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  • Christians And Churches Attacked In The West

    CHRISTIANS AND CHURCHES ATTACKED IN THE WEST

    Right Side News
    Dec 24 2014

    24 December 2014 09:32
    Written by Raymond Ibrahim

    -"You have a cross on... Do you know what we do to people like you?" --
    Muslim in Denmark.

    -Muslim Fulani gunmen forced their way into the church, cut [the
    pastor], his wife and a daughter with a machete, and then tied the
    hands and feet of the three of them before setting the building on
    fire... We only found the charred remains of the three of them in the
    morning. I heard them shouting at the top of their voices, saying
    they must obliterate any traces of Christianity in the town." --
    Eyewitness account, Nigeria.

    -Each year, approximately 1,000 women in Pakistan are forced to
    convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. Whenever a case of this nature
    reaches the law courts, those women, under threat and blackmail, often
    declare that their conversion and marriage were decisions freely made,
    and the case is closed.

    The Muslim persecution of Christians in September started making
    prominent appearances not just in the Islamic world, but also in the
    West--in America, Australia and Europe.

    In the United States, in Columbus, Indiana, three churches were
    vandalized on the same night. The words most frequently sprayed were
    "Infidels!" and "Koran 3:151." The verse from the Koran states,
    "We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve [or
    "infidels"] for what they have associated with Allah [reference to
    Christian Trinity] of which He had not sent down [any] authority. And
    their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of
    the wrongdoers."

    Father Doug Marcotte of Saint Bartholomew's Catholic Church, one of
    those vandalized, said, "There's a lot of bad stuff being done in
    the name of Allah and so when people see this happening in Columbus,
    whether that was truly the person's intent or there's something else
    going on, it makes people nervous. It makes people upset. It makes
    them scared."

    Meanwhile, in Australia, AAP reported that "Church-goers in Sydney's
    west have been left shaken after a stranger shouted death threats
    from a car bearing the Islamic State flag. The car drove past Our
    Lady of Lebanon Church at Harris Park on Tuesday and witnesses claim
    it had a flag similar to those brandished by Islamic State jihadists
    hanging out the window." A church official said the people in the
    car threatened to "kill the Christians" and slaughter their children:
    "They were strong words and people were scared of what they saw."

    Witnesses saw a flag outside the window with the words, "There is only
    one god and Muhammad is the prophet." And as happens frequently in
    Muslim-majority nations, police security was later dispatched to patrol
    the Harris Park church while hundreds partook of the mass inside.

    In Denmark--2013's "happiest country in the world"--Christians of
    Middle Eastern backgrounds continued to experience "harassment, verbal
    attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims," reports TV2,
    especially in Muslim-majority areas, such as Nørrebro. One Christian,
    "Jojo," born in Denmark of Lebanese parents, shared her experiences.

    Once when sitting in her parked car, several Muslims surrounded it,
    harassing her about her Western attire. When one of them noticed she
    was wearing a cross, he said "Well, you have a cross on--then you
    are also a Christian f***ing whore. Do you know what we do to people
    like you? Do you know what we do to people like you? You get stoned
    [to death]."

    Another Christian woman of Iranian background recounted how she and her
    son are harassed on the Muslim-majority block where they live--and
    where she stands out for not wearing a hijab, the Islamic veil:
    "My son is being called everything. I get called all sorts of things.

    Infidel. Filthy Christians. They tell me I ought to be stoned to
    death. My son was beaten at the bus stop. He was called pig, dirty
    potato (Muslim slang for Danes), and that 'you and your mother
    should die."'

    Islamic dreams of conquering Europe were prevalent. A senior analyst
    in Spain warned that, because Islamists see the Iberian peninsula
    as being "under Spanish and Portuguese occupation," greater risk of
    terrorism exists there than in other Western areas. Because Iberia--or,
    in Arabic, Al-Andalus--was under Islamic domination for centuries,
    many Muslims consider it part of the Islamic world, or Dar al-Islam,
    which needs to be reconquered, no less than Israel, also seen as
    occupied Islamic territory.

