Two Christians Kidnapped from a Hospital in Pakistan

According to this article in the Times of India:-

ISLAMABAD: Suspected pro-Taliban militants kidnapped two Christians from a hospital in Pakistan's North Waziristan, a news report has said.

Masked men kidnapped the two Christian sanitation workers from the Miranshah Headquarters Hospital in North Waziristan on Friday, eyewitnesses said. Naeem Masih and Shahbaz Masih were abducted "right from the main gate of the hospital", the Daily Times quoted witnesses as saying. Around 1,000 Christians live in Miranshah.

. . .

Islamist militants in Pakistan have regularly threatened to kill Christian clerics in Southern Punjab's Khanewal district if they did not "embrace Islam and stop preaching Christianity." Demanding equal opportunities "as promised" by Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, minority organisations in August had sought a ban on forced conversions and repeal of the stringent blasphemy laws in the Islamic country.

How dare they demand equal opportunities and a ban on forced conversions!

Off Topic: Abortion

Just over a week ago, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, made a statement on abortion which closely mirrored the way my mind was working. He said:-

The British public is in danger of losing its 'moral focus' on abortion and treating the procedure as normal, rather than a last resort, says the Archbishop of Canterbury.

. . .

There has been an obvious weakening of the feeling that abortion is a last resort in cases of extreme danger or distress,' Williams writes, noting that 'nearly 200,000 abortions a year in England and Wales tell their own story'.

. . .

He also suggests that the present 24-week limit for abortions should be reviewed. 'This issue needs attention, if only because of the fact that the existing law assumes a rather less developed state of medical science than is now the case.'

The extracts shown above are the ones that most closely match what I had been thinking. Then I read this article about abortion in Algeria:-

Banned by law and condemned by Islam, abortion remains a taboo in Algeria, where those who want to interrupt their pregnancy are forced to turn to doctors who operate illegally or to go to Tunisia where the law is more permissive. Despite the strict laws that envisage from five-year prison sentence for those who practice abortion to life sentence for those who practice it repeatedly, at least 80,000 women decide to resort to illegal abortions every year, according to police data. For years, women's rights associations have called unsuccessfully for the decriminalisation of abortion, with the latest appeal coming a few days ago by the president of the Medical Deontology Council, Bekat Borkani, who requested: "to at least allow abortion for women victims of rape". According to some experts, the net increase of the interrupted pregnancies in the last five years is in fact a direct consequence of the increase of sexual violence. According to the data by some associations, two rapes take place in the North African country every 36 hours, although charges are rarely pressed.

80,000 abortions a year in a country where abortion is completely illegal! For comparison, the population of Algeria is some 33.3 million.

This is where I run out of words. Make up your own mind.

Pakistan: Muslims Apologize for Attack on Chrurch

Another attack on a church in Pakistan. It's all right, though - they apologized:-

Muslims who attacked a Pakistani church and declared religious war against Christians from mosque minarets have apologized for their actions, human rights workers said.

. . .

No charges have been brought against the 300 Punjabi Muslim villagers who vandalized the New Apostolic Church at 6 a.m. October 10. The mob broke church windows, threw dung on its walls and cut wires to the church’s loudspeaker.

But subsequent threats against Gowindh’s Christians were even more serious than the initial attack, Mehboob Khan of the HRCP told Compass.

Following these acts of vandalism, Muslim clerics called for jihad, Islamic holy war, against the Christian “infidels.” The clerics issued the call from the town’s eight mosques, Khan said.

Another HRCP worker who visited the village, located east of Lahore on the Indian border, said that the threats had included demands for Christians to convert to Islam.

“Become Muslims or be prepared to fight or die,” the clerics announced from the mosque loudspeakers, HRCP member Nadeem Anthony said. “This was the first time it happened, which is why the villagers were so scared.”

This story contains several common elements: the violence being incited from Mosques, a declaration of religious war and the choice to convert, fight or die. They then imposed a bocott of the Christians:-

“Christians couldn’t get anything from Muslims’ shops,” Gowindh Christian leader Sattar Masih told Sharing Life Ministries Pakistan, a Christian rights group that visited the area. “They couldn’t go to the doctor as the doctors were Muslims.”

