proviso, “Not to
be used for a bar, a
brothel, or a church.”
Christians and
Muslims together
While enduring these
injustices, members of the
Christian minority are
consistently and blatantly
faced with pressure to
convert to Islam. Christians
are regularly and publicly
humiliated for their
religious identity, and
anything that can be
construed as disrespectful
or contradictory to Islam is
met with immediate violence.
These injustices constitute
acts of discrimination and
group persecution, which
have been outlawed by
international laws created
following the demise of Nazi
Germany and the Nuremberg
trials. Since then, the
international community has
seen again and again that
persistent cultures of hate
among dominant groups
produce mass violence
against disenfranchised and
despised minorities,
eventually leading to
genocide. Regrettably, this
is the true state of affairs
in northern Nigeria. These
practices of discrimination,
disenfranchisement and
incitement are the root
cause of Boko Haram and the
real danger to Nigerian
Christians – and to Nigeria
itself. This is the
intersection of a trifecta
of evil intolerance –
persecution at the street,
state and sect levels – and
Christians are the primary
victims.
The
March 7, 2010, massacre in
Jos, the April 16, 2011,
Sharia states pogrom and the
Jan. 20, 2012, Kano
onslaught mark three
consecutive years of
triple-digit casualties,
each in excess of 200 lives
lost from a single incident.
These incidents only scratch
the surface of persecution
in a country that has the
world’s largest population
of Christians and Muslims
living together, setting a
stage for unfathomable
conflict.
This
video will also give you a good
illustration of this horror:
Scholar
Eric Metaxas writes in the
forward for the Persecuted,
by Hudson Institute religious
freedom scholars Lela
Gilbert, Paul
Marshall,
and Nina
Shea,
that “focuses on a scandalously
underreported fact, that
Christians are the single most
widely persecuted religious
group in the world today,” a
“terrible trend…on the
upswing.”
The two latter scholars write
that “it is in the Muslim world
where persecution of Christians
is now most widespread, intense,
and, ominously, increasing.”
They also write that Muslim
persecution of Christians “is so
widespread in fact that we have
had to devote four chapters to
it” out of the book’s ten
chapters.
They
dedicate a whole chapter to
Egypt, writing that in this
country “identity cards make
religious anonymity impossible.”
Such legal religious
identity presents
significant problems, given
that sharia-based
Egyptian family laws
prohibit Christian men from
marrying Muslim women,
unlike the reverse. Female
Christian converts seeking
to marry Christian men might
seek to circumvent the
identity laws with forged
documents, but this risks
legal sanction and even
police brutality. Upon
discovery, authorities in
such cases can even compel
divorces. Two Egyptian
women who had always lived
as Christians, for example,
faced penalties and annulled
marriages because sharia still
applied to them, as their
father had merely forged
documents upon reconverting
to Christianity in the
1960s.
Other examples of Muslim
oppression of Christianity,
such as Saudi Arabia’s
“continuous religious
cleansing,” are well-known.
Here “Muslim
only”-designated roads lead
to the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina, while under
Saudi law Christian
plaintiffs receive half the
compensation of Muslim
plaintiffs. Similarly in
Iran, penalties for
murdering Jews, Christians,
and Zoroastrians are less
for murdering Muslims, while
the murder of officially
unrecognized believers, such
as the Baha’i, carries no
penalty.
What became South Sudan in
2011, meanwhile, suffered 2
million dead after the
central Sudanese government
in Khartoum in 1983 imposed sharia law
over a country divided
between Arab Muslims in the
north and black African
Christians and animists in
the south. This was “one of
the most protracted and
brutal civil wars in world
history…essentially over
religious freedom.” Islamist
violence in Nigeria in
recent years has likewise
claimed that country’s
largest death toll since the
1960’s Biafra
conflict.
Although Islam did not
become Pakistan’s state
religion until 1973,
meanwhile, Islamic extremism
there has become “daunting
and intensifying.”
Pakistan’s subsequently
adopted “infamous
blasphemy codes”
have not yet resulted in any
infliction of the mandated
death penalty, but perhaps
hundreds of accused have
fallen victim to vigilante
killings. Even exposition
of basic Christian beliefs
counter to Islam could lead
to “potentially disastrous
schoolyard talk,” such that
Pakistani Christians grow up
without learning their
faith. Many of the
accusations, though, stem
from “self-centered reasons”
such as personal grudges.
Cited by Persecuted,
one 2011 online
report on
Pakistani education from the
United States Commission on
International Religious
Freedom (USCIRF) where Shea
was previously a
commissioner indicates just
how dangerous such Islamic
blasphemy concepts can be.
Of 250 surveyed Pakistani
school teachers, all
“believed the concept of
jihad to refer to a violent
struggle, compulsory for
Muslims against the enemies
of Islam,” with only 10% of
the total referencing
“nonviolent struggle” as
well. The “overwhelming
majority” of these teachers
“appeared to hold the view
that the call to jihad falls
directly upon the
individual, as do decisions
regarding when and against
whom jihad is appropriate.”
These Pakistani teachers
apparently have not yet seen
theMy
Jihad advertisements
from the Council
on American-Islamic
Relations’
(CAIR) Chicago
chapter.
Muslim countries often
considered “moderate” and
“even nominally secular”
states “favor Islam and
repress Christianity and
other non-Muslim religions.”
Malaysia’s High Court has
ruled that Malaysian Muslims
may not abandon Islam, and
converts have even had to
attend reeducation camps.
Laws there also mandate
burial according to Islamic
ritual if a sharia judge
so rules, something only
requiring one witness to
verify that the deceased was
a Muslim. Another 1986 law
prohibits Christians from
using the word Allah for
God, even though
Arabic-speaking Christians
have used this word for
centuries along with
Christians in neighboring
Indonesia.
The
authors find that religious
tolerance is “very
real” among Indonesians and
they often say with pride
that “Islam came to us on a
breeze, not with a bullet.”
Yet the 10-13% of
Indonesia’s population that
is Christian faces pressures
from vigilantes, local
governments, and society at
large. Indonesia’s Criminal
Code Article 156(a) against
dissemination of religious
hatred or defamation, for
example, “has been enforced
almost exclusively in cases
of alleged heresy or
blasphemy against Islam.”
“Beginning with the
apostles,” meanwhile, “the
church flourished for
fourteen centuries in what
today is Turkey, before
suffering conquest,
genocide, brutal population
exchanges, pogroms, and many
other persecutions.” Later,
“Turkey became a radically
secular republic that
stifled religion across the
board.” Politically
ascendant in recent years,
Islamists in Turkey have
been able to exploit this
situation to repress
Christians. While Muslim
women may now wear
headscarves in public,
Christians, with the
exception of each
denomination’s leader, may
not publicly wear Christian
attire. Although the 1971
state closure of the Halki
Greek Orthodox Theological
School and other measures
prevent Christian
theological training in
Turkey, Muslim theology is
mandatory in state schools.
Accordingly, Turkey’s
Christians “confront a dense
web of legal regulations
that thwart the ability of
churches to survive.” One
Turkish Christian leader
wishing to remain anonymous
described the .15% of
Turkey’s population who are
Christian as an “endangered
species.” Another Turkish
Christian leader described
favorable comparisons of
religious freedom in Turkey
with Saudi Arabia or Iran as
“damning with faint praise.”
Not surprisingly, Turkey
became one of USCIRF’s Countries
of Particular Concern (CPC)
in 2012.
Even Afghanistan and Iraq,
ruled by American-backed
regimes, offer little in the
way of religious refuge for
Christians. Afghan
government areas, for
example, “are better for
Afghan Christians than those
controlled by the Taliban,
but that is not saying much;
conditions there are among
the world’s most
repressive.” The
destruction of Afghanistan’s
last church in 2010 put that
country in the “infamous
company of hard-line Saudi
Arabia as a country that
will not tolerate any
churches.” Two-thirds of
Iraq’s 1.5 million
Christians, meanwhile, have
fled in an “acute crisis”
under a post-Saddam Hussein
Iraqi government ruled by
Islamic provisions in its
constitution and often
ill-disposed to Christians
facing Islamist attacks.
Against developments such as
the Afghan church
destruction the American
government “took no
effective measures.”
Rather, Barack Obama’s
administration has often
reacted to Islamist attacks
upon Christians with “vague
and generic condolences.”
The “watershed” November 1,
2010, Islamist terrorist
attack on Baghdad’s Our Lady
of Perpetual Help Catholic
Church during Sunday
worship, for example,
appeared in a White Housepress
release as
“senseless.” Yet this
attack discussed
by Shea previously online “was
all too sensibly a
deliberate and horrific act
of religious cleansing
against Christians targeted
for their faith.”
As
Shea discussed at the Hudson
Institute, rather than
“trying to be nice, trying
to be liked” among Muslim
countries, American policy
seek “just the opposite
effect” of past human rights
successes brought about by
political pressure.
Maintenance of religious
freedom in general is
important because its link
to political stability
“could not be clearer.” In
the Middle East in
particular, Christian
minorities in the words of
Lebanese Christian scholarHabib
Malik have
functioned as “moderators”
and “mediators”, forming
according to Persecuted a
“bridge to the West” with
its individual rights and
modern education. Without
Christians and other
non-Muslims, the “Muslim
Middle East loses the
experience of peacefully
coexisting with others” and
“will become even more
radicalized and more
estranged from the West.”
In
South Asia, support for
applying religious law to
family and property disputes
is coupled with strong
backing for severe criminal
punishments, such as cutting
off the hands of thieves
(median of 81%) and the
death penalty for Muslims
who renounce their faith
(76%).
An
advocacy group urged Pakistan’s
president Wednesday, April 17,
to release Christians accused of
defaming Islam and halt “the
misuse of blasphemy laws” after
court proceedings against a man
whose alleged “derogatory
remarks” about Islam’s Prophet
Mohammad sparked riots in Lahore
city.
“We are
profoundly concerned over the
growing religious intolerance
and extremism in Pakistan,” said
Sheraz Khan, the chief executive
of the Glasgow-based Global
Minorities Alliance (GMA), which
also supports Pakistan’s
minority Christians.
In an
open letter to President Asif
Ali Zardari, he said his group
would continue holding protests
unless the Pakistani leader
explains in writing which steps
the Pakistani government “has
taken since the March 9 violence
[in Lahore] to avoid possible
future misuse of Pakistan’s
blasphemy laws.”
He told
BosNewsLife that his group had
already demonstrated outside the
Scottish Parliament against the
legislation and to condemn the
Lahore violence in which as many
as 180 Christian-owned homes,
shops and two churches were
burned down by angry Muslims.
“We
will stage protest
demonstrations not only outside
the Scottish Parliament but also
outside the Northern Ireland
Assembly, the Welsh Assembly,
the Houses of Parliament in
London and outside the United
Nations office in Geneva in
Switzerland if we do not hear
from you in writing until the
7th of July 2013,” the open
letter quoted Khan as saying.
CHRISTIAN STREET CLEANER
The
comments came after a Christian
lawyer applied for the release
on bail of the alleged
blasphemer sparking the clashes,
35-year-old Sawan Masih, a
Christian street cleaner who has
denied the charges since his
March 9 detention.
“There
was a bail hearing in the
Session Court of Lahore,”
Monday, April 15, said his
lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill in an
interview with BosNewsLife.
In
court papers, seen by
BosNewsLife, Gill called the
charges “false, frivolous,
baseless and concocted.”
Gill,
who is also national director of
the Legal Evangelical
Association Development (LEAD)
group, told BosNewsLife that he
and Sawan’s family members have
visited the prisoner in Camp
jail Lahore and prayed with him.
“Sawan’s mother,sisters and
brothers wept bitterly when they
met with Sawan Masih,” he said.
Yet,”They were very happy to see
and visit Sawan Masih,
especially his sister and
mother”.
QUESTIONS REMAIN
It was
not immediately clear Wednesday,
April 17, when and if the
release on bail will be granted.
Gill
told BosNewsLife he has doubts
about the way the police
investigation was conducted.
Imram
also accused Swan Masih of
making “some derogatory words
about the prophet of Islam” but
he made those allegations “only
after second thoughts and
consultations” with others,
“which makes the story of the
prosecution highly doubtful,”
Gill explained.
If
convicted, the Christian could
face the death penalty under
article 295 C of the
controversial legislation.
MOTHER
JAILED
Additionally, GMA expressed
concerns about Asia Bibi, a
Christian mother of five who is
on death row in Pakistan. “We
urge you to give presidential
clemency to Asia Bibi,” said the
open letter to Pakistan’s
president.
The
42-year-old Bibi was sentenced
in 2009 and has been jailed ever
since while awaiting her appeal
against a death sentence on
blasphemy charges.
Earlier
this year, a high-ranking
Vatican cardinal also wrote to
President Zardari asking for the
release of Bibi. Cardinal Roger
Etchegaray, vice dean of the
College of Cardinals, called for
a “gesture of clemency” in the
February appeal.
More
than a dozen people are known to
be on death row over blasphemy
allegations and over 50 people
have been killed while awaiting
trial on similar charges,
according to rights activists.
Christians comprise less than 4
percent of Pakistan’s over 193
million mainly Muslim
population, according to
official estimates.
The
publicly reported Christian
casualties in Nigeria last year
were greater than the Christian
casualties of Pakistan, Syria,
Kenya and Egypt combined. In
fact, Nigeria alone accounted
for almost 70 percent of
Christians killed globally. This
makes Nigeria the most lethal
country for Christians by a huge
margin.
While
media reports do not tell the
whole story, and death tolls are
not the only factor in
persecution, such a great list
of martyrs demands our
attention. In 2012, over 900
Christians were killed in
Nigeria in attacks that
specifically targeted Christians
for their faith. By the first
quarter of this year, at least
128 people have been killed in
northern Nigeria, mostly
Christians.
Much of
the violence in 2012 was
attributed to the Jihadist
terror group Boko Haram. With
3,000 casualties affecting
citizens from a dozen countries
in three years, Boko Haram has
earned a dubious distinction as
one of the top five lethal
terrorist organizations in the
world. In the last three years,
however, the three most deadly
incidents of anti-Christian
persecution – with triple- digit
casualties – in Nigeria were the
March 7, 2010 massacre in Jos,
Plateau state, the April 16,
2011 pogrom in the country’s
sharia (Islamic law) states and
the Jan. 20, 2012 onslaught in
Kano. Two out of these three
incidents were not the handiwork
of terrorists but of average
northern Nigerian Muslims.
While
Boko Haram’s bloody terrorist
tactics certainly merit serious
concern, the focus on this group
has overshadowed a pattern of
systemic religious violence in
Nigeria. It obfuscates the
pervasive history of the killing
of Christians by Muslims in
northern Nigeria going back over
a quarter century.
Transferred Aggression
In 1999, after a pro-democracy
movement successfully ended
military dictatorship and a
Christian was elected president,
12 Muslim-controlled states in
northern Nigeria reacted by
imposing Islamic sharia law in
open violation of Nigeria’s
constitution. This resulted in
horrific violence the following
year that left thousands dead
when Christians protested
peacefully.
Such
acts of violence continue to
this day with virtual impunity.
In November, for instance, the
mispronunciation of a dress
style by a non-Muslim tailor led
to his death – along with
several other Christians – and
church burnings in spontaneous
riots. This ultimately fatal
fashion mistake was not the
handiwork of terrorists but of
average northern Nigerian
Muslims.
Persecution in Nigeria is
discernible in three widening
concentric circles: sect, state
and street levels. While much
has been said regarding the
smallest circle – sect-level
actors such as Boko Haram – most
analysts overlook the ongoing
and serious persecution in the
wider state and street circles,
which provide an enabling
environment for groups like Boko
Haram.
Street-Level Aggression
Let us first consider the street
level. The most serious attack
on the Christian community in
Nigeria’s recent history was not
carried out by Boko Haram or any
organized Islamic sect. Rather,
it was an act of ordinary
Muslims across most northern
states. This Anti-Christian
pogrom, referred to as the
“post-election violence,”
deserves examination as a
bellwether of the real
conditions in Nigeria’s
tottering political union.
In
April 2011, in what was dubbed
one of the “freest and fairest”
elections in Nigeria’s recent
history, Goodluck Jonathan was
elected president. Before his
victory was announced, violence
erupted in the 12 northern
sharia states – again.
The
final toll for the Christian
community was staggering. In a
48-hour period, 764 church
buildings were burned, 204
Christians were confirmed
killed, more than 3,100
Christian-operated businesses,
schools, and shops were burned,
and over 3,400 Christian homes
were destroyed. While there have
been similar death tolls in
certain incidents in terms of
scope and coordinated scale of
destruction, there has been no
equivalent attack against the
church in recent decades, with
the possible exception of
government-backed genocides in
Sudan.
Yet
this was not a government-backed
endeavor. Instead, thousands of
Muslim youths in 12 states
gathered together with machetes,
knives, matches and gasoline and
carried out this pogrom. The
“freest and fairest” elections
resulted in one of the “fiercest
and most ferocious” violence
against innocent Christians that
Nigeria has seen.
In
several states that our
fact-finding teams visited,
taxis were randomly stopped by
rampaging Muslims and the
Christians ferreted out for
murder. In one instance a taxi
driver, despite the pleas of
sympathetic Muslim passengers,
drove a pastor to a mob and
handed him over to be killed.
