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Posted tagged ‘Climate Change’
Cartoon of the Day
March 31, 2016
Off Topic | How Obama saved the world
December 15, 2015How Obama saved the world, The Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, December 14, 2015
[A]fter the hosannas and shouts of joy from President Obama and his like-minded friends, Paris didn’t actually deliver anything. Each nation will be required to submit a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but there is no objective standard it must meet or no requirement that it must achieve any reduction at all.
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Now will the climate-change swindlers shut up?
They got the treaty in Paris that Barack Obama says saved the world from vanishing into a black hole in space.
Have the nations of the world finally resolved the ills and pains of prostitution, wars, disease, rush-hour traffic, date rape, racism, sexism, Confederate flags waving in the breeze, airline turbulence, the infield-fly rule and diplomatic gasbaggery that make Planet Earth all but uninhabitable?
Well, not exactly. President Francois Hollande of France, the host at the Paris gasbaggery and basking in his new role as leader of the free world now that Mr. Obama has marched to the rear, told the assembled prime ministers and presidents that he can’t separate terrorism from the fight against global warming.
“These are two big challenges we have to face up to,” he says. “I believe we can act boldly and decisively in the face of a common threat. I just want to say that we are running out of time.”
We’re all running out of time, of course, and others have said it better. The Bible warns that it’s appointed unto man once to die (and after that the judgment), and Winston Churchill, in a less solemn mood, observed that in the long run there is no long run. The beggar nations of the world, addicted to their corruption and inefficient governments, showed up in Paris with their biggest begging bowls and left town as the only winners.
The “developing” nations got promises of $100 billion a year from the “developed” nations, which won’t necessarily have to be spent on anything actually helpful to their ailing, starving millions but will pay for a lot of nice things — cars, houses, additional wives, shopping tours to New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong — for the hundreds of new deputy associate assistant undersecretaries the developing countries will have to create to supervise the spending of the largesse from the United States and other sucker nations.
President Obama, who considers himself the advocate for the interests of what used to called “the third world,” was first delirious months ago at the prospect of having a big celebration in Paris. “This has to be the year the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got while we still can,” he said on his return from a visit to Alaska, which he wanted to see before it melts under global warming. “There is no Plan B,” the chief negotiator for the European Union in Paris said on the eve of the Paris session. “There’s nothing to follow. [These are] not just ongoing U.N. discussions. Paris is final.”
But after the hosannas and shouts of joy from President Obama and his like-minded friends, Paris didn’t actually deliver anything. Each nation will be required to submit a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but there is no objective standard it must meet or no requirement that it must achieve any reduction at all.
The beggar countries blocked a requirement that the authors of the promises use a common format, and they did not even have to mention the emissions they wouldn’t have to promise to reduce. China and India, leading the developing nations, rejected “any obligatory review mechanism for increasing individual efforts of developing countries.” Only Mexico submitted a plan by the initial deadline of March 1 of this year.
Everyone knew nobody was taking any of the “promises” seriously, that there would be no enforcement of the promises. The only consequences for non-compliance would be international “shame,” to be shamed by the likes of Lower Slobbovia and the Peoples Republic of Upper Corruptiana. India, for one example, submitted an unserious plan but said it would need $2.5 trillion in support to implement its plan.
Not everything is expected to be unenforcible. Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, returned to New York on Monday and told the developed nations to get the checks in the mail. “Actions should begin from today,” he said. “The Paris agreement is a victory for the people, for the common good, and for multilateralism.” He will convene a nagging “summit” next May, at a luxury resort to be named later, to hector and bully the donor nations to get cracking. The beggar nations, their diplomats exhausted from the work of making promises they will not be required to keep, must not be further disturbed.
The functionaries at the U.N. bristle at suggestions that the agreement will be difficult to enforce. There’s no need for climate-change cops.
The United Nations will boldly point the finger at nations that won’t keep their commitments, he says. The shame, the disgrace, the mortification of it all: Getting the finger from the U.N.
Why Has the Church Abandoned the Christians of the Middle East?
December 10, 2015Why Has the Church Abandoned the Christians of the Middle East? The Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, December 10, 2015
(Why have nations which, thus far, have majority Christian populations done the same? — DM)
- Why is the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the symbolic head of 85 million Christians worldwide, expressing shock at yet another terrorist attack perpetrated by the Islamic State?
- Had he paid more than just fleeting attention to his fellow Christians in Iraq and Syria, he would know that the Islamic State has been slaughtering Christians in the Middle East since 2006. How much more time did he need?
- Without referring by name to the Islamic State, and speaking as if some invisible force of nature were at play here, Pope Francis I deplored “thousands of people, including many Christians, driven from their homes in a brutal manner; children dying of thirst and hunger in their flight; women kidnapped; people massacred; violence of every kind.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was interviewed recently about the Paris attacks and asked about his reaction. “Like everyone else – first shock and horror and then a profound sadness…” he replied. “Saturday morning, I was out and as I was walking I was praying and saying: ‘God, why — why is this happening?'”
