CHRISTIANS: On the Front Lines of Muslim Violence

[Valin]

Mar. 1 2021

Growing numbers of Muslims are converting to Christianity, to the point that a term (Muslim Background Believer) and even an acronym (MBB) has emerged. What are the circumstances and main themes of their conversions? What challenges do they face, both in Muslim-majority countries and in ostensibly tolerant Western societies?

[Geee]

Church Desecration in Europe Under Islam

A few days after Muslim migrants firebombed an 800-year-old Swedish church twice over the course of four days -- once on Jan. 20, 2021 and another on Jan. 24 -- a Feb 4 report came out saying that 829 “hate crimes” against churches in Sweden have been reported between just 2012-2018, or about 138 attacks on average every year.

Thus, the churches of Sweden join those of other Western European nations that have taken in sizeable Muslim migrants. In France, for example, two churches are vandalized every day.  According to a 2019 PI-News report, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018.  This represents a 17 percent increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were registered -- meaning such attacks are only going from bad to worse.

They are also getting increasingly vile.  As one example, vandals used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes in 2019; consecrated bread was also found thrown outside among garbage. One week later, vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur; they mangled the arms of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner and burned altar materials.

Similar reports are coming from Germany.  After reporting how four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched over the course of four weeks in 2019, PI-News, a German news site, explained: “In this country, there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on summit crosses,  on holy figures on the way, on churches and recently also on cemeteries.”

[Geee]

Iran Continues to Take Over, Manipulate Endangered Christian Communities in Iraq

 

CNSNews.com) – Pope Francis’ perilous pilgrimage to Iraq this week, due to start on Friday, may cast light on the painful plight of Christians in their ancestral homeland, yet the most significant threat facing the community is neither Sunni terrorists nor corrupt government persecutors, but the heavy hand of neighboring Iran and the proxy militias it funds and arms.

It has been more than three years since ISIS was territorially erased from Iraq’s map. But before the dust could settle, the Tehran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) took advantage of the power vacuum to take over checkpoints, weapons arsenals, institutions, and critical roads formerly in ISIS hands.

And their prowess is only increasing.

[Geee]

Egypt - Another Terrifying Case of Anti-Christian Persecution

The 21^st century inhabitants of the West treat the life that they enjoy as a given.  This is especially true of Americas.

What they fail to grasp is that as far as the history of the human race is concerned, and even relative to how much of the world continues to live, their civilization is an anomaly.  This is both a blessing and a curse: While their achievements have been nothing short of miraculous, it is precisely because of the incalculable benefits that they’ve reaped from having constructed this envy of the world that they have become spectacularly forgetful of the realities of the human condition.

The Western world is the planet’s version of Disney World.  And the thinking that informs the former’s residents is no less wishful and fantastical than that which overcomes visitors to the latter.  

Even today, though, most human beings on the Earth haven’t the luxury of fabricating such ideologically-useful fantasies as “micro-aggressions” and the like over which to be aggrieved.  They can’t afford to deny the self-evident tenuousness of the social order in which they find themselves and the ubiquity of the inhumanity with which all too many people treat others.  The pseudo-sophistication that permits affluent Westerners to dismiss Good and Evil as the imaginary preoccupations of the superstitious and uneducated most of the rest of the planet, if they thought about it at all, would recognize as both demonstrably stupid and a fast track to certain death.

Oppressed peoples—genuinely, truly oppressed peoples—are particularly astute when it comes to these matters.

[Valin]

1 hour ago, Geee said:

Egypt - Another Terrifying Case of Anti-Christian Persecution

The 21^st century inhabitants of the West treat the life that they enjoy as a given.  This is especially true of Americas.

What they fail to grasp is that as far as the history of the human race is concerned, and even relative to how much of the world continues to live, their civilization is an anomaly.  This is both a blessing and a curse: While their achievements have been nothing short of miraculous, it is precisely because of the incalculable benefits that they’ve reaped from having constructed this envy of the world that they have become spectacularly forgetful of the realities of the human condition.

