Thread: Persecution of Christians in muslim countries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnhy_...eature=related

Three Christians were killed in Turkey for distributing Bibles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5eerAvvT0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJs97...eature=related


Why the West will not hear about the Persecution:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/201...n-Persecution/

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/201...ite-Beatings-/

How can someone be dumb enough to prosletize christianity in a muslim country? I'll do you one better. How can someone be dumb enough even to visit a muslim country.

Originally Posted by fmw

How can someone be dumb enough to prosletize christianity in a muslim country? I'll do you one better. How can someone be dumb enough even to visit a muslim country.

It is more than you see on CNN and FOX News, you know.



Lebanon



Jordan



Iran



Morocco


Lebanon is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Boko Harem savagely kills Christians on Christmas Day...

More Christians Killed As Pope Decries ‘Savage Acts of Terrorism’ in Nigeria
December 26, 2012 – Suspected Islamist terrorists killed 12 Nigerians celebrating Jesus’ birth, hours before Pope Benedict XVI, in his traditional Christmas Day message, spoke out against “savage acts of terrorism” mainly targeting Christians in Africa’s most populous country.

Gunmen shot dead six Christians and set fire to an evangelical church in the northern state of Yobe, police said. Wire reports said the pastor was among the dead in the midnight attack. Separately, a Baptist church in neighboring Borno state was attacked. Nigeria’s The Nation said six church members were killed. The attacks cap the bloodiest year yet in Boko Haram’s violent campaign against Christians, with more than 700 fatalities, according to the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans. An Associated Press count puts the number at more than 770.

It was the third consecutive Christmas marred by terrorist attacks in Nigeria. On Christmas Day last year 44 Christians were killed in a series of attacks, most of them at a Catholic church near the capital, Abuja; On Christmas Eve 2010 the target was Christian areas of the central city of Jos, where at least 32 people were killed in three bombings.

Boko Haram says its demands include a ban on non-Islamic education and the extension across the country of shari’a (Islamic law), which is currently implemented in 12 northern states. Forty percent of Nigerians are Christians. Delivering his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (To the City and the World) message from the balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pope voiced hope for “concord in Nigeria, where savage acts of terrorism continue to reap victims, particularly among Christians.”

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Nigeria gunmen 'kill at least six Christians' in Yobe
25 December 2012 - Gunmen in the northern Nigerian state of Yobe have shot dead at least six Christians, the army and local officials say.

They say a church in Peri village near Potiskum, the economic capital of Yobe, was set on fire in an attack late on Christmas Eve. No group has so far said it carried out the attack. The Boko Haram Islamist militant group has targeted a number of churches in the north since 2010. It has killed hundreds in its campaign to impose Sharia law. A series of bomb attacks carried out by the group across the country at Christmas 2011 - including two at Christmas Day church services - left almost 40 people dead and many more injured.

'Savage acts of terrorism'

The head of the Network for Justice human rights group, Zakari Adamu, told the BBC that the gunmen also attacked the homes of Christians following the attack during the midnight mass service. The AFP news agency reported that the pastor of the church - a branch of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) - is among the dead. Military Spokesman Eli Lazarus told the Reuters news agency that six people were killed in the violence, which happened when "unknown gunmen attempted to attack Potiskum but were repelled by troops". "While they were fleeing, they attacked a church in a village," he said.

The military say that a suspected gunman has been detained, and security in the area has been stepped up to reassure residents. They could not say how many gunmen took part in the attack or whether they belonged to a particular organisation. The violence comes on the same day that the Pope - as part of his Christmas Day address - prayed for harmony in Nigeria, lamenting what he called "savage acts of terrorism" that frequently target Christians. The head of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Yobe, Idi Garba, told AFP that many worshippers at ECWA "are still missing". "I have been informed that six bodies have been recovered," Mr Garba said.

He said that some worshippers who lived near the church "fled their homes during the attack and it is assumed that they are still hiding in the bush". Correspondents says that while Yobe's population is overwhelmingly Muslim, Potiskum has a significant Christian minority. Peri is just 2km (1.24 miles) outside the city. Boko Haram has been able to carry out so many attacks in Yobe because it borders Borno state where the insurgent group is based. Nigeria is Africa's most populous state and its biggest oil producer. Most people in the south are Christian, whereas the north has a Muslim majority.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20842225

Originally Posted by Anders Hoveland

[video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnhy_...eature=related

Three Christians were killed in Turkey for distributing Bibles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5eerAvvT0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJs97...eature=related


Why the West will not hear about the Persecution:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/201...n-Persecution/

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/201...ite-Beatings-/

Old news, Christians are now allowed to build churches. Three Christians? How does that compare to the 150+ per year Muslims who become victims of hate crime in the US?