While
the homes of certain prominent
ruling People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) politicians and a few PDP
offices were attacked in the
initial spate of violence, this
was clearly an anti-Christian
pogrom. Muslim rioters in Zaria
would enter a federal campus and
attack only the Christian
chapel, leaving the other
buildings untouched. People were
randomly required to recite the
Koran or be killed. Throughout
northern Nigeria, this violence
was carried out along religious
lines, with Muslims attacking
unsuspecting Christians. More
church buildings were destroyed
than any properties associated
with the ruling party, the
government or any other
category.
The
post-election violence only
scratched the surface of the
street-level persecution
suffered by northern Nigeria’s
Christians. In several months of
fact-finding across northern
Nigeria, investigators from aid
and advocacy organization
Jubilee Campaign interviewed
pastors whose church buildings
have been burned half a dozen
times or more in the last
decade. In one case, police even
watched as Christian women were
raped on church premises and did
nothing.
State-Level Oppression
The U.S. State Department, among
others, claims that the Muslims
of northern Nigeria have been
marginalized politically and
economically by the federal
government and have responded to
“legitimate grievances” with
violence. This has been used to
give unconscionable
justification to violence
against Christians in northern
Nigeria, whether by terrorist
actors such as Boko Haram (sect
level) or the Muslim community
at large (street level). The
facts surrounding state-level
persecution reveal this
undeserved justification.
For
most of its independent history,
Nigeria has been ruled by
dictators from prominent
northern Muslim families.
Suspect census figures and
dubious redistricting have
bloated the federal revenues
that go to northern states. On
an economic front, the
corruption of these dictators
and the amounts of money that
they funneled back to their home
states – as well as to Swiss
accounts – is a matter of public
record. Africa’s richest
billionaire, according to Forbes
magazine, is from northern
Nigeria. Inspired by this
decades-long hegemony, many in
the north reject Western
education, leaving their
children in the hands of
wandering mallams (Islamic
clerics) to be instructed in
Islam while begging for their
bread.
This
practice has produced millions
of unemployed and unemployable
youths who in anti-Christian
riots are ready foot-soldiers –
and, with the rise of Boko Haram,
suicide bombers.
The
true victims of marginalization
in northern Nigeria are
Christians who are totally
disenfranchised politically,
economically and socially in
their own states and by their
own ethnic groups due to their
religious identity.
Discrimination against
indigenous Christian communities
is endemic in at least 16 of the
19 northern states (three
Christian majority or co-equal
states did not report
state-level persecution),
encompassing more than just
political disenfranchisement.
Christians are denied equal
rights, most state jobs and
promotions. The level of
discrimination is such that many
Muslim managers refuse to hire a
Christian outright.
Christian neighborhoods are
frequently overlooked for
development or basic
maintenance. In Sabon Gari, a
Christian ghetto in Kano City,
the roads, water lines and other
basic services have not been
updated for decades. Many
northern cities leave such outer
enclaves to “infidels” as a way
of separating them out.
In
Tafawa Balewa, a Christian area
of Bauchi state, the state
government refused to maintain
public schools and finally shut
them down, community leaders
say, to deprive Christian
children, particularly Christian
girls, of education. Many
private Christian mission
schools have historically been
confiscated by the governments
and stripped of their
faith-based roots. The state
legislature of Bauchi relocated
the capital of Tafawa Balewa, a
Christian community, to a
Muslim-dominated town in
violation of the constitution.
When the Hon. Rifkatu Samson,
the member representing the
community, objected, the state
legislature suspended her from
parliament. That was a year ago.
She was the only woman and the
only Christian in the
parliament.
Any
public signs of Christian
identity, such as crosses,
bells, or identifiable church
buildings, are prohibited in
practice. Governments require
permits to construct new church
buildings or to repair old ones.
These permits are not granted
while existing church buildings
have been seized via eminent
domain. The Muslim community is
so determined to prevent
Christians from having church
buildings that, when selling
land to Christians, official
land deeds commonly include the
proviso, “Not to be used for a
bar, a brothel, or a church.”
Christians and Muslims Together
While enduring these injustices,
members of the Christian
minority are consistently and
blatantly faced with pressure to
convert to Islam. Christians are
regularly and publicly
humiliated for their religious
identity, and anything that can
be construed as disrespectful or
contradictory to Islam is met
with immediate violence.
These
injustices constitute acts of
discrimination and group
persecution, which have been
outlawed by international laws
created following the demise of
Nazi Germany and the Nuremberg
trials. Since then, the
international community has seen
again and again that persistent
cultures of hate among dominant
groups produce mass violence
against disenfranchised and
despised minorities, eventually
leading to genocide.
Regrettably, this is the true
state of affairs in northern
Nigeria. These practices of
discrimination,
disenfranchisement and
incitement are the root cause of
Boko Haram and the real danger
to Nigerian Christians – and to
Nigeria itself. This is the
intersection of a trifecta of
evil intolerance – persecution
at the street, state and sect
levels – and Christians are the
primary victims.
Rather
than call for compensation for
victims, the United States has
advocated strongly on behalf of
the aggressors, pressuring
President Jonathan to give more
federal resources and create a
special ministry for “northern
affairs.” At the same time,
these northern states are
spending millions in public
funds on forced mass weddings
for widows, pilgrimages to Mecca
and rams for Islamic festivals.
The victims of the 2011 violence
and countless earlier attacks
remain without succor,
overshadowed by the 2012 victims
of Boko Haram. And even some of
the Boko Haram victims have
received only meager assistance.
The
March 7, 2010 massacre in Jos,
the April 16, 2011 sharia states
pogrom and the Jan. 20, 2012
Kano onslaught mark three
consecutive years of
triple-digit casualties, each in
excess of 200 lives lost from a
single incident. These incidents
only scratch the surface of
persecution in a country that
has the world’s largest
population of Christians and
Muslims living together setting
a stage for unfathomable
conflict.
Ann
Buwalda, Esq. is executive
director of Jubilee Campaign,
and human rights attorney
Emmanuel Ogebe is Nigeria expert
for the organization, which
promotes the human rights and
religious liberty of ethnic and
religious minorities; advocates
for and assists refugees fleeing
religious based persecution; and
protects and promotes the
dignity and safety of children
from bodily harm and sexual
exploitation. Jubilee Campaign
holds special consultative
status with the U.N. Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC). Its
researchers conducted over a
dozen fact-finding missions to
document the recent spike in
persecution in Nigeria. This
op-ed coincides with the
upcoming release of Jubilee
Campaign’s Justice for Jos 2012
report on April 25.
CSW has
received new information
concerning the circumstances
surrounding the death of
Vietnamese church leader Hoang
Van Ngai (also known as Vam
Ngaij Vaj), who died in police
custody in Dak Glong District in
Dak Nong Province on 17 March.
Police
claims that Ngai died after
putting his hand into an
electric socket have been
contested by his family members.
Reports
by Ngai’s relatives state that
his wife and sister-in-law were
arrested on 14 March and were
forcibly taken to the police
station in Gia Nghia. Ngai and
his elder brother Hoang Van Pa
were arrested the following day
and were detained in adjacent
cells. The reason for the
arrests was not clear; the
police did not present or refer
to any arrest warrant or
temporary detention order.
At
approximately 3pm on 17 March,
Ngai’s brother heard the sound
of violent beating coming from
his brother’s cell. When the
police took Ngai out of his
cell, his brother saw that he
was “completely limp as if he
was dead, gone, purple marks on
his throat.” Prison guards
denied Pa’s request to go with
his brother.
Ngai
was an elder of Bui Tre Church,
which belongs to a legally
recognized denomination, the
Evangelical Church of Vietnam
(South). According to other
members of the Hmong community,
Ngai was a compassionate and
courageous person who helped
those in need and defended the
church he helped to build.
Ngai’s older brother believes he
made enemies among government
officials because he stood up
against abuses of power and
refused to pay bribes.
On 18
March, the police headquarters
announced that Ngai was dead;
however, his family felt that
this announcement did not make
clear the reason for his death.
In addition, the family rejects
the suggestion made by Mr Dien,
Chairman of the People’s
Committee of Dak Nong Province
that Ngai may have committed
suicide. Ngai’s wife, brother
and sister-in-law have submitted
a letter of petition to the
Chief of Police in Dak Nong
Province requesting an
investigation into the case and
the indictment of the person(s)
responsible for Ngai’s death and
the arrest of his family
members.
CSW’s
Advocacy Director Andrew
Johnston said, “As more
information comes to light about
the tragic circumstances of
Hoang Van Ngai’s death, CSW
again calls on the Vietnamese
Government to fully investigate
this case and the possibility
that the victim was tortured
while in police custody. We also
urge the government to take
measures to guarantee that the
right to religious freedom is
upheld across the country, in
order to prevent further
violations against believers.”
Recent
efforts to help imprisoned
dissident and Christian Zhu Yufu,
whose life is feared to be in
danger, have apparently resulted
in intensified persecution of
him, leading to a redoubling of
efforts to try to win his
release on medical parole.
Last
week, ChinaAid founder and
president Bob Fu took Zhu’s
younger brother and sister in
making the rounds in Washington,
D.C. to appeal for U.S.
government help for their
brother, who is in his 60s and
in very poor health.
Following those meetings with
senior Congressmen who have long
championed Chinese human rights
cases and with State Department
officials, family members back
in China who had just concluded
a prison with Zhu at the No. 4
Prison in Zhejiang province
reported that he had apparently
been beaten and had told his
family that he feared death was
imminent.
As a
result those meetings last week,
the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission and the
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China are drafting
a joint chairman’s declaration,
and State Department’s director
of the Bureau of East Asian and
Pacific Affairs has promised to
take diplomatic actions.
But in
light of the most recent report
from Zhu’s family, ChinaAid is
redoubling its efforts. On April
15, ChinaAid’s legal counsel
David E. Taylor wrote the letter
below to the U.N.’s Human Rights
Council, drawing their attention
to the urgency of Zhu’s case and
asking the Council to raise the
case with the Chinese government
and to seek an explanation for
its treatment of Zhu.
ChinaAid hopes the U.S.
government will face squarely
the situation of frequent
occurrences of human rights
disasters in China and of
politically motivated
persecution and will take
meaningful action that will
clearly show the new leadership
in China that: a new
relationship between great
nations that both China and the
United States look forward to
cannot be formed upon a
foundation of disregard for
human rights, freedom and other
universal values. We urgently
call on the Chinese government
to immediately cease its abuse
and persecution of Zhu Yufu and
give him timely and necessary
medical treatment and other
humane treatment. At the same
time, we call on the Chinese
government to: immediately
release all prisoners of
conscience who have been
imprisoned for their faith or
for exercising their right to
free expression, honor and abide
by the U.N. covenants and
agreements protecting human
rights, and truly become a great
nation that is responsible and
civilized.
“We
thank our young men, trained in
Somalia, for killing an infidel.
Many more will die.” — Message
signed by Muslim Renewal
Reports of Christian persecution
by Muslims around the world
during the month of February
include (but are not limited to)
the following accounts. They are
listed by form of persecution,
and in country alphabetical
order, not necessarily according
to severity:
Church
Attacks
Egypt:
Once again, soon after Friday
prayers, a throng of Muslims in
Fayoum province destroyed a
Coptic church. The reason cited
this time was that the church is
“an unlawful neighbor to the
Muslims who live adjacent to it
and must therefore be moved.”
According to AINA, “The mob
climbed to the church dome and
started demolishing it and
setting it on fire. The dome
collapsed into the burning
church and caused great damage.
Muslims used bricks from the
dome and the holy cross and
hurled it at the altar inside
the church, causing part of it
to be demolished; all the icons
of saints were destroyed.
Muslims tried to assault Father
Domadios and threw stones at
him, but he was saved by a
Muslim family who brought him
away from the village in their
car.” Local Christian families
were reported as staying indoors
for fear of being assaulted by
the Muslims. And, once again,
although state security was
present throughout this entire
proceeding, it did nothing to
prevent it. None of the
perpetrators was arrested. Two
days later, hundreds of Copts
demonstrated, demanding a halt
to the ongoing attacks on their
churches. In response, the
church was attacked again, by
Muslims hurling more Molotov
cocktails and stones while
shouting “We do not want the
church.” Some Muslims climbed
atop the church again to destroy
completely the remains of the
wooden dome.
Indonesia: Four churches were
firebombed with Molotov
cocktails in the world’s most
populous Muslim nation. Two were
attacked on a Sunday morning in
South Sulawesi. Another two
churches were attacked a few
days later. All the churches
suffered various degrees of fire
damage. According to Barnabas
Fund, the same region was
earlier “ravaged in a bloody
anti-Christian campaign by
Islamic extremists between 1997
and 2001. Hundreds of churches
and thousands of homes were
destroyed; according to some
estimates 30,000 Christians were
killed and about half a million
driven out in what amounted to
ethnic cleansing…. The beheading
of three girls as they made
their way [to] their Christian
school in Central Sulawesi in
2005 was among the most
egregious.” Elsewhere, in the
village of Mekargalih, some 50
members of the Islamic Defenders
Front descended upon a
Pentecostal church, scaling its
gates, vandalizing the building,
and assaulting the church’s
minister, including strangling
him with his own necktie. The
reason cited for this assault
was that the church was
operating without a permit. Two
days later, the only person
arrested and currently serving a
three month prison sentence, was
the minister, for continuing to
hold services without a valid
permit. The church, which has
been running for 26 years, has
made repeated attempts, at
significant financial cost, to
obtain the required permit but
has been obstructed by local
authorities. This was the third
violent attack against the
church by the Islamic party in
the last two years. According to
the minister’s wife, who has
also been threatened and
harassed, this latest attack has
“traumatized” the 400-strong
congregation; many Christians
are now too afraid to attend
services.
Libya:
A Coptic Christian church
located in Benghazi, Libya, was
attacked by armed Muslim
militants. Initial reports
indicate that at least one
priest, Fr. Paul Isaac, was
injured, as well as his
assistant. This was the second
church to be attacked in two
months. Earlier, on Sunday,
December 30, an explosion had
rocked a Coptic Christian church
near the western city of Misrata,
where a group of U.S. backed
rebels hold a major checkpoint.
The explosion killed two people
and wounded two others, all
Egyptians.
Zanzibar: Arsonists set the
Evangelical Church of Siloam
aflame on the island, populated
99% by Muslims. The church was
under construction following a
previous attack in January 2012.
The current attack follows a
string of other attacks on
church leaders and Christian
property across the country. Two
days earlier, a Catholic priest
was shot dead on his way to
church for Sunday worship. Two
Muslim youths at the church
entrance shot him in the head. A
message signed by “Muslim
Renewal” later appeared saying,
“We thank our young men, trained
in Somalia, for killing an
infidel. Many more will die. We
will burn homes and churches. We
have not finished: at Easter, be
prepared for disaster.” A few
days before the slaying of the
Catholic priest, an Assemblies
of God pastor was beheaded by
Muslims on the Tanzanian
mainland. And on Christmas Day,
gunmen shot and seriously
wounded another Catholic priest
as he was returning home from
church.
Apostates, Evangelists, Murder
and Slaughter
Cameroon: Two Muslim converts to
Christianity were shot dead and
two others wounded, in the
Christian-majority African
nation where Muslims make up
approximately 20% of the
population. One of the converts
was previously threatened by the
Nigerian Islamic terrorist group
Boko Haram ["Western Education
is a Sin"] to return to Islam or
“face Allah’s wrath.” The attack
occurred when these two Muslim
converts to Christianity and two
others were travelling together
around Lake Chad. Their vehicle
was stopped by armed men who
forced the four Christians out
of the vehicle and opened fire
on them. The slain Christians
leave behind wives and several
children.
Iran:
Fox News reported that American
pastor Saeed Abedini, who is
jailed for his Christian faith
in the notorious Evin prison,
was “facing physical and
psychological torture at the
hands of captors, who demanded
that he renounce his beliefs.”
The 32-year-old married father
of two, who left his home in
Boise, Idaho, to help start an
orphanage in Iran, detailed, in
a letter to family members,
“horrific pressures” and “death
threats”: “My eyes get blurry,
my body does not have the
strength to walk, and my steps
become very weak and shaky… They
are only waiting for one
thing…for me to deny Christ. But
they will never get this from
me.” Similarly, according to
Mohabet News, since four Muslim
converts to Christianity were
arrested soon after Christmas,
“they have been taken to the
Revolutionary Court of Shiraz
several times in a pitiful
condition with their hands and
feet chained, where their
charges were officially
announced as participating in
house-church services,
evangelizing and promoting
Christianity, having contact
with foreign Christian
ministries, distributing
propaganda against the regime
and disturbing national
security. These four Christian
converts were arrested as they
gathered for worship in a house
church on February 8, 2012.” The
report goes on to explain the
“obvious mental and physical
torture” in prison to which
Iran’s converts to Christianity
are routinely subjected.
Kenya:
One church leader was killed
another wounded during an ambush
by the Somali-based Islamic
terrorist group, Al Shabaab
["The Youth"]. Abdi Welli, a
Muslim who converted to
Christianity in 1990, and became
a minister, died at the scene.
His colleague and former mentor,
Pastor Ibrahim Makunyi , another
convert to Christianity,
survived after sustaining
gunshot wounds. Abdi’s last
words were, “It’s good to be in
the hands of Al Shaddai,” an
ancient name for the
Judeo-Christian God. He leaves
behind a wife and three
children. In response to these
latest Muslim murders of
Christians, Somali’s much
oppressed underground church
declared “The Somali Church is
the Lord’s and he will protect
it from the evil one. No degree
of Muslim persecution will
destroy the Somali Church.”