The Western world is the planet’s version of Disney World.  And the thinking that informs the former’s residents is no less wishful and fantastical than that which overcomes visitors to the latter.  

Even today, though, most human beings on the Earth haven’t the luxury of fabricating such ideologically-useful fantasies as “micro-aggressions” and the like over which to be aggrieved.  They can’t afford to deny the self-evident tenuousness of the social order in which they find themselves and the ubiquity of the inhumanity with which all too many people treat others.  The pseudo-sophistication that permits affluent Westerners to dismiss Good and Evil as the imaginary preoccupations of the superstitious and uneducated most of the rest of the planet, if they thought about it at all, would recognize as both demonstrably stupid and a fast track to certain death.

Oppressed peoples—genuinely, truly oppressed peoples—are particularly astute when it comes to these matters.

 

 

"The Left Won't Fight Real Evil, So They Fight Pretend Evil, Like Climate Change."

Dennis Prager

[Geee]

1 minute ago, Valin said:

 

"The Left Won't Fight Real Evil, So They Fight Pretend Evil, Like Climate Change."

Dennis Prager

Or bathroom equality

[Valin]

6 minutes ago, Geee said:

Or bathroom equality

Babylon 5

 

 

[Geee]

Muslim Soldiers Executing Their Christian Comrades

Muslim soldiers are killing their Christian comrades in arms — apparently because the latter, as "infidels," are already the enemy.  Most recently, in Nigeria, a Muslim colonel stole weapons from an armory and then blamed the twelve soldiers on duty for the theft.  Six of those twelve soldiers — all Christians — were then executed.  According to a lawyer acquainted with the case:

The [Nigerian] government of today detests Christianity[.] ... This administration is running on ethnic agenda against the Igbo [Christian] population[.] ... This has never been a practice in the Army. Things got changed the moment this present administration [of Muhammadu Buhari] came to power. Things are happening before that didn't happen. It's not only about these six soldiers[.] ... Even in the security forces, Christians are being targeted.

The Feb. 4 report elaborates:

Many Nigerians now believe the Army fights for Islam, not Nigeria[.] ... In the country's predominately Christian south, people call it 'Boko Haram's Army.' Muslims hold all the most important leadership positions. The Army's lack of action to protect Christians comes directly from its leaders in government[.] ... When troops go into areas controlled by radical Islamists to defend Nigerian Christians, the government orders them to retreat. Then, Islamist rebels shoot them in the back.

[Valin]

Indonesia: Several injured in church suicide bombing

Suicide bombers have struck outside a Catholic church in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Palm Sunday, injuring more than a dozen people.

Mar. 28 2021

A Catholic cathedral in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province was rocked by a suicide bombing on Sunday, police said.

The blast, in the city of Makassar, wounded 14 people including church workers and worshippers, officials said.

They added that two attackers were likely responsible. One of them detonated his explosives and died near the gate. 

The congregation had been inside the church at the time of the explosion, South Sulawesi police spokesman E. Zulpan told Reuters.  

 

(Snip)

____________________________________________________________________________

 

[Valin]

On 3/28/2021 at 7:26 AM, Valin said:

Indonesia: Several injured in church suicide bombing

Suicide bombers have struck outside a Catholic church in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Palm Sunday, injuring more than a dozen people.

Mar. 28 2021

 

Newlywed Couple Launched Suicide Attack at Indonesian Church, Police Say

Arie Firdaus
Jakarta
2021-03-29

The two suspects who carried out a suicide bombing in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province on Palm Sunday were a newlywed couple and part of a local militant cell linked to another couple who blew themselves up at a Philippine cathedral in January 2019, police said Monday.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo condemned the attack outside the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar that left the two suspected bombers dead and at least 20 others injured as an “act of terrorism.” He said he had ordered police to “thoroughly investigate the perpetrators’ networks and tear down the networks to their roots.”

