Showing posts with label Christians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christians. Show all posts
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Thursday, May 09, 2013
"This matter of Muslim persecution of Christians is a humanitarian crisis at this point," said Raymond Ibrahim in a recent interview with Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch. Ibrahim is the author of the recently released book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians.
"It's something that is little known of or heard of or acted upon. In fact, not only is the Obama administration ignoring it, but it is actually exacerbating it, making it worse, a la the Arab Spring and other matters," said Ibrahim, who is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
He also recently expanded on his observations in an article he wrote, published on FoxNews.com.
"We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being," he wrote. "The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: 'The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's increasing year by year.' In our lifetime alone 'Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.'"
Ibrahim said that current reports from Islamic regions support this warning. » | Alex Murashko, Christian Post Reporter | Thursday, May 09, 2013
Saturday, March 09, 2013
DAILY TIMES: 160 houses, 80 shops, several vehicles of Christians set on fire in Badami Bagh area ? SSP among several policemen injured as Saint Joseph Colony turns into ‘battlefield’
LAHORE: Hundreds of angry protesters turned into arsonists, attacking around 160 houses and 80 shops of Christians on Saturday, just a day after allegations of blasphemy were levelled against a man in the Badami Bagh area.
Several policemen, including SSP (Operations) Suhail Sukhera and the Badami Bagh SHO received multiple injuries when the angry mob pelted stones on them during a clash.
The Saint Joseph Colony and its surrounding areas turned into a battlefield when angry protesters started torching the houses and shops.
Upon being informed about the incident, police contingents and rescue teams reached the spot and tried to control the situation.
According to witnesses, the mob broke into the houses, looted them and burnt the remaining belongings in the streets. They said that on Friday, a large number of protesters forced the Christian community members to flee the area, leaving behind their homes and possessions unprotected. They said that the mob had gathered around St Joseph Colony on Noor Road at around 10am, led by a man named Shafiq Ahmed, who was in search of the accused, Sawan, alias Bubby.
They said that the mob first attacked Sawan’s house, setting it on fire and pelting it with stones, and then attacked other houses of the colony. » | Staff Report | Sunday, March 10, 2013
Thursday, August 30, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Pakistan's embattled Christian minority have launched a campaign for a separate province to protect them from persecution after a wave of brutal attacks and arrests for blasphemy.
A 14-year-old girl is being held in prison after being accused of burning a copy of the Koran and last week the body of an 11-year-old Christian boy was found in Punjab bearing torture marks.
The demand for a separate province, although unlikely to succeed, is a further blow to the ideal of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, of a secular country that would be home to India's Muslims but where all would be free to worship their own religion.
The move is the brainchild of Younus Masih Bhatti, president of the Pakistan United Christian Welfare Association, who wants a government commission on new provinces to consider the plight of Christians.
"So, keeping in view the two million Christians in the country and a sense of insecurity among them, there is a requirement for a separate province for them so that they can enjoy equal rights like the majority," he said. » | Rob Crilly, Islamabad | Thursday, August 30, 2012
Friday, June 08, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: In the wake of the Rochdale grooming convictions, it's time to stop lumping Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus together as 'Asians', argues Hardeep Singh.
Is it time to stop using the word "Asian"? In recent weeks Britain's Sikh and Hindu communities have complained angrily about the use of the misleading term in reporting of the Rochdale grooming convictions of men of Muslim Pakistani descent. Headlines like “Asian grooming – why we need to talk about sex crime”, “Child sex grooming: the Asian question”, and “Grooming offences committed mostly by Asian men, says ex-Barnardo's chief” show the problem.
Obviously Sikhs and Hindus and other "Asian" non-Muslims, including Jains, Zoroastrians, Christians and Buddhists, don’t want to be associated with sexual grooming of vulnerable white girls. The vast majority of Muslims don’t want to either. The girls targeted in Rochdale, Derby and now in Luton are all non-Muslim. This is nothing new for British Hindus and Sikhs, who have complained about targeting of their girls for decades; Indians refer to the practice as "love-jihad". » | Hardeep Singh | Friday, June 08, 2012
Friday, June 01, 2012
TIMES 24|7: According to the popular Egyptian website El Bashayer, Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, just declared that he will "achieve the Islamic conquest of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam, or else pay the jizya," the additional Islamic tax, or financial tribute, required of non-Muslims. » | Raymond Ibrahim | Wednesday, May 30, 2012
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
CALGARY HERALD: The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada is planning to hold a national interfaith dialogue with Christian and Jewish leaders in Canada.
Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy said the council wants to hold a series of interfaith dialogues in all major cities, including Montreal, Toronto, Mississauga, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Surrey and Vancouver.