Welby is the principal head of the Anglican Church and the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, which stands at around 85 million members worldwide and is the third largest communion in the world — after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is a man with an extremely high public profile, and millions of Christians looking to him for spiritual guidance.
But why is a man who is the symbolic head of 85 million Christians worldwide expressing shock at yet another terrorist attack perpetrated by the Islamic State? Had the Archbishop of Canterbury paid more than just fleeting attention to his fellow Christians in Iraq and Syria, he would know that the Islamic State has been slaughtering Christians in the Middle East since 2006. Between 2004 and 2006, before the Islamic State evolved out of Al Qaeda in Iraq, it hardly showed less zeal to root out Christianity even then.
The Archbishop had eleven years to get used to the idea of people being made homeless, exiled, tortured, raped, enslaved, beheaded and murdered for not being Muslims. How much more time did he need?
The Archbishop of Canterbury had more wisdom to offer in the interview. “The perversion of faith is one of the most desperate aspects of our world today,” he said, explaining that Islamic State terrorists have distorted their faith to the extent that they believe they are glorifying their God. But it is unclear how he is as qualified an expert in Islam as Islamic State “Caliph ” Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who possesses a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Baghdad.
Christians, Yazidis and persecuted Muslims in the Middle East can probably point to aspects of the world more desperate than “the perversion of faith,” but then again, the Archbishop does not seem too preoccupied with the situation on the ground.
Fortunately, others are. In a piece for The Atlantic, “What ISIS Really Wants,” Graeme Wood spent time researching the Islamic State and its ideology in depth. He spoke to members of the Islamic State and Islamic State recruiters; his conclusions were the following:
“The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
“Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it.”
Members of the Islamic State are shown on the Libyan coast, preparing to behead a group of Ethiopian Christians. (From a video released in April 2015)
The West nevertheless continues to pretend that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is apparently no different. It is noteworthy, however, that the Archbishop has no misgivings when it comes to Christians. “I cannot say that Christians who resort to violence are not Christians.,” he said to the Muslim Council of Wales two months ago. “At Srebrenica the perpetrators claimed Christian faith. I cannot deny their purported Christianity, but must acknowledge that event as yet another in the long history of Christian violence, and I must repudiate that what they did was in any way following the life and teaching of Jesus.”
During a debate in the House of Lords earlier this year, he also had no qualms in stating that “the church’s sporadic record of compelling obedience to its teachings through violence and coercion is a cause for humility and shame.”
If the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot deny the Christianity of Christian perpetrators who claim the Christian faith, how can he — not a Muslim scholar — deny the Islamic nature of Muslim perpetrators who claim the Muslim faith?
Just as mind-boggling is the refusal of Pope Francis I to speak the name of the perpetrators. In August 2014, when the Islamic State conquered the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar and began brutally to round up and murder Yazidis, and up to 100,000 Christians fled for their lives, Pope Francis could not make himself utter the name of the Islamic State. In his traditional Sunday blessing, he said the news from Iraq had left him “in dismay and disbelief.” As if every atrocity had happened for the first time! Christian Iraqis had at that point been persecuted by Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State for a full decade. Without referring by name to the Islamic State, and speaking as if some invisible force of nature were at play, the pope deplored “thousands of people, including many Christians, driven from their homes in a brutal manner; children dying of thirst and hunger in their flight; women kidnapped; people massacred; violence of every kind.”
A year later, in July 2015, he called the onslaught on Christians in the Middle East “a form of genocide,” but still without mentioning who exactly was committing it.
It is tragic that the Church has done so little to help its flock in the Middle East. Where, during the past decade, have the Archbishop of Canterbury and his colleagues from the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church been? Where now is their vocal and public outrage at the near extinction of this ancient Christian culture? Where are their forceful appeals to political leaders and military decision-makers to intervene on behalf of their suffering brethren?
The Pope, however, did find time last May to write a 180-page encyclical about climate change, and he has spoken passionately about the bizarre concept of the “rights of the environment.” In front of the UN and a joint session of the U.S. Congress, he again spoke of the persecution of Christians, as if it were a metaphysical event:
“He expressed deep concern for the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, where they and other religious groups, have been ‘forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage’ and been forced to flee or face death or enslavement.”
Christians in the Middle East are suffering and dying, and the world hardly pays attention. The post-Christian West evidently has no moment of charity for the plight of people with whom it might feel at least a slight solidarity. But in 2016, Europe will be receiving another three million migrants, according to the European Union. So far, most of those who have arrived are Muslims, and there is little reason to expect that those who will arrive next year will be persecuted Christians. Most of the refugees come from refugee camps near Syria; Christians stay away from the refugee camps because they experience persecution in them too. It is no different with the Syrian refugees coming to the US.
The Christians in the Middle East are thus still left fending for themselves.
Cartoon of the day
November 30, 2015
Cartoons of the day
November 21, 2015
Cartoons of the day
November 19, 2015
Post Paris: Liberals Can’t Blame Terror Attack on Muslims
November 19, 2015Post Paris: Liberals Can’t Blame Terror Attack on Muslims, PJTV via You Tube, November 19, 2015
Why can’t the terrorists see that climate change is the most important security issue?