And then the perpetrators escape any criminal action by apologizing:-

The incident is consistent with the ongoing pattern of isolated church attacks in Pakistan where perpetrators later apologize and avoid facing charges.

Several Christians were injured and Christian literature was destroyed when Muslim villagers attacked a church north of Faisalabad in June. The congregation had obtained permission from the village government to use a loudspeaker to broadcast evangelistic meetings they were planning to hold the night of the attack.

In a similar out-of-court settlement, the attackers apologized but were not charged for the violence.

In May in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province town of Charsadda, two madrassah (Muslim seminary) students confessed to having authored anonymous threats against Christians. At least 50 Christians had fled Charsadda after they received a letter telling them to convert to Islam or face suicide bombing. But the Christian community chose not to press charges and on June 4 officially forgave the two students, who said the threats had been a prank.

Christians make up approximately 1.5 percent of Pakistan’s population, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom.

I'm willing to forgive these villagers, even if their apology is not sincere. However, the problem seem to be escalating. If someone was punished, it might discourage further attacks.

Yet Another Christian Girl Kidnapped in Egypt

Some days, you just can't keep up. This is the first time I've reported a Christian girl being abducted in Egypt, but it's far from being the first that I've heard about.

Yet another Christian underage girl has been reported missing.

Nora Ayoub Sanad, aged 17, left home on Monday 17 September 2007 to escort her brother and two sisters to school as usual but she never returned. Her family waited till almost 2:00pm and then started calling her friends asking if they had seen her, but no-one knew anything about her whereabouts. Suspicions turned towards their neighbour, 23-year-old unemployed, Mohamed Ahmed Ali known as Mohamed Adidas, since he also mysteriously disappeared around the same time. The father, 50, a tyre repair man and mother, 38, a house wife, went to talk to the young man’s mother who denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of the daughter. When the father threatened to go to the State security, Mohamed’s sister intervened telling her mother to call the uncle telling him “to let them go and not to carry out their plan.”

On hearing this, Nora’s father went straight to Amriya police station where he reported the abduction of his daughter by Mohamed Adidas. Unfortunately the police officers on duty procrastinated endlessly and treated the father in a most humiliating way, making fun of him and insulting him and his daughter. On Wednesday evening, following endless trips between the State security office and the police station, the father, the mother of Mohamed Adidas and four policemen headed to the uncle’s house to find, not surprisingly, that the young people were not there. The father, reaching the end of his tether, said clearly that he officially accuses Mohamed Ahmed Ali of abducting and holding his under age daughter against her will and that Mohamed’s family know his whereabouts and are in contact with him. The mother said Nora had tried to call her twice, each time crying hysterically and saying that she wants to come home but “they will only let her go after ten days.” Now it is more than a month and Nora is still missing.

And it has come to the attention of Watani that five other underage girls disappeared, from different regions in Egypt, during the week before Eid al-Fitr—the Ramadan feast. Will the agony ever end?

Presumably, Nora Ayoub Sanad and the other girls who disappeared were Copts. This is one of the main ways the Copts are being oppressed by Muslim extremist in Egypt.

Pakistani Talibans Attack Christian Schools

This is what's happening in Pakistan:-

The process of talebanisation of Pakistan continues despite formal pledges by the central government and local authorities. Islamic extremism has in fact reached the Swat Valley, once known as the Switzerland of the Orient, this according to a report by Minorities Concern of Pakistan, a local organisation which monitors the situation of minorities and violations of the human rights of the population.

One of the cases cited in the report involves a Catholic-run public high school in Sangota, in the Swat Valley. In a recent letter, a group calling itself Janisaran-i-Islam (Sacrifices of Islam) attacked the school administration for allegedly “forcibly converting students” and “encouraging un-Islamic behaviour.”

ChristiansThe fundamentalist group calls for the firing of all Christians employed by the school and their replacement with fervent Muslims. It also threatens suicide bombers “if its orders are not followed.”

Instead of finding out what the school had to say, the local government agreed with the letter, and issued an order that all female students cover their heads in the school to preserve local Islamic morality from conversion and atheism.

Extremists enthusiastically welcomed the order, citing the case of the three young Christian women in Indonesia who were decapitated for not wearing the veil.

Worried by the turn of events, many parents pulled their daughters from the school, which was forced to shut down till next week when local authorities will send security agents to enforce security. However, only half of all non Muslim students are planning to come back. Many are actually thinking about leaving the country to avoid further violence.

