Three prisoners released in Ethiopia

ICC

On October 25, three Christian prisoners were released from prison in Ethiopia after an ICC staff member (who is a native of Ethiopia) called the Muslim police officials and reminded them that they were violating the law for arresting the Christians for preaching the gospel.

The three Christians (one of whom is a former Muslim leader) were arrested on October 15 for preaching the gospel to Muslims. Even while they were in prison, the Christians continued to share their faith. As a result of their testimony in prison, two people came to Christ and others were healed from sickness after the Christians prayed for them.

The government officials panicked and released them after receiving the call from ICC. A Muslim police official confronted the Christians and asked them, “How do you have people in the US who asked us to release you?”

Though the three are now free, Muslim authorities are threatening to bring criminal charges against the former Muslim leader.

ICC is closely monitoring the situation. Please keep the Christians in your prayers.

Click here to view their photo (faces blurred to protect them) on Flickr.

Another genocide in the Middle East

It is very hard to believe that -at the 21st century- security and equality for Christians in Egypt is still a dream!! The Copts are the largest minority in the world without rights! Christians of Egypt are facing a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Fanatic Muslims supported and blessed by the authorities!

Although Coptic Christians in Egypt have the right for a special treatment to compensate for centuries of discrimination and persecution, at present, they are only asking for equality and human dignity.

In 1979, after kissing the hands of the Americans, former Egyptian president Anwar- El-Sadat felt adopted by his new masters who were so eager to see some semblance of the peace in the strategic area of the Middle East. They all lavished him with praise, approval and funds to keep him committed and loyal to the peace deal with Israel. But this was Sadat’s game plan; if he acts in a sycophant manner with the Americans, they will close their eyes about Egypt’s dismal record on human rights and he can continue with his plan to eliminate Christianity from Egypt. Both MUHAMMAD Anwar El-Sadat and Zul Fiqar Ali Bhutto sponsored the secret resolutions of the second Islamic summit which called for the elimination of Christians and Christianity from the Middle East by the year 2000. But God had other plans than his. Both he and Bhutto had their lives ended in the most disgraceful way. After his return to Pakistan General Zia Ul-Haq overthow Bhutto and ignoring international appeals to spare his life, he had him hanged in the early hours of the day shackled in chains and led barefooted to the gallows.  Later on Sadat was fatally shot by the hands of the people he trained to kill the Christians.

The Copts face real extermination steps since the events of Khanka, through al-Zawiah al-Hamra, KOSHEH, Assiut, Al-Muharraq monastery, and Alexandria... Etc. They are now hitting monks! They have been killing Copts and looting of their property and oppressing them. The Egyptian authorities are keen to mention such barbaric actions as individual events. While Copts live in fear, they are supporting the criminals and offenders and enable them to escape without any punishment.

Fridays became night-mares for Christians as the assailants -prodded along by the imam's fanatic address- decide to take the law in their own hands and attack the Copts, believing they are thus doing Islam the greatest favor ever! Being inflamed by the Imam of the mosque after Fridays' prayers, the mob start chanting anti-Christian and anti-Jewish slogans and hurling rocks and fire at the places of worship, stores, cars and houses of the Christians! They raid the churches, attack and kill the innocent prayers using the swords! Although they are the original natives of Egypt, Copts gradually became dispensable second-class citizens since the Islamic invasion of the seventh century. Copts became a minority although their number may exceed sixteen millions, which is about 20% of Egypt's population in honest census that they are denied to have. This has been the result of forced conversion to Islam, paying the costly tribute or facing martyrdom!

Copts who are converted to Islam through the many oppressive ways are not allowed to return to Christianity as the officials deny issuing Identification cards that have their original names and religion. To convert to Islam, the government makes it the easiest and sweetest trip. Copts are humiliated every second through the state owned media that are paid for by the tax-payers money where Copts pay most of it. Besides the intensifying cultural, educational, religious, social, judicial and economic hardships made Copts immigrate and leave their home-land. Above seven million Copts left Egypt since the last fifty years. More than one million settled in USA and became very successful as this is the land of equal opportunity. That shows the cultural effect on achievement. In short, Copts in Egypt are persecuted. They can not even dare to say that, otherwise they will face the terrible fate. Can you speak up for them? Proverbs 31:8-9 says "Speak up for those who can't speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the right of the poor and needy

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt are humiliated, tortured, persecuted, and even killed. Security agencies go into coma as long as the victims were Copts. Truly, it is the policy of eliminating Christianity in Egypt. Monks in monasteries have suffered all kinds of torment and humiliation. They were kidnapped and the assailants asked them to spit on the Cross and become Muslims! Can you believe that the governor of Minya, told Abu Fana monks to pay Gizia to the criminal Arab offenders to live in safety? Do you imagine that in the twenty-first century, the aggressors hold modern weapons and the State protect them and protect their weapons as long as they are directed against the Christians?

