CELL PHONES: Click here for full list of links "What the Bible says on Various Topics"
Kids of Courage: Persecuted Christian Teens around the World
ABC follow up video on teen [Rifqa Bary]
who left islam found Christ.
Youcef Nadarkhani Is Free, But His Lawyer Still Faces Threat of Imprisonment
Christian Persecution in Jaipur, India
~ Theresia, Alfia and Yarni ~
Memory Eternal
Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη
Вечная память
Ei-en no Ki-oku
永遠の記憶
Revelation 13 1 And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.
Christian Martyrs - 2005-2008
Martyrs in the Modern Day
This is a video I made to honor God first, and then to show my HUGE respect for these servants of Jesus that made the ultimate sacrifice. Not many people talk about modern day martyrs, but they are very real and deserve to be known. They gave their lives to lead others to Jesus and lived as the Western Christian World can barely fathom. My prayer as I post this is that if you don't know Jesus, you will make Him Lord of your life today. And if you do, that you will look at the lives of these servants of a Holy God and ask the Lord to use you in mighty ways, too.
THE PERSECUTED CHURCH
Orissa Christian Persecution
Christian persecution in Pakistan
Every christian in pakistan is being persecuted here are some of the victims "Christian persecution in Pakistan" From ThePeacefulIslam
PREPARING FOR THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH
Newsweek, Feb 6, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/05/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-global-war-on-christians-in-the-muslim-world.html
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
Sudan
Egypt
Iraq
Shafia's Story - Persecution In Pakistan
Pakistan
Indonesia
Saudi Arabia
Ethiopia
PERSECUTION UPDATE: February 10, 2012
http://beingisgood.blogspot.ca/2012/02/persecution-update.html
Or reflect on Barack Obama bowing deeply to the same king in humble obeisance. It makes you understand why we've heard barely a world of criticism from either man.
Okay, before I get too political, let me offer some details on the persecution of Christians throughout the world. And I only scratch the surface...
Palestinians.
http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2834/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2012/02/09/raymond-ibrahim-january-2012-the-increase-in-muslim-persecution-of-christians
Escape Tribulation? Wrong!
The Bible, clearly states that all believers will be persecuted and that, as we get closer and closer to the Lord's return, there will be an increase in Christian martyrdom (scriptures directly below) Let us pray for these martyrs in these far away lands, because, according to the end times prophecies, soon enough it may be the turn of all Christian, in all the countries, to have to take a stand for Christ. May these testimonies (posted with Bible scriptures) of innocent, non-aggressive Christian martyrs encourage you. And let us pray for our fellow Christians always - Our turn may come soon enough.
Downhere
Cathedral Made Of People Lyrics
(Against Christian Persecution)
I know persecution was meant to happen, and it will still get worse. But stay strong!
4 Powerful Scriptures on Persecution: John 15:19-21, 2 Corinthians 12:10, Matthew 5:10-12, Matthew 5:44
Christians Killed and Persecuted in Current TimesDownhere
Cathedral Made Of People Lyrics
(Against Christian Persecution)
I know persecution was meant to happen, and it will still get worse. But stay strong!
4 Powerful Scriptures on Persecution: John 15:19-21, 2 Corinthians 12:10, Matthew 5:10-12, Matthew 5:44
Christians are being Persecuted Worldwide
1st - Remember the persecution of the early church - link here Quo Vadis
or Link here to view Quo Vadis 2001 (click cc and GB for english language) Warning! - Two short adult scenes at beginning and persecution in colosseum may be difficult for sensitive viewers but otherwise very good.
Sites that monitor Christian Persecution:
Link here to view Open Doors http://www.opendoorsusa.org/
Link here to view World Watch List http://www.worldwatchlist.us/ (scroll down to see map and list)
Link here to view videos of persecution testimonies http://persecution.tv/video
Link here to hear Jesus Freaks http://persecution.tv/video?task=videodirectlink&id=650
Link here to Voice of the Martyres http://www.persecution.net/
Link here to Compass Direct News - News from the Frontlines of Persecution [Current articles and articles going back to 2000. http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/indonesia/
Link here to International Christian Concern http://www.persecution.org/
or Link here to view Quo Vadis 2001 (click cc and GB for english language) Warning! - Two short adult scenes at beginning and persecution in colosseum may be difficult for sensitive viewers but otherwise very good.
Sites that monitor Christian Persecution:
Link here to view Open Doors http://www.opendoorsusa.org/
Link here to view World Watch List http://www.worldwatchlist.us/ (scroll down to see map and list)
Link here to view videos of persecution testimonies http://persecution.tv/video
Link here to hear Jesus Freaks http://persecution.tv/video?task=videodirectlink&id=650
Link here to Voice of the Martyres http://www.persecution.net/
Link here to Compass Direct News - News from the Frontlines of Persecution [Current articles and articles going back to 2000. http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/indonesia/
Link here to International Christian Concern http://www.persecution.org/
2011 World Watch List
World Watch List 2012
Where Christian Persecution is Worst
World Watch List 2013
Nigeria's Persecuted Children (part one)
You can support this safe house, the Stephen Center, through the Jars of Hope program of Voice of the Martyrs
You can support this safe house, the Stephen Center, through the Jars of Hope program of Voice of the Martyrs
Recently hundreds of Christians, mostly women and children were murdered in towns near Jos in Plateau State, Nigeria in religious violence . This kind of killing is nothing new to this part of Africa's my populated country. In the first of two parts you will meet children who have lost one or both parents in this kind of terrible violence.
In part one you will meet Benjamin Mogaji and Blessing Justine
Nigeria's Persecuted Children (Part two)
In part two of Nigeria's Persecuted Christian you will meet Nankpaqk Kumzwam a young boy who lost his parents and 2 siblings to the religious violence that swept his village in Plateau State, Nigeria in 2002 by Militant Muslims.
Don Moen - He Never Sleeps
Egyptian Voices: Testimonies of the Persecuted
Kids of Courage: Persecuted Christian Teens around the World
We Are One (Voice of the Martyrs)
Voice of the Martyrs Special Report - Indonesia
In December 2004, Santoso, a pastor of a church in Poso, Indonesia, was attacked by militants. This incident has only increased his desire to share the love of God with the people of Indonesia. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: http://www.persecution.com.au/
[A glorious testimony of love and forgiveness despite persecution. Note that the Voice of the Martyrs organization helps those who have been persecuted, and their families, in practical ways as needed.]
Christians Killed and Persecuted in Current Times
Christian Persecution: The world was not worthy of them
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me [Jesus] first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. "
2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.
Link here to view video Persecuted Christians - Sudan. Gives a good explanation of history and circumstances of this persecution.
Vietnam - Its not just Muslims that Persecute Christians ...
[Ancestor Worshippers Persecute Christians in Vietnam]
12. . . everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. . .
The next 3 videos are of one case in United States, the persecution of Rifqa Bary - at the very bottom of this topic is an extensive article as it appeared in WikiIslam, Jan 9, 2012. I reproduce it here because I believe it is a very important case for us in North America to understand, and, as it stands on this date, it is a very good article - PLEASE SCROLL DOWN and READ
ABC follow up video on teen [Rifqa Bary]
who left islam found Christ.
United States: Ex-Muslim Christian Girl
to Stay with Foster Family for Now
A Florida judge ruled Thursday that 17-year-old Rifqa Bary can stay in Orlando until further notice, but it appears the case is headed for trial.
In July, Bary fled to Florida to escape what she says would be certain death, after her Muslim parents found out she became a Christian.
She looked relaxed and confident as she entered the Orlando courtroom with her attorneys on Thursday. Her parents also joined the hearing by telephone.
Many things went her way. A motion to dismiss her lawyer was denied and she does not have to return to Ohio for now. But her father's attorney, Shayan Elahi, hopes that will change.
[United States: Honor Killing for Converting to Christianity a Reality]
Michael Savage Interview with Walid Shoebat on Fahtima Rifqa Bary
Aired on September 2, 2009
Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, ran away from her home in New Albany, Ohio, because her Muslim family threatened to murder her for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Hear Her Story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGQY5gznpog
Read More As of September 2, 2009:
**Fathima Rifqa Bary: Runaway Ohio teen goes back to court on Thursday:**
Fathima Rifqa Bary, the Ohio teenager who has become a cause célèbre among evangelical Christians for running away from her Muslim family, returns to an Orlando courtroom today.
A judge must decide whether her father -- or anyone else in Ohio -- poses a threat to her.
Meanwhile, Ohio child welfare officials have already concluded it's safe for Rifqa to return. They want to place the girl in therapy and reunite her with her family.
That, however, may not be the conclusion of Florida officials who have had to deal with a flood of e-mail and reaction from thousands of people, many of them including anti-Muslim sentiments, who say the runaway is a hero.
Gov. Charlie Crist has received more than 9,000 e-mails about the runaway, his office said.
For the past two weeks, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been investigating whether there are any credible threats to Rifqa, 17, a native of Sri Lanka. Agents will present their findings today, something that could signal what happens next.
If they conclude no threats exist, Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson could send the girl back to Columbus, Ohio, where her parents have agreed to place her in foster care for at least a month.
If agents conclude Rifqa is in danger, the judge could leave her here in foster care, her status since Aug. 10 when another judge ordered her temporarily into the care of the Florida Department of Children and Families.
No matter what FDLE says, Rifqa will fight to stay here until next August, when she turns 18, said her attorney, John Stemberger, a conservative Christian activist. He said Rifqa is in a stable home with a Christian foster family and is happy.
If she is returned to Ohio, he has said, it's just a matter of time until she disappears or is killed.
Rifqa says her father became enraged, confronted her about becoming a Christian and threatened to kill her earlier this summer.
Later, on July 17, Rifqa says her mother discovered a Christian book in the house, challenged her "and told me I was going to have to be sent back to Sri Lanka to be dealt with."
Two days later Rifqa ran away.
Her father, Mohamed Bary, 47, a jeweler and Amway distributor, says he never threatened Rifqa, loves her, wants her back and will allow her to practice whatever religion she chooses.
Eric Fenner, executive director of Franklin County Child Services in Columbus, Ohio, said Wednesday that his agency has investigated the girl's complaints and believe she can safely return home.
"We think by getting the family with a therapist . . . hopefully, we can salvage this family," he said.
Rifqa is expected at today's hearing. Her parents are not.
Stemberger filed paperwork on Monday, alleging that the mosque attended by Rifqa's family is home to terrorists and Muslim extremists. He is expected to make the same argument today.
The mosque, Noor Islamic Cultural Center, issued a statement Wednesday to say those allegations are lies and that hate groups are using Rifqa's case to attack Muslims.
Rifqa boarded a bus to Orlando and sought refuge with husband-and-wife pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church. She met Beverly Lorenz through a prayer book page on the Internet social network site Facebook.
Although Rifqa's family was searching for her and had filed a missing persons report with Columbus police, the Lorenzes kept her for two weeks without notify authorities.