    More pointedly, in the Islamic State [IS], in a lengthy message
    partially addressed to the "crusaders"--a reference to the West--some
    members declared, "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses,
    and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah." Members of the IS
    also invoked a statement attributed to Muhammad, that Constantinople
    would be conquered before Rome--and it was, in 1453. The implication
    was that the Eternal City of Rome would be next.

    Around the same time, Rome responded by rejecting a motion to name a
    street after the late Oriana Fallaci, a veteran journalist who had once
    written that, "the Muslim world is attempting to conquer the West in
    the name of Islam." In explaining their decision, local politicians
    described Fallaci's writings as containing "religious hatred," or
    "Islamophobia."

    In Canada, while 80 special Muslims went to the trouble of attending a
    Muslim rally on behalf of persecuted Christians, sadly, another rally,
    an extremist Al Quds Day Anti-Israel Hate Fest, drew approximately
    6,000 participants.

    The rest of September's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians
    around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following
    accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not
    necessarily according to severity.

    Muslim Attacks on Churches

    East Jerusalem: A Christian church was attacked numerous times: On
    September 29, young Muslim men, with ties to a Palestinian militant
    group, wired shut the door of the Living Bread Church and sprayed a
    gaseous substance at those inside. An earlier gas attack had already
    occurred on September 17. Hours before the second attack, someone threw
    a rock through one of the windows of the church, and the day before
    that, Sunday, September 28, a Palestinian and others assaulted a church
    member as he was emptying trash into a dumpster outside the church.

    On Sept. 21, a Palestinian militant, without warning, ran up behind
    a church leader, Karen Dunham, and knocked her to the pavement: "This
    guy charged me as fast as he could," she said. "He came up behind me
    and just slammed into my back, and I fell and I hit the ground. My
    face is bruised. There's bruises on the side of my cheek, on my face,
    on my head, on my knee, cuts on my head, and my wrist was fractured."

    Egypt: A Christian priest in Egypt appealed to President Abdel
    Fattah El-Sisi to intervene on behalf of yet another church being
    threatened by "religious extremists." So far, local authorities have
    done nothing. Four years ago, the Coptic Church of St. Abram in Shubra
    al-Khaima received a permit to build an additional building. During
    those same four years, seven "thugs"--in the words of the report--have
    prevented it from being built. The "thugs" had mobilized local Muslims
    to threaten and demonstrate against the church. "The priest lamented
    that 'after suffering many long years' they finally managed to acquire
    the permit to build, but then the next obstacle presented itself in the
    person of the aforementioned seven 'thugs' who constantly harass, and
    incite Muslim mobs, against the church, whenever it tries to exercise
    its right to build the services building. Islamic law forbids the
    building of new churches or the renovation of existing churches."

    Iraq: Islamic State militants "completely destroyed" the ancient Green
    Church in Tikrit. They packed the church with explosives and detonated
    them -- completely destroying the ancient church, which belonged to the
    Assyrian Church of the East. Almost from the time it was built in the
    seventh century, when Islam overran Iraq, the church had been attacked,
    ransacked, and destroyed by Muslim rulers and others, but was restored
    on the orders of Iraq's late President Saddam Hussein in the 1990s.

    Nigeria: Many more churches and a Christian university, Kulp Bible
    College, were forced to shut down as a result of the advances of
    the Islamic jihadi group, Boko Haram. In one instance, a pastor
    reported that "Boko Haram violence has been getting worse every day,
    and our members are fleeing the area by the thousands. Recent attacks
    in Borno and Adamawa states where our churches are located have seen
    Boko Haram take over the Army base. As a result, about 350 Christians
    have been killed."

    Separately, in Kaduna state, where "Muslim Fulani assailants seem
    driven to rid the area of Christianity and use the land to graze
    their cattle," according to church leaders, 46 Christians, including
    two pastors, were slaughtered in raids. According to an eyewitness,

    "Suddenly we heard sounds of gunshots around our village. The pastor
    was still in the pastorate when the Muslim Fulani gunmen forced their
    way onto the church premises. They cut him, his wife and a daughter
    with a machete, and then tied the hands and feet of the three of them
    before setting the house on fire. The three of them were burned to
    ashes in the living room of the pastorate. We only found the charred
    remains of the three of them the following morning.... The gunmen
    then came onto the church premises and began shooting. I heard them
    shouting at the top of their voices, saying they must obliterate any
    trace of Christianity in the town."