He said the purpose is to discuss: religious and secular fundamentalism and extremism in Canada; the role of religion in Canadian society; the impact of international events on faith communities and their relationships in Canada; the perceived threat of sharia law; Canadian values versus religious values; Jewish-Christian values versus Islamic values; freedom of speech and the freedom of religion in Canada and around the world; and improvements in interfaith relationships in Canada. » | Mario Toneguzzi, Calgary Herald | Friday, April 27, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
CNN: Muslims in Europe face discrimination in education, employment and religious freedom, an Amnesty International report said Tuesday.
"Muslim women are being denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf. Men can be dismissed for wearing beards associated with Islam," said Marco Perolini, Amnesty International's expert on discrimination. "Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes."
The report, titled "Choice and Prejudice: Discrimination Against Muslims in Europe," details the problem, with a focus on Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
Amnesty International raised the issue, as it has done before, of restrictions "on the establishment of places of worship and prohibitions on full-face veils."
The report said employers have been permitted "to discriminate on the grounds that religious or cultural symbols will jar with clients or colleagues or that a clash exists with a company's corporate image or its 'neutrality.'
"Wearing religious and cultural symbols and dress is part of the right of freedom of expression. It is part of the right to freedom of religion or belief -- and these rights must be enjoyed by all faiths equally." Perolini said. » | CNN Wire Staff | Tuesday, April 24, 2012
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Muslims discriminated against for demonstrating their faith » | Monday, April 23, 2012
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Religious rules should end “at the door of the temple” and give way to the “public law” laid down by Parliament, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said.
He argued that Roman Catholic adoption agencies and other faith groups providing public services must choose between their religion and obeying the law when their beliefs conflict with the will of the state.
Mr Phillips singled out the adoption agencies that fought a long legal battle to avoid being forced to accept homosexual couples under equality laws.
Last year, following a High Court case, the Charity Commission ruled against an exemption for Catholic Care, an adoption agency operating in Leeds.
Speaking at a debate in London on diverse societies, Mr Phillips backed the new laws, which led to the closure of all Catholic adoption agencies in England. “You can’t say because we decide we’re different then we need a different set of laws,” he said, in comments reported by The Tablet, the Catholic newspaper.
“To me there’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us. Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.” » | John Bingham, and Tim Ross | Friday, February 17, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
George Carey was not regarded as an outspoken Archbishop of Canterbury by the standards of both his predecessor and his successor.
While Robert Runcie and Rowan Williams generated and still generate headlines and ruffle politicians’ feathers, George Carey was largely overshadowed during his 11 years as head of the Anglican communion by internal church battles, notably over the ordination of women. Some even came to regard him as a wee bit dull and mealy-mouthed. If so, then he has more than made up for it since he stepped down in 2002.
In the past few months alone, he has publicly criticised both the cathedral authorities at St Paul’s over the Occupy protest camp, and the Lords Spiritual for leading the opposition to the Government’s benefit cuts in the Upper Chamber of Parliament, where Lord Carey of Clifton now sits as a life peer. “I have been mildly upset to be told to shut up by my fellow Anglican bishops.” But his usually sober face spreads into a grin as he says it. “I have felt freer to speak my mind as my own man, but I am always conscious of not wanting to get in Rowan’s way”.
This new George Carey has rather abandoned the careful diplomatic language he used as an archbishop to keep different church factions in the same pews, in favour of something more earthy and apocalyptic, reflecting his own evangelical background. “There are deep forces at work in Western society, hollowing out the values of Christianity and driving them to the margins”.
Among these forces, he has the judiciary firmly in his sights following a spate of recent rulings, which, he claims, have allowed equality to “trump” the freedom of the individual in matters of belief. “Judges,” he contends, “say that the law has no obligation to the Christian faith, but I say 'rubbish’ to that. Historically there has been a great interlocking of Christianity with our laws in this country.” » | Peter Stanford | Saturday, February 11, 2012
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The rebellion against him was just a few days old when Syrian dictator Bashar Assad summoned his country's Christian leaders to the presidential palace in northwestern Damascus. Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius came. He is 78 years old and critically ill, but still a powerful figure. Bishops and archbishops representing Catholics, Armenians, Aramaeans and Assyrians were also present. In total, there were a dozen religious leaders, representing around 2.5 million Syrian Christians.
The message they received from their head of state was short and simple: Either support me, or your churches will burn.
It seemed Assad, himself a member of the Alawis, a branch of Shia Islam, didn't want to assume that Syria's Christians would continue to remain aloof from politics. Sensing that not only his authority but perhaps his very survival was at stake, he resorted to the same means his father, Hafez Assad, once used to maintain power: pressure and violence.
