Religious Violence Flares in Indonesia as Mob Torches Aceh Church

Authorities tear down a church in Aceh Singkil, enforcing a
decree from the local Muslim-dominated religious harmony forum.

THE GUARDIAN: Muslim vigilante is shot dead as small Protestant house of worship attacked and authorities move to ‘ensure security’ – by demolishing more churches

Indonesia is struggling to live up to its national motto “unity in diversity” after a mob attack on a church left one dead and the authorities responded by demolishing more churches.

The attack took place in the conservative province of Aceh, the only region in Indonesia that has sharia law and where religious tension has been brewing for months.

A mob wielding sharp weapons torched the small Protestant church in the district of Aceh Singkil last week, saying it lacked an official permit. One Muslim vigilante was shot dead in the attack, while thousands of Christians fled to a neighbouring province.

Bishop Elson Lingga visited Aceh Singkil the day after the attack and said there was a deep sense of unease in the villages. “After the event everyone is suspicious of each other, thinking, ‘Are they the ones that reported us?’ They are afraid of their Muslim neighbours,” he said. » | Kate Lamb in Jakarta | Friday, October 23, 2015

Robert Spencer — the Speech the U.S. Catholic Bishops Don’t Want You to See

Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer was the keynote speaker at the annual convocation of the North American Lutheran Church, Dallas, Texas, August 13, 2015. He spoke about Muslim persecution of Christians.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pulled their representative from the North American Lutheran Church convocation when they found out Spencer was the keynote speaker. Watch this speech and see what the Catholic Bishops of the United States don't want you to know.

Catholic Monastery in Syria 'Destroyed by Isil Bulldozers'

THE TELEGRAPH: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seized Al-Qaryatain town and monastery Mar Elian earlier this month, kidnapping local Christians

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants have destroyed a historic monastery seized in their latest advance across central Syria.

Photographs appeared online of fighters from Isil with bulldozers at the Mar Elian monastery in Al-Qaryatain, in Homs province.

The monitoring group Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said the Catholic monastery was then destroyed "on the pretext that it was used for worshipping others than God". » | Richard Spencer, Middle East Editor | Friday, August 21, 2015

Franklin Graham: 'Halt All Immigration of Muslims' From Terror Nations

NEWSMAX: Outraged at the slaughter of Ethiopian Christians by Islamic State (ISIS) militants, the son of famed evangelical preacher Billy Graham is demanding the United States "halt all immigration of Muslims" from any countries "that have active terrorist cells."

The Rev. Franklin Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, also wants the government to take "immediate military action" to crush ISIS.

"We should make sure our government and the current administration recognizes Islam for the danger it is, and that they are doing all they can to work against it," Graham writes in a Facebook post Monday.

"Out [sic] government needs to immediately look at immigration reform to halt all immigration of Muslims from countries that have active terrorist cells — the threat this poses to our nation is huge and could end up costing thousands of lives in the future if we don’t act now."

He adds the second-most important thing the government must do is "take immediate military action to defeat ISIS." » | Cathy Burke | Monday, April 20, 2015

ISIS Destroys Christian Churches and Crosses in Iraq and Syria

My comment:

If Western political ‘leaders’ are unwilling to put a stop to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, and to put a stop to the destruction of churches and all that is Christian, is it perhaps time for the Pope to call for another crusade? – © Mark

Islamic State Murders 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya

Masked militants are shown in the video released by Al-Furqan
Media, purportedly showing the execution of 30 Ethiopian
Christians captured in Libya

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A video purportedly made by Islamic State appears to show militants shooting and beheading about 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya

A video purportedly made by Islamic State and posted on social media sites on Sunday appeared to show militants shooting and beheading about 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

It was not possible to immediately verify the authenticity of the video, but the killings resemble past violence carried out by Islamic State, which has expanded its reach from strongholds in Iraq and Syria to a conflict-ridden Libya.

The video, in which militants call Christians crusaders and say they are out to kill Muslims, showed about 15 men being beheaded on a beach and another group of the same size shot in their heads in scrubland.

