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Arab Spring Has “Legal” Persecution

May 31, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

Post “Arab Spring” Egypt continues exposing its true nature, including nowlegal persecution of Christians. Earlier this month, according to Fox News, Dimyana Abdel-Nour a “pale, young Christian woman sat handcuffed in the courtroom, accused of insulting Islam while teaching history of religions to fourth-graders.” Her accusers are 10-year-old Muslim children who say she “showed disgust when she spoke of Islam in class.”

According to Islamic law, the word of inferior Christians cannot stand against that of superior Muslims—even if they are resentful or confused children.

Released on bail, Dimyana is unable to talk and “suffering a nervous breakdown.”

The report continues:

Criminalizing blasphemy was enshrined in the country’s Islamist-backed constitution that was adopted in December. Writers, activists and even a famous television comedian have been accused of blasphemy since then. But Christians seem to be the favorite target of Islamist prosecutors. Their fragile cases — the main basis of the case against Abdel-Nour’s case the testimony of children — are greeted with sympathy from courtroom judges with their own religious bias or who fear the wrath of Islamists, according to activists. The result is a growing number of Egyptians, including many Christians, who have been convicted and sent to prison for blasphemy…. Part of the Salafis’ antagonism toward Christians is rooted in the belief that they were a protected group under Mubarak’s regime while they, the Salafis, were persecuted. Now empowered, they may be out to exact revenge on the Christians….

Indeed, before President Obama threw Hosni Mubarak under the bus in the name of “freedom” and “democracy,” Christians were at least legally protected: Muslim mobs were limited to lawless attacks on Christian churches and persons. But now that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis are in charge, Egypt’s Christians are now also experiencing legal persecution in the courtrooms, especially in the context of blasphemy.

The following cases of blasphemy laws targeting Christians, some of which were never reported in the West, represent a mere sampling of post “Arab Spring” Egypt. For many more such cases, including all around the Muslim world, see my new book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (April, 2013, published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute.

In November 2012, an Egyptian court decreed that eight Christians living in America—seven native Egyptians, and one American, Pastor Terry Jones—be sent to Egypt and executed in connection with the 16-minute YouTube Muhammad video. The prosecution offered no real evidence against the Christians, most of whom deny any involvement, and instead relied on inciting Muslims against the accused by replaying the video in the courtroom.

Last September, 27-year-old Copt Albert Saber was accused of posting clips of the Muhammad movie—which he had actually downloaded from a Muslim site, not YouTube. Muslims attacked and evicted him and his mother from their home; he was arrested and is currently awaiting a multi-year sentence.

In March 2012, Makram Diab, a 49-year-old Christian, was sentenced in a 10-minute show trial to six years in prison for “insulting Muhammad.” He had gotten into a religious argument with a Muslim colleague, who went on to protest that Diab had offended the prophet. The judge doubled the sentence to appease an angry mob, 2,500 strong, which had surrounded the courtroom demanding Diab’s death.

In August 2012, Bishoy Kamil, a Copt in his 20s who worked as a teacher, wasarrested and given six years in prison for posting cartoons deemed insulting to Islam and its prophet on Facebook. Like Diab, he was given more than double the maximum penalty to appease mob calls for his death.

In April 2012, Gamal Abdu Massud, a teenage Christian student, wassentenced to three years on accusations that he had posted a Muhammad cartoon on his Facebook account, which had only some 135 friends. Apparently the wrong “friend” saw it, for it was not long before local Muslims rioted, burning the Coptic teenager’s house as well as the homes of five other Christians.

In June 2011, another Christian woman, Naima Wahib Habil, newly hired as director of a junior high school for girls, was sentenced to two years imprisonment on the accusation that she had torn a copy of the Koran in front of her students. The rumor inspired mob riots and calls for her death.

