Christian Persecution Worse Than Any Time in History

[schwartzie]

'Pure Genocide': Christians Slaughtered in Nigeria and the Great Press Cover-Up

by Raymond Ibrahim

October 18, 2024 at 8:00 am



Muslim militants slaughtered 16,769 Christians [in Nigeria] in just the four years between 2019 and 2023. That comes out to 4,192 Christians killed on average per year—or one Christian murdered for his/her faith every two hours. — Report, Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, August 29, 2024.



The violence has reached the point, the report says, that many traumatized Christian children sleep in trees to try to avoid being butchered during the night, when Fulani are most prone to attack.



n 2014, there were 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria; as of 2023, there are 3.4 million. — "NO ROAD HOME: Christian IDPs displaced by extremist violence in Nigeria," Open Doors, September 1, 2024.



Behind all these misleading euphemisms, the facts remain: the murderers are Muslim and their victims are overwhelmingly Christian.



When Muslim terrorists slaughtered nearly 200 Christians last Christmas, the Associated Press failed to mention the identities of the assailants and their victims. Rather, it presented the atrocity, as so many now do, as a regrettable byproduct of climate change — which is, ostensibly, forcing "herders" (Muslims) to encroach on the lands of "farmers" (Christians).



In another AP report on the 2022 Pentecost Sunday church bombing that left 50 Christian worshippers dead, the words "Muslim" and "Islam" — even "Islamist" — never appear. Rather, readers were told, "It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church."



"Muslim" and "Islam" — even "Islamist" — never appear. Rather, readers were told, "It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church." To maintain this ambiguity, the AP failed to mention that Islamic terrorists have stormed hundreds of churches and slaughtered thousands of Christians "for sport" over the years in Nigeria....



"It's tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn't a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black [like ISIS], chanting 'Allahu Akbar!' and screaming 'Death to Christians.'" — Sister Monica Chikwe, cruxnow.com, August 4, 2019.



"Removing Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria will only embolden the increasingly authoritarian government there." — Sean Nelson, Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom for Alliance Defending Freedom International, catholicnewsagency.com, November 23, 2021.



For the mainstream media and politicians, Christian lives taken by Muslims apparently do not matter.





Muslim militants slaughtered 16,769 Christians in Nigeria in just the four years between 2019 and 2023. For the mainstream media and politicians, Christian lives taken by Muslims apparently do not matter. Pictured: The Church of Christ in Nations building in Mangu, Nigeria, photographed on February 2, 2024, after it was torched by Islamic terrorists. (Photo by Kola Sulaimon/AFP via Getty Images) (Image source: iStock)

The "pure genocide" of Christians in Nigeria, as it has been characterized by several international observers, is reaching unprecedented levels, according to two separate reports.



"Countering the myth of religious indifference in Nigerian terror (10/2019 – 9/2023)," a comprehensive, 136-page report published by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa on August 29, 2024, found that Muslim militants slaughtered 16,769 Christians in just the four years between 2019 and 2023. That comes out to 4,192 Christians killed on average per year — or one Christian murdered for his/her faith every two hours.



More than half of these killings (55%) were committed by radicalized Muslim Fulani herdsmen, who over the last decade have become greater persecutors of Christians than more internationally recognizable terror groups, such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) — although the ISWAP, too, are playing their part in the genocide: Fulani killed 9,153 Christians between 2019 and 2023; all other terrorist groups killed 4,895.



The second report, "NO ROAD HOME: Christian IDPs displaced by extremist violence in Nigeria," published by Open Doors on September 1, 2024, states that the persecution, slaughter, and displacement of Christians in Nigeria is "unrelenting" and "a time bomb." Because "militant Fulani groups have deliberately targeted Christians or Christian communities, their livelihood, faith leaders and places of worship," Christians are becoming "an endangered species" in Nigeria, where they once amounted for more than half of the West African nation's population (the other half being Muslim).



The violence has reached the point, the report says, that many traumatized Christian children sleep in trees to try to avoid being butchered during the night, when Fulani are most prone to attack. "My children," a parent is quoted, "each time they hear anything, they panic or go into hiding because it triggers the trauma. The terror of the attacks has not stopped, rather it has increased."



In just the last decade, the amount of people to be displaced by the havoc and chaos caused by the Islamic groups has tripled: in 2014, there were 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria; as of 2023, there are 3.4 million.



One of these displaced persons, a Christian Pastor, Benjamin Barnabas, who has been living in a tiny tent for five years, shared his story. He and his family were working on their farm when Fulani militants "came with guns, machetes and sticks," thrashing the pastor and his family:



"We lost everything that I had. Everything in my home and village was burnt, I was left with nothing... We are displaced because of violence. The news doesn't care about it, we are remaining in darkness—being forgotten, being disregarded."



That the media is indifferent, or worse, concerning the plight of Christians — and that it obfuscates the identity of their tormentors — was emphasized by the Observatory:



"For over a decade atrocities against civilians in Nigeria have been downplayed or minimized. This has proved a major obstacle for those seeking to understand the violence. Misleading euphemisms, such as 'armed herdsmen' and 'cattle grazers' are used to describe continual waves of invasion, torture and killing in rural communities. Descriptions of attacks as 'ethnic clashes', 'farmers-herders clashes' or retaliatory attacks are seriously misleading. The use of the phrase 'bandits' to refer to militias carrying out mass kidnaps, and enforcement of serfdom on communities, is another case in point. And a policy of concealing the religious [Christian] identity of victims also serves to distort the true picture."



Behind all these misleading euphemisms, the facts remain: the murderers are Muslim and their victims are overwhelmingly Christian. Although the Observatory report focuses mostly on Nigerian media's distortion of events, Western mainstream media has also been devoutly refusing to use the most obvious, bottom-level identifiers of both the attackers (Muslims) and the attacked (Christians).



When Muslim terrorists slaughtered nearly 200 Christians last Christmas, the Associated Press failed to mention the identities of the assailants and their victims. Rather, it presented the atrocity, as so many now do, as a regrettable byproduct of climate change—which is, ostensibly, forcing "herders" (Muslims) to encroach on the lands of "farmers" (Christians).



In another AP report, on the 2022 Pentecost Sunday church bombing that left 50 Christian worshippers dead, the words "Muslim" and "Islam" — even "Islamist" — never appear. Rather, readers were told, "It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church." To maintain this ambiguity, the AP failed to mention that Islamic terrorists have stormed hundreds of churches and slaughtered thousands of Christians "for sport" over the years in Nigeria—a fact that just might have offered a hint as to "who was behind the attack."