Police said that Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a pro-Islamic State (IS) Indonesian militant network, was behind Sunday’s attack.

On Monday, authorities said that the suspected perpetrators of the bombing were a husband and wife, whom police identified only by their initials. Officials also revealed that Muhammad Rizaldy S, a suspected member of the Makassar JAD cell who was killed in counter-terror raids in early January, had presided over their wedding.

“We have confirmed the identity of the bombers. The male one is identified as L. The female one is YSL,” national police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters, adding that their identities were confirmed through DNA tests.

“L and YSR were married six months ago by Rizaldy,” he said.

(Snip)

[Valin]

On 3/30/2021 at 10:11 AM, Valin said:

 

Newlywed Couple Launched Suicide Attack at Indonesian Church, Police Say

Arie Firdaus
Jakarta
2021-03-29

 

 

Indonesian Police Kill Suspect Linked to Church Suicide Bombing in Makassar

Ronna Nirmala
Jakarta
2021-04-15

Police secure the house of a couple suspected of killing themselves on March 28 in a suicide bombing outside a church in Makassar, Indonesia, March 29, 2021.

Police in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province on Thursday shot and killed a man allegedly linked to last month’s suicide bombing outside a church in Makassar, a spokesman said. 

Officers from the Densus 88 anti-terrorism police unit took the action after the suspect, identified only by his initials, M.T., lunged at them with two sickles during a raid of his home in the provincial capital Makassar, police spokesman E. Zulpan said.

“We wanted to arrest him because we suspected he was involved or had a role in the suicide bombing of the cathedral church,” Zulpan told BenarNews without providing details about the man’s suspected involvement in the attack on Palm Sunday. 

The suspect ignored warning shots by police and lunged at them “aggressively,” Zulpan said.

Investigators said that a newlywed couple – Muhammad Lukman Alfarizi and Yogi Sahfitri Fortuna – associated with a local cell of the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a pro-Islamic State (IS) Indonesian militant network, had carried out the suicide bombing that left the two attackers dead and injured 20 people on March 28.

Zulpan said the man slain on Thursday belonged to this cell that was based in the Villa Mutiara housing complex in Makassar, where 18 militant suspects were arrested and two others were killed during a police raid in January. 

Meanwhile, national police spokesman Ahmad Ramadhan said officers also arrested one suspect on Wednesday and six others on Tuesday in connection with the Makassar attack.

(Snip)

[Geee]

Islamic State Executes Another Christian on Video

In a video released last Saturday, April 17, Muslims connected to the Islamic State executed a Coptic Christian man in Sinai, Egypt.

The slain was identified as 62-year-old Nabil Habashi Salama.  In the video, Salama appears on his knees, with three masked men holding rifles stand behind him.  The one in the middle launches into a typical jihadi diatribe:

“All praise to Allah, who ordered his slaves [Muslims] to fight and who assigned humiliation onto the infidels” — this latter part is said while the terrorist contemptuously points at the bound and kneeling man before him — “until they pay the jizya while feeling utterly subdued.”

The middle speaker continues by threatening “all the crusaders of the world” — a reference to Christians in the West — while singling out the countrymen of the one about to be slain: “as for you Christians of Egypt, this is the price of your support for the Egyptian army.”

[Geee]

The Future of Christians in the Middle East

They have suffered much in the past two decades. Will new attention to their plight improve their lot?

 

 

 

In July 2017, the Iraqi military and Shia militias fought their way through Mosul’s Old City against ISIS. The air was filled with concrete dust and the stench of rotting human flesh and feces, the heat a punishing 110 Fahrenheit. There were dead bodies here and there, ISIS and civilians, soldiers and hostages of a caliphate.

