The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, one of the Islamic
world's highest religious authorities, declared that it is "necessary to
destroy all the churches of the region."
The
war on Christianity and its adherents in the Muslim world rages on. In March
alone, Saudi Arabia's highest Islamic legal authority decreed that churches in
the region must be destroyed; jihadis [holy warriors] in Nigeria said they
"are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the
Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women"; American
teachers in the Middle East were murdered for being Christian or talking about
Christianity; churches were banned or bombed, and nuns terrorized by
knife-wielding Muslim mobs. Christians continue to be attacked, arrested,
imprisoned, and killed for allegedly "blaspheming" Islam's prophet
Muhammad; former Muslims continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and
killed for converting to Christianity.
The
extent of this persecution is virtually unknown in the West, due to the
mainstream media's well-documented biases: the mainstream media knows that if
they do not ignore or at best whitewash the nonstop persecution of Christians under
Islam, their narrative of Islam as the "religion of peace" would be
quickly undermined. Last month alone, the New York Times ran an anti-Catholic ad, but refused to
publish a nearly identical ad directed at Islam; the BBC admitted it mocks Jesus but will never mock
Muhammad; and U.S. sitcoms have been exposed as bashing Christianity,
but never Islam.
Categorized
by theme, March's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world
includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical
order by country, not severity:
Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism: Death and
Prison
Egypt: A
Christian man accused of insulting Islam's prophet Muhammad was sentenced to six years in prison. Although under Egyptian law "defamation of
religion" is a misdemeanor, punishable by a prison sentence of one month
to three years, the judge doubled the sentence to appease Muslims, including an
angry 2,500-strong mob that terrorized the courtroom, and demanding death for the Christian. Similarly,
an "anti-Christianization course" was initiated by an organization
"specializing in the resistance to Christianity," so that Muslims
will not be "throw[n] under the feet of the Cross." According to an
instructor, "Recurring attempts at the university in Aswan to convert
Muslims to Christianity or provoke them with misleading information was the
impetus behind the course."
India: A
young woman was attacked and thrown out of her home "for daring to give
thanks for healing in Christ's name" in a predominantly Muslim village;
"her parents helped Islamic extremists
to beat her nearly unconscious": In a village where "hard-line Muslims
have threatened to kill the 25 families who initially showed interest in
Christ, leaving only five frightened Christian families," the woman was
attacked when returning from church, and called "pagan, among other verbal
abuses." The mob also harassed and threatened the Christian woman who had
allegedly "lured" her to convert to Christianity.
Iran: In
a rare crackdown on a concentrated area, in what is seen as a
tactic to discourage Muslims from attending official churches, authorities have
arrested 12 more converts to Christianity living in the country's third largest
city of Isfahan, Among the latest known Christian converts detained in the
Isfahan area is a man who was reportedly taken into custody on March 2 while
returning home from his work: "Security authorities raided his home and
seized him without explanation."
Iraq:
An American teacher was shot to death by an 18-year-old student at a private
Christian academy. He "was a devout Christian who frequently praised
Christianity and prayed in the classroom, and his friends in Washington said
his evangelism is what motivated him to teach in Iraq." According to students, "Mr. Jeremiah's hands were still folded in
prayer when he fell;" others say a day before the shooting [there was]
"a heated discussion…during which the pupil threatened to kill the teacher
because of conflicting religious views." In an interview, the father of
the pupilcondemned Christian evangelists, portraying them as "more dangerous than
al-Qaeda."
Malaysia:
After religious police raided an event at a Methodist church over "fears
that Muslims were being converted," Muslim officials created a seminar
called "Strengthening the faith, the dangers of liberalism and pluralism
and the threat of Christianity towards
Muslims."
After the title of the conference was criticized, a lawmaker said the reference
to Christianity would be removed, but the seminar's content would remain
unchanged: "The seminar is part of the right of Muslims to defend the
faith of its practitioners from any action which may lead to apostasy. It is
our responsibility," he said.