Or consider the words of President Barack Obama's then-Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, after Muslim terrorists slaughtered 50 Christian church worshippers on Easter Sunday, 2012: "I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence [in Nigeria]."



Instead, "inequality" and "poverty"— to quote former US President William J. Clinton — are "what's fueling all this stuff" ("this stuff" being the Muslim genocide of Christians).



Back on the ground in Nigeria, most Christians see these ongoing attacks for what they are. As the nun, Sister Monica Chikwe, once observed:



"It's tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn't a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black [like ISIS], chanting 'Allahu Akbar!' and screaming 'Death to Christians.'"



The recent reports also include quotes and anecdotes that underscore the true source of the hostility. According to one survivor:



"When the Fulani gunmen came to attack, they could be heard shouting 'Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest), we will destroy all Christians.'.... The Fulani started to shoot, burning houses. They burnt our animals and maize plants."



As the Christian Association of Nigeria once rhetorically asked:



"How can it be a [secular or economic] clash when one group [Muslims] is persistently attacking, killing, maiming, destroying, and the other group [Christians] is persistently being killed, maimed and their places of worship destroyed?"



In 2018, when the attacks were nowhere near as bad as they are now, the National Christian Elders Forum of Nigeria succinctly summarized the ultimate source behind the genocide of Christians in Nigeria:



"JIHAD has been launched in Nigeria by the Islamists of northern Nigeria led by the Fulani ethnic group. This Jihad is based on the Doctrine of Hate taught in Mosques and Islamic Madrasas in northern Nigeria as well as the supremacist ideology of the Fulani. Using both conventional (violent) Jihad, and stealth (civilization) Jihad, the Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology.... We want a Nigeria, where citizens are treated equally before the law at all levels...."



Both reports agree that every day, often nominal Muslims — whom the terrorists see as little better than apostates — are also suffering and being displaced by the chaos, Christians "have been singled out for violence, face harsh living conditions and experience faith-based challenges throughout their displacement journey." The Observatory points out that "Since 2015, there have been consistent reports of disparate treatment meted out to Christian and Muslim captives by members of Terror Groups":



Forced Labor: Christian captives, including men, women, and children, are routinely subjected to forced labor and grueling physical tasks, often under inhumane conditions. By contrast, their Muslim counterparts are typically spared from such treatment.

Sexual Violence: Christian women and girls are frequently subjected to rape, sexual abuse, and other forms of sexual violence inflicted by their captors. Muslim women, on the other hand, are generally not subjected to such atrocities.

Ransom Demands and Release: Muslim captives who cannot afford to pay ransoms are sometimes released without payment -- a form of preferential treatment. Christian captives, however are rarely granted such leniency.

Execution Risks: According to media reports and research conducted over the past 10 years, Christian captives are more likely to be executed than Muslim captives held by the same terror groups. There are numerous instances where Christian captives were brutally murdered by their abductors, even after ransoms were paid.

The "radicalization" in Nigeria is such that even local officials discriminate against and persecute Christians: "some efforts to pressure, coerce or force conversion to Islam by the local government and members of public were described." For example, "to gain access to critical support" in Borno State camps, "some have felt compelled to convert to Islam or deliberately hide their faith... [and] in some places of education they could not gain access with Christian names."



Unfortunately, the persecution continues. Below are a few headlines to appear in August and September of 2024, right around the publication times of these two reports and therefore not included in them:



Oct. 3: Herdsmen Kill Christians in Northern and Central Nigeria

Oct. 1: Herdsmen Kill Christians in Plateau State, Central Nigeria

Sept. 23: Fulani Herdsmen Kill Christians at Church Services in Nigeria: Pastor and 30 others kidnapped.

Sept. 2: Fulani Herdsmen Kill Six Christians in Central Nigeria

Aug. 20: Fate of Pastor, Daughter Kidnapped in Nigeria Unknown: Captors receive ransom payment but demand another.

Aug. 14: Muslims Burn Down Church Building in Central Nigeria: RCCG worship auditorium destroyed for second time.

Aug. 13: Nigeria Continues to Tolerate Terrorism, USCIRF States

Aug. 12: Bandits Kill Church Cleric, One Other, Abduct Eight Persons In Kaduna State Community

Aug. 9: Herdsmen, Criminal Gang Kill at least 50 Christians in Nigeria

Aug. 7: Herdsmen Injure Four Christians in Plateau State, Nigeria: One farmer who was shot suffers a shattered hand.

Aug. 1: Prominent Christian Woman Kidnapped from Church in Nigeria: Policeman, driver are killed in attack.

In 2020, President Donald J. Trump placed Nigeria on the State Department's List of Countries of Particular Concern — meaning nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Trump, moreover and with characteristic bluntness, went on to ask the then Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, "Why are you killing Christians?"



During the term of President Joseph R. Biden, on the other hand, the State Department inexplicably removed Nigeria — where one Christian is butchered every two hours — from the list. Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently made this concession three days before meeting with Muhammadu Buhari.



At the time, many observers responded by slamming the Biden administration. As Sean Nelson, Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom for Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF), noted:



"Outcry over the State Department's removal of Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria's religious freedom violations is entirely warranted. No explanations have been given that could justify this decision. If anything, the situation in Nigeria has grown worse over the last year. Thousands of Christians, as well as Muslims who oppose the goals of terrorist and militia groups, are targeted, killed, and kidnapped, and the government is simply unwilling to stop these atrocities.... Removing Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria will only embolden the increasingly authoritarian government there."



That is the current state of affairs: for many years now, a jihad of genocidal proportions has been declared on the Christian population of Nigeria — even as American media and government bizarrely present Nigeria's problems in purely economic terms.



For the mainstream media and politicians, Christian lives taken by Muslims apparently do not matter.

Hyperlinks to the above story are at the link

[schwartzie]

'Tortured and Raped Multiple Times': The Persecution of Christians, September 2024

by Raymond Ibrahim

October 27, 2024 at 5:00 am



"Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers...." — morningstarnews.org, September 24, 2024, Pakistan.



Headlines of the "pure genocide" of Christians from the month of September follow.... — Nigeria.



"Muslims who abducted a 17-year-old Christian girl and gang-raped her for 10 days are threatening her family to pressure them to withdraw charges, even as police have failed to arrest most of the suspects." — morningstarnews.com, September 30, 2024, Pakistan.



Muslims murdered, hacked to pieces, and dumped the remains of a Christian man into a Cairo canal.... Mina Musa, 21, had left his family home in Minya for a new job in Cairo.... He was responding to an advertisement on social media to assist an elderly person in Cairo. The notice included the offer of a generous salary, along with broader networking opportunities in the field of physical therapy..... The authorities managed to track the young man down to a Cairo apartment. On breaking in, they found parts of Mina's body.... Last reported, divers were searching in the canal for Mina's head. — copticsolidarity.org, October 5, 2024, Egypt.