FDLE will not say whether the Lorenzes are under investigation. It is a crime in Florida to shelter an unmarried juvenile for more than 24 hours without the consent of her parents or notifying authorities.
The Lorenzes say they were trying to protect a frightened teenager who was convinced her life was in jeopardy.
Egypt: More Muslims Embrace Christ
and Growing Persecution.
17 “Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18 On my [Jesus] account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. . . .
26 “So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. . .
37 “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. [eternally]
2d7I_RJghhc
Abdul Rahman Convert To Christianity
Abdul Rahman (Persian: عبدالرحمن) (born 1965) was an Afghan citizen who was arrested in February 2006 and threatened with the death penalty for converting to Christianity. On March 26, 2006, under heavy pressure from foreign governments, the court returned his case to prosecutors, citing "investigative gaps". He was released from prison to his family on the night of March 27. On March 29, Abdul Rahman arrived in Italy after the Italian government offered him asylum.
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani News:
Jordan Sekulow ACLJ Executive Director discusses on Fox News
A brief history of Youcef Nadarkhani, leading up to his current situation:
Youcef is 33 yrs old and is from Rasht, in the Gilan province of Iran. For the past 10 yrs he has been a pastor in a network of house churches. He was previously imprisoned in Dec 2006, the charges being apostasy (leaving Islam for Christianity) and evangelism (spreading the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ), but was released two weeks later.
He is married and has two sons, ages 8 and 6. They were attending a local school when the government decided that all children should be taught about Islam, including those from Christian families. Youcef went to the school and protested this based on the Iranian constitution, which allows for freedom to practice religion. As a result, the secret police called him before the political tribunal in Rasht, Iran on October 12, 2009. At that time he was arrested, charged for protesting, and has been in prison in Lakan (which is seven miles south of Rasht) ever since. Later the charges changed to apostasy and evangelism to Muslims.
Through this time he has had access to an attorney, and has been allowed visits from his wife, children, and friends. However, for the first month in prison and two weeks before his trial up until now the visits and meetings with his attorney have been limited. They have used various methods to try to convert him back to Islam, including giving him pills, apparently in an attempt to claim that he was insane.
Because Youcef's faith remained strong, they decided to arrest his wife in order to place more pressure on him. On June 18th, Fatemah Pasindedih was arrested and placed in prison in Lakan. During this time their boys went to live with a relative. Both Youcef and his wife Fatemah were threatened by authorities that their children would be taken away and given to a Muslim family. Youcef was not swayed to turn back to Islam, so his wife was put on trial without an attorney, and sentenced to life in prison. An attorney was later hired and the sentence appealed. The sentence and conviction were overturned and she was released.
On September 21 and 22, 2010, Youcef was put on trial, and verbally given the sentence of death. A written verdict was delayed and then delivered, on November 13, 2010, by the 1st Court of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He is to be executed by hanging for the crime of apostacy. Twenty days are allowed to appeal the sentence with the Supreme Court of Iran.
Youcef is now in the secret police security prison in Lakan. He has been held in solitary confinement. Recently he has been allowed visits from his attorney and wife once a week.
The verdict is in the process of being appealed. We should have a date for the hearing before the Supreme Court shortly.
It is critical that we continue to pray for pastor Youcef and make our voices heard. Please reach out to your elected officials and to the international news media so that Youcef's case will come to light.
Youcef Nadarkhani Update
from Jay Sekulow on Fox News
from Jay Sekulow on Fox News
Jay Sekulow provided an update on Fox News with Megyn Kelly shedding light on Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani's impending exectuon in Iran. Nadarkhani has been in prison for his Christian faith for over 860 days. There is a growing outcry worldwide calling for his release. Iran must not be allowed to use Pastor Youcef's life as a political tool.
2010 saw an acceleration in the Martyrdom of and Imprisonment of Christian Leaders in Iran:
2010 - Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani - Gilan, Iran - Sentenced to be executed on 10/24/2010 for Apostasy
2010 - October - a young believer has died in Iran after he had been severely beaten by a relative who objected to his strong faith in Christ. He leaves behind a wife and two young children. (Reported by Elam)
2010 - September 23, Nine followers of Jesus were detained in Hamedan, the capital of Hamadan province, on charges of evangelism, which potentially carriesthe death penalty under strict laws in Iran.
2010 - July 24 at 9:00 p.m., 27-year-old Neshan Saeedi was spending a quiet evening at home with his wife and young daughter when plain-clothes security forces entered his house and arrested him. The security officers searched the home and seized personal belongings such as a computer, CDs containing films of Christian seminars and teachings, Christian books and Bibles, and family photo albums. As of September 09, 2010 - there is no information about the condition of Neshan.
2010 - July 18, 15 Christians detained in Mashhad,Iran's second largest city, remain detained and are "under pressure pressure to recant their faith but are refusing to do so." - (Reported by The Voice of the Martyrs)
2010 - April 29, Ali Golchin (29), has been held in solitary confinement in Tehran's Evin prison since he was arrested in his home town of Varamin on April 29. After weeks of appealing to the authorities, Ali's father was finally allowed access to him on June 17 -- though they were allowed only 10 minutes together. Ali was released on bail on July 25.
Jay Sekulow on 700 Club Explains Execution Order for Pastor Youcef
Youcef Nadarkhani Is Free, But His Lawyer Still Faces Threat of Imprisonment
By Katherine Weber , Christian Post Reporter
September 11, 2012
Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was released Sept. 8 after three years imprisonment, issued a letter shortly after his new-found freedom, thanking his supporters and God for helping him through his difficult journey.
Nadarkhani begins his Sept. 8 "thank you" letter, made available by persecution watchdog Present Truth Ministries, by offering his gratitude for those who prayed for him during his imprisonment. He then goes on to describe the challenges he faced during his three years in Iranian prisons.
"Indeed I have been put to the test, the test of faith which is, according to the Scripture, 'more precious than perishable gold,'" Nadarkhani writes.
"But I have never felt loneliness, I was all the time aware of the fact that it wasn't a solitary battle, for I have felt all the energy and support of those who obeyed their conscience and fought for the promotion of the justice and the rights of all human beings."
The pastor, age 35, goes on to thank God for providing guidance to the Iranian government, which exhibited flippant behavior throughout the three-year court process, but ultimately chose to release him on Sept. 8.
"Despite the fact that I have been found guilty of apostasy according to a certain reading of the Shar'ia, I am grateful that [God] gave the leaders of the country, the wisdom to break that judgment taking into account other facts of that same Shar'ia," Nadarkhani writes.
"It is obvious that the defenders of the Iranian right and the legal experts have made an important effort to enforce the law and the right. I want to thank those who have defended the right until the end."
Naddarkhani concludes his letter by suggesting that his court case offers a "critical and constructive" look at the past, allowing "the writing of universal texts aiming at the promotion of the rights of man."
"I want to express a prayer for the establishment of an unending and universal peace, so that the will of the Father be done on earth as it is in heaven," Nadarkhani writes.
The Iranian pastor was arrested in Oct. 2009 and charged with apostasy and attempting to evangelize Muslims. After three years imprisonment with an execution sentence, Nadarkhani was released on Sept. 8, 2012, after a judge cut apostasy from his charges, giving the pastor a three-year sentencing.
Nadarkhani was released on Sept. 8, as he had already served his three-year sentence, starting in Oct. 2009.
The American Center for Law and Justice, which has been heavily involved in Nadarkhani's trial, told The Christian Post shortly after his release, "[Nadarkhani's] story is an example of how the world can join together to ensure that justice is served and freedom preserved."
"[…] we must not forget the human right of freedom of religion includes the right to freedom of expression. We must also not forget the numerous other religious minorities in Iran who are imprisoned and face persecution for their faith," the conservative Christian group added.
Nadarkhai joins his wife, Fatema Pasindedih, and their two sons after being released from prison.
The pastor's lawyer, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, however, continues to face the threat of a nine-year prison sentence for his past involvement in human rights cases, including serving as Nadarkhani's legal aide.
The Beatitudes
1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Christian Persecution in Jaipur, India
Live video of a Christian pastor being beaten for preaching the gospel in Jaipur, India. Throughout the beatings he is calling out to Jesus and asking God not to hold the violence of his persecutors against them.
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I [Jesus] tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Martyrs Noviana, Theresia, Alfita and Yarni
Three Indonesian schoolgirls were beheaded, in Poso, Indonesia, on 2005.10.29, at around 6 30 a.m., on their way to school.
They were beheaded because they were Christian.
The girls were: * Theresia Morangke, age 15 * Alfita Poliwo, age 17 * Yarni Sambue, age 15
Noviana Malewa, age 15, escaped with machete wounds to her face and neck.
The three girls heads were dumped in plastic bags near a church, with a warning written on them that another 100 Christian teenagers would be killed.
Three Muslims, who had acted according to Islamic law, confessed. They said the beheadings were "a gift" to Christians, for Ramadan. Six of their associates remain free. The three Jihadis were imprisoned, for the crime of "Causing Communal Strife.
Hasanuddin Haris was condemned to 20 years imprisonment, Lilik Purnomo 14 years, and Irwanto Irano 14 years.
Jesus Christ: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
~ Theresia, Alfia and Yarni ~
Memory Eternal
Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη
Вечная память
Ei-en no Ki-oku
永遠の記憶
Signs of the End of the Age
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? ”
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ, [Or Messiah; also in verse 23]’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.[this promise is for spiritual eternal salvation] 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. . .
21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.
26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29 “Immediately after the distress of those days
“‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[Isaiah 13:10; 34:4]
30 “At that time the sign of the Son of Man [Jesus] will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. [Jesus' warning to the end time church: Revelation 3: 14-20] 34 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
The Seals
1 I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. . . 9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. . .
Revelation 12 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. . . . 7 And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. 12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, . . . 17 Then the dragon was enraged . . . and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. . .
The Beast out of the Sea
And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. 4 Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?”
5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. 6 He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7 He was given power to make war against the saints [Christian believers] and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb [Jesus: John 1: 29] that was slain from the creation of the world.
9 He who has an ear, let him hear. 10 If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints [believers].
The Beast out of the Earth
11 Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. 12 He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. 14 Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
18 This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.
Revelation 20
The Thousand Years
. . . 4 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. [1Peter 2:5,9 ]
Christian Martyrs - 2005-2008
A compendium of Christians murdered by religious and secular fanatics. A reminder to pray for the persecuted church around the world.
2 Corinthians 4: 3-4, 6-9, 14, 16-18
Treasures in Jars of Clay
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . .6 God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” [Gen. 1:3] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. . . . 14 we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. . . . 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 3-4, 6-9, 14, 16-18
Treasures in Jars of Clay
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . .6 God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” [Gen. 1:3] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. . . . 14 we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. . . . 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Martyrs in the Modern Day
This is a video I made to honor God first, and then to show my HUGE respect for these servants of Jesus that made the ultimate sacrifice. Not many people talk about modern day martyrs, but they are very real and deserve to be known. They gave their lives to lead others to Jesus and lived as the Western Christian World can barely fathom. My prayer as I post this is that if you don't know Jesus, you will make Him Lord of your life today. And if you do, that you will look at the lives of these servants of a Holy God and ask the Lord to use you in mighty ways, too.
