In this mailing:
- Raymond Ibrahim: Muslim Persecution of Christians: May 2012
- Michael Curtis: Racism in Arab Lands
Muslim
Persecution of Christians: May 2012
"Death to Christians!"
by Raymond Ibrahim
June 28, 2012 at 5:00 am
June 28, 2012 at 5:00 am
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Elsewhere
in Sub-Sahara Africa, wherever Christianity and Islam meet, Christians are
being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.
Unlike those nations, such as Saudi Arabia,
that have eliminated Christianity altogether, Muslim countries with significant
Christian minorities saw much persecution during the month of May: in Egypt,
Christians were openly discriminated against in law courts, even as some
accused the nation's new president of declaring that he will "achieve the
Islamic conquest of Egypt for the second time, and make
all Christians convert to Islam;" in Indonesia, Muslims threw bags of
urine on Christians during worship; in Kashmir and Zanzibar, churches were set
on fire; and in Mali, Christianity
"faces being eradicated."
Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria,
Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, the Ivory Coast—wherever Islam and Christianity meet,
Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.
Categorized by theme, May's assemblage of
Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited
to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not
severity. Note: As Pakistan had the lion's share of persecuted Christians last
month, it has its own section below, covering the entire gamut of
persecution—from apostasy and blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.
Church Attacks
Indonesia encountered several
church-related attacks:
·
A mob of 600 Muslims
threw bags of urine, stones, and rotten eggs at the congregation of a
Protestant church at the start of Ascension Day service; they shouted
profanities and threatened to kill the pastor. No arrests were made. The church
had applied for a permit to construct its house of worship five years ago.
Pressured by local Muslims, the local administration ordered the church shut
down in December 2009, even though the Supreme Court recently overruled its
decision, saying that the church was eligible for a permit. Local Muslims and
officials are nevertheless demanding that the church shut down.
·
After protests "by hard-line groups
including the Islamic Defenders Front," nearly 20
Christian houses of worship were sealed off by authorities on the pretext
of "not having permits." The authorities added that, to accommodate
the region's 20,000 Christians, only one church may be built in the district in
question.
·
The Muslim mayor who illegally sealed the
beleaguered GKI Yasmin church, forcing congregants to worship in the streets,
has agreed to reopen it—but only
if a mosque is built next door, to ensure that the church "stays in
line." "As well as opposition from the mayor, the church has faced
hostility from local Muslims, who have rallied against them [the Christians],
blocked them from accessing the street where the church is situated and
disrupted their outdoor services. It is unlikely that they will suddenly
embrace the Christians," according to the report.
France: Prior to celebrating mass,
"four youths, aged 14 to 18, broke into the Church of St. Joseph, before launching
handfuls of pebbles at 150 faithful present at the service." They were
chased out, although, according to the report, "the parishioners, many of
whom are elderly, were greatly shocked by the disrespectful act of the youths
of North African origin."
Kashmir: A Catholic church made entirely
of wood was partially destroyed after unknown assailants set
it on fire. "What happened," said the president of the Global
Council of Indian Christians, "is not an isolated case," and
follows the "persecution" of a pastor who baptized Muslims.
"With these gestures, the Muslim community is trying to intimidate the
Christian minority."
Kuwait: Two months after the Saudi Grand
Mufti decreed, in response to a question on whether churches may exist in
Kuwait, that all
regional churches must be destroyed, villa-churches serving Western
foreigners are
being targeted. One congregation was evicted without explanation "from
a private villa used for worship gatherings for the past seven years;"
another villa-church was ordered to "pay an exorbitant fine each month to
use a facility it had been renting…. Church leaders reportedly decided not to
argue and moved out."
Zanzibar: Hundreds
of Muslims set two churches on fire and clashed with police during protests
against the arrest of senior members of an Islamist movement known as the
Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation. Afterwards, the group
issued a statement denying any involvement of wrongdoing.
Pakistan: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Rape, Forced
Conversions, and Oppression
·
A 20-year-old Christian
man was arrested and charged with "blasphemy"—a crime
"punishable with life imprisonment"—after vengeful Muslims accused
him of burning a Koran soon after a billiard game. The Muslims kept taunting
and threatening him, to which the Christian "dared them to do whatever
they wanted and walked away." Days later came the accusation and arrest,
which caused Muslim riots, creating "panic among Christians," who
"left their houses anticipating violence."