November 16, 2015Why can’t the terrorists see that climate change is the most important security issue? American Thinker, Jack Hellner, November 16, 2015
(Do I really need to label this “satire?” –DM)
We shouldn’t allow this isolated event in Paris to take our eye off the ball. After all we have our President, Secretary of State and top Democratic candidate focused like a laser beam on the most dangerous threat to our freedom; climate change. They are showing true leadership. Al Gore was doing a 24 hour webcast at the Eiffel Tower Friday the 13th on climate change. If only the terrorists had been listening maybe they could have understood how much we cared and the attack wouldn’t have happened.
Thank goodness France is a gun free zone. That kept them safe.
As the President said Friday, ISIS is contained. As in 2012 when he said we have the terrorists on the run. His thoughts and talking points are obviously based on reality. After all we are sending in 50 advisors to Syria. That should handle it.
ISIS and other terrorist groups do not believe in economic freedom, political freedom, free speech, religious freedom or women’s’ rights but if we can control the temperature and sea levels that should change their minds.
The migrants from Africa would not be going to Europe if they could see all the work being done on climate change. If Africa could just reduce their quality and length of life by getting rid of fossil fuels they would stay. The secondary reason for them leaving is that tyrants and terrorists are killing them.
The World politicians can’t handle a relatively small terrorist group like ISIS, can’t figure out how to fix a small economy like Greece but yet are so arrogant they believe they can control the temperature within one or two degrees two hundred years out and absolutely control the levels of the sea.
When I heard about the Paris attack, I thought for sure it was caused by a video no one had seen.
Heaven help us!
Obama secures rubber stamp for Iran deal catastrophe
September 3, 2015Obama secures rubber stamp for Iran deal catastrophe, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, September 3, 2015
(Please see also, Use Our Senatorial Nuclear Option to Stop Iran’s Radioactive Nuclear Option. Make Senators vote yes or no on the “deal.”— DM)
Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has pushed President Obama’s nuclear appeasement deal with Iran over the top. With her decision to vote in favor of the deal, Obama now has the support of the 34 senators he needs to uphold his expected veto of a congressional resolution of disapproval. If enough craven Democrats back a planned filibuster to prevent a vote on the floor of the Senate, Obama will not even have to use his veto pen.
The nightmare of a financially secure nuclear armed Iran, legitimized by the Obama administration and its international partners, is about to envelop us.
Ironically, Obama warned in a speech he delivered on September 1st in Alaska that a potentially bleak future could lie ahead, in which “there’s not going to be a nation on this Earth that’s not impacted negatively.”
“People will suffer,” Obama said. “Economies will suffer. Entire nations will find themselves under severe, severe problems…more conflict.”
President Obama is right to be concerned about the future, but his stated reason for his concern is entirely misplaced. Obama was talking about climate change, which he considers to be a man-made disaster. In truth, Obama himself has created a far more imminent disaster with his nuclear deal.
In his climate change speech, Obama spoke about our “grandkids” who “deserve to live lives free from fear, and want, and peril.” He added that we need to prove “we care about them and their long-term futures, not just short-term political expediency.”
Obama, and the partisan loyalists who support him no matter what, are the ones letting down our grandkids. They are the ones who have sacrificed our grandkids’ long-term futures at the altar of short-term political expediency. The only long-term future that Obama is interested in is his own legacy.
By President Obama’s own admission, no later than 15 years from now – when my granddaughter will be just 18 years old – Iran will be in a position to develop enough enriched materials to produce nuclear bombs with virtually no “break-out” time. The deal’s major nuclear restrictions, such as they are, will have gone away, even assuming that Iran had not cheated in the meantime.
The deal’s inspection mechanism is a farce, including most notably, Iran’s self-inspection of its military site where it is suspected that nuclear weaponization research and development work was carried out. The military facility at Parchin is off-limits to onsite inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Yet the Obama administration continues to lie to the American people about how comprehensive the IAEA inspections will be. Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted this falsehood on September 2nd: “With this #IranDeal, the IAEA can go wherever the evidence leads. No facility…will be off limits.”
The Iranian leaders also will get their hands soon on hundreds of billions of dollars. No doubt they will use some of their treasure trove from sanctions relief to fund their terrorist proxies all over the world. Obama admitted in his speech defending his deal last month at American University that monies from sanctions relief “will flow to activities we object to.” He acknowledged that “Iran supports terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. It supports proxy groups that threaten our interests and the interests of our allies – including proxy groups who killed our troops in Iraq. They try to destabilize our Gulf partners.”
Yet Obama tells the American people not to worry about such real-life risks. Instead, he diverts attention to his Chicken Little climate change hype that the sky will fall if we do not take urgent action now.
Much of the rest of the Iranians’ windfall from sanctions relief will go towards developing and acquiring, from North Korea, Russia and other sources, advanced military technology and long-range missiles.
