Egypt’s long awaited and much anticipated presidential elections—the first of their kind to take place in the nation’s 7,000 year history—are here.  As we await the final results—and as the Western mainstream media fixate on images of purple-stained fingers—it is well to remember that there is much more at stake in Egypt’s elections than the mere “right” to vote.

While some Egyptians are certainly voting according to their convictions, the fundamental divide revolves around religion—how much or how little the candidates in question are in favor of Islamic Sharia law.  In other words, Islamists are voting for Islamists—Abdel Mon‘im Abul Futuh and Muhammad Mursi—whereas non-Islamists (secularists, liberals, and non-Muslims) are voting for non-Islamists, such as Amr Musa and Ahmed Shafiq.

Bear in mind that this is not the same thing as American voters being divided between “liberal” Democrats and “conservative” Republicans; rather, this election is much more existential in nature—possibly cataclysmic for Egyptian society.  For, whereas both American Republicans and Democrats operate under the selfsame U.S. Constitution, in Egypt, an Islamist president will usher in Sharia law, which will fundamentally transform the nation.

One veiled woman interviewed yesterday at the voting polls put it best: “We came to elect the man who implements Sharia (Islamic law).  But I am afraid of liberals, secularists, Christians. I am afraid of their reaction if an Islamist wins. They won’t let it go easily. But God be with us.”

Interestingly, while she sums up the ultimate purpose Islamists like herself are voting—to empower “the man who implements Sharia”—she alsoprojects her own Islamist mentality onto non-Islamists, implying that if a Sharia-friendly president is fairly elected, non-Islamists will rebel.  In fact, it is the Islamists who are on record warning that if a secularist emerges as president, that itself will be proof positive that the elections were rigged, and anarmed jihad will be proclaimed.

None of this is surprising, considering that Islamists have not hid their abhorrence for democracy as an infidel heresy to be exploited as a gateway to a Sharia-enforcing theocracy which will, ironically, eliminate democracy.  Some have gone so far as to insist that cheating in elections to empower Sharia is an obligation.  And, rather than encourage Egyptians to vote for whom they think is best suited for Egypt, days prior to these elections, various authoritative Muslim clerics and institutions decreed that Egypt’s Muslims are “obligated” to vote for Sharia-supporting Islamists, while voters are “forbidden” to vote for non-Islamists—a proclamation with threats of hellfire.

Considering that Easter, one of the highest Christian holidays, comes in April, Christian persecution in Muslim nations—from sheer violence to oppressive laws—was rampant last month: In Nigeria, where jihadis seek to expunge all traces of Christianity, a church was bombed during Easter Sunday, killing some 50 worshippers; in Turkey, a pastor was beaten by Muslims immediately following Easter service and threatened with death unless he converts to Islam; and in Iran,Easter Sunday saw 12 Christians stand trial as “apostates.”

The persecution of Christians has come to regions not normally associated with it. As in Nigeria, Muslim militants are running amok in Timbuktu, Mali—beheading a Christian leader and threatening other Christians with similar treatment. Sharia law has been imposed, churches are being destroyed, and Christians are fleeing Timbuktu in mass.

Categorized by theme, the rest of April’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity:

 Church Attacks

Azerbaijan: A church in the Muslim-majority nation has “become the first religious community to beliquidated by a court” since the country’s “harsh new Religion Law,” requiring all previously registered religious institutions to re-register, came into force in 2009. Greater Grace Protestant Church in the capital, Baku, “was stripped of its registration at a 15-minute hearing on 25 April. The decision, which was made in the absence of any church representatives, makes any activity by the church illegal and subject to punishment.”

Indonesia: Gunmen opened fire on the GKI Yasmin church, causing much damage in the latest attack on the building, which has been illegally sealed off by authorities since 2088, due to Muslim demands. Another Protestant church unlawfully sealed off by the authorities—despite meeting all requirements for a permit—was met with violent opposition from Muslims for trying to hold a service on the street in front of their sealed-off church building. Muslim residents made death threats, played loud music, and even rode a motorcycle through the congregation. A church spokesman said: “We are constantly having to change our location because our existence appears to be unwanted, and we have to hide so that we are not intimidated by intolerant groups… We had hoped for help from the police, but after many attacks on members of the congregation, we see that the police are also involved in this.”

Kenya: Two separate grenade attacks on churches occurred: 1) Muslims threw grenades into an open-air Christian church gathering, killing a woman and a boy, and wounding some 50 other Christians: Muslims had been holding a meeting near the gathering, and Christians could hear their preachers railing against Christianity right before the attack took place. 2) In a separate incident, a Muslim man pretending to be a worshipper at a church threw three grenades during service, killing a 27-year-old university student and injuring16. The terrorist, who, according to eyewitnesses, appeared to be of Somali origin, “looked uncomfortable and always looked down. He threw three hand grenades and only one exploded. He took off, and he fired in the air three gunshots.”

Nigeria: An early morning attack on a Christian church service left at least 16 people dead: Jihadi gunmen on motorcycles stormed Bayero University in the city of Kano on a Sunday morning during a Catholic mass held in the school’s theater hall, hurling improvised explosive devices, and opening fire as people fled. “The attack follows a string of violent incidents against Christians in the predominantly Muslim north.”

Sudan: A Christian compound in Khartoum was stormed by a throng of Muslims “armed with clubs, iron rods, a bulldozer and fire,” the day after a Muslim leader called on Muslims to destroy “the infidels’ church.”Shouting “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]” and “No more Christianity from today on—no more church from today on,” the jihadis stormed the Bible school bookstore, burning Bibles and threatening to kill anyone resisting them. “What happened could not be imagined—it was terrible,” said an eyewitness. “They burned all furniture of the school and the church as well.” As usual, “Police at the compound stood back and did nothing to prevent the mob from vandalizing the compound.”

Tunisia: The Christian Orthodox Church in Tunis, one of very few churches in the nation, is being “abused” and receiving “threatening messages.” Church members are “living in a state of terror,” so much so that the Russian ambassador in Tunis specifically requested the nation’s Ministry of Interior to “protect the church.” The abuse has gotten to the point where “Salafis covered the cross of the church with garbage bags, telling the church members that they do not wish to see the vision of the Cross anywhere in the Islamic state of Tunisia.” Separately, a Muslim burst into a church to deliver a letter from an Islamist party inviting the archpriest to convert to Islam or to take down the church’s crosses and pay jizya, Islamic subjugation tribute.

Apostasy and Blasphemy: Death and Prison

Algeria: A Christian was sentenced to five years in prison for “shaking the faith” of Muslims. He had discussed his faith with a Muslim man at a food court when the Muslim became angry and accused the Christian of “insulting Muhammad.” Police arrested the man and found a large amount of Christian materials in his apartment. The judge gave him the maximum sentence of five years in prison, even though the prosecutor himself had recommended a lesser sentence.

Bangladesh: A former Muslim prayer leader who converted to Christianity was “welcomed by threats and violence.” Members of his Muslim community “beat him almost to death,” causing him to be hospitalized for almost two months: “the same Muslims who followed him and held him in high esteem when he was their imam now cannot accept his new status.”