·
Two years ago, after a Muslim man converted to
Christianity and told his wife, she abused
and exposed him, resulting in his being severely beaten. "No one was
willing to let me live the life I wanted [as a Christian]—they say Islam is not
a religion of compulsion, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims who
don't find satisfaction in the religion become liable to be killed." He
eventually divorced, escaped, and remarried a Christian woman. Now that his
family has again discovered his whereabouts, they have resumed threatening him.
According to his wife: "Every other day, we receive threatening phone
calls…They are now asking him to abandon us and renounce Christianity,
threatening that they will kill me and our child."
·
A new report indicates that "on average,
eight to ten Christians are being forced every
month by fanatic Muslims to convert to Islam, mostly in the provinces of
Sindh and Punjab. The victims of forced conversions are often girls from poor
backgrounds who are then subjected to harrowing and traumatic ordeals. Most of
the girls are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves against extremists
because their community is deprived, defenseless and marginalized. Christians,
who constitute about two percent of the Pakistani population, are paying a high
price for being a part of the minority community." Two such cases from May
follow:
·
In an attempt to force her to drop charges
against them for raping her 13-year-old niece, a
band of Muslims severely beat a pregnant Christian woman causing her to lose
female twins to miscarriage. The rapists came when all male members of the
Christian household were out working and beat the women
"mercilessly." "They murdered our children, they raped our
daughter. We have nothing left with us," lamented an older family member.
As usual, police ignored both cases: both the raped Christian girl and her
beaten family.
·
A
14-year-old Christian girl was abducted and forced to convert to Islam by
her uncle, who himself had earlier converted. Pakistani police refused to
liberate her, and said she converted of her own free will. According to her
father: "After converting, my brother is conspiring against our family and
kidnapped Mary with deception."
·
The investigation into the murder
of the nation's only cabinet-level Christian, Shahbaz Bhatti, has become
mired amid suspicions of a possible cover-up. Lax investigations, a series of
freed suspects, and lack of coordination across law enforcement organizations
have stalled the case after the March 2, 2011 slaying of the federal minister
for Minority Affairs, who was an outspoken critic of, and targeted by, those
who support Pakistan's "blasphemy" laws.
·
Christians
are being threatened and abused for trying, since 1947, to save their
community's graveyard. Despite failing to produce any proof, a retired Muslim
official who claims he "recently discovered" that the land really
belongs to him has already built a boundary wall, reducing the graveyard to
less than a third of its original size, and turned the seized land over to
agricultural use. Police, as usual, are failing to react.
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and
Suppression of non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]
Egypt: A court verdict that was
criticized by many human rights groups as "unbelievable" and
"extremely harsh" towards Christians was decided according to
religion: all twelve Christians were convicted to life imprisonment, while all
eight Muslims—including some who torched nearly 60 Christian homes—were acquitted,
all to thunderous cries of "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is the
Greatest!"] in the courtroom. Another Muslim judge in Upper Egypt
dismissed all charges against a group of Muslims
who terrorized a Christian man and his family for over a year, culminating
with their cutting off his ear in a knife attack while trying to force him to
convert to Islam after they "falsely accused him" of having an affair
with a Muslim woman. And a new report describes
the plight of Coptic girls: "hundreds of Christian girls … have been
abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and forced into marriage in Egypt. These
incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings,
and other forms of physical and mental abuse."
Eritrea: Activists taking part in a
protest outside the Eritrean embassy in London revealed that "Some 2,000
to 3,000 Christians are currently detained in Eritrea without charge or
trial… Several Christians are known to have died in notorious prison
camps," and "thousands of Eritreans flee their country every
year," some falling "into the hands of abusive traffickers, and are
held hostage in torture camps in the Sinai Desert pending payment of exorbitant
ransoms, or the forcible removal of organs."
Ethiopia: A Christian man accused of
"desecrating
the Koran" spent two years in prison, where he was abused, pressured
to convert to Islam, and left paralyzed. Now returning home, he has found that
his two young children have been abducted by local Muslims: "My life is
ruined—I have lost my house, my children, my health. I am now homeless, and I
am limping."
Greece: Abet Hasman, the deputy mayor of
Patras who recently passed away, left a message to be revealed only in his
obituary—that, although born to Muslim parents in Jordan, he was "secretly
baptized" a Christian (demonstrating how some Muslims who convert to
Christianity, knowing the consequences of apostasy, choose secrecy).
Indonesia: A predominantly Christian
neighborhood was attacked for several days by "unidentified
persons," who set fire to homes and cars. Dozens of Christian families
fled their homes, "many fear[ing] the involvement of Islamic extremist
groups."
