Arrests, Beatings and Secret Prayers: Inside the Persecution of India’s Christians

Villagers praying in secret in Bihar, India, amid an uptick in violence against Christians in the country. | Photograph: Atul Loke
THE NEW YORK TIMES: “They want to remove us from society,” a Christian farmer said of Hindu extremists. Rising attacks on Christians are part of a broader shift in India, in which minorities feel less safe.

INDORE, India — The Christians were mid-hymn when the mob kicked in the door.

A swarm of men dressed in saffron poured inside. They jumped onstage and shouted Hindu supremacist slogans. They punched pastors in the head. They threw women to the ground, sending terrified children scuttling under their chairs.

“They kept beating us, pulling out hair,” said Manish David, one of the pastors who was assaulted. “They yelled: ‘What are you doing here? What songs are you singing? What are you trying to do?’”

The attack unfolded on the morning of Jan. 26 at the Satprakashan Sanchar Kendra Christian center in the city of Indore. The police soon arrived, but the officers did not touch the aggressors. Instead, they arrested and jailed the pastors and other church elders, who were still dizzy from getting punched in the head. The Christians were charged with breaking a newly enforced law that targets religious conversions, one that mirrors at least a dozen other measures across the country that have prompted a surge in mob violence against Indian Christians.

Pastor David was not converting anyone, he said. But the organized assault against his church was propelled by a growing anti-Christian hysteria that is spreading across this vast nation, home to one of Asia’s oldest and largest Christian communities, with more than 30 million adherents. » | Jeffrey Gettleman and Suhasini Raj | Photographs by Atul Loke | Undated

US Criticizes Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for Lack of Religious Freedom

US criticizes Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for lack of religious freedom. US President Donald Trump's administration says the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant group remains the biggest threat to religious freedom around the world. The US State Department says the murders of Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims at the hands of ISIL amounted to genocide.

The annual report says almost 80 percent of the world's population continues to live under threats limiting freedom to worship.

The countries criticised include US allies Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Al Jazeera's Mohammad Vall reports.

A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian World

Mar. 13, 2017 - 4:23 - Author and conservative columnist Rod Dreher tells American Christians how to prepare for a coming Dark Age in new book, 'The Benedict Option' #Tucker

I see someone else is now talking of the coming Dark Age. – Mark

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Christian Group Wants To Out Gay Republican Candidates And Staff

Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) host of The Young Turks discusses a Christian group that wants Christians to investigate Republican Candidates and out any homosexual candidates or homosexuals on their staff.

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Read the Real Clear Politics article here | Saturday, January 30, 2016

Raymond Ibrahim: Obama’s Love for Jihadis and Hate for Christians

JIHAD WATCH: Obama recently lashed out against the idea of giving preference to Christian refugees, describing it as “shameful”: “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” loftily added the American president.

Accordingly, the administration is still determined to accept 10,000 more Syrian refugees, almost all of whom will be Muslim, despite the fact that some are ISIS operatives, while many share the ISIS worldview (as explained below).

Yet right as Obama was grandstanding about “who we are,” statistics were released indicating that “the current [refugee] system overwhelmingly favors Muslim refugees. Of the 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States so far, only 53 are Christians while 2,098 are Muslim.”

Aside from the obvious—or to use Obama’s own word, “shameful”—pro-Muslim, anti-Christian bias evident in these statistics, there are a number of other troubling factors as well. » | Raymond Ibrahim | Monday, November 23, 2015

When Will Obama Defend Christians and Defeat Radical Islam?

America has the strongest fighting force and most advanced military technology on Earth. There's no reason we should be losing to these evil thugs.
FOX NEWS: Radical ISIS snakes sliver outside Damascus, just miles from where God revealed himself to the Apostle Paul. The dead bodies of decapitated ISIS victims are rotting in Palmyra, the ancient city that Chronicles tells us was built by King Solomon. ISIS black flags now wave on the same streets where the Lord commanded Jonah to witness to the people of Nineveh. In the ancient Christian village of Sadad, an armed Christian militia will soon clash with ISIS jihadists that have overrun a neighboring city. Sadad is home to many Christian churches and its people even speak Christ’s native tongue: Aramaic.

While President Obama sits silently, the same soil that sustained our Biblical forefathers is now stained with blood. Anyone who who defies these evil Islamic radicals risks death. The White House abandons Christians and denies, disguises and hides the existence of Radical Islam, but I will not!