Both groups of men are referred to in a subtitle as "worshippers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian church".

Libyan officials were not immediately available for comment. » | Reuters | Sunday, April 19, 2015

Pakistan Christian Community Living in Fear after Mob Killings

Shama (L) was pregnant with her fifth child when the couple
were attacked and killed

BBC: The fertile landscape in Chak 59 of Kasur district in the Punjab province is dotted with hundreds of brick kilns.

The factories, owned by powerful landlords, are notorious for thriving on "bonded labour". Hundreds of thousands of people have remained locked in a cycle of debt and poverty for decades.

Rights groups call it a form of modern-day slavery.

Until last week, Sajjad Mesih and his wife Shama, a married Christian couple in their 30s, worked at one such brick kiln.

For years, they got up at dawn, laboured in harsh conditions through the day and finished up at dusk. That was their routine - every day, seven days a week. It was a life of debt and poverty that they hated.

On Tuesday, they were lynched and burnt to death there by a mob on allegations of blasphemy.

Blasphemy is an explosive issue in Pakistan. Reporting of violence in the name of blasphemy is often self-censored, twisted and confused by misreporting.

Piecing together the sequence of events and what led to vicious crimes on the pretext of blasphemy is not always straightforward.

But having visited the remote rural area and after speaking to up to a dozen or so people - including police, family, neighbours and eyewitnesses - here is an account of what the BBC has been able to put together. (+ BBC video) » | Shahzeb Jillani | BBC News | Kasur District | Pakistan | Saturday, November 08, 2014

Iraq Christian Leader: People Are Being Slaughtered

BBC: The UN Security Council has held an emergency meeting on Iraq, after the largest Christian town was seized by Islamic State militants.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis have fled their homes following a warning by the militants to renounce their faiths or face death.

Canon Andrew White, who is the vicar of the only Anglican church in Iraq, says the international community must do more to help Christians and other minorities. He says people are being "slaughtered". (+ BBC video) » | Friday, August 08, 2014

Jihadists Seize Ancient Iraqi Monastery and Expel Monks

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Islamic State fighters order monks to leave fourth-century monastery after issuing ultimatum to Christians to leave, convert, die or pay protection money, local residents say

Jihadist militants have taken over a monastery in northern Iraq, one of the country's best-known Christian landmarks, and expelled its resident monks, a cleric and residents said Monday.

Islamic State (IS) fighters stormed Mar (Saint) Behnam, a fourth-century monastery run by the Syriac Catholic church near the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, on Sunday, the sources said.

"You have no place here anymore, you have to leave immediately," a member of the Syriac clergy quoted the Sunni militants as telling the monastery's residents.

He said the monks pleaded to be allowed to save some of the monastery's relics but the fighters refused and ordered them to leave on foot with nothing but their clothes.

Christian residents from the area told AFP the monks walked several miles along a deserted road and were eventually picked up by Kurdish peshmerga fighters who drove them to Qaraqosh. » | AFP | Monday, July 21, 2014

Archbishop of Canterbury Arrives in Pakistan to Support Embattled Christians

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Religious minority has suffered blasphemy accusations, terrorists attacks and forced conversions as persecution increases

The Archbishop of Canterbury has arrived in Pakistan to show his backing for the country’s persecuted Christian minority and to ask Muslim leaders for help in building better relations.

The Most Rev Justin Welby is due to meet politicians as well as bishops from the Church of Pakistan before travelling to Bangladesh and India.

The trip, conducted amid tight security, is part of a promise to meet leaders of the Anglican community as early as possible after taking up office and comes as Christians in some parts of the developing world suffer attacks at the hands of Islamist groups.

Xavier William, of Life for All Ministries who is due to meet the archbishop on Wednesday, said the visit was a source of comfort at a time when Pakistan’s Christian community - and other religious minorities – faced unprecedented pressure.

“We are seeing that persecution of Christians has got worse here in recent years,” he said. » | Rob Crilly, Islamabad | Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Christians Face Extinction Threat in Mideast - UK Minister of Faith

Western officials are alarmed at the plight of Christians in the Middle East, where they're increasingly becoming targets of sectarian violence. Britain's Faith Minister says the turbulent region is now seeing an exodus of Biblical proportions, with Christians under threat of becoming extinct in some countries.