What is happening does not worry the Christian minority alone. In the Swat Valley, a region much loved by Pakistanis and one of the country’s richest areas, greater Islamist pressures show that the government has failed to stem the flow of Talibans from neighbouring Afghanistan.

Actually, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Asylum for Eritrean Gospel Singer

From the BBC:-

An Eritrean Christian gospel singer who was tortured and detained without charge for two years in her homeland has been granted asylum in Denmark.

Helen Berhane was imprisoned inside a metal shipping container and beaten in an effort to make her recant her faith.

Freed in December 2006, she took refuge in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, before being granted asylum.

Ms Berhane uses a wheelchair because of severe injuries to her legs and feet sustained in prison beatings.

More than 90% of Eritreans belong to one of four recognised religions - Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Churches and Islam.

All other religions were outlawed by a government decree passed in May 2001, though Jehovah's Witnesses had been denied their rights as Eritrean citizens as early as 1994.

Helen Berhane is a member of the unregistered Rema Church and had just released a cassette of gospel music when she was arrested in the Eritrean capital on 13 May 2004.

. . .

Among the tortures she endured was the infamous "helicopter" position, in which the prisoner is placed face down with arms and legs tied behind the back.

Her account of the cruel and inhumane treatment she suffered is echoed by the testimony of hundreds of others persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Prisoners say they are routinely subjected to extremes of heat and cold, denied water and sanitation, according to testimony collected from exiles by Release Eritrea, an organisation that campaigns for the rights of religious minorities.

. . .

Initially Helen Berhane applied to the United Kingdom for asylum and was interviewed by immigration officials at the British High Commission in Khartoum in January 2007.

Seven months later, with no decision on her case by the British, Ms Berhane sought help from Denmark which took one month to determine that she was a genuine asylum seeker.

Well done the Danes; shame on the U.K.

Nigeria: Two Christians Murdered after call to Jihad

Yet another post about Christians being threatened or attached in Nigeria. Apparently, these two were attacked after a Muslim leader called on Muslims to wage Jihad against young Christians. The call for Jihad was made in a sermon broadcast on television during Ramadan:-

One man has been killed with a sword and another bludgeoned to death in this city in central northern Nigeria following Muslim leaders’ appeal to wage violent jihad against youthful Christians.

Muslim extremists on October 12 murdered Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje, a 24-year-old Christian, at an area known as Gamji Gate. The following day, church leaders said, a young Christian identified only as Basil was beaten to death with wooden clubs in the same area.

Ogbaje was a Sunday school teacher with the Military Protestant Church at Kotoko Barracks in Kaduna, while Basil, church leaders said, was a member of the Our Lady of Apostles Catholic Church. He was from Kagarko Local Government Area.

Elder Saidu Dogo, secretary of the northern Nigeria chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass that Islamic leader Sheik Gumi had urged Muslims to wage jihad against Christians during Tafsir, the reading and interpretation of the Quran, in televised broadcasts during the Islamic month-long observance of Ramadan.

“I saw Sheik Gumi on the television, NTA [Nigeria Television Authority], during that period preaching this inciting sermon – in fact, the same sermon was again broadcast by NTA Kaduna, on September 21 and 22,” Dogo told Compass. “He specifically called for a jihad, and that when they go killing they should not kill the elderly people, because the elderly have spent their years already, but that Muslims should kill young Christians.”

. . .

Both murders took place as Muslims were celebrating the Eid-El-Fatr festival marking the end of Ramadan. Noting that other Muslim leaders also preached attacks against Christians during Ramadan, Dogo raised a plea for the Nigerian government to act quickly to forestall what he and other Christian leaders said was a systematic effort to wipe out Christianity from northern Nigeria.

This is Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, son of the late Sheikh Abubaker Gumi, who was a noted Islamic scholar. The son, apparently, spends most of his time in Saudi Arabia and only visits Nigeria during Ramadan.

Islamists Threaten Church in Nigeria

Only a threat, so far:-

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, October 10 (Compass Direct News) – Militant Islamists in this city in the northern state of Borno have sent three letters to a church warning that members would be attacked in the next few days, raising tensions where 50 Christians were killed and 57 churches destroyed last year.

Leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria told Compass that the letters were dropped onto the premises of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN), in the Polo Area of Maiduguri, on separate days last week.

The Rev. Daniel Mbaya of the Polo Area Church of the Brethren, which has about 3,000 members, had reported the threat to police and Christian leaders. Nigeria’s security agencies and Christian leaders held an emergency meeting yesterday on ways to protect Christians in the event of an Islamic strike on the church.

The Rev. Daniel Mbaya is no stranger to having his church burnt down:-

The sanctuary was set ablaze on February 18 last year, alongside other churches in the city, by Muslim militants protesting cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper.

Christian Couple Flogged for Attending “Underground Church”

Here is a report I missed earlier:-

A Christian couple were flogged in Iran for participating in an “underground Church”, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website earlier this week.

The unnamed couple were arrested on September 21, 2005, the report said, adding that a Revolutionary Court reviewed their case in July 2007.

Even though the couple had decided to marry seven years ago, the country’s marriage laws - which prohibit the union of ex-Muslims and members of other religious minorities – prevented them from obtaining a certificate of marriage.

The report said that the woman was born a Christian in an Assyrian-Iranian family and the man was a convert to Christianity prior to getting married.

The court ruled that both the man and the woman were Mortad, a description of someone who has committed apostasy by leaving Islam.

This seems to be the usual policy of making life as difficult as possible for ex-Muslims.

Muslims

Let me make one thing clear - those Muslims who are guilty of persecuting Christians and using violence against them are a small minority.

The vast majority of Muslims are like any other group of people - some good, some bad and most of them somewhere in the middle - in other words, just like you and me and all the people we know.

While I was brought up in a very devout Christian environment, I do not want to deceive you into thinking that I'm a practising Christian. Most people would probably describe me as an agnostic, however, I remember enough from my upbringing to ask - and answer - the following question:-

What would Jesus say? He would say "Love thy neighbour" - and you don't need me to tell you that "thy neighbour" includes every Islamist who hates our culture, our religion and everything it stands for. It also includes every suicide bomber who is willing to send as many innocents to hell as he can so that he can take a short-cut to paradise.

Christianity isn't easy.

As you read my posts, at the very least, try not to feel malice or hatred for those that persecute and attack Christians (and other non-Muslims). If you do, remember that you are descending to their level.

This does not, however, mean that we do nothing. We can:-

• support organizations that help Christians in countries where they are a minority.
• bring the persecution of Christians in these countries to the attention of others.
• pray for those Christians that are being persecuted for their faith.
• pray for those Muslims that persecute Christians, that they may realise that this is not God's will.

I'm sure it would help the victims of persecution just to know that other people in the world know and care about their suffering and are praying for them.

Pope pleads for release of two priests kidnapped in Mosul

From this article:-

Pope Benedict XVI made a public appeal on Sunday for the release of two Catholic priests kidnapped a day earlier on their way home from a funeral in northern Iraq.

The priests were abducted about 4 p.m. Saturday after participating in a funeral in western Mosul, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, according to Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, Mosul's head of the Syrian Catholic Church, one of the branches of the Roman Catholic Church.

Gunmen ambushed the priests' car, dragged them out and took them to an unidentified location, Casmoussa said Sunday.

. . .

In the summer of 2004, insurgents launched a coordinated bombing campaign against Baghdad churches, sending some Christians fleeing in fear.

A second wave of anti-Christian attacks hit in September 2006 after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be anti-Muslim. Church bombings spiked and a priest, also in Mosul, was kidnapped and later found beheaded.

Many churches are now nearly empty, with their faithful either gone or too scared to attend.

Lahore: Extremists Attack Church, Beat Children

More tolerance from Muslim extremists in Pakistan:-

A Muslim mob armed with guns and steel rods attacked the New Apostolic Church in Hadyara, on the outskirts of Lahore. They beat up worshippers, including a child, and damaged property.

After the incident the attackers through mosque loudspeakers called on Muslims from nearby villages to gather for a “final attack” after Ramadan. They also urged businesses and farmers not to allow Christians on their properties or do business with them.

Lahore police arrived only after the incident, but remained overnight to patrol the area around the church building.

According to local political leaders, Christians will be safe until the end of Ramadan. But local police could not confirm the information.

