Christians Under Siege Around The World: Why the Silence?

Christians around the world are besieged by militant opponents. With the exception of North Korea and China, the communist threat to religious freedom has diminished. Most opppression of Christians today is done in the name of Islam. Here are a few flashpoints of anti Christian hatred in the world today.

In Nigeria, post election violence has cost appoximately 400 lives. According to the Church Times website,

“CHRISTIANS in northern Nigeria have said that inaccurate reporting of riots in Jos at the weekend could fuel further Muslim violence against them. The worst sectarian violence in recent years claimed around 400 lives, a figure which the Bishop of Jos, the Rt Revd Ben Kwashi, said was likely to rise.”

Like many African countries, Nigeria is stitched together from disparate tribes. Elections are often divided among tribal lines. The added dimension of Christian-Islamic religious tensions creates a volatile mix that is being stoked by outside interest in Islamic expansion.

The Church Times website elaborates upon the post election pogroms as follows.“The attacks appeared to have been aimed at Christian churches, busi­nesses, and clergy homes. Sixteen churches were razed. Medical per­sonnel had taken many dead to the hospital, said Bishop Kwashi, and the total fatalities were likely to be between 500 and 600. The Bishop was both furious and despairing on Tuesday. “We are the victims of any Islamic anger. Two years ago, it was the Danish cartoons. Now they are trying to lay it at the feet of the elections. We have become a convenient scapegoat and target for those with grievances about events both home and abroad.”

Further north in Egypt, Coptic Christians , who are the descendants of Egypts’s original inhabitants are besieged by Islamic bigots. They comprise about 10% of Egypt’s population and suffer from debilitating officially sanctioned and assisted persecution.

According to Compass Direct News

a site that monitors religious persecution, “Two Coptic Christians wrongfully arrested for killing a Muslim during the May 31 attack on Abu Fana monastery in Egypt have been tortured and sent to a detention camp so authorities could try to extract a false confession, their lawyer said.

Egyptian authorities sent brothers Refaat and Ibrahim Fawzy Abdo to El Wadi El Gadid Detention Camp near the Egypt-Sudan border on Nov. 22. A week earlier they were bailed out pending their court case – but never released – and held in a Mallawi police station until their transfer to the camp.

The brothers’ attorney, Zakary Kamal, said the timing of the murder at the monastery rules out any possibility of the two Copts having committed it.”

Doc’s Talk, a blog that promotes religious freedom reports on the grim nature of the attack on the Coptic monastery as follows.

“Ibrahim Tiqi Riad, the brother of resident monk Father Mina, was also kidnapped and remains missing. A Coptic priest who preferred to remain anonymous told Compass that they believe he may have been forcibly converted to Islam.

In the course of the violence, attackers tied two of the kidnapped monks to a palm tree, whipped and beat them, and forced them to spit on a cross and give the confession of Islam, according to a report by the Coptic Assembly of America.”

It is clear that any Muslim attackers killed in the attack on the monastery were probably killed by individuals acting in self defense. Such common sense is, however not to be taken for granted in the Egyptian judicial system.

In another case reflecting the insanity of Egypt’s judicial system, two sisters who did not know that their father had years before briefly converted to Islam were jailed for claiming themselves to be Christian.

According to Compass News, “A Supreme Court judge in Egypt on Nov. 22 granted Christian Bahia El-Sisi the right to appeal her conviction for falsification of documents – a charge stemming from her official papers not identifying her as a Muslim.

In addition, Judge Abdel Meged Mahmood on Nov. 25 rescinded a Sept. 23 warrant for El-Sisi’s arrest, declaring that she should be free pending a final decision. Mahmood is the same judge who in January freed El-Sisi’s sister, who had been convicted on the same charges of “forgery.”

The charges against El-Sisi and her sister, Shadia El-Sisi, claimed that their marriage certificates contained false information that they were Christians. Unknown to them, their religious identity officially changed 46 years ago due to their father’s brief conversion to Islam. Both are illiterate.”

A Muslim who converts to Christianity in Egypt can be killed. A christian who converts, even under duress must remain Muslim forever under p

ain of death. A Coptic Priest, Father Boutros Zakaria broadcasts refutations of Islam from a Christian perspective by satellite in Arabic. He is hiding at an undisclosed location from Islamic fanatics who want to kill him. In a time of fanatic Islamic proselytising, he is leading the charge of defending Christianity and refuting Islam. Both Jews and Christians will need to develop this area of their respective bodies of religious literature. I have included some brief clips of Boutros Zakaria with subtitles for educational purposes.

In Kenya, 1500 Christians were killed in anti Christian violence after pro Muslim candidate Raila Odinga narrowly lost an election in that country. A power sharing agreement brokered in part by Condoleeza Rice rewarded him with a power sharing agreement.

In Sudan, genocide continues against African Christians continues, spearheaded by an Arab Muslim minority in a manner that suggests bigotry and apartheid.

According to unitedhumanrights.org,

“A large Arab militia known as the Janjaweed has been the main group employed by the government to implement this policy of genocide in Sudan. They are armed by the government and sent into various African villages where they proceed to kill civilians of all ages, burn down houses, destroy crops and livestock, carry out mass executions, target vital infrastructure, and commit wide-scale rape. Reports coming out of the region speak regularly of such brutal acts as men being chained together and thrown into burning huts, women being raped in front of their loved ones, and children being kidnapped from their families. To date, over 400,000 people have died as a result of the Sudan genocide campaign and 2.5 million have been internally displaced. “Despite the denial of involvement with such crimes by the Sudanese government, the facts show that high ranking officials are coordinating the Sudan genocide. Sudanese intelligence forces are known to be in close communication with the militias and air force planes regularly conduct bombing raids on villages and fleeing civilians prior to Janjaweed invasions. In July of 2004, Human Rights Watch released a report revealing internal government documents showing that the central government both armed and coordinated the Janjaweed to carry out the Sudan genocide. In addition, the government has gone to great lengths to make sure that no news reporters or humanitarian personnel are allowed into the villages being targeted in Darfur.

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According to jihadwatch.org even Africans who convert to Islam are still treated as third class human beings. They report as follows about a protest against the state visit of a Mauritanian Arab leader.

“African Muslims from Mauritania and Sudan are joining to protest the visit to the State Department of Ould Taya, Arab leader of Mauritania, an African country ruled and brutally controlled by Arab regimes. Taya is coming to United States to arrange oil trading with the Bush Administration. This protest builds on the growing cooperation of African Muslims from Sudan and Mauritania to protest Arab colonialism, slaughter and enslavement of black Africans.

Mansour Kane, a Mauritanian Muslim of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Mauritania, said, “Ould Taya’s hands are dirty with the blood of thousands of non-Arab black people in Mauritania.”

Mamadou Barry, of the African Liberation Forces, said two of the slogans of the demonstration will be, “No Arab expansionism in Africa,” and “Stop the genocide in Darfur.”

Kane said, “The Arabs enslaved blacks in my country hundreds of years ago. Today they still have Black Muslim slaves by the tens of thousands, and they are pushing the free Blacks off our land in the south.”

It is beyond my understanding the apathy to the human rights of Christians in Africa meets with such deafening silence. People are dying in large numbers on multiple fronts. It is hard not to see a component of racism in the indifference to their plight. Although I appeal to all citizens upon grounds of basic decency to adopt the cause of besieged Christians, I am placing this article on the American Sentinel, whose readership has, I believe as good a sense of justice and fairness as can be found anyplace.

Material relief , advocacy and legal defense are all critical areas. I urge my readers to get involved in this critical issue.