The Arab League has suspended Syria's membership, isolating the country internationally. Damascus missed last Friday's deadline for Assad to stop the bloodshed and allow a commission of observers into the country. The League had allowed a brief extension, but on Sunday imposed harsh economic sanctions on the country. On Wednesday, Turkey also introduced its own economic sanctions on Syria. » | Bastian Berbner | Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein | Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Roman Catholic cardinal has said Christians should pray for the soul of Osama bin Laden despite the atrocities he perpetrated."I have prayed for the soul of Osama bin Laden. We have to pray for him just like we pray for the victims of Sept 11. It's what Jesus teaches Christians," Albert Vanhoye, 87, a French cardinal, told an Italian newspaper, Il Messaggero on Wednesday.
"Jesus obliges us to forgive our enemies. The 'Our Father' that we recite every day says that. "Does it not say 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us'?" "It's not possible to accept this prayer while holding on to rancour and cultivating hatred against our enemies," said the cardinal, in response to the news that bin Laden had been killed in a US commando raid in Pakistan.
"We are all sinners and we all need Christ's forgiveness," he said. It would have been better for the Americans to have captured bin Laden alive so that he could be put on trial, he added.
Vanhoye, a Jesuit priest, was made a cardinal in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI in recognition of his scholarly work on the Bible.
The Vatican warned on Monday that no Christian should celebrate the death of the al Qaeda leader. » | Nick Squires | Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
TAGES ANZEIGER: Die Gruppen seien korrupt und fehlgeleitet, begründen die Behörden die Festnahme. Sie vergleichen die Missionare mit den Taliban.
Im Iran sind mehrere christliche Missionare festgenommen worden. Die Anführer einer «korrupten» und «fehlgeleiteten» Bewegung seien in der Provinz Teheran festgenommen worden und weitere Festnahmen stünden bevor, sagte der Gouverneur der Provinz Teheran, Mortesa Tamaddon. >>> miw/sda | Dienstag, 04. Januar 2010
Friday, December 31, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: At least two Christians were killed and 12 people wounded in a series of attacks on Christian homes in Baghdad, according to Iraq's interior ministry.
The worst attack was in the central Baghdad district of Al-Ghadir, where a homemade bomb exploded around 8pm (1700 GMT), killing the two Christians and wounding three others, including one Christian, an official from the ministry said. >>>Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Thursday, December 30, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Italy and France have airlifted Iraqi Christians injured in the October 31 church attack to Rome and Paris for medical treatment, despite criticism that such actions are encouraging their exodus.
26 Iraqis were flown to Rome on Friday at the request of the Vatican, while the French government vowed to fly a further 93 Iraqis to Paris to add to the 54 already receiving treatment there.
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has warned other countries, without naming any, not to encourage Christians to emigrate.
"The countries that have welcomed the victims ... of this attack have done a noble thing, but that should not encourage emigration," Mr al-Maliki said.
Eric Besson, the French minister of immigration, said that his move fitted France's "tradition of asylum", and that asylum would be "handed out generously" to those who sought it. >>> | Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 04, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Islamist insurgents in Iraq have warned of a new wave of attacks on Christians "wherever they can be reached", threatening a new wave of sectarian violence.
"We will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood," said a statement posted on a militant website by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an al-Qaeda front.
The ISI claimed responsibility for an attack on a Roman Catholic church in Baghdad on Sunday evening which left 42 worshippers, at least six police and all nine assailants dead.
Al-Qaeda or other Sunni militants are also presumed to be responsible for a wave of bombings across Shia districts of the city that killed 76 people on Tuesday night. Islamist Insurgents in Iraq Threaten Wave of Attacks on Christians >>> Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent | Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Saturday, July 03, 2010
ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL: Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI has urged Iraq's authorities to give greater protection to Christians and other religious minorities. The pontiff reminded Iraq's new ambassador to the Holy See, Habib Mohammed Hadi Ali al-Sadr, that "since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have been present in the land of Abraham, a land which is part of the common patrimony of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”
Iraq's new government needs to urgently implement measures designed to improve security for all sectors of the population but especially its various minorities, he said. >>> AKI | Friday, July 02, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
BBC: Tony Blair's spokesman Alastair Campbell famously once said the prime minister didn't "do God" when talking to the media.
Religious pronouncements were kept to a minimum, for fear of risking the broad political support for the New Labour project.
Mr Campbell's simple words illustrate how Christianity is generally treated at Westminster.
Explicit mention of religion is seen as "un-British", a bit "American" and a "turn-off" to the electorate.
But, with a closely fought election in the offing and a desperate fight taking place for marginal seats, might candidates become more open about their beliefs if it means a few more votes? >>> Justin Parkinson | Wednesday, April 21, 2010
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