Libya:
Christians from all walks of
life were arrested, and some
tortured, on the accusation that
they were trying to evangelize
Muslims. On February 10, in
Benghazi, four foreign
Christians were arrested,
including one with American
citizenship, on the claim that
they were “missionaries.” Three
days later, two more Christians
from Egypt were arrested. Three
days after that, a seventh
Christian, also from Egypt, was
arrested. Then, on February 27,
Benghazi forces raided another
Coptic church—rounding up some
100 Coptic Christians and
accusing them of being
missionaries—simply because they
had Bibles and other Christian
“paraphernalia,” such as icons
of Jesus. Many of these
Christians were detained and
tortured, including by having
their heads shaved and cross
tattoos removed with acid. Under
such torture, one Copt died.
Nigeria: In yet another attack
in the Plateau State, Muslim
herdsmen used machetes and guns
to murder 10 members of the same
Christian family; half of the
victims were under the age of
six, as confirmed by the
military and government.
According to one official, “Five
little children including a
two-month-old child were
slaughtered.” As happens all
throughout the Islamic world,
the area’s Christians accused
the military of involvement in
violence on behalf of the Muslim
tribesmen—some of the attackers
were apparently dressed in
military uniform—although a
military spokesman denied it:
“Somehow, some hoodlums and
criminals gained access to our
old uniforms,” he said.
Pakistan: Younas Masih, a
55-year-old Christian, died
shortly after being shot five
times in an attack that involved
his resistance to convert to
Islam. According to sources,
“Younas’ Muslim colleagues had
been pressuring him to convert
to Islam. Repeated threats and
blackmail attempts had been made
against him but he had remained
firm in his faith. On the day of
the shooting, Younas’ co-workers
made another attempt to persuade
him to convert. A heated
discussion ensued, with insults
and threats issued.” This is not
the first time a Christian is
slaughtered in Pakistan for
refusing to convert to Islam.
Younas’s son tried to register
the attack on his father with
the police, but, as usual, they
refused to launch a criminal
investigation. Also, after local
Muslims accused a 19-year-old
Christian of being in
relationship with a Muslim girl
(Islamic Sharia law bans
Christian men from marrying
Muslim women), he was
“barbarically assassinated”:
three Muslim men broke into his
home in the early hours while
the family was asleep, and smote
the teenager on the head with an
axe while stabbing him with a
dagger. When his father awoke
from the screaming, the Muslim
assassins fled the scene.
Further, in Lahore, Roshan Masih,
a 45-year-old Christian, was
shot dead after an argument over
religion. According to Agenzia
Fides, “it was an act of murder
in cold blood: Roshan’s defence
of his Christian beliefs
compared to Muslim beliefs, may
have been considered
‘blasphemous’… Days before the
murder he had a heated argument
over religion with a local
Muslim, Sohail Akhtar. The
latter waited for his
opportunity, and, on 16
February, seeing Roshan sitting
outside a shop run by Sadiq
Masih, another Christian, Sohail
Akhtar, armed with a rifle, shot
him dead there and then.”
United
States: A Muslim man slaughtered
two Coptic Christians in New
Jersey. Although authorities
believe that “the defendant was
ruthless and calculating in the
manner in which he carried out
the killings and attempted to
prevent identification of the
victims by cutting off their
heads and hands before burying
their bodies,” it is relevant to
note that Koran 8:12 records
Allah saying, “I will cast
terror into the hearts of
infidels, so strike [them] upon
the necks [behead them] and
strike from them every
fingertip.” Moreover, as one
report puts it, “Privately some
wonder if it had something to do
with the victims’ [Christian]
religion.”
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse and Suppression
of Non-Muslims as "Tolerated"
Citizens]
Egypt:
Fourteen-year-old Sarah
Abdelmalek was recently abducted
on her way to school. Unlike the
many similar cases, Sarah’s
received media attention in
Egypt due to the loud protests
from Copts. In February it was
reported that “Sarah was
smuggled across the borders to
Libya [where Coptic Christians
are being brutalized] with the
help of the Interior Ministry.”
The new Coptic pope said the
kidnapping and forced conversion
of Sarah is a “disgrace for the
whole of Egypt,” adding “Can any
family accept the kidnapping of
their daughter and her forced
conversion?” Members of the
Salafi Front, meanwhile, stated
that under no circumstances
would they hand Sarah back to
her grieving family. More
recently, another Christian
minor girl, 13-year-old Agape
Essam Girgis, after leaving for
school accompanied by a Muslim
social worker and two teachers,
one of whom was a Salafi, never
returned. Eventually, after
protests, she was “handed over
to her family and the church
priest where she stayed with his
family for some time due to the
terrible ordeal she experienced
during her abduction.” According
to a Coptic bishop involved in
the case, what happened to Agape
is “heart-breaking.” She was
drugged and awakened to find
herself in a secluded place with
an elderly woman and later
Salafis who tried to convert her
to Islam, forced her to wear the
full hijab, and beat her. In the
last few years, some 550 cases
of abduction, entrapment, rape,
and forced conversion of
Christian women have been
documented in Egypt. Their rate
has only increased after the
“Arab Spring” and the
empowerment of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Ironically, when
President Morsi, in Germany in
February, was asked to address
this issue, he responded only by
saying the abduction of
Christian girls was only a rumor.
Meanwhile, in Safaga, an
Egyptian town near the Red Sea,
yet another new jihadi group,
calling itself jihad al-kufr
["jihad against all that is
non-Islamic"] sent “invitations”
to local priests to convert to
Islam or die.
Libya:
Islamic rebels threatened
Christian nuns into fleeing the
nation. Among those Christian
communities to leave are the
convent of the Holy Family of
Spoleto in Derna, the Franciscan
Sisters of the Infant Jesus of
Barce and the Ursuline Sisters
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of
Beida. The presence of the
Sisters of the Holy Family of
Spoleto in Libya dates back to
1921; under Colonel Gaddafi, all
these Christian orders were left
in peace. Until their departure,
the mission of the religious and
the Church in Libya was focused
primarily on health care and
care for the elderly.
Saudi
Arabia: According to Fox News,
“Saudi Arabia’s notorious
‘religious police,’ known as the
mutawayyin, swooped in on a
private gathering of at least 53
Ethiopian Christians, shutting
down their private prayer, and
arresting the peaceful group of
foreign workers for merely
practicing their faith. Saudi
authorities further charged
three Christian leaders with
‘seeking to convert Muslims to
Christianity.’ The latest
crackdown on Christianity in the
ultra-fundamental Islamic
country comes on the heels of a
brutal 2011/2012 incarceration
and torture of 36 Ethiopian
Christians.”
Sudan:
Authorities cracked down on
Christian activity with a
renewed upsurge of arrests and
closures of Christian-run
schools. One Christian school is
to be shut down for not offering
Islamic courses—although Islamic
schools never offer courses on
any other religions—and for
failing to separate male and
female students. Another school
was targeted on suspicions that
it was evangelizing to Muslims.
Additionally, three Christians
of South Sudanese origin—since
South Sudan ceded, the Islamic
government of Khartoum has been
avenging itself on Christians
under its authority—were ordered
last week to leave the country
within 24 hours, following their
detention. Another four members
of a non-profit organization
that produces Christian songs
and films were arrested and
interrogated and then released.
A Christian source in Khartoum
said that the “atmosphere in
Sudan is alarming and
frightening.”
Syria:
U.S.-supported “freedom
fighters” abducted an Armenian
priest on Sunday and an Orthodox
clergyman. Both were working in
Aleppo. Sources, anonymous for
security reasons, told AsiaNews
that the city’s Christian
community is very concerned
about the attack. “Extremist
violence is getting worse day by
day. Muslim militias are killing
anyone suspected of ties with
the regime, including women and
children. People in the
neighbourhoods are comparing
these days to the Ottoman
conquest five centuries ago.”
Islamic rebels also stormed the
Christian neighbourhood of
Jadida, where two month earlier,
the city’s main Evangelical
church was destroyed. “These
fighters live for killing and
violence. They act without pity
and make distinctions among
people,” sources said. “When
they kill, they turn to God as
if they were making a
sacrifice.” Similarly, an AFP
report also tells of the
aftermath of the Obama-supported
freedom fighters’ jihad: “The
bibles lie untouched on the
carved wooden stands but the
chandeliers have been dumped
upside down on the altar; the
Christian village of Al-Yakubiye
may have escaped the full
ravages of Syria’s civil war but
it could not avoid the
plundering of the fighters.
Along the main road of this
agricultural village in Syria’s
northwestern province of Idlib,
an old cemetery with stone
crosses adjoins an Apostolic
Orthodox Armenian church whose
door lies open, buffeted by the
winds. Those who swept through
here seized anything of value,
plundering even the chancel and
the sacristy. Under a portrait
of a benevolent Virgin Mary, a
thief stole the chalice from the
tabernacle.”
Turkey:
Parliament is considering
reconverting the Hagia Sophia
museum into a mosque. Originally
a church that was transformed
into a mosque after the
Ottoman-led jihad of 1453, Hagia
Sophia was Christendom’s
grandest cathedral. It was
turned into a museum in 1935,
back when the Islamic world was
largely western-looking. “We
want Santa Sofia to remain a
museum,” said Patriarch
Bartholomew. The Orthodox
prelate said that if the museum
is converted to any religious
use, it should become a
Christian church: it was built
for that purpose.
When a
young Christian girl goes
missing in the Egyptian port
city of Alexandria, her family
will call on a certain Muslim
sheikh in the nearby town of El-Ameriya.
The
local Salafi leader, whose
ultra-conservative views condone
the marriage of girls as young
as nine, has a history of
abducting Coptic Christian girls
and forcing them to convert to
Islam and marry Muslim men,
claim rights activists.
And so
the sheikh and his associates
are the natural starting point
for any investigation into
missing underage Christian
girls. And, according to
activists, that is usually where
they find them.
“Whenever a young girl
disappears in the area the trail
leads to this sheikh,” says
Mamdouh Nakhla, chairman of the
Al Kalema Organisation for Human
Rights.
In a recent case, a 13-year-old
Coptic Christian girl from a
village near Alexandria was
allegedly kidnapped and held for
over a week as her abductors
tried to force her to renounce
her religion.
According to her testimony, she
was drugged unconscious while in
a taxi on her way home from
school. She woke up in a
secluded house with two Salafi
sheikhs and an elderly woman.
Her abductors forced her to wear
niqab, a full veil covering the
body and face, and beat her when
she refused to convert to Islam.
Girgis
claims she was released nine
days later when the sheikhs
became nervous after her family
organised large demonstrations
for her return. The Salafis
turned her over to police, who
feared the girl’s testimony
would spark sectarian clashes,
and so tried to convince her to
claim she had wilfully gone to a
sheikh seeking to convert to
Islam.
“The
only thing unusual (about this
case) was that the girl was
returned,” says Nakhla. “In one
case I investigated a kidnapped
girl was allowed to call her
parents, but in all others the
girl was never heard from
again.”
Christian rights watchdogs say
abductions and forced
conversions of young Egyptian
Coptic girls have been going on
for decades right under the
noses of local authorities. But
the frequency of the kidnappings
has increased alarmingly since
the uprising in 2011 that
toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak
and brought an Islamist-led
government to power.
More
than 500 Christian girls have
been abducted in the last two
years, according to the
Association of Victims of
Abduction and Forced
Disappearance (AVAFD), which
documents the disappearances. A
growing number of cases involve
girls between the ages of 13 and
17.
AVAFD
head Abram Louis claims the
abducted girls are taken to
‘safe’ houses, where they are
manipulated or blackmailed into
converting to Islam and forced
to marry Muslim men, often to
serve as second wives.
“If we
inform the police where the
kidnapped girl is being kept,
they inform the Salafis, who
then move her away to another
home and then we lose all trace
of her,” Louis said in a recent
interview.
“Egypt
has laws in place to protect
girls under 18, but Salafis do
not accept them,” says Amal
Abdel Hadi, head of the New
Woman Foundation. “To them, a
girl is only a minor until she
has her first period.”
However, Salafi leaders have
categorically denied any role in
abducting Christian girls or
forceful proselytising. They
claim that so far as they know,
the girls converted to Islam of
their own free will, in some
cases after falling in love with
a Muslim man.
Ishaak
Ibrahim, a religious rights
researcher at the Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR),
says inter-faith love affairs
and conversions are dangerously
provocative issues in Egypt.
Rumours of such have led to
outbreaks of sectarian violence.
He says
many of the alleged abductions
involve young Christian girls
who appear to have converted to
Islam to escape bad relations
with their families, or after
having engaged in pre-marital
relations (taboo in conservative
Egyptian culture) with Muslim
men.
“The
girls appear to have chosen to
change their religion,” Ibrahim
told IPS. “But because the
family is ashamed, and because
the police don’t investigate to
find their daughter, the family
chooses the easiest solution,
which is to say the girl was
kidnapped by Muslim extremists.”
Such
cases only present a problem
when the girl is a minor, he
says, as Egypt’s Child Law
criminalises the marriage of any
girl under 18, even if by her
own free will.
But
Nakhla, who is representing the
families of 20 missing Coptic
girls, says there are clear
signs that young girls have been
coerced into converting and
marrying.
Referring to one recent case, he
asks if it makes sense that a
15-year-old Christian girl would
suddenly choose to convert to
Islam and serve as a second
wife, without any legal rights,
to a firebrand Salafi sheikh
over 40 years her senior. The
girl has never spoken or written
to her parents since her
disappearance – unusual
behaviour in a country where
family ties run deep.
“In
Egypt it is a crime to marry a
minor, and you can’t legally
change your religion until
you’re 18… yet the government
refuses to investigate these
cases and arrest those
responsible,” complains Nakhla.
While
Ibrahim argues that all
Egyptians should have the right
to change their religion at any
time, he says authorities also
have a responsibility to ensure
that women – particularly minors
– are protected from coercion
and exploitation.
“The
family should be allowed to meet
their daughter and get her to
explain what she wants in the
presence of the public
prosecutor,” he says.
Salafi
leaders have rejected any state
intervention, and have warned
against attempts by parents and
human rights organisations to
return the girls to their
families.
Israelis are now transitioning
from their annual day of
remembrance to the day they
celebrate their independence.
But even in celebrating 65 years
of statehood, Israel never
forgets the sacrifices it has
made over the course of its
existence.
As
Israelis mourn the 23,000
soldiers and defense personnel
who have been killed in the
course of defending the Jewish
state against aggression and
terrorism, Jordanian leaders
(not including the king, at
least thus far) are making a
hero out of a Jordanian soldier
who murdered 7 Israeli school
girls and wounded 6 others
during a peace program in 1997.
Ahmed Daqamseh, who expressed
pride in his mass murder, was
convicted of these crimes but
spared the death penalty,
despite the fact that Jordan
executes large numbers of
criminals for relatively trivial
offenses.
Now
after serving approximately 2
years for each of the murders,
he is seeking his release and he
has the support of a large
majority of Jordanian
parliamentarians, who regard him
as a hero. The very word “hero”
was used by the Jordanian
Justice Minister in joining the
chorus calling for his release.
Daqamseh’s mother has said, “I
am proud of my son and I hold my
head high. My son did a heroic
deed and has pleased Allah and
his own conscience. My son lifts
my head and the head of the
entire Arab and Islamic nation.
I am proud of any Muslim who
does what Ahmed did.”
Daqamseh himself has said, “I
have no regrets.” He continued,
“The only thing I am angry about
is the gun, which did not work
properly. Otherwise, I would
have killed all of the
[children].” He also said he
would do it again if given the
opportunity.
The 13
school girls who were shot by
the Jordanian soldier were on a
peace mission at a place
ironically called The Island of
Peace. It is the man who shot
these 13 school girls, wishes he
had killed more, and promises to
do it again, who is being called
a hero by Jordanian public
officials. The silence of King
Abdullah speaks loudly about the
widespread popular support that
exists for this mass murderer of
Jewish children.
In
justifying his support for
Daqamseh’s release, the Justice
Minister said, “If a Jew
murdered Arabs, [the Israelis]
build him a statue.” In fact
precisely the opposite is true.
When a Jewish extremist (not a
soldier) murdered Arabs at
prayer, the Israeli government
not only did not build him a
statue, it forbade any statue
from being built by private
sources and has demonized the
killer (who was himself killed),
as a mass murderer deserving of
no lionization.
Another
indication of the widespread
support is that 110 out of the
120 members of the lower house
of Jordan’s parliament have
called him a hero and demanded
his release. They are seeking
“freedom for the soldier hero”
and saying “we are all Ahmed
Daqamseh.” Leading this
despicable effort to free a mass
murderer is Ali Sneid, a man who
claims to be of the left.
The
effort to release Daqamseh has
taken on elements of Islamic
anti-Semitism by calling the
continued imprisonment of this
murderer “protection for the
herds of the brothers of apes
and pigs” and calling the
victims of this mass murder by
other anti-Semitic terms.
Nor is
this hatred of Jews and the
Jewish state by Jordanians
limited to this particular case,
despicable as that would be.
Among grassroots Jordanians,
particularly those of
Palestinian background, there is
widespread hatred of all things
Jewish, Israeli and even
American. Islamic extremism is
rampant in parts of Jordan,
though suppressed by its king
and his dictatorial minions.
Jordan is ripe for yet another
Arab Spring turned winter. All
that stands between the current
monarchy and an Islamic upheaval
is massive American financial
and military support for its
charming king. King Abdullah
presents a far more beneficent
face of despotism than did any
of the other Arab despots who
were toppled, or are in the
process of being toppled, by the
Arab Spring turned Islamic
extremist winter. How long this
situation will last is anyone’s
guess. But the possibility that
before long Israel may have a
neighbor to the east who is not
as peaceful as the current
Jordanian government, must be
seriously considered.