Iran’s leaders have made it abundantly clear that they do not consider themselves bound by either the 5-year UN Security Council arms embargo or the 8-year missile embargo. For example, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani declared: “We will buy, sell and develop any weapons we need and we will not ask for permission or abide by any [U.N.] resolution for that.”
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said last month that “We are considering the design, research, and production of [missiles] that are highly destructive, highly accurate, radar evasive, and tactical.”
Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said: “Some wrongly think Iran has suspended its ballistic missile programs in the last two years and has made a deal on its missile program.” To emphasize his point, the commander announced that Iran “will have a new ballistic missile test in the near future that will be a thorn in the eyes of our enemies.”
The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, announced plans to expand the reach of Iran’s missiles.
The Iranian thugs are not limiting themselves to purely defensive weapons. “They (the US and the Zionists) should know that the Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine,” said Brigadier General Mohsen Kazzemeini, the IRGC’s top commander in the Tehran Province (as quoted by Iran’s Fars News Agency). “We will continue defending not just our own country, but also all the oppressed people of the world, especially those countries that are standing on the forefront of confrontation with the Zionists,” he added.
The Obama administration, which conceded as part of the nuclear deal to agree to unconditional term limits on the arms and missile embargoes, barely raised an eyebrow at Iran’s refusal to be bound by even these limited embargoes. In fact, Kerry went so far as to say that “they are not in material breach of the nuclear agreement for violating the arms piece of it.”
A sobering report was just released by the Iran Strategy Council, led by retired generals Chuck Wald (Commandant of Marine Corps) and James Conway (Deputy Commander of European Command). It warns of the deal’s likely dangers to America’s own national security and of the “cascading instability” it will produce in the Middle East region and beyond:
“The final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has potentially grave strategic implications that directly threaten to undermine the national security of the United States and our closest regional allies. By allowing Iran to become a nuclear threshold state and enabling it to become more powerful and expand its influence and destabilizing activities – across the Middle East and possibly directly threatening the U.S. homeland – the JCPOA will place the United States in far worse position to prevent a nuclear Iran.”
The report’s authors predict that the “nightmare scenarios of WMD and terrorism on the soil of the United States and its allies will become more probable.”
Nevertheless, the Obama administration is spiking the ball, exulting over its evident victory in keeping enough Democratic senators on board to protect Obama’s deal.
The White House tweeted: “If your house is on fire, would you refuse to put it out because there could be another fire in 15 years?”
The question should be: “If your house is flammable, would you hand your enemy a match?”
Kerry, who turned on his own fellow soldiers during the Vietnam War, tweeted: “I have had the privilege of serving our country in times of peace and in times of war—and peace is better.”
When Neville Chamberlain returned from Germany with his infamous Munich Pact in hand, he declared: “I believe it is peace for our time…Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”
The long nightmare of World War II ensued shortly thereafter. Thanks to Barack Obama and John Kerry, we are entering the nightmare leading inevitably to an emboldened, well-funded Iran equipped with nuclear arms and the missiles to deliver them.
Christians Burn While Pope Worries about “Worldly” Matters
August 2, 2015Christians Burn While Pope Worries about “Worldly” Matters, The Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, August 2, 2015
- Although the Egyptian constitution stipulates equality before the law, the judiciary refuses the testimony of Christians against Muslims in courts. Islamic law maintains that the testimony of an “infidel” cannot be accepted against a Muslim.
- Al Azhar University in Egypt continues to incite Egypt’s Muslims against Christians. Most recently, the university was exposed distributing a free booklet dedicated to discrediting Christianity. It is full of direct attacks on Christianity in general and the nation’s Coptic Christians in particular. Islam is hailed as the true and superior religion. No mention of violent Islamic conquests is made.
- More than 200 girls, mostly Christian, remain missing in Nigeria after Boko Haram kidnapped them in 2014. Escapees testify that some were told to slit the throats of Christians and to carry out suicide attacks. Girls who cannot recite the Koran are flogged.
- The “lawyers” of a Christian man imprisoned in Pakistan on the charge of desecrating the Koran last May are actually working against him. Faisal’s lawyers officially canceled the request for bail, previously submitted by other lawyers.
- Christians and others in the southern Philippines say they fear that legislation meant to create an Islamic sub-state — legislation meant to appease Islamists — will only create more extremism against Christians. Critics say it would render the federal government powerless to redress human rights abuses under Islamic law. In some areas, violence has been increasing, including trademark Islamic attacks on churches and nuns.
In June, Pope Francis released his first independent encyclical. It merely served to highlight the indifference to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.
The Pope warned about issues dealing with the environment, but he did not once mention the plight of persecuted Christians — even though he is well acquainted with it, and even though previous popes mentioned it when Christians were experiencing far less persecution than they are today.
Encyclicals are formal treatises written by popes and sent to bishops around the world. In turn, bishops are meant to disseminate the encyclical’s ideas to all the priests and churches in their jurisdiction, so that the pope’s thoughts might reach every church-attending Catholic.