Life Through the Spirit
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. . . 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. . .
14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,[Aramaic for Father] Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Future Glory
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. . .
More Than Conquerors
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. . . 31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[l]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Martyr's Message
This is a video compilation I put together using an audio soundtrack I picked up as a missionary working in Belize in the summer of 2009. I threw the sound together with pictures and video and what you see is the final result. I hope you enjoy it. The picture of the young boys at 00:30 is a picture of an older brother saying goodbye to his younger brother. The older brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and died shortly after.
This is a video compilation I put together using an audio soundtrack I picked up as a missionary working in Belize in the summer of 2009. I threw the sound together with pictures and video and what you see is the final result. I hope you enjoy it. The picture of the young boys at 00:30 is a picture of an older brother saying goodbye to his younger brother. The older brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and died shortly after.
Living for God
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. 4 They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. . .
Suffering for Being a Christian12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And,
“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” [Prov. 11:31]
19 So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
Turkish Christians Martyred For Christ
This is a story of some Turkish Christians (exMuslim) and a German Christian in Turkey who were slaughtered by Islamists. Christian persecution is still alive - remember them in your prayers
When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.
Secret Children - The Hidden Victims of the Persecuted Church
All over the world... children are suffering because they follow Jesus. Who knows how many there are? We estimate 30 million, maybe more. Will you PRAY for the Secret Children?
All over the world... children are suffering because they follow Jesus. Who knows how many there are? We estimate 30 million, maybe more. Will you PRAY for the Secret Children?
Secret Children - Change their World
22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man [Jesus].
23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets. . .
Love for Enemies
27 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
THE PERSECUTED CHURCH
Orissa Christian Persecution
Christian persecution in Pakistan
Every christian in pakistan is being persecuted here are some of the victims "Christian persecution in Pakistan" From ThePeacefulIslam
Persecution of the Church of Christ (Evangelical Missions 008).wmv
What about you? Do you have the courage to evangelize in a country NOT free from persecution?
PREPARING FOR THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH
By Pastor Richard Wurmbrand
http://abbasgirlme.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/preparing-for-the-underground-church-by-pastor-richard-wurmbrand/
http://abbasgirlme.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/preparing-for-the-underground-church-by-pastor-richard-wurmbrand/
Are you prepared to suffer for the sake of Christ? Are you prepared to give up your freedom, wife, husband, children…life for Christ? You’d better take some time and think about it. Persecution is coming, and it may be closer than you think.
Christian Persecution Coming To America
CHRISTIANS YOU MUST SEE THIS Part 10
At least 24 Coptic Christians were killed in Cairo during clashes with the Egyptian Army on Oct. 9, 20011
The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World:
From one end of the muslim world to the other, Christians are being murdered for their faith. The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World:
Newsweek, Feb 6, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/05/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-global-war-on-christians-in-the-muslim-world.html
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992. She served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 and is currently a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her autobiography, Infidel, was a 2007 New York Times bestseller.
Newsweek, Feb 6, 2012
Newsweek, Feb 6, 2012
Why the West Won't Hear about Christian Persecution - CBN.com
We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.
The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.
The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.
But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.
From blasphemy laws to brutal murders to bombings to mutilations and the burning of holy sites, Christians in so many nations live in fear.
Christian Persecution in Nigeria
Nigeria
In Nigeria many have suffered all of these forms of persecution. The nation has the largest Christian minority (40 percent) in proportion to its population (160 million) of any majority-Muslim country. For years, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived on the edge of civil war. Islamist radicals provoke much if not most of the tension. The newest such organization is an outfit that calls itself Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege.” Its aim is to establish Sharia in Nigeria. To this end it has stated that it will kill all Christians in the country.
In the month of January 2012 alone, Boko Haram was responsible for 54 deaths. In 2011 its members killed at least 510 people and burned down or destroyed more than 350 churches in 10 northern states. They use guns, gasoline bombs, and even machetes, shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) while launching attacks on unsuspecting citizens. They have attacked churches, a Christmas Day gathering (killing 42 Catholics), beer parlors, a town hall, beauty salons, and banks. They have so far focused on killing Christian clerics, politicians, students, policemen, and soldiers, as well as Muslim clerics who condemn their mayhem. While they started out by using crude methods like hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes in 2009, the latest AP reports indicate that the group’s recent attacks show a new level of potency and sophistication.
Sudan
The Christophobia that has plagued Sudan for years takes a very different form. The authoritarian government of the Sunni Muslim north of the country has for decades tormented Christian and animist minorities in the south. What has often been described as a civil war is in practice the Sudanese government’s sustained persecution of religious minorities. This persecution culminated in the infamous genocide in Darfur that began in 2003. Even though Sudan’s Muslim president, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which charged him with three counts of genocide, and despite the euphoria that greeted the semi-independence he grant-ed to South Sudan in July of last year, the violence has not ended. In South Kordofan, Christians are still subject-ed to aerial bombardment, targeted killings, the kidnap-ping of children, and other atrocities. Reports from the United Nations indicate that between 53,000 and 75,000 innocent civilians have been displaced from their residences and that houses and buildings have been looted and destroyed.
Egypt
Both kinds of persecution—undertaken by extragovernmental groups as well as by agents of the state—have come together in Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. On Oct. 9 of last year in the Maspero area of Cairo, Coptic Christians (who make up roughly 11 percent of Egypt’s population of 81 million) marched in protest against a wave of attacks by Islamists—including church burnings, rapes, mutilations, and murders—that followed the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. During the protest, Egyptian security forces drove their trucks into the crowd and fired on protesters, crushing and killing at least 24 and wounding more than 300 people. By the end of the year more than 200,000 Copts had fled their homes in anticipation of more attacks. With Islamists poised to gain much greater power in the wake of recent elections, their fears appear to be justified.
Iraq
Egypt is not the only Arab country that seems bent on wiping out its Christian minority. Since 2003 more than 900 Iraqi Christians (most of them Assyrians) have been killed by terrorist violence in Baghdad alone, and 70 churches have been burned, according to the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA). Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled as a result of violence directed specifically at them, reducing the number of Christians in the country to fewer than half a million from just over a million before 2003. AINA understandably describes this as an “incipient genocide or ethnic cleansing of Assyrians in Iraq.”
Shafia's Story - Persecution In Pakistan
Pakistan
The 2.8 million Christians who live in Pakistan make up only about 1.6 percent of the population of more than 170 million. As members of such a tiny minority, they live in perpetual fear not only of Islamist terrorists but also of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws. There is, for example, the notorious case of a Christian woman who was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. When international pressure persuaded Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer to explore ways of freeing her, he was killed by his bodyguard. The bodyguard was then celebrated by prominent Muslim clerics as a hero—and though he was sentenced to death late last year, the judge who imposed the sentence now lives in hiding, fearing for his life.
Such cases are not unusual in Pakistan. The nation’s blasphemy laws are routinely used by criminals and intolerant Pakistani Muslims to bully religious minorities. Simply to declare belief in the Christian Trinity is considered blasphemous, since it contradicts mainstream Muslim theological doctrines. When a Christian group is suspected of transgressing the blasphemy laws, the consequences can be brutal. Just ask the members of the Christian aid group World Vision. Its offices were attacked in the spring of 2010 by 10 gunmen armed with grenades, leaving six people dead and four wounded. A militant Muslim group claimed responsibility for the attack on the grounds that World Vision was working to subvert Islam. (In fact, it was helping the survivors of a major earthquake.)
Indonesia
Not even Indonesia—often touted as the world’s most tolerant, democratic, and modern majority-Muslim nation—has been immune to the fevers of Christophobia. According to data compiled by the Christian Post, the number of violent incidents committed against religious minorities (and at 7 percent of the population, Christians are the country’s largest minority) increased by nearly 40 percent, from 198 to 276, between 2010 and 2011.
The litany of suffering could be extended. In Iran dozens of Christians have been arrested and jailed for daring to worship outside of the officially sanctioned church system.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, deserves to be placed in a category of its own. Despite the fact that more than a million Christians live in the country as foreign workers, churches and even private acts of Christian prayer are banned; to enforce these totalitarian restrictions, the religious police regularly raid the homes of Christians and bring them up on charges of blasphemy in courts where their testimony carries less legal weight than a Muslim’s.
Ethiopia
Even in Ethiopia, where Christians make up a majority of the population, church burnings by members of the Muslim minority have become a problem.
It should be clear from this catalog of atrocities that anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem. No, the violence isn’t centrally planned or coordinated by some international Islamist agency. In that sense the global war on Christians isn’t a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities.
As Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, pointed out in an interview with Newsweek, Christian minorities in many majority-Muslim nations have “lost the protection of their societies.” This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity—and government inaction often proves them right.
Christians tortured and half-beheaded in Turkey
Turkey
The old idea of the Ottoman Turks—that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens)—has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression.
So let us please get our priorities straight. Yes, Western governments should protect Muslim minorities from intolerance. And of course we should ensure that they can worship, live, and work freely and without fear. It is the protection of the freedom of conscience and speech that distinguishes free societies from unfree ones. But we also need to keep perspective about the scale and severity of intolerance. Cartoons, films, and writings are one thing; knives, guns, and grenades are something else entirely.
As for what the West can do to help religious minorities in Muslim-majority societies, my answer is that it needs to begin using the billions of dollars in aid it gives to the offending countries as leverage. Then there is trade and investment. Besides diplomatic pressure, these aid and trade relationships can and should be made conditional on the protection of the freedom of conscience and worship for all citizens.
Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let’s take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world. Tolerance is for everyone—except the intolerant.
http://beingisgood.blogspot.ca/2012/02/persecution-update.html
The most persecuted religious group in the world is...drum roll...Christians! That's right, Christians are persecuted in a grand total of 131 countries. And here's the real surprise: the most barbarous and severe persecution of Christians is state sponsored or state permitted and occurs in Muslim-majority nations and communist nations. And did you know that upwards of 100,000 Christians are murdered every year simply because of their faith? Can you believe it? I know, I know, such statistics are grossly politically incorrect, but they're also true. If you want to read the specifics, check out the results of the study conducted last year by the Pew Forum.
Now this would seem to be a newsworthy story, don't you think? That's what I find most interesting. 200 million Christians live in those 131 countries in which they are persecuted, but you rarely read about it in the mainstream media. Okay, Newsweek recently ran a cover story on global Christian persecution,[ posted directly above] but that was an anomaly. In fact, I really can't figure out why Newsweek, a magazine run by a hand-wringing, left-leaning editorial staff, actually published that story...but it did, and God bless them for it. The story,
"The War of Christians / The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World ", was actually written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a remarkable woman who is not only a former member of the Dutch parliament and a best-selling author (Infidel), http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289692/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328887903&sr=8-1 but also a human rights advocate, a survivor of Islamist death threats, and an escapee from a forced marriage in Somalia. Her article, which describes the widespread persecution of Christians particularly in Muslim countries, should be read by all Americans. Let me share just a few of her comments:"But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other."Speaking of the willingness of many governments to ignore the persecution taking place she wrote,
"This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity — and government inaction often proves them right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks — that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens) — has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression."
