Egypt: Another Christian shot dead

(Sinai) Whilst the Islamic world  and its sycophants contain to play the victim card for the worlds Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims. Three masked gunmen shot dead 35-year-old Coptic Christian Bassem Attallah. in the north of the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday in the latest attack on the beleaguered Christian minority.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all our friends who celebrate them

You know what, I love this video advert

It offers so much, now if only the bigots on all sides took note of the message afforded .

Muslim Refugees in US Outnumber Christians 12,486 to 68: Leads to Calls of Social Engineering'

(US) Out of a total of 12,587 Syrian refugees admitted in the US during this just-ended fiscal year, The vast majority were Sunni Muslims – 12,363 (98.2 percent) – while another 103 are identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data simply as Muslims and a further 20 as Shi’a Muslims.

Sixty-eight of the 12,587 Syrian refugees (0.5 percent) were Christians. This was broken down to 16 Catholics, eight Orthodox, five Protestants, four Jehovah’s Witnesses, one Greek Orthodox, and 34 refugees self-identified simply as Christians.

And the liberals laughed when Bush declared mission accomplished. I wonder how they will react when the current Muslim-in-chief leaves the Oval office and comes out with his farewell statement?

South Sudan civil war claims 300+ lives

(Juba)  After years of fighting, the Christian population of Sudan won independence in 2011 from the rest of (Islamic) Sudan. You'd think that after over 60 years of fighting , these people would subscribe to their holy book (The bible) and concentrate on building  the best country in Africa. Nah, it appears that the two main tribes are only intent on being top dog, so on one side we have the Dinka tribe led by the President on one side and the Nuer on the other led by the vice president  who despite a UN ceasefire have decided to resume their bunfight where in the capital 'Juba' has this weekend claimed over 300 people.

To be honest, this is the reason why Africa is such a mess, tribal warfare. 

UK: Church of England school removes cross in case it offends Muslims

(Huddersfield) A Church of England school has removed the cross symbol from its uniform over fears that it may offend local Muslims. Originally, the uniform badge contained a design of a cross on an oak tree, which had been designed by a pupil. Now, in a move that has prompted anger from parents at the school, the cross has been replaced by branches of the tree. Mother Niki Trepak, who has four children at the school, questioned this, saying:

"Staff said people complained about the cross yet the head says it was only temporary. Why make temporary banners and temporary uniforms?"

The school is in a diverse area with a high Muslim population, which has prompted some parents to question whether the cross had been removed over fears of causing offence.

Niki Trepak said that she had not heard any complaints from her Muslim friends.

"I've got quite a few Muslim friends at the school and I asked them does the cross offend you and they said no. This isn't about race, it's the fact they removed the cross so as to not offend. A Church of England school should keep the cross."

Chelsea Fox, another mother at the school, said:

"The offensive card is always played and this one time I was proud of something, only to have it snatched back. "I'm not only disappointed, I'm disgusted.

ISIS Burns Christians Alive in Locked Caskets, Escaped Prisoner Reveals

(CP) An Iraqi soldier who escaped from an Islamic State prison has described the terror group's brutal torture of Christians, many of whom died during the torture.

"They tortured the [expletive] out of the Christians and some died in the process," Sergeant Karam Saad of the Iraqi military, who was held captive in June 2014, told Independent Journal.

"They would take some and lock them in a kind of casket, and set it on fire from the inside," he added. "I only spent three nights in prison. During that time, I paid attention to how many guards were on duty and any signs of weaker security."

IS, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, seeks to establish a caliphate in the Levant region and beyond. The Sunni terror group controls many parts of Iraq and Syria, and Christians are among their civilian targets.

Saad criticized President Barack Obama's strategy to fight IS, which mainly involves airstrikes by an international coalition.

"The airstrikes are not effective and there are really no functional operations. The coalition is [expletive]! They might get a couple good shots here or there, but for the most part it's not an effective strategy," he was quoted as saying.

"In the future, I feel that the Republicans will be more effective to battle ISIS than the Democrats. … Since 1991, the Republicans have been better allies than Democrats. The Democrats have a stupid strategy. I had spent a long time on the battlefield with the Republicans politics and we've had way more victories in the fight."

He added: "Under the Obama administration, America is not taking this fight seriously."

Saad also narrated how he managed to escape.

"The bathroom had a window with access to the roofs," he said. "In Iraq, the rooftops are flat, so you can jump from roof to roof. Every once in a while, IS would speed off in their cars in search of more prisoners, and only leave a couple guards behind.