    Although Muslim Fulani have historically had property disputes with
    Christian farmers, Christian leaders say attacks by the herdsmen
    constitute a war "by Islam to eliminate Christianity" in Nigeria.

    Sudan: In the latest incident of a nearly two-year wave of church
    demolitions, closures and confiscations, security agents padlocked
    a 500-member church building, the Sudan Pentecostal Church [SPC] in
    Khartoum. The church also houses the Khartoum Christian Center (KCC).

    "The church is concerned that the building might be sold by the
    government, which renders more than 500 worshippers to have no place
    for worship," a source told the Morning Star News. The Islamist
    government appears to be seeking any pretext for closing churches,
    sources said. In this instance, the space for the church was originally
    designated as "office space." But, as one source asked, "How do you
    close a church building that has been in operation for 20 years in
    the name of the church being meant for offices?" The church has a
    deed showing that it owns the building and property -- a situation
    that raises the question of the government's right to sell it.

    On June 30 bulldozers demolished the Sudanese Church of Christ in the
    Thiba Al Hamyida area of North Khartoum as church members watched,
    while security personnel threatened to arrest them if they tried to
    block the bulldozers, church members said.

    Syria: The Islamic State destroyed the Armenian Genocide Memorial
    Church in Der Zor, seen as the "Auschwitz" of the Armenian Genocide.

    Hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished in Der Zor and the
    surrounding desert during the genocide. In the summer of 1916 alone,
    more than 200,000 Armenians, mostly women and children, were massacred
    by Ottoman Turks. Armenia's foreign minister issued a statement calling
    the church's destruction a "horrible barbarity," and referred to the
    Islamic State as a "disease" that "threatened civilized mankind." The
    church was built in 1989-90 and consecrated a year later. A genocide
    memorial and a museum housing the remains of the victims of the
    genocide were also located in the church compound.

    Thousands of Armenians from Syria and neighboring countries gathered
    at the memorial every year on April 24 to commemorate the genocide.

    Pakistani Rape and Dhimmitude

    Four young Muslims gang raped a 15-year-old Christian girl and
    filmed it. The girl's father, although he was threatened against
    filing a complaint, went to police, who confirmed the existence of a
    video that corroborates the violence. The video will apparently be
    introduced as evidence against the youths. A lawyer, Mushtaq Gill,
    issued a statement that, "Many Christian girls continue to be victims
    of sexual assault by young Muslims, who go unpunished" and that,
    "in this case there is also a video, flaunted as a trophy."

    Two Christian women were abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry
    Muslim men. Lawyer Mushtaq Gill said, "A Christian girl, Sairish,
    forced to marry a Muslim in 2009, in her heart never abandoned
    the faith and continued to pray to Jesus Christ even after her
    marriage. After a few years she found the courage to rebel against
    the situation and run away.... Her life is now in danger because if
    she declares herself Christian, Muslims may accuse her of apostasy
    and the punishment would be death." Each year, approximately 1,000
    women in Pakistan are forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men.

    Whenever a case of this nature reaches the law courts, those women,
    under threat and blackmail, often declare that their conversion and
    marriage were decisions freely made, and the case is closed.

    Another Christian family fled their hometown, Lahore, to save their
    daughters from forced conversion to Islam. According to the Justice
    and Peace Commission, the two sisters, aged 12 and 8, were studying
    in public schools, where learning to recite the Koran is mandatory.

    Apparently, because the girls recited the shehada, the Islamic
    declaration of faith, "an Islamic cleric, the father of a student
    stated that these girls had become Muslims and thus needed to be taken
    from their Christian parents and entrusted to adult Muslims." The
    parents pulled their daughters out of school, but then the headmaster
    and other Muslim teachers "warned the parents to send them back to
    school, offering the family financial aid regarding the school fees."

    The parents quit their jobs and fled the region.