Human rights activist Magdi Khalil of Coptic Solidarity told me that in all these cases “Islamist prosecutors rely exclusively on circumstantial evidence. And the judges do not behave like impartial judges, but rather as demagogues haranguing an already frenzied mob, and then sacrificing the Copts to satisfy them. Nor do they allow any representation for the accused. Judges just show up and pass their verdicts in very brief mock trials.”

Such is the new Egypt that Obama helped create—despite all the glaring warning signs that it would develop just like this. Christian persecution in Egypt has gone from being a common, though technically illegal, phenomenon, to being widespread, and now legal.

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Posted by Theodore Shoebat

Persecution Is “Spreading, Intensifying,” In Egypt

May 31, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

From Charisma News:

Jihadist persecution of Christians around the world is one of the biggest under-reported stories in media circles, says a Christian activist and expert on the issue.

Raymond Ibrahim, a Copt from Egypt—now living in the U.S.—says that Western weakness in confronting radical Islam has left the jihadists feeling emboldened. In his new book, Crucified Again, Ibrahim presents firsthand knowledge and investigation of widespread persecution.

“Although Muslim persecution of Christians is one of the most dramatic stories of our times, it is also one of the least known in the West,” he writes.

Ibrahim’s own country of Egypt is experiencing a resurgence of violence towards Christians, thanks to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.

“As one of the oldest and largest Muslim nations, with one of the oldest and largest Christian populations, Egypt is a kind of paradigm of Islam’s treatment of Christians,” Ibrahim states.

Although the violence is spreading and intensifying, Ibrahim insists that many in the Western media, including Christian media, are not picking up on it.

“CBN has been great in reporting on this phenomenon and promoting the book. One senior CBN reporter, Gary Lane, said ‘While I’ve read many books about Christian persecution over the years, none of those I’ve encountered provide a better historic and contemporary context of Christian suffering in Muslim countries than Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.’ Unfortunately, most other evangelical churches and organizations have been indifferent and uncooperative about getting the story out on Christian persecution—and to this, I am at a loss.”

Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum, has some ideas about engaging American evangelicals in this gigantic issue:

“First, they need to acquire the proper knowledge of the situation—which is precisely why I wroteCrucified Again, to fill the vacuum the mainstream media has created by woefully failing to report the reality of Christian persecution under Islam. Christians should read the book, which makes everything clear, and addresses all the hows and whys. Even those who think they are aware of the situation will probably be overwhelmed by the reports in the book—the actual amount of persecution that goes on, and how widespread it is, from Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east, from sub-Saharan Africa in the south, to Kazakhstan and Russia to the north, and even in European nations (as we recently saw with the London) beheading—a thing that happens often to Christians in the Islamic world.”

As for the Copts in Egypt, Ibrahim has direct knowledge of the growing danger:

“Things just keep going from bad to worse. Persecution and discrimination, which was present under the Mubarak era, are now, under the Muslim Brotherhood, becoming legalized. For example, in the context of ‘blasphemy’ charges against Christians.

Most recently, a young female Christian school teacher was arrested and awaiting a prison sentence because a couple of her 10-year-old Muslim students accused her of looking ‘disgusted’ when teaching Islamic history. But if you read the book, you’ll see that her case is the tip of the iceberg, as many other Copts have been incarcerated under the accusation that they ‘insulted’ Islam.

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Extermination of Christians And Shiites On The Horizon In Syrian

May 29, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

Alex Newman writes (from AINA)

A spokesman for the primary rebel alliance in Syria, known as the “Free Syrian Army,” threatened that opposition forces could start implementing a broad ethnic-cleansing program aimed at Shia Muslims and especially the Islamic Alawite sect to which dictator Bashar al-Assad belongs. As Obama administration-led Western powers and a coalition of Sunni Arab dictators continue to fuel the increasingly ruthless conflict, the rebel FSA spokesperson said in a TV interview that minority communities would be “wiped off the map” if the regime’s forces managed to capture the city of Al-Qusair.

