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In this mailing:
by Uzay Bulut
• February 5, 2017 at 5:00 am
- "Unfortunately,
the West has rejected the idea of solidarity with the Christians of
the Middle East, prioritizing diplomacy based on oil interests and the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, the United States, Britain, and France
have largely ignored the persecutions of the Christians of Iraq,
Lebanon, Egypt, and Sudan, while rushing to save the oil-rich Muslim
states of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait..." — Hannibal Travis,
Professor of Law, 2006.
- Indigenous
Christians in Iraq and Syria have not only been exposed to genocide
at the hands of the Islamic State and other Islamist groups, but
also their applications for immigration to Western countries have
been put on the back-burner by, shamefully but not surprisingly, the
UN.
- When one brings
up the issue of Western states taking in Muslim migrants from Syria
and Iraq without vetting them for jihadist ties, while leaving
behind the Christian and Yazidi victims of jihadists, one is accused
of being "bigoted" or "racist". But the real
bigotry is abandoning the persecuted and benign Middle Eastern
Christians and Yazidis, the main victims of the ongoing genocides in
Syria and Iraq.
- The German
government is also rejecting applications for asylum of Christian
refugees and deporting them unfairly, according to a German pastor.
- Nearly a third
of the respondents said that most of the discrimination and violence
came mostly from refugee camp guards of Muslim descent.
- It is high time
that not only the U.S. but all other Western governments finally saw
that the Christians in the Middle East are them.
Representatives of the NGO Open Doors, along with
other NGOs, held a press conference in May 2016 to present an earlier
report: "Religiously Motivated Attacks on Christian Refugees in
Germany."
Finally, after years of apathy and inaction, Washington is extending
a much-needed helping hand to Middle Eastern Christians. U.S. President
Donald Trump recently announced that persecuted Christians will be given
priority when it comes to applying for refugee status in the United
States.
Christians and Yazidis are being exposed to genocide at the hands of
ISIS and other Islamist groups, who have engaged in a massive campaign to
enslave the remnant non-Muslim minorities and to destroy their cultural
heritage.
The scholar Hannibal Travis wrote in 2006:
by Raymond Ibrahim
• February 5, 2017 at 4:30 am
- "They
[ISIS] cut his stomach open and shot him before leaving him hanging,
crucified."
- ISIS planted
explosive devices in teddy bears and toys that would be detonated
when children picked them up; they killed families.
- One Iraqi
Christian man from Qaraqosh, who survived ISIS, said: "Obama
has never helped the Christians. In fact, he despises them. In the
last 26 months, he has shown he despises all of them. But we have
hope in the new president, Trump."
- "Here,
where we have been accommodated presently, we are exposed to the
same kinds of threats as before, this time at the hand of Afghan
Muslims, and we fear for our lives... The Afghan refugees... call us
Iranian Christians 'apostates' and 'infidels' because of our decision
to leave Islam and consider the shedding of our blood as legitimate
(or even necessary)." — Iranian refugee, Germany.
- "I said...
'I'm in Europe, I'm free, I'm in a free country.' They said, 'No,
you are not free, you are in the Jungle. The Jungle has Kurdish rule
here – leave this camp.' The smugglers were from inside the camp,
and were Kurdish. They said to me, 'We will tell the Algerians and
Moroccans to kill you.'" — Kurdish church leader in a refugee
center, France.
Silmane Bouhafs, a Christian man currently carrying
out a three-year prison sentence in Algeria for the alleged crime of
"attacking Islam," regularly experiences persecution and
physical attacks at the hands of the other inmates. (Image source:
Berbère Télévision video screenshot)
Reports of Christian life under the Islamic State (ISIS) continued
throughout November. Many of these came from the ancient Christian towns
surrounding Mosul, such as Batnaya and Qaraqosh, conquered by ISIS in
August, 2014, and liberated in late October, 2016.
One Christian man, Esam, from Qaraqosh, related what ISIS did after
his sister's husband refused to convert to Islam: "He was crucified
and tortured in front of his wife and children, who were forced to watch.
They [ISIS] told him that if he loved Jesus that much, he would die like
Jesus." The Islamic militants tortured his brother-in-law from 6 in
the evening until 11: "[T]hey cut his stomach open and shot him
before leaving him hanging, crucified." Two other members of Esam's
family, a Christian couple, were abducted and separated by ISIS. To this
day, the husband does not know where his wife is; he only knows that she
was turned into a concubine, a sex-slave.
by Burak Bekdil
• February 5, 2017 at 4:00 am
- According to
the 2016 findings of the Programme for International Student
Assessment, Turkey dropped from 44th spot to the 49th
(out of 72 countries surveyed), compared to the last test in 2012.
- The curriculum
removes, for instance, all mention of world-renowned Turkish pianist
Fazil Say from the 12th grade music class chapter on
"Music Culture", which covers Turkey's Western music
composers. Say has been a vocal critic of Erdogan's Islamist
policies.
- Some 31.2% of
Turkish students below 15 years of age underperformed in
mathematics, sciences and reading.
- As long as
Turkish youths are religiously devout, Erdogan thinks, scientific
failure will not matter. Better to have a young student like the
girl in the TV interview than a thousand bright Silicon Valley-class
young innovators.
A proud moment in President Erdogan's educational
plans to "raise devout generations": A
CNN-Turk interview with a young schoolgirl who announces, "I would
reinstate the death penalty". (Image source: CCN-Turk video
screenshot)
It is customary for Turkish TV crews to interview young students at
the start of their mid-term holidays, with the cliché closing question
invariably being, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
This year's school holiday in January was no exception. One interview,
however, produced a chilling portrait of a girl, aged just 7 or 8.
"I have big goals," she answered the interviewer.
"They will get bigger and bigger. Step by step," she said. The
girl said she wanted to start by becoming a district or village head.
Then a lawmaker, a minister, prime minister and finally the president of
Turkey.
Up to this point, TV viewers must have watched her with amusement.
Then the reporter asked her: "What would you do if you became the
president?"
In a calculated, tranquil tone, the girl answered: "I would
reinstate the death penalty".
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