In the latest "cycle of violence", Egyptian security forces joined in with a Muslim mob bringing terror and death to group of Coptic protesters who were ironically demonstrating against the terror and death Muslim mobs have been bringing to Copts.

Crimes against humanity are committed from Alexandria to Minya. This happens only because they are Christians, and the Muslim believes that the Christian blood and money are permitted and halal for Muslims.

Of course, this is not entirely a new phenomenon. The ethnic cleansing of Christians in Egypt has been going on since 639 AD, when Muslims first invaded the country. This is only the final stage in the attempted extermination of a people -- one that has already been repeated many times across the Middle East.

The attack is still ongoing upon underage girls and forced Islamization is still happening through the encouragement of authorities. The suffering of the monks, the atrocities of our brothers and sisters, the on-going physical liquidation of the Coptic Christians in general must be stopped.

Christianity is positive not negative, Christianity is work, not slump, Christianity is love not hate! The Christian appeal and cooperation are not selfish. Christianity does not accept injustice or humiliation! The Christian crown over our heads mandates us to show that we deserve it. Our voices have to go to the sky carried by the angels and moving them to the Glory of Jesus Christ. Your voices have to be heard .The defenseless must be defended. We need to speak for those who do not have the right to speak.

Egypt: Christian student murdered for refusing to remove crucifix

AINA

Ayman Nabil Labib, a 17-year-old Coptic Christian student, was murdered by Muslim classmates after refusing to remove a crucifix he was wearing, the Assyrian International News Agency is reporting.

The murder, which took place on October 16 in the central Egyptian town of Mallawi, took place after a teacher asked Labib to cover up a tattooed cross on his wrist. Labib refused, instead uncovering a cross necklace.

“The teacher nearly choked my son, and some Muslim students joined in the beating,” said Labib’s father.

“They beat my son so much in the classroom that he fled to the lavatory on the ground floor, but they followed him and continued their assault,” the victim’s mother added. “When one of the supervisors took him to his room, Ayman was still breathing. The ambulance transported him from there dead, one hour later.”

Muslim fundamentalist torch churches in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Worship buildings burned on east African archipelago’s Zanzibar, Pemba islands.

Muslim extremists on Saturday (July 30) burned down a church building on Zanzibar island off the coast of Tanzania, church leaders said, just three days after another congregation’s facility on the island was reduced to ashes.

In Fuoni on the south coast of Zanzibar (known locally as Unguja), Islamic extremists torched the building of the Evangelical Assemblies of God-Tanzania (EAGT) at around 2 p.m., said Pastor Leonard Massasa, who oversees Zanzibar’s EAGT churches. The assailants were shouting, “Away with the church – we do not want infidels to spoil our community, especially our children,” Pastor Massasa said.

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Muslim Attack on Christians in Egypt Provoked By Installation of Church Bell

AINA

An exchange of harsh words on July 25 between Ruth, a Christian woman, and Gassem Fouad, a Muslim man who had parked his tricycle in front of her home, escalated into assault by the man on Ruth and other Christian villagers, and the arrest of one Copt. After Ruth, who is 5 months pregnant, was assaulted, a Muslim mob waited for Coptic farmers to return from the fields, where they were intercepted and beaten with iron rods and pipes.

Security forces managed to contain the situation.

Six Christians, including Ruth and her sister-in-law Hannan, were hospitalized with concussions, head injuries and broken limbs. No Muslim was injured.

None of the Muslim perpetrators was arrested. Ruth's husband, Kirillos Daniel, was accused of possessing a weapon -- a rifle found thrown where the Christians were attacked, and is under detention.

In an interview on CTV Coptic TV, Father Estephanos Shehata, of the Samalout Coptic dioceses, said "The real reason behind this assault was the church bell, which has greatly angered the Muslims in the village." He said the dilapidated church in the village of Ezbet Jacob Bebawi, outside Samalout, north of Minya, was given permission to renovate and this was completed last week, and the church bell was reinstalled.

"This is the first time such an incident has taken place in this village," said Father Estephanos, "which is 60-75% Christian, and the reason is definitely the presence of the church bell."

Christian villagers believe this assault was premeditated and they fear their church faces imminent attack, especially since Muslims have been slowly congregating in the village, which has a very weak presence of security forces.

Jihad In Sudan Redux

On July 9, the mostly Christian South Sudan will legally and officially separate from the Muslim north and become a new, independent and free country. Fearing loss of its iron clad grip of other non-Arab regions in the north, whose people likely envy the freedoms won by the South, Arab/Islamist leaders in Khartoum have launched a military assault on the Nuba Mountains, a mixed Christian, animist and Muslim region. Reports from the area are gruesomely reminiscent of the decades-long assault Khartoum waged on the South. These include forced conversions to Islam, mass displacement, bombing of civilians and mass slaughter.
 