"So I stole a spoon and turned it into a knife, with the intention to kill one of the guards. I asked him to take me to the bathroom. But as I was making my way there, I noticed another guard who had been left behind was armed with a gun, so killing was out of the question.

"I went to the bathroom and managed to knock out the IS fighter and put him a rear-naked choke. Then I made it onto the roofs, and escaped."

IS terrorists believe Islam allows, or mandates them, to persecute non-Muslim minorities or even Muslims who do not obey them.

They also believe Islam allows them to rape non-Muslim women and girls.

A 12-year-old girl interviewed by The New York Times at a refugee camp in Qadia, Iraq, last year said an IS terrorist prayed before and after raping her and sought to explain to her that the Quran encourages such sexual assaults.

"I kept telling him it hurts — please stop," the girl was quoted as saying. "He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God."

More than 5,000 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held.

"Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray," another victim, a 15-year-old girl, was quoted as saying. "He kept telling me this is ibadah (worship). He said that raping me is his prayer to God. I said to him, 'What you're doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God.' And he said, 'No, it's allowed. It's halal.'"

Christian Girl Banned From Muslim-Only School Bathroom

(Clarion Project) A Christian girl in Pakistan was denied access to a school bathroom as it was only for Muslim pupils, according to local media outlet The Daily Pakistan.

The headmistress of the school in Faisalabad forbade the pupil, anmed as Sara Bibi, from using the bathroom and called her a kafir, a derogatory slur for non-Muslims.

After Senator Sherry Rehman brought the matter to the attention of the Senate of Pakistan, Chairman Raza Rabbani ordered an inquiry into the event.

Some media reports allege that the headmistress beat up Sara Bibi and locked her in the bathroom until the end of the school day (for three hours).

Christians are frequently persecuted in Pakistan and are frequently targeted under blasphemy laws. They also often face threats and difficulties constructing Churches.

ISIS turn churches into torture chambers to force Christians to convert to Islam

(Mirror) Christians are being barbarically tortured by ISIS in their own churches to force them to convert to Islam.

Religious persecution watchdog Christian Freedom International reports those who defy the militants have had limbs cut off or have been crucified -even children.

“ISIS has a stated goal to wipe out Christianity,” Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice told the Jerusalem Post.

“This is why they are crucifying Christians — which includes children — destroying churches and selling artifacts. The reality is, this group will stop at practically nothing to raise funds for its terrorist mission.”

More...

Pakistani police arrest cleric who led mob attacking Christians

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani police said on Friday they had arrested a Muslim cleric accused of leading a mob trying to kill a Christian couple for allegedly desecrating the Koran.

Police rescued the Christians from the crowd near the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday, a relatively unusual intervention in a country where those accused of blasphemy are sometimes lynched on the spot.

Police officer Sohail Zaffar Chattha said the cleric leading the mob demanded that police arrest the couple and charge them with blasphemy against Islam.

"I told him I would not register a case because no blasphemy has been committed," Chattha said in a telephone interview.

"But I have registered a case against the cleric and 400 others for inciting violence and endangering the lives of the couple."

About 500 people in Sadar Farooqabad town attacked Owais Masih and his wife after a neighbor complained that they were sleeping on a plastic sheet with verses from the Koran written on it.

Police rescued the couple as the mob began to beat them. The couple were later taken into protective custody and moved to an undisclosed location.

"The mob meant business. They wanted to kill them right there," Chattha said. "And all because they are poor, illiterate people who didn't realize that a line from the Koran was written on a sheet they had purchased."

More...

And this in the country and city where Muslims casually use Koran pages as toilet paper.

400 Syrian Churches Destroyed, Christianity Nearing ‘Extinction’ in Mideast

400 Syrian Churches Destroyed, Christianity Nearing ‘Extinction’ in Mideast http://t.co/5Qq7WdBsww #tcot pic.twitter.com/ZK2cNDEoO3
— John Galt (@dhrxsol1234) April 20, 2015

Around mid-April, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia –who once wrote a letter to Barack Obama beseeching the president to reconsider his foreign policies which enable the persecution of Christians in Syria — spoke again of the threat of Christian extinction in the Mideast during a meeting with Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos. In the Russian Patriarch’s own words:

I regularly get reports of horrible crimes that are committed there against Christians, especially in northern Iraq. I have visited those places and I remember that there were many churches and monasteries there. The city of Mosul alone had 45 churches. Now there is not a single one. The buildings have been destroyed. Four hundred churches have been destroyed in Syria…

The presence of the Christian minority was a factor that, in a good sense, brought tolerance and good relations between Christians and Muslims…

Now Christianity is the most persecuted religion. The same is happening in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Northern Africa. In some countries of Europe, too, people are prohibited from wearing crosses at work, citing the need for tolerance, do not use the word ‘Christmas’, do not call Easter – Easter, saying just winter holiday or spring holiday instead.