If the plight of persecuted Christians had been mentioned in the encyclical, bishops and the congregations under their care would be required to acknowledge it. Perhaps a weekly prayer for the persecuted could be institutionalized, keeping the plight of those Christians in the spotlight so that Western Catholics and others would remember them, talk about them, and, perhaps most importantly, ask why they are being persecuted. Once enough people were familiar with Christian persecution, they could influence U.S. policymakers — for starters, to drop those policies that directly exacerbate the sufferings of Christian minorities in the Middle East.
Instead, Pope Francis apparently deemed it more important to issue a proclamation addressing the environment and climate change. Whatever position one holds concerning these topics, it is telling that the pope — the one man in the world best placed and most expected to speak up for millions of persecuted Christians around the world — is more interested in speaking up for a “safe” (politically correct, if scientifically questionable) subject, “the world” itself, rather than the pressing bloodbath in front of him, or a topic requiring real leadership from a Christian authority.
Meanwhile, Christians around the world and the Muslim world especially continue to be persecuted and slaughtered. In one little-reported story, the Islamic State burned an 80 year-old Christian woman to death in a village southeast of Mosul. The elderly woman was reportedly burned alive for refusing to comply with Islamic law.
In east Jerusalem, a group calling itself the “Islamic State in Palestine” distributed fliers threatening to massacre all Christians who failed to evacuate the Holy City. The leaflets, which appeared on June 27, said that the Islamic State knows where the city’s Christians live, and warned that they have until Eid al-Fitr — July 19, the end of Ramadan — to leave the city or be slaughtered. The leaflet was emblazoned with the Islamic State’s black flag.
In Egypt, after a foiled suicide attack on the ancient temples of Karnak in Luxor (a tourist destination), the Islamic State promised a “fiery summer” for Egypt’s Christian Copts. Abu Zayid al-Sudani, a leading member of the Islamic State, tweeted: “The bombing of Luxor, a burning summer awaits the tyrant of Egypt [President Sisi] and his soldiers, and the worshippers of the cross. This is just the beginning.”
The rest of June’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed by theme.
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches and Cemeteries
Turkey: On June 9, a Muslim man attacked a church in the Kadıköy district of Istanbul with a Molotov cocktail, setting the building’s door on fire. In a video of the attack, the man is seen shouting “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is Greater!”] and “Revenge will be taken for Al-Aqsa Mosque” as he throws a firebomb at the Hagia Triada Orthodox Church. The man was eventually detained by police.
Egypt: A bomb was placed alongside the Virgin Mary Coptic Christian Church in Helwan, part of Greater Cairo, but the security services managed to dismantle it before it exploded.
France: On June 7, two Muslim men were arrested by French authorities in connection to a thwarted terror plot to attack a church near Paris last April. Authorities said they had detained Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a computer science student, who had planned an attack on churches in Villejuif, south of Paris, and is suspected in the killing of a woman nearby. Documents in Arabic mentioning al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were found during a search of Ghlam’s home. Several military weapons, handguns, ammunition, bulletproof vests and computer and telephone hardware were also found in Ghlam’s home and car.
Zanzibar: Muslims on the majority-Muslim island harassed and persecuted two churches:
1) They drove Pastor Philemon, a father of five, into hiding and took over his New Covenant Church’s worship hall by getting the landlord to rent it to them before the church’s lease ended. Once a congregation of 100, members now number 25. “The church faithful are so scattered,” said Philemon. “Some members are always knocking at my door requesting a place for worship.” The pastor is also helping care for several converts from Islam who fled their homes after persecution, and he is struggling financially to help them while also providing for his own family, which includes five children.
2) Just outside Zanzibar City, in Chukwani, Muslims made false land claims to bleed dry a church with legal costs. Said Pastor Lukanula: “The Muslims are waiting for the time when we shall fail to attend the court hearing, implying losing the case and subsequently having to pay a substantial amount of money.” Before the false claims were made, regarding ownership of the land, the leader of a local mosque told the pastor, “We do not want to see a church building here in Chukwani.” In 2007, Muslims in the area had demolished the original structure under construction.
Iraq: The Islamic State posted notices around the captured city of Mosul announcing that the Syriac Orthodox Cathedral Church of St. Ephrem, seized a year ago, was to be become the “mosque of the mujahedeen,” or “jihadis.” The new name was announced on the anniversary of the date the church had been seized. The Islamic flag stating the shehada (“there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger”) was draped over the building. “If they changed a church to a mosque it is further proof of their cleansing,” said the president of A Demand for Action, a group advocating the protection of minorities in the Middle East. “They destroy our artefacts, our churches and try to erase us in any way they can.”
The Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem in Mosul, Iraq, before if the captured by the Islamic State (left), and after.
Libya: Yet another Christian cemetery, in the old Christian section of post-“Arab Spring” Tripoli, was recently desecrated by Muslim militants. Described by witnesses as “Salafi” Muslims, the vandals of the grave destroyed crosses and tombstones, and dug up graves in the early morning hours of June 3. Security forces charged with protecting the region did nothing to stop or arrest the men.
Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Egypt: Two Christians were killed under questionable circumstances:
1) The only Christian in his army unit was found shot dead in a chair at the office of the military base in which he was stationed. On June 24, Bahaa Gamal Mikhail Silvanus, 23, a conscript in the Egyptian Army, was found with two bullet wounds in his chest and a gun at his feet. Relatives who later saw the body also say there were wounds on his head, as if he had been struck with a blunt object. The military’s official position is that the Copt committed suicide. Family, friends, and church leaders strongly disagree. They point out that those who commit suicide are rarely able to shoot themselves twice — or first hit themselves on the head with blunt objects. They also point out that Silvanus was a happy man with strong faith, a college degree in music, and plans to enter the monastic life. “My son was killed by someone. He didn’t kill himself,” said his father, Gamal Silvanus, who had advised his son to finish his military obligation, then work for five years to help support the family, and after that to join a monastery. A friend of Bahaa Silvanus, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Silvanus had confided to him that he was regularly pressured by other soldiers in his unit to convert to Islam or else: “He told me that the persecution of the fanatical Muslim conscripts in the battalion against him had been increased the last days, and they threatened him with death, that they would kill him if he wouldn’t convert to Islam.”[1]
2) According to MCN, “Police officer Mohammed Megalli, who killed a Coptic woman, Sarah Youssef Ghali, used to insult Copts of the district and treat them with contempt, said Nour Rashad, a cousin of the Coptic woman. Ghali was accidentally shot dead by Megalli, a police officer from Manshiet Nasser Police Station in Cairo.”
Uganda: A mother of 11, who, along with her husband, left Islam (considered by many Muslims apostasy) and converted to Christianity almost a year earlier, was poisoned to death on June 17 in a village in eastern Uganda. Namumbeiza Swabura, the mother of a 5-month-old baby, died after her sister-in-law visited and offered to prepare a meal for her. She complained of stomach pain that started immediately after eating the food. According to Morning Star News:
Swabura’s pain grew worse as she began vomiting and her nose began to bleed uncontrollably; her face turned pale, and two hours later she died in their home as Muhammad [her husband] was trying to rent a car to take her to a hospital, they said. Her sister-in-law has gone into hiding, the sources said. Swabura and her husband have received several death threats since putting their faith in Christ, according to Muhammad. During a visit by Morning Star News to the area in late May, he said, “We are fearing for our lives as the Muslims are threatening to kill us if we continue in Christianity.” Besides her infant and husband, Swabura wife leaves behind 10 other children.
Dhimmitude: Generic Contempt and Discrimination against ‘Infidels’
Ethiopia: On April 25, police raided a Christian worship service in Asella, just south of the capital, Addis Ababa. The Church of Asella had just baptized 40 new converts to Christianity, an act that prompted mass arrests. One of those imprisoned, a former Muslim, known only as “Palus Ejigu,” who converted to Christianity, said, “We were gathered for sharing and encouraging each other with the Word of God. After we finished the service, police imprisoned us. Some of our friends ran away when they saw the way we were harshly handled.” After weeks of suffering unspeakable prison conditions and abuses, Ejigu was eventually released. But five days later, four masked men forced him on his knees, put a pistol in his mouth, and ordered him to kill two pastor friends, or his children would die.
His wife’s Muslim family, in accordance with Islamic law, had already taken the children away from him.
Egypt: The inferior status of Christian minorities was again on display. The principal of a school in Sohag has been openly refusing the enrollment of Christian students, simply on the basis of their religion. When Copts and others protested — the current law of Egypt is on their side — the principal declared that, “As long as I am present in the school, no Christian pupils will be accepted.”
Popular Egyptian columnist Karima Kamal wrote that although the Egyptian constitution stipulates equality before the law, the judiciary does not apply this provision, and refuses the testimony of Christians against Muslims in courts. Anecdotal evidence supports her claim. Some weeks earlier, the following letter was published:
Yesterday I suffered an extremely harsh psychological shock. I went to court with one of my neighbors, a widow, to serve as witness in an inheritance case. Another neighbor and witness accompanying us was a young Christian. We had all been living as one family. Imagine my shock, then, at the judge who very rudely and with incomprehensible disapproval rejected the testimony of the [Christian] youth: [saying]: “It is unacceptable for a Christian to testify against a Muslim.”
In fact, Islamic law maintains that the testimony of an “infidel” cannot be accepted against a Muslim.
Al Azhar — arguably the Islamic world’s most prestigious Islamic university — continues to incite Egypt’s Muslims against Christians. Most recently, the university was exposed distributing a free booklet dedicated to discrediting Christianity. It is full of direct attacks on Christianity in general and the nation’s Coptic Christians in particular. Christianity is referred to as a “failed religion,” while Islam is hailed as the true and superior religion. Because the “seeds of weakness” are inherent in Christianity and the Bible, says the booklet, Islam was easily able to supplant it in the Middle East. No mention is made of any violent Islamic conquests.