Anticipating the effects of Christians winning freedom from his rule already in December of 2010 Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity, laid out a vision for the future of his nation:
 
"If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity... Sharia (Islamic law) and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language", he told a group of supporters.

Al-Bashir made his statement as the people of Southern Sudan were preparing to vote in the referendum that secured their imminent independence. With less than a week left before South secedes, al-Bashir is determined to fulfill his promise not by changing the constitution, but through murder and ethnic cleansing.
 
After concluding a military occupation of the disputed border region of Abyei,  which resulted in the expulsion of more than 100,000 (non-Arabs, mostly from the Dinka tribe), Sudanese army and government-sponsored Arab militias attacked the African tribes of Nuba Mountains, a region situated in the Northern state of Southern Kordofan. Reports indicate indiscriminate bombings of civilians and a systematic killing of the black-skinned Nuba, which forced estimated 100,000 to abandon their homes. One report described "door to door executions of completely innocent and defenseless civilians, often by throat cutting."  Another suggested the government might be using chemical weapons. The Bishop of Nuba Mountains described the events as genocide: "Once again we are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth." A well-respected Sudan analyst concurred.
 
Nuba embody the diversity of culture and religion that al-Bashir wants to destroy. Numbering some 1.5 million, Nuba people are Christians, Muslims and the followers of traditional faiths. It is not uncommon to find the adherents of all faiths within a single family. Comprising from more than fifty tribes and speaking an equal number of languages, the Nuba have an incredibly diverse culture.
 
Just like the Africans of the South, the Nuba have faced racial discrimination from the Arab governments and elites of the North, which led them to join Sudan's People Liberation Army (SPLA) at the beginning of the second outbreak of Sudan's Civil War (1983-2005). The government's response, especially after the Islamist regime of Al-Bashir and Hassan al-Turabi seized power in 1989, escalated into the campaign of annihilation. The Nuba people lost their lands; they were murdered, starved and enslaved.  In what some  called genocide in the name of Islam, all Nuba-Christians, animists and even Muslims-were targeted for eradication; estimated 200,000 perished.
 
In the crackdown that reach the Nuba Mountains even before the outbreak of the war, Christian clergy was murdered; churches burned, while Christian children were abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and often forced to join the Sudanese army to fight against their own people. In the current attack Christian places of worship are also being destroyed.  In January 1992, South Kordofan governor, Lt. General al-Hussein officially declared the war a "jihad." Shortly after, in 1993, the religious leaders of Southern Kordofan issued a fatwa that legalized it:
 
"The rebels in South Kordofan and Southern Sudan started their rebellion against the state and declared war against the Moslems. Their main aims are: killing the Moslems, desecrating mosques, burning and defiling the Koran, and raping Moslem women. In so doing, they are encouraged by the enemies of Islam and Moslems: these foes are the Zionists, the Christians and the arrogant people who provide them with provisions and arms. Therefore, an insurgent who was previously a Moslem is now an apostate; and a non-Moslem is a non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them."
 
Following this religious ruling, Sudanese soldiers and allied militias began killing Nuba imams, burning mosques and desecrating Korans. Today, the same actors praise God as they kill the innoncent.
 
To destroy the social fabric of the Nuba society the government forces and the Arab militiamen systematically raped thousands of Nuba women, including girls as young as nine. The raping took place during abductions, in military camps, and in so-called "peace camps." One victim, a 17 years-old girl named Fawzia Jibreel, told African Rights:
 
"After dark, the soldiers came and took the girls to their rooms, and raped them. I was taken and raped... When you have been taken, the soldier who has taken you will do what he wants, then he will go out of the room, you will stay, and another one will come...Every day the raping continued... It is impossible to count the men who raped me. Perhaps in a week I would have only one day of rest. Sometimes one man will take me for the whole night. Sometimes I will be raped by four or five men per day or night; they will just be changing one for another."
 
The policy of rape is being used in the Nuba Mountains once again.
 
On July 1, during Friday prayers in a mosque in Khartoum, al-Bashir said that he ordered his soldiers to continue "cleaning" South Kordofan.  As history shows all those who care about the plight of Nuba and other Africans of Sudan must take his words seriously and act to stop his religious genocide.

North Sudan: What next?

The recent declaration of independence by South Sudan from its northern neighbor is certainly a welcome event. After two civil wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005) that took the lives of more than 2.5 million Christians and animists, secession was the only reasonable option. Of course, there are immediate challenges for South Sudan, as it seems unlikely that 7,000 UN peacekeeping troops can protect a new nation that has vast oil reserves and a population living largely in abject poverty.