Egypt: Two incidents of “blasphemy” convictions occurred: 1) A juvenile court sentenced a Coptic Christian teenager to three years in prison for allegedly “insulting Islam,” due to claims that he posted unflattering cartoons of Muhammad on Facebook. When the incident originally came to light, Muslims rioted, fire-bombing his home and at least five other Christian-owned homes. 2) Another judge upheld a six-year prison sentence for a Christian convicted of “blasphemy”: after a Muslim had told the 49-year old Christian convict that Jesus had illegal sex with at least ten women, the Christian countered “by stating that Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic religion, had more than four wives—a view commonly held by Islamic scholars.” Police subsequently arrested him and, in a 10-minute mock trial with no defense attorney present, the judge sentenced him to six years in prison for “insulting the prophet.”

Iran: A Christian convert from Islam has been sentenced to six years in prison. Originally arrested in December 2010 as part of a major crackdown on the country’s house church movement, “the married father of two has been held in the notorious Evin prison ever since, spending several months in solitary confinement,” where he was likely goaded into returning to Islam. He is accused of “action against the regime’s security, being in contact with foreign organizations and religious propaganda.” In short, according to Iranian Christians, “his ‘crime’ was practicing his Christian faith.”

Pakistan: Two incidents of “blasphemy” charges occurred: 1) A Christian man was arrested and charged with “blasphemy” for rescuing his 8-year-old nephew from a beating at the hands of Muslim boys who sought to force the boy to convert to Islam. “Seeing the attack from a distance, Masih [the man] shouted and rushed to the scene, rescued his nephew and then went to his work as a painter. Soon after the incident, a Muslim mob of about 55 led by the village prayer leader besieged Masih’s house,” insisting that “the blasphemer” be turned over to them. He was eventually released from prison, after being threatened and harassed by Muslim inmates and jail officials. 2) The mother of a newborn baby has been illegally jailed for over a month: authorities have failed to file a charge sheet within the mandatory 14-day period against the 26-year-old Christian woman accused of “blaspheming” the prophet of Islam. The woman was arrested after neighbors accused her of “uttering remarks against Muhammad.”

Philippines: Two pastors were slaughtered by Muslim assailants: 1) A former Muslim who became a Christian pastor was murdered in front of his wife in his home: “My husband staggered into our bedroom and I was shocked because he was full of blood,” she recalled. “I brought him to the hospital right away. He was operated on for eight bullet wounds, but did not survive.” The Philippines is a mostly Christian nation, but in the south, “Muslim fundamentalists are trying to build an Islamic state. Christians there face persecution and even death…. This year, at least four house churches closed down after their pastors and lay leaders were killed by Muslim extremists.” 2) Another pastor was shot in the head five times and killed by two “unknown gunmen” in front of his teenage daughter.

Dhimmitude

[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]

Egypt: A recent “reconciliation meeting” between members of a sword-wielding Muslim mob that earlier brutalized a Christian school proved to be “nothing less than an attempt at legalized extortion.” In exchange for peace, members of the mob that stormed the school last month without provocation—holding two nuns hostage for several hours—demanded in the meetings that the school sign over land that includes the guesthouse they attacked. “Human rights groups and Coptic rights activists, say the meetings are just a way to pressure powerless groups and people into giving away what little rights they have.” Likewise, the judges appointed to investigate the Maspero massacre, which claimed the lives of 27 Christians and injured 329,closed the case, due to “lack of identification of the culprits.” As one Christian lawyer put it: “We said all along that it was just a show and this is the outcome we got.”

India: Muslims stormed and terrorized a home where a Christian prayer meeting was being held, beating the Christians, including a 65-year-old widow. The Muslims “called them pagans as they kicked, slapped and pushed the Christians…. The Christians were running in all directions for their lives, including the children who were crying in fear,” even as one Muslim, “brandishing a sickle, chased many of them, hurling all kinds of insults and attempting to murder them all…. 500 Muslims had gathered and were watching in amusement as the extremists chased and harassed the Christians for about 90 minutes.”

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On the morning of April 29, Boko Haram struck Catholic and Protestant worship services simultaneously at Bayero University in Kano. Twenty-two so farhave been confirmed dead, and twenty-three wounded. In the evening they attacked a church service in Jere, near Maiduguri, Borno State, killing another five people.

U.S. Congressmen Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Patrick Meehan (R-PA) recently wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging that she designate the group as a terrorist organization. Meehan’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence released an extensive, bi-partisan report on Boko Haram as an “emerging threat to the U.S. Homeland.” But the State Department continues to downplay Boko Haram’s Islamist nature, preferring to see the terrorist murderers – of whom even the Nigerian police are afraid – as victims of poverty and marginalization.

One survivor of the April 29 attack on the Catholic Mass was a geography professor, Emmanuel Olofin. Olofin reported that Mass had just gotten underway in the university indoor sports complex at 8:10 AM when the worshippers heard the sound of “gunshots and pellets falling on the roof of the building.” According to reports, the attackers arrived in a car and two motorcycles. They threw explosives into the building and sent people into a panic. They fled from the building, straight into the attackers’ line of fire.

Professor Olofin, age 71, leaped over an eight-foot fence instead of using the actual exit in the gate. “I believe that most of the people that died were those who took the pedestrian exit because it seemed as if the attackers used the pedestrian gate to gain entrance,” said Olofin, who found refuge under a tree. Among the dead were two of Olofin’s university colleagues, Professors Jerome Ayodele, Department of Chemistry, and Andrew Leo Ogbonyomi, Library Science.

At the same time the attack on the Catholics was taking place, other members of the sect attacked the Chapel of Victory Protestant church service, meeting outdoors near the Faculty of Medicine. Professor Julius Falola, who was preaching when the Islamists arrived, recounted a horrific scene similar to that described by Professor Olofin. Explosions and gunshots were followed by fleeing church members who provided easy targets for Boko Haram killers.Falola said that some of the Christians “jumped over the fence while others ran deeper into the campus.” Falola hid in the university clinic. Falola and Olofin, as well as other witnesses, said that the police did not arrive until 10 AM. “The shooting went on for 45 minutes,” said Falola.

Boko Haram topped off their killing spree later that night, by opening fire on the Church of Christ in Nigeria parish in Jere. Because of a state of emergency in the town, worshippers had foregone meeting in the morning in favor of what they assumed would be an unnoticed and therefore less dangerous evening worship. Halfway through the service, witnesses reported that the Islamists came “in their trademark car, Volkswagen Golf, dressed in flowing gowns.” After “their routine shout of ‘Allah akbar,’ they . . .  headed straight for the altar” where they shot and killed the pastor, Reverend Albert Naga. Four others died from the attack, as well.

In response to Sunday’s targeted killing of Christians by Boko Haram, Secretary Clinton put out a paragraph on May 1, saying that the United States “strongly condemns the recent attacks on innocent civilians in Nigeria, including yesterday’s disgraceful assault during church services at Bayero University in Kano.” Clinton said that they are “concerned about attacks on churches, news media, and government installations that increasingly target innocent civilians across Northern Nigeria.” She condemned “attempts by those in Nigeria who seek to inflame Christian-Muslim tensions, and support those who recognize Nigeria’s ethnic and religious diversity as one of the country’s greatest strengths.” She concluded by saying that “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of those who were killed and injured.”

In a polity such as the PA, not to mention Hamas in Gaza, where Sharia law governs to the extent that any law other than the “law of the gun” exists, Christians feel excluded and discriminated.  That alone may explain the increased pace of Christian flight from the Palestinian territories since the mid-1990s when Israel left the cities of the West Bank to PA control and since Hamas began to rule Gaza in 2007.  Such factors as economic pressure, lack of safety and the rule of law, the increasing dominance of Islamists, and above all intimidation through violence and the threat of violence, have been contributing factors in the fleeing of Christians from the Holy Land.