Iran: Iran’s revolutionary court sentenced 18 Christian converts on charges that include evangelism, propaganda against the regime, and creating house churches to practice their faith. The sentences totaled almost 24 years (the lack of transparency in Iran’s tightly controlled judicial system does not allow for a breakdown of individual sentences). The defendants were also barred from organizing home church meetings and given a two-year ban from leaving Iran. The Christians, many of whom were arrested in 2013, were sentenced in accordance with Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which states that “Anyone who engages in any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations, shall be sentenced to three months to one year of imprisonment.”[2]
Nigeria: More than 200 girls remain missing after Boko Haram stormed a government school in Chibok in 2014, kidnapping scores of mostly Christian young girls. Escapees continue to testify to the brainwashing that they encountered from their captors. Some were told to slit the throats of Christians and to carry out suicide attacks. One witness said that the Chibok girls have been given special status as “teachers” told to memorize the Koran and teach others to do so. Girls who cannot recite the Koran are flogged.
Pakistan:
1) The “lawyers” of a Christian man imprisoned in Pakistan on the charge of desecrating the Koran last May[3] are actually working against him. Humayun Faisal, a mentally disabled Christian, will remain in prison because his lawyers have withdrawn their request for bail. According to the pool of Christian attorneys of the NGO “Lead,” during the hearing on June 27 before the Lahore High Court, Faisal’s lawyers officially canceled the request for bail, previously submitted by other lawyers. Said Lead:
[There are lawyers who] intervene in cases in which Christians are accused of blasphemy or other crimes and, instead of obtaining justice, do not operate in the interests of the accused, their clients, but act for others purposes.
2) Mumtaz Masih, a Christian man, was recently released from forced slavery by his Muslim employer. Masih had an arrangement with his Muslim employer, part of which was that Masih remain on his employer’s property at all times except once a month when he would receive payment and could go home to visit his family. In July 2014, the employer stopped paying Masih, banned him from home visiting, and effectively turned him into a slave. Masih’s wife sought help when her husband stopped coming. After a habeas corpus court case on May 29, a court official was directed to find Masih, who was found on his master’s property in a locked room. Although slavery is illegal in Pakistan, many poor Christians live and work in such conditions.
Sudan: On June 25, 12 Christian girls were detained for wearing “scandalous outfits” by the Public Order Police as they left the Baptist church in El Izba, Khartoum. The young women, in trousers and skirts, were transferred to a police station; two were acquitted on Friday, after the agents of the Public Order Police reconsidered their opinion. The ten others were charged with “deeds against the public morality” under Article 152 of the 1990 Criminal Code. “The young women attended a religious festivity in the church, and were wearing fancy dress. The charges are an insult to the church,” argued their lawyer. “Furthermore, the students were forced to change their clothes inside the police station, which is an affront to their dignity.”
Turkey: Authorities shut down Christian schools belonging to the Association of Churches of Jerusalem. Schools in several districts of the southeastern city of Gaziantep, where many refugees from Syria had fled, and in three other regions, were closed. Although providing much needed humanitarian relief, the Christian schools were found giving Bibles and other Christian literature to their refugee students, many of whom come from Muslim backgrounds.
Philippines: Christians and others in the southern Philippines say they fear that legislation meant to create an Islamic sub-state on Mindanao Island — legislation meant to appease Islamists — will only create more extremism against Christians. They believe that if Bangsamoro, or “Moro Country” — Moro is colloquial for “Muslim” — were ruled under Sharia, non-Muslims would become second-class citizens with drastically reduced rights. Critics of the bill say it would render the federal government powerless to redress human rights abuses under Islamic law.[4] “What President Aquino is doing is treasonous to Christian communities in Mindanao,” said Rolly Pelinggon, national convener of Mindanaoans for Mindanao (M4M).
United Kingdom: Nissar Hussain, a former Muslim from Pakistan who converted to Christianity in 1996, recently wrote a letter to his local MP recounting some of the violence, abuse, and other attacks that he, his wife and their six children have suffered at the hands of Muslims in the area of Bradford where they live.[5]
Iraq: According to Nineveh Provincial Council member Anwar Mata, “more than 120 thousand Christians [were] displaced from Mosul and Nineveh after the Islamic State invaded Mosul. He further noted that, “about 20 thousand of them have migrated [from] Iraq since last year…. The lack of interest of the federal government towards the displaced Christians pushed them to migrate outside the country … the psychological and moral damage was greater than the loss of their money and property as a result of ISIS occupation of Mosul.” Meanwhile, the theft of Christian property was conducted, not only by IS but by local politicians in Iraq. Impostors and fraudulent groups, thanks to corrupt officials, have managed to acquire illegal possession of thousands of houses belonging to Christian families in Baghdad, who fled the city after the U.S-led ousting of Saddam Hussein uncorked a virulent jihad on them. Mohammed al-Rubai, member of the city council of Baghdad, said that almost 70 percent of Christian houses in Baghdad have been expropriated illegally, and property titles were forged with the tampering of land registers carried out by dishonest bureaucrats. The NGO “Baghdad Beituna” has calculated that the thefts of Christian properties carried out with the complicity of corrupt public officials were about seven thousand. Even members of the political and military apparatus have enjoyed the “legalized” theft of Christian properties.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some — by no means all — of the instances of persecution that surface each month.