Aside from this one story, however, about the only place you'll read of the persecution of Christians is in the religious media and the blogosphere.
GOVERNMENT SAYS CHRISTIANS ARE TERRORISTS
Indeed, the silence of the secular media is exceeded only by that of the Obama administration. Unbelievably, the State Department's recent International Religious Freedom report does not even mention two of the worst offenders — Egypt and Pakistan — who regularly violate the rights of their Christian citizens in the worst way. Of course this report comes from the same administration that considered returning veterans, pro-lifers, states rights supporters, etc. as potential terrorists more dangerous than the Islamists who attacked us on September 11, 2001.
Of course, many members of the Western media, perhaps a majority, are atheists or, at best, agnostics. Not only don't they believe but they don't understand those who do. The idea of a "culture war" being waged between religious and secular cultures, between a culture of life and a culture of death, is a concept incomprehensible to them. This ignorance of things religious also leads them to discount the importance of religious teaching and values as a root cause of terrorism by Islamist extremists. Despite the evidence to the contrary they continue to believe terrorism is caused by economic disparity and a desire to right perceived historical wrongs. They just can't see religion as much of a motivator. To them religion is an aberration that will ultimately fade away under the bright light of progressive thought.
Burning a Christian Church in Egypt
Although much ignored by the media and Western governments, the global persecution of Christian is still a major story. It's also a growing story, one that will be increasingly difficult to ignore as such persecution expands in both frequency and severity. Some media outlets will no doubt mention it, but always "balanced" with stories about alleged Islamophobia by nasty, right-wing Christians -- you know, all those church ladies in Pittsburgh who regularly gun down and behead Muslim gas station attendants. Okay, maybe I exaggerate a wee bit, but you get the picture.
We have come to expect religious persecution from communist and other totalitarian states. These governments, run by ideologues or egomaniacal dictators, rightly consider organized religion, and in particular the Catholic Church, as the greatest obstacle to their complete domination of the human spirit. Communists believe Christians are the enemy and have been persecuting us for nearly 100 years. And yet despite the millions of Christian martyrs they have created, the Church still stands strong in their midst. In some places it might be forced into an underground, clandestine existence as it is in China and even more so in North Korea, but it will never be eradicated, for the Holy Spirit will not be denied. But does our government openly chastise or sanction such nations as China or Vietnam for their state-sponsored persecution? Not if it will jeopardize commercial or banking relationships.
Amazingly -- and few Western Christians seem to be aware of this -- there are upwards of 100 million Christians in communist China. Most of these Christians worship in secret house churches and their numbers are growing. This, of course, is a huge embarrassment to a regime that has propagandized and persecuted believers for over 60 years.
But one doesn't have to be a communist to hate and persecute the Church. Even current and budding dictators, like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, find themselves driven to attack the Church because it will not remain silent in the face of corruption and murder and their accompanying lies. And guess who these dictators hang out with. Why who else but the Chinese and the Iranians, among others? Despite their vastly different ideologies, they willingly join forces against the common enemy.
I suppose I'm safe in saying we cannot rely on our government, regardless of the political party in power, to make religious persecution a key element of our nation's foreign policy. It will always take a back seat to the realpolitik of worldly concerns.
Just consider the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its horrendous record of religious persecution, and then picture George Bush walking hand in hand with King Abdullah.
Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Obama bows to Emperor of Japan
Mayor of Tampa Florida! Does this possibly indicate "mind control" that has slipped?
Okay, before I get too political, let me offer some details on the persecution of Christians throughout the world. And I only scratch the surface...
Saudi Arabia.
Let's begin with Saudi Arabia where the latest incident involved the arrest and strip-search of 29 Christian women and an assault on six Christian men for holding a prayer meeting in a private home. This, of course, is nothing new in a nation where women are treated as chattel. Just imagine their attitude toward Christian women. Read more here.
Sudan and South Sudan.
Over the past ten years the Islamic government of Sudan has killed between 300,000 and a million Christians and animists in South Sudan and Darfur. Nobody knows the exact number, but the total is staggering. What more can one say as this Islamic government piles atrocity upon atrocity? Any effort to protect the victims was apparently not in our national interest and so we and our allies did nothing. Even after the creation of the nation of South Sudan, the northern government infiltrates armed groups into the south to engage in a proxy war against the new government.
The persecution of Christians continues in Sudan itself. As the Orwellian titled Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment recently stated, “We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities...We have all legal rights to take them to court.” In case you had any doubts, this warning was aimed specifically at Christians who must also obey the sharia law of the land. Read more here.
Today I took a peek at the Sudanese government's website, and noticed that the nation's 1st Vice President, one Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, directed the nation, in honor of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, to take on "an attitude of making the celebrations of the Prophet this year full of love, mercifulness, cooperation and solidarity..." I'm sure the people of South Sudan appreciate this sentiment.
Egypt.
Mob attacks on Coptic Christians continue in Egypt in the aftermath of the nationwide voting in which the radical Islamists won a clear majority. When one considers that Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population, it's apparent that the extremists have the support of the vast majority of Muslims. The latest incident involved an attack by more than 3,000 Muslims who looted Coptic homes and businesses and then set them on fire. The army, located a little over a mile away, took well over an hour to respond. No one was arrested. Such attacks are becoming increasingly common and causing many Christians to leave the country. Read more here.
Christian Girls Kidnapped, Raped and Forced to Convert to Islam ( Egypt)
Another form of persecution in Egypt and elsewhere in the Islamic world involves the kidnapping of young Christian girls and their subsequent forcible conversion and marriage to Muslims. The Egyptian courts recently decided in favor of the kidnappers of a 16-year-old Coptic girl and ordered her held in a state-run home until she is 18 when she can legally convert to Islam. Her family is understandably distraught, and the Christian community is worried that such decisions will lead only to more kidnappings. Read more here.
Palestinians.
Wherever the Palestinians run things, whether in the West Bank (bad) or in Gaza (horrendous), Christians are treated horribly. I find this especially interesting since this persecution comes from a people that loves to depict itself, erroneously, as the object of decades of persecution by the Jews. In reality, the Palestinians have become the "useful idiots" of those neighboring Islamic nations intent on the destruction of Israel. These same nations could have solved the Palestinian "problem" years ago but it benefits their agenda to keep these people in refugee camps and the squalor of Gaza. As a result, the Christian population is quickly disappearing. In 1948 Christians made up 10% of the Palestinian territories; today they make up 1%. Read more here.
Interestingly, the only growing Christian population in the entire Middle East is in the one country in which Islam does not prevail, Israel. This tells us a lot about the fate of Christianity in that part of the world. The only Middle Eastern country where religious freedom, tolerance and democratic values exist is the Jewish state.
Nigeria. Here we have a Muslim-majority nation with a large (40%) Christian population. For years the two religions have coexisted side by side. But peace with Christians is unacceptable to the Islamist extremists who demand the imposition of sharia law and are willing to kill anyone, Christian or Muslim, who resists them. The primary terrorist group, Boko Haram, is apparently receiving aid from al-Qaida and has been responsible for the murder of hundreds of Christians and the destruction of dozens of churches in just the past few months. Read more here.
Apostasy. In most Islamic nations converts to Christianity are considered apostates. Sharia law is explicit about the punishment for apostasy: death. Iranian Christian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani remains in prison because he refuses to acknowledged publicly that prophet Muhammad is a messenger sent by God. To do so would be a rejection of his Christian beliefs and so he continues to resist bravely even though facing potential execution. And although several of the most prominent cases are in Iran, the imprisonment and execution of Christian converts from Islam occurs throughout the Muslim world. Converts living in Kenya have even been tracked from their countries of origin — e.g., Ethiopia and Uganda — by those intent on killing them. In Kuwait a royal prince who converted to Christianity has stated that as an apostate he will likely be targeted. And recently two converts to Christianity who believed they would be safe after moving to Norway were recently stabbed on the street by masked men shouting "Infidels!" Read more here. RAYMOND IBRAHIM: JANUARY 2012 THE INCREASE IN MUSLIM PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS
Protesters from the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami) and the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) surrounded the home where the GKI Yasmin congregation was holding its service in Bogor.
Indonesia. In this nation, often praised as the most open and tolerant of Muslim nations, attacks on Christians and their churches have more than doubled in the past year. Christians are not only being attacked in their churches by mobs of Muslim extremists, but these same mobs are seeking out and disrupting prayer meetings held in the homes of Christians. Read more here. [ Jakarta Globe: Radical Groups Disrupt Yasmin Church Sunday Service
Hundreds of people from various radical groups launched a search on Sunday to find the location of the Yasmin church congregation’s service and prevent them from worshiping. The groups even went to the home of one of the worshipers.
Protesters from the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami) and the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) surrounded the home where the service was held on Jalan Cempaka no. 10, Taman Yasmin complex in Bogor.
“It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place,” politician Lily Wahid, the sister of late president Abdurrahman Wahid, said at the scene.
Police were present to safeguard the house, but the worshipers were unable to leave the home because the mob blocked their way out.
The GKI Yasmin church has been illegally sealed off by the city administration on the pretext that the congregation doctored a petition needed to obtain a building permit.
The congregation has since 2008 been forced to hold Sunday services on the sidewalk outside the church and now in the home of parishioners.]
Just last month at the Vatican, Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Holy See's press office stated:
“Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism merits special attention. Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called “Arab spring”--a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate...Such sufferings are a part of the Christian journey. Nor ought we be amazed. Jesus said so in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,’ is the last of the Beatitudes; its promise is reward in heaven.”
Father Lombardi is right: we will be persecuted. As Christians we should know that we can't count on our governments to help us.[This includes North American governments] Our only, and best, source of help is the Lord, and our best weapon is prayer.