Reverend Dr. Bill Harter, a Presbyterian Church USA pastor who has logged more than 40 missions to the Holy Land, pointed out to a State Department top official (in the presence of this writer) that what Palestinian Christians say in public is vastly different from what they say in private.  To maintain their safety and to hold up their bona fides as loyal Palestinian patriots, they must denounce Israel more vociferously at times than Muslims, otherwise they might be accused of collaborating with Israel.  The consequences for not cooperating with the Palestinian propaganda machine can be most severe: rape of daughters and wives, torched businesses and, ultimately, death by a bullet or a knife.

Privately, however, where there are no prying eyes, and when it is anonymously whispered, ordinary Palestinian-Christians reveal their suffering at the hands of their Muslim neighbors and roving gangs of Islamic extortionists.  Their methods do not differ much from the Mafia, but Christians are targeted specifically because they are not Muslims, and these militant Muslim extortionists get a free pass from the Gaza and Ramallah regimes.

The only utterances ordinary Christian-Palestinians can make on a public microphone or a television camera are anti-Israel statements.  Did Simon expect them to denounce the PA? Simon’s life was not on the line, theirs were.

The second factor in Simon’s hatchet job (on Israel) is to ignore the fact that the top clergy and leadership of the Christian Palestinian community have been co-opted by the PA, as well as by other Arab dictatorial regimes.  Popes (Coptic Pope in Egypt) bishops, clergy (Rev. Mitri Raheb, Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah, and others) and politicians like Hanan Ashrawi enjoy pay and position given to them by the PA.  Moreover, all of these figures know that defaming Israel carries only credit and no danger to themselves from the Israelis.  On the other hand, speaking ill of the Palestinian Authority or Hamas will carry a death sentence for them and their families.

In a piece published by the Gatestone Institute in 2009, Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim reporter for the Jerusalem Post wrote that Christians have complained about acts of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority. And, if that wasn’t enough, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men.

Toameh recounted hearing stories of shakedowns by Muslim gangs. He writes: “Over the past few years, a number of Christian businessmen told me that they were forced to shut down their businesses because they could no longer afford to pay ‘protection’ money to local Muslim gangs.” Abu Toameh pointed out that this is not the story Palestinian Christians tell Western reporters.

The following article was originally published by the

The war on Christianity and its adherents rages on in the Muslim world.  In March alone, Saudi Arabia’s highest Islamic law authority decreed that churches in the region must be destroyed; jihadis in Nigeria said they “are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women”; American teachers in the Middle East were murdered for being or talking about Christianity; churches were banned or bombed, and nuns terrorized by knife-wielding Muslim mobs.  Christians continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for allegedly “blaspheming” Islam’s prophet Muhammad;  former Muslims continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for converting to Christianity.

To understand why all this persecution is virtually unknown in the West, consider the mainstream media’s well-documented biases: also in March alone, the New York Times ran a virulently anti-Catholic ad, but refused to publish a near identical ad directed at Islam; the BBC admitted it will mock Jesus but never Muhammad; and U.S. sitcoms were exposed for bashing Christianity, but never Islam.

Is it any wonder, then, that this same mainstream media ignores or at best whitewashes the nonstop persecution of Christians under Islam?  Exposing such ugly truths would undermine their narrative of Islam as the “religion of peace.”

Categorized by theme, March’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity:

Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism: Death and Prison

Egypt: A Christian man accused of insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad was sentenced to six years in prison.  Though “defamation of religion” is a misdemeanor under Egyptian law, punishable by a prison sentence of one month to three years, the judge doubled the sentence to appease Muslims, including an angry 2,500-strong mob that terrorized the courtroom, demanding death for the Christian. Likewise, an “anti-Christianization course” by an organization that is “specializing in the resistance to Christianity”—so Muslims are not “throw[n] under the feet of the Cross”—was initiated; according to an instructor, “Reoccurring attempts at the university in Aswan to convert Muslims to Christianity or provoke them with misleading information was the drive behind the course.”

India: A young woman was attacked and kicked out of her home “for daring to give thanks for healing in Christ’s name” in a predominantly Muslim village; “her parents helped Islamic extremists to beat her nearly unconscious.” In a village where “hard-line Muslims have threatened to kill the 25 families who initially showed interest in Christ, leaving only five frightened Christian families,” the woman was attacked when returning from church, called “pagan, among other verbal abuse.” The mob also harassed and threatened the Christian woman who “lured” her to convert to Christianity.

Iran: In a rare crackdown on a concentrated area, authorities arrested 12 more converts to Christianity living in Isfahan, the country’s third largest city, in what is seen as a tactic to discourage Muslims from attending official churches.  Among the latest known Christian converts detained in the Isfahan area is a man who was reportedly taken into custody on March 2 while returning home from his work: “Security authorities raided his home and seized him without explanation.”

Iraq: An American teacher was shot to death by an 18-year-old student at a private Christian academy.  He “was a devout Christian who frequently praised Christianity and prayed in the classroom, and his friends in Washington said his evangelism is what motivated him to teach in Iraq.” According to students, “Mr. Jeremiah’s hands were still folded in prayer when he fell”; others say a day before the shooting “a heated discussion” broke out “during which the pupil threatened to kill the teacher because of conflicting religious views.” In an interview, the father of the pupil condemned Christian evangelists, portraying them as “more dangerous than al-Qaeda.”

Malaysia:  After religious police raided a Methodist church event due to “fears that Muslims were being converted,” Muslim officials created a seminar called “Strengthening the faith, the dangers of liberalism and pluralism and the threat of Christianity towards Muslims.”  Due to criticism of the title, a lawmaker said the reference to Christianity would be removed, but the seminar’s content would remain unchanged: “The seminar is part of the right of Muslims to defend the faith of its practitioners from any action which may lead to apostasy. It is our responsibility.”

Pakistan: A Muslim mob attacked a 60-year-old Christian woman who had converted to Islam, only to reconvert back to Christianity six months later: she “was tortured—her head shaved—and paraded through the streets, garlanded with shoes.” Soon after, she received more threats of “dire consequences” from Islamic clerics, fleeing the region with her family.  Likewise, a 26-year-old Christian woman, mother to a five-month-old girl, was falsely accused of “blaspheming” Muhammad and arrested.  A few days prior, some of her relatives who converted to Islam pressured her also to do likewise:   “She refused, telling them that she was satisfied with Christianity and did not want to convert,” and was arrested of blasphemy soon thereafter.

Yemen: Al-Qaeda gunmen fatally shot an American teacher.  The terror network’s affiliate in Yemen issued a message saying, “This operation comes as a response to the campaign of Christian proselytizing that the West has launched against Muslims,” calling the teacher “one of the biggest American proselytizers.” He was shot eight times on a Sunday.

Church Attacks

Bethlehem: One week after the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority told an audience of Evangelicals that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities, the PA declared a Baptist Church illegal, adding that birth, wedding, and death certificates from the church are no longer valid.  A pastor notes that “animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the PA continues to get increasingly worse. People are always telling [Christians], ‘Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It’s the true and right religion.’”