I stood in the ruins of al-Nuri Mosque, where that caliphate had been proclaimed three years before by the self-styled caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. As medics tended to a wounded soldier who groaned repeatedly in agony that I hoped was sedated, I remember vividly how I wished in that moment that his cries could be heard thousands of miles away by those who in 2003 had set in motion the war that led to this.

Less than four years later, Pope Francis visited Mosul’s Old City, much of which remains in rubble to this day. The human devastation is incalculable, with millions suffering trauma that will endure for generations. But Pope Francis was present and offered a message of hope. He also called himself a “penitent pilgrim,” asking forgiveness for those who brought war to Iraq.

[Valin]

On 4/23/2021 at 5:16 AM, Geee said:

Islamic State Executes Another Christian on Video

In a video released last Saturday, April 17, Muslims connected to the Islamic State executed a Coptic Christian man in Sinai, Egypt.

The slain was identified as 62-year-old Nabil Habashi Salama.  In the video, Salama appears on his knees, with three masked men holding rifles stand behind him.  The one in the middle launches into a typical jihadi diatribe:

“All praise to Allah, who ordered his slaves [Muslims] to fight and who assigned humiliation onto the infidels” — this latter part is said while the terrorist contemptuously points at the bound and kneeling man before him — “until they pay the jizya while feeling utterly subdued.”

The middle speaker continues by threatening “all the crusaders of the world” — a reference to Christians in the West — while singling out the countrymen of the one about to be slain: “as for you Christians of Egypt, this is the price of your support for the Egyptian army.”

 

Nabil Habashi Salama Wins A Crown!

He was willing to Die for his Faith. Are We I willing to be Uncomfortable for ours Mine? That's the question?

[Geee]

Report: 1,470 Christians Killed by Islamic Jihadists in Nigeria in First 4 Months of 2021

 

In the first four months of 2021, at least 1,470 Christians were brutally killed by Islamic Jihadists in Nigeria, according to a report by the International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety). 

In addition to the killings, an estimated 3,200 Nigerians were abducted by jihadists, 2,200 of whom were Christians. 

"The 1,470 Christian deaths in four months is the highest number recorded since 2014 and it specifically surpassed the total number of Christians killed in 2019," states the report. 

[Geee]

'Beaten, Raped, and Left for Dead'

The persecution Christians experienced in just one month under Islam.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of May, 2021:

The Slaughter of Christians

Uganda:  On May 3, hours after he engaged in a public debate about Islam and Christianity, Muslims severed the tongue of and beheaded Pastor Thomas Chikooma, a well-known pastor and father of 11 who had planted 50 churches in eastern Uganda. During the open air event, which Muslims had invited him to, he used the Bible and Koran to make his points.  He won over several people—including six Muslims, who went on to convert to Christianity—prompting angry Muslims in the crowd to cry “Allahu Akbar,” which, in turn, prompted the pastor and his young son to rush away from the event.  “Two motorcycles carrying two Muslims each and dressed in Islamic attire speedily bypassed us,” his son, a minor, later explained. “When we were 200 meters to reach our house, the two motorcycles stopped at the junction opposite Nalufenya primary school and the road near our house.”  The pastor told his son to wait while he went to confront the four men. “Immediately some commotion began as the men started talking about the open-air debate, and soon one of them slapped my father,” said his son. “I got scared and fled … and arrived at home.”  The boy eventually met up with his mother, and they went searching for Pastor Thomas.  According to the wife, “As we continued doing the search, we found my husband in a pool of blood, beheaded and his tongue removed.”  His tongue was likely cut out as punishment for “speaking against Islam.”

 

[Geee]

Islamic Jihadists Kill Nearly 3,500 Nigerian Christians, Attack 300 Churches in 200 Days

A new report shows that a staggering number of Christians have been brutally killed by Nigeria's Islamic jihadists so far this year.

In the past 200 days, 3,462 Christians were murdered by extremists. That is just 68 less than the total number killed in 2020 alone, according to data.

The report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) shows that, from May to July, 780 additional Christ-followers were abducted from villages throughout Nigeria.