THE INCREASE IN MUSLIM PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS
RAYMOND IBRAHIM: JANUARY 2012http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2834/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january-2012
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2012/02/09/raymond-ibrahim-january-2012-the-increase-in-muslim-persecution-of-christians
She was flogged — given 40 lashes as hundreds of Muslim spectators jeered — for embracing a “foreign religion.” The beginning of the New Year saw only an increase in the oppression of Christians under Islam, from Nigeria, where an all-out jihad has been declared in an effort to eradicate the Muslim north of all Christians, to Europe, where Muslim converts to Christianity are still hounded and attacked as apostates. According to the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year”; in our lifetime alone, he predicts Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt. An international report found that Muslim nations make up nine out of the top ten countries where Christians face the “most severe” persecution. In response to these findings, a Vatican spokesman said that, “Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism, merits special attention. Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called “Arab spring”—a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate.” Categorized by theme, January’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity. APOSTASY Iran: A Christian convert who was arrested in her home has been sentenced to two years in prison. Previously, she endured five months of uncertainty detained in the notorious Evin prison, where the government hoped she would come to her senses and renounce Christianity. She was convicted of “broad anti-Islamic propaganda, deceiving citizens by formation of what is called a house church, insulting sacred figures and action against national security. ” Likewise, Iranian Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani continues to suffer in prison. Most recently, he rejected an offer to be released if he publicly acknowledged Islam’s prophet Muhammad as “a messenger sent by God,” which would amount to rejecting Christianity, as Muhammad and the Koran rejected it. Kenya: Muslim apostates seeking refuge in Kenya are being tracked and attacked by Muslims from their countries of origin: An Ethiopian who, upon converting to Christianity, was shot by his father, kidnapped and almost killed, is now receiving threatening text messages. Likewise, a Ugandan convert to Christianity is in hiding, his movements severely restricted since “the Muslims are looking to kill me. I need protection and help.” Kuwait: A royal prince who openly declared that he has converted to Christianity, confirmed the reality that he now might be targeted for killing as an apostate. Norway: While out for a walk, two Iranian converts to Christianity were stabbed with knives by masked men shouting “Infidels!” One of the men stabbed had converted in Iran, was threatened there, and so immigrated to Norway, thinking he could escape persecution there. Somalia: A female convert to Christianity was paraded before a cheering crowd and publicly flogged as punishment for embracing a “foreign religion.” Imprisoned since November, “the public whipping was meant to mark her release.” She received 40 lashes as hundreds of Muslim spectators jeered. An eyewitness said: “I saw her faint. I thought she had died, but soon she regained consciousness and her family took her away.” Similarly, “Somali Islamists arrested a Muslim father after two of his children converted to Christianity” and fled. He is accused of “failing to raise his sons as good Muslims, because “good Muslims cannot convert to Christianity.” Zanzibar: After being robbed, a Muslim convert to Christianity called police to his house; they discovered a Bible during their inspection. The course of inquiry changed from discovering the thieves to asking why he “was practicing a forbidden faith.” He was imprisoned for eight months without trial, and, since being released, has been rejected by his family and is now homeless and diseased. CHURCH ATTACKS Azerbaijan: A pastor has been threatened with criminal proceedings following a raid on his church during Sunday service. Earlier, he was told that “a criminal case had been launched over religious literature arousing incitement over other faiths,” and was pressured by authorities to leave the area, which he did, traveling great distances each week to lead church services. Egypt: Before a bishop was going to inaugurate the incomplete Abu Makka church and celebrate the Epiphany mass, a large number of Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members entered the building, asserting that the church had no license and no one should pray in it. One Muslim remarked that the building would be suitable for a mosque and a hospital. Indonesia: A sticker on the back of the car of a member of the beleaguered Yasmin church saying “We need a friendly Islam, not an angry Islam,” distributed by the family of the late Muslim president, prompted another Muslim attack on the church: scores of Muslims “terrorized the congregation and attacked several church members.” Since 2008, the congregation has been forced to hold Sunday services on the sidewalk outside the church and then later in the home of parishioners. Not satisfied, hundreds of Muslims later searched and found the private home where members were congregating and holding service and prevented them from worshiping even there: “It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place.” A new report notes that anti-Christian attacks have nearly doubled in the last year. Nigeria: Soon after jihadis issued an ultimatum giving Christians three days to evacuate the region or die, armed Muslims stormed a church and “opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer,” killing six, including the pastor’s wife. Then, as friends and relatives gathered to mourn the deaths of those slain, Muslims shouting “Allahu Akbar” appeared and opened fire again, killing another 20 Christians. Several other churches were bombed, and seven more Christians killed. Pakistan: Enraged by the voices of children singing carols at a nearby church, Muslims praying in a mosque decided to silence them—including with an axe: “The children were preparing for mass to be celebrated the next day which was a Sunday. The loud cheers became terrified whimpers when suddenly four men, one of them with an axe, barged into the church. The men slapped the children, wrecked the furniture, smashed the microphone on to the floor and kicked the altar. “You are disturbing our prayers. We can’t pray properly. How dare you use the mike and speakers?” (Islam forbids Christians from celebrating loudly in church, banning bells, microphones, and other aids). Also, a center owned by the Catholic church for 125 years, and used for “charitable purposes”—it housed a home for the elderly, a girls’ school, a convent and chapel for prayer—was demolished, after it was discovered that its land was worth a considerable amount of money; in the process, demolition workers destroyed Bibles, crosses, and a statue of Our Lady. Zanzibar: Muslims destroyed two churches: one was torched, while the other demolished—all to shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” DHIMMITUDE [General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as "Second-Class Citizens"] Denmark: In Muslim majority Odense, an Iranian Christian family had two cars consecutively vandalized—windows smashed, seats cut up, and set ablaze—because the cars had crucifixes hanging in them; the family has since relocated to an undisclosed location. Likewise, “Church Ministry” will change its name to “Ministry of Philosophy of Life” to accommodate Muslims. Egypt: In the latest round of collective punishment, a mob of over 3,000 Muslims attacked Christians in a village because of a rumor that a Coptic man had intimate photos of a Muslim woman on his phone (denied by the man). Coptic homes and shops were looted before being set ablaze. Three men were injured, while “terrorized” women and children who lost their homes stood in the streets with no place to go. As usual, it took the army an hour to drive 2 kilometers to the village and none of the perpetrators was arrested. Nigeria: Boko Haram Muslims set ablaze a Christian missionary home. Occupants of the home, mostly orphans and the less-privileged, were rendered homeless as a result. Meanwhile, a top officer allowed the mastermind behind the Christmas Day church bombings to escape, indicating how well entrenched Islamists are in government. Pakistan: A judge has denied bail to the latest Christian charged with desecrating the Koran, under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, despite the lack of evidence against him: according to Sharia, the word of a Christian is half that of his Muslim accuser – in this case, his landlord. Saudi Arabia: Officials strip-searched 29 Christian women and assaulted six Christian men after arresting them for holding a prayer meeting at a private home. Imprisoned last month without trial, they have not been told when or if they will be released. Authorities conducted the strip searches of the women, who insisted they had committed no crime, in unsanitary conditions. As a result, some of the women have experienced physical pain and illnesses, but authorities have provided no medical treatment. Sudan: Authorities threatened to arrest church leaders if they engage in “evangelistic activities” and fail to comply with an order for churches to provide names and identification: “The order was aimed at oppressing Christians amid growing hostilities toward Christianity… Sudanese law prohibits missionaries from evangelizing, and converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by imprisonment or death in Sudan, though previously such laws were not strictly enforced.” Accordingly, shortly after, two evangelists were arrested on spurious charges and beaten by police. Turkey: A Christian asylum seeker who fled from Iran because of his faith “was brutally assaulted by his employer with hot water, and his body was severely burned,” due to “the extreme religious views” of his Turkish Muslim employer, who “told him he had no rights and that he would not pay him any money,” after the Christian asked for his agreed wages. He “is just one example of hundreds of Iranian Christian asylum seekers who are living in such situations in Turkey.” ABDUCTIONS, RANSOM, MURDER Egypt: The abduction of a 16-year old Christian girl, who disappeared over a month ago, has become a “tug of war between the Christian family and Muslim lawyers.” The court sided with the Islamists, ordering the girl to be held in a state-owned care home until she turns 18—the legal age of conversion—instead of returning her to her family. Coptic activists argue that the decision “encourages Islamists to continue unabated the abduction of Christian minors for conversion to Islam.” Pakistan: A Christian girl who was abducted in 2001 when she was 15 and forced to marry a Muslim, returned to her Catholic family after 10 years. Her case is not an isolated one: “there are at least 700 cases a year of Christian girls kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim.” In the same vein, “within the past three months, nine women have been abducted and forcibly converted to Islam.” Sudan: After a large truck smashed through the gates of a Catholic Church compound, Muslims affiliated with Sudan’s Islamic government kidnapped two Catholic priests, “severely beat” them and looted their living quarters, stealing two vehicles, two laptops and a safe. Later, the kidnappers forced the priests to call their bishop with a ransom demand of 500,000 Sudanese pounds (US$185,530). Switzerland: A Muslim man hacked his daughter to death for dating a Christian: were they dating in a Muslim country, the Christian, as so often happens, would have likely received similar treatment. Syria: The Christian community in Syria has been hit by a series of kidnappings and brutal murders; 100 Christians were killed since the anti-government unrest began; “Children were being especially targeted by the kidnappers, who, if they do not receive the ransom demanded, kill the victim, including some who are “cut into pieces and thrown in a river.” These latest reports are reminiscent of the anti-Christian attacks that have been commonplace in Iraq for a decade. Tajikistan: A young man dressed as Father Frost—the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas—was stabbed to death while visiting relatives and bringing gifts. The Muslim mob beating and stabbing him screamed “You infidel!” leading police to cite “religious hatred” as motivation. About this Series Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes: To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians. To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia. Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who “offend” Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination. Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum
Rifqa Bary's story: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Rifqa_Bary
This is the story of Fathima Rifqa Bary. Born in Galle, Sri Lanka on August 10, 1992, Rifqa is the middle child of Mohamed and Aysha Risana Bary. When Rifqa was born, her family was wealthy. They owned a large house and enjoyed the benefits of a driver, a cook and a maid. Rifqa was a tiny newborn, just 5 pounds, and very quiet. Her older brother Rilvan, who was 6 years old at the time, threw a toy airplane at Rifqa and blinded her in the right eye when she was 5 years old. After the Doctors in Sri Lanka wanted to remove Rifqa's eye her father insisted that she get medical care in America. Mr. Bary was worried that just him and Rifqa leaving Sri Lanka to get treatment for her eye would mean a long separation from Aysha and Rilvan so they all moved to the United States in 2000 to seek medical attention for her eye injury. Overstaying their visa and not applying to become legal USA Citizens, the family remained in the United States illegally. They first lived in Queens, New York, but moved to Columbus, Ohio in 2004 because of its excellent public schools. Rifqa also has a little brother name Rajaa, who was 5 years old at the time she ran away.
The Barys' in Ohio:
Upon arriving in Ohio, Rifqa's family moved into a two bedroomed apartment with Rifqa having to share a room with her brothers. Her family owns one car, an 11 year old Honda station wagon that has 225,000 miles on it. Mohamed opened up his own store called Bary Gems Inc and Aysha ran a business of sewing bridal veils in their home. Rifqa became a Baby Sitter and she got a job at a Chinese Restaurant at a Strip Mall. On the weekends she'd go shopping and spend her money on clothes. Rifqa's favorite color is Pink. Later on in their late teen years Rifqa and Rilvan both attended New Albany High School. They also went to New Albany Elementary School and New Albany Middle School. A year after the Barys moved to New York they were no longer wealthy. Two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Mohamed was on a business trip, flying with a bag of gems, as he often did. However, this time the airline ordered him to check the bag. It was lost. According to David Leung, a close family friend, the bag contained nearly $400,000 worth of jewels, and financially, the family has not recovered from this loss. After this inccident, Rifqa's family lost almost everything.