Baroness Warsi: Extremists Are Driving Christians Out of Their Homelands. We Must Act

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Terrorist violence against Christians has put the very survival of the religion in some regions in peril. We cannot stand idle, says Baroness Warsi.

There are parts of the world today where to be a Christian is to put your life in danger. From continent to continent, Christians are facing discrimination, ostracism, torture, even murder, simply for the faith they follow. The pages of this newspaper regularly chart the plight of the persecuted, from the scores of worshippers killed recently by bombers at All Saints Church in Pakistan to the Coptic congregation sprayed with bullets by gunmen in Egypt.

Christian populations are plummeting and the religion is being driven out of some of its historic heartlands. There is even talk of Christianity becoming extinct in places where it has existed for generations – where the faith was born. In Iraq, the Christian community has fallen from 1.2 million in 1990 to 200,000 today. In Syria, the horrific bloodshed has masked the haemorrhaging of its Christian population.

Perpetrators range from states to terrorists to people's neighbours. And victimhood is not exclusive to Christians; Hazara Shias in Pakistan, Baha'is in Iran, Rohingya Muslims in Burma – all have long been singled out and hounded out because of the faith they follow.

While religious persecution may not be a new concept, today the fault lines between faiths and within faiths are ever more volatile. Collective punishment is becoming more common, with people being attacked for the alleged crimes, connections or connotations of their coreligionists, often in response to events taking place thousands of miles away.

This has become a global crisis, and in Washington D.C. today I will be making the case for an international response. Speaking at Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations, I want to call for cross-faith, cross-continent unity on this issue – for a response which isn't itself sectarian. Because a bomb going off in a Pakistani church shouldn't just reverberate through Christian communities; it should stir the world. » | Baroness Warsi *, Minister for Faith | Thursday, November 14, 2013

* Baroness Warsi is Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office & the UK’s first Minister for Faith. Follow her on twitter @sayeedawarsi

Related »

Christians 'Face Extinction' amid Sectarian Terror, Minister Warns

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Exclusive: violence against Christian minorities is now a "global crisis" as worshippers are driven out of their ancient homelands by militants, a senior minister warns

Christianity is in danger of becoming extinct in its ancient homelands because of a rising tide of sectarian attacks, a senior minister will warn on Friday.

Violence against Christian worshippers and other religious minorities by fanatics has become a “global crisis” and is the gravest challenge facing the world this century, Baroness Warsi will say.

“A mass exodus is taking place, on a Biblical scale. In some places, there is a real danger that Christianity will become extinct,” she will say at a speech at Georgetown University in Washington.

In the new year, Lady Warsi, the Minister for Faith who sits in the Cabinet, will host an international summit to draw up a plan to end the violence against Christians - particularly in the countries where the faith was born.

Writing for Telegraph.co.uk, Lady Warsi highlights the bombing of All Saints Church in Pakistan, killing 85 congregants, in September and the gun attack on a Coptic wedding party in Egypt as the latest outrages by militants who have turned “religion upon religion, sect upon sect”.

“There are parts of the world today where to be a Christian is to put your life in danger,” she writes. “From continent to continent, Christians are facing discrimination, ostracism, torture, even murder, simply for the faith they follow.

“Christian populations are plummeting and the religion is being driven out of some of its historic heartlands. In Iraq, the Christian community has fallen from 1.2m in 1990 to 200,000 today. In Syria, the horrific bloodshed has masked the haemorrhaging of its Christian population,” she says. » | Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent | Thursday, November 14, 3013

Islam Expert Warns Christians May Completely Disappear From Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt

THE CHRISTIAN POST: The mass exodus of millions of Christians from one part of the Islamic world to another as the result of persecution by Muslims has reached epidemic proportions, says a Middle East and Islam expert. In fact, Christians may completely disappear from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt, warns the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

"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

Muslim Persecution of Christians: January, 2013
GATESTONE INSTITUTE: Egypt: A court sentenced an entire family – Nadia Mohamed Ali and her seven children – to fifteen years in prison for converting to Christianity.