You don’t negotiate with sin and evil, you destroy it. You don't contemplate what to do with cancer, you kill it before it kills you! » | Mike Huckabee | Friday, November 6, 2015

Christians 'Martyred for Beliefs Every FIVE MINUTES by Islamic State and Other Terrorists'

SUNDAY EXPRESS: CHRISTIANS are being martyred for their faith every five minutes by barbaric Islamic State militants and other terror groups, a shocking new report has claimed.

Believers are often singled out, tortured and faced with the brutal choice of converting to Islam or being slaughtered, according to Christian Freedom International.

Those who refuse to comply have reportedly had their limbs cut off or have been crucified.

Research by CFI found that more than 200 million followers are facing persecution in 105 countries making Christianity the most at-risk faith group in the world.

More Christians have been martyred in the 20th and 21st centuries than during the previous 19 combined, the organisation has claimed.

The human rights group's president Jim Jacobson said: “Islamic State Militants in Iraq are using Christian churches as torture chambers where they force Christians to either convert to Islam or die.

“Islamic State militants are also stripping the former places of Christian worship of ancient relics which in turn are smuggled to Western collectors to help fund their terrorist activities." » | Scott Campbell | Sunday, September 20, 2015

Obama Blasts 'Less-than-loving Christians' at Easter Prayer Breakfast

President Obama appeared to break from his script for a moment at Tuesday morning's Easter Prayer Breakfast to opine on Christians who espouse "less-than-loving" views. "On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love," Mr. Obama said toward the end of his speech. "And I have to say…

Franklin Graham: New Obama Danger for Christians

WND: 'The storm is coming, I believe'

Globally known evangelist Franklin Graham says President Obama is so sympathetic to those of the Muslim faith, he’s actually endangering Jews and Christians, opening the doors for them to be persecuted in the United States.

“We’re going to see persecution in this country because our president is very sympathetic to Islam, and the reason I say that … is because his father was a Muslim, gave him a Muslim name, Barack Hussein Obama,” Graham said in an interview on “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“His mother married another Muslim man. They moved to Indonesia. He went to Indonesian schools. So, growing up, his frame of reference and his influence as a young man was Islam. It wasn’t Christianity; it was Islam.”

Graham’s remarks aren’t much of a surprise to those who listen to him frequently. He’s been an outspoken critic of Obama’s presidential policies and has decried what he’s characterized as a curious White House reach-out to Muslim groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. » | Cheryl Chumley | Monday, March 02, 2015

Bill O'Reilly to Liberal Christian: Islamic State 'Would Behead You'

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News took to task a liberal Christian leader who used his television time to suggest that promoting peace via diplomatic discussion could go far in curbing the types of terrorism furthered by the likes of the Islamic State, telling him outright: You're wrong. The context of the comments came while the Rev.…

'We Will free India of Muslims and Christians by 2021': DJS Leader Vows to Continue 'Ghar Wapsi' Plans and Restore 'Hindu Glory'

MAIL ONLINE: Even as Opposition parties up the ante over alleged incidents of religious reconversion, the Dharm Jagran Samiti has declared that it will ensure India becomes a Hindu Rashtra by 2021.

Licence to stay

Speaking in Agra on Thursday, a Dharm Jagran Samiti (DJS) functionary said Muslims and Christians will have to convert to Hinduism if they want to stay in this country.

The DJS has been at the forefront of the reconversion - or ‘ghar wapsi’ - programmes in recent times in which some Muslims have been reportedly ‘reconverted’ to Hinduism.

However, their action drew widespread condemnation, leading to the arrest of one activist.

“Our target is to make India a Hindu Rashtra by 2021. The Muslims and Christians don’t have any right to stay here.

“So they would either be converted to Hinduism or forced to run away from here,” Uttar Pradesh DJS head Rajeshwar Singh said. » | Piyush Srivastava | Friday, December 19, 2014

ISIS Call for Jihadists to Target Catholics, Christians

Christians 'Crucified Again' for Refusing Islam

Raymond Ibrahim is author of
'Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's
New War on Christians'

THE CHRISTIAN POST: To the awe of its readership, a recent Daily Mail article reports that the "jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL]," which is currently entrenched in Raqqa, Syria, "publicly crucified two Syrian rebels in northeastern Syria in revenge for a grenade attack on members of their group."

