Europe: Allah Takes over Churches, Synagogues

by Giulio Meotti • May 22, 2016 at 5:00 am

In the Dutch province of Friesland, 250 of 720 existing churches have been transformed or closed. The Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam once was the Saint Ignatius Church. A synagogue in The Hague was turned into the Al Aqsa Mosque. In Flanders, in place of a famous church, a luxury hotel now stands. Catholic arches, columns and windows still soar between menus and tables for customers.
"The French will not wake up until Notre Dame becomes a mosque." — Emile Cioran, author.
Germany is literally selling its churches. Between 1990 and 2010, the German Evangelical Church closed 340 churches. Recently in Hamburg, a Lutheran church was purchased by the Muslim community.
"History teaches us that these transformations are rarely innocent." — Bertrand Dutheil de La Rochère, assistant to Marine Le Pen.

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was the grandest cathedral in the Christian world, until it was captured and converted to a mosque by the Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Middle East is full of churches and synagogues turned into Islamic sites. Today, every traveler in a modern European city can notice the new mosques being built alongside abandoned and secularized churches, some converted into museums. (Image source: Antoine Taveneaux/Wikimedia Commons)

Last year, at the famous Biennale artistic festival in Venice, Swiss artist Christian Büchel took the ancient Catholic Church of Santa Maria della Misericordia and converted it into a mosque. The church had not been used for Christian worship for more than forty years. Büchel decorated the baroque walls with Arabic writing, covered the floor with a prayer rug, and hid the crucifix behind a prayer niche indicating the direction of Mecca, the holy city of Islam. It was a provocation.

But everywhere else in Europe, the practice of Islam really is outstripping Christianity, while Jews are leaving -- not only France but the old continent -- en masse.

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Pakistan: "Blasphemy" for Ethnic Cleansing

by Lubna Thomas Benjamin • May 22, 2016 at 4:00 am

After the attack, some villagers gathered and started threatening other Christians, demanding they either convert to Islam or move out of the area. Then an Islamic religious decree was issued, to hand over Masih to the local Islamic clerics so that he could be burned alive for blasphemy.
Why was only Masih (a Christian) accused of blasphemy, when Bilal (a Muslim) had obviously watched the video in question?
The Christians who are left are searching to find an alternate place to live, and are now facing hatred in the guise of a boycott. No one is selling them food or any daily essentials.
In Punjab, harassing Christians has become a norm; a way of getting rid of them. Every time Christians are threatened and forced to leave the area, the charge is always blasphemy.

Left: Imran Masih's house in the village of Chak-44, Pakistan. Right: The Catholic Church in the village. (Images source: World Watch Monitor)

It started as a normal day in the remote Pakistani village of Chak-44 for Imran Masih, a Christian man, and Bilal, his Muslim friend, in mid-April. Masih had revealed to Bilal that the woman he had fallen in love with was a Muslim.

According to media reports, Masih was called away urgently and left his phone with Bilal, who apparently came across a video that appeared in Masih's Facebook feed, which allegedly contained content against the Muslim Prophet Mohammad. Bilal's accusation that Masih had viewed that video became the reason to charge Masih with blasphemy.

You start asking questions, such as: Wait a minute, who has committed blasphemy?

No one will probably ever even know what was on that video or whether Masih even watched it. But even if Masih did watch it, he was not the only one: Bilal also watched it. However, in a country where might is right, Bilal, a Muslim with the support of fellow villagers, is always right.

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