The year 2013 began with reports indicating that wherever Christians live side by side with large numbers of Muslims, the Christians are under attack. As one report said, "Africa, where Christianity spread fastest during the past century, now is the region where oppression of Christians is spreading fastest." Whether in Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, or Tanzania—attacks on Christians are as frequent as they are graphic.

As for the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity, a new study by the Pew Forum finds that "just 0.6 percent of the world's 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4% of the region's inhabitants, drastically down from 20% a century ago, and marking the smallest regional Christian minority in the world. Fully 93% of the region is Muslim and 1.6% is Jewish."

How Christianity has been all but eradicated from the region where it was born is made clear in yet another report on the Middle East's largest Christian minority, Egypt's Christian Copts. Due to a "climate of fear and uncertainty," Christian families are leaving Egypt in large numbers. Along with regular church attacks, the situation has gotten to the point that, according to one Coptic priest, "Salafis meet Christian girls in the street and order them to cover their hair. Sometimes they hit them when they refuse." Another congregation leader said "With the new [Sharia-heavy] constitution, the new laws that are expected, and the majority in parliament I don't believe we can be treated on an equal basis."

Elsewhere, Christians are not allowed to flee. In eastern Syria, for example, 25,000 Christians, including Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Chaldeans and Armenians, were prevented from fleeing due to a number of roadblocks set up by armed Islamic militia groups, who deliberately target Christians for robbery and kidnapping-for-ransom—then often slaughtering their victims. » | Raymond Ibrahim | Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Robert Spencer and Michael Coren Discuss the New Pope and Muslim Persecution of Christians

Robert Spencer @ Jihad Watch »

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World
THE DAILY BEAST: From one end of the muslim world to the other, Christians are being murdered for their faith.

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.

The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.

But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.

From blasphemy laws to brutal murders to bombings to mutilations and the burning of holy sites, Christians in so many nations live in fear. In Nigeria many have suffered all of these forms of persecution. The nation has the largest Christian minority (40 percent) in proportion to its population (160 million) of any majority-Muslim country. For years, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived on the edge of civil war. Islamist radicals provoke much if not most of the tension. The newest such organization is an outfit that calls itself Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege.” Its aim is to establish Sharia in Nigeria. To this end it has stated that it will kill all Christians in the country. » | Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Monday, February 06, 2012

Defend Persecuted Christians, Not Just Gays, Ministers Told

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Ministers stand accused of double standards by threatening to withdraw aid from countries that persecute homosexuals but ignoring Christians.

Ann Widdecombe, the former Tory minister, will tomorrow claim the Government is turning a blind eye to abuse of Christians around the world while piling pressure on those who target sexuality.

In a speech in London, she will say “hedgehogs” have a better chance of being protected by the Government.

Miss Widdecombe has hit out following reports that David Cameron has threatened to slash aid to poor African countries that persecute gay people.

Malawi has already had its aid cut by £19 million after two gay men were sentenced to 14 years hard labour.

But in a speech to the annual conference of international charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) tomorrow, Miss Widdecombe will say: “Fair enough. But what about Christians? When do we qualify for such protection or don’t we?

“You stand a better chance of earnest representation if you are a hedgehog than if you are a persecuted Christian.”

The plight of Christians came in to sharp focus this month following the death of at least 25 people, mainly Coptic Christians, in Egypt. Read on and comment » | Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor | Friday, October 21, 2011

Islam's War on the Cross: Egypt's Move to Democracy Under Threat after Latest Attack on Coptic Community

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Christians in Egypt are used to persecution, but this week's deadly attacks on a Copt demonstration threaten the country’s move from military rule to democracy.

In the 19 or so centuries since Christianity first took root in Egypt, the ritual of mourning has become an all-too-familiar experience for the majority of the country’s Coptic community. Egypt’s eight million Copts may claim to be their nation’s oldest surviving indigenous faith, but that has not spared them from prolonged periods of persecution, most recently at the hands of Islamist militants.