If
Daqamseh is released and treated
as a hero, that unconscionable
decision will tell us much about
the direction of the Jordanian
street. So next time you see the
smiling face of King Abdullah on
television speaking about peace,
remember that many of his
subjects regard the cold-blooded
mass murderer of Jewish children
as an Islamic hero.
(Gatestoneinstitute)
Turkey
is building new refugee camps
for members of two minority
groups in Syria, the Christians
and the Kurds, it was announced
Wednesday.
A
government official denied
accusations of sectarianism in
building the tented camps,
saying they are being created to
help, rather than harm, the
populations with their unique
cultural needs.
One of
the camps, expected to house up
to 2,500 Assyrian Christians and
others from Christian
denominations, will be built on
land donated by its Assyrian
owner near an Assyrian church.
Recently Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan met with Assyrian
leaders in Turkey to discuss
ways to help the community in
Syria. Turkey’s own Assyrian
population resides primarily in
Istanbul and Mardin, a province
in the country’s southeastern
sector.
About
10 percent of Syrians are
Christians of various
denominations, including
Assyrian.
The
second is planned with a
capacity of up to 3,000 for any
Syrian Kurd fleeing the savage
civil war raging across the
border, although it will be open
to others if the need arises.
Both
are to be located in the town of
Midyat, in Mardin province,
about fifty kilometers from the
Syrian border, according to a
Turkish foreign ministry source.
Mardin is home to a large
Kurdish population in Turkey,
and borders the area of Syria
where ethnic Kurds – about 10
percent of its population – also
reside.
More
than 250,000 Syrian refugees
have registered in Turkey, with
most staying in 17 camps along
the 900-kilometer border,
although Turkish leaders have
said the total number is closer
to 400,000.
Most of
Syria’s 22 million citizens –
about 75 percent – are Sunni
Muslims, and are comprised of
Arabs and Kurds. About 15
percent observe other forms of
Islam, the majority of which is
Alawite, an offshoot of Shi’ite,
which also is seen among the
population.
Syria
is also home to a Druze
community, and there yet remains
a tiny Jewish community as well.
American pastor Saeed Abedini who
was sentenced to eight years in
an Iranian prison for planting
house churches in the country
says that officials in Iran have
given him the ultimatum to
either deny Christ or remain
incarcerated.
The
American Center for Law and
Justice (ACLJ), which has been
working for the pastor’s
release, reports that they have
obtained a new letter written by
Saeed Abedini, which outlines
the pressure that he is facing
behind bars.
“‘Deny
your faith in Christ and return
to Islam or else you will not be
released from prison. We will
make sure you are kept here even
after your 8 year sentence is
finished.’ These are the threats
that prison officials throw at
me,” the pastor writes.
The
ACLJ outlines that while
Abedini’s physical strength is
growing weak because of the
brutal conditions in prison, his
faith remains strong and is
“what is keeping him alive.”
As
previously reported, 32-year-old
Abedini, who resides in Idaho
with his wife and children, has
been incarcerated in Iran’s
notorious Evin Prison since late
September for allegedly
threatening the national
security of Iran by planting
house churches in the country a
decade ago, and for attempting
to turn youth in the nation away
from Islam and toward
Christianity. He had traveled to
Iran to build an orphanage last
fall, and was about to return to
the states when he was taken
into custody.
“When I saw my family for the
first time behind the glass
walls, I could see my mom four
meters away. As she approached
me and saw my face, she broke
down and could not get closer.
She was crying,” he wrote in a
letter released last month. “I
understood what she felt because
after weeks of being in solitary
confinement in Evin Prison, I
also got to see my face in the
mirror of an elevator that was
taking me to the prison
hospital. I said hi to the
person staring back at me
because I did not recognize
myself. My hair was shaven,
under my eyes were swollen three
times what they should have
been, my face was swollen, and
my beard had grown.”
The
ACLJ is asking for Christians
around the world to send a note
of encouragement to Abedini
while he is incarcerated.
“We
must let him know that we will
never forget him and will never
stop working for his release,”
it states, noting that 20,000
people have already submitted
correspondence for the pastor.
“This has already quickly become
one of the largest letter
writing campaigns ever.”
(Christiannews)
A
Christian worker who was
dismissed from her job at
Heathrow Airport has been
granted permission to challenge
a ruling by an employment
tribunal which left her without
any rights under employment law.
Last year, an Employment
Tribunal found that Nohad Halawi
was not technically employed, so
she had no protection under
employment law, despite the fact
she had worked at Heathrow for
13 years.
But the Employment Appeal
Tribunal in London has allowed
this decision to be appealed.
Background
Mrs Halawi worked at a duty free
shop at Heathrow Terminal 3. But
management took away her
‘airside pass’ – meaning she was
unable to continue working at
the airport – after Muslim
colleagues made unsubstantiated
complaints about her conduct.
Mrs Halawi had stood up for a
Christian colleague who was
being harassed by Islamist
staff.
She had verbally complained to
management over personal abuse
and harassment from Islamist
staff members over her Christian
faith.
22 of Mrs Halawi’s colleagues,
including other Muslims, signed
a petition which stated:
“We are shocked and saddened by
the recent dismissal of our
colleague and friend, Nohad, as
a result of malicious and
unfounded allegations made
against her.”
Last year, Mrs Halawi asked the
Christian Legal Centre (CLC) for
support. CLC instructed leading
human rights barrister, Paul
Diamond, to represent her.
Employment Tribunal
At the hearing in April 2012,
the Employment Tribunal heard
evidence that Mrs Halawi’s
working patterns and performance
were very tightly controlled by
World Duty Free (WDF) and
Caroline South Associates (CSA),
indicating that she was
employed.
However, the Judge preferred the
evidence of WDF and CSA, who
argued that she was
self-employed and therefore had
no protection. The removal of
her airside pass and loss of her
employment was non judiciable.
The case was then taken to the
Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Employment Appeal Tribunal
Mr Diamond argued at the
Employment Appeal Tribunal that
Mrs Halawi was an employee under
European law, and as such should
be protected from
discrimination.
He also argued that the
Employment Tribunal should have
considered the relationship
which existed between Mrs Halawi
and WDF and CSA as the basis for
allowing her to be deemed an
‘employee’, or a ‘worker’ under
European law.
Mrs Halawi’s case for unfair
dismissal and discrimination can
only properly be considered if
she is found to have employment
rights. The result of this
Employment Appeal Tribunal
hearing brings her a step closer
to a thorough consideration of
this.
Next hearing
At the next hearing (date to be
decided) the Employment Appeal
Tribunal will consider her
situation while she was working
at Terminal 3 and whether she
should be viewed as an employee
by the law or protected as a
worker.
Then, depending on the result,
she may be given another
opportunity to explain how she
was treated and the bullying she
experienced at the hands of
radical Islamist colleagues.
Andrea Minichiello Williams,
director of the Christian Legal
Centre, said:
“Nohad represents tens of
thousands of people across the
UK who work, in all but name, as
‘employees’ for companies and
yet have absolutely no
employment rights. This
situation needs to be urgently
addressed.
“But it’s also crucial that this
case moves on in order for the
fundamental security and
religious issues it raises to be
properly investigated. Heathrow
airport is one of the main
points of entry to the UK, so
it’s vital that any expressions
of radical Islamism are
investigated and dealt with.”
An
Egyptian security official says
a Coptic Christian has died of
burns sustained during sectarian
clashes, raising the death toll
to eight since the weekend.
The official says attackers
doused Saber Helal, 26, with
gasoline and set him on fire
during clashes over the weekend
between Muslims and Christians
in Khosoos, a town north Cairo.
Four other Christians and a
Muslim were killed at the time.
The official said Helal died
Thursday. He was speaking on
condition of anonymity because
he was not authorized to speak
to the media.
More clashes broke out Sunday at
Cairo’s main Coptic Cathedral
after funerals for the
Christians killed in Khosoos.
The church was attacked and two
more people were killed, one of
them a Christian, in the worst
sectarian violence since last
year.
(foxnews)
Libya
on Thursday released four
Egyptian Christians who spent
more than a month in jail after
being accused of proselytizing,
Egypt’s state news agency MENA
said.
Quoting
church sources, MENA said Libyan
authorities had dropped the
charges against them. A fifth
detained Egyptian died in a
Tripoli prison last month, it
added.
The
release comes after Egypt
extradited two members of the
regime of ousted Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi earlier this
month. An Egyptian court barred
the extradition of a cousin of
Gaddafi claiming to hold
Egyptian citizenship.
Last
month, Egyptian judicial sources
told Reuters Egypt was seeking
to swap the Libyans with the
Egyptian Copts.
On
Wednesday, Libya decided to
grant Egypt, struggling with
economic and political turmoil,
a $2 billion five-year
interest-free loan.
Libya’s
small Christian community has
expressed fears over Islamist
extremism as the government
struggles to impose its
authority over armed groups
which have refused to lay down
their weapons since the 2011 war
that ousted Gaddafi.
In
December, an explosion at a
building belonging to a Coptic
church in Dafniya, close to the
western Libyan city of Misrata,
killed two Egyptian men and
wounded two others.
The
American pastor Saeed Abedini
imprisoned in Iran is about to
celebrate a birthday behind
bars, and Christians worldwide
are being asked to help by
writing letters. It’s part of a
plan to free Saeed Abedini,
whose treatment and imprisonment
continue to make national
headlines.
Abedini
immigrated from Iran, married,
and has two children in Idaho.
While on a return trip to Iran
to visit family last fall, he
was detained then sentenced to
eight years in prison solely
because he is a convert to
Christianity. Thus far, he has
been imprisoned for almost 200
days, during which he has been
tortured and beaten.
Jordan
Sekulow of the American Center
for Law & Justice appeared
Wednesday on Fox News along with
Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, to
discuss the pastor’s physical
condition and prospects for his
release. They fear there is
little prospect the pastor will
receive the medical treatment he
desperately needs.
In an
earlier interview with American
Family News, Sekulow described
the abuse the pastor has
experienced at the hands of the
Iranian government in one of its
most brutal prisons.
“He
suffered an unbelievable amount
of abuse, especially when he
first came into prison in
solitary confinement … long
hours of interrogations,
physical [abuse], violence,
beatings, torture – and of
course [there’s] the
psychological side,” noted the
attorney.
As a
result of that abuse, Abedini
developed internal bleeding.
After intense international
attention, he was able to
receive a medical exam which
confirmed his condition and
included the promise of medical
treatment. But it was not to be,
as Sekulow explains.
“He was
actually taken out of the prison
to a very good private
hospital,” he told American
Family News. “Now think about
the psychological impact this
could have after you’re hoping
that you’re going to get some
care – he then gets there and
the doctor’s not there. So
instead of waiting or having
nurses check him out and wait
for the doctor, they take him
back to prison.”
The
ACLJ spokesman notes that
Abedini’s 33rd birthday is
approaching (May 7), so he is
asking people to visit
SaveSaeed.org and write a letter
to the imprisoned pastor. Those
letters, according to Sekulow,
may be the only thing Abedini
might have to celebrate. ACLJ
reports that within the first 24
hours of the letter-writing
campaign, well over 15,000
people had already submitted
letters. Each letter, says the
attorney, increases pressure on
Iran to release Abedini – and
also lets him know he has not
been forgotten.
Protestant married couple Ashraf
and Nargisa Ashurov were each
fined 100 times the minimum
monthly wage by a court in
Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent
without a hearing. Also fined
was their babysitter. The fines
followed a raid on the home
where they are staying,
conducted without a warrant, and
seizure of Christian literature
belonging not to them but to the
home owner. “For a couple, who
barely earn any living, this
total fine of nearly 16 million
Soms is an unbelievable
punishment,” a Protestant who
knows the couple complained to
Forum 18. An officer of the
Police Criminal Investigation
Division told Forum 18 that the
Anti-Terrorism Police had
conducted the operation.
Homes
of Protestant Christians from
various Churches across
Uzbekistan were raided in
February and March. In at least
two cases, courts subsequently
handed down huge fines. After a
late March raid and fine on a
Protestant couple in the capital
Tashkent, a Protestant who knows
them complained that the raiding
authorities produced no
warrants, no trial was held and
that the fines given were
“unbelievably high”. “The
authorities know where believers
live and know that they have
Christian literature in their
homes,” the Protestant – who
asked not to be identified for
fear of state reprisals – told
Forum 18. “By raiding their
homes the authorities harass
believers and are trying to wear
them down by the fines.”
Religious believers’ homes are
also known to have been raided
in Samarkand in central
Uzbekistan and in Nukus, capital
of the north-western autonomous
republic of Karakalpakstan.
Courts in both cities fined the
believers and confiscated their
Christian literature and other
materials.
All
religious literature of any kind
in Uzbekistan is under tight
state censorship.
In
addition to raiding private
homes to hunt for religious
literature and other materials,
police and other state agencies
continue to raid religious
believers at worship and to
punish those talking about their
faith to others.
Tashkent raid
On 18
March, authorities in the
capital Tashkent raided the
temporary residence of Ashraf
and Nargisa Ashurov, a local
Protestant husband and wife. The
couple were out, but their
children and a babysitter were
present in their rented flat.
Major Zahid Mukimov, local
Police officer, accompanied by
seven other officials in
plain-clothes, searched their
home and confiscated Christian
materials. The flat and
confiscated materials belong to
a foreign Christian, who is away
from Uzbekistan at the moment,
the Protestant who knows the
couple told Forum 18 on 2 April.
The Ashurovs “temporarily lived
in that flat.”
Asked
on 9 April why the Police
conducted a search in the
Ashurovs’ residence, Major
Mukimov insisted to Forum 18:
“We found banned religious books
in their home.” Asked which of
the Christian books or other
materials found in the residence
were banned, he could not say.
Asked
whether they had a search
warrant or what the grounds for
the search were, Mukimov
referred Forum 18 to the
Criminal Investigation Division
of the Police. “It was their
operation,” he insisted. “I
needed to be there as the local
Police officer.” Asked why the
Criminal Police conducted an
operation targeting the couple,
he did not answer. Then he put
the phone down.
Aziz
Isakhanov, Deputy Chief of the
Criminal Investigation Division,
referred Forum 18 on 10 April to
Adyl (he did not give a last
name), Chief of the
Anti-Terrorism Division. “It was
their officers who conducted the
operation,” he declared.
Reached
the same day, Officer Adyl took
down Forum 18′s name. But when
asked the reasons of the raid
and confiscations, he said that
he could not hear well, though
Forum 18′s end of the line was
clear. He then put the phone
down. Subsequent calls to him
went unanswered.
Huge
fines
Four
days after the raid, on 22
March, the couple and their
babysitter were summoned to
Judge Ahad Ulmasov of Tashkent’s
Uchteppa District Criminal
Court. Without a hearing, he
handed each of the three a fine
of 100 minimum salaries or
7,959,000 Soms (3,900 US
Dollars).
He had
found them guilty under
Administrative Code Articles
201, Part 1 (violation of the
procedure for conducting
meetings), Article 240
(violation of the Religion Law)
and Article 184-2 (illegal
production, storage, import or
distribution of religious
materials), according to Judge
Ulmasov’s decision, a copy of
which Forum 18 has seen.
The
babysitter merely happened to be
in their residence during the
raid, the Tashkent Protestant
who knows the couple complained
to Forum 18. “The babysitter was
there only to take care of the
children while the parents were
gone, and she is not even a
believer.”
However, in a rare action for
Uzbekistan’s courts, without
explanation in his decision,
Judge Ulmasov ordered the return
to the Ashurovs of 85 Christian
books, 141 DVD discs, a computer
hard disk and other materials,
which were confiscated by the
authorities during the 18 March
raid.
Uchteppa Court officials
declined to comment on the case
on 9 and 10 April, and refused
to put Forum 18 through to Judge
Ulmasov.
“Unbelievable punishment”
The
Ashurovs were “falsely accused
of illegally storing and
distributing religious
literature, which does not even
belong to them,” the Tashkent
Protestant, who knows the
couple, lamented to Forum 18.
“For a couple, who barely earn
any living, this total fine of
nearly 16 million Soms is an
unbelievable punishment.”
The
three were also accused of
organising unauthorised
religious meetings, which is
“also false, since only the
young woman and the children
were in the house when the
authorities came,” the
Protestant added.
The
Tashkent Protestant complained
to Forum 18 that Judge Ulmasov
did “not even conduct a
hearing.” The Ashurovs and their
babysitter were summoned to the
Court on 22 March, and handed
down the fines “in a small Court
office.” When the couple asked
the Judge to give them a chance
to find a lawyer and present
their defence, he told them that
they do “not need a lawyer but
pay the fine”.
Judge
Ulmasov also threatened that
their babysitter would be
expelled from her University.
The Protestant lamented that the
young woman is “not even a
believer but she just happened
to be in Ashurovs’ home” during
the raid. To Forum 18′s
knowledge, she at the moment
continues her studies at the
University.
Samarkand raid and fine
Across
Uzbekistan in the central region
of Samarkand, officers of
Samarkand Regional and City
Police Departments as well as
the City’s Police Station No.8
raided the private home of
Jamila Jurakulova, a member of a
local Protestant Church, on 10
February, the subsequent court
verdict notes. Officers
confiscated seven Christian
books and ten DVD discs.