But what about North Sudan’s future? One noteworthy development in the north is the aerial bombardment targeting civilians in the Nuba Mountains, which are part of the petroleum-rich province of South Kordofan that will be the main oil producing region for North Sudan, following the south’s secession. The Nuba Mountains – once a base for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army that fought against the Arab-led government in Khartoum during the second civil war – are primarily inhabited by the Nuban people, a mixed Christian and Muslim population with their own language and culture.

Indeed, as Amar Amoun (a Nuban MP in North Sudan’s opposition) says, the bombing is a deliberate tactic to depopulate the Nuba Mountains. With Nuban rebels starting to take up arms and hoping to achieve more civil rights or independence for the Nuban people, war with the central government appears likely, hence the potential for another humanitarian catastrophe as in Darfur.

Here is the heart of the issue. It’s all very well to have South Sudan secede, but the root of the problem has still not been addressed: namely, the traditional doctrines of jihad that underlie the Islamist and Arab supremacist ideology of the ruling elite in Khartoum.

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Prison sentences for over 500 Ethiopian Muslims responsible ror burning down churches, Christian homes

(ICC)

International Christian Concern has learned that Ethiopian courts sentenced 579 Muslims to prison terms ranging from three months to 18 years for taking part in violence against Christians that left one dead, and 69 churches and several Christian homes burned to the ground in Asendabo and surrounding areas.

An additional 107 individuals are accused of terrorism for their roles in the attacks against the Christians and the public prosecutors have brought charges against them in federal court.  Eight individuals suspected to be among the masterminds of the violence are still at large and Ethiopian authorities are searching for them.

The violence against Christians started on March 2 and continued for a week. ICC was the first organization to break the news about the attacks, warning of the impending destruction. Our supporters responded to the plight of the victims by providing for their emergency needs and signing a petition seeking justice on their behalf.

Speaking to ICC, an Ethiopian church leader said, “I am glad that the rule of law prevailed and the church has finally got protection from the government. The judges who looked at these cases have delivered justice. We are happy that the truth has finally been revealed.”

Ethiopia is a Christian majority country and was one of the first nations to accept Christianity. However, in the areas of the country where Muslims are the majority, Christians face attacks.

“We welcome the decision of Ethiopian courts. We hope that the decision sends a strong message to radical Muslims that violence against innocents will not go unpunished. We would like to thank those who helped the victims through their prayers, their gifts, and their signatures on ICC’s petition seeking justice on behalf of the victims,” said Jonathan Racho, ICC’s Regional Manager for Africa.

Christians at Risk: A Jew's Concern

I read with dismay the reports of repeated assaults on Copts in Egypt.
Here's a Wall Street Journal account (June 11):

Five weeks after the fall of the Egyptian regime, Ayman Anwar Mitri's [a member of the Christian Coptic minority] apartment was torched. When he showed up to investigate, he was bundled inside by bearded Islamists...[who] accused him of having rented the apartment - by then unoccupied - to loose Muslim women...They beat him with the charred remains of his furniture. Then, one of them produced a box cutter and...amputated Mr. Mitri's right ear.

"When they were beating me, they kept saying: 'We won't leave any Christians in this country,'" Mr. Mitri recalled in a recent interview.

Earlier reports this year spoke of a destroyed church in Soul, 20 miles from Cairo, and the mass evacuation of Christians from the village, as well as the New Year's Day bombing of an Alexandria church, leaving 25 Christians dead and scores wounded. And that's only for starters.

Discrimination, distrust, and paranoia feed the troubling climate. Rumors spread like wildfire. A Christian has allegedly abducted a Muslim and tattooed her with a cross. A Muslim disappears and Christians are accused of violence. An intermarriage triggers fear that Christians are trying to subvert the majority population.

Egypt, of course, has been heavily in the political news in recent months. Unrest in the streets led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The spirit of Tahrir Square captured the imagination of many. Talk of a new dawn in Egypt has been widespread.

But if a page is to be turned in the Arab world's most populous country, it cannot come at the expense of a vulnerable minority. Copts have lived in Egypt for nearly 2,000 years and represent the largest Christian minority in the Middle East, comprising ten percent of Egypt's 83 million inhabitants.

While some Egyptians, to their credit, have spoken bravely of national unity between Muslims and Copts, they have not been able to stop the deadly assaults or lessen the widespread fear.

As a Jew, I identify with the Copts' situation.

Perhaps it's because we can write a doctoral thesis on the topic of minority status. We know all too well what it means to live in a country where legal protections are left to the whim of the authorities, not embedded in a country's DNA or democratic architecture.

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Pakistani sheiks call for Bible ban

CNSNews.com

Pakistani Christians reacted with dismay Thursday to campaign by radical Muslim clerics to have the Bible declared blasphemous and banned, but some said the community should respond calmly, without fear, trusting God to protect His word.

Muslims should not blame Pakistan’s Christian minority for the actions of one misguided pastor in Florida, said one activist, who also noted that even Mohammed, the 7th century Muslim prophet, had not outlawed the Bible.