Without making any comment on the topic for the moment, you might want to use well done data instead of emotionally charged stories.

Iran holding Christian pastor for $116,000 ransom...

Wife: Jailed American Pastor Still Held in Iran
WASHINGTON January 22, 2013 : Iran's semi-official news agency said Monday that a jailed American pastor of Iranian origin is to be released after posting $116,000 bond, but his wife in the U.S. claims Tehran has no intention of freeing him and that the announcement is "a game to silence" international media reports.

The news agency, ISNA, quoted Saeed Abedini's lawyer, Nasser Sarbazi, as saying that his client stood trial Monday in the Revolutionary Court on charges of attempting to undermine state security by creating a network of Christian churches in private homes. The pastor, who was jailed in September, has rejected the charges. In Tehran, ISNA quoted Sarbazi as saying that the court would issue its verdict later, but that Abedini would be released within the next few days after posting the bail. ISNA said the lawyer indicated that the pastor would be allowed to leave Iran and meet his family in the U.S. Abedini's father attended Monday's court session.

However, the pastor's wife, Naghmeh, said in a statement that the Iranian regime had repeatedly promised to free Abedini on bond, but that he remains in detention. "After the judge told Saeed's lawyer that bail was back on the table, the family in Tehran ran around in circles today to make sure Saeed was let out on bail," said his wife, who lives near Boise, Idaho. "But again, the bail officer rejected (the) bail." Her comments were provided by the Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice, which focuses on constitutional and human rights law around the world. The center is representing the pastor's family in the United States.

She said her husband's lawyer's comments were made before bail was rejected. "This is a game to silence the international media," she said. "Pastor Saeed remains in prison," she said. "He has not been released on bail and Iranian authorities continue to refuse to accept the bail presented to secure his release," she said. "We cannot trust the Iranian regime's reported promise to release him and return him to his family until Pastor Saeed is safely back in the U.S."

Source

It's mainly due to colonialism and ethnic issues than anything else, as opposed to anything inherent in Islam. Due to historical contingency, most of the nations with large Muslim populations were under severe persecution from Christian powers from the 1700s until, roughly the 1960s. Algeria, for instance, was occupied by France from the Napoleonic Wars until 1960 and the native, Muslim Algerians were oppressed very heavily by the French. By the 1950s, the Algerians were starting to demand rights equal to French citizens, and the Pieds Noirs ended up basically engaging in terroristic actions against the Algerians (such as hooking up car batteries to genitals). Similarly, in Iran, the US was supporting the Shah who was using a secret police force against the population, who then backed the Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic Revolution. In Afghanistan, the US supported the Afghani Mujahideen, in opposition to Soviet forces, and the Afghani Mujahideen eventually became both the Taliban and al Qaida. Further, once war broke out between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was selling weapons to both sides, which didn't endear many in the Muslim world to the US. The US also engaged in a bit of a genocide in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Muslim civilians in the Philippines. Because of the hundreds of incidents like these, there's hostility toward the Christian world due to a great deal of mistrust toward Christians because the narrative for a lot of Muslim people was that Christians were invading and oppressing Muslims.

However, such hostility is not a permanent feature of Islam; in Lebanon, the Christian minority has usually been fairly peaceable with the Muslim majority, while Christians in the Ottoman Empire maintained a generally greater level of religious freedom compared to many Christian states during the same time (for instance, it was generally okay to be a Christian or Jew in the Ottoman Empire, wherein one had to pay a tax to fund the military due to the assumption that the Ottomans made that Christian subjects of the Empire wouldn't find Christian enemies of the Empire; conversely, in contemporary Spain or Portugal, it was dangerous to be a Muslim or Jew). Again, there's a lot of historical contingency; the Muslim population of China basically bears no ill will toward Christians at all, due to the history of Chinese Muslims wherein the main existential threat to their lives was primarily Chinese dynasties who were not happy with people not being Confucian. As China was only really subjugated by Europe starting in roughly the 1820s and the European powers never differentiated between Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian, or Muslim Chinese people, the Muslims of China were never subjugated like the Muslims in a lot of former Ottoman provinces, in Iran, in south Asia, or Oceania. As such, the animus against European powers and Christianity never really developed. Similarly, Muslims in the Balkans, who weren't Turks, generally never received treatment that was as bad at the hands of large European powers, as they weren't colonized by other Europeans, but managed to win independence via large amounts of foreign funding and the general decline of the Ottoman Empire anyway. The Muslims in the Balkans aren't particularly angry at Christians in general, though they do hate very particular groups of Christians, but that's due to the ethno-religious issues that drive a lot of conflict in the Balkans anyway and not due to a generalized hatred of Christianity.