"I WILL BOMB THE POPE. I'M A TERRORIST...JUST BE CAREFUL...WAIT FOR NEWS YEEE." — posted on social media, morningstarnews.com, September 10, 2024, Indonesia.



"Khosravi said the main goal of detention isn't always punishment or even to gather information, but to break a prisoner at such a fundamental level that they are shattered permanently.... Another Christian, forced to listen to the cries of a woman screaming in a near-by cell, was convinced by guards that it was his wife being raped repeatedly, he said." — morningstarnews.org, October 1, 2024, Iran.



On September 18, Christian mother of four was sentenced to death on a "blasphemy" conviction.... The reason she was handed the death sentence has less to do with actual evidence and everything to do with extremist pressure groups, Hameed [her lawyer] said... "If you analyze all cases of 295-C, you will see that all the convictions of the trial court are overturned by the superior courts." — morningstarnews.org, September 19, 2024, Pakistan.



"Nearly 3,000 persons have been accused of blasphemy in Pakistan since 1987..." — morningstarnews.org, September 19, 2024, Pakistan.



"These are Christians who are out to convert our people to a wrong religion." — Sheikh Kalimu, Islamic leader, morningstarnews.com, September 23, 2024, Uganda.



"After 1994 [when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power], the authorities tried to make Yemen an Islamic state. They wiped out our identity as Christians and refused to write 'Christian' on documents. Christians had to write either 'Muslim' or leave a blank space.... When I got full marks in Islamic education, they would reduce my grades, because they told me 'a Christian couldn't be equal to a Muslim.'... ll the nuns were later killed.... In 2018, the authorities refused to renew our passports unless we wrote the word 'Islam' in the religion section of the application form, as we were told: 'There are no Christians in Yemen.'" — Badr, Yemeni Catholic woman living in Aden, catholicnewsagency.com, September 25, 2024, Yemen.





On September 12, a Muslim man and two accomplices kidnapped a 16-year-old Christian girl in Jaranwala, Pakistan, then forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Pictured: A Christian district of Jaranwala, on December 25, 2023. (Photo by Amna Yaseen/AFP via Getty Images)

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



Pakistan: Forced Conversion and Rape of Christians



On September 12, a Muslim man and two accomplices kidnapped a 16-year-old Christian girl, then forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Her parents were away at the time, but when they returned, neighbors said they had seen the gun-wielding suspects bundling their daughter, Diya Iftikhar, into a white Suzuki van and fleeing the scene. "We were terrified," said the mother, Shaida, "because Ghazaal and his accomplices were involved in the Aug. 16, 2023 attacks on churches and homes in Jaranwala. They are notorious for their criminal activities, including sexual harassment of Christian girls." Four days later a video was sent to the parents of the underage girl saying she had converted to Islam and married of her own free will:



"We knew Diya was coerced to record this false statement, because she detested Ghazaal. She had often complained to us that Ghazaal and his friends used to harass her when she went to her tuition center."



Although her parents had immediately gone to the police, they refused to respond. After repeatedly visiting and "pestering" the police station, authorities briefly detained the kidnapper:



"But this was just to show us that the police were making an effort to find Diya. They neither investigated him nor put pressure on him to help recover our daughter from his son's illegal custody."



Joseph, the girl's father, said the investigating officer of the case was being not being cooperative:



"Despite pleading with the IO for Diya's recovery, he is not taking any action against Ghazaal and his accomplices. My wife and I work in local textile factories and do not have the money to pursue the case in court. We also made a video appeal for support from Christian organizations but so far we haven't received any legal assistance."



He said the suspects were pressuring them to drop the case,



"but we will not stop until Diya is returned to us. I'm also fearful for the security of my four younger daughters. If the abductors are not arrested and punished, it will put them and the other Christian girls of my village at serious risk of abduction. I beg the police authorities to protect us from these predators."



Discussing how common such cases are, the report adds,



"Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic "marriages" and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers... Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children's ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their "legal wives." Recorded cases of abduction and forced conversion numbered 136 in 2023, the highest annual total ever... Unofficial sources suggest that forced religious conversions linked to forced marriages affect as many as 1,000 girls belonging to religious minorities annually."



Separately, "Muslims who abducted a 17-year-old Christian girl and gang-raped her for 10 days are," according to a Sept. 30 report, "threatening her family to pressure them to withdraw charges, even as police have failed to arrest most of the suspects." The girl's impoverished family repeatedly tried to retrieve the girl, to no avail. "I'm a poor man and did not have the resources to take a stand against the influential Muslims on my own," said her father, Taj Masih.



"When the accused were summoned by the village council, they admitted that they had taken her and assured them that she would be returned to us. However, when they kept delaying her return on various pretenses, I filed a complaint with the police... Police on Sept. 5 found the girl, who told them that she had been gang-raped by Muhammad Yasir and Muhammad Saif... A medical examination [and DNA testing] proved she was physically tortured and raped multiple times by the suspects."



The father said that police arrested Saif (Arabic for "sword") even though all the other suspects, including a Muslim woman who helped in the abduction, are still free:



"I go to the police station every day hoping for justice but return home empty-handed... [Now] they are threatening me to drop the case or face the consequences, but I won't back down."



His poverty and Christian faith have been double obstacles in achieving justice, he said:



"There are about 25-30 Christian families in our locality, and a majority of us are laborers. We are often discriminated against due to our religion, but I was not expecting the police to treat this case with such an indifferent attitude. My daughter's honor has been violated, and she's been scarred for life, but it seems there's no justice for poor Christians like us."



In another case, on Sept. 11, a high court ordered the recovery of two Christian sisters, aged 13 and 18. They were forcibly converted to Islam and married to their abductors nearly two months earlier in July. According to attorney Sumera Shafique,



"The family was sleeping in their two-room quarters on July 23 when Zain and Ali accompanied by some unidentified accomplices entered their home, locked the door of the parents' room from the outside and abducted the girls."



The parents immediately alerted the police, only to be completely ignored. According to the girls' mother, Sumera Bibi,



"We kept pleading with police for recovering our daughters, but they did not act. Whenever we received information from someone about my daughters' whereabouts, my husband and eldest son would immediately go to those cities to look for them. We had to take loans to meet the travel expenses, and we are now under a huge debt."



A few days after the initial kidnapping, forged Islamic conversion certificates were sent to the parents, falsifying the two girls' ages. Attorney Shafique continues,



"The perpetrators lived in the same neighborhood and ostensibly targeted the girls because of their poverty and vulnerability due to their Christian faith. The police's attitude is also regrettable, because they made no effort to find the girls. The court has now directed the Kasur District Police Officer to recover the girls, so we are hoping that the local police will now take some action against the accused."