Egypt: Some 1500 Muslims—several armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt, in response to calls from local mosques falsely claiming the private school was building a church: “Two nuns were besieged in the school’s guesthouse for some eight hours by a murderous mob threatening to burn them alive”; one nun suffered a “major nervous breakdown requiring hospitalization… The entire property was ransacked and looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the children. Consequently, school attendance has dropped by at least one third.”

Iran: The Armenian Evangelical Church in Tehran is the latest church to be ordered to cease holding Persian service on Fridays. The officers serving the notice threatened church officials, saying that “if the order is ignored, the church building will be bombed ‘as happens in Iraq every day.’”  As another report summarizes, “Christians and Churches in the Islamic Republic of Iran are now banned from preaching the Gospel to non-Christians, holding Persian language services, teaching and distributing the Bible, or holding Christian classes.”

The following article was originally published by the Stonegate Institute.

When it comes to Muslim persecution of Christians, the mainstream media (MSM) have a long paper trail of obfuscating; while they eventually do state the bare-bone facts—if they ever report on the story in the first place, which is rare—they do so after creating and sustaining an aura of moral relativism that minimizes the Muslim role.

False Moral Equivalency

As previously discussed, one of the most obvious ways is to evoke “sectarian strife” between Muslims and Christians, a phrase that conjures images of two equally matched—equally abused, and abusive—adversaries fighting. This hardly suffices to describe reality: Muslim majorities persecuting largely passive Christian minorities.

Boko Haram seeks to enforce Sharia law; here, members stand in front of a distinctly Islamic banner. Yet the MSM claims the group's goals are "unclear."

Most recently, for instance, in the context of the well-documented suffering of Christians in Egypt, an NPR report declared “In Egypt, growing tensions between Muslims and Christians have led to sporadic violence [initiated by whom?]. Many Egyptians blame the interreligious strife on hooligans [who?] taking advantage of absent or weak security forces. Others believe it’s because of a deep-seated mistrust between Muslims and the minority Christian community [how did the "mistrust" originate?].” Though the report does highlight cases where Christians are victimized, the tone throughout suggests that examples of Muslims victimized by Christians could just as easily have been found (not true). Even the title of the report is “In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension is on the Rise”; the accompanying photo is of a group of angry Christians, one militantly holding a cross aloft—not Muslims destroying crosses, which is what prompts the former to such displays of religious solidarity.

Two more strategies that fall under the MSM’s umbrella of obfuscating and minimizing Islam’s role—strategies that the reader should become acquainted with—appeared in recent reports dealing with the jihadi group Boko Haram and its ongoing genocide of Nigeria’s Christians.

First, some context: Boko Haram, whose full name in Arabic is “Sunnis for Da’wa [Islamization] and Jihad,” is a terrorist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the secular government and establishment of Sharia law (sound familiar?). It has been slaughtering Christians for years, with an uptick since last December’s Christmas day church bombing, which left 40 Christians dead, followed by its New Year ultimatum that all Christians must evacuate northern regions or die—an ultimatum Boko Haram has been living up to, as hardly a day goes by without a terrorist attack on Christians or churches, most recently, last Sunday’s Easter day church attack that killed nearly 50.

Blurring the Line between Persecutor and Victim

Now consider some MSM strategies. The first one is to frame the conflict between Muslims and Christians in a way that blurs the line between persecutor and victim, for example, this recent BBC report on one of Boko Haram’s many church attacks that left three Christians dead, including a toddler. After stating the bare-bone facts, the report goes on to describe how “the bombing sparked a riot by Christian youths, with reports that at least two Muslims were killed in the violence. The two men were dragged off their bikes after being stopped at a roadblock set up by the rioters, police said. A row of Muslim-owned shops was also burned…” The report goes on and on, with a special section about “very angry” Christians, till one all but confuses victims with persecutors, forgetting what the Christians are “very angry” about in the first place: unprovoked and nonstop terror attacks on their churches, and the murder of their women and children.

The following article was originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

Last Sunday, many Christians around the world celebrated Easter, taking it for granted that they can congregate and worship in peace.  Not so; in the Islamic world, where top religious officials call for the destruction of churches, Christian holidays celebrated in church are increasingly a time of death and destruction, a time of terror.

Nigeria, for example, saw some 50 Christians killed “when explosives concealed in two cars went off near a church during Easter Sunday services in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna…. the casualty figure may go up because some injuries were really critical.”  The church targeted was “the Assemblies of God’s Church near the centre of the city with a large Christian population and known as a major cultural and economic centre in Nigeria’s north.” According to the pastor holding Easter services at the time, “We were in the Holy Communion service and I was exhorting my people and all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise that shattered all our windows and doors, destroyed our fans and some of our equipment in the church.”

There is little doubt that the Islamist group Boko Haram is behind the terror strike.  The group has long been targeting churches—most notoriously, last December 25, when several churches were bombed in the Muslim majority areas of Nigeria, in what was described as “Nigeria’s blackest Christmas ever”: then, over 40 Christians were slain, “the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla near the capital of Abuja] after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.” As usual, the charred and dismembered remains of Christian worshippers were seen scattered in and around the destroyed church.

While the Christmas—and now Easter—church attacks may be Nigeria’s most known, they are certainly not the only ones. Consider just the last few weeks:

• Sunday, March 11: A Boko Haram suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church, killing at least 10 people. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended Mass at St. Finbar’s Catholic Church in Jos, a city where thousands of Christians have died in the last decadeas a result of Boko Haram’s jihad.

• Sunday, February 26: A Boko Haram suicide car bomber killed at least three people, including a toddler, at another church in Jos. Witnesses said the jihadist drove his car into the prominent Church of Christ during morning prayers.

• Sunday, February 19: A Boko Haram bomb attack outside a church in Abuja left at least five people seriously injured and manymore hurt, when a parked car filled with explosives detonated outside the Christ Embassy Church.

The focus of the presentation was the Shia-Sunni conflict in the Middle East and the rise to dominance of Islamism in the Arab world.  My colleague, Dr. Mikhail, a native Egyptian, related his personal experiences living as a Christian in Egypt.  He described the teaching of hate against non-Muslims, and the resultant killings and raping rampages against Christians in Egypt by Muslims. (In the most recent elections held in Egypt, since the fall of the Mubarak regime, the Salafist “Nour” party, members of which are extremist Islamists won 27.8% of the seats in the Egyptian Parliament and the more “moderate”Muslim Brotherhood won 37.5% of the vote.

“Progressive” thinking members of the clergy seem to have their minds made up and cannot and will not allow facts to alter their beliefs.  And, while our presentation focused on reported, factual events in the Middle East, these facts seemed irrelevant to our “progressive” Unitarian Minister host.  While it is true that there are extremist Christians and Jews, not since the dawn of the 21^st century has one heard cries from either Christians or Jews advocating the killing of an infidel Muslim as we have seen when a Muslim cries out “Allahu Akbar” while stabbing or shooting a Jew or a Christian.  There have been no reported killings of Muslims in the name of Jesus or Moses…

The exercising of moral equivalency by the “Progressive Left”  negates the teachings of all monotheistic faiths.  If one cannot distinguish between right and wrong, one invites chaos and confusion into society.  Moreover, our legal system will collapse under such a practice.  A murderer’s guilt will become “relative” not complete, and under such relativist conditions, it would be impossible to convict anyone, without having extenuating circumstances.

What holds true for individual offenders applies to communities of faiths as well.  In today’s Europe (most recently exhibited in Toulouse), as in Gaza and Cairo, Islamist incitement to murder infidels is excused by European elites who react to such heinous acts with moral relativism and political correctness.  Relativism and political correctness found in academia, media, churches, or government, regard the probing into aberrant Islamist behavior as Islamophobia or racism.