Rifqa's parents felt it was very important that they keep their Sri Lankan culture including the Islamic traditions. They did not want their children to become too Westernized. Throughout her adolescence, Rifqa attended the local mosque Noor Islamic Cultural Center with her family on either Fridays or Saturdays, and she was required to wear the hijab there and memorize pages from the Qur'an. Rifqa was a Straight A Student, she took AP classes, she was an obedient daughter who called home if she was 10 minutes late so that her parents wouldn't worry, and she was on her school's Cheerleading Squad in Middle School and High School. Her parents did not understand exactly what cheerleading was, and they didn't know the true nature of the sport. Not once did they attend the games to watch and support her. Rifqa hid her cheerleading photos from them, and they never purchased yearbooks. Rifqa, at 5'2 and weighing only 75 lbs, described her father physically abusing her by slamming her in the face when she was too loud or socking her in the face for not wanting to wear the hijab to mosque. She described bruises as well as marks on her body from abusive incidents which, although more frequent when she was younger, still continued to happen as a teenager. Rilvan and Rifqa aren't close because he abused her. Rifqa and Rajaa are close and they have a special relationship.
Conversion to Christianity:
Rifqa secretly converted to Christianity on November 18, 2005 when she was 13 years-old. Rifqa attended Church with a friend and heard about Jesus. She smuggled a Bible into her home and kept it hidden in various places. She attended church services and prayer meetings in secret between her School, Homework, Work, Baby Sitting, and Cheerleading schedules. After becoming a Christian Rifqa joined Columbus Korean United Methodist Church without her family's knowledge. Through Facebook she found Christian friends from Ohio State University where there is an open prayer house. Rifqa was in Middle School when she became a Christian. After joining Columbus Korean United Methodist Church Rifqa became a member of the Church's Youth Group.
Eventually, in June 2009, Rifqa's religious beliefs were discovered by a member of Noor Islamic Cultural Center. Her parents were contacted by fellow Muslims regarding Rifqa's alleged change in religion. This is when Rifqa's father confronted her and threatened to hit his daughter with the laptop that he bought for her. He threatened to kill her if she in fact left Islam for Christianity. To calm her father, Rifqa told him that she truly desired to learn more about Islam. She remembered that converting back to Islam after apostasizing could save ones life.
It was at this time that Rifqa decided to be baptized in Big Walnut Creek on June 28, 2009 by her friend Brian Williams just in case something happened to her. Rifqa's baptism took place at Hoover Dam Park while her family wasn't home. In July her mother discovered one of Rifqa's books called "The Mantle of Esther". Rifqa described her mother as frantic and in tears as she phoned her husband. Rifqa's father threatned to kill her as soon as he got home from his business trip. Shortly after this happened Rifqa's father closed Bary Gems and her family packed their things to that they could return to Sri Lanka where Mr. Bary or Rilvan would proceed with the Honor Killing. That weekend Rifqa ran away. She left a note on her bed. Wearing only the clothes on her back and carrying a backpack, she headed to a neighbor's house at 7:00 AM on Sunday and asked for a ride to a local church where she hid and prayed all day. At around 11:00 PM a police officer came and told her she needed to leave. Checking the database and finding that she had not been reported missing, he drove her to the neighbor's house at her request. The next morning Brian helped Rifqa hitchhiked to the bus station and picked up a ticket that he purchased for her. After two or three weeks of hiding out at a pastor's home in Florida, she learned that Brian was being accused of kidnapping. That is when she contacted the authorities. By this time it was her 17th Birthday. Her parents didn't show the Police the note that Rifqa left them or her Diary and Journal. After the Police found out that she was in Florida via her Cell Phone Records and Internet Records Rifqa's family drove down to Florida to pick her up and return to Ohio followed by driving to the Airport to fly back home to Sri Lanka so Mr. Bary or Rilvan could kill her and she refused to go. So they took the case to Court.
On August 24, 2009 she was interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who conducted a frighteningly mediocre investigation with Ohio police who all-the-while maintained ignorance of Islamic doctrine and shari'a law (listen to the police interview here and view the investigation summary here). Not only did Rifqa fear physical punishment from her father, but she also feared being sent back to Sri Lanka where the laws are very different than here. She reiterated the fact that if a Muslim leaves Islam for a different Religion then by law their family has the right to kill them, and she genuinely feared for her life due to the dictates of Islam. She expressed fear of the Muslim community in Ohio because of the shari'a law regarding apostates. But by then thousands of people had seen Rifqa on YouTube, crying and saying that her father, because he is a Muslim, has no option but to kill her for abandoning Islam. Gov. Charlie Crist's office received hundreds of e-mails much of it anti-Muslim, urging him to block her return to Ohio. He did not, but he sent his general counsel, Rob Wheeler, and DCF Secretary George Sheldon to the August 21 hearing. While they sat watching, a DCF lawyer asked the judge to put off a decision on returning Rifqa to Ohio until September 3. He did.
Her parents fought to have Rifqa sent back to Ohio claiming that it was Ohio's jurisdiction, not Florida's. In Florida Judge Daniel P. Dawson ruled emergency jurisdiction until Rifqa's parents produced their immigration documents. Their lawyer made excuses and procrastinated, until nearly earning them a contempt-of-court charge. The Barys' lawyer made a deal without notifying Rifqa's lawyer.[1] Rifqa's parents lied to Judge Dawson and promised to drop the case, allowing her to remain in foster care until she turned 18, if the motion for their immigration papers was dropped. Rifqa was then sent to Ohio where her parents promptly fired their lawyer, hired a new one, and continued in their case against Rifqa. On November 16, a hearing on her dependency was scheduled. Pamela Geller, journalist of Atlas Shrugs, planned a rally for this date. Days before the rally, it was made known that the hearing was stricken, and another hearing on Rifqa's alleged incorrigibility was scheduled for December 22. Another rally was scheduled for that date in Columbus, Ohio. Thanks to the diligence of Pamela Geller, a clearer picture of what is happening to Rifqa has been made possible since the mainstream media has, at times, been downright dishonest and story biased when it was not turning a deliberately blind eye to her situation. The court process has been anything but transparent.[2] Rifqa had been under house arrest ever since Judge Dawson did the wrong thing and made her go back home. Rifqa was restricted from using the Phone and the Internet. She took online homeschooling classes at Focus Learning Academy via the Computer in her Foster Home and she was forbidden from visiting with her friend, a pastor, as well as other Christians.
Rilvan Bary and the Muslim stalker-blogger:
According to a source at the Jawa Report, Rifqa's older brother, Rilvan, broke the law by giving information on her Florida foster family to San Francisco-based Islamic stalker-blogger Davi Barker while the case still remained in Florida. He also gave Davi her Florida Based Address and Phone Number.[3] In September 2009, Davi issued this veiled threat: "'ll tell you one thing reader... if she's not safe in Ohio, she's not safe in Florida. All it took was a little creative Googling and I was able to determine the likely address where she's staying. But I digress."[4]
CAIR, Governor Strickland, and Rifqa Bary
The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an unindicted co-conspirator[5] in a federal terrorism financing trial with ties to Al-Qaeda.[6]
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland purportedly received campaign help from CAIR , and it is no secret that CAIR overwhelmingly supports the Democratic party over the GOP. On June 17, 2007 Governor Strickland spoke at the tenth annual banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter in that state (CAIR-OH) where the national Chairman Dr. Parvez Ahmed and several prominent imams also spoke (see CAIR's article here), and he even succeeded in making a bit of a faux pas by touching a Muslim woman on the back. He addressed the crowd of 350 people, saying: “On behalf of all Ohioans, my wife and I appreciate your vision to promote justice and mutual understanding. We gather under CAIR-Ohio's theme this year, ‘American Muslims: Connecting and Sharing,’ to do just that, to connect and share and get to know each other better.” He also expressed appreciation for "the Muslim traditions of strong family, hard work, and education,” and presented a proclamation honoring CAIR-Ohio’s work. (See also Strickland's staffer's response to questions and comments about CAIR's questionable ties.)
So what does all this have to do with Rifqa Bary? First of all, Babak Darvish, Executive Director of CAIR Columbus, and Romin Iqbal, Staff Attorney for CAIR-OH, were present when FDLE/DCF investigators interviewed Rifqa's father at the Bary family residence. The Jawa Report revealed photographs proving Rifqa's parents' ties to CAIR. Governor Strickland is doing nothing to ensure that her civil rights are upheld while she is in foster care in Ohio. In fact, in September, Governor Strickland issued this statement regarding the Rifqa Bary case which was still in Florida at the time: “We have no reason to believe that she would be unsafe in Ohio. Child welfare agencies and authorities in Ohio and Franklin County are fully capable of providing for the security and well-being of Ohio’s children. The Governor believes this is a family matter and therefore would most appropriately be handled here in Ohio with the assistance of the child welfare and foster care system.”
In 2003, a key finding of the Child and Family Services Review of Ohio’s child welfare programs was that the State did not achieve substantial conformity with any of the seven safety, permanency, or well-being outcomes. In addition, the State did not meet national standards for measures relating to repeat maltreatment, maltreatment of children in foster care, foster care re-entries, stability of foster care placements, the length of time to achieve reunification, or the length of time to achieve adoption.
According to an Executive Summary of the May 2009 Final Report: Ohio Child and Family Services Review: For the CFSR 12-month data period ending March 31, 2007, Ohio did not meet the national standards for the safety data indicators pertaining to the absence of maltreatment recurrence and the absence of maltreatment in foster care. In fact, Ohio is not in substantial conformity with Safety Outcome 1: Children are, first and foremost, protected from abuse and neglect. The outcome was substantially achieved in 63.2 percent of the applicable cases, which is less than the 95 percent required for a rating of substantial conformity. For the CFSR 12-month data period ending March 31, 2007, Ohio did not meet the national standards for the two data indicators relevant for Safety Outcome 1 pertaining to the absence of maltreatment recurrence and the absence of maltreatment of children in foster care by foster parents or facility staff.
So much for ensuring Rifqa's safety and civil rights.
The court case:
In December 2009, government caseworker outlined a plan calling for Rifqa Bary and her parents to listen to each other's views on religion. On December 11, 2009 The Jawa Report posted this information:
CAIR Attorney Demands Ban and Seizure of all Christmas Cards sent to Rifqa Bary
In a stunning development in the ongoing legal saga of Muslim-turned-Christian convert Rifqa Bary, the parents' attorney, Omar Tarazi, filed a motion with the Franklin County courts last week moving to ban on all Christmas cards being sent to Rifqa through her attorneys, and demanding the seizure from her of all Christmas cards that she might have already received. And yet her parents still make representations to the media that they intend to honor and respect her Christian faith, while their attorney files sealed motions stating that Christmas cards are "dangerous to her health and safety".