Elsewhere in the country near Peshawar Islamic extremists stormed six stores selling records and a barber shop for violating Muslim morality. One person was killed and two wounded as a result of the violence. The stores were destroyed.

Egyptian Islamists Join Case Against Convert to Christianity

Something that really infuriates Muslim zealots, apparently, is the conversion of a Muslim to another religion.

Conservative Islamic lawyers came out in support of the Egyptian government last week at the opening court hearing of a Muslim convert to Chris tianity.

In a move that has caused national uproar, former Muslim Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy is suing Egypt to change the religion listed on his identification papers to Chris tianity.

Even Hegazy's former lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhla, received threats:-

Under public criticism and death threats, Nakhla withdrew from Hegazy’s case days after it became public. Fanatics began harassing Hegazy and his pregnant wife, also a former Muslim, with angry telephone calls, forcing the couple into hiding.

“It’s quite sensitive,” Hegazy’s new lawyer, Rawda Ahmad, told Compass through a translator. “It would be the first time that someone who converted to Chris tianity would be able to change his ID card.”

Though Egyptian law does not forbid conversion from Islam to Chris tianity, it provides no legal means to make the change. Converts to Chris tianity usually hide their identity to avoid torture and forced recantation at the hands of family members and security police.

Apparently, even a single convert to Christianity threatens Egyptian stability:-

Egyptian media have criticized Hegazy in recent months, claiming that his conversion was motivated by money, blackmail, and foreign forces hoping to destabilize Egypt .

Why did he convert to Christianity:-

Now 24, Hegazy said he first made the decision to become a Chris tian when he was 16.

“My father was not a practicing Muslim, but he hated Chris tians and Jews as he believed Islam taught us to do so,” Hegazy said in a website statement. “As a child I was taught not to love or respect Chris tians, but rather treat them harshly because God hates them.”

As a teenager Hegazy enrolled in an institute to train as an Islamic preacher but said he did not like what he learned about Islam’s teaching on women and various subjects.

It was only at the age of 16, when he transferred to a class that had seven Chris tian students, that he began to think seriously about Chris tianity.

“It was the first time that I lived close to Chris tians, and their lives were like lights for me,” Hegazy said. One day he borrowed a Chris tian book from one of his classmates and read about the conversion of Saul. The story created a desire in him to know more about Chris tianity.

Then what happened?

State security police soon arrested the young man and tortured him for three days. Despite using a Coptic Orthodox priest to convince Hegazy to recant, the young convert said that police were unable to persuade him to revert to Islam. He eventually returned home, his father under the illusion that he was once again Muslim.

Historically, the punishment for an apostate from Islam was death, however, few Muslim countries now impose the death penalty for apostasy. Many Muslim countries, however, have some form of punishment for leaving Islam. This may involve imprisonment or they may just make life difficult for the apostate.

Often, however, the chief threat is not from the law, but from fanatical Muslims who are willing to take the law into their own hands.

Christians persecuted under Blasphemy laws in Pakistan

Pakistan's blasphemy laws, introduced during the rule of General Zia-ul-Haq, have long been used to persecute religious minorities in Pakistan.

According to Wikipedia:-

The Pakistani Catholic bishops' Justice and Peace Commission complained in July 2005 that since 1099, some 650 people had been falsely accused and arrested under the blasphemy law. Moreover, over the same period, some 20 people accused of the same offense had been killed. As of July 2005, 80 Christians were in prison after being accused of blasphemy.

According to this article, even if you are acquitted of the charge of blasphemy, you are still in danger:-

A Pakistan Christian who was previously acquitted of blasphemy is still in hiding almost a year after charges were dropped because Muslim militants are trying to kill him, a report from Release International has said.

In addition, a 16-year-old boy is now a fugitive in fear of his life after a squabble with another schoolboy led to accusations of blasphemy, Christian Today has been told.

Both cases highlight the reason Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws must be repealed, RI has urged.

"They can shoot me or burn me, they can kill me if they know that I am hiding here," Schoolboy Rashid Masih told Release International.

Hospital worker Ranjah Masih was jailed for life under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws simply for knocking over a sign – an offence which would be considered too trivial to bring to court in most countries. But the sign, which it turned out had a verse of Koran on it, belonged to a Muslim shopkeeper, and so the blasphemy charge was used.