Last reported, the rapists' Muslim relatives were pressuring the Christian family to "withdraw the case and forget about the sisters." According to the girls' mother, they



"even attacked my husband with an axe when he confronted them.... How can we let them destroy the lives of our daughters? Neha is only 13, while her abductor-husband is more than double her age... We haven't seen our daughters since the time they were taken from our home," she said. "We are extremely worried about them and want them back at all costs."



Finally, Muslim employers of a teenage Christian boy forcibly converted him to Islam and are refusing to release him. Samsoon Javed, 17, had taken the new job at a gas company to help his family financially. Before long, "He began avoiding us and his siblings and didn't speak much when he was at home," said Samina Javed, his mother:



"We were worried about him, but despite our repeated prodding he wouldn't tell us anything.... We came to know about Samsoon's conversion in September, when he didn't come home from work. When my husband and I went to Umar's shop to inquire about Samsoon, he told us that our son had become a Muslim and didn't want to live with us anymore. We were shocked to hear this and pleaded with Umar to let us meet with Samsoon, but he refused and told us to leave his property."



After a few days, they managed to see the supposed willing convert:



"Samsoon kept silent and avoided eye contact when we asked him about his conversion. It was quite clear that he was scared and under pressure. He told us to leave, saying Umar would be angry if he saw us there."



They later learned from contacts that the Muslim employers had been taking their son to an Islamic spiritual guide (Pir), who pressured the teen to change his Christian faith:



"I'm certain that Samsoon is being held by the two brothers against his will. I have seen fear in his eyes... t's as if he's being blackmailed or threatened by them. I know that he'll expose the truth once he's out of their custody.... We are in a very difficult situation – no local Muslim is likely to help us because of Samsoon's alleged conversion. Even if someone does support us, there's a chance that my son will be disappeared or harmed."



The Muslim Slaughter of Christians



Nigeria: Headlines of the "pure genocide" of Christians from the month of September follow:



Sept. 2: Fulani Herdsmen Kill Six Christians in Central Nigeria.

Sept. 3: At least 10 Christians Killed in Simultaneous Attacks.

Sept. 23: Fulani Herdsmen Kill Christians at Church Services in Nigeria: Pastor and 30 others kidnapped.

Sept. 23: The Hatred at Home: How a Nigerian Christian Escaped his [Muslim] Family's Attempt to Kill Him.

Sept. 30: Fulanis in Nigeria Kill More Christians than Boko Haram, ISWAP, Report Says.

Burkina Faso: On Sunday, Sept. 1, Muslims terrorists murdered 26 Christians who moments earlier were worshipping inside their church. The terrorists first surrounded the building and ordered the women and children out. Next they tied up and ritually executed the men. Before leaving, the Muslims plundered and then torched the church and Christian homes. The report adds that,



"Although this attack in Banwa province was exceptionally brutal, it was not the first targeting [of] the Christian community during a religious ceremony. On February 25, a similar attack in Essakana, in the north of the country, left fifteen dead [Christians] and two injured during a Sunday mass."



Egypt: Muslims murdered, hacked to pieces, and dumped the remains of a Christian man into a Cairo canal. Days earlier, on Sept. 29, Mina Musa, 21, had left his family home in Minya for a new job in Cairo. Mina took this distant job to help -- not exacerbate -- his impoverished family's condition. He was responding to an advertisement on social media to assist an elderly person in Cairo. The notice included the offer of a generous salary, along with broader networking opportunities in the field of physical therapy. His family lost contact with him, only to receive a call from people—the ones behind the fake job advertisement, who ended up choosing him due to his overtly Christian name (Mina)—saying they had kidnapped and were holding Mina for 150,000 (roughly $3,000) Egyptian pounds in ransom, a sizable sum for poorer Egyptians. Mina had taken this distant job precisely to help -- not exacerbate -- his impoverished family's condition. The authorities managed to track the young man down to a Cairo apartment. On breaking in, they found parts of Mina's body—his torso and one arm—with no head, legs, or other arm, which had already been hacked off and thrown into the nearby Ismaila Canal. Three men were arrested; they confessed to their crime. Last reported, divers were searching in the canal for Mina's head.



Muslim Attacks on Churches and Christian Symbols



England: On Sunday, Sept. 1, a Muslim woman entered a church, screamed "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is the greatest"] and announced that she was "here to kill the God of the Jews." According to the report,



"Pastor Regan King had been preparing for worship at the evangelical Angel Church in Islington, North London, with his Jewish wife Rachel and young children. But the crazed woman entered at about 10am, allegedly shouting Islamic calls to prayer in Arabic before directly addressing and reaching out to the youngsters. Mr King then moved his family to safety before demanding that the woman leave the building, but she was instead said to have became [sic] more aggressive. Metropolitan Police officers were then called before the woman began shouting anti-Semitic abuse and screamed: 'I am here to kill the God of the Jews'. The Muslim woman repeatedly shouts 'Allahu Akbar' through the sound system at The Angel Church in Islington, North London, on Sunday before the Metropolitan Police arrived. The woman is said to have became [sic] more aggressive after she was asked to leave the building. As she was arrested on suspicion of a religiously-aggravated public order offence, the woman allegedly tried to appeal to one of the officers who she believed was a Muslim. She was said to have referred to him as 'brother', spoke in Arabic and repeatedly said to him: 'Remember Allah.' However, the officer told her that he did not speak Arabic and that she should speak in English."



Discussing this encounter, Pastor King, said,



"My family and I are deeply concerned and shaken by this incident, especially my wife who is Jewish. She is traumatised and now fears going outside. Since October 7 especially, as a family and church, we have experienced multiple incidents of antisemitism and anti-Christianity. Yet we are undeterred and will continue to operate as usual albeit with plans for increasing our security."



Switzerland: On Sept. 7, Sanija Ameti, the municipal councilor of Zurich, who is of Bosnian Muslim origin, published photos of herself on Instagram using a poster of Mary and Baby Jesus for target practice. The heads of Mary and Jesus appear riddled with bullet holes. After her post caused an outcry among Christians in Europe and America, she quickly deleted the image and tried to apologize. But even her own political partly, the Swiss Green Liberal Party, have distanced themselves from her, with their president saying that the act was a "deliberate provocation." The Swiss Conference of Catholic Bishops also condemned the act: "Even if one disregards the religious representation of the Mother of God, the use of this image testifies to violence and disrespect towards the human person."