This news and a copy of the motion were provided to me from a source inside CAIR, who noted that CAIR has raised funds for the Bary's legal jihad to have the courts return the 17 year-old to her allegedly abusive Muslim family. According to affidavits filed in the case, Rifqa states that her father threatened to kill her for leaving Islam, which prompted her to flee her Ohio home and take refuge with a pastor and his family in Florida. In an interview with Florida investigators, her father admitted to the incident, but denies threatening her life. The family also attends the terror-tied Noor Islamic Cultural Center in the Columbus area. Both she and the ongoing legal case have since been transferred from Florida back to Ohio.
The court will hear Tarazi's motion for the ban and seizure of all of Rifqa's Christmas cards on December 22nd.
CAIR Attorney Demands Ban and Seizure of all Christmas Cards sent to Rifqa Bary (Bumped) ***And Updated***
The Jawa Report, December 11, 2009
In a stunning development in the ongoing legal saga of Muslim-turned-Christian convert Rifqa Bary, the parents' attorney, Omar Tarazi, filed a motion with the Franklin County courts last week moving to ban on all Christmas cards being sent to Rifqa through her attorneys, and demanding the seizure from her of all Christmas cards that she might have already received. And yet her parents still make representations to the media that they intend to honor and respect her Christian faith, while their attorney files sealed motions stating that Christmas cards are "dangerous to her health and safety".
This news and a copy of the motion were provided to me from a source inside CAIR, who noted that CAIR has raised funds for the Bary's legal jihad to have the courts return the 17 year-old to her allegedly abusive Muslim family. According to affidavits filed in the case, Rifqa states that her father threatened to kill her for leaving Islam, which prompted her to flee her Ohio home and take refuge with a pastor and his family in Florida. In an interview with Florida investigators, her father admitted to the incident, but denies threatening her life. The family also attends the terror-tied Noor Islamic Cultural Center in the Columbus area. Both she and the ongoing legal case have since been transferred from Florida back to Ohio.
The court will hear Tarazi's motion for the ban and seizure of all of Rifqa's Christmas cards on December 22nd.
CAIR Attorney Demands Ban and Seizure of all Christmas Cards sent to Rifqa Bary (Bumped) ***And Updated***
The Jawa Report, December 11, 2009
The Jawa Report also posted the motion filed with the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas:
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO DIVISION OF DOMESTIC RELATIONS AND JUVENILE BRANCH
IN THE MATTER OF:
FATHIMA RIFQA BARY,
AN ALLEGED DEPENDENT CHILD
Case No. 09 JU 11 14895
Judge: GILL
Magistrate: GOODRICH
MOTION TO ENJOIN COUNSEL FROM PASSING MESSAGES OF THIRD PARTIES DIRECTLY TO THE MINOR CHILD
Wherefore, now come Mohamed Bary and Aysha Risana Bary, the parents of Fathima Rifqa Bary, by and through counsel, Omar Tarazi, and move the Court to enjoin Fathima Rifqa Bary's attorneys from passing messages of third parties directly to the minor child without the approval and supervision of Franklin County Children Services; Petitioner moves the court to order Fathima Rifqa Bary and her attorneys to turn over all such communications in their possession or control to FCCS; that third party adults are not to be allowed to communicate with Fathima Rifqa Bary until an approved list is determined by FCCS after consultation with all parties. This motion is supported by the attached memorandum of law.
Omar Tarazi (0084165) [Address and phone numbers removed]
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
1- Certain hate filled sites for bigotry and propaganda are advertising Fathima Rifqa Bary’s attorney, Angela Lloyd address as the approved mean for the readers of the sites to get messages delivered to Fathima Rifqa Bary under the guise of sending her “Christmas Cards.” http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
2- The particular sites involved have been inciting hatred regarding the current case with such posts as, “Strickland is demented. He knows the fatal record of his Child Services department. Why did he insist that Rifqa be returned? She was perfectly safe and perfectly happy in Florida. Why did this tool of jihad force the hand of Florida? Strickland says a killer is innocent, but Rifqa is guilty of not submitting to the religion of misogyny, gender apartheid and slavery. There is a level of corruption and Islamic influence all the way up to Strickland’s office that is deeply troubling. He’s on their payroll…Are they medicating her [Rifqa Bary] under the “psychiatric evaluation” findings? Who knows? Do the Islamic apologists in the Ohio media even so much as question this fascism? Not a peep.” http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
3- Allowing the readers of such sites to have a channel of communication to Fathima Rifqa Bary is dangerous to her health and safety. It also undermines the ability of Franklin County Children Services to do its job in supervising and protecting Fathima Rifqa Bary. The GAL for Fathima Rifqa Bary, FCCS and the parents of the minor child have a right to know when third parties are communicating to the minor child particularly when the third parties might endanger the health and safety of the minor child.
4- Therefore, for the safety and security of Fathima Rifqa Bary we ask the court to enjoin Fathima Rifqa Bary’s attorneys from passing messages to their client from third parties and order them to deliver all such communications in their possession or control for Fathima Rifqa Bary that have come from third parties to this action to FCCS and order Fathima Rifqa Bary to turn over any communications in her possession or control she has already received from third parties through her attorneys to FCCS; that third party adults are not to be allowed to communicate with Fathima Rifqa Bary until an approved list is determined by FCCS in consultation with all parties.
Omar Tarazi (0084165)
[Address and phone number removed]
CAIR Attorney Demands Ban and Seizure of all Christmas Cards sent to Rifqa Bary (Bumped) ***And Updated***
The Jawa Report, December 11, 2009
IN THE MATTER OF:
FATHIMA RIFQA BARY,
AN ALLEGED DEPENDENT CHILD
Case No. 09 JU 11 14895
Judge: GILL
Magistrate: GOODRICH
MOTION TO ENJOIN COUNSEL FROM PASSING MESSAGES OF THIRD PARTIES DIRECTLY TO THE MINOR CHILD
Wherefore, now come Mohamed Bary and Aysha Risana Bary, the parents of Fathima Rifqa Bary, by and through counsel, Omar Tarazi, and move the Court to enjoin Fathima Rifqa Bary's attorneys from passing messages of third parties directly to the minor child without the approval and supervision of Franklin County Children Services; Petitioner moves the court to order Fathima Rifqa Bary and her attorneys to turn over all such communications in their possession or control to FCCS; that third party adults are not to be allowed to communicate with Fathima Rifqa Bary until an approved list is determined by FCCS after consultation with all parties. This motion is supported by the attached memorandum of law.
Omar Tarazi (0084165) [Address and phone numbers removed]
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
1- Certain hate filled sites for bigotry and propaganda are advertising Fathima Rifqa Bary’s attorney, Angela Lloyd address as the approved mean for the readers of the sites to get messages delivered to Fathima Rifqa Bary under the guise of sending her “Christmas Cards.” http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
2- The particular sites involved have been inciting hatred regarding the current case with such posts as, “Strickland is demented. He knows the fatal record of his Child Services department. Why did he insist that Rifqa be returned? She was perfectly safe and perfectly happy in Florida. Why did this tool of jihad force the hand of Florida? Strickland says a killer is innocent, but Rifqa is guilty of not submitting to the religion of misogyny, gender apartheid and slavery. There is a level of corruption and Islamic influence all the way up to Strickland’s office that is deeply troubling. He’s on their payroll…Are they medicating her [Rifqa Bary] under the “psychiatric evaluation” findings? Who knows? Do the Islamic apologists in the Ohio media even so much as question this fascism? Not a peep.” http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
3- Allowing the readers of such sites to have a channel of communication to Fathima Rifqa Bary is dangerous to her health and safety. It also undermines the ability of Franklin County Children Services to do its job in supervising and protecting Fathima Rifqa Bary. The GAL for Fathima Rifqa Bary, FCCS and the parents of the minor child have a right to know when third parties are communicating to the minor child particularly when the third parties might endanger the health and safety of the minor child.
4- Therefore, for the safety and security of Fathima Rifqa Bary we ask the court to enjoin Fathima Rifqa Bary’s attorneys from passing messages to their client from third parties and order them to deliver all such communications in their possession or control for Fathima Rifqa Bary that have come from third parties to this action to FCCS and order Fathima Rifqa Bary to turn over any communications in her possession or control she has already received from third parties through her attorneys to FCCS; that third party adults are not to be allowed to communicate with Fathima Rifqa Bary until an approved list is determined by FCCS in consultation with all parties.
Omar Tarazi (0084165)
[Address and phone number removed]
CAIR Attorney Demands Ban and Seizure of all Christmas Cards sent to Rifqa Bary (Bumped) ***And Updated***
The Jawa Report, December 11, 2009
The following article is from the Jawa Report:
Parents of Rifqa Bary ask court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with Muslim counselor (bumped, sticky)
...and the counselor they demand she attend filed an affidavit in support of Rifqa being held in contempt!
The next episode in the legal battle between Muslim-turned-Christian convert Rifqa Bary and her allegedly abusive parents will occur next Tuesday in an Ohio courtroom. As I reported last Friday, one of the issues that will be heard by the court is a motion by the CAIR-appointed attorney to the Bary parents demanding that all Christmas cards sent to Rifqa be banned, and any cards she has already received be seized. On Monday, we provided clear evidence of CAIR's backstage handling of the media in this case.
Another issue next week will be another motion filed by the Bary parents asking the court to hold Rifqa in contempt for refusing to attend counseling sessions with a Muslim counselor. Amazingly, the counselor that the Bary parents are attempting to force her to see filed a affidavit supporting the parents' motion to hold Rifqa in contempt of court. How could this counselor be remotely neutral?
Parents of Rifqa Bary ask court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with Muslim counselor (bumped, sticky)
The Jawa Report, December 18, 2009
...and the counselor they demand she attend filed an affidavit in support of Rifqa being held in contempt!
The next episode in the legal battle between Muslim-turned-Christian convert Rifqa Bary and her allegedly abusive parents will occur next Tuesday in an Ohio courtroom. As I reported last Friday, one of the issues that will be heard by the court is a motion by the CAIR-appointed attorney to the Bary parents demanding that all Christmas cards sent to Rifqa be banned, and any cards she has already received be seized. On Monday, we provided clear evidence of CAIR's backstage handling of the media in this case.
Another issue next week will be another motion filed by the Bary parents asking the court to hold Rifqa in contempt for refusing to attend counseling sessions with a Muslim counselor. Amazingly, the counselor that the Bary parents are attempting to force her to see filed a affidavit supporting the parents' motion to hold Rifqa in contempt of court. How could this counselor be remotely neutral?
Parents of Rifqa Bary ask court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with Muslim counselor (bumped, sticky)
The Jawa Report, December 18, 2009
Read the coverage from Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs regarding the conflicting affadavits from Brian Smith (who sounds suspiciously like a dhimmi folding under Islamic pressure) and Blake Lorenze, the pastor who opened his home to Rifqa when she ran away from home this past summer. According to Geller's coverage on January 22, 2010: Alleged Thief Brian Smith Ran a Business out of the Global Revolution Church's PO Box Where Rifqa's Funds Were Robbed -- He Was Opening Lorenz's mail and Forwarding It to CAIR Team.