Pakistan:
A Muslim mob attacked a 60-year-old
Christian woman who converted to Islam, only to reconvert back to Christianity six
months later: she "was tortured—her head shaved—and paraded through the
streets, garlanded with shoes." Soon after, she received more threats of
"dire consequences" from Islamic clerics, fleeing region with her
family. Likewise, a 26-year-old Christian woman, mother to a five-month-old
girl, was falsely accused of "blaspheming"
Muhammad and
arrested. A few days prior, some of her relatives who had converted to Islam
pressed her to do the same: "She refused, telling them that she was 'satisfied with Christianity and did
not want to convert,' and was arrested of blasphemy soon thereafter."
Yemen:
Al-Qaeda gunmen fatally shot an American teacher. The terror network's affiliate in Yemen issued a message saying, "This operation comes as a
response to the campaign of Christian proselytizing that the West has launched
against Muslims," calling the teacher "one of the biggest American
proselytizers." He was shot eight times on a Sunday.
Church Attacks
Bethlehem: One week after the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority
[PA] told an audience of Evangelical Protestants that his government respected
the rights of its Christian minorities, the PA declared a Baptist Church illegal, adding that birth, wedding, and death
certificates from the church were no longer valid. A pastor noted that
"animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the PA
continues to get increasingly worse. People are always telling [Christians],
'Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It's the true and right religion.'"
Egypt: Some
1,500 Muslims—several armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic
slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt, in response
to false claims from local mosques that the private school was building a
church: "Two nuns were besieged in the school's guesthouse for some eight
hours by a murderous mob threatening to burn them alive;" one nun suffered
a "major nervous breakdown requiring hospitalization… The entire property
was ransacked and looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the
children. Consequently, school attendance has dropped by at least one
third."
Iran: The
Armenian Evangelical Church in Tehran is the latest church to be ordered to cease holding Persian
services on Fridays. The officers serving the notice threatened church officials, saying
that "if the order is ignored, the church building will be bombed 'as
happens in Iraq every day.'" As another report summarizes, "Christians and Churches in
the Islamic Republic of Iran are now banned from preaching the Gospel to
non-Christians, holding Persian language services, teaching and distributing
the Bible, or holding Christian classes."
Iraq: Even
though Kirkuk's church was recently restored after an earlier bomb attack that
killed a 13-year-old Christian boy, the "reopening celebration was but a
brief respite in the ongoing suffering of Iraq's Christian community, signaled
by two further attacks": Another church in Baghdad was bombed, killing two guards and wounding five, and the
body of a Christian was "found riddled with bullets in Mosul. He had been
shot nine times at close range. The freelance photographer had been kidnapped
four days earlier. Iraqi Christians are often targeted by kidnappers for
ransom."
Kenya: A
band of Muslims launched a grenade attack on a crowd of 150
Christians attending an outdoor church meeting, killing two and wounding more
than 30. "Human-rights groups say that the Muslim attackers were hyped
into action by a militant Muslim preacher holding an alternate rally only 900
feet from the Christian gathering. Further reports say that the Muslim
preachers were slandering Christianity and that members of the Christian group
could hear the Muslim speakers."
Nigeria: A
Boko Haram suicide car bomber from the Islamist group Boko Haram [Arabic
translation: "Western Education is a Sin"] attacked a Catholic church, killing
at least 10 people. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended Mass at St. Finbar's
Catholic Church in Jos, a city in which thousands of Christians have died in
the last decade as a result of Boko Haram's jihad, and
Saudi Arabia: The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, one of the Islamic world's highest
religious authorities, declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches
of the region." He made his assertion in response to a question posed by a
delegation from Kuwait, where a parliament member recently called for the
"removal" of churches: the delegation wanted to confirm Sharia's
position on churches with the Grand Mufti, who "stressed that Kuwait was a
part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches
in it," basing his verdict on a saying (or hadith), of Muhammad.