Judge
Begzot Ergashev of Samarkand
City Criminal Court on 19
February found Jurakulova guilty
under Article 184-2 of
Uzbekistan’s Administrative Code
(illegal production, storage,
import or distribution of
religious materials). He fined
her 50 times the minimum monthly
wage or 3,779,000 Soms. He also
ordered the confiscation from
her of the Christian books and
discs. Samarkand Regional Court
in March upheld the decision.
Judge
Ergashev told Forum 18 on 10
April that he fined Jurakulova
because the religious materials
confiscated from her had not
been authorised by the
government’s Religious Affairs
Committee. Asked why he gave her
such a huge fine, he objected.
“I did not adopt the
Administrative Code – my duty is
only to apply it.”
Asked
why religious believers should
ask permission from the
Committee for each religious
book they want to read or keep,
his response was blunt: “It is
the Law.” He refused to comment
on whether he does not find that
Uzbekistan’s Religion Law and
Administrative Code violate
fundamental human rights.
“As far
as I know,” Ergashev pointed
out, “she already appealed
against my decision and the
Regional Court upheld it.” He
added that Jurakulova has
already lodged a further appeal
to the Supervisory Board of the
Regional Court, which has not
examined the case yet. Ergashev
only said that the Regional
Court heard the case in March
but could not give any details.
Nukus
raid and fine
Meanwhile in Nukus, the capital
of Uzbekistan’s north-western
Karakalpakstan autonomous
republic, the authorities raided
the private flat of Omangul
Bekmuratova, a local Protestant,
at lunchtime on 1 March.
“Four
plain-clothed officials broke
into Bekmuratova’s home without
any warning and conducted a
search,” Protestants from Nukus,
who wished to remain unnamed for
fear of state reprisals, told
Forum 18. “They confiscated 40
Christian books and other
materials, which included a
Bible and New Testament.” The
officials also confiscated her
laptop computer, external
internet modem and a computer
memory chip, as well as her
family photo albums.
On 28
March, Nukus City Criminal Court
found Bekmuratova guilty of
“illegally storing religious
materials” under Administrative
Code Article 184-2. Although the
fine for individuals is between
20 and 100 times the minimum
monthly wage, the judge fined
her one minimum monthly wage,
79,590 Soms.
With
increasing restrictions on
religious freedom, tighter
control over Christians and no
evidence of concern for minority
faiths, the Islamic state of
Brunei remains one of the
hardest places in the world to
be a Christian.
In
January 2013, the Sultan
announced preparations for an
“Islamic Criminal Law,” which
according to Open Doors, would
“complicate the situation for
the Christian minority further,
especially those known to have
converted.”
Earlier, in March 2011, the
Brunei Times reported from the
Sultan’s speech to the nation
about the introduction of the
law. He said: “Are we eligible
to be free from the torment of
Allah (SWT) as stated in Allah’s
Firman that says whoever does
not provide appropriate
punishment laid out by Allah …
those people belong to the Kafir
(infidel).”
According to the report, the
Sultan believes that the nation
is always on the brink of
risking the warnings provided by
the above Surah, because in the
areas of laws, Brunei has only
fulfilled half of the
requirements from Hukum Sharak –
a reference to Sharia law. His
speech encapsulated the clearly
stated vision of the nation to
operate out of a strict Islamic
law that inadvertently limits
the will of its own people and
restricts the freedom of
minority faiths in the nation.
No
‘Apostasy’
In
Brunei, it is illegal for a
Muslim to convert to another
faith, despite a constitution
that provides for religious
freedom. Most Christians in
Brunei are expatriates and
migrants, who are allowed to
practice their faith, but it is
illegal to share it with Malays,
the major people group in
Brunei. Any contact with
Christians in other countries,
the import of Bibles and the
public celebration of Christmas
are all banned in the Islamic
state. If a Malay converts to
another faith they are
immediately scheduled for
re-education to Islam.
The
government only recognizes three
Catholic and three Anglican
churches, despite a 10 percent
Christian population amounting
to more than 40,000 Christians.
Any other churches are required
to register, but applications
are regularly met with the
indifferent hand of bureaucracy.
Unregistered churches are
considered “illegal sects” and
are vulnerable to legal
consequences.
Registered churches are watched
closely, with government
informants quietly attending
worship services. Churches are
not allowed to receive seekers
or converts from the local
population, most of whom are
Malay and whose citizenship is
equated with their identity as
Muslims. Violations of these
restrictions could result in the
closure of churches or possible
imprisonment for the Pastor.
No
foreign Christian workers are
permitted; Christians face
regular discrimination in the
workplace and remain ineligible
for top positions in the
government. Christian bookshops
are not allowed and it is
difficult to get access to any
theological training. Although
there are six Christian schools,
they regularly faced pressure to
remove Bible studies from the
curriculum. Now, the only
religious instruction in all
schools, including the Christian
schools, is on Islam alone.
The
bent of the law against
religious minorities permeates
through the culture and society.
It is not uncommon for Malays
who leave Islam to face social
persecution and hostility from
their family, friends and
neighbors, who would rather
reject one of their own than
have to face the consequences of
the law and the shame of housing
an apostate.
Invulnerable to International
Pressure
Brunei
is governed as a Constitutional
Sultanate, locally known as
Malay Islamic Monarchy, where
Islamic law has been in full
force since 2011. The monarchy
is seen as a defender of the
faith. There are no elections
since the monarchy is hereditary
and the same family has ruled
the nation for six centuries.
Brunei’s absolute monarchy,
natural resources and economic
strength make it nearly
invulnerable to international
pressure. It has its heart set
on imposing Sharia law to the
fullest extent and appears
unwilling to provide its
citizens with the freedom to
choose their own religion, an
idea that is perceived as a
threat to national identity and
security.
Despite
the severe restrictions and the
hostile conditions for anyone
who leaves Islam, there have
been reports of people turning
to Christ. However, it is only a
sliver of good news in a nation
that holds little hope for the
exercise of religious freedom
among its own people. Without
realistic avenues for
international intervention,
Brunei is left to itself;
controlling its people through
fear and intimidation.
“The
anti-Christian intolerance in
Jammu and Kashmir is reaching
alarming proportions” is the
complaint of Sajan George,
president of the Global Council
of Indian Christians (GCIC),
after the arrest of two
Christians in Srinagar, the
capital of Indian state, on
false charges of forced
conversions. The arrest took
place on April 10 last, after a
Muslim mob attacked two men,
five women and two children, all
of British origin.
The
foreigners had been living for
about four years Shivpora, a
district of Srinagar. According
to local residents one of them,
James Thomas, was engaged in
conversion activities. So, two
days ago a large group of people
attacked the Christians, threw
stones at their vehicles and
tried to destroy their house.
The intervention of the police
prevented the demolition and the
wounding of those present, but
officials arrested James and
Alora Milli to clarify the
charges against them.
The
police have impounded the
building and evacuated the
foreigners. The local imam told
police that he had repeatedly
asked the foreigners not to
convert Muslims, but to no
avail. “Now – he added – they
can no longer access the area.
And even if they try to convert
anyone, I will prevent it at all
costs.”
“The
false and defamatory accusations
of the Imam – says Sajan George
– and the complicity of the
police in arresting these
Christians are a serious threat
to religious freedom, a right
guaranteed by the Constitution
of India.”
Jammu
and Kashmir is the only
Muslim-majority state of India
where religious intolerance
frequently occurs. This past
January, a group of foreign
tourists risked being lynched
after the publication of some
posts on Facebook. An exemplary
case dates back to 2011, when
the Rev. Chander Mani Khanna,
pastor of All Saints Anglican
Church, was arrested for having
baptized seven Muslims and then
indicted by an Islamic court
(which has no legal authority in
the State or in India, ed) for
proselytism and forced
conversions.
Women
who are pregnant or disabled
forced to work 14 hours a day
like all the others, threatened
with beatings or torture, forced
to live in unhygienic
conditions; often forcibly
chained to their beds: this is
the reality revealed in a secret
diary kept by a woman prisoner
in a laojiao (re-education
through labor camp) in Liaoning,
known as the Masanjia. The diary
was smuggled out, escaping the
control of the guards and is now
circulating on the internet. The
author was imprisoned for
presenting petitions and was
released from the forced labor
camp in February.
The
diary reveals the arbitrary
abuses of police wielded out on
inmates, under the guise of
“maintaining stability”. It is
said that women are forced to
spy on each other and that the
inmates are not given enough
food or medical care. Some
people suffering from cancer do
not receive any treatment.
Since
last November, when Xi Jinping
became Party secretary, Party
executives have been discussing
the elimination of this type of
detention, condemned by the UN,
contrary to the Chinese
constitution, but practiced
since the time of Mao Zedong.
Civil society remains skeptical
that the Party is capable of
this step towards greater
civilization.
However, internal debate is
strong: a sign of this was the
publishing of some passages of
the diary on some government
sites, which later disappeared.
The provincial government of
Liaoning has decided to open an
investigation into abuses in
Masanjia camp and has promised
to publish the results.
The
story of imprisoned American
Pastor Saeed Abedini is focusing
attention on the treatment of
Christians in Iran. This week in
Washington, DC, two Iranian
Christian women told their own
story of persecution at the
hands of the Iranian
authorities.
Marziyeh Amirizadeh and Maryam
Rostampour are co-authors of a
new book called “Captive in
Iran.” They addressed a Hudson
Institute panel on the plight of
Christians under the Iranian
regime.
Both of
the women were raised in Iran as
Muslims but had questions about
their faith.
Amirizadeh and Rostampour both
made the decision to become
Christians and met while
studying theology in Turkey.
Later, they felt led to go back
to their home country.
“God
gave us this vision to
distribute the Bible among the
Iranian people,” Amirizadeh
explained. The two women started
north of Tehran, the capital,
and moved to the southern part
of the country, carrying some
20,000 Bibles in their backpacks
at night and putting them in
mailboxes.
“We
also had two house churches, one
of them was for prostitutes and
the other one for young people
in our own apartment,” said
Amirizadeh.
In
March, 2009, Amirizadeh and
Rostampour were arrested for
their house church activities.
When Iranian authorities brought
them in, they were interrogated
for an entire day.
Rostampour described how they
were put in a prison basement.
“There
was a dirty and dark cell in the
basement and they threatened us
[with] physical torture. They
said that, ‘You need to give us
all the information that we
need, otherwise we will beat you
until your womb is blood.’”
American Pastor Sayeed
Abedini
The
women say the guards didn’t
physically torture them, but
they were sent to Tehran’s
infamous Evin prison, where
American Pastor Sayeed Abedini
has been held and tortured.
Rostampour claims the two
interrogators tried to convince
them to deny their faith and
threatened them with execution.
In fact, they say officials at
10 different trials confronted
them with the possibility of
hanging.
After
spending most of a year in
prison, the two women were
eventually released after
Christians around the world
publicized their case.
Rostampour and Amirizadeh are
urging believers to write
letters to Iranians imprisoned
for their faith.
Meanwhile, The American Center
for Law and Justice reports that
thousands of Christians have
flooded Evin Prison with letters
of concern for Pastor Abedini.
He has suffered dangerous
internal bleeding from the
torture and abuse at the hands
of the Iranian regime. Despite
pleas from the West, his request
for medical treatment has so far
been denied.
As more
people flee from North Korea,
their disturbing stories confirm
suspicions that the nation is
the worst persecutor of
Christians in the world, whose
violence is directed, empowered
and endorsed by the government.
The
Worst Persecutor of Christians
in the World
On Jan.
13, 2013, Open Doors confirmed
the death of two North Korean
Christians because of their
faith. One was shot at the
border, while he was on his way
back to Bible training in China.
The other died under severe
conditions at one of the
infamous prison camps in the
country, where he was held after
state authorities discovered
that he was a Christian.
An Open
Doors worker said, “He was
terribly tortured because of his
faith. He was also forced to do
heavy labor while hardly
receiving any food…We are
devastated to hear about these
murders. We know Christians die
for their faith almost every day
in North Korea, but it is still
hard to deal with.”
Kim
Jong-un’s government wields
unrestricted power in the
country, even as his devilish
underlings manage concentration
camps pretending to be prisons,
holding thousands of Christians,
including young children. As,
International Christian
Concern’s Regional Manager for
East Asia, Ryan Morgan, said
“Every day tens of thousands of
Christians serve out
excruciating sentences in one of
North Korea’s six major prison
camps, and every day even those
who are free must pray and
worship in complete secrecy.”
The
Testimony of Witnesses
North
Korea is the only country Pew
Research cannot rate on
religious freedom due to lack of
on-the-ground observers in the
secretive regime, according to
Senior Pew Researcher Brian J.
Grim. But an increasing number
of Christians and refugees have
crossed the border undetected,
to escape oppression or hunger,
revealing horrific stories of
human and religious rights
abuse.
In
2005, David Hawke, the respected
human rights investigator,
interviewed 40 North Korean
escapees about religion in North
Korea. Their stories reveal that
Christians in North Korea have
been pulverized with
steamrollers, used to test
biological weapons, shipped off
to death camps and publicly shot
in front of children. Newborn
babies have even had their
brains pithed with forceps in
front of their mothers, in an
attempt to enforce complete
submission to the will of the
state.
According to one of the
interviewees, after a Bible and
a small notebook were found in a
basement – which contained 25
names, five of whom were church
leaders – all of them were
arrested by the military bowibu,
the autonomous agency of the
North Korean government
reporting directly to the
Supreme Leader.
In
November 1996, the five leaders
were bound and made to lie down
in front of a steamroller for a
public execution. They were
accused of being Kiddokyo
(Protestant Christian) spies,
conspiring to engage in
activities subversive to the
state.
Before
the execution, they were offered
a complete pardon in exchange of
recanting their faith and
pledging exclusive allegiance to
Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.
When they remained silent, the
steamrollers moved forward. Some
of their fellow parishioners
wept, screamed out, or fainted
when the skulls made a popping
sound as they were crushed
beneath the steamroller.
The
full extent of North Korea’s
crimes against humanity is not
known, but its active,
purposeful persecution of
Christians is no longer a
secret, even as Kim Jong-un
carries further the oppressive
legacy of his father, Kim
Jong-il, and grandfather, Kim
Il-sung. Between the three of
them, they have controlled and
oppressed their people, since
its establishment in 1948.
The
Reasons for Persecution
North
Korea operates out of Juche – a
political ideology that demands
religious devotion – which
worshipped Kim Il-sung as god,
and his son, Kim Jong-il, as the
son of god, leaving only Kim
Jong-un to be worshipped as the
grandson of god. According to
escapees, Juche is the only
religion North Korean people are
permitted to have. Religious
freedom is not allowed because
it will ruin the deification of
Kim Il-sung.
Christians are targeted for
persecution because their faith
is seen as a threat to Juche,
which has no room for any god in
North Korea besides the Supreme
leader. Therefore, being a
Christian is political
espionage, punishable by harsh
imprisonment, abuse and even
public execution.
Living
in such an oppressive regime
often forces people to leave in
search of work in neighboring
China, often they find Christ in
the bargain. New Christians are
often eager to return home to
share their faith with their
family, sometimes paying for
their zeal with their lives, as
was the case with one of the
aforementioned Christians who
was recently killed. The Open
Doors worker said, “Before his
return to North Korea, he was
baptized and willing to deal
with the all the hardships he
had to face. We never tell
people to go back to North
Korea, but he was happy to.”
“I
ended up running for my life,
barefoot and handcuffed, while
British jihadists — young men
with south London accents — shot
to kill. And not a Syrian in
sight. This wasn’t what I had
expected.” — John Cantlie,
British photographer
More
than 1,000 Muslims from across
Europe are currently active as
Islamic jihadists, or holy
warriors, in Syria, which has
replaced Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Somalia as the main
destination for militant
Islamists seeking to obtain
immediate combat experience with
little or no official scrutiny.
As the
number of European jihadists in
Syria grows, European officials
are beginning to express
concerns about the threat these
“enemies within” will pose when
they return to Europe.
In
Britain, for example, Foreign
Secretary William Hague recently
said, “Syria is now the number
one destination for jihadists
anywhere in the world today.
This includes a number of
individuals connected with the
United Kingdom and other
European countries. They may not
pose a threat to us when they
first go to Syria, but if they
survive, some may return
ideologically hardened and with
experience of weapons and
explosives.”
British
authorities believe that more
than 100 British Muslims have
gone to fight in Syria in the
hope of overthrowing the regime
of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad and replacing it with
an Islamic state.
Many of
the British Muslims in Syria
have joined extremist groups,
including Jabhat al-Nusra, the
most dangerous and effective
Sunni jihadist group fighting
against the Assad regime. Jabhat
al-Nusra, linked to al-Qaeda,
was declared a terrorist
organization by the United
States in December 2012. Due to
a steady flow of money and arms
from backers in Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and other Sunni Muslim
countries, the group has grown
in size and influence.
According to the British
newspaper The Independent, most
of the British Muslims
participating in the fight
against Assad “are not deemed to
be doing anything illegal” and
are thus able to reenter Britain
without any problems. The paper
reports that only a small number
of those who have returned to
Britain from the fighting in
Syria have been arrested, but
all for one specific offense:
their alleged role in the July
2012 kidnapping of a British
freelance photographer, John
Cantlie, after he crossed into
Syria.
Cantlie,
along with Dutch photographer
Jeroen Oerlemans, was abducted
by a group of British jihadists
near the city of Idlib in
northwestern Syria. Both men
were later rescued by “moderate”
fighters linked to the Free
Syrian Army.
After
his release from captivity,
Cantlie expressed astonishment
at the number of “disenchanted
young Britons” fighting in
Syria. In an account of his
experience published in The
Sunday Times on August 5, 2012
(site operates behind a pay
wall), Cantlie wrote: “I ended
up running for my life, barefoot
and handcuffed, while British
jihadists — young men with south
London accents — shot to kill.