Iran: A prominent house church pastor
remains behind bars, even as his family expresses concerns that he may die from
continued
abuse and beatings, leading to internal bleeding and other ailments;
authorities refuse to give him medical treatment. Also, the attorney of Youssef
Nadarkhani—the imprisoned Christian pastor who awaits execution for
apostasy—was himself "convicted
for his work defending human rights and is expected to begin serving his
nine-year sentence in the near future." Meanwhile, in a letter attributed
to him, the imprisoned
pastor wrote: "I have surrendered myself to God's will...[and I]
consider it as the day of exam and trial of my faith...[so that I may] prove my
loyalty and sincerity to God."
Jordan: After the Jordanian Dubai
Islamic Bank decreed
that all females must wear the hijab, the Islamic veil or be terminated, it
fired all female employees who refused to wear the hijab—mostly Christians,
including one Christian woman who had worked there for 27 years. There are
suspicions that this new policy was set to target and terminate the Christian
employees, as it is they who are most likely to reject the hijab.
Lebanon: A 24-year-old woman, the
daughter of a Shiite cleric, who was "physically and psychologically tortured
by her father for converting to Christianity three years ago," managed
to escape and be baptized by a Christian priest—who was himself then abducted
and interrogated to disclose the whereabouts of the renegade woman. In like manner,
Muslim assailants fired gunshots at the house of another priest and at a church
-- "part of an escalating pattern of violence against local
Catholics," in the words of the region's prelate.
Macedonia: After some Muslims were
arrested in connection to a "series of murders of Christians,"
thousands of fellow Muslims demonstrated after Friday prayers, shouting slogans
such as "death
to Christians!," and calling for "jihad."
Mali: Ever since the government was
overthrown in a coup, "the
church in Mali faces being eradicated," especially in the north,
"where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive
Christians out….there have been house to house searches for Christians who
might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed,
and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives."
Nigeria: Muslim gunmen set fire to a
home in a Christian village and then opened
fire on all who tried to escape the inferno, killing at least seven and wounding
many others, in just one of dozens of attacks on Christians.
Sudan: Without reason, security
officials closed
down regional offices of the Sudan Council of Churches and a much needed
church clinic for the poor; staff members were arrested and taken to an
undisclosed location: "Their families are living in agony due to the
uncertainty of their fate."
Syria: Jihadi gunmen evicted all the
families of a Christian region, "taking over all the homes of the
village, occupying the church and turning it to their base."
Uzbekistan: Police raided a Protestant
house-church meeting, claiming "that a bomb was in the home." No bomb
was found, only Christian
literature which was confiscated. Subsequently, 14 members of the
unregistered church were heavily fined—the equivalent of 10-60 times a monthly
salary—for an "unsanctioned meeting in a private home." Between
February and April, 28 Protestants were fined and four were issued warnings for
the offence. Three Baptists were also fined for not declaring their personal
Bibles while crossing the border from Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan. Fines and
warnings were accompanied by the confiscation of religious literature.
About this Series
Because the persecution of Christians in the
Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim
Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means
all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two
purposes:
- To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
- To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of
persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for
churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced
conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish
with death to those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya
(financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for
Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class,
"tolerated" citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is
a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span
different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to
India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should
be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application
of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
Raymond
Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center
and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Previous Reports:
Related Topics: Raymond Ibrahim
Racism in Arab Lands
by Michael Curtis
June 28, 2012 at 4:00 am
June 28, 2012 at 4:00 am
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Above all,
there is outright slavery.
The dirty little secret is finally out. Even
Robert Fisk, whose anti-Israeli credentials endear him to critics of the Jewish
state, wrote in an article in The Independent, on May 7, 2012, of the
pious silence by the politicians, prelates, and businessmen of Arab countries
about the treatment of Asian domestic servants, and discrimination against
migrant labor, male and female.
The overlong story in the June 10, 2012 edition
of the New York Times that a few activists, in this case Ethiopian
Israelis, were protesting against racism and discrimination, is a familiar
leitmotif to those who still read that newspaper; but less frequently, if ever,
can those readers learn of the racism, intolerance, and discrimination that are
endemic in Arab countries, or of the slavery that still exists in some of them.
Discrimination, intolerance, and racism in the
Arab world persist in many forms: they affect women; all non-Muslims; dark
skinned people, Blacks, would-be refugees, and migrants. Among those groups and
peoples who have been denied political and civil rights are Kurds, the non-Arab
people whose language belongs to the Iranian group; Berbers, the pre-Arab
native people of North Africa; Turkmen who speak their own language; the
Christian Copts in Egypt; the Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans in Iraq subject to
both ethnic and religious persecution; and Jews. Christians and Jews are still
regarded as dhimmis ["tolerated" people], defined in different
ways but always as second-class citizens. Extreme Islamists, regarding them as
infidels, have used violence against many, including the Copts and the Bahais,
as well as against Jews.