A group of Muslim clerics has asked the Supreme Court of Pakistan to determine that certain passages of the Bible violate the country’s blasphemy laws, because they depict some biblical figures – whom Muslims revere as “Islamic prophets” – as flawed or immoral.

If the court does not make the declaration, the campaigners said, they would lodge an formal application for the Bible to be banned in its entirety.

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Egypt: ‘virginity checks’ of female protestors causes outrage

CNN

Revelations that the Egyptian army administered “virginity checks” on detained female protestors have triggered outrage since a senior general admitted the procedure in a televised interview.

Allegations of "virginity tests" first surfaced in a report by Amnesty International about a protest on March 9 in Tahrir Square in which it said 17 female demonstrators were tortured, given electric shocks and forced to submit to virginity checks.

Egyptian authorities denied the allegations but a senior general on Monday admitted to the virginity checks, according to CNN.
"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," he said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."

He said the virginity checks were conducted to prevent women from later charging authorities with sexual assault.

"We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place. None of them were (virgins)," he told CNN.

The general’s views caused immediate outrage and social media feeds erupted with anger and disgust.

The Egyptian army was heralded for its role in the January uprising that saw the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

At least 846 protesters were killed, and thousands injured during the 18-day uprising, according to a government fact-finding mission.

Mr. Mubarak and his former aides are facing trial on charges of corruption, misappropriation of public funds and also ordering violence on the protestors.

But the army’s popularity was soon tested at a protest in March, organized to voice frustration over the slow pace of reform, which saw the military target the protestors—clearing Tahrir Square of demonstrators by force.

The Amnesty International report quoted detained protestors, which is where allegations of virginity tests first surfaced.

One 20-year-old hairdresser who was quoted in the report spoke of being tied up by soldiers who slapped her, shocked her with a stun gun while calling her a prostitute, according to the CNN report.

"They wanted to teach us a lesson," she said soon after the Amnesty report came out. "They wanted to make us feel that we do not have dignity."

She said the treatment she and 16 other demonstrators faced at a detention center in Heikstep only worsened: the women were strip searched in the presence of male soldiers and it was here they were all subjected to virginity tests.

"We did not agree for a male doctor to perform the test," she said but she and her colleagues were threatened with stun-gun shocks if they did not comply.

"I was going through a nervous breakdown at that moment. There was no one standing during the test, except for a woman and the male doctor. But several soldiers were standing behind us watching the backside of the bed. I think they had them standing there as witnesses," CNN quotes her as saying.

According to the senior general, 149 detainees were tried in military courts after the March 9 protest and most were sentenced to a year in prison, but the many had their sentences revoked, said CNN.

"When we discovered that some of the detainees had university degrees, so we decided to give them a second chance," he told CNN.

Egypt is scheduled to hold elections by September.

Some political groups are calling on the ruling council to delay the elections saying that a September date does not give them time to prepare for the polls and that the date favors the Muslim Brotherhood which is well-organized.

But the army has reiterated that it plans to hand over power to the civilians and return to the barracks

Treatment of Christians around the world

British MP, David Simpson, says the UK has a duty to use "all of our influence" to help those who suffer injustice around the world.

As one of the great economies of the world we have a duty to use all of our influence to help those who suffer injustice around the world.

In parts of Africa Christians are facing very real and intense violent persecution. This can be seen write large in countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia.


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Coptic Christians Need Protection -- Will the U.S. Help Them?

CONCERNEDWOMENFORAMERICA (CWA)

As the Coliseum in Rome deteriorates with every passing day, the thoughts of Christian martyrdom and persecution that happened there also seem ages away.

But as surprising as it may sound, it still happens. Instead of Christians being eaten by lions, they are being bombed during protests. Instead of being burned at the stake, their churches are being set on fire.

Coptic Christians in Egypt, the largest contingent of Christians in the country, are under severe attack — so much so that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom announced just recently that Egypt made the list of “Countries of Particular Concern.”

That's not really a list anyone wants to be on: countries put on this list are some of the worst violators of religious freedom. But it’s not enough. Calling a country out will not necessarily force them to change their behavior. A bully doesn’t work like that.

Leonard Leo, chairman of the Commission, told reporters that the final straw was the massacre on the day Coptic Christians celebrated their Christmas Eve services. Since January of this year, 400 Christians have been murdered, hundreds more injured, and multiple churches have been burned, including a massacre on New Year’s Day, where a bomb at a church in Alexandria killed 20 Christians.

The Coptic Christians have been begging for protection from the new Egyptian government without any results. Last Saturday, while Christians were being attacked with gasoline bombs and rocks in Cairo, riot police did not immediately respond; and when they did respond, they looked on for a full hour and did nothing. Soldiers had to be brought in to contain the violence.