They were aiming their
Kalashnikovs at a British
journalist, Londoner against
Londoner in a rocky landscape
that looked like the Scottish
Highlands. Bullets kicking up
dirt as I ran. A bullet through
my arm, another grazing my ear.
And not a Syrian in sight. This
wasn’t what I had expected.”
Cantlie
quoted one man, who claimed to
be a former supermarket worker
in Britain, as threatening him:
“You are spies. You work for MI5
[British domestic security
agency], you work for MI6
[British foreign intelligence
agency]. Prepare for the
afterlife. Are you ready to meet
Allah?”
Oerlemans has described a
similar experience in Syria. In
an interview with the Dutch
newspaper NRC Handelsblat he
said: “The jihadists had genuine
British accents, from
Birmingham, Liverpool. A British
Pakistani told how he had grown
up with British playmates. He
tried so hard to be British.”
In
France, the daily newspaper Le
Figaro reported on March 13,
2013 that “at least 50″ and “as
many as 80″ French citizens are
fighting with jihadist groups in
Syria. The number is far higher
than the “handful” claimed by
French Interior Minister Manuel
Valls to be operating alongside
Islamists in Mali, or the
estimated number of Frenchmen
who went to Bosnia, Iraq or
Afghanistan to wage jihad.
Leading
French anti-terrorism Judge Marc
Trévidic told Le Figaro that the
presence of so many French
jihadists in Syria presents
French authorities with an
uncomfortable paradox. Because
France officially supports the
effort to overthrow the Assad
regime — France was the first
Western country to recognize
Syria’s rebel council as the
country’s legitimate
interlocutors — it is difficult
for the French government now to
come out and say that it does
not support those who are
fighting the war.
Trévidic said Syria was a
natural destination for French
jihadists. There are no visa
requirements for French citizens
to enter neighboring Turkey,
where it is easy to find Syrian
contacts and then cross a porous
border. He also said that
trained and experienced
jihadists, once back in France,
could become a dangerous problem
for the authorities.
“No
one,” Trévidic said “is trying
to stop them going into Syria;”
he then referred to their fight
as an “authorized jihad.” He
added: “It is particularly
complicated to qualify their
adventures in Syria as acts of
terrorism. But let’s not be
fooled. A good proportion of
them are going there in the hope
of helping to establish a
radical Islamic state. The
actual terrorism will begin just
as soon as the Assad regime is
defeated.”
The
interview with Trévidic came
just two days after French
police arrested three suspected
Islamists in the town of
Marignane, near Marseille.
Police found weapons and
explosives at the home of one of
the suspects, all French
citizens between the ages of 18
and 27.
Paris
prosecutor François Molins said
on March 11 that the three men
may have been planning an attack
to commemorate the first
anniversary of the shooting
rampage in the southern city of
Toulouse by Mohamed Merah, a
23-year-old French Islamic
jihadist of Algerian origin who
killed three French
paratroopers, three Jewish
schoolchildren and a rabbi with
close-range shots to the head.
“The
investigation before their
arrest,” Molins said, “showed
that they were training for
making improvised explosive
devices based on a jihadist
radicalization, a glorification
of Mohamed Merah, and an
affirmed desire to go into
action.”
Molins
added, “The investigation showed
we were faced with a veritable
laboratory for making improvised
explosive devices.” During the
search of the home of one of the
detainees, police found two
pistols, a revolver, 50 grams of
acetone peroxide (TATP, a
powerful explosive), 150
kilograms of nitrate, and two
liters of acetone, which Molins
said would have enabled the
production of 600 grams of TATP.
The
tremendous devastative force of
TATP, which is relatively easy
to make but difficult to detect,
has made it a weapon of choice
for Islamic terrorists, who
often refer to it as “The Mother
of Satan.” Molins said the
mixture of acetone with 150
kilos of nitrate “could have
caused considerable damage for a
radius of several hundred
meters.”
Interior Minister Manuel Valls
said the arrests in Marignane
shows that France “faces an
enemy from within which is the
fruit of a process of
radicalization.”
In
nearby Holland, the Dutch public
broadcasting system, NOS
television , reported on March
12 that the Netherlands has
become one of the major European
suppliers of Islamic jihadists.
According to NOS, about 100
Dutch Muslims are presently
active as jihadists in Syria;
most have joined the notorious
Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group.
As in
other European countries, Dutch
counter-terrorism experts are
worried that Dutch jihadists
will bring their war-fighting
skills back to the Netherlands.
On
March 13, the Dutch government
raised its alert level for
terrorist attacks from “limited”
to “substantial.” In a
statement, the National
Coordinator for Security and
Counterterrorism (NCTV), a
government agency within the
Security and Justice Ministry,
said: “The chance of an attack
in the Netherlands or against
Dutch interests abroad has
risen. Close to a hundred
individuals have recently left
the Netherlands for various
countries in Africa and the
Middle East, especially Syria.”
The agency said individuals
fighting for radical Islam
abroad could return and “inspire
others in the Netherlands to
follow in their footsteps.”
The
Dutch daily newspaper Trouw
reported on March 16 that the
Justice Ministry lacks measures
at its disposal to prevent Dutch
jihadists from embarking on
their foreign adventures. The
paper noted that Dutch courts
have so far been unable to
prosecute Dutch jihadists for
travelling to foreign
battlefields.
Trouw
describes the trial in a
Rotterdam court of three Dutch
Kurds, arrested in November 2012
just before travelling to Syria
to join jihadist fighters there.
Prosecutors accused the three of
“taking preparatory actions for
the purpose of committing
terrorist offenses.” But the
case is pending because it
remains unclear which terrorist
actions the three were planning
to commit in Syria. Two of the
three have been released from
jail.
In
neighboring Belgium, the daily
newspaper De Standaard reported
on March 11 that at least 70
members of the outlawed
Sharia4Belgium, a Muslim group
that wants to turn Belgium into
an Islamic state, are actively
fighting in Syria. The paper
noted that that most of the
Belgian jihadists are “young
people, between the ages of 17
and 25, who grew up here. They
are young people without
qualifications and often with
criminal records. They come from
Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and
Vilvoorde.”
De
Standaard reports that the
Belgian security services are
“particularly concerned about
what will happen when the
military-trained “drop-outs,”
after the war from Syria, return
to our country.” The paper adds
that it has been difficult to
prosecute jihadists in Belgian
courts, as the uprising against
Assad is “generally regarded as
legitimate.”
The
newspaper pointed to a recent
court case in the Belgian city
of Mechelen, where 13 Muslim
extremists were acquitted of
having membership in a terrorist
organization. The court said
that although there was evidence
that the jihadists travelled to
Chechnya in Russia, there was no
evidence that they fought there
as members of a terrorist group.
In
Denmark, the daily newspaper
Politiken reported on March 3
that a 30-year-old Danish
convert to Islam, Abdel Malik,
had been killed in fighting near
the Syrian city of Homs. The
newspaper said that an Islamic
Facebook page , created to
protest a comedy show that pokes
fun at Denmark’s immigrant and
Muslim community, has
established a fund to help
support Malik’s family, which
includes a wife who is also a
convert to Islam, and four young
children.
Malik’s
death came two weeks after
another Danish citizen, Slimane
Hadj Abderrahmane was also
killed while fighting with
rebels in Syria. Abderrahmane,
born to a Danish mother and an
Algerian father, is known for
the two years he spent in
American custody at the
Guantanamo military base after
being captured in Afghanistan in
2001.
According to an article in US
News & World Report,
Abderrahmane was released in
February 2004, despite
reservations from American
security officials, because the
Danish government had threatened
to withdraw its troops from Iraq
if he were not released.
In
2007, while working as a mailman
in Copenhagen, Abderrahmane was
convicted of stealing two
passports and three credit
cards, and of withdrawing
110,000 kroner ($20,000).
Abderrahmane refused to testify
during the trial: he denied the
legitimacy of the Danish court
to try Muslims. He spent ten
months in jail, but the stolen
money was never recovered.
In an
interview with the Politiken
newspaper in September 2011,
Abderrahmane said he was not
afraid to die fighting for
Islam. “Jihad means serving God
and by doing so you achieve
justice,” he said.
According to Mehdi Mozaffari, a
professor of Islam at Aarhus
University, Abderrahmane is now
being regarded as a martyr: “He
has become a symbol, especially
for young Muslims. You could say
that he has become known as a
sort of Muslim Che Guevara.”
The
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten
reported on March 1 that Abu
Ahmed, the Imam of the Quba
Amager mosque in southern
Copenhagen, referred to
Abderrahmane as a “real man” and
said it was “heroic” to die in
holy war in Syria.
The
newspaper also said that Ahmed
had joined forces with a Danish
Salafist group, Hjælp4Syrien.dk
, and that together the two are
engaged in a propaganda campaign
aimed at encouraging young
Danish Muslims to take part in
the jihad in Syria.
Hjælp4Syrien.dk says Danish
jihadists should support the war
in Syria “financially,
physically and verbally.” On its
Facebook page, the group shows
an image of a young Muslim with
a machine gun, who is apparently
willing to die for Allah.
Meanwhile, European Muslims are
celebrating so-called “Martyrs’
Weddings” for jihadists killed
in Syria. The Middle East Media
Research Institute on March 4
published photographs of one
such wedding, held in an
undisclosed location in Europe —
presumably France — to symbolize
the deceased’s wedding to the
virgins of Paradise.
Jihadist movements are staging
these weddings as a means of
encouraging young men to join
their ranks and adopt the
ideology of jihad and martyrdom,
based on the Islamic belief that
every martyr is rewarded with 72
black-eyed virgin brides in
Paradise.
Iranian
authorities have released on
bail three members of the
evangelical Church of Iran who
were detained on charges linked
to their Christian activities,
BosNewsLife learned Wednesday,
March 20.
Surush
Saraie, Mohammad Roghangir and
Massoud Rezaie were released by
midnight Tuesday, March 19 after
spending over five months behind
bars, said Firouz Khandjani, a
Church of Iran council member.
“They
have been released in the city
of Shiraz from the Adel Abad
prison on a bail of $80,000
each,” he added. “I think it’s
an answer to prayers that they
are free. Of course the bail
money is too much.”
The
Church of Iran, one of the
country’s largest house church
movements, has been facing a
crackdown by authorities who
oppose the spread of
Christianity in the strict
Islamic nation, Christians said.
It was
not immediately clear when the
trial against the Christian men
would resume. Two other
Christians detained with them,
Eskandar Rezaie, Shahin Lahooti,
are expected to be released as
early as next week after the
Iranian New Year, Khandjani
said.
Parvaneh Sarabadi is a Christian
woman who converted from Islam
to Christianity with her husband
around two years ago. One of
their relatives who works for
the Islamic regime and has
security support from the
government, found out about
their faith and eventually
killed her husband in a
conflict.
In her
interview with Mohabat News she
added that her husband’s
murderer also subjected her to
physical harassment, sexual
abuse and severe mental
pressure. Having no one to
support her, and knowing that
her testimony would not be
accepted in the Islamic judicial
system of Iran, she was forced
to leave the country against her
will. She crossed the border
illegally and after many
difficulties managed to arrive
in Sweden where she sought
asylum. Shortly after her
arrival, she began ministering
in a local church in the city of
her residence. However, despite
confirmations from the church
regarding her claim, and the
support of a number of the Human
Rights advocacy groups, her
asylum application was turned
down by the Swedish Immigration
Board Office. She is currently
at risk of being deported to
Iran.
She is
currently being held police
detention. On another occasion,
on February 15, she was put on a
plane heading to Iran, but when
she as well as other passengers
objected, the pilot said he
wouldn’t fly the aircraft if she
was on board. The police
officers then took her back to
detention and treated her badly
as if she were a criminal.
In
addition to collecting
signatures for a petition in
support of Ms. Sarabadi, a group
of social activists also held
protests and announced that
according to international laws,
she should be released and be
granted her rights as a
religious and political refugee.
One of the many protests held in
her support took place on the
morning February 15, when police
tried to send her back to Iran.
The
protest was held in partnership
with the church of Falun. A
number of Ms. Sarabadi’s friends
and supporters gathered in front
of the police detention center
in Falun. Another group held a
protest in front of the
Immigration office in Stockholm
in expressing their objection to
the decision of Immigration
authorities regarding Ms.
Sarabadi’s deportation.
Nevertheless, Ms. Sarabadi’s
lawyer has said that he is
following up on her case and
going through the legal process
to annul the Immigration Board’s
decision and request that they
review her case again. The
lawyer says, “I think the
support of all media, Refugee
and Human Rights advocacy
organizations is necessary and
sincerely ask for their help.
Publicizing Parvaneh’s situation
through the media, especially in
Europe, the advocacy of Human
Rights organizations, as well as
protests in support of
Parvaneh’s refugee claim can be
of great help”.
Considering the brutal treatment
of the Islamic regime of Iran
towards religious and political
dissidents, and the death
sentence for Christian converts
who are apostates in the Iranian
regime’s eyes, it is clear that
deporting religious and
political asylum seekers to Iran
can put their lives at risk.
This is why many social and
political activists put all
their efforts into stopping the
deportation of asylum seekers to
Iran.
According to Human Rights
activists, a large protest was
held in Sweden on March 9, 2013,
against the inhuman situation of
asylum seekers and refugees in
the country and the harsh
measures taken by Swedish police
to deport them. The protest was
held in Stockholm, Gothenburg,
Malmo, and Isala with thousands
of participants.
(mohabatnews)
The
Batak Protestant Church (HKBP)
in Setu in Bekasi, West Java,
was demolished on Thursday
afternoon, according to a church
leader who said that a lawsuit
would be filed against the local
administration.
“It’s
over. The church was demolished
at around 2:45 p.m.,” Rev.Torang
Parulian Simanjuntak told The
Jakarta Post over the phone
today.
HKBP
Setu congregation members went
to the church on Thursday
morning to attempt to stop the
demolition of the church as
public order officers (Satpol
PP) arrived at the location.
They held a prayer service and
prayed in the church, hoping
that the demolition would not
happen.
A
bulldozer arrived at the
location around 11:00 a.m.
Members of the church’s
congregation began to cry and
scream while some tried to
prevent the bulldozer from
moving closer to the church.
Many broke down when it began to
tear apart the walls of the
church located on Jl.MT Haryono.
They called on the Satpol PP
officers, asking them to stop
the demolition.
The
Satpol PP officers prevented
people from getting closer to
the church to secure the
demolition process. Several
officers of the Bekasi Police
who were deployed to the
location tried to calm down the
congregation members. Church
elders also tried to calm their
followers.
Torang
said the demolition was illegal.
“The Bekasi regent should have
first given us the demolition
order; but we have never
received any letter from the
regent,” he said.
HKBP
Setu has struggled to obtain a
building permit for the church
which was built in 1999.
“We
will soon file a lawsuit against
the Bekasi regency
administration,” said Torang,
adding that the church’s
congregation would still hold
their services near the
demolished church.
(thejakartapost)
Hamas
wants be dropped from the U.S.
State Department list of Foreign
Terrorist Organizations not
because it has changed, but
because it feels that the world
has changed, and that many naïve
Westerners are now willing to
tolerate its radical ideology
and terrorism.
Hamas
leaders are working hard these
days to have their movement
removed from the U.S. State
Department list for Foreign
Terrorist Organizations.
The
Hamas leaders are hoping to
persuade a number of European
Union countries to support their
bid.
Hamas
wants to be removed from the
list without changing its
strategy or charter, which call
for jihad [holy war] and which
do not recognize Israel’s right
to exist.
Hamas
is also not prepared to
dismantle its armed group,
Izaddin al-Kassam, as part of
its effort to persuade the US
and EU to drop it from the list
of terrorist groups.
Nor is
Hamas prepared to stop smuggling
weapons or give up thousands of
rockets and mortars that it
possesses in various parts of
the Gaza Strip.
And of
course Hamas is not prepared to
renounce violence in the context
of its effort to seek legitimacy
in the international community.
The
Hamas initiative comes at a time
when senior officials of the
movement, including Khaled
Mashaal, continue to talk about
their dream of replacing Israel
with an Islamic state. In
addition, they are continuing to
call on Palestinians to abide by
the “armed resistance” as the
only option for achieving their
goal.
Ironically, the Hamas request to
be removed from the list of
terrorist groups coincides with
reports about the Islamist
movement’s involvement in terror
activities in neighboring Egypt.
According to these reports,
Hamas was behind the August 2012
killing of 16 Egyptian border
guards in Sinai. Hamas has also
dispatched thousands of its men
to Cairo to protect Muslim
Brotherhood President Mohamed
Morsi against his political
opponents, the reports revealed.
Although Hamas has denied the
reports, there are increased
signs that the movement is
cooperating with other Islamic
fundamentalist groups in Sinai
to turn the peninsula into a
base for jihadists from
different parts of the world.
Some of these jihadists are
believed to be linked to groups
that are affiliated with
Al-Qaeda.
Hamas
claims that it has won the
secret backing of a number of EU
governments — a claim denied by
the EU.
The
Hamas demand was first raised by
the movement’s prime minister,
Ismail Haniyeh, during a meeting
with European supporters in the
Gaza Strip last month.
Ghazi
Hamad a senior Hamas official in
the Gaza Strip, says that his
movement is putting pressure on
several countries to change
their position toward his
movement. He believes that there
has already been a “positive
change” in the minds of Western
and Arab societies toward Hamas.