Germany: A Muslim migrant from Syria, with a history of criminal behavior stretching back to his arrival in 2017, assaulted a 79-year-old German man in a religiously inspired crime. According to the Sept. 16 report,



"At around 12 noon, a 27-year-old refugee from Syria approached a German pensioner and ripped the chain with the Christ cross from his neck.... He then allegedly punched the 79-year-old victim in the face. The senior citizen suffered a bleeding wound.... According to the Gera public prosecutor's office, the motive for the crime is clearly 'religious.'"



Kosovo: A historic church was desecrated and shot up in the 95% Muslim nation. In a statement, the Serbian Orthodox Church expressed its



"deep concern and regret over the latest desecration of a historic church site in Međugore.... The destruction of icons and visible bullet damage at this sacred site ... is a deeply troubling act that further intensifies the pain and uncertainty felt by our people in Kosovo and Metohija, especially in recent times.... The desecration of this place sends an overt message of hostility, reinforcing the feeling that our people, who have lived in Kosovo and Metohija for centuries, are no longer welcome. We wish to emphasize that this incident, along with other pressures and intimidation from extremists, as well as from the Kosovo police, threatens the safety and dignity of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija. Twenty-five years after the war, it is unacceptable that acts of violence and desecration continue to go unpunished, indicating the inability of local authorities to fully ensure the security and protection of our Church and its faithful. Such actions have a damaging impact ... as they deepen ethnic and religious divisions..."



Indonesia: Between September 2 and 4, authorities arrested seven Muslims for plotting to assassinate Pope Francis. During raids on the suspects' homes, extremist and ISIS literature was found, as well as drones and weapons, drones. The seven Muslims reportedly did not know each other and were working independently. Some of the would-be assassins were especially angered because the pope had visited Istiqlal mosque, southeast Asia's largest Muslim worship center, and that its Islamic call to prayer was interrupted during a live televised broadcast of the pope's visit to Jakarta. There were also threats to set fire to all the locations visited by Francis. One of the suspects "conveyed provocation on social media to burn down places of worship (churches) during the pope's visit to Jakarta." Another posted on social media: "I WILL BOMB THE POPE. I'M A TERRORIST...JUST BE CAREFUL...WAIT FOR NEWS YEEE." Another simply wrote that he would "shoot" the pope.



Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom:

Jihad on Apostates, Blasphemers, and Evangelists



Iran: On Sept. 20, Mojdeh Falahi, a 36-year-old Christian woman—a convert from Islam—who has been held without charges since Sept. 9, "wept uncontrollably during the five minutes her mother was allowed to visit her." The family said they were concerned about mistreatment by authorities and the conditions surrounding her confinement, said Sam Khosravi, the apostate woman's brother-in-law:



"Mojdeh's mother goes to the court every day to pursue the case and asks the judge to release her. She went to the court today [Sept. 20], and after a lot of begging, the judge allowed her to see Mojdeh.... Psychologically, she is in a very bad condition and only cries... We worry and wonder why they have kept her for such a long time."



The family believes she is being "intensely interrogated" to reveal other clandestine converts to Christianity. After saying that "Relatives most fear that Iranian authorities are brutalizing Falahi in a way that could leave her psychologically scarred for life," the report cites the experiences of her brother-in-law, Khosravi, and other relatives who were also arrested in 2019:



"Khosravi said the main goal of detention isn't always punishment or even to gather information, but to break a prisoner at such a fundamental level that they are shattered permanently. The intent is to force them to renounce their faith or to spread said a fellow Christian had been so badly treated that she refused to enter church sites even years after her release. *** Another Christian, forced to listen to the cries of a woman screaming in a near-by cell, was convinced by guards that it was his wife being raped repeatedly, he said."



"It's all about humiliation," Khosravi said. "There will be things in their mind and heart they will never get over."



Pakistan: On Sept. 18, a Christian mother of four was sentenced to death on a "blasphemy" conviction. Shagufta Kiran, 40, was arrested in 2021 for allegedly sharing content deemed offensive to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, in her WhatsApp in 2020. Three years after being tried, she was convicted under Section 295-C of Pakistan's penal code, which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone who insults Muhammad. According to her attorney Rana Abdul Hameed,



"The complaint against Kiran was registered by a Muslim named Shiraz Ahmed Farooqi, who alleged that she had shared content disrespectful of Islam's prophet. However, Kiran has maintained that she has not authored the content and had forwarded it in the WhatsApp group without reading it."



The reason she was handed the death sentence has less to do with actual evidence and everything to do with extremist pressure groups, Hameed said:



"If you examine all cases of 295-C, the trial courts tend to convict the accused even if the cases against them are very weak. This is due to the pressure of the religious groups and fears of mob violence. If you analyze all cases of 295-C, you will see that all the convictions of the trial court are overturned by the superior courts."



The report adds that,



"Nearly 3,000 persons have been accused of blasphemy in Pakistan since 1987... [H]undreds of accused were incarcerated last year in Pakistan, with 552 detained in prisons in Punjab Province alone. At least 350 persons remained behind bars as of June ... [and]103 new persons had been accused of blasphemy this year between January and June.... t least seven persons accused of blasphemy have been killed by individuals or mobs across Pakistan since January. A total of 94 people accused of blasphemy were killed in mob attacks between 1994 and 2023."



Uganda: On Friday, Sept. 20, Muslims beat a Christian evangelist, leaving him with several injuries, including to the head, that required hospitalization. Robertson Eriot, 41, and fellow evangelist Kefa Mukisa, 25, were visiting homes and sharing the Gospel. When they entered the home of an Islamic leader, and began talking to his attendants, "Sheikh Kalimu who was inside the house heard our conversation—he was angered and came out furiously," said Mukisa: "He ordered his boys and other Muslims who had come for Islamic fellowship to come out of the room and to discipline us." After The sheikh cried out in a loud voice, "These are Christians who are out to convert our people to a wrong religion." Immediately,



"a number of people came out of the house shouting the jihadist slogan, 'Allah Akbar [Allah is the greatest].' Since the gate was closed, we decided to jump over the fence.... Unfortunately, Eriot was caught up before he was able to escape over the fence."



Later, after Mukisa had rounded other Christians for help,



"We entered the homestead, and we found Eriot half-dead in a pool of blood. We were able to rush him to the nearby clinic for treatment. Eriot suffered deep head injuries, a fractured left hand and bruises near the thigh of his right leg."



Yemen: On Sept. 23, an interview was published surrounding the plight of the Christians in Yemen. Badr, a Yemeni Catholic woman born in the 1980s and living in Aden, said how in middle school she "experienced harsh challenges related to my faith and to the loss of our rights." Things especially worsened after the Muslim Brotherhood came into power in the 1990s, she added:



"We were forced to wear the hijab. The government officially prohibited us from celebrating midnight Mass on Christmas and New Year's Eve. Christians accepted the situation and did not raise their voices. Some emigrated, others changed their religion, fearing to lose their homes and jobs. Many practiced their faith behind closed doors at a time when the Church did not support young people or work on strengthening families... After 1994, the authorities tried to make Yemen an Islamic state. They wiped out our identity as Christians and refused to write 'Christian' on documents. Christians had to write either 'Muslim' or leave a blank space. They accused us of being 'remnants of British colonialism' and said that 'the United States funds us.' Teachers pressured me to change my religion and forced me to read the Quran daily. When I got full marks in Islamic education, they would reduce my grades, because they told me 'a Christian couldn't be equal to a Muslim.'... After being banned from praying [due to the closure of all churches in 2015], we started praying secretly in the convent of the nuns. Unfortunately, all the nuns were later killed. The priest was kidnapped. The churches were stolen, and some were vandalized.... In 2018, the authorities refused to renew our passports unless we wrote the word 'Islam' in the religion section of the application form, as we were told: 'There are no Christians in Yemen.'"

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[schwartzie]

'All Churches in Egypt Should be Destroyed': The Persecution of Christians, October 2024

by Raymond Ibrahim

November 24, 2024 at 5:00 am

"In sub-Saharan Africa, there are 16.2 million Christians who are displaced by violence and conflict...." — opendoorsuk.org, Nov. 1, 2024



A Muslim security guard at a private school raped a 6-year-old Christian girl. "The girl... identified the school's security guard, Husnain, as the attacker. She said that he had covered her mouth to silence her during the assault." When her parents... reported the matter to the principal, he... threatened them with "problems if they took any action." — persecution.org, Nov. 15, 2024, Pakistan.



On Oct. 4, a Muslim man was arrested for plotting to bomb a church in Bergamo, ansa.it, Oct. 4, 2024, Italy.



Egypt's Mansoura University had some years earlier quietly republished a book — with Al Azhar's complete approval — dedicated to proving that, according to Islamic law and the fatwas of learned sheikhs, all churches in Egypt should be destroyed. — copticsoidarity.org, Oct. 5, 2024, Egypt.



Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion.... The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence." — copticsolidarity.org, Oct. 24, 2024, Somalia.



The driving out of the Armenian population and destruction of ancient and medieval Christian sites has caused human rights advocates to label Azerbaijan's actions as 'ethnic cleansing.' Despite this and its reputation as a significant environmental polluter, Azerbaijan was given the honor of hosting COP29 ." — persecution.org, Nov.11, 2024, Azerbaijan.



Another report notes how Azerbaijani textbooks indoctrinate children to hate Armenians.... — armenianweekly.com, Oct. 30, 2024, Azerbaijan.



Muslim groups are forcing more and more Christians to pay jizya, compulsory tribute -- essentially "protection" money -- that Christian and Jewish subjects of an Islamic state are required to render to their Islamic overlords per Koran 9:29. — acninternational.org, Oct 29, 2024, Mali.



If the authorities do not act, the population will pay taxes directly into the coffers of the terrorists.... — acninternational.org, Oct 29, 2024, Mali.



Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko [of Senegal] is asking all schools to allow young girls to wear the Muslim veil, or hijab. This includes the nation's Catholic schools, which actually have a ban on the hijab (due to security and other considerations). Because of this ban, the prime minister also referred to the nation's Catholic schools as "foreign." — fsspx.news, Oct. 3, 2024, Senegal.



On Oct. 17, police arrested a Christian man after he said on social media that the Koran was of not of divine but human origin—and that it promoted "racism" (or discrimination.) When police arrived at Rudi Simamora's home, hundreds of angry Muslims had already surrounded it. — morningstarnews.org, Oct 22, 2024, Indonesia.





On October 4, an Egyptian Muslim man was arrested for plotting to bomb the Church of Sant'Alessandro in Bergamo, Italy (pictured). According to one report, "The man... posted photos of himself armed and ready for action against the 'infidels.' He said he belonged to the terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province." (Photo by MarkusMark/Wikimedia Commons)

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



The Muslim Slaughter of Christians



Burkina Faso: On Sunday, October 6, Muslim terrorists launched a surprise attack on the town of Manni, which is home to a large Christian community. More than 200 people were massacred during the jihad. According to one report,



"[T]he terrorists first cut mobile phone networks before attacking the local market, where many people had gathered after Mass. They then opened fire indiscriminately, looted shops and set fire to several buildings, burning some victims alive... [On] the next day, the perpetrators returned to attack medical staff and kill the many wounded in the city's hospital. A new incursion took place on Tuesday, 8 October, when the terrorists again invaded the town of Manni, massacring all the men they could find."



"The situation is beyond horrific," a local said. "But even if the terrorists burned everything, they didn't burn our faith!"



On Oct. 9, Bishop Pierre Claver Malgo, of the Diocese of Fada N'Gourma, described the attack as "barbaric," and expressed his "sincere compassion for all the bereaved families" insisting that "any threat to the dignity of man and to his life must touch the very heart of the Church." After discussing this terror attack, another report notes:



"In sub-Saharan Africa, there are 16.2 million Christians who are displaced by violence and conflict, and these recent attacks are the latest example of a trend of escalating violence in the region."



Nigeria: Headlines of the "pure genocide" of Christians from the month of October follow:



Oct. 3: "Herdsmen Kill Christians in Northern and Central Nigeria"

Oct. 7: "Fulani Herdsmen Kill Seven Christians in Central Nigeria"

Oct. 11: "Four Christians Killed in Benue State, Central Nigeria"

Oct. 25: "Pastor, Family Killed in One of Two Islamist Attacks"

Uganda: On Oct. 30, a group of Muslims murdered a Christian evangelist after he refused to convert to Islam. The incident occurred following a three day evangelistic event, where 18 Muslims converted to Christianity. As Pastor Emmanuel Dikusooka, a 29-year-old married father of three children, and fellow church member, Jack Mbulante, were returning to their residences, they were stopped and surrounded by six men dressed in traditional Islamic dress and armed with long Somali swords (pangas), sticks, and iron bars. The assailants began by seizing the Christians' travel bags, which contained Bibles and other Christian literature. Then, according to Jack,



"They threw them all into the River Lumbuye, then ordered us to hold the Quran up that they had and told us to recite and swear in the name of Allah. They tried to force us to renounce Jesus Christ and our faith and then embrace the Islamic faith. We openly refused, which angered them, and they hit Dikusooka with an iron bar on the head, and he fell down."