Similar complaints as that made by the Unitarian minister, regarding the call to restraint in the absence of Muslim representatives, reveals an endemic hypocrisy that exists not just in this particular church, but in the United Methodist and the Presbyterian USA churches, where anti-Israel and at times anti-Semitic resolutions are being discussed without consideration of the Jewish/Israeli point of view or, not including input from one of the parties – the Jewish/Israeli party as part of the discussion.

At the upcoming United Methodist Church (UMC) General Conference taking place this April 2012, and the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly to be held in July 2012, leaders will be calling for divestment from companies doing business with Israel, and statements will be made labeling Israel “an Apartheid State” and equating Israel with South Africa.

The abuse has gotten to the point where “Salafis covered the cross of the church with garbage bags, telling the church members that they do not wish to see the vision of the Cross anywhere in the Islamic state of Tunisia.”

Among all the Arabic-speaking nations, Tunisia has long been described as one of the most “secular” and “liberal”; it was also the first nation where the much ballyhooed “Arab Spring” began. Now its very few churches are not tolerated, and their crucifixes abhorred. If this is “tolerant” Tunisia, what should one expect from the more “radical” nations? More evidence of the true nature of the “Arab Spring.”

Some anti-Israel church activists in the West blast Israel in time for Christmas. Others choose Easter.  Recently, World Vision chief Richard Stearns, who heads one of the largest U.S. evangelical relief groups, proclaimed in the Huffington Post that Palestinian Christians are enduring a Holy Week of “trial and tribulation” thanks to Israel.

Claiming Israel allows only 2,000-3000 travel permits for Jerusalem during Holy Week to a population of about 50,000 Palestinian Christians, Stearns never bothered to acknowledge why Israel has security concerns about visitors to Jerusalem.  Quoting a Palestinian colleague who attended church in Jerusalem in 2010, Stearns ominously recalled: “The crowd, striving to stay joyful, could still feel the change of what Easter had now become and the dark cloud of checkpoints, police forces, and denial of entry that had obscured the joy of this holiday.”  Stearns announced he’s praying for the “miracle” of “full religious freedom to the Christians in the West Bank and Gaza.”

If he has time, maybe Stearns can pray for all Christians in the Middle East, whose problems entail considerably more than travel inconveniences.

Responding to Stearns, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren said Israel has provided more than 20,000 permits this year for Palestinian Christians to enter Jerusalem for Holy Week, plus 500 permits for the handful of Christians left in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

“With the exception of the very few individuals who have raised security concerns, and notwithstanding the measures we must take to protect our citizens, any Christian from the West Bank can reach Jerusalem on Good Friday and Easter,” Oren said.  “Israel, the only Middle Eastern country with a growing and thriving Christian population, remains committed to maintaining its superb relations with Christian communities worldwide. Though we face serious and continuing defense challenges, we uphold the principle of free access to the Holy Places to all religions.”

Ambassador Oren has recently had to address the realities that confront the Middle East’s shriveling Christian populations while many Western Christians prefer silence or blaming Israel.   In   a Wall Street Journal op-ed recently he described the Christian exodus from Palestinian territories thanks to Islamist intimidation.  The Religious Left and its preferred Palestinian voices responded indignantly, since Oren had challenged their narrative that only Israel can be faulted for Christian difficulties in the Middle East.

Oren’s facts were indisputable. About 20 percent of the Middle East a century ago was Christian. Today it’s 5 percent and plunging, as churches are burned in Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere, forcing thousands to flee. Oren likened the Christian exodus to the 800,000 Jews forced from their homes in Arab lands after Israel’s creation.  The only safe place for Christians in the current Middle East is in Israel, he observed with understatement.

As a minority, Christians experience some “intolerance” in Israel, Oren admitted.  “But in contrast to elsewhere in the Middle East where hatred of Christians is ignored or encouraged,” he wrote, “Israel remains committed to its Declaration of Independence pledge to ‘ensure the complete equality of all its citizens irrespective of religion.’”

In contrast, half of Gaza’s almost tiny Christian community has fled since the Hamas coup in 2007, Oren noted.   On the West Bank, the Christian community has fallen to under 2 percent.  Although Israel is commonly blamed for Christian emigration, most Palestinian Christians live in West Bank cities under the Palestinian Authority.  And the Muslim majority population continues to grow.  In Bethlehem, where Christians where once the majority, they have become 20 percent since the Palestinian take-over in 1995.

“The extinction of the Middle East’s Christian communities is an injustice of historic magnitude,” Oren concluded.   But an anti-Israel Christian group called Kairos Palestine denounced Oren’s op-ed as “inaccurate and manipulative” for faulting Muslims instead of Israel’s “illegal Israeli occupation.”  Their response, helpfully broadcast by the United Church of Christ’s Global Ministries Board, did not identify any specific inaccuracies by Oren.  Instead, the Palestinian activists blamed Christian “persecution” on the “occupation that systematically degrades all Palestinians” and the “underlying political oppression that afflicts Christians and Muslims alike.”

Israel has become the only safe haven for Christians in the Middle East, Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, wrote in a recent op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal.

“As 800,000 Jews were once expelled from Arab countries, so are Christians being forced from lands they’ve inhabited for centuries”, Ambassador Oren stated, comparing the expulsion of Jews after the establishment of the state of Israel with the Arab countries’ current treatment of their Christian minorities.

The numbers are telling. Today there is only one Middle Eastern country where the number of Christians has grown: Israel. As documented in the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the Christian community that numbered 34,000 people in 1949 is now 163,000-strong, and will reach 187,000 in 2020.

In the rest of the Middle East, the drive for Islamic purity is going to banish all traces of pre-Islamic pasts. When the Islamists will have prevailed, the Middle East will be completely green, the colour of Islam.

Therefore, it is time for Christians to recognize Israel’s survival as critical and vital also for them. Instead, Arab Christians chose to react to Ambassador Oren by embracing Islam and demonizing the Jews.

“As Christian leaders in Palestine, we were appalled by the baseless allegations you published in the Wall Street Journal”, says one letter signed by many  Arab Christian personalities published in the Palestinian media outlets. “Your attempt to blame the difficult reality that Palestinian Christians face on Palestinian Muslims is a shameful manipulation of the facts intended to mask the damage that Israel has done to our community. The Israeli occupation is the primary reason why so many members of the oldest Christian communities in the world have left the holy land, Palestine. Our reality is one of occupation, oppression and loss”.

The letter is signed by Palestinian ministries, activists, priests and mayors and members of the PLO.

Arab Christianity is near its extinction everywhere. “Christianity in Iraq could be eradicated in our lifetime, partially as a result of the US troop withdrawal”, declared Leonard Leo, chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In Egypt, 100,000 Christians already have left the country - after Hosni Mubarak’s fall last year. The Egyptian Union of Human Rights is denouncing this “mass exodus”.

Even more dramatic is the collapse of Christian Arab society following Israel’s handing over of large parts of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Authority. Christians have suffered the most from the mafia-style rule of Yasser Arafat’s kleptocracy.

Christian sites and cemeteries were desecrated by Muslims. Slogans like “Islam will win” and “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday People” have been painted on walls, and PLO flags were draped over Jesus crosses.