It is
not clear what Hamas bases its
optimism on. But sources close
to Hamas revealed that some Arab
leaders, including Egypt’s Morsi
and Qatar’s Hamad bin Khalifa
al-Thani, have promised to work
toward convincing the Americans
and Europeans to remove Hamas
from the list of terrorist
organizations.
Both
Morsi and al-Thani, according to
the sources, have raised the
issue with US and EU officials
over the past few weeks.
The two
Arab leaders have argued that
removing Hamas from the lost
would actually have a moderating
effect on the movement and boost
the prospects of peace in the
Middle East. They have also
claimed — according to the
sources — that removing Hamas
from the list would pave the way
for unity between the movement
and Fatah.
The
Hamas campaign to be removed
from the list of terrorist
groups also coincides with
growing cooperation between the
movement and other radical
groups in the Gaza Strip,
primarily Islamic Jihad.
During
the last war in the Gaza Strip,
Hamas and Islamic Jihad
militiamen formed a joint
command to coordinate rocket
attacks against Israel. More
recently, it was revealed that
Fatah’s armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, also helped Hamas fire
rockets at Israel in recent
years.
The
Americans and most EU countries
are opposed to Fatah’s efforts
to achieve unity with a movement
that remains on their list of
foreign terrorist organizations.
In
private, however, Fatah leaders
say they are also opposed to
removing Hamas from the list out
of fear that such a move would
legitimize the movement and pave
the way for the creation of a
separate state in the Gaza
Strip.
Hamas
wants to be dropped from the
list not because it has changed.
Rather, Hamas wants to be
removed from the list because it
feels that the world has
changed, and that many naïve
Westerners are now willing to
tolerate its radical ideology
and terrorism.
Anyone
who supports Hamas’s bid should
also vote in favor of removing
Al-Qaeda from the same list.
(Gatestoneinstitute)
Hundreds of Muslim villagers in
Egypt’s south have attacked
Christian-owned stores in search
of a girl whose family claims
was abducted.
The
villagers assaulted the stores
Tuesday and surrounded two
churches in the city of al-Wasta
in Bani Suef province in Egypt’s
south. Security forces guarded
the churches. No casualties were
reported.
The
college-aged girl disappeared
around one month ago. The crowd
accused local Christian of
kidnapping her.
Bani
Suef’s prosecutor, Hamdi Farouk,
said there was no reason to
believe Christians were involved
in her disappearance.
Security chief Ibrahim Hudeib
said the girl left her house
with her gold and passport in
hand and may have fled with a
local Muslim boy.
Past
clashes have been sparked by
rumors of conversion,
Muslim-Christian love affairs
and the construction of
churches.
The
death toll has risen to 41 in
the wake of Monday’s suicide
bombing of a bus station in
Kano, Nigeria. Many believe
Christians were the target of
the bombing because it took
place in a primarily Christian
neighborhood. Two suicide
bombers, believe to be connected
to Boko Haram, rammed a car full
of explosives into a bus station
on Monday. The initial explosion
was followed by a series of
explosions. Sixty five other
people were wounded in the
attack.
Wounded
survivors on Tuesday described
the terrifying scene of a
suicide attack at a Nigerian bus
station that killed at least 41
people, the latest violence to
hit the restive north.
The
Monday attack saw two suicide
bombers ram their car into the
bus station in Kano, Nigeria’s
second largest city, setting off
a huge explosion that hit five
buses, police spokesman Magaji
Majia told AFP.
A
rescue official said late
Tuesday that the attack left 41
people dead, while Majia said 65
were injured.
The
police had earlier given a toll
of 22 dead, but the rescue
official, who requested
anonymity, later told AFP that
20 victims were counted at the
Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and
an additional 21 bodies were
reported at the Murtala Mohammed
Specialist Hospital.
President Goodluck Jonathan
condemned the attack and said
his government would continue
“its unrelenting war against
terrorists.”
But the
government has so far shown
little ability to halt violence
linked to an insurgency by the
Islamist extremist group Boko
Haram.
The bus
station targeted on Monday
primarily services passengers
heading to the mostly Christian
south of Nigeria.
It was
also attacked in January last
year in a blast that wounded
several people.
Authorities have not said who
was behind the bombing and there
has been no claim of
responsibility, but it was
similar to previous attacks by
Boko Haram.
Its
deadliest assault yet occurred
in the northern city in January
2012, when at least 185 people
were killed in coordinated bomb
and gun attacks.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous
nation and largest oil producer,
is roughly divided between a
mainly Muslim north and
predominantly Christian south.
The
country’s main Christian
association CAN — currently led
by evangelicals — issued a
statement on Tuesday saying
recent attacks “were a signpost
of the intended extermination of
Christians and Christianity from
northern Nigeria.”
Boko
Haram’s targets have included
symbols of government authority,
churches and Muslims it views as
collaborating with the
government.
A
suicide bombing of UN
headquarters in the capital
Abuja in 2011 killed at least 25
people.
The
group has claimed to be fighting
for the creation of an Islamic
state, though its demands have
repeatedly shifted.
It is
believed to include various
factions with differing aims.
One splinter faction, Ansaru,
appears to have focused on
kidnapping foreigners.
Boko
Haram itself had not claimed any
kidnappings until recently, when
it said it was behind the
abduction of a French family of
seven over the border in
Cameroon.
Many
analysts have said poverty and
neglect of northern Nigeria,
which remains underdeveloped
when compared to the oil-rich
south, have helped feed the
insurgency.
Despite
the country’s oil reserves, most
of Nigeria’s population lives on
less than $2 per day, with
corruption deeply rooted.
The
military’s violent response to
the insurgency has also worsened
the situation, according to
rights groups and activists in
the region.
Violence linked to the
insurgency in northern and
central Nigeria, including
killings by security forces,
have left some 3,000 people dead
since 2009.
Christian children fleeing from
gunmen saved their lives by
hiding among the rock formations
towering over the eastern side
of this northern village, but a
6-month-old baby and a
13-year-old girl never got the
chance.
The
infant, Alexander Blessed, and
the girl, Happiness Adamu, were
the youngest of five people from
five churches who were slain.
Christians were still gathered
in and about a home where a
funeral for the village chief
had taken place in the
predominantly Muslim state of
Kaduna when, under cover of
darkness on a Saturday night
(Feb. 23), marauding, black-clad
gunmen arrived from the west and
began firing.
Eleven
Christians were hospitalized
with wounds, including Martha
Blessed, who was shot as she
tried to protect her infant son.
Bullets broke both legs of
another 13-year-old Christian
girl, Gloria Livinus, of St.
Patrick’s Catholic Church in
Aduwan.
The
raid came as a shock as area
Christians had been living
without enmity toward anyone,
said John Audi, 45-year-old
grandson of the village chief
and a member of St. Patrick’s
church.
“We
were all scattered, and some
that were shot were crying,” he
told Morning Star News. “We all
ran for cover where we believed
we could avoid being hit by the
bullets.”
Witnesses reportedly said the
gunmen spoke in Fulani dialect,
but church leaders said the area
had been free of the land and
property conflicts that have
marked relations between Muslim,
ethnic Fulanis and predominantly
Christian tribes. Islamic
extremist groups have
increasingly incited Fulani
Muslims to attack Christian
areas, and witnesses reportedly
said the assailants carried
sophisticated weapons.
Area
church leaders questioned how
the shooting could have gone on
for three hours without response
from authorities in a
north-central state that has
been blanketed with military
security forces to counteract
terrorist violence.
“This
village was attacked for three
hours, yet no help came to our
people here,” said the Rt. Rev.
Danlami Bello, bishop of the
First African Church, Kafanchan
Diocese, whose headquarters are
in Aduwan. “These attacks have
gone unhindered without security
agencies coming to the scenes of
the attacks to assist Christian
victims.”
As did
others, he suspected a strong
religious element to the attack.
“There
is no doubt that this attack,
like many others on Christian
communities in northern Nigeria,
had religious bearings,” he
said. “There is this desire by
Muslim leaders in Nigeria to
Islamize the country by force;
hence the attacks are aimed at
forcing Christians into
submitting to Islam.”
The
Rev. Casmir Yabo, vicar of the
First African Church Mission in
Aduwan, told Morning Star News
that church members who hid in
farmlands west of the village
reported seeing about 10
assailants leaving after the
attack.
“We
believe that the attackers are
Muslim Fulani gunmen who invaded
and attacked this village. I
wept as I saw corpses of the
five killed for no justifiable
reason,” said Yabo. “The impact
of the attack is that at the
moment our members are scared of
coming to churches for worship
services.”
The
attack came two days after a
similar slaughter of 10 people
in village near Jos in Plateau
state.
Besides
hit-and-run attacks by Fulani
Muslims, Christians in Nigeria
have also been targeted by the
Islamic extremist Boko Haram
group in its effort to
destabilize the government and
impose sharia (Islamic law)
nationwide. Christians make up
51.3 percent of Nigeria’s
population of 158.2 million and
live mainly in the south, while
Muslims account for 45 percent
and reside primarily in the
north. Nigerians practicing
indigenous religions may be as
high as 10 percent of the total
population, according to
Operation World, so the
percentages of Christians and
Muslims may be less.
Attempted Bombing
Raymond Markus, 31-year-old
uncle to Happiness Adamu, told
Morning Star News that the
villagers had no reason to
expect the onslaught.
“We
were all gathered here while
prayers were being said when
suddenly, we were attacked,” he
said. “We all ran in different
directions. We are still in
shock about this attack.”
He said
that his slain niece was a
faithful servant of Christ.
“It is
a painful thing to lose such a
brilliant teenager,” Markus
said. “She was an obedient child
and was committed in church
activities; a very hard working
church member.”
Markus
took a Morning Star News
correspondent to the auditorium
of the Evangelical Church
Winning All (ECWA) in the
village, where the gunmen
unsuccessfully tried to set off
a bomb blast. A chemical
substance used to make the bomb
remained on the walls of the
church building; it left cracks
that could collapse the
structure at any moment.
Alice
Saul, 45-year-old member of the
Cherubim and Seraphim Church in
Rebok village, lost her
22-year-old son, Felix Saul, in
the attack. She said he was a
final-year student at a public
high school in Wadon village and
a member of the church choir.
Also
killed were Theresa Bulus, 35, a
member of the Baptist Church in
the town of Kagaro, and Yacham
Ayuba, 20, a member of the First
African Church Mission, in
Madobiya village.
Christians injured in the attack
included Joshua Kazah, Kazah
Bitrus, Shagari Bako, Ahuwan
Thomas, Cecilia Elisha, Denise
Maliki and Stephen Alpha,
sources said.
“At the
end of the attack, which lasted
about three hours, five
Christians from different
churches who had congregated
here for prayers for the
deceased had died, while 11
others sustained injuries,” said
Audi.
Bishop
Bello called for sustained
prayer for Christians in
northern Nigeria, and he urged
Christians worldwide to call on
their governments to assist the
Nigerian government to defend
against such attacks.
Vicar
Yabo said the rock formations
protecting the village’s eastern
flank saved many lives.
“One
miraculous thing is that the
rocky hills on the eastern part
of this village became a place
of refuge for those who escaped
from the attack,” he said. “Even
children who had never climbed
these hills before suddenly were
able to escape by climbing the
hills at night.”
(MSN)
Days
before Burmese President Thein
Sein was reportedly nominated
for a Nobel Peace Prize last
week, a report revealed his
government troops had killed and
raped dozens of civilians and
burned hundreds of churches and
homes.
At war with
rebels in predominantly
Christian Kachin state,
government troops killed at
least nine civilians and wounded
more than a dozen others in
mortar attacks in the northern
state of Burma (also known as
Myanmar) from September 2012 to
February, according to a report
by the Kachin Women’s
Association of Thailand (KWAT).
The
actual number of civilian
casualties is much higher, said
Chiang Mai-based Kachin activist
La Nu Nan.
“When I
visited the Kachin state
recently, I was told about 200
civilians had been killed, out
of which about 40 were
children,” he said, adding that
the war has displaced about
100,000 civilians.
The
report served as a sobering
reminder of abuses even after
the long-time military regime’s
moves toward democracy and the
release of hundreds of political
prisoners. Released three days
after President Sein began his
Europe trip on Feb. 25, the KWAT
report shows that Burma Army
artillery unit 372 on Jan. 29
fired mortars at the town of
Mayan, 24 miles south of the
state’s capital of Myitkyina.
Shells fell on three houses and
killed a woman, identified as
Labram Lu, and her 9-year-old
son. Three others, including a
two-year-old boy and a
95-year-old man, were injured.
The
report adds that the troops
later claimed the attack was
launched after some drunken
Burmese soldiers fired gunshots,
which were mistaken as firing by
Kachin rebels. Locally, however,
it is known that the rebels do
not have any presence in the
area. Officials offered 300,000
kyat (US$340) as compensation to
the bereaved family.
On Jan.
16, Burmese troops stationed at
the Byuhakone base fired mortars
at Mawwan Kachin Baptist Church
in Hpakant town, according to
the report. While the church
building was damaged, no one was
injured as all the congregants
had left the building after
prayers.
On Jan.
14, government soldiers fired
mortars at Hkachyang Block 4
residential area of Laiza, a
town bordering China and a
Kachin rebel stronghold. A shell
landed outside a house where
several displaced people were
warming themselves in front of a
fire. A 46-year-old man, Nhkum
Bawk Naw, was killed
immediately, while a 76-year-old
assistant pastor, Malang Yaw,
was injured and died soon after
reaching a hospital. Four others
were seriously injured,
including two girls ages 2 and
10.
A
15-year-old boy, Doi San Awng,
who was trying to help the
injured people after the
incident, was struck by another
shell and died.
On Jan.
6, about 300 Burmese troops came
and burned numerous houses in
Namsanyang town on the
Myitkyina-Bhamo road. At least
296 of the 520 houses were
destroyed.
On Dec.
27, government troops at the
Hang Gai hill near Laja-yang,
west of Laiza, fired mortars at
a watermelon plantation near
Dung Hkung village while farmers
were at work. A 42-year-old man,
Maji Tu Ja, was killed, and
three others were seriously
injured.
On Nov.
2, Burmese troops at Hpakant
Byuhakone base fired shells at
Tahtechaung village, causing the
death of two civilians and
injuring an elderly man and two
boys.
On Oct.
15, government soldiers fired
shells at a rebel camp in Chipwi
Township, which was housing 600
displaced people. A 7-year-old
boy, Bawm Hkaw, son of an
assistant pastor, was hit in the
thigh.
On
Sept. 13, Burma army fired
shells at areas on the outskirts
of Hpakant town. One shell fell
near a government school in
Mawwangyi, causing the death of
a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Seng
Ja Ing, and injuring eight other
students who were returning
home.
Rapes,
Sexual Assaults
KWAT also reported that at least
66 churches have been burned
down and 64 women and girls
raped or sexually abused by
Burmese troops since June 2011,
when the government broke a
17-year-old ceasefire with the
Kachin rebels.
On Nov.
1, a mother of four was
gang-raped by Burmese soldiers
from Light Infantry Battalion 13
in her home in Hkasan village on
the Kamaing-Mogaung road, the
KWAT report says, giving the
latest example of a sexual
assault.
Earlier, on May 1, troops from
Light Infantry Battalion 347 and
Infantry Battalion 118
gang-raped a 48-year-old woman
inside a church in Luk Pi
village in Chipwi township, KWAT
reported. About 10 soldiers beat
her with rifle butts, stabbed
her with knives, stripped her
naked and gang-raped her over a
period of three days.
“The
Burma Army’s repeated
authorization of artillery fire
into areas populated by
civilians, as well as deliberate
torching of villages and IDP
settlements, represent serious
breaches of international
humanitarian law, and are likely
to amount to war crimes,” the
report concludes, urging the
international community to
“strongly condemn these crimes,
and to pressure the Burmese
government to immediately end
its policy of military
aggression.”
Religious Freedom
The Kachin rebels are among
seven major resistance groups
that have sought greater
autonomy for more than five
decades. All but the Kachins
have signed a ceasefire
agreement with the federal
government in recent months.
“Our
struggle is mainly about
religious rights,” Nu Nan said,
adding if the Kachin people had
no military, they wouldn’t be
allowed to freely practice their
religion by the federal
government, which is dominated
by Buddhists from the majority
Burman ethnic group.
Nu Nan
explained that the Kachin
Independence Organization, and
its military wing Kachin
Independence Army, were created
after the government of Prime
Minister U Nu passed the State
Religion Bill in a joint session
of Parliament, making Buddhism
the state religion, in 1961.
Before
the formation of the Union of
Burma in 1948, British rulers
administered “Burma Proper” –
where the Burman people lived –
and “Frontier Areas,” where non-Burman
ethnic groups lived, separately.
The
Kachin leaders, however, agreed
to join the Union, based on the
1947 Panglong Agreement, which
was led by Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi’s father, Gen. Aung San, who
was the head of the interim
government. The agreement
allowed a great deal of autonomy
and the right to secede to the
frontier states.
But
with the killing of Gen. Aung
San and several of his cabinet
members by his rivals, the
agreement was forgotten. It has
not been honored to this day.
(Morning Star News)
“According
to HUDO’s observation, it is
clear that the systematic
campaign of the government [of
Sudan] is part of a plan
targeting the native Nubians.
Even the timing is arranged to
destroy all institutions that
gather Nubians either religious
or social as the beginning of
implementing the Univision
(single Islamic Arabian), denial
of Nubian Christians’ religion
rights and Nuba people’s rights
to practice their culture or
social activities.