I WONDER WHEN OBAMA IS GOING TO TELL THE MUSLIMS TO STOP CLINGING TO THEIR GUNS AND THEIR RELIGION!!!!! pic.twitter.com/zOB4WON7F0
— Phx Ken (@PhxKen) April 20, 2015

ISIS releases video showing execution of 30 Christians in Libya

#RealIslam

(RT) A new video released by the so-called Islamic State's affiliates in Libya purports to show the killing of two groups of Ethiopian Christians.

The 29-minute video shows two groups of captives held by the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL), described by onscreen text as "followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church." It says one group is being held by an ISIS affiliate in eastern Libya and the other in the south of the country. Each group has about 15 captives.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian government said he cannot confirm his country's citizens were the ones killed in the video."We have seen the video but our embassy in Cairo has not been able to confirm that the victims are Ethiopian nationals," Redwan Hussein told Reuters. "Nonetheless, the Ethiopian government condemns the atrocious act."

In the video, a masked fighter brandishes a pistol, threatening Christians must convert to Islam or pay with their lives. He describes Christians as crusaders whose goal is to kill Muslims. The footage then shows both groups of captives being killed by the terrorists, one group is beheaded and the other shot dead.

The new video bears similarities with another one, released in February, where militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians. Both videos were stamped with the logo of Islamic State's media wing, Al-Furqan.

IS managed to gain a foothold in Libya amid the chaos and infighting following the end of Muammar Gaddafi's regime. They have been using the internet to spread their message, often in the form of videos showing the killings of those they deem "enemies." The militants are also active in social media, and have hackers operating on their behalf.

#RealIslam: Muslim Gunmen Open Fire on Catholic School in Pakistan

(CP) Two masked gunmen on motorcycles, believed to be Muslim, open fired on the campus of a Pakistani Catholic school in Lahore Friday morning, injuring one Christian student and two security guards.

The two gunmen began firing at the campus of St. Franciscan High School in the Behar colony of Lahore, the second largest Christian residential area in Pakistan, around 10:30 a.m. The masked perpetrators were able to race away on their motorcycles and were not identified.

Police have begun an investigation into the attack on the school, according to prominent Pakistani human rights attorney Sardar Mushtaq Gill, who told The Christian Post that the school shooting is yet another attack on the Lahore Christian community following the Youhanabad lynchings of two Muslims thought to be involved in the mid-march Taliban bombings of two Christian churches.

"They were [two] masked men, armed on motorcycles. They were masked with their faces covered," Gill explained. "It was in front of school. When they started firing, the guard intercepted. After making them injured, they fled away."

More...

‘Crusader’ beheadings

(NYP) If nothing else, the Islamic State’s gruesome beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians should put the lie to the claim that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute lies at the heart of the Middle East’s problems.

The terrorist who presided over these beheadings didn’t complain about Israel. Instead, he called the victims — migrant workers who’d gone to Libya seeking jobs — “followers of the Cross” and “Coptic crusaders.” Perhaps he imagined himself avenging the medieval Crusader wrongs President Obama recently invoked.

Nor was this the first time ISIS has targeted Middle Eastern Christians. In October 2010, it staged a massacre at a church in Baghdad, which it denounced as “a dirty den of idolatry,” killing 58 Chaldean Catholic worshipers. Other atrocities abound.

None of this is to suggest that Jews have vanished from the list of Islamist targets. The weekend attack on a Copenhagen synagogue, just weeks after a similar brutal attack on a kosher food store in Paris, underscores the growing vulnerability of Jews across Europe.

But as Grame Wood writes in The Atlantic, ISIS is an apocalyptic movement, out to destroy “moderns” and restore through a modern caliphate the 7th-century world in which Islam was founded. It takes its religious claims seriously.

So while the president and his secretary of state John Kerry obsessed over an Israeli-Palestinian accord, the Islamic State took territory and declared a caliphate.