Ramallah was 90% Christian before the 1948 War of Independence and Bethlehem was 80% Christian. Today Ramallah is a large Islamic city and Bethlehem’s Christians are near extinction.

Given their common status as minorities within an overwhelmingly Islamic region, you might expect Christian Arabs to find common cause with Jews and Israel. But the traditional hatred of Eastern Christianity for Judaism, combined with the futile hopes for assimilation within the Arab world, have closed off that option.

As the letter clearly shows, Arab Christians are lost to Islam. This unavoidable historical process has been explained by the pioneer Bat Ye’or, the most important historian of the “dhimmitude”.

The following article was originally published by the 

Apologists often try to explain away Islamic terrorism as a byproduct of something else. The usual argument is that, because Muslims are politically, socially, or militarily weak—the archetypal example often given is Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians—they have no choice but to resort to terror to strike at their stronger adversaries.   In other words, they resort to terrorism simply to even the odds—hence the argument that terrorism is the “weapon of the weak.”

Though this narrative is widely accepted, it is demonstrably false.  Consider the following account that took place a couple of weeks ago in Muslim-majority Egypt:

More than 300 Muslim lawyers inside and outside a courthouse in the southern Egyptian province of Assuit today [3/16] prevented defense lawyer Ahmad Sayed Gabali, who is representing the Christian, Makarem Diab, from going into court. Mr. Diab was found guilty of “Insulting the Muslim Prophet” and was scheduled today for a hearing on his appeal. Attorney Dr. Naguib Gabriell, head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization, said there was “terror in the Assiut Court today.” He added that he was on his way to court when he was advised that Muslim lawyers have issued death threats to any Christian lawyers who attend the court session. “Makram Diab was assaulted by Muslim lawyers during his transfer from the courtroom and security failed to protect him.”  Peter Sarwat, a Coptic lawyer, said that Muslim lawyers representing the plaintiffs prevented the defense team from entering court: “They said no Muslim will defend a Christian. It was agreed that Christian lawyers would take over and two Coptic lawyers volunteered, but the Muslims decided later that even Christians would not defend him.” Sarwat said the Muslim lawyers wanted to assault the chief judge but he managed to leave the court via a rear door [emphasis added].

The report goes on to explain how Muslim lawyers and activists went to court to defend Diab’s right to a fair trial only to be assaulted by other Muslim lawyers: “They were assaulting us in a beastly and strange way just because we went there to defend a citizen who happened to be a Christian,” said one of the lawyers, adding that exiting the court required security intervention: “We left court in a security vehicle which took us to Security headquarters, otherwise, we don’t know what the outcome would have been for us.”

The Boko Haram death toll has surpassed a thousand in only a few years. It has killed 250 people this year alone. It draws inspiration from the Taliban, has links to Al-Qaeda and has carried out numerous sophisticated attacks, including multiple car bombings.

That leaves one question. Why hasn’t Boko Haram been designated a terrorist organization? It has killed more people than some of the organizations on the list and it is dedicated to ethnic cleansing, something that we decided was unacceptable when it came to Muslims. Shouldn’t it then be equally unacceptable when it is being done by Muslims to Christians?

Apparently not. Johnnie Carson, Obama’s Chicago-born man in Africa, and the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs at subcommittee hearings chaired by Senator Coons, dismissed the idea of designating Boko Haram a terrorist organization and claimed falsely, that despite Boko Haram’s repeated statements about its goals and its very name, that this conflict was not driven by religion, but by social inequities.

Questions about Boko Haram’s terrorism against Christians were rerouted into what Carson described as a “comprehensive” approach to the problem, sidelining security assistance in favor of providing social aid to the Muslim north and urging the Nigerian government to stop aggressively fighting terrorism.

Boko Haram had been inspired by the Taliban and American diplomats are forcefully pushing the Nigerian government into adopting the same disastrous failed “Hearts and Minds” policies of Afghanistan. Instead of combating Boko Haram, we will be increasing funding to the Muslim north and even opening a consulate there. And of course urging Nigeria to appoint more Muslims to high ranking positions.

While the subcommittee on Homeland Security has urged that Boko Haram be designated a terrorist group, diplomats in the State Department are doing everything possible to sabotage the effort. The lies are coming fast and thick. In the New York Times, Jean Herskovitz wrote an op-ed insisting that there was no Boko Haram, suggesting instead that random criminal gangs were really responsible for the mass murder of Christians.

Herskovitz used the exact same line put out by appeasers in the early days of the War on Terror when they claimed that there was no actual Al-Qaeda. Since then that spin has been used for countless Muslim terrorist groups, who cannot be fought because they don’t truly exist. Carson echoed her in his testimony, insisting that Boko Haram was vague, loosely defined and not at all monolithic.

According to Herskovitz, the genocidal Boko Haram terrorist group was actually a “peaceful” group which only turned to violence in response to government oppression, and urged us not to act in a way that “would make us appear biased toward a Christian president” or the Nigerian Muslims would turn on us too.

As a government employee, Johnnie Carson was somewhat more discreet, but took the same position that the real fault lies with the Christian South and the Nigerian government for keeping Muslims oppressed and in poverty, and that the only solution is to pour money, jobs and power into the north. The unstated endgame of this is to create a stalemate that will force the Nigerian political system to make further concessions to Islam and the Sharia law that Boko Haram is fighting for.

Syrian President Basher Assad isn’t the only target of Syrian rebels as Syria’s Orthodox Christian Church reports “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians” by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militant groups in the embattled Syrian city of Homs.

The report from the Vatican news agency Fides says Brigade Faruq, which has links with elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Islamist mercenaries from Libya, has expelled 90 percent of Christians living in Homs, nearly 50,000 people.

Reportedly, the armed Islamists went door to door in the Christian neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan informing the homeowners that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot. Then pictures of their corpses would be taken and sent to al-Jazeera, along with the message that the Syrian government had killed them.

As such, the men, women and children — denied by the Islamists from taking any of their belongings — were forced to flee to mountain villages 30 miles outside of Homs, their homes occupied by the militants who claimed the owners’ possessions as “war-booty from the Christians.”

According to reports by Barnabas Aid, a relief agency assisting Syrian Christians, the forced Christian exodus from Homs has been ongoing since the beginning of February when armed Islamists murdered more than 200 Christians, “including entire families with young children.”

At that time a representative of Barnabas Aid pleaded, “Christians are being forced to flee the city to the safety of government-controlled areas. Muslim rebel fighters and their families are taking over their homes.”

Unfortunately, Islamist attacks against Syria’s Christian community, including kidnappings and murder, have occurred almost from the onset of the popular uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad which began in March 2011.

These murders, which have killed over 100 Christians, include the hanging of a 28-year-old man; a 40 year-old father of two shot dead; two young men killed while waiting in line at a bakery; and a 37-year-old father with a pregnant wife, his body cut into pieces and thrown in a river.

Most recently, a car bombing targeted the Christian district in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing three and wounding 30. As Giuseppe Nazzaro, the Vicar Apostolic of Aleppo, said, “In this situation the Islamist and terrorist movements are making headway,” adding “These are bad times for religious minorities.”

Unhappily, these sectarian attacks on Christians have sparked fears that Syria could become like Iraq, where church attacks, kidnappings and forced expulsions by armed Islamist militant groups after the US invasion in 2003 drove Iraq’s Christian population from 1.4 million to less than 300,000 today.

