"Is It Really Human Beings Doing This?"
Persecution of Christians, January 2019

by Raymond Ibrahim • March 10, 2019 at 5:00 am

Police "behaved with the priests as they would with killers." — Human rights lawyer, Minya, Egypt.
"The common factor among all [church] closures, however, is that they were done to appease fundamentalists and extremists to the detriment of the Copts. It appears to indicate that extremists now hold the upper hand, and appeasing them is the easy way out of problems..." — The local Christian bishopric, Minya, Egypt.
When it comes to offering asylum, the UK "appears to discriminate in favour of Muslims" instead of Christian minorities from Muslim nations. Statistics confirm this allegation: "out of 4,850 Syrian refugees accepted for resettlement by the Home Office in 2017, only eleven were Christian, representing just 0.2% of all Syrian refugees accepted by the UK." — Nicholas Hellen, Barnabas Fund, January 20, 2019, United Kingdom.
A New Zealand government spokesman said that refugees were considered for resettlement on the basis of "their protection needs and not religious affiliation." However, considering that the Islamic State regularly targets people based on their "religious affiliation" suggests that Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities have more "protection needs" than Muslims.

On Sunday, January 27, terrorists set off two bombs during Mass at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Philippines. At least 20 people were killed and 111 wounded. Pictured: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte inspects the damaged cathedral on January 28, 2019. (Image source: Albert Alcain/ Philippines Presidential Communications Operations Office/Wikimedia Commons)

Massacres Inside Churches and Attacks on Them

Philippines: On Sunday, January 27, Islamic militants bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral during Mass. At least 20 people were killed and 111 wounded. Two explosives were detonated about a minute apart in the vicinity of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo at around 8:45 a.m. According to one report, "The initial explosion scattered the wooden pews inside the main hall and blasted window glass panels, and the second bomb hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the cathedral."

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Mullahs Pushed Off the Gravy Train

by Amir Taheri • March 10, 2019 at 4:00 am

People, especially the younger generation, are not interested in the shopworn anti-American discourse seasoned with empty pseudo-Islamic slogans. The anti-American discourse sounds even more hollow when the Islamic Majlis publishes claims that some 15,000 children of senior Islamic Republic officials, including many mullahs, are in the United States for further studies and that hundreds of top Khomeinist officials are either US citizens or hold American "Green Cards" (permanent residence documents.) Reports of top officials and mullahs or their families traveling to the West for holidays, medical services and shopping further contribute to the falseness of official Friday sermons.
In the past few weeks, sermon texts coming from Tehran have been peppered with patriotic themes about the Iranian "nation" rather than the "ummah" and Tehran's attempts at dominating several Arab countries justified, in the words of Quds (Jerusalem) Force chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as "moves necessary to protect our national territory."
In the final analysis, however, a change of personnel and official discourse may not be enough to save a tired system in deep crisis. The core question in the debate about Iran's future remains: change within the regime or regime change?

If you are one of the 3,400 mullahs who work as Friday Prayer Leader (Imam Jum'ah) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, you better start getting worried, very worried -- an ambitious "change of generations" scheme is to be implemented in the months ahead. Pictured: The Imam Mosque in Tehran, Iran. (Image source: Diego Delso/Wikimedia Commons)

If you are one of the 3,400 mullahs who work as Friday Prayer Leader (Imam Jum'ah) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, you better start getting worried, very worried. The reason is that you may soon find yourself disembarked from the gravy train and your cushy seat given to a spring chicken novice.

Last week eight "imams" were disembarked, among them heavyweights from Tabriz, Shiraz, Rasht and Ahvaz. And, if Tehran rumor-mills are right, 25 more are already scheduled for disembarkation. Judging by the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei's latest message to the nation, an ambitious "change of generations" scheme is to be implemented in the months ahead.

Being a Friday Prayer Imam in the Khomeinist republic is like owning a gold mine.

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