This
was clear when the government
security found no charges to
issue against the innocent
Nubian church leaders and they
began accusing them of
Christianization and accessing
funds from outside Sudan in
illegal ways”, says the Human
Rights and Development
Organization (HUDO).
In the
second part of its report HUDO
describes the arbitrary arrests,
the systematic targeting and the
reasons it believes are behind
these incidents against the Nuba
people. The information provided
is based on the agency’s own
observations on the ground, but
also on local reports and on
information gathered from
various sources.
Read
below summarized parts of the
report:
Arbitrary arrests
These
arrests are ongoing and security
forces continuously target the
Nuba people wherever they are,
regardless of gender or age.
They have detention centers
everywhere in Sudan, says HUDO.
According to the organization’s
observations, Nuba Mountains
detainees “are suffering very
abusive humiliation and racial
discrimination. They are always
detained for longer periods than
others except Blue Nile and
Darfurian in some cases”.
Most of
them are kept without charges
and others are kept in
government facilities that do
not have the legal mandates to
keep them in detention. These
facilities, the organization
says, belong to the Popular
Defense Forces and tribal
militias, for instance.
“Especially Nuba Mountains
prisoners” are not allowed to
receive family visits and some
must wear the same damaged
clothes, without being washed,
for up to one year.
All of
the detainees who worked in
public offices before their
arrests have their salaries cut
off and the “punishment” was
extended to their families.
Those who were self-employed
(such as cab drivers) had their
assets confiscated by the
government, the report reads.
Prisoners are tortured by the
security services and forced to
give false testaments
incriminating themselves. In
addition, large numbers of them
are kept in small, poorly
ventilated cells, sleep on the
bare ground and no not receive
proper nutrition. “Some of them
died of starvation”, it was
stated in the report.
Accusations and reasons behind
arrests
HUDO
suggested many of the detainees
are accused of spying for the
rebel group Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).
Mentioning anything about
conflict in the region during
telephone conversations is
enough reason for their arrest
and to be accused of spying for
the rebel group, it was quoted.
In addition, political and
military affiliation to the SPLM-N
are other reasons for detention.
Some
people make incriminating
confessions under torture
-according to HUDO this practice
also functions as a mechanism of
accusers to settle personal
disputes.
Systematic targeting
Since
the beginning of this year,
Sudanese authorities began
systematically targeting
different Nuba language and
cultural centers, including
those of Nuba Christians, the
report indicated.
These
centers, according to the
agency, are outlined below:
- Kuku
institute for Nuba language and
heritages located in Omdurman:
closed on 16 January 2013 by
government security authorities
(NISS). Its manager was arrested
and his laptop and mobile phone
were confiscated together with
the institute’s certificate of
registration and other
documents. The manager was
released under the condition
that he reports to the NISS
office every morning.
- NINU
center for languages and
computer science -member of the
UNESCO Clubs Union: closed by
security authorities on 16
January 2013 without any reason.
Note: the UNESCO Clubs Union has
different centers working across
Sudan and all carry out
uniformly certified work. None
of them was closed down apart
from the NINU center.
-
Evangelical Cultural Center
library in Khartoum: closed on
18 February 2013 by the NISS.
Books, media tools and documents
belonging to the library were
confiscated. Three people were
arrested, including a priest.
None of them were yet released.
-
Gideon Theological College (GTC)
in Omdurman: raided on 24
February 2013 by the NISS. Three
Nuba Christians were arrested
and released under the condition
they report to the NISS office
on a daily basis.
-
Fellowship of Christian
University Students (FCUS)
office: raided by NISS on 24
February 2013. Two executive
members were arrested; one was
released under the condition he
reports to the NISS office on a
daily basis. The other remains
under arrest. On the same day,
NISS also raided the FCUS-guest
house in another area in
Khartoum and confiscated a car
belonging to it.
Appeals
In its
report, HUDO outlined the
following appeals concerning the
situations described above:
-
International and national
organizations must exercise
pressure on the mission of the
Special Envoy to ensure
prisoners can receive visitors
and that violations are
reported. “The High Commission
for Human Rights (Sudan) is
inefficient, and not respected
by the government authorities.”
- To
continue with international
advocacy campaigns of detainees
-proved useful in the past.
- The
international community must
form a committee to investigate
the issue of the prisoners in
South Kordofan / Nuba Mountains
and ask the government to
disclose their information
including how many are detained.
-
Ensure detainees’ human rights
are respected, and allow them to
have access to free and fair
trial as soon as possible.
(ALLAFRICA)
In what
may be the first such instance
in Kazakhstan, a court has
ordered religious literature to
be destroyed. A total of 121
books confiscated from a
Baptist, Vyacheslav Cherkasov,
were ordered destroyed in the
northern Akmola Region,
according to the verdict seen by
Forum 18 News Service. The books
comprise Bibles, Children’s
Bibles, and other books and
leaflets on the Christian faith,
mainly in the Kazakh language.
Cherkasov was also fined one
month’s average wage. If he
loses his appeal, court
executors will carry out the
destruction. A Justice Ministry
official in the capital Astana
told Forum 18 that “most likely
the books would be burnt”. A
state Agency of Religious
Affairs (ARA) official said that
“I’m not interested in whether
court executors are bothered by
having to destroy religious
literature”. Local Council of
Churches Baptists said that “we
were shocked – this is sacrilege
and illegality”. Human rights
defender Yevgeni Zhovtis of the
Kazakhstan International Bureau
for Human Rights and the Rule of
Law sounded distressed, saying
that “this is terrible,
terrible”. Religious literature
is frequently confiscated, and
the state appears committed to
using censorship and other
freedom of religion or belief
violations as a means to control
society.
In
April 2012 a court initially
ordered two religious books –
including a Bible – to be
destroyed as part of an
administrative case, according
to the decision seen by Forum
18. However, exactly two weeks
later the same judge reversed
their decision when the
individual from whom they had
been confiscated complained. The
individual was acquitted of any
wrongdoing and the destruction
decision was later annulled.
Similarly, no officials, members
of religious communities, or
human rights defenders could
recall such court-ordered
destruction either. “We know
that religious literature has
frequently been confiscated
since the new Religion Law came
into force in 2011,” Zhovtis
said. “But I’ve never heard that
religious literature is being
destroyed, unless it is
extremist.”
Kazakhstan now joins two of its
neighbours, Uzbekistan and
Russia, as a state where courts
have ordered religious
literature to be destroyed.
Courts in Uzbekistan routinely
order religious literature –
including Korans and Bibles – to
be destroyed.
In
Russia such destruction is not
routine. But courts have,
however, ordered Jehovah’s
Witness literature, as well as
works by the Turkish Muslim
theologian Said Nursi, which
have been added to Russia’s
Federal List of Extremist
Materials, to be destroyed.
Cherkasov, a Baptist from
Shchuchinsk [Shchüinsk] in
northern Kazakhstan, was
detained by police on the street
in the town on 20 October 2012,
for offering Christian
literature to passers-by. The
court decision finding him
guilty of this “offence” said
that police had been alerted to
this by an “anonymous call”.
Police then seized a suitcase of
121 items of religious
literature from his parked car.
Baptists state they are Bibles,
Children’s Bibles, and other
books and leaflets on the
Christian faith, mostly in
Kazakh.
He
admitted to Burabai District
Specialised Administrative Court
on 5 March that he had been
offering literature free of
charge, citing in defence his
rights under Kazakhstan’s
Constitution. The Court insisted
that only two bookshops in
Shchuchinsk are, on the orders
of Akmola Region’s Akim [Head of
local government], allowed to
sell religious literature.
In
summer and autumn 2012, local
Akimats (local government
authorities) throughout
Kazakhstan issued decrees
authorising named local
bookshops which they had
approved and licensed to sell
religious literature. Such
bookshop licences are required
under Article 5, Part 4 of the
Religion Law, and it is illegal
to sell books and other
religious material in other
places without a licence.
Cherkasov, a Shchuchinsk-based
member of a Council of Churches
Baptist congregation, has
repeatedly been stopped by
police as he offers religious
literature on the streets.
On 5
March, Judge Damir Shamuratov of
ruled that Cherkasov was guilty
of violating Article 375, Part 1
of the Code of Administrative
Offences. Article 375 was in
2011 rewritten to encompass new
“offences” including violating
the procedure for importing,
publishing or distributing
religious literature and
materials.
The
Judge fined Chrekasov 50 Monthly
Financial Indicators, 86,550
Tenge (about 450 Euros or 575 US
Dollars). This is currently
equivalent to nearly one month’s
average wages as measured
nationwide by the state.
“The
121 books of religious content
confiscated during the
inspection and contained in the
suitcase, currently held in the
administrative file – to be
destroyed when the court
decision enters into legal
force,” the verdict declares.
“The decision relating to the
destruction is to be sent for
execution to the Burabai
District territorial Department
for the Execution of Court
Judgments and, in accordance
with Article 704, Part 1 of the
Code of Administrative Offences,
it is necessary to inform
Burabai District Specialised
Administrative Court when the
given decision has been carried
out.”
The
decision reveals that
prosecutors had considered
bringing criminal charges
against Cherkasov, but decided
that his actions did not
constitute a criminal offence.
Kulzhiyan Nurbayeva, acting Head
of the Legal and Analytical
Department of the Justice
Ministry’s Committee for the
Execution of Court Judgments,
stated that when a court
decision is adopted to destroy
material, a commission is formed
to carry out the court decision.
“Most likely the books would be
burnt,” she told Forum 18 from
Astana on 14 March.
Judge
Shamuratov’s assistant, Askhal
Alizhanov, told Forum 18 from
the Court on 14 March that the
judge was out for the rest of
the day. He insisted that the
destruction order has not yet
been sent to the court
executors, as Cherkasov has
appealed against the 5 March
decision to Akmola Regional
Court. “Maybe the Regional Court
will change the decision.”
Asked
why Judge Shamuratov had ordered
religious literature to be
destroyed, Alizhanov responded:
“It was his personal decision. I
can’t discuss it.”
Local
Baptists complained about the
lack of official openness over
the reason for the destruction
order. “We asked in court for
the Agency of Religious Affairs
(ARA) regional department to
give us the ‘expert analysis’
they did, but they refused,”
said on 14 March.
The
Religion Law imposes compulsory
censorship – or “expert
analyses” – conducted by the ARA
for all “religious literature”
or “other informational
materials of religious content”
imported for distribution in
Kazakhstan, as well as for any
religious literature acquired by
libraries in any institution or
organisation.
Cherkasov had tried to challenge
the legitimacy of the
prosecutors’ case against him
under Administrative Code
Article 375, Part 1. On 24
January he lodged a case in
Burabai District Specialised
Administrative Court, but on 31
January Judge Tolebek Zhumakayev
rejected the suit.
Baptists said Cherkasov lodged
his appeal against the 5 March
decision on 13 March, but no
date has yet been set for the
appeal hearing.
Despite
repeated calls on 14 March,
no-one at the Burabai District
territorial Department for the
Execution of Court Judgments was
prepared to discuss with Forum
18 the destruction of religious
books in fulfillment of a court
order. Department Head Nurlybek
Kuzenbayev was repeatedly busy
in meetings, and none of his
assistants was prepared to
discuss the issue. They referred
Forum 18 to Press Secretary
Abzal Dukanov. However, he
referred Forum 18 to Kuzenbayev,
saying “only he is authorised to
speak”.
The
official who answered the phone
of Akmola Region Department of
the ARA – who would not give his
name – insisted to Forum 18 on
14 March that the decision to
destroy Cherkasov’s religious
literature was the
responsibility of the court. He
added that it was the first time
he was aware of a court decision
to destroy religious literature.
The
official declined to put Forum
18 through to Galina
Bessmertnaya, the ARA Department
official who had attended
Cherkasov’s court hearing. He
refused to say if she had
prepared the “expert analysis”
on the books which was referred
to in court. The official
explained that such “expert
analyses” simply establish
whether literature is religious
or not. “It is a formality.”
Asked
for a copy of the ARA
Department’s “expert analysis”
of the books, the official
refused. “Why do we need to send
you the expert analysis?” A
female voice in the background,
apparently Bessmertnaya,
declared: “We don’t have the
right to give out these
analyses.”
Nurbayeva of the Justice
Ministry’s Committee for the
Execution of Court Judgments
stated that as part of her work
she frequently reads court
decisions. “This is the first
time I have encountered a court
order to destroy religious
literature,” she told Forum 18.
Asked how court executors told
to carry out such destructions
might feel, she responded: “I
understand it is hard.”
Asked
if court executors who have
conscientious objection to
burning religious literature can
opt out of participating in it,
Nurbayeva responded: “The
executor must carry out the
court order – their conscience
doesn’t come into it. If the
court orders the destruction of
religious literature the
executor will carry it out.”
The
official of Akmola Regional
Department of the ARA expressed
no concern over whether court
executors might have
conscientious reasons not to
want to destroy religious
literature. “I’m not interested
in whether court executors are
bothered by having to destroy
religious literature.”
Religious literature is
frequently confiscated, both
during raids on meetings for
worship, and when those
discussing or sharing their
faith with others are detained.
Cherkasov’s fellow Baptists said
that police and other state
officials “often took religious
literature”, and never returned
any confiscated literature.
“Such confiscations generally
started in spring 2012.” The
harsh new Religion Law and
associated new punishments came
into force in October 2011.
“Police often refuse to hand
over the record of confiscation
although the law demands this”,
local Baptists complained.
Police
and other officials raided a
Jehovah’s Witness meeting in a
private home in the village of
Karazhal in the central
Karaganda [Qaraghandy] Region on
24 January. Police took written
statements from the nine people
present and seized their
personal religious literature
for “expert study”. They expect
the case to be forwarded to the
Prosecutor’s Office for
administrative proceedings.
Only
Islamic literature from the
Hanafi Sunni Muslim school is
permitted by the state, all
other forms of Islamic
literature being banned. Local
authorities and “law
enforcement” agencies have been
enforcing censorship – including
severe limitations on the
numbers of bookshops allowed to
sell any kind of religious
material – across Kazakhstan
with raids and fines. Even some
shops with permission to sell
religious books such as Korans
and Bibles have told Forum 18
that they do not want to do so,
to avoid trouble from the
authorities.
The
government appears committed to
using censorship and other
freedom of religion or belief
violations as a means to control
society. For example, Yerlan
Kalmakov of Kostanai Regional
Internal Policy Department,
asked why people must ask for
permission from the authorities,
replied: “Imagine what could
happen if we allow just anybody
to distribute religious
materials”.
(Forum 18)
Lahore: Muslim protesters
burn down over 200 Christian
homes
Muslims
of Jehlum City threatened to
burn Christian homes like Lahore
as Christian protestors against
burning of 200 homes in Joseph
Colony Badami Bag
Lahore too to streets of Jehlum
City on March 12, 2013, chanting
slogans “Repeal Blasphemy law”
“Blasphemy law is Black Law”
The
Islamists announced on mosque
loudspeakers to gather to punish
those Christians who called
Blasphemy Law to be a Black law
during protest.
A group
of Muslims pressured area police
station to lodge FIR under 295 C
PPC under blasphemy law against
Christians who chanted slogans
against blasphemy law.
The
elders of Christian contacted
Mr. Joseph Francis, Chief of
CLAAS, based in Lahore and to
help them.
Lahore: Muslim protesters
burn down over 200 christian
homes
According to press release
issued by Joseph Francis said
that we are grieved to inform
you about another growing tense
situation for Christians in
Jehlem a big city in Punjab.
CLAAS was informing through a
phone call by the local
Christians that they were on
severe threats by the Muslims to
burn their houses like Joseph
Colony, Badami Bagh Lahore.
This
morning on March 13, 2013 at 10
a m. CLAAS team headed by Mr.
M.A Joseph Francis National
Director CLAAS, including Huma
Lucas Assistant Legal In-charge,
Asher Sarfraz Field Officer,
Asif Raza Assistant Field
Officer and John Paul rushed to
Jehlem to make sure the safety
of Christian brothers and
sisters in area about 120 miles
from Lahore. Mr. Francis made a
call to the Governor Punjab and
urged for proper security to the
Christians in Jehlem.
About
26 Christian families are living
among the Muslim masses at Ahata
Machine no. 2 in Jehlem City
from their forefathers. There
are 9 big centers of Islamic
Tabligh Jamatt (Islam Preachers)
in this area, and one Centre is
close to Christian houses. This
morning there was a message from
the local mosque and Islamic
centre that Christians has
commit blasphemy as they said in
the rally (that Blasphemy is a
black law, it should be repeal
because it is misused) which was
conducted by George Masih a
local Christian yesterday on
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 in
solidarity with affected
Christians at Badami Bagh
Lahore, with the permission of
Dar Ali Khan Khatak, District
Police Officer (DPO) who
provided security to Christians
for rally. There were about 250
Christians participated in the
rally and chanted the slogans in
the favor of providing Justice
to the affected Christians.
Muslim
extremists are pressurizing
police for the registration of
FIR under blasphemy sections
against George Masih, they
demanded the arrest of George
Masih and gave time to the local
police till Friday. There is an
open threat that if police will
not arrest George Masih the
public will take law in their
own hands.
The
situation is tense in Jehlem
city and any incident can happen
any moment like other cities of
Punjab where violence erupted
against christians on pretext to
blasphemy.
Days
before Burmese President Thein
Sein was reportedly nominated
for a Nobel Peace Prize last
week, a report revealed his
government troops had killed and
raped dozens of civilians and
burned hundreds of churches and
homes.