For its part, leaders of the Syrian opposition have denied sectarian motives against Christians, noting that, even though the Syrian insurgency is rooted in the nation’s Sunni Muslim majority, all groups are welcome to join the Syrian rebellion.

Not surprisingly, that open invitation to join its ranks has gone largely unanswered among Syrian Christians who make up 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million, mostly Sunni Muslim populace.

Specifically, Syrian Christians have long viewed Assad’s secular regime as being generally more tolerant of Syria’s religious minorities, a belief certainly buttressed by the current anti-Christian violence being perpetrated against them by Syrian Islamists.

The following article was originally published by the Stonegate Institute.

Half of Iraq’s indigenous Christians are gone due to the unleashed forces of jihad, many of them fleeing to nearby Syria; yet, as the Assad regime comes under attack by al-Qaeda and others, the jihad now seeps into Syria, where Christians are experiencing a level of persecution unprecedented in the nation’s modern history.   Likewise, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their native Egypt since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime; and in northern regions of Nigeria, where the jihadi group Boko Haram has been slaughtering Christians, up to 95 % of the Christian population has fled.

Meanwhile, the “big news” concerning the Muslim world in the month of February—the news that flooded the mainstream media and had U.S. politicians, beginning with President Obama, flustered, angry, and full of regret—was that copies of the Koran in Afghanistan were burned by U.S. soldiers because imprisoned Muslim inmates were using them  “to facilitate extremist communications.”

Categorized by theme, February’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.

Church Attacks

Algeria: Armed men raided and ransacked a church formally recognized since 1958, dismantling the crucifix above the premises.  The pastor and his family, trapped inside, feared that “they could kill us.” The pastor “has been repeatedly threatened and attacked since being ordained as pastor in 2007. In the summer of 2009 his wife was beaten and seriously injured by a group of unknown men. Then, in late 2011, heaps of trash were thrown over the compound walls while an angry mob shouted death threats.”

Egypt: Thousands of Muslims attacked a Coptic church, demanding the death of its pastor, who, along with “nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building.” They did this because a Christian girl who, according to Islamic law, automatically became a Muslim when her father converted to Islam, fled and was rumored to be hiding in the church.

Iran:  Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has ordered the last two officially registered churches holding Friday Farsi-language services in Tehran—Farsi being the nation’s language—to discontinue the language: “Friday services in Tehran attracted the city’s converts to Christianity as well as Muslims interested in Christianity, as Friday is most Iranians’ day off during the week.” Banning church use of Farsi prevents most Iranians from hearing the Gospel.

Kazakhstan: A new report notes that “Churches are being raided, leaders fined and Christian literature confiscated as the Kazakh authorities enforce new laws intended further to restrict religious freedom in the country.”

Kuwait: A parliamentarian is set to submit a draft law banning the construction of churches.  Originally, Osama al-Munawer announced on Twitter his plans on submitting a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in Kuwait. However, he later “clarified,” saying that existing churches can remain, but the construction of new ones must be banned.

Macedonia: A two-century-old Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set on fire in response to “a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men dressed as women in burkas and mocked the Koran.”  Earlier, “perpetrators attacked a[nother] church in the nearby village of Labunista, destroying a cross standing outside” and “also defaced a Macedonian flag outside Struga’s municipal building, replacing it with a green flag representing Islam.”

Nigeria: A Muslim suicide bomber forced his way into the grounds of a major church, killing two women and an 18-month-old child during Sunday morning service; some 50 people were injured in the blast. In a separate incident, Muslims detonated a bomb outside a church building, injuring five, one critically: “The bomb, planted in a parked car, was left by suspected members of Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria.”

Pakistan: A dozen armed Muslims stormed a church, seriously wounding two Christians: one man was shot and is in critical condition, the other risks having his arm amputated; another church member was thrown from the roof, after being struck repeatedly with a rifle butt. “The extremist raid was sparked by charges that [the] church was trying to evangelize Muslims in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. The community several times in the past has been the subject of assault and the pastor and his family the subject of death threats.”  As usual, the police, instead of pursuing the perpetrators, have opened an investigation against the pastor and 20 other church members.

Syria: Some 30 armed and masked jihadis attacked a Catholic monastery—unprecedented in Syria’s modern history—demanding money. According to the Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, “the situation in the country is spiraling out of control as the armed opposition spreads its influence to different regions of the state.”

Dhimmitude

[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as “Tolerated” Citizens]

Bangladesh: Three American Christians were injured after their car was attacked by a Muslim mob that suspected they were converting Muslims into Christians: at least 200 angry locals chased the missionaries’ car and threw stones at it, leaving three with cuts from broken glass.

Egypt: Rather than punishing the perpetrators who opened fire on and ran tanks over Christians protesting the constant destruction of their churches, the government arrested and is trying two priests in connection to the Maspero massacre. And although Egypt’s new parliament has 498 seats, only six are Copts, though Copts make up at the very least 10% of the population, and so should have approximately 50 seats.  Finally, evincing how bad the situation is, Coptic protesters organized a demonstration in front of Parliament to protest “the disappearance and abduction of Coptic girls.”

Indonesia: The Islamist Prosperous Justice Party complained about the Red Cross’ symbol of a cross, saying it is too identifiable with Christian culture and traditions. Red Cross volunteers and activists rejected the claim, saying that any changes to the logo would be “tantamount to giving in to the extremists.”

Iran: A pastor of a major house church movement began serving a five-year prison sentence for “crimes against the order.”  According to one activist,  “His ‘crimes’ were being a pastor and possessing Christian materials.” He is being beat in jail and getting sick, to the point that his hair has “turned fully gray.”

Israel: A mob of some 50 Palestinian Muslims stoned a group of Christian tourists atop Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, wounding three Israeli police officers in the process. The attack is believed to have been instigated by the former Muslim mufti of Jerusalem.

Pakistan: Yet another Christian woman, a teacher, has been targeted by Muslims due to allegations that she burned a Koran.  A mob stormed her school in an attempt to abduct her, but police took her into custody. Also, a Christian student who missed the grade to get into medical school by less than 0.1% would have earned 20 extra points if he had memorized the Koran—though no bonus points for having similar knowledge of the Bible.

The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait: a Kuwaiti parliament member recently called for the “removal” of churches (he later “clarified” by saying he merely meant that no churches should be built in Kuwait), and the delegation wanted to confirm Sharia’s position on churches.

Accordingly, the Grand Mufti “stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it.”

As with many grand muftis before him, the Sheikh based his proclamation on the famous tradition, or hadith, wherein the prophet of Islam declared on his deathbed that “There are not to be two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula,” which has always been interpreted to mean that only Islam can be practiced in the region.

While the facts of this account speak for themselves, consider further:

Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah is not just some random Muslim hating on churches. He is the Grand Mufti of the nation that brought Islam to the world. Moreover, he is the President of the Supreme Council of Ulema [Islamic scholars] and Chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas. Accordingly, when it comes to what Islam teaches, his words are immensely authoritative.

Considering the hysteria that besets the West whenever non-authoritative individuals offend Islam—for instance, a fringe, unknown pastor—imagine what would happen if a Christian counterpart to the Grand Mufti, say the Pope, were to declare that all mosques in Italy must be destroyed; imagine the nonstop Western media frenzy that would erupt, all the shrill screams of “intolerance” and “bigot,” demands for apologies if not resignation, nonstop handwringing by sensitive politicians, and worse.

The following article was originally published by the Stonegate Institute.