In many respects, the tone was set for nearly two millennia of oppression of the Copts, one of the world’s oldest Christian sects, by the martyrdom of St Mark the Evangelist, the disciple who established the Christian faith in Alexandria just a few years after the ascension of Christ.

The establishment of a new religion was bitterly resented by the city’s pagan population, who feared it would turn Alexandrians away from the worship of their traditional gods. They exacted their revenge on Easter Monday in 68 AD when Roman soldiers put a rope around St Mark’s neck and dragged him through the streets of Alexandria until he was dead.

These days the methods used to persecute Egypt’s Copts might not be so primitive, but their overall effect is no less barbaric. During the latest outbreak of Coptic-related violence in Cairo on Sunday night, several Copts are reported to have been crushed to death by the tracks of an armoured military vehicle that ploughed into a group of protesters as they sang hymns and held aloft the Cross. Read on and comment » | Con Coughlin | Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Nicolas Sarkozy Says Christians in Middle East Are Victim of 'Religious Cleansing'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Christians in the Middle East are the victims of "religious cleansing", President Nicolas Sarkozy of France warned yesterday following a string of attacks on churches in the region.

President Sarkozy delivers his New Year address to religious representatives at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Photo: The Daily Telegraph
Mr Sarkozy made the statement while giving his annual address to religious leaders as Coptic Christians were due to celebrate Christmas yesterday, according to the eastern Orthodox church calendar.

"We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly perverse programme of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing," said the French president.

An attack on a Coptic church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on January 1 killed 21 people. While noon has claimed responsibility, it followed online threats against Copts from an al-Qaeda-linked group which had said it was behind an attack on a church in Baghdad in October.

Some 68 people died in the attack on a Syriac Catholic church, one of a number of strikes against Christians in Iraq.

Those who died in Alexandria and Bagdad were "collectively our martyrs", said Mr Sarkozy. "They are the martyrs of the freedom of conscience." "The rights that are guaranteed in our country to all religions must be reciprocally guaranteed in other countries," he said. >>> Henry Samuel, Paris | Friday, January 07, 2011

Sarkozy : «Une épuration religieuse du Moyen-Orient»
LE FIGARO: En présentant ses vœux vendredi matin aux représentants des religions, le président de la République est revenu sur les attentats qui ont visé, en Égypte et en Irak, des chrétiens.

«Nous ne pouvons pas non plus admettre et donc faciliter ce qui ressemble de plus en plus à un plan particulièrement pervers d'épuration religieuse du Moyen-Orient». Vendredi matin, en présentant ses vœux aux représentants des religions, le président Nicolas Sarkozy - qui avait tenu cette année à inviter tous les représentants des Églises chrétiennes d'Orient présentes en France - a tenu à faire une «mise au point» liée à «la gravité de la situation internationale» à propos de l'actualité tragique de l'attentat contre des Coptes en Égypte.

«Ils venaient de recevoir et de se donner la Paix, ils ont été tués à l'arme de Guerre» a-t-il lancé en mémoire de ceux qui ont été «sauvagement assassinés» pour le «crime» de «pratiquer leur religion». Adressant les condoléances «de la France» à cette communauté chrétienne établie en Égypte depuis le début du christianisme, le chef de l'État est aussi revenu sur l'assaut contre la cathédrale syriaque de Bagdad, en affirmant: «Si je pouvais, ici, utiliser le mot de martyr, alors je dirais que les martyrs d'Alexandrie ou de Bagdad, ne sont pas uniquement des martyrs coptes, syriaques, ou maronites. Ils sont collectivement nos martyrs. Ils sont les martyrs de la liberté de conscience. Les Français n'acceptent pas, la France n'acceptera jamais que l'on puisse impunément prendre des innocents en prière pour cible d'un terrorisme délirant et barbare.» >>> Par Jean-Marie Guénois | Vendredi 07 Janvier 2011

Voeux du Président aux autorités religieuses pour l'année 2011

ÉLYSÉE : Voeux du Président aux autorités religieuses pour l'année 2011 >>> | Janvier 2011