. . .

Despite his protested innocence, Ranjah was jailed for life, blindfolded and beaten daily with clubs and sticks until his health was all but broken. He had to bribe the police to give him medicine, and says they beat him to try force him to reveal the names of other Christians.

Many times the police told him that if he converted to Islam they would set him free, however, Ranjah refused.

One day a prison officer brought him a Koran and said that if he just recited an Islamic prayer he could go. Ranjah replied: "If release from prison means forsaking Jesus Christ, then I don't want to be released."

Meanwhile his wife had to bring up their six children on her meagre earnings as a domestic servant. She was supported by Release International's partners, CLAAS – the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement - which helps many persecuted Christians in Pakistan.

After eight-and-a-half years behind bars the authorities finally acknowledged that Ranjah had been innocent all along and set him free.

So much for "There is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256).

Ranjah Masih deserves our admiration for his devotion and steadfastness. If you pray, then pray for him and his family.

Palestinian Christan Tortured and Murdered

"We feel Rami was killed for his Christian faith"

The killing of a prominent Palestinian Christian activist on Sunday sent a shudder of fear through the Gaza Strip's tiny Christian community, which is feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control there last summer.

The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was found on a Gaza City street early Sunday. The body bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.

Ayyad's store, the Teacher's Bookshop, is associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society. Ayyad regularly received anonymous death threats from people angry about his perceived missionary work, a rarity among Gaza's Christians, and in April, the bookstore was firebombed.

"We feel Rami was killed for his Christian faith," said Simon Azazian, a spokesman at the Bible Society's head office in Jerusalem.

About 3,200 Christians live in Gaza among 1.4 million Muslims. While Christians and Muslims have generally gotten along over the years, Christians have grown uneasy since Hamas routed forces of the secular Fatah movement and seized control of Gaza in June. During the takeover, vandals ransacked a Roman Catholic convent and an adjacent school, breaking crosses and smashing the face of a ceramic Jesus.

As in other Muslims majority areas, the population of Christians in Gaza is steadily declining.

Islamic Tolerance

The White House hosts Iftars (the meal at which Muslims break their fast after abstaining from food and drink all day during Ramadan) and the Empire State Building is bathed in green light to celebrate then end of Ramadan.

Meanwhile, this group of Muslims show their tolerance of Christianity and Christian festivals:-

A Toronto mosque is telling Muslims not to say "Happy Thanksgiving" or invite friends into their homes for turkey dinner on the holiday weekend.

The Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque says to "avoid participating" in dinners, parties or greetings on Thanksgiving because it is a kuffaar, or non-Muslim, celebration.

A two-part article on the mosque Web site says Muslims should also "stay completely away" from "Halloween trick-and treat nonsense," Christmas, New Year's, anniversaries, birthdays and Earth Day.

"How can we bring ourselves to congratulate or wish people well for their disobedience to Allah? Thus expressions such as:Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, etc, are completely out," it says.

In 2003, the Khalid mosque, which mainly serves the Toronto Somali-Canadian community, apologized for a newsletter that compared wishing someone a Merry Christmas to congratulating a murderer.

At the time, a junior employee was blamed for the slight, but the mosque's Web site has since posted similar edicts covering not only Christmas but also virtually every other Western celebration.

It appears that tolerance and understanding is a one-way street at the Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque.

I searched for the article at the website of the Khalid bin Al-Walid Mosque website and found it here (see the second page for the edict forbidding Muslims from congratulating Christians on their festivals such as Thanksgiving and Christmas).

While there is a disclaimer on the article, it seems that this is not the first time such sentiments have been expressed on the mosque's website.

Actually, these statements are standard Wahabi doctrines that can be found on many other websites.

Two Coptic Christians Murdered in Egypt

According to this article:-

Two Coptic Christians were found dead in a village 240 miles south of Cairo, police said. They added that they were investigating the incident as possible sectarian violence in the same village that witnessed some of the worst massacres seven years ago.

Police sources said they were investigating the deaths of Sadeq Ishaq, 45, and Karam Andraus, 40, who were shot to death on their farm in El Kosheh. The official added that investigators were attempting to determine if the murders were sectarian in nature.