What is the alternative to Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria? A simple if indirect way to find out is to consider which groups in Syria are especially for or against Assad—and why.

Christian minorities, who, at 10% of the Syrian population, have the most to gain from a secular government and the most to suffer from a Sharia-state, have no choice but to prefer Assad. They are already seeing aspects of the alternative. A recent Barnabas Fund report titled “Christians in Syria Targeted in Series of Kidnappings and Killings; 100 Dead,” tells of how “children were being especially targeted by the kidnappers, who, if they do not receive the ransom demanded, kill the victim.” In one instance, kidnappers videotaped a Christian boy as they murdered him in an attempt to frame the government; one man “was cut into pieces and thrown in a river” and another “was found hanged with numerous injuries.”

Accordingly, it is understandable that, as an earlier report put it, “Christians have mostly stayed away from the protests in Syria, having been well treated and afforded a considerable amount of religious freedom under President Assad’s regime.” After all, “Should Assad fall, it is feared that Syria could go the way of Iraq post-Saddam Hussein. Saddam, like Assad, restrained the influence of militant Islamists, but after his fall they were free to wreak havoc on the Christian community; hundreds of thousands of Christians were consequently forced to flee the violence. Many of them went to Syria.”

In short, should “rebels” get their way and topple the Assad regime, the same brutal pattern experienced by Iraq’s Christian minorities—who have been liked to, and killed off like, dogs, to the point of nearing extinction—will come to Syria, where a preacher recently urged Muslims to “tear apart, chop up and feed” Christians who support Assad “to the dogs.” From last week alone, some 70 additional Christian homes were invaded and pillaged, and “for the first time in the history of the conflict in Syria, an armed attack has been made on a Catholic monastery,” partially in search of money.

Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic (see here for example), it may be instructive to examine one of those aspects that are regularly distorted: the Muslim conquests.

Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World—from the India in the east, to Spain in the west—were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time, with more after (e.g., the Ottoman conquests).

By the standards of history, the reality of these conquests is unassailable, for history proper concerns itself with primary sources; and the Islamic conquests are thoroughly documented. More importantly, the overwhelming majority of primary source materials we rely on do not come from non-Muslims, who might be accused of bias. Rather, the foremost historians bequeathing to posterity thousands of pages of source materials documenting the Islamic conquests were not only Muslims themselves; they were—and still are—regarded by today’s Muslims as pious and trustworthy scholars (generically, the ulema).

Among the most authoritative books devoted to recounting the conquests are: Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 767) Sira (“Life of Muhammad”), the oldest biography of Muhammad; Waqidi’s (d. circa. 820) Maghazi (“Military Campaigns [of the Prophet]“); Baladhuri’s (d. 892) Futuh al-Buldan (“Conquests of the Nations”); and Tabari’s (d.923) multi-volumeTarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, (“History of Prophets and Kings”), which is 40 volumes in the English translation.

Taken together, these accounts (which are primarily based on older accounts—oral and written—tracing back to Muhammad and his successors) provide what was once, and in the Muslim world still is, a famous story: that Allah had perfected religion (Islam) for all humanity; that he commanded his final prophet (Muhammad) and community (Muslims) to spread Islam to the world; and that the latter was/is to accept it either willingly or unwillingly (jihad).

It should be noted that contemporary non-Muslim accounts further validate the facts of the conquests. The writings of the Christian bishop of Jerusalem Sophronius (d.638), for instance, or the chronicles of the Byzantine historian Theophanes (d.758), to name a couple, make clear that Muslims conquered much of what is today called the “Muslim world.”

According to the Muslim historical tradition, the majority of non-Muslim peoples of the Old World, not desiring to submit to Islam or its laws (Sharia), fought back, though most were eventually defeated and subsumed.

The first major conquest, renowned for its brutality, occurred in Arabia itself, immediately after Muhammad’s death in 632. Many tribes which had only nominally accepted Islam’s authority, upon Muhammad’s death, figured they could break away; however, Muhammad’s successor and first caliph, or successor, Abu Bakr, would have none of that, and proclaimed a jihad against these apostates, known in Arabic as the “Ridda Wars” (or Apostasy Wars). According to the aforementioned historians, tens of thousands of Arabs were put to the sword until their tribes re-submitted to Islam.

The Ridda Wars ended around 634. To keep the Arab Muslims from quarreling, the next caliph, Omar, launched the Muslim conquests: Syria was conquered around 636, Egypt 641, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire, 650. By the early 8th century, all of north Africa and Spain to the west, and the lands of central Asia and India to the east, were also brought under Islamic suzerainty.

With only a 12% Muslim minority, and an 84% Christian majority, Uganda may not seem a hotspot of Islamic activity.  Yet, in recent weeks and months, story after story of attacks on Muslim converts to Christianity have emerged, with troubling implications beyond the intrinsic level.  Consider the following anecdotes:

Tortured Daughter

A Muslim father, in accordance with Sharia law, imprisoned and starved his teenage daughter, Susan Ithungu, because she converted to Christianity.  He had warned her and her brother “not to attend church or listen to the gospel message. He even threatened us with a sharp knife that he was ready to kill us in broad daylight in case we converted to Christianity.”  When she refused to recant, “he locked her up in a room of the semi-permanent house for six months without seeing sunlight. The younger brother was warned not to tell anyone that Susan was locked up in a room and was not given any food.”  Still young and un-indoctrinated, Susan’s brother smuggled scraps of food to his sister, though “most days she could only feed on mud”; he also dug a hole under the door, pouring water through it, which she was forced to lap “using her tongue.”

When she was finally rescued, she “was bony, very weak, and not able to talk or walk. Her hair had turned yellow, she had long fingernails and sunken eyes, and she looked very slim, less than 20 kilograms [44 pounds],” requiring over a year of hospitalization.  In an update, she has “forgiven her father,” and is thankful to all the strangers who have supported her.  Meanwhile, “none of my family members has come to see me….  My own people have abandoned me.”

Blinded and Disfigured

Last Christmas Eve saw Muslims throw acid on a church pastor, leaving him with severe burns, blinding one eye and threatening sight in the other. In his own words: “I was attacked by a man who claimed to be a Christian. He called out to me shouting ‘pastor, pastor,’ and as I turned to see who he was, he poured acid which burnt part of my face. As I turned away from the attacker, another man poured the liquid on my back and ran away shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ (god is great).”

The pastor, Umar Mulinde, originally “came from a strict Muslim family and his father was an imam. He was a sheikh (Muslim teacher) before converting to Christianity, a decision that caused a strong reaction in the Muslim community.”  The 38-year-old father of six was also a leading figure in a campaign to block the introduction of Sharia courts in Uganda.  After being taken to a hospital, where specialists struggled to restore his vision, Umar was relocated to an Israeli medical center for advanced treatment.  According to his wife, “The main point of contention between Muslims and Christians in Uganda is that Muslims are yet to embrace the reality of freedom of worship or coexistence, but Muslims always think that any person who doesn’t believe like them is an enemy who deserves to be killed.”

Hunted and Forlorn

After announcing his conversion to Christianity, Hassan Sharif Lubenga, formerly a prominent member of an Islamist organization, suffered the usual consequences: “They [former colleagues] were furious. They then kidnapped me and blindfolded me for three days, coupled with beatings. They demanded I deny Jesus as the Son of God, which I consented to because I feared that they were going to kill me…. The whole family and clan members were out to destroy me.”