While the Daily Mail is to be commended for exposing these barbaric acts-along with posting photos of the crucified-it nonetheless minimized their significance, in two important ways: 1) by repeatedly saying things like "even al-Qaeda is distancing itself from ISIL," and so implying that the act of crucifixion is some wild aberration that even the poster-child of jihadi terror, al-Qaeda, wants nothing to do with it; and 2) ignoring the much "sexier" story that Christians in Syria are also being crucified simply for refusing to embrace Islam (as opposed to the rather mundane but politically more correct story of Islamic jihadis crucifying each other in the context of vendetta killings).

Consider the atrocities earlier committed in Ma'loula, Syria, an ancient Christian village where the inhabitants still spoke Aramaic, the language of Christ.

According to recent Arabic news media, "a Syrian nun testified to the Vatican news agency that some Christians in Ma'loula were crucified for refusing to convert to Islam or pay jizya" (tribute subjugated Christians are required to pay to their Islamic conquerors in order to exist as Christians, per Koran 9:29).

Incidentally, they were crucified by the al-Qaeda linked Nasra Front (so much for Daily Mail's portrayal of al-Qaeda "distancing" itself from the apparently "extra-extremist" ISIL for crucifying its victims).

Sister Raghad, the former head of the Patriarchate School in Damascus who currently resides in France, told Vatican Radio how she personally witnessed jihadi rebels terrorize Ma'loula, including by pressuring Christians to proclaim the shehada-Islam's credo that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger-which, when uttered before Muslim witnesses transforms the speaker into a Muslim, with the death penalty for apostasy should the convert later "renege" by returning to Christianity. » | Raymond Ibrahim, CP Op-Ed Contributor | Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Syria Crisis: ISIS Imposes Rules on Christians in Raqqa

BBC: A jihadist group in Syria has demanded that Christians in the northern city of Raqqa pay a levy in gold and accept curbs on their faith, or face death.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) said it would give Christian residents "protection" if they agreed to the list of conditions.

The announcement came in a statement posted online.

Correspondents say ISIS is trying to implement an extreme interpretation of Islamic law in areas it controls.

Raqqa, seized by ISIS last year, was the first provincial capital to be completely in the hands of rebels.

'Risking the sword'

The directive from ISIS, citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", requires Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety.

It says Christians must not make renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public.

Christians must not carry arms, and must follow other rules imposed by ISIS (also known as ISIL) on their daily lives.

The statement said the group had met Christian representatives and offered them three choices - they could convert to Islam, accept ISIS' conditions, or reject their control and risk being killed. » | Thursday, February 27, 2014

Christians under Siege

YNET NEWS: Op-ed: For some reason, West accepts suffering of Christians in Muslim countries as an internal problem that does not warrant intervention

In Egypt churches are being burned again. This happens there from time to time when there is a national crisis or when a member of the Coptic minority is in a dispute with someone from the Muslim majority. Why? Because being a “true” Arab means being Muslim. In the eyes of many in Egypt (and other Muslim countries) Islam is the cultural-national glue of Egyptian society, just as Judaism is the cultural-national glue of Israeli society. Those who do not belong to the ruling religion still have civil rights, but in the deeper sense they are considered foreign.

This viewpoint is paradoxical, as in both countries the “foreigners” are the members of the majority. In Egypt, just like in Israel, the religious minority was there before the majority. Christianity was the dominant religion in Egypt before Islam. The Copts are part of an ancient population that was already there when the Muslim conquerors arrived in the 7th century. Coptic Christianity did not arrive with the colonialists. It is ancient and deep-rooted, like the non-Western Christian movements in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. In all of these countries, the Christians are in a bad situation. In other Muslim countries their situation is very bad (according to estimates, close to a million Christians were murdered in Sudan).

Things weren’t always like this. Historically speaking, Islam is a more tolerant religion than Christianity. Until the 20th century a Christian who lived in an Islamic country was far better off than a Muslim who lived in a Christian land. All this changed in the modern age. The West adopted a standpoint of religious tolerance and blurred its Christian identity. The Muslim world, on the other hand, tightened the bond between nationalism and Islamism. » | Aviad Kleinberg | Sunday, August 25, 2013

Exclusive: Terror Group Wants Somalia Rid Of Christians
Somalia's Islamist terror group al Shabab wants to rid the Muslim country of all Christians and is specifically targeting Christian converts from Islam.