The U.S. has directed its own military to help provide protection and apparently has attempted to put diplomatic pressure on the new government for protection. But more has to be done. The Egyptian government is filled with cowards bent on letting Christians suffer at the hands of the majority religion of Islam.

There are 10 million Coptic Christians in the Middle East, where they are overshadowed predominately by the Muslim culture and Islam, President Obama’s fabled “religion of peace.” In fact, it is the radicals, who call themselves Muslim, who are using rape, violence, and church-burnings to persecute this minority religion of Christianity in Egypt.

Persecution is nothing new for Christians (at Concerned Women for America we recently interviewed some local Coptic Christians for an upcoming event on Sharia Law, and the stories they told were stark). The Coptic Christians in Egypt aren’t backing down, nor are they intimidated, but they do want protection.

When is enough violence enough? Maybe much hasn’t changed since centuries ago when early Christians were persecuted and martyred.

Bottom line: If we don’t work with the new Egyptian government to ask them to protect this minority, we could see significant religious cleansing in Egypt. And if that happens, then shame on us.

Christianity: Growing, and under siege

Around the world, and especially in Africa and Asia, Christian populations are suffering severe discrimination and brutal attacks. Thousands are being killed. Systematic campaigns are being waged against Christians simply because of their faith, and it is not too dramatic to suggest that these are forms of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Yet there is little awareness of these continuing atrocities in the West, and even less response.

Christianity is no longer a predominantly Western religion. Since 1900, there has been a startling growth of Christianity in Latin America, Africa and Asia, to the point that now, 65 percent of the world's 2 billion Christians live on one of those three continents. Christians now constitute the largest single religious group in Africa. Close to 350 million Christians live in Asia. But this dramatic growth has also fanned the flames of religious persecution and hatred against them.

In northern Nigeria, deadly religious violence occurs with regularity, killing hundreds at a time. Christians in Ethiopia have seen the destruction of 57 churches; thousands of Christians have been displaced, and some have been killed. In Sudan, the government has waged a decades-old war against Christians in southern part of the country. In Egypt, radicals now use the façade of democratic reforms to ramp up their continuing war against Coptic Christians, while the army looks the other way. Christians have lived in Iraq for 1,800 years, but recent violence threatens their very existence as a community. In Pakistan, religious violence and anti-blasphemy laws are used to suppress Christians, while prominent Christian politicians and their defenders are assassinated. In India, religious radicals attack Christian converts, while courts and political assemblies take away their rights. Religious violence against Christians occurs with depressing regularity in Indonesia, while the Chinese government cracks down on Christian churches, especially those that have chosen not to register with the communist government. In many countries around the world, anti-Christian activists have hijacked political processes to codify severe discrimination against Christians, making it illegal to convert to Christianity, while encouraging conversions from Christianity.

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Muslim-Christian clashes erupt at Egyptian church

Muslims and Christians pelted each with stones in a Cairo suburb Thursday over the reopening of a church the former regime closed years ago.

The church is one of three to be reopened as part of the Egyptian authorities' plan to try to defuse recent religious tensions. They have promised to reopen nearly 50 churches across Egypt in an attempt to appease Christian protesters who have been holding a sit-in for more than a week along the Nile.

The protesters are also demanding the prosecution of those behind recent attacks on at least three churches in Cairo following the popular uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.
Thursday's clashes began when police accompanied a group of Christians to reopen the Church of the Virgin in the suburb of Ain Shams. More than 1,000 Muslims, including dozens of ultraconservative Salafi Muslims, tried to block the way, and the sides pelted each other with stones, a security official said.

Police detained a number of those involved and the scuffle was quickly contained, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. No injuries were reported.

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Experts warn of rising violence against Christians in Egypt

CHRISTIANSOLIDARITYWORLDWIDE

A group of experts, advocates and faith leaders with an interest in Egypt, religious freedom and human rights have released a statement expressing concern at the increasing frequency of attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the manner in which such attacks are being reported by international and local media.
 
At least 60 people were injured on 14 May 2011, when Christians protesting outside Egypt’s state television building in Cairo at the attacks on two churches on the previous weekend that left 12 dead were themselves attacked.

According to media reports, around 100 people attacked the protesters with stones and petrol bombs, and at least two people sustained gunshot wounds. Fighting continued for several hours before the army moved to restore order.
 
The letter states: “The collapse of the powerful state apparatus and the subsequent power vacuum this created, however, quickly opened a ‘Pandora’s Box’ of social problems that the Mubarak regime had either maintained or failed to address. As anticipated, we are now witnessing political struggles for power and influence in the new Egypt.

“While most of this is a necessary part of the emergence of true democracy in Egypt, the increase in and intensity of attacks on Christians are indicators of imminent civil unrest and the potential for widespread ethno-religious violence that demands an immediate response.”
 