Sudan:
Sudanese aerial strikes were aimed at church
buildings in
some regions. Churches in the Nuba Mountains are holding worship services very
early in the morning and late in the evening to avoid aerial bombardments
intentionally targeting their churches. The Khartoum regime is "doing
everything possible to make sure they get rid of Christianity from the Nuba
Mountains—churches and church schools are the targets of both the Sudanese
Armed Forces and its militias," said an aid worker.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of
non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Denmark: In a
Muslim ghetto in Copenhagen, a refugee from Africa had his door kicked in
several times and was threatened by a group of "youths" who accused
him of being "both black and Christian," and who then tried to extort money from
him. Police said they could not guarantee his safety; he was eventually found
in tears living in the streets.
Iran:
After complaints about the display of Christmas trees and Santa Clauses in the
streets of Tehran during the Christmas season, an official warned that the
municipality will begin to seize such symbols: "Building facades in Tehran should be
controlled by the municipality and the display of such symbols should not be
allowed."
Iraq: Christians are running out of havens as rising security concerns and economic
hardship cause them to leave the places of refuge they had found in the
country's Kurdish north. The sort of attacks that initiated a mass exodus of
Christians from Baghdad and Mosul are increasingly occurring in the autonomous
region of Kurdistan, "which welcomed Christians and was relatively
safe." A Christian who fled there from Mosul seven years ago after
retrieving his son from kidnappers said it is like history "repeating
itself."
Nigeria: The
Islamist organization Boko Haram declared "war" on Christians, saying it aims to "annihilate the entire
Christian community living in the northern parts of the country."
According to a spokesman, "We will create so much effort to end the
Christian presence in our push to have a proper Islamic state that the
Christians won't be able to stay." Along with constant church
bombings—most recently on Easter, killing nearly 50—one of the groups new
strategies is "to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by
kidnapping their women."
Pakistan: Two
Christian hospital employees were abducted by "Islamic
extremists": "Such cases are on the rise, as banned Islamist groups and
other criminal gangs are turning to kidnapping for ransom in order to survive
and procure weapons and ammunition," said a senior investigator, adding
that most Islamist groups believe that Christian NGOs are involved in
evangelizing "under the guise of charity," a belief that provides
Muslims with an even greater incentive to be abusive.
Sudan: Over
half a million people, mostly Christian and originally from South Sudan, have
been stripped of citizenship in response to the South's secession, and
forced to relocate: "Sudanese Christians, who have barely a month to leave
the north or risk being treated as foreigners. are starting to move, but
Christian leaders are concerned that the 8 April deadline set by the
Islamic-majority Sudan is unrealistic. 'We are very concerned. Moving is not
easy ... people have children in school. They have homes ... It is almost
impossible,' said a Catholic bishop."
Syria: The
nation to which many Iraqi Christians fled as a haven is slowly becoming like Iraq, as thousands of Syrian Christians
continue to flee to nearby Lebanon. "Al-Faruq Battalion, which is affiliated
with the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA), is imposing jizya (an extra tax imposed on non-Muslims living
under Muslim rule) on Christians in the Homs Governorate" and "armed
men … threaten to kidnap or kill them or members of their families if they
refuse to "pay Islamic taxes"—precisely the same form of extortion
that has been taking place in next door Iraq.
Turkey: Formerly
hailed for its freedoms, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
named Turkey as "one of the world's worst violators of
religious freedom," based on Turkey's treatment of Christians and other minority
groups. The report stated that restrictions on non-Muslim communities, such as
limiting their right to train clergy and own places of worship, "have led
to their decline, and in some cases, their virtual disappearance," further
noting "an increased number of attacks, ranging from harassment and
vandalism to death threats, against Protestant churches and individuals in 2011
compared to 2010."
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:
- To document that which the mainstream
media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of
Christians.
- 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 ofjizya (financial tribute expected from
non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like coweddhimmis,
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.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário