Muslim Persecution of Christians: May 2012

From: Gatestone Institute

Unlike those nations, such as Saudi Arabia, that have eliminated Christianity altogether, Muslim countries with significant Christian minorities saw much persecution during the month of May: in Egypt, Christians were openly discriminated against in law courts, even as some accused the nation's new president of declaring that he will "achieve the Islamic conquest of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam;" in Indonesia, Muslims threw bags of urine on Christians during worship; in Kashmir and Zanzibar, churches were set on fire; and in Mali, Christianity "faces being eradicated."

Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, the Ivory Coast—wherever Islam and Christianity meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.

Categorized by theme, May's assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity. Note: As Pakistan had the lion's share of persecuted Christians last month, it has its own section below, covering the entire gamut of persecution—from apostasy and blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.

Church Attacks

Indonesia encountered several church-related attacks:

• A mob of 600 Muslims threw bags of urine, stones, and rotten eggs at the congregation of a Protestant church at the start of Ascension Day service; they shouted profanities and threatened to kill the pastor. No arrests were made. The church had applied for a permit to construct its house of worship five years ago. Pressured by local Muslims, the local administration ordered the church shut down in December 2009, even though the Supreme Court recently overruled its decision, saying that the church was eligible for a permit. Local Muslims and officials are nevertheless demanding that the church shut down.
• After protests "by hard-line groups including the Islamic Defenders Front," nearly 20 Christian houses of worship were sealed off by authorities on the pretext of "not having permits." The authorities added that, to accommodate the region's 20,000 Christians, only one church may be built in the district in question.
  
• The Muslim mayor who illegally sealed the beleaguered GKI Yasmin church, forcing congregants to worship in the streets, has agreed to reopen it—but only if a mosque is built next door, to ensure that the church "stays in line." "As well as opposition from the mayor, the church has faced hostility from local Muslims, who have rallied against them [the Christians], blocked them from accessing the street where the church is situated and disrupted their outdoor services. It is unlikely that they will suddenly embrace the Christians," according to the report.
  

France: Prior to celebrating mass, "four youths, aged 14 to 18, broke into the Church of St. Joseph, before launching handfuls of pebbles at 150 faithful present at the service." They were chased out, although, according to the report, "the parishioners, many of whom are elderly, were greatly shocked by the disrespectful act of the youths of North African origin."

Kashmir: A Catholic church made entirely of wood was partially destroyed after unknown assailants set it on fire. "What happened," said the president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, "is not an isolated case," and follows the "persecution" of a pastor who baptized Muslims. "With these gestures, the Muslim community is trying to intimidate the Christian minority."

Kuwait: Two months after the Saudi Grand Mufti decreed, in response to a question on whether churches may exist in Kuwait, that all regional churches must be destroyed, villa-churches serving Western foreigners are being targeted. One congregation was evicted without explanation "from a private villa used for worship gatherings for the past seven years;" another villa-church was ordered to "pay an exorbitant fine each month to use a facility it had been renting…. Church leaders reportedly decided not to argue and moved out."

Zanzibar: Hundreds of Muslims set two churches on fire and clashed with police during protests against the arrest of senior members of an Islamist movement known as the Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation. Afterwards, the group issued a statement denying any involvement of wrongdoing.

Victor Sharpe: “Never Again” is now “Again and Again”

From: Canada Free Press

When, after the end of World War Two, the extent of Nazi Germany’s systematic extermination of the 6 million Jews of Europe became horribly apparent, including the slaughter of 1.5 million babies and children, there arose the cry: “Never Again.”

It was assumed that a unique horror of such magnitude must never again occur in the world. The Holocaust resulted in one third of the world’s Jewish population being systematically murdered - perpetrated as it was by millions of Adolf Hitler’s obedient and willing executioners using all the tools of the central state and of perverted science. But the cataclysmic lesson of that genocide has been shamefully ignored.

After the war the United Nations was founded – a body designed to create world peace and primarily at first consisting of democracies along with a few autocratic regimes, which nevertheless acted in rational ways. And as delegates entered the UN building they passed by the wall on which they could read the biblical words of the Jewish prophet, Isaiah:

“They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.” - Isaiah 2:4.

But now the UN has become a cesspool of competing blocs of nations that are not always concerned about justice and peace between nations but more interested in pushing narrow and hostile agendas. And few, if any, delegates ever bother to read that inscription on the wall of the United Nations. Instead the world body has become a veritable Temple of Hypocrisy filled with a cynical priesthood.

And so much of humanity becomes more and more inured to the present day horrors that increasingly proliferate around the globe and whose ghastly images are daily flashed on our television screens.

Civilians are routinely butchered, and genocide in South Sudan continues as it does in Somalia and, in particular, throughout the ever violent Middle East. As I write, butchery on a grand scale is taking place throughout Syria, governed as it is by Bashar Assad; a scion of the minority Alawite tribe.

According to Ammar Abdulhamid, a member of the Free Syrian Army, which is one of the rebel groups battling the regime, Bashar Assad’s strategy is to create a de facto partition of Syria. This is, he says, taking place with the ethnic cleansing of factions and populations deemed hostile to the regime.

Syria may degenerate into dozens of fiefdoms, each one at its neighbor’s throat, or an Alawite state will emerge along Syria’s coastline, incorporating other areas of the country. This state, if it emerged, would include the strategic city of Homs, which straddles all the main Syrian highways and communication routes.

Of immense concern should be Assad’s warehouses in which are stored Syria’s weapons of mass destruction consisting of thousands of missiles tipped with Sarin and Mustard gas and God knows what other hellish ingredients.

In the present internecine conflict that is tearing Syria apart, these missiles – some already in silos – may well fall into the hands of a host of Islamic terrorist groups - including Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood - fighting inside the country. If they do, a Pandora’s Box will open and the entire world will lurch further into a nightmare scenario almost unbearable to contemplate.

And behind the ethnic cleansing, the massacres, and the butchery of thousands of civilians, lies the dread hand of Iran, with its fanatical Mullahocracy and its evil clown president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ever spinning their web of terror and fear.

Since 1979, when Americans during the failed Carter presidency were taken hostage at our embassy in Teheran, Iran has been involved in anti-American activities and crimes against humanity including complicity in the 9/11 atrocities. Iran, through its Hezbollah proxy, was also directly responsible for the deaths and maiming of hundreds of our marines in Beirut. And Iran’s bloody fingerprints were all over the killings of scores of Jewish children in the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina.

Iran produced the infamous IEDs provided to Iraqi insurgents that have killed hundreds of U.S. troops and the Iranian regime has directly supported terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond. The United States has ample cause to target the mullahs. As Lee Smith from the Weekly Standard recently opined. “Iran is the problem.”