"Death to Christians!"
Thu, June 28, 2012: (Revelation 12: 12)
by: Raymond Ibrahim
·
· Unlike those
nations, such as Saudi Arabia, that have eliminated Christianity altogether,
Muslim countries with significant Christian minorities saw much persecution
during the month of May:
In Egypt, Christians were openly discriminated against
in law courts, even as some accused the nation's new president
of declaring that he will "achieve the Islamic conquest of Egypt for the
second time, and make all
Christians convert to Islam;" in Indonesia, Muslims threw bags
of urine on Christians during worship; in Kashmir and Zanzibar, churches were
set on fire; and in Mali, Christianity
"faces being eradicated."
Elsewhere in
sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, the Ivory Coast—wherever
Islam and Christianity meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded
and even crucified.
Categorized by theme, May's assemblage of Muslim persecution of
Christians around the worldincludes,
but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by
country, not severity.
Note: As Pakistan
had the lion's share of persecuted Christians last month, it has its own
section below, covering the entire gamut of persecution—from apostasy and
blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.
Church Attacks
Indonesia encountered
several church-related attacks:A mob of 600Muslims threw
bags of urine, stones, and rotten eggs at the congregation of a
Protestant church at the start of Ascension Day service; they shouted
profanities and threatened to kill the pastor. No arrests were made.
The church had applied for a permit to construct its house of worship
five years ago. Pressured by local Muslims, the local administration ordered
the church shut down in December 2009,
even though the Supreme Court recently overruled its decision, saying that the
church was eligible for a permit. Local Muslims and officials are nevertheless
demanding that the church shut down.
After protests "by hard-line groups including the Islamic Defenders
Front," nearly 20 Christian
houses of worship were sealed off by authorities on the pretext
of "not having permits." The authorities added that, to accommodate
the region's 20,000 Christians, only one church may be built in the district in
question.
The Muslim mayor who illegally sealed the beleaguered GKI Yasmin church,
forcing congregants to worship in the streets, has agreed to reopen it—but only if a mosque
is built next door, to ensure that the church "stays in
line."
"As well as opposition from the mayor, the church has faced
hostility from local Muslims, who have rallied against them [the Christians],
blocked them from accessing the street where the church is situated and
disrupted their outdoor services.
It is unlikely that they will suddenly embrace the Christians," according
to the report.
France: Prior to
celebrating mass, "four youths, aged 14 to 18, broke into the Church of
St. Joseph, before launching
handfuls of pebbles at 150 faithful present at the service."
They were chased out, although, according to the report, "the
parishioners, many of whom are elderly, were greatly shocked by the
disrespectful act of the youths of North African origin."
Kashmir: A Catholic
church made entirely of wood was partially destroyed after unknown assailants set it on fire.
"What happened," said the president of the Global Council of Indian
Christians, "is not an isolated case," and follows the
"persecution" of a pastor who baptized Muslims. "With these
gestures, the Muslim community is trying to intimidate the Christian
minority."
Kuwait: Two months
after the Saudi Grand Mufti decreed, in response to a question on whether
churches may exist in Kuwait, that all regional
churches must be destroyed, churches located in villas serving
Western foreigners are being
targeted.
One congregation was evicted without explanation
"from a private villa used for worship gatherings for the past seven
years;" another villa-church was ordered to "pay an exorbitant fine
each month to use a facility it had been renting…. Church leaders reportedly
decided not to argue and moved out."
Zanzibar: Hundreds of
Muslims set two churches on fire and clashed with police during
protests against the arrest of senior members of an Islamist movement known as
the Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation. Afterwards, the group
issued a statement denying any involvement of wrongdoing.
Pakistan: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Rape,
Forced Conversions, and Oppression
A 20-year-old Christian man
was arrested and charged with "blasphemy"—a crime
"punishable with life imprisonment"—after vengeful Muslims accused
him of burning a Koran soon after a billiard game. The Muslims kept taunting
and threatening him, to which the Christian "dared them to do whatever
they wanted and walked away."
Days later came the accusation and arrest,
which caused Muslim riots, creating "panic among Christians," who
"left their houses anticipating violence."