In 2007, a dispute between Muslims and Coptic Christians in the village escalated into a full scale battle as armed gangs took up weapons against each other. The violence left 21 Christians and one Muslim dead.

Coptic Christians are generally estimated to make up around 10 percent of Egypt's population. Often random incidents of violence have been construed as sectarianism by the media.

The last sentence seems a bit misleading to me, given the history of Muslim/Copt violence in this village. Also, according to the Egyptian government, the number of Copts has fallen to 6% of the population.

Update on Christians Killed in Nigeria

More information about these attacks. The death toll may be higher than the nine originally reported.

Indications that the death toll following the weekend’s violence in the Tundun Wada area of Kano State, northern Nigeria, may be higher than initially estimated are beginning to emerge as more information about the causes of the violence are brought to light, Christian Today has learned.

Official figures suggest around nine Christians were killed, several churches were burnt and businesses and homes belonging to non-Muslims were destroyed during religious violence. Even Christian policemen are reported to have lost their homes and property.

As tensions slowly subside in the area, the circumstances which triggered the violence are gradually coming to light.

The violence appears to have begun on the morning of 28 September 2007, when a group of Muslim students invaded a room shared by two Christian students at the Government Secondary School in Tudun Wada Na Kande, and began to assault them severely.

When the Christian students asked what they had done wrong, their assailants initially told them to “mind their own business”. However, once the school principal arrived at the scene, the Christians were accused of drawing a picture of Mohammed on a mosque wall and of planning an assault on Muslim students.

Christians Killed in Nigeria Over Cartoon Drawn by Muslim

These nine Christians were killed in Nigeria over a cartoon drawn by a Muslim in Bangladesh!

According to Mr Samuel Salifu, General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN):-

"Information available to me is that almost all the churches within that local government area have been razed down and shops belonging to Christians had also been burnt including their houses. We have been told that they have been ejected and their property brought down and burnt.

"The information given was that they saw a cartoon on the internet and they discovered that this cartoon was drawn by a 20-year-old Muslim boy from Bangladesh and they decided to visit their anger on innocent Christians and their churches.

"I have been told that nine people including a youth corper are confirmed dead and several others injured while the local government in a desperate attempt to cover the dastardly act pretended to be taking the victims to the hospital while in reality they sent some of the victims to Bauchi and some other places around so that people will not go there and see the number of destitutes or refugees caused by this incident."

Northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim with a Christian minority. Muslim attacks on Christians have been commonplace in this region in recent years.

BANGLADESH: ANTI-CHRISTIAN RUMOR HELPS FUEL ATTACKS

Reported by Compass Direct News on October 16, 2007.

It appears that Muslims (and Buddhists) in Bangladesh are claiming that Christian missionaries are paying Muslims large amounts of money to convert to Christianity:-

As Christianity spreads in this Muslim-majority country, an increasingly frequent refrain is heard in various quarters: “People become Christians after getting huge amounts of money as a reward for conversion.”

and:

In Nilphamari district, where 42 former Muslims from 26 families were baptized as Christians in June, educated Muslim Tabligh Jamat missionaries from outside the country are helping to spread the conversion-for-pay rumor, said Abul Hossain, a recent convert in Nilphamari district.

The missionaries are going door-to-door in Nilphamari on a misinformation campaign, Hossain said.

“They tell people, ‘Christians will use you and afterward they will throw you in the dustbin – they dangle many temptations before Muslims to become Christian, and later they will destroy the country,’” Hossain said.

Other comments typical of the Muslim missionaries, according to Hossain: “They will destroy this country as they destroyed Afghanistan. They also destroyed Iraq and hanged Saddam extra-judicially.”

Following the baptisms on June 12, Muslim villagers armed with bricks and wooden clubs savagely beat 10 Christian converts in Nilphamari district on June 26 and threatened to burn down their homes. Within days, authorities at the mosque in Durbachari banned Christians from using the village tube-well, the area’s only source of potable water.

Where Shall I Start?

For many months now, I have read many, many accounts of discrimination, oppression and violence against Christians. The vast majority of these acts were carried out by Muslims. Since Muslims in the West are quick to complain about Islamophobia, I feel that it is only fair that we point out all the instances of "Christophobia" that occur all over the world.

I will start my postings with a look at some of the articles that I have read over the lat few months.