It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.
It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.
_________________
[1] Mikhial Shenouda, senior priest of Archangel Mikhial, adds: “A person who commits suicide is a disappointed and desperate person, but Bahaa was in a very good spirits. He was smiling always. He was keeping the word of God.” Although the Egyptian military and media have said little about this incident, hundreds attended his funeral.
[2] According to a 2015 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom report, “Over the past year, there were numerous incidents of Iranian authorities raiding church services, threatening church members, and arresting and imprisoning worshipers and church leaders, particularly Evangelical Christian converts…. Since 2010, authorities arbitrarily arrested and detained more than 500 Christians throughout the country.” Christians make for less than one percent of Iran’s Shia Muslim majority population. “The Iranian regime’s systematic persecution of Christians, as well as Baha’is, Sunni Muslims, dissenting Shi’a Muslims, and other religious minorities, is getting worse not better,” said U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) in a statement. “This is a direct consequence of President Obama’s decision to de-link demands for improvements in religious freedom and human rights in Iran from the nuclear negotiations.”
[3] On Sunday, May 24, Faisal was accused of blasphemy when some Muslims saw him burning newspapers that reportedly contained Arabic verses from the Koran. After the accusation, a Muslim mob caught the Christian, severely beat him, and even attempted to set him on fire. A few months earlier, another Muslim mob burned a Christian couple alive inside a kiln after they, too, were accused of insulting Islam. After the attack on Faisal, the Muslim mob, reportedly numbering in the thousands, rampaged through the neighborhood and set fire to Christian homes and a church.
[4] The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), proposed by President Benigno Aquino III last September with the aim of ending decades of Islamist rebel violence in Mindanao, was approved by a House Ad Hoc Committee on May 20. The area, comprising five provinces with sizeable non-Muslim populations, already enjoys a measure of autonomy and the proposed BBL would give leaders sufficient independence to impose sharia (Islamic law). The BBL came about as part of a preliminary peace accord between the Aquino administration and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel group. But it has done little to reduce violence.The BPFA was signed in 2013 as a precursor to a final peace agreement. The government claimed there would be no more Muslim rebel attacks in Mindanao after it was signed, but in some areas violence –including trademark Islamic attacks on churches and nuns — has been increasing.
[5] The letter reads:
Dear Naseem Shah MP,
Can I congratulate you on behalf of myself and family on your stunning victory and we can’t express our delight as our newly elected MP for the Ward of Manningham and wish you every success for the future. On a serious note can I express our utter misery and dire situation as Christian converts from a Mirpuri/Muslim background since 1996 [Mirpur is a region in Pakistan].
We were forced out of our previous home after over several years of suffering as converts and in short my family and I endured ‘hell’ by my fellow Pakistani young men in the form of persecution which entailed assault, daily intimidation, criminal damage to property: smashing house windows and also 3 vehicles written off whilst the community looked on and even endorsed this. One of vehicles was torched outside my home. Despite witnessing another vehicle being rammed deliberately by a man who I knew, the Police did not even take a statement never mind an arrest. Finally after being threatened to be burnt out of my home these young men deliberately set the neighbours’ house (which was vacant) on fire in the hopes that our house would catch fire. When I had reported it to Police prior to this happening the Police sergeant’s response was: “Stop trying to be a crusader and move out!” In short the Police had wilfully failed us so as not to be labelled racists or seem to cause the Muslim community offence at our suffering and expense.
After being forced to move out in June 2006 we settled in St Paul’s Rd and set about rebuilding our lives, which was going well and had no issues and forged good relations with neighbours until we contributed in a Dispatches documentary called ‘Unholy War’ highlighting the plight of converts from Islam to Christianity in September 2008. Then our problems began, largely posed by the A. family who have been engaged on a campaign to drive us out our home given their bigoted attitude and thoroughly unscrupulous conduct and since last July they have embarked upon criminal damage to my vehicle to the point I have now had my vehicle windscreens smashed for the fourth occasion. The most recent incident occurred on 24 April when I had my vehicle smashed in the early hours of the morning and cannot express the financial impact also as I have to wait 3 weeks at a time for the glass to be ordered from the States as my vehicle is American. And again as in our previous experience the Pakistani community has looked on at our suffering and turned a blind eye whilst others have been openly hostile, while they enjoy freedom and liberty religious or otherwise whilst imposing their will rule and reign upon us and we are treated as second class citizens.
As a result of the latest criminal damage, and after weeks of having no car until it was repaired, I took the liberty of parking my vehicle away from outside my home for peace of mind, as given the misery over the last several years I have been diagnosed with PTSD and my wife and family also suffer stress and anxiety. When I went this morning to get my car I was mortified to discover that my car has been smashed deliberately yet again. Clearly we cannot go on living like this; … our lives have been sabotaged, we fear for our safety and suffer anxiety daily, not to mention the financial costs to all of this wanton criminal damage.
I cannot express in words the Police failure over the years which has led to our suffering and have no confidence in them whatsoever and am desperate for your help.
Kind regards,
Nissar Hussain
WarSclerotic 
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