And the latest from the Jawa Report, January 7, 2010:
CAIR attorney lies in court motions in Rifqa Bary case, commits perjury about connections to CAIR and Ohio terror mosque
The CAIR attorney representing the Bary parents in the Rifqa Bary saga has not only committed a major legal blunder, but has perjured himself in motions recently submitted to the Ohio court. In the filings, CAIR attorney Omar Tarazi denied connections to CAIR and to the Ohio terror mosque responsible for pressuring Rifqa's father, Mohamed Bary, prompting the threats to his daughter about her conversion to the Christian faith.
When the case was still in Florida, Rifqa's attorney John Stemberger submitted a 35-page memorandum to the court about the extensive terror ties of the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, the mosque attended by the Bary family. To avoid exposing the Noor Center's radical connections (the mosque's founder and spiritual leader Hany Saqr was identified in documents in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial as one of the top North American leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the mosque's former resident scholar Salah Soltan has appeared at events in the Middle East with designated terrorists), any connection between the Noor Center, CAIR and parents' attorneys were repeatedly dismissed in court by the Florida attorney Shayan Elahi. In an appearance on Fox News this week, Elahi lied again about CAIR and Noor's involvement.
Now that CAIR and the Noor Center's major role in this case has been raised again in Ohio, Omar Tarazi has attempted to conceal the connections and directions that both have played in this case, and the obvious conflict of interest presented in Tarazi's attempt to represent the parents while taking direction from CAIR and the Noor Center leadership.
In these recent motions, Tarazi openly lied to the court about CAIR and Noor's involvement in the case, claiming no association with either and denying that they are involved in funding the Bary parents' case. But we can present here exclusive evidence disproving those lies in the form of a Facebook email sent by none other than Noor Center CEO Hany Saqr announcing that Tarazi would be speaking at Eid morning prayers on November 27th:
(See cache of the email here.)
According to three independent sources who were at Tarazi's talk, he not only gave an update on the case, but a collection was taken afterward to finance his client's case. If he is receiving no compensation from this offering, where exactly is the money going that has been raised on several occasions by the mosque specifically for the Bary's defense? In addition, at least one member of the local media was in attendance at his presentation -- an explicit violation of the judge's gag order in the case. Tarazi also forgot to mention in his filings that he is a regular attendee at the terror mosque. No connections, eh?
Two weeks ago we presented here conclusive photographic evidence of CAIR's management of the media in this case. We also noted back in September that CAIR officials were present when Florida investigators interviewed Rifqa's parents (conversely, Rifqa was interrogated alone for three and a half hours without her attorneys present). And back in August when this case first began, we noted from inside sources that CAIR was formulating a media strategy to promote lies about Rifqa and the Florida pastors that received her after her escape from the Bary home.
Why would Omar Tarazi jeopardize his legal career and face possible criminal penalties to continue to cover-up CAIR and the Noor Center's involvement in this case when evidence is already available exposing his lies? Only Tarazi can answer that question. And we hope the judge in this case demands some answers.
CAIR attorney lies in court motions in Rifqa Bary case, commits perjury about connections to CAIR and Ohio terror mosque
The Jawa Report, January 07, 2010
The CAIR attorney representing the Bary parents in the Rifqa Bary saga has not only committed a major legal blunder, but has perjured himself in motions recently submitted to the Ohio court. In the filings, CAIR attorney Omar Tarazi denied connections to CAIR and to the Ohio terror mosque responsible for pressuring Rifqa's father, Mohamed Bary, prompting the threats to his daughter about her conversion to the Christian faith.
When the case was still in Florida, Rifqa's attorney John Stemberger submitted a 35-page memorandum to the court about the extensive terror ties of the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, the mosque attended by the Bary family. To avoid exposing the Noor Center's radical connections (the mosque's founder and spiritual leader Hany Saqr was identified in documents in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial as one of the top North American leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the mosque's former resident scholar Salah Soltan has appeared at events in the Middle East with designated terrorists), any connection between the Noor Center, CAIR and parents' attorneys were repeatedly dismissed in court by the Florida attorney Shayan Elahi. In an appearance on Fox News this week, Elahi lied again about CAIR and Noor's involvement.
Now that CAIR and the Noor Center's major role in this case has been raised again in Ohio, Omar Tarazi has attempted to conceal the connections and directions that both have played in this case, and the obvious conflict of interest presented in Tarazi's attempt to represent the parents while taking direction from CAIR and the Noor Center leadership.
In these recent motions, Tarazi openly lied to the court about CAIR and Noor's involvement in the case, claiming no association with either and denying that they are involved in funding the Bary parents' case. But we can present here exclusive evidence disproving those lies in the form of a Facebook email sent by none other than Noor Center CEO Hany Saqr announcing that Tarazi would be speaking at Eid morning prayers on November 27th:
(See cache of the email here.)
According to three independent sources who were at Tarazi's talk, he not only gave an update on the case, but a collection was taken afterward to finance his client's case. If he is receiving no compensation from this offering, where exactly is the money going that has been raised on several occasions by the mosque specifically for the Bary's defense? In addition, at least one member of the local media was in attendance at his presentation -- an explicit violation of the judge's gag order in the case. Tarazi also forgot to mention in his filings that he is a regular attendee at the terror mosque. No connections, eh?
Two weeks ago we presented here conclusive photographic evidence of CAIR's management of the media in this case. We also noted back in September that CAIR officials were present when Florida investigators interviewed Rifqa's parents (conversely, Rifqa was interrogated alone for three and a half hours without her attorneys present). And back in August when this case first began, we noted from inside sources that CAIR was formulating a media strategy to promote lies about Rifqa and the Florida pastors that received her after her escape from the Bary home.
Why would Omar Tarazi jeopardize his legal career and face possible criminal penalties to continue to cover-up CAIR and the Noor Center's involvement in this case when evidence is already available exposing his lies? Only Tarazi can answer that question. And we hope the judge in this case demands some answers.
CAIR attorney lies in court motions in Rifqa Bary case, commits perjury about connections to CAIR and Ohio terror mosque
The Jawa Report, January 07, 2010
Dependent of the State:
On January 19, 2010 the Courts allowed Rifqa to become a Dependent of the State of Ohio and stay with her Foster Family until her 18th Birthday after Rifqa agreed that she broke the rules when she ran away from home. After Mr. and Mrs. Bary learned that Rifqa had been given permission to contact Reverend Lorenz and his wife they tried to back out of the agreement, but Judge Elizabeth Gill refused to let them do it. In April 2010 Rifqa's lawyers asked Judge Gill to sign a paper saying that it's impossible for Rifqa to be reunited with her family and allow her to become a legal U.S. Citizen. Her parents lied and said that they applied for the whole family to live in America legally. Judge Gill said No to signing Rifqa's paper and made Rifqa keep her promise to attend counseling with her family in the hopes of reuniting them before she turns 18. Rifqa graduated from High School in June 2010.
Fight against cancer:
Rifqa Bary was diagnosed with uterine cancer on May 25, 2010. Rifqa's lawyers brought her parents in to see her while she was in the Hospital before her last surgery took place. Rifqa was very upset when she saw her parents and they had to be removed from her hospital room. She had three sugeries in total, with her third and final one being performed on May 28, 2010. All three of her surgeries where a complete sucess and the Doctors removed all of the cancer. Her cancer was a very aggressive form. After running some tests the Doctors told Rifqa that she had Stage 2 uterine cancer. Rifqa was supposed to have Chemotherapy for 45 weeks, but she stopped getting Chemotherapy after going to Youngstown to see a Faith Healer and said that by the Grace of God she's been healed. The treatments for her Cancer made Rifqa sick and weak. She is now cancer free. Rifqa's parents asked the Courts to force their daughter to continue getting Chemotherapy, but they rejected their request. The Doctor said that Rifqa's old enough to make the decision to quit Chemotherapy. However, Rifqa will continue to see her Doctor. Rifqa was offered a Scholarship for a Christian College, but her lawyers did not notify her in time so she did not get the Scholarship.
On August 5, 2010 Mary Goodrich agreed to allow Rifqa to apply for an immigration status. Rifqa's lawyers were hoping that the imigration status will allow Rifqa to apply for a green card without her parents permission, so that she can stay in America and continue her cancer treatment after she turns 18. Ms. Goodrich decided that it's not best for Rifqa to be sent back to Sri Lanka and that it's impossible for Rifqa and her parents to be reunited before her Birthday.
Rifqa turns eighteen:
On August 10, 2010, Rifqa turned 18. Hopefully she will now be able to practice her faith without fear. She has stated her want to "preach the word to all the nations",[7] and as an adult she is free to do as she chooses and is no longer a ward of the State of Ohio. Her parents are upset that she's not coming home, but they told her that they love her and their door is always open if she ever wants to move back in with them. Rifqa isn't going to speak to the Media yet. Out of all of Rifqa's family members Rajaa is the only one who's a legal U.S. citizen as he was born in America 3 years after Rifqa and her family moved to the United States of America. Rifqa has been sending her parents Videos of herself and writing them letters and telling them that she loves them and thanking them for helping her become her Class's Valedictorian. If the cancer comes back it will spread through out Rifqa's body and she won't make it. In September 2010, the Immigration Officials in Ohio gave Rifqa her green card.[8] She can now officially stay in The United States and when she's 23 she can apply to be a legal U.S. Citizen. Rifqa no longer has to worry about being sent back home to her parents or being deported back to Sri Lanka again and she can continue to get cancer treatment. However, Rifqa still has to worry about her cancer coming back and the Muslim Community in Ohio.
Don't fall for the takiyya of American Muslim groups like CAIR who sat beside Rifqa's parents as they were interviewed by the police and ISNA. There have been far too many honor killings in the West and world wide for people to dismiss apostates like Rifqa as paranoid or liars.
References :
1.↑ Christian Teen's Lawyer: Rifqa at More Risk in OH - CBN News, November 3, 2009
2.↑ Pamela Geller - New Rights Violations: Isolation - Rifqa Denied Visitors, Those Who Were Allowed were Fingerprinted - Atlas Shrugs, November 18, 2009
3.↑ Source: Rifqa Bary’s brother brags he leaked her foster care location to Muslim stalker-blogger - The Jawa Report, October 5, 2009
4.↑ Davi Barker - Rifqa Bary Part II: The fake apostate conspiracy - SF Muslim Examiner, September 3, 2009
5.↑ DOJ: CAIR's Unindicted Co-Conspirator Status Legit - IPT News, March 12, 2010
6.↑ Tom Blumer - CAIR and Al-Qaeda Connected; Does Anyone in Old Media Care? - NewsBusters, June 24, 2007
7.↑ Happy 18th Birthday Rifqa Bary! - Former Muslims United, August 11, 2010
8.↑ Runaway Christian Convert From Ohio Gains Legal U.S. Residency - Associated Press, September 7, 2010
Soon persecution of Christians in America?!!