Good thing for the defenseless folks in ISIS’ path that Egypt and Jordan, which responded to atrocities with airstrikes, aren’t afraid to get on their “high horse” and attack.

Egypt declares seven days of mourning after ISIS beheads 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya

Egypt declares seven days of mourning after ISIS beheads 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. pic.twitter.com/4xOOdYBZE1
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) February 15, 2015

#RealIslam:

BREAKING NEWS: ISIS releases video purporting to show Islamic State killing 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya. pic.twitter.com/qwNDz5cKL1
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) February 15, 2015

BREAKING - MASS BEHEADING: ISIS beheads 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians kidnapped in Libya. pic.twitter.com/AH7NRAtAtQ
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) February 15, 2015

BREAKING - MASS BEHEADING: New ISIS video is in English and carried out on the Mediterranean coast. pic.twitter.com/NLtx9jRjzA
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) February 15, 2015

BREAKING - MASS BEHEADING: ISIS: "The sea you threw in Osama Bin Laden’s body, we will mix it with your blood". pic.twitter.com/5Qifw5Q09L
— Breaking News Feed (@PzFeed) February 15, 2015

Iraq’s Christians take up arms to fight Islamic State

Iraq’s Christians take up arms to fight Islamic State http://t.co/zf9cKBqLBF pic.twitter.com/KJ4Lhok0l7
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 4, 2015

MANILA TRAINING CENTER, Iraq (WSJ) — Hundreds of Christian men are picking up rifles for the first time at a former U.S. military facility in the hills of northeast Iraq and training to reclaim their towns from Islamic State militants who stormed the country last year.

Fresh recruits to a new Iraqi Christian militia said their families were abandoned to militants by government forces last summer and they seek to create a force that will keep their towns and villages safe even after Islamic State is defeated. “I want to defend our own lands, with our own force,” said Nasser Abdullah, 26 years old, who is helping lead younger recruits in training.

Sunni neighbors in nearby villages, the recruits said, supported the Sunni extremists of Islamic State as militants seized one Christian village after another in the Nineveh plains, where Iraqi Christians and other minorities live.

As Islamic State fighters advanced, Kurdish forces assigned to the region fled under attack, leaving exposed vulnerable communities.

“Those who betrayed us won’t be allowed to live among us,” said Firas Metr, a 27-year-old electrician and recruit with no military experience. “We need to protect ourselves, now and in the future.”

Some 30,000 Christians have since fled the Nineveh plains. Just one Christian town there, Al Qosh, and three smaller villages remain free. Across Iraq, more than 150,000 Christians have been displaced since Islamic State began its rampage, according to Iraqi Christian community leaders.

More than 2,000 men have signed up to fight, but it wasn’t clear whether they could afford to train them all. Organizers hope the U.S. will help.

The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, approved in December, names local security forces in Iraq as potential beneficiaries of as much as $1.6 billion to train and equip fighters against Islamic State. Those funds should support “local forces that are committed to protecting highly vulnerable ethnic and religious minority communities in the Nineveh Plain and elsewhere,” said a statement accompanying the act.

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Pope Francis Says Christians Are Being ‘Driven From the Middle East’

ERBIL, Iraq (AFP) — Pope Francis said Christians are being “driven from the Middle East,” in a message to Iraqi Christians forced to flee by Islamic State group jihadists.

“It would seem that they (the extremists) do not want there to be any Christians, but you bear witness to Christ,” he said in a video address timed to coincide with a visit Saturday by French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil.

“I think of the wounds, of the pain of women with their children, the elderly and the displaced, the wounds of those who are victims of every type of violence,” Francis said according to a transcript.

Thousands of Christians took refuge in Erbil after IS jihadists in June overran Mosul, Iraq’s second city, and forced hundreds of thousands of them, as well as members of the Yazidi community, to flee their homes.

“Due to an extremist and fundamentalist group, entire communities, especially, but not only, Christians and Yazidi, have suffered and continue to suffer, inhuman violence because of their religious and ethnic identity,” the pope said.

“Christians and Yazidi have been forced out of their homes; they have had to abandon everything to save their lives, but they have not denied their faith.”

“Even holy buildings, monuments, religious symbols and cultural heritage have been affected by the violence, almost as if to cancel every trace, every memory of the other.”

Last weekend, the pontiff visited Turkey where he met Bartholomew I, the ecumenical patriarch and spiritual leader of the world’s roughly 250 million Orthodox Christians.