The letter highlights the established pattern of the attacks and the lack of action from the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. It continues: “Yet far from upholding the revolutionary spirit of unity we witnessed in January and February, the Armed Forces not only fail to provide adequate protection, but also continue to follow the policy of Mubarak’s regime by failing to uphold justice or arrest the real culprits, and by forcing reconciliation meetings on the victims that favor their attackers.”
 
With regards to the inaccurate reporting of the attacks on Christians by both local and international media, the letter states:  “Both local and international media reporting of the attacks have been deeply problematic. Mainstream Egyptian media describes such incidents as communal clashes, with at times, inaccurate reports that they are incited by Coptic Christians. Some Islamic media uses harsher and more dangerous tone, with frequent calls to “punish” and ostracise the 10 million strong Coptic community.
 
“The international media is reporting the attacks as ‘sectarian clashes’. However, these events are not clashes between two sects, such as Sunni and Shiite clashes in Iraq; they constitute a disturbing pattern of escalating attacks and violence against a minority community.

“Erroneous wording in media reports enable radical groups to continue their aggression, and the Egyptian authorities to remain oblivious and insensitive towards a vulnerable minority.”

Persecution of Christianity in Islam and the old world

THENEWAMERICAN

Ann Coulter once wrote that the cure for Islamic terrorism was Christianity. This politically incorrect statement drew condemnation from many corners of established elitism. Forcible conversion to Christianity, of course, is not real conversion and it is certain that Ann did not sincerely intend such deeds. But there is another aspect to the modern situation of Christians (and also of Jews) that we need to grasp in order to understand the hellishness of much of the life of mankind: Christianity is under violent, bigoted attack throughout much of the world.

As one example, tens of thousands of Muslims in Egypt began angry demonstrations against the appointment of Coptic Christian Emad Mikhail to be the new governor of the southern Egyptian province of Qena, replacing a Muslim who held that office. The Friday protests coincided with the Muslim and Jewish Sabbath and with Good Friday, among the most sacred days of devout Christians. The religious nature of these demonstrations was obvious. The protesters began their demonstrations after leaving mosques.Their demand was to replace Mikhail with a Muslim governor. Islam, these protesters believe, does not allow an infidel to govern Muslims.

Some Coptic Christians were also troubled by the appointment, citing that Christian officers often failed to genuinely protect the interests of other Christians. Coptic Christians need real protection. Although they comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million people, their status has never been secure, and relations cooled significantly when a suicide bomber killed himself — and 21 Christians — on January 1, outside a church in Alexandria.

The fate of Christians and Jews around the world is a legitimate concern for Americans. Our nation was founded quite straightforwardly upon Judeo-Christian theology and values. The pursuit of a U.S. foreign policy designed to take into consideration the interests of both Jews and Christians has been a consistent theme of our nation. Both peoples came to America, in many cases, to live freely and without persecution.

Tragically, the fate of Christians around the world has stopped being a factor in our policies. The invasion of Iraq, for example, has resulted in a significant increase in the persecution of Christians and their massive migration out of Iraq. Iraqi Christians are actually worse off as a result of our intervention there. Whatever syrupy hopes globalists might profess for “democratic” Iraq, it is impossible to see that land of ancient rivalries and hatreds evolving into a free and righteous nation when those very people who have created the notion of human freedom, Christians and also Jews, have fled the land.

Persecution of Christians, in fact, has been the salient feature of nearly every odious totalitarianism of modern history. The persecution of Christians in imperial Japan was noted even by agnostic Americans who viewed the Christian faith as foolish. The persecution of Christians in Nazi Germany was noted by nearly everyone who wrote on the subject during the years before the defeat of Germany. Hitler and all the other leaders of the Third Reich professed utter contempt for Christianity, and the closing of churches and monasteries, the hauling of priests and ministers to concentration camps, and other vile mistreatment was once common knowledge.

Soviets, of course, reviled Christianity and put true Christians in the Gulag. The OGPU and its successors also infiltrated seminaries and placed agents within the Russian Orthodox Church (just as the Soviet Union used such sweet-sounding groups as the National Council of Churches as a front organization which always, conveniently, found America and its values “un-Christian” and Marxism to be some sort of rudimentary Christian faith). Men such as John Hadam captured the spirit of this age well when he wrote in 1941 (before Barbarossa) in his book God and the World at War: “For people after people the light of freedom has gone out at the bidding of the totalitarianisms of Russia, Japan, Germany and Italy … Men are tortured and slaughtered in the name of a new religion of the all-powerful state … The attack of all totalitarianisms on religion is significant … the real basis for their hostility is that … a church is witness to, and claims the loyalty of men to, a moral power beyond and greater than the ideal totalitarian state.”

The brutal murder by Chinese Communists of Christians such as John Birch are proof of how mendacious and hateful toward Christians they were at the end of the Second World War, when Christians had been helping them defeat the Japanese. Nothing out of Chinese government policy since then gives any hope of change. The persecution of the faithful in China may take different forms and be muddled by a statist church which is the mockery of true Christianity, but the roots of persecution are ever present.