Two years ago, after a Muslim man converted to Christianity and told his
wife, she abused and
exposed him, resulting in his being severely beaten. "No one
was willing to let me live the life I wanted [as a Christian]—they say Islam is
not a religion of compulsion, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims
who don't find satisfaction in the religion become liable to be killed."
He eventually divorced, escaped and remarried a Christian woman. Now that his
family has again discovered his whereabouts, they have resumed threatening him.
According to his wife: "Every other day, we receive threatening phone
calls…They are now asking him to abandon us and renounce Christianity,
threatening that they will kill me and our child."
A new report indicates that "on average, eight to 10 Christians are
being forced every
month by fanatic Muslims to convert to Islam, mostly in the
provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
The victims of forced conversions are often
girls from poor backgrounds who are then subjected to harrowing and traumatic
ordeals. Most of the girls are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves
against extremists because their community is deprived, defenseless and
marginalized.
Christians, who constitute about two percent of the Pakistani
population, are paying a high price for being a part of the minority
community." Two such cases from May follow:
In an attempt to force her to drop charges against them for raping her
13-year-old niece, a band of
Muslims severely beat a pregnant Christian woman causing her to lose female
twins to miscarriage.
The rapists came when all male members of the
Christian household were out working and beat the women
"mercilessly."
"They murdered our children, they raped our
daughter. We have nothing left with us," lamented an older family member.
As usual, police ignored both cases: Both the raped Christian girl and her
beaten family.
A 14-year-old
Christian girl was abducted and forced to convert to Islam by
her uncle, who himself had earlier converted. Pakistani police refused to
liberate her, and said she converted of her own free will.
According to her
father: "After converting, my brother is conspiring against our family and
kidnapped Mary with deception."
The investigation into the murder of the
nation's only cabinet-level Christian, Shahbaz Bhatti, has become
mired amid suspicions of a possible cover-up.
Lax investigations, a series of
freed suspects, and lack of coordination across law enforcement organizations
have stalled the case after the March 2, 2011, slaying of the federal minister
for Minority Affairs, who was an outspoken critic of, and targeted by, those
who support Pakistan's "blasphemy" laws.
Christians are
being threatened and abused for trying, since 1947, to save
their community's graveyard. Despite failing to produce any proof, a retired
Muslim official who claims he "recently discovered" that the land
really belongs to him has already built a boundary wall, reducing the graveyard
to less than a third of its original size and turned the seized land over to
agricultural use. Police, as usual, are failing to react.
·
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as
"Tolerated" Citizens]
Egypt: A court verdict that
was criticized by many human rights groups as "unbelievable" and
"extremely harsh" towards Christians was decided according to
religion:
All 12 Christians were convicted to life imprisonment, while all
eight Muslims—including some who torched nearly 60 Christian homes—were
acquitted, all to thunderous cries of "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is
the Greatest!"] in the courtroom.
Another Muslim judge in Upper Egypt dismissed all charges against a
group of Muslims who
terrorized a Christian man and his family for over a year,
culminating with their cutting off his ear in a knife attack while trying to
force him to convert to Islam after they "falsely accused him" of
having an affair with a Muslim woman.
And a new report describes
the plight of Coptic girls: "Hundreds of Christian girls … have been
abducted, forced to convert to Islam and forced into marriage in Egypt. These
incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings
and other forms of physical and mental abuse."
Eritrea: Activists taking
part in a protest outside the Eritrean embassy in London revealed that
"Some 2,000 to 3,000
Christians are currently detained in Eritrea without charge or
trial …
Several Christians are known to have died in notorious prison
camps," and "thousands of Eritreans flee their country every
year," some falling "into the hands of abusive traffickers, and are
held hostage in torture camps in the Sinai Desert pending payment of exorbitant
ransoms, or the forcible removal of organs."