The two clerics issued a joint statement in which they spoke out against anti-Christian violence in the region.

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Israeli Christian leader: Israel is the paradise for Christians from the Middle East

#Christians in the #MiddleEast? Only in #Israel! #BDS #Zionism #Palestine pic.twitter.com/LcGOF3Gg6P
— Shimon Levit (@ShimonLevit) September 28, 2014

Fleeing Iraqi Christians reveal horror of Islamic State: 'The jihadists raped women and children'

Paris (AFP) - From the rescue plane which took them on a one-way journey to France, two Iraqi refugees revealed tales of rape and fear at the hands of Islamic State that forced them to flee their homeland with nothing.

Rene, who did not want to give his last name, said the Islamic extremists currently rampaging through Syria and Iraq were as terrifying as they were sophisticated in their communication methods.

He was one of 40 refugees who landed Thursday in Paris after being flown out of Arbil along with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who indicated that France was prepared to take in more people in "extreme cases."

"The jihadists raped women and girls, kidnapped people," Rene said.

"It was very hard. We have friends that are Muslims, who are very nice. But these people? I don't know why they do that. Because we're Christians, that's all."

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Iraq's Christians And Yazidis Beg For U.N. Human Rights Session, To No Avail

Dry Bones nails it. pic.twitter.com/qMSFBM8vrA
— The Jewish Standard (@JewishStandard) August 22, 2014

(IBD) Iraqi Christian and Yazidi representatives are urging the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to call for a special HRC session on the plight of their communities at the hand of jihadists.

After the U.S. airstrikes and airdrops to relieve the Islamic State's siege of Mt. Sinjar in Iraq, where the Kurdish-speaking sect known as the Yazidis had fled, President Obama noted on Aug. 14: "The bottom line is that the situation on the mountain has greatly improved and Americans should be very proud of our efforts."

But shortly before the president spoke, according to ABC News, a spokesman for a U.N. relief agency said the situation on Mount Sinjar remained "dire" despite our efforts. Kieran Dwyer, communications chief for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, warned, "The situation on the mountain is not over."

The situation facing Iraqi Christians and the Yazidis, followers of a sect partly influenced by Christianity but borrowing from other religions as well, is certainly not over. Nor is the plight of non-Muslims throughout the Middle East.

Not long after the president spoke, Fox News reported that Islamic State forces slaughtered 80 Yazidis in a northern village.

"(Militants) arrived in vehicles, and they started their killing this afternoon," Fox News says senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. "We believe it is because of their (Islamic State's) creed: convert or be killed," he added.

Breen Tahseen, an Iraqi diplomat whose father, Prince Tahseen Saeed Bek, is the leader of the Yazidi minority, has made a plea to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to hold a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) on the plight of the Yazidis and Iraqi Christians. He says Islamist militants have killed at least 3,000 Yazidi men and kidnapped some 5,000.

"On behalf of Prince Tahseen and the Yazidi people, we appeal to High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to lead the call for the U.N. Human Rights Council to hold an emergency session in order to focus world attention on the desperate plight of the Yazidi people," read the Aug. 20 statement by Tahseen, as reported by the monitoring group U.N. Watch.

Iraqi Christian and Yazidi representatives gathered at the HRC headquarters in Geneva to hold a meeting on the plight of Iraq's besieged minorities.

In a letter to Pillay, a coalition of human rights groups and parliamentarians from countries such as Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and Estonia also pleaded for such a special session as the one held on Darfur in 2006.

"It is unconscionable for the world's highest human rights body — which is pledged, under UNGA Resolution 60/251 (the U.N. resolution that created the HRC) to prevent human rights violations and respond promptly to human rights emergencies — to continue turning a blind eye to the massacre, abuse and intimidation of Iraqi civilians," the group wrote in the letter.

Whether it be Coptic churches in Egypt, Christian schools in Nigeria or Yazidis in Iraq, non-Muslims are in the cross hairs of Islamists worldwide. The percentage of Christians in the Middle East has been cut in half, down from 10% in 1900 to just 5% as of 2010, according to the Pew Research Center.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, bucking the winds of political correctness and a rising Muslim population, noted during his annual Easter reception at 10 Downing Street that Christianity is now "the most persecuted religion around the world."

"We should stand up against persecution of Christians and other religious groups wherever and wherever we can, and should be unashamed in doing so."

Perhaps our U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, can give Ms. Pillay a nudge.