Jack escaped by jumping in the river and swimming for his life. When he reached the other side, he found and returned with some Christians to rescue Emmanuel:



"But unfortunately, when we arrived at the scene of the incident, Dikusooka was dead in a pool of blood. He had deep head injuries, cuts at the neck and back and an injured mouth."



Pakistan: On Oct. 24, Muslim drug lords shot and killed two Christian brothers, Imran, 30, and Arslan, 24. The Christians were murdered because they refused to comply with the Muslims' orders to sell drugs in their barbershop. At one point, after the brothers continued to refuse the offer, Ali Butt, the Muslim ringleader, shouted, "Let's show these chuhras [anti-Christian slur] the consequences of crossing us." Then he several of his henchmen opened fire. Imran was executed by a bullet to the back of the head and died on the spot; his brother died from his wounds en route to the hospital. Others were also injured in the hail of bullets, including "an innocent girl passing through the bazaar," as well as two other Christian men that were in the shop. According to the report, "The family is living in fear, as the murderers remain at large, and the police have not yet apprehended anyone involved."



In a separate incident, a group of Muslim men murdered and dismembered their onetime Christian "friend," Suleiman Masih, 24. All that is known is that the Muslims arrived at Suleiman's home on the night of Sept. 30 and proceeded to "lure" him out, following which they "viciously dismembered him, and left his body parts on a railway track near Khanpur Canal." A human rights activist close to the case said:



"I am deeply traumatized by the horrific images of this brutal crime. The ritualistic killing of Suleman Masih not only exposes the depths of human depravity but also poses a significant safety threat to others in our [Christian] community. The murderer and any accomplices involved demonstrate profoundly deranged minds, yet Pakistan's notorious Qisas and Diyat laws [based on sharia] may provide them with an opportunity to evade justice. Despite the clinical dismemberment of Suleman's body ... the police have failed to officially classify this as a crime. This egregious oversight reflects a deeply flawed justice system that places vulnerable Christians at even greater risk of violence."



Muslim Abduction and Rape of Christian Girls



Pakistan: A Muslim security guard at a private school raped a 6-year-old Christian girl. He targeted that particular child "because of her family's Christian faith," said the report: "When the girl returned home from school that day in late October, her family noticed blood stains on her clothes and bruises on her body." Although the principal had earlier called to alert the parents that their girl had "fallen" and hurt "herself," when questioned, "The girl shared what had happened and identified the school's security guard, Husnain, as the attacker. She said that he had covered her mouth to silence her during the assault." When her parents went to the school and reported the matter to the principal, he grew angry and threatened them with "problems if they took any action." According to a source close to the family,



"This is foul and egregious. School is meant to be a safe place for the next generation to learn. Unfortunately, this case has revealed that Christians are still perceived as weak targets who are unlikely to seek justice."



The report adds that,



"Cases like this are not unheard of in Pakistan, where Muslim men subjugate young Christian girls to dominate religious minorities. Each year in Pakistan, nearly 1,000 girls endure forced conversions to Islam."



Egypt: On Oct. 26, a 21-year-old Christian woman Julia Atef, disappeared during a short walk from her home to her church. When her family tried to reach her they discovered her phone had been turned off. They went and reported the disappearance at the local police station. As of latest reporting, she has still to be found. Julia is just the latest of countless Christian girls and young women to "disappear" off the streets of Egypt, as documented in a 2020, Coptic Solidary report, "Jihad of the Womb: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt":



"The capture and disappearance of Coptic women and minor girls is a bane of the Coptic community in Egypt, yet little has been done to address this scourge by the Egyptian or foreign governments, NGOs, or international bodies. According to a priest in the Minya Governorate, at least 15 girls go missing every year in his area alone. His own daughter was nearly kidnapped had he not been able to intervene in time.... The rampant trafficking of Coptic women and girls is a direct violation of their most basic rights to safety, freedom of movement, and freedom of conscience and belief. The crimes committed against these women must be urgently addressed by the Egyptian government, ending impunity for kidnappers, their accomplices, and police who refuse to perform their duties. Women who disappear and are never recovered must live an unimaginable nightmare. The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt. There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or at the very least bribed into silence. If there is any hope for Coptic women in Egypt to have a merely 'primitive' level of equality, these incidents of trafficking must cease, and the perpetrators must be held accountable by the judiciary."



Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches



Italy: On Oct. 4, a Muslim man was arrested for plotting to bomb the Church of Sant'Alessandro in Bergamo. According to one report, the 22-year-old Egyptian man was arrested for



"preaching terror on the Web and planning to blow up a church in the center of the Lombardy city. The man, who has not been named, posted photos of himself armed and ready for action against the 'infidels.' He said he belonged to the terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP)."



In what Arabic reports described as a "sad scene," on Oct. 12, two Christian clergymen officiated over the funeral of their father, who had also been a clergyman. What made the scene particularly sad, was that the funeral service and prayers over the deceased were conducted in the middle of a public street — not in the Christians' church. Egyptian authorities had sealed it off in 2006, when Muslims rioted to prevent its existence. According to the report,



"The priests had no choice but to lie down in the street in front of their house and pray over their father's body, in the presence of more than 40 priests and hundreds of people, amid great sadness as the church had still not opened, even though they had received many promises over the past years that it would reopen, to no avail.... The two priests expressed their sadness over the death of their father, as well as the lack of response to open the church to honor him inside, instead of praying in the open street, in a scene described as not in line with the principles of citizenship and the president's [Sisi's] directives, the most important of which is the presence of a church for Copts in areas where there are no churches."



This is not the first incident of its kind. Six years ago, a 2018 report noted that "Coptic Christians in various parts of Egypt have been left with no choice but to hold funeral services in the streets because of the closure of their churches." It provided several examples. Funerals are not the only Christian rituals pushed out into the streets of Egypt. In 2015, a church congregation bereft of its church was forced to celebrate Easter in an alley.



It was also revealed in October that Egypt's Mansoura University had some years earlier quietly republished a book — with Al Azhar's complete approval — dedicated to proving that, according to Islamic law and the fatwas of learned sheikhs, all churches in Egypt should be destroyed.



Muslim Hate for, and Violence against, Christians



Somalia: On Oct. 5, Muslim relatives of a convert to Christianity attacked him. Mohammad Abdul was holding a worship service in an undisclosed location. When he emerged, he was surprised to see four of his relatives standing outside the door. They proceeded to launch an inquisition:



"Why are you worshipping differently from the Muslim way? What is so unique about your worship? Why do you close yourself in the room when you are to praying?"



Abdul replied,



"My praying is a secret between me and my Lord Isa [Jesus], and more so, why should I pray in public? This is just a way to please men, but in my time of worship I should please only God who is in the heavenly places."