    Police arrested 15 Christians and booked 45 other members of the
    minority community under the blasphemy law for allegedly desecrating
    Muslim graves in a village in Punjab province. According to the AP,
    "The case was registered after a local cleric filed a complaint
    alleging that the Christians had desecrated over 400 Muslim graves to
    occupy the land in Chak village in Faisalabad, about 150 kilometres
    from Lahore." Rights groups said it was a spurious charge meant
    to prevent the Christians from acquiring the land. In fact, the
    accusations were later proven false.

    Dhimmitude: Islamic Discrimination Against Christianity

    Egypt: Iman Sarofim, a 39-year-old Christian mother of five, returned
    home to her family after being kidnapped. Initially it was believed
    that she had voluntarily converted to Islam and fled her family to be
    with a Muslim man. The woman contacted the family from Suez, where
    she had been brought by the kidnapper. The return of the woman was
    celebrated by neighbors and relatives in the city of Gabal al-Tir. Her
    disappearance had been the cause of clashes between Copts and
    police, who believed the narrative that she had voluntarily left. In
    retaliation, police officers entered the homes of dozens of Coptic
    families and violently arrested dozens of Christians. Separately,
    Ehab Karam, a Coptic dentist, was killed after he was abducted by
    unknown persons, most likely for ransom. The kidnapping of Copts
    for ransom has evidently become a regular part of life in Egypt
    for Christians, particularly in Upper Egypt. Last February, for
    instance, police dismantled a crime network that for months had been
    organizing kidnappings, robberies and extortion against the local
    Coptic community. "Unfortunately," said the Coptic Catholic Bishop of
    Assist, Kyrillos William, "the phenomenon continues and there are no
    signs of improvement. Police operations are episodic and ineffective,
    they are unable to solve the problem."

    Iraq: The Islamic State decreed that all schools in Mosul and the
    Nineveh Plain which bore Christian names, some since the 1700s, must
    be changed. Also, the teaching of the Syriac language and culture and
    Christian religious education has been abolished. Reports indicate
    that the Islamic State took these moves "in order to erase all traces
    of cultural and religious pluralism in the conquered areas and turn
    schools into propaganda tools of jihadist ideology among the new
    generations."

    Saudi Arabia: In the Eastern Province city of Khafji, "religious
    police," or agents from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue
    and Prevention of Vice, raided a house where at least 27 Christians,
    mostly expatriates from various Asian nationalities, were gathered.

    The Christians, including children, were accused of practicing
    Christianity in a house church, and were arrested and detained
    overnight. Authorities also confiscated musical instruments and copies
    of the Bible. The house had been placed under surveillance after a
    citizen reported that his Indian neighbor had converted his home into
    a Christian church. After witnessing a large number of individuals
    enter the home, officers raided the house. The only religion allowed
    to be practiced in public in Saudi Arabia is Islam. In the land of
    the prophet, no public places of worship for non-Muslims are permitted
    to exist.

    Turkey: According to the Armenian magazine, Agos, many of the primary
    and secondary education books being used for the current school year
    still describe the Armenians and other Christian communities as enemy
    forces at the service of foreign powers, including Russia and England,
    after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. One eighth-grade history
    book tries to whitewash the Armenian genocide, which is portrayed as a
    "necessary deportation," never as a massacre.

    Uzbekistan: Security forces reportedly raided the home of Pastor
    Stanislav Kim in Chirchik, 20 miles northeast of Tashkent, the
    capital. They detained 11 teenagers and three adults, who had gathered
    there for a volleyball game, and questioned them for more than four
    hours before releasing them. Officials also searched the pastor's home
    and confiscated a New Testament, a Bible, several other Christian
    books, more than 100 slides of hymns, as well as some computer
    equipment. Voice of the Martyrs, which says there are at least 65
    unregistered congregations scattered throughout Uzbekistan, said in
    a statement, "Please pray that this pastor and his son will not face
    fines, but will soon be acquitted of any perceived wrongdoing. Ask God
    to strengthen each believer who was present during this unwarranted
    raid so that they will not give in to governmental intimidation and
    pressure, but instead be emboldened to serve our Lord faithfully."

    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.

    by Raymond Ibrahim December 24, 2014 at 5:00 am

    http://www.rightsidenews.com/2014122435292/world/terrorism/christians-and-churches-attacked-in-the-west.html#!

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