Members of the Islamic jihadist group Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen are named throughout the report. These terror groups are relentless in their efforts to gain control over the country through the kidnapping and killing of innocent victims. 

Hundreds of children from Nigerian schools have also been targeted this year, kidnapped by armed insurgents threatening to harm their captives unless a ransom is paid. 

[Valin]

@Geee

Deeper view from Strategy Page

Nigeria: Obsession Confronts Reality

 

[Geee]

The U.S. Should Not Ignore the Plight of Nigeria’s Christians

 

 

Nigeria’s long plague of jihadist violence and mayhem has reached new heights. Earlier this month, armed bands of ethnic Fulani herdsmen assaulted the mainly Christian areas along the border of the Plateau and Kaduna states of central Nigeria. Units of several hundred Muslim Fulani militiamen, along with their herds, entered villages along with war cries of “Allahu akbar” and fired AK assault rifles randomly through the streets and into homes, reportedly killing scores of civilians and burning hundreds of houses and acres of surrounding cropland.

 

One such attack, according to local journalists, occurred last week around Miango, twelve miles west of Jos, Plateau’s capital. Lasting five hours, it left dozens of Christians dead and more wounded, including Pastor Amadu Musa, a Fulani convert, as well as thousands displaced. Neighborhood-watch volunteers, misleadingly called “vigilantes,” attempted a defense with slingshots and rifles but were no match for the heavily armed Fulani jihadists. The Jos-based Third Army Division showed up only afterward, to cynically report the invasion as a communal clash. Local human-rights lawyer Solomon Dalyop made an often-heard allegation that local Christians make about the military: “The military has confirmed our fears that they have a hand in this particularly as they have gone ahead to arrest the natives who were protecting their houses, while more killings and destruction continued for three days.”

These areas and many others have come under repeated attack by armed, nomadic members of the Fulani Muslim ethnoreligious group, but the strength of force is new. The attacks have proliferated in an environment of impunity under President Muhammadu Buhari, the son of a Fulani Muslim chieftain. His persistent failure to protect these civilians and prosecute their attackers reveals a government that is not simply lacking capacity. Rather, at six years into the president’s tenure, this violence appears to have the state’s tacit approval and serves a Buhari political priority.

[Geee]

Deep in Hiding From Taliban, Afghan Christians Cling to Faith

They take turns staying awake, praying and walking the floor while others sleep, blissfully unaware, at least for a few hours, that they are being hunted.

They have no passports, no visas, and very little of what they need most of all: hope. For these Christians, in a safe house deep in Afghanistan, time is running out. Together, they live in fear of a single knock on their hiding-place door—from the Taliban.

“It happened so fast,” Sarah said. “We had many plans for preaching the Gospel with other brothers and sisters … .” Now, their plan is to just survive. Even that, they know, will be difficult.

To the despair of rescue groups and humanitarian workers, the small population of Christians in Afghanistan has seemed to vanish, almost overnight. Some have fled to the hills, others have retreated into the shadows—turning off their phones and hunkering down in whatever undisclosed locations they can find. Some have just gone missing completely.

[Geee]

Egypt: Christian Building Abruptly Demolished

According to a recent Arabic language report, on September 7, yet another Coptic Christian prayer hall was demolished in Egypt.

Christians in the village of Bastra in Damanhour, who number over 500, were not permitted to have a church, so they decided to build a building, not to be used as a church, but as an event hall for their Christian community, as they had nowhere else to meet for wedding and funeral services.

Apparently this was still too much for Muslim sensibilities.  Soon after the building was constructed, and without a word of warning, the city council sent demolition squads, supported by armed Central Security forces, to tear down the building, which stood atop a vast and empty field, on the pretext that it did not have the proper permits.