Less noticed, but very real, is the venom which Brahmanism spits at Christianity. Mahatma Gandhi, who was intensely disliked by the “untouchables” of India, found the universal brotherhood which Christianity offered to be contrary to Indian values. Contrary to much common belief, Gandhi did not reject the caste system, but believed that it should be simplified and reformed. While Christian missionaries in India helped end the suttee, child marriage (and young girls forced to bear children), thugee, and other vices of Hinduism, Gandhi displayed an appalling lack of gratitude toward the British and the West. Today, the persecution of Christians in India is very real. The conversion of untouchables (now called “Dalits”) is a particular sore point, and those Dalits who renounce Hinduism are denied government benefits provided to other Dalits.

And, of course, Europe is receding into the darkness of paganism. The shocking lack of resistance to Muslim infiltration in much of western Europe is because the thin gruel of progressive secularism offers nothing tangible to resist Islam. The searching of the soul for meaning, an itch placed there by our Creator, will find something to scratch it with — that is certain.

So it was that many former Communists spoke of their former “ideology” as rather an intolerant religion and described Marxism as “The God That Failed.” The savage Shinto of imperial Japan, the radical Muslims of the Indian Ocean basin, the brutal pagans of Nazi Germany — all the ugly spirits which menace our world — are opposed by people such as Mother Teresa, who came into India bringing only God’s compassionate love, and David Livingston, who entered the unknown heartland of an uncivilized continent to bring that same love.

Do we yearn for that overworked desideratum, “world peace”? Then we should all tell the aching hearts and angry minds of Muslims in Egypt or Hindus in India and of Marxists everywhere that the answer they seek is not in any hateful ideology, but rather in a glorious theology.

Four Ethiopian Muslims Beat Evangelist To Death, Assault His Pregnant Wife

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on April 21 four Muslims beat an evangelist to death and assaulted his pregnant wife in Worabe, Ethiopia, an area that is 97% Muslim. The Muslims lured Evangelist ….

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Muslim rioters in Nigeria have killed more than 100 Christians and burned down more than 40 churches

This revelation is contained in a report by the Regional Manager for Africa, International Christian Concern (ICC), Jonathan Racho noting that this latest demonstration is in response to the election of Jonathan Goodluck, a Christian, as president of Nigeria.

He pointed out that the rioters even destroyed the homes of many Muslims who supported President Jonathan Goodluck adding that the Muslim attackers allege that the election was rigged and General Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim presidential candidate, is the rightful winner.

He said that the Commonwealth observers’ report judged that election as “this election the fairest in decades. The elections for the National Assembly and the Presidency were both credible and creditable and reflected the will of the Nigerian people."

According Racho, it is difficult to know the full extent of the damage. The casualties could be much higher as the attacks took place over many of the 12 Muslim majority states in northern Nigeria.

He noted that the situation is beginning to calm since security forces were deployed and enforced a 24 hour curfew. Christian minorities living in northern Nigeria have faced repeated bouts of violence and discrimination at the hands of the Muslim majority.

He said that since the introduction of Sharia law in northern Nigeria in 2001, tens and thousands of Christians have been killed.

A Christian leader in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna stated: “Christians in northern Nigeria are being killed and their churches and property destroyed for voting for the candidate of their choice. Why should churches be burned when just it’s an issue of politics?

He also queried: “Why should Christians be killed just because someone won an election? Goodluck is not the president just for Christians; he is the president for every Nigerian. Why should Christians suffer because Jonathan won the election?

Racho stated: “We are very saddened by the violence against Christians and their property in northern Nigeria. Disputes over elections shouldn’t have been allowed to lead to religious violence against Christians.”

He continued: “We have repeatedly seen Muslims attack and kill those of other faiths at the slightest provocation. We urge Nigeria to fully investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice. As long as these attackers operate with impunity, the attacks will continue.”

State Dep’t and U.N. silent about Latest anti-Christian violence in Ethiopia

CNSNews

While the Obama administration cited human rights atrocities in Libya as part of the reason for U.S. and U.N. military intervention there, neither the State Department nor the United Nations have apparently condemned an outbreak of violence in western Ethiopia, led by Muslim radicals. Since early March two Christians have reportedly been killed, more than 3,000 displaced and at least 69 churches destroyed.

Also, leading human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First appear not to have publicly condemned the attacks.

“Extremist Muslims killed two Christians, burnt 69 Christian churches, and destroyed 30 homes, leaving between 4,000 to 10,000 Christians displaced,” Jeremy Lim, International Christian Concern (ICC)’s regional manager for Southeast Asia, told CNSNews.com. ICC is a human rights group promoting religious freedom and assisting Christian victims of persecution.

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