Ethiopia: A Christian man
accused of "desecrating the
Koran" spent two years in prison, where he was abused,
pressured to convert to Islam and left paralyzed. Now returning home, he has
found that his two young children have been abducted by local Muslims:
"My
life is ruined—I have lost my house, my children, my health. I am now homeless,
and I am limping."Greece: Abet Hasman, the
deputy mayor of Patras who recently passed away, left a message to be revealed
only in his obituary—that, although born to Muslim parents in Jordan, he was
"secretly
baptized" a Christian (demonstrating how some Muslims who
convert to Christianity, knowing the consequences of apostasy, choose secrecy).
Indonesia: A predominantly Christian
neighborhood was attacked for several days by
"unidentified persons," who set fire to homes and cars. Dozens of
Christian families fled their homes, "many fear[ing] the involvement of
Islamic extremist groups."
Iran: A prominent house
church pastor remains behind bars, even as his family expresses concerns that
he may die from continued abuse
and beatings, leading to internal bleeding and other ailments;
authorities refuse to give him medical treatment.
Also, the attorney of Youssef
Nadarkhani—the imprisoned Christian pastor who awaits execution for
apostasy—was himself "convicted for
his work defending human rights and is expected to begin
serving his nine-year sentence in the near future."
Meanwhile, in a letter
attributed to him, the imprisoned
pastor wrote: "I have surrendered myself to God's wil l..
.[and I] consider it as the day of exam and trial of my faith...[so that I may]
prove my loyalty and sincerity to God."
Jordan: After the
Jordanian Dubai Islamic Bank decreed that all
females must wear the hijab, the Islamic veil or be
terminated, it fired all female employees who refused to wear the hijab—mostly
Christians, including one Christian woman who had worked there for 27 years.
There are suspicions that this new policy was set to target and terminate the
Christian employees, as it is they who are most likely to reject the hijab.
Lebanon: A 24-year-old
woman, the daughter of a Shiite cleric, who was "physically and
psychologically tortured by her
father for converting to Christianity three years ago,"
managed to escape and be baptized by a Christian priest—who was himself then
abducted and interrogated to disclose the whereabouts of the renegade woman.
In
like manner, Muslim assailants fired gunshots at the house of another priest
and at a church -- "part of an escalating pattern of violence against
local Catholics," in the words of the region's prelate.
Macedonia: After some
Muslims were arrested in connection to a "series of murders of
Christians," thousands of fellow Muslims demonstrated after Friday
prayers, shouting slogans such as "death to
Christians!," and calling for "jihad."
Mali: Ever since the
government was overthrown in a coup, "the church in
Mali faces being eradicated," especially in the north,
"where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive
Christians out …. there have been house to house searches for Christians who
might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed,
and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives."
Nigeria: Muslim gunmen set
fire to a home in a Christian village and then opened fire on
all who tried to escape the inferno, killing at least seven and
wounding many others, in just one of dozens of attacks on Christians.
Sudan: Without reason,
security officials closed down regional
offices of the Sudan Council of Churches and a much needed church clinic for
the poor; staff members were arrested and taken to an undisclosed location:
"Their families are living in agony due to the uncertainty of their
fate."
Syria: Jihadi gunmen evicted all the
families of a Christian region, "taking over all the homes of
the village, occupying the church and turning it to their base."
Uzbekistan: Police raided a
Protestant house-church meeting, claiming "that a bomb was in the
home." No bomb was found, only Christian
literature which was confiscated.
Subsequently, 14 members of the
unregistered church were heavily fined—the equivalent of 10-60 times a monthly
salary—for an "unsanctioned meeting in a private home." Between
February and April, 28 Protestants were fined and four were issued warnings for
the offence.
Three Baptists were also fined for not declaring their personal
Bibles while crossing the border from Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan. Fines and
warnings were accompanied by the confiscation of religious literature.
About this Series
Because the
persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching
epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was
developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that
surface each month. It serves two purposes:
1. To document that
which the mainstream media does not: The habitual, if not chronic, Muslim
persecution of Christians.
2. To show that such
persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it
is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits
under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian
symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy
and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who
"offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial
tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to
behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, "tolerated"
citizens; and simple violence and murder.
Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities,
languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and
throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one
thing alone binds them:
Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law,
or the supremacist culture born of it.
Raymond Ibrahim is
a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow
at the Middle East Forum.
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