Christians bein' persecuted in India...

Violence against Christians Spreading in India
February 11, 2013 – Hindu extremist attacks on Christians in Maharashtra state could expand even as violence elsewhere in India grows in areas where extremist groups had not beeen so active, Christian leaders said.

Ram Puniyani of the All India Secular Forum said at press conference in Mumbai this month that Maharashtra is vulnerable to increased attacks on Christians after “a decade of heightened Hindutva [Hindu nationalism], especially targeting tribal and Adivasi [indigenous] communities, as they are easy targets, with little fear of retaliation.” The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) released preliminary results of a study on Feb. 1, with Christian leaders saying that persecution is not increasing in comparison with previous years but is appearing in new areas. While the perennially troublesome Karnataka state saw the most attacks on Christians with 67, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 28, four new states entered the top 20: More attacks from Hindu extremists took place in Tamil Nadu, Assam, Mizoram and Goa than in previous years. Moreover, CSF noted persecution against Christians from Islamic extremists in Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala and West Bengal.

Joseph Dias, general secretary of CSF, said the study chronicled 250 of the worst cases of persecution, but that the actual number of incidents nationwide was much higher. While there were no pogroms such as occurred in Orissa state in 2008, persecution has become more widespread, with an increase in Hindu nationalist attacks even where the “Hindu brigade” is not traditionally strong, he said. Parliamentary and state assembly elections in the next year portend an increase in attacks as Hindu extremists try to divide voters along religious lines, he said.

Michael Saldanha, former justice of the Bombay High Court, told Morning Star News that he has urged federal Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to ban Hindutva groups such as the Sanathan Sanstha and Abhinav Bharat, which come under the “Saffron umbrella” with an agenda of a Hindu religious state. Overall, the states with the highest number of incidents after Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh were Tamil Nadu with 25; Orissa – where the most serious crimes took place, including rapes of minors – with 20; and Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, both also with 20. Maharashtra, with nine incidents, was seventh on the list.

The Maharashtra-based Christian leaders emphasized violations in their state, including not just abuses by Hindu nationalists but by family members of converts to Christianity. Two young women in Padmavati Nagar, Pune, 20-year-old Lakshmi Rathod and Vimla Rathod, 19, fled their home on Aug. 12, 2012, after their parents had forced them to drink cow urine daily. They were assaulted, threatened with “honor killing,” labelled unholy and locked in a room for several days after they were found reading the Bible. The report included an account of an attack last month in Maharashtra by Hindu nationalists suspected to belong to Sanathan Sanstha. On Jan. 11 a Hindu extremist mob stormed into New Life Grace Ministry Church in the Sawantwadi area, Sindhudurg District, and severely beat members of the 600-strong congregation, including many women, children and elderly Christians. They threatened to stop any Christian services in the district, according to CFS.

More http://morningstarnews.org/2013/02/v...ding-in-india/

It very much goes both ways. Anyone who denies this fact is either delusional or has an incredibly poor understanding of world history. Religious, ethnic, racial, gender persecution is awful and the people who perpetrate it have more similarities with each other no matter what group they come from or hate than they will ever choose to realize they do.

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Originally Posted by OJLeb

Lebanon is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by waltky

Boko Harem savagely kills Christians on Christmas Day...

More Christians Killed As Pope Decries ‘Savage Acts of Terrorism’ in Nigeria
December 26, 2012 – Suspected Islamist terrorists killed 12 Nigerians celebrating Jesus’ birth, hours before Pope Benedict XVI, in his traditional Christmas Day message, spoke out against “savage acts of terrorism” mainly targeting Christians in Africa’s most populous country.


See also:

Nigeria gunmen 'kill at least six Christians' in Yobe
25 December 2012 - Gunmen in the northern Nigerian state of Yobe have shot dead at least six Christians, the army and local officials say.

Boko Harem are crazy. I would say they drank the kool aid but someone will inevitably and incorrectly accuse me of racism.