Recent years have seen even stronger examples
of discrimination than is customary: the slaughter in Darfur; the massacre of
Kurds by Saddam Hussein and their persecution by Syria and Turkey; the Algerian
government repression of the Kaybles, and the maintenance of apartheid of the
Zaghawa people in the Sudan, especially in Darfur. A reasonable calculation is
that over the last twenty years more than 1,500,000 African Christians have
been killed or expelled from Southern Sudan, or enslaved by the Islamist regime
in Khartoum.
In his unjustly neglected book, Race and
Slavery in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis recounts that many of the stories
in the Arabian Nights portray Blacks as slaves, and as second-class citizens,
while Arabs are "white." The Egyptian story is not a pleasant one for
a variety of reasons. Egyptian Copts, about 10 to 12 million, are treated as
second-class citizens and denied senior jobs. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood
and the Salafis have won the election with 70% of the seats in new parliament,
the Copts' situation is likely only to worsen. Individual Copts and their
churches have already been attacked. The Virgin Church in Assiut in Upper Egypt
was burned. Copts have been sentenced to prison for allegedly insulting the
Prophet. About 200,000 Egyptian Christians have tried to get visas to come to
the US.
Before he became Egyptian President, Anwar
Sadat, who was dark skinned, was insulted as Nasser's "Black Poodle"
and "The Monkey." Although Blacks suffer from discrimination in many
countries, Egypt has a long history of it, with Egyptians attacking black
Africans in recent years. Riot police in 2005 cleared a camp of 2,500 Sudanese
refugees, mostly from Darfur, at the Egyptian border with Israel. Egyptians
have killed numbers of African refugees trying to reach Israel. Black Africans
report verbal harassment and negative language, such as being called
"oonga boonga" or samara [black], as well as physical attacks
in the streets by the public, and even by Egyptian law enforcement officials.
Blacks have been stopped for arbitrary identity checks on the basis of skin
color, and have faced arbitrary roundups.
In Basra, Iraq, Blacks are treated
contemptuously: people in street talk call them abd [slaves]. In Yemen,
darker skinned individuals are known as al-akhdam [the servants]. Kuwait
has shown similar hostility to blacks. 2,000,000 black African migrants were
treated as virtual slaves in Libya. Even though slavery was officially
abolished in Mauritania in 1981, around 15% of its population is still enslaved.
Discrimination is also rampant in the economic
area. In the United Arab Emirates, the federation of seven emirates, Dubai,
with its high rise buildings and luxury resorts, is attractive to tourists who
are unaware that 2,500,000 migrant workers compose 80% of the population and
95% of the workforce. As the major group in the construction business, they are
treated as bonded laborers, in essence slaves, despite the alleged UAE
adherence to the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms
of Racial Discrimination. The migrant workers are abused by very low wages,
years of debts to recruitment agencies, and hazardous working conditions that
result in a high rate of injuries and death.
Above all, there is outright slavery. Even
though Mauritania officially abolished slavery for a third time in 2007, the
legislation has never been enforced. Mauritania is an unpredictable country,
one of the few, along with Yasser Arafat and the PLO, to support Saddam Hussein
in the Gulf War in 1991. Today, some 500,000 are still enslaved there,
including the Haratin, the hereditary slave caste who speak Arabic, the
language of their masters. Similarly, slavery still exists in Yemen, in the
provinces of Hudaydah and Hajja in the North, even though it was officially
abolished in 1962.
In contrast, more than 120,000 of the Ethiopian
Beta Israel community now live in Israel with full civil and political rights.
Some are in mobile home camps, but the majority are in towns and cities, and
are helped by generous government loans or low interest mortgages. Undoubtedly
problems exist in the attempt of Ethiopians, from a less-developed society, to
become integrated into Israeli society. They arrive with a low level of
education and have language problems. But they are beginning to participate in
Israeli political and social life, to enter higher educational institutions,
and to take positions in public bodies, including the diplomatic corps. Even
the most prejudiced critics of Israel will hesitate to call this story an
illustration of racism.
Is the New York Times listening? Or does
it just prefer to falsify easily attainable facts?
Michael Curtis is Distinguished Professor
Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University, and author of Should
Israel Exist? A Sovereign Nation under attack by the International Community.
Related Topics: Michael Curtis
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