They told him he must worship the Muslim way, which he refused, adding, "Leave me alone." They responded by beating him, slapping him and leaving him on the floor wounded and bloodied. One of his relatives said, "You are inviting terrible trouble to yourself and your family." According to the report, this was the third time relatives attacked him:



"Abdul had survived a May 5 knife attack by his Muslims relatives ... and his in-laws had taken his wife and five children away while he was receiving hospital treatment... Having recovered his family and relocated them to another area after the attack in May that left him with a deep cut on his head and a fractured hand, Abdul in the July 8 assault also suffered injuries that took away his ability to speak, his wife said. The relatives also broke his wife's ankle and beat his children.... Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion.... The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence."



Pakistan: Muslim doctors are being "unprofessional and discriminatory" in their treatment of Christian patients, according to an Oct. 4 report. As one example, on Oct. 1, at the Civil Hospital of Sahiwal, in Punjab, a Muslim doctor treating an elderly Christian man told the sick man's son, Yousaf: "If I had known earlier that you are a Christian, I would not have touched your father." Later, when the son and other family members went looking for assistance and entered the doctors' office, they found all the staff engaged in a game of Parcheesi. Desperate for help, Yousaf asked for someone to come and check his seriously ill father. "We are playing," they told him." We will check on him later." When the matter reached the point that the ailing Christian was denied surgery, another of his sons, Babu, gathered dozens of people and staged a protest outside the hospital, from where he said,



"My father is struggling with death and has to endure immense pain and agony, but the doctors' behavior is rude to the patients. We come to hospitals for our medical care and we believe we can be treated without discrimination, because people of any religion or ethnicity come to hospitals for medicine, examinations or tests. We have witnessed very disappointing behavior of our doctors just because we are Christians. This is absolutely not acceptable... My father's operation is on hold, but we will continue to protest until our voices are heard and we are treated fairly."



While discussing this incident, human rights activist Ashiknaz Khokhar said that the discrimination Christians face is everywhere:



"In schools and universities, Christian students often encounter prejudice and bullying and are marginalized for their faith. And even in hospitals, the situation is no better and, as revealed in some tragic incidents in the recent past, Christians are subject to neglect and biased treatment by medical staff... [Even in governmental institutions, Christians] are often denied equal opportunities, suffering systematic discrimination in recruitment, promotion and fundamental rights. This general prejudice creates an environment of inequality that makes it difficult for Christians to prosper and live with dignity in Pakistan."



Egypt: Christians expressed concern regarding the newly appointed Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Nazir Muhammad Ayyad, formerly Secretary General of Al Azhar's Islamic Research Center (a bastion of fundamentalist currents). He is the author of a highly inflammatory book dedicated to condemning Christians in terms that would make "extremists" of ISIS's variety proud. Several Egyptian reviewers have described the book as a "catastrophe." They say it promotes, hatred towards Christians and violence against them. The book further calls Christians kuffars — enemies of the (Islamic) state.



Azerbaijan: Reports appeared concerning Muslim Azerbaijan's atrocious behavior against its weaker neighbor, Christian Armenia. One gives important background:



"Until 2023, Armenians had lived in Nagorno-Karabakh since at least the first century. Today, the territory is virtually devoid of Christians. Caucus Heritage Watch has reported for months on the Azerbaijani military destroying Armenian churches and cemeteries... The driving out of the Armenian population and destruction of ancient and medieval Christian sites has caused human rights advocates to label Azerbaijan's actions as 'ethnic cleansing.' Despite this and its reputation as a significant environmental polluter, Azerbaijan was given the honor of hosting COP29 ."



Another report notes how Azerbaijani textbooks indoctrinate children to hate Armenians:



"In these textbooks, Armenians are referred to derogatorily, history is rewritten and Azerbaijani children are taught that Armenians are enemies who committed genocide against them and stole their land. This type of propaganda is dangerous, spreading fake narratives and hatred among young students. It may be one of the great issues facing the Armenian nation, hindering it from the possibility of safety and peace as its sovereignty continues to be attacked."



Mali: Muslim groups are forcing more and more Christians to pay jizya, compulsory tribute -- essentially "protection" money -- that Christian and Jewish subjects of an Islamic state are required to render to their Islamic overlords per Koran 9:29. According to the Oct. 29 report,



"n Islamic extremist group that is active in the region has recently imposed a tax of 25 thousand CFA Francs (around 40 dollars) on all Christians over the age of 18 in Douna-Pen, the largest Christian village in the east of Koro, Mopti. This payment has become a condition for the free practice of religion. Extremists have made their demands clear, and recently collected money from the community with complete impunity... Those who were unable, or unwilling, to pay were warned that the alternative would be the forced closure of their places of worship. The worrying situation began in the village of Dougouténé, where residents were first called to pay the so-called jizya, a religious tax. Now, Douna-Pen has begun to face the same issue. Local residents fear that the practice could spread to other villages, further threatening religious freedom and local security.... This recent case of financial extortion is the latest chapter in a history of violence and persecution that has swept the region."



Discussing this trend, a local Christian source said



"We are supposed to be living in a secular state, where such practices should not take place, but unfortunately this is becoming our new reality. If the authorities do not act, the population will pay taxes directly into the coffers of the terrorists, who act under the flag of jihadism in the Republic of Mali.... We know that the country is large and that the same is happening in other places, but if we don't do something in this area soon, the consequences will be disastrous. Here people are butchered like rats!"



Senegal: According to an Oct. 3 report, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko is asking all schools to allow young girls to wear the Muslim veil, or hijab. This includes the nation's Catholic schools, which actually have a ban on the hijab (due to security and other considerations). Because of this ban, the prime minister also referred to the nation's Catholic schools as "foreign." The Catholic school system responded to this swipe in a statement, inviting "all the Christian faithful [...] to remain vigilant in the face of alarming signals that tend to ostracize the Catholic community... Threats are ineffective."



Indonesia: On Oct. 17, police arrested a Christian man after he said on social media that the Koran was of not of divine but human origin—and that it promoted "racism" (or discrimination). When police arrived at Rudi Simamora's home, hundreds of angry Muslims had already surrounded it. This was not the first time he had been punished for speaking against Islam. According to the report, "Rudi had been arrested in 2022 for allegedly insulting Islam ... [and] sentenced to one year in prison on Feb. 23, 2023 and released earlier this year." The report also mentions a similar case that occurred 200 miles away in Sibolga, on Sept. 3, when another Christian man was arrested "for allegedly blaspheming Muhammad and Islam on his Facebook account."


While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location. It includes incidents that take place during, or are reported on, any given month.


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