According to the report, the “simple Copts” of the village, who had worked hard to erect this building, instinctively rose to its defense, and were brutally savaged for it. Among other reprisals, security forces fired tear gas canisters into their midst, suffocating many. In the end, four Christians, two of whom were female, were seriously injured: one woman suffered a broken jaw and another suffered multiple injuries to her head. An additional 21 Christians were arrested and hauled off.

[Valin]

 

[Geee]

Biden Administration Blocks Rescue of Persecuted Christians from Afghanistan

The Biden administration is preventing the rescue of persecuted Christian minorities from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, where they face certain and likely gruesome death.

This information surfaced on August 26, 2021, during an interview between Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson on Fox News.  Through his charity, the Nazarene Fund, Beck had managed to charter planes to airlift 5,100 Christians out of Afghanistan and into neighboring nations.  Before long, however, U.S. officials intervened and prevented the escape of a batch of 500 Christians, mostly women and children, who were ordered outside of the airport’s protection zone:  “I have pictures of them pleading to get back through the gate,” Beck continued:

And then I have pictures of blood and body parts and nothing but death in that same area [where they were confined].  We believe that our State Department is directly responsible…  I don’t know how many [of these 500 Christians] survived.  The State Department has blocked us every step of the way.  The State Department and the White House have been the biggest problem.  Everyone else, everyone else, has been working together, putting aside differences and trying to get these people to safety.  The State Department and the White House have blocked us every single step of the way.  In fact, an ambassador was called in Macedonia last night and told not to accept any of these people, as we were trying to get them off of the tarmac here, to keep the airport flowing, and getting these Christians out. We haven’t really been able to move anybody for about 12 hours.  Our mission is now changing greatly.  We have to send people into even greater danger to try to smuggle these Christians out, who are marked not just for death, but to be set on fire alive because they’re converted Christians.

[Geee]

Ten Years of Muslim Persecution of Christians

July 2021 was the tenth anniversary of my monthly series, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" (published by the Gatestone Institute).  Back in July 2011, I began to collate and summarize the accounts of persecution that surfaced every month in one report — so there is a record, so that when the time comes, the usual excuse, "we never knew," won't stand.

Now that ten years of such reports have passed — for a total of 120 reports, each averaging about 3,500–4,000 words (or nearly 500,000 words in total) — what has been learned? What trends have been demonstrated?

First, the phenomenon of Muslim persecution of Christians is real: it's unwavering, constant, and systemic, and it conforms to sharia-approved patterns — meaning its root source is Islam.  (For doctrinal and historic proofs of this assertion, see this more elaborate and detailed article.)

One proof is simple enough: when, in July 2011, I first came up with the idea of a monthly report, I was concerned about the project's feasibility: what sort of "report" could be compiled if, say, only one or two instances — or even none — of persecution occurred in any given month?  Sadly, but also rather tellingly, not only has this never once happened over the course of 120 months, but the individual instances of persecution have only grown, so that, in order to keep these reports manageable and under 4,000 words, every month, I leave lesser stories out.

A decade's worth of such reports also gives the lie to the widespread notion that the only or primary Muslim persecution of Christians that occurred within the last decade was at the hands of the Islamic State between 2014 and 2017.  Now, it is true that what "ISIS" put Christians and other religious minorities through was horrific, but before and after ISIS, Christians experienced less "spectacular" forms of persecution at the hands of Muslims who are not "professional" terrorists, including Muslim individuals, mobs, clerics, and of course Muslim authorities at every level of state (police, local governors, judges, etc.).

[Valin]

Nov 23, 2021

A new study says hate crimes against Christians in Europe rose last year by 70%. Overall, the "Observatory on intolerance and discrimination against Christians" reported more than 4,000 hate crimes last year in Europe. According to the Austria-based group more than 900 were against Christians. EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief, Andreas Thonhauser, explains what the situation is like in Rome, especially when we hardly hear about hate crimes against Christians in European countries. He explains why there is not more being done to protect the faithful. Thonhauser discusses what is triggering these hate crimes against Christians in Europe.