The genocide announcement came shortly after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blasted his Senate Foreign Relations Committee colleagues for voting to arm the rebels, many of whom openly fight under the banner of al-Qaeda. “This is an important moment,” Sen. Paul said about the vote. “You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda.” While the U.S. government has been supporting the opposition since before open warfare began, Obama has ramped up that support to unprecedented levels. And now, a Senate committee has expressed its backing for arming groups that openly threaten to exterminate minorities.

According to a report in Bloomberg, rebel Free Syrian Army “Colonel” Abdel-Hamid Zakaria made the threat to exterminate minority-denomination Muslims in Syria during an interview from Turkey last week with Al-Arabiya television. “We don’t want this to happen, but it will be a reality imposed on everyone,” Zakaria said during the interview, referring to his alliance wiping certain minority communities off the map if regime forces succeeded in taking Al-Qusair. “It’s going to be an open, sectarian, bloody war to the end.”

The city in question, located in central Syria’s Homs province, is seen as crucial due to its strategic location along a major highway connecting the capital Damascus to the coast. It is considered extremely important by rebel forces, which rely on it to obtain weapons and supplies from neighboring Lebanon. For the regime, the city’s value is obvious as it continues to wage war on foreign-backed Islamists described by officials as “armed terrorist groups.”

Regime-run media outlet SANA reported that most of the city was captured last week, with troops loyal to Assad reportedly seizing vast weapons stockpiles and destroying tunnels used by rebel forces. Dozens of opposition fighters were reportedly killed in the battles. More than 20 members of the U.S. government-designated terror group Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia that has joined Assad in the effort to stop the rebels, were also killed, according to news reports.

Opposition spokesmen said the fight for Al-Qusair was ongoing, though everyone acknowledges that government troops had at least made very significant inroads in re-capturing the city. “The Syrian Coalition warns about the outcome of these distressing developments, which come as part of an organized and predetermined military campaign,” read a statement released by the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, an opposition umbrella group dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist forces.

Despite the reported near victory of regime troops in Al-Qusair, it remains unclear whether the ethnic-cleansing plot outlined by the Free Syrian Army spokesman in the TV interview has been formally put into effect. As The New American has documented extensively, minority communities — especially Christians — have long been targeted by rebel forces throughout the ongoing war. However, if the brazen threat of extermination is officially implemented, the results will be unimaginable bloodshed and horror beyond even what has been witnessed so far, experts say.

Sunni Muslims, who dominate domestic rebel forces, make up a significant majority of the population in Syria, possibly as much as three-fourths or more of the 22 million people. Minority groups, however — Shiites, Christians, Jews, and others — represent an estimated 20 to 30 percent of Syrians. Members of virtually all minority communities have been targeted by one rebel group or another due, at least in part, to their perceived support of the secular regime, which largely protected minorities from Islamist violence despite Assad’s iron-fisted rule.

It is not the first time that foreign-backed Sunni Islamist rebels have threatened to exterminate minorities in Syria. In fact, earlier this month, an opposition brigade commander ate a body organ from a dead government soldier in front of a video camera and promised to do the same with others, boasting about slaughtering — and eating — members of the Alawite community to which Assad belongs.

“I swear to God, soldiers of Bashar, you dogs — we will eat your heart and livers! Takbir! God is Great!” commander Khalid al-Hamad with the “Independent Omar al-Farouk Brigade” says in the video, words that he later defended in interviews with Western media outlets. “Oh my heroes of Baba Amr, you slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them!” After the brief speech, the Sunni rebel took a bite out of the organ in a video that drew international condemnation.

The Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups promptly distanced themselves from the cannibal commander, saying cannibalism was against Syrian values. FSA spokesmen and the SNC called on the rebel leader to be held accountable, and human rights groups around the world said the video was yet more evidence of the exploding horror now being felt throughout much of Syria. Despite strongly worded statements against cannibalism issued by other rebel leaders, the monstrous video was hardly the first example of the barbaric sectarianism that has reared its head in the nation amid the ongoing conflict.

As The New American has been reporting virtually since the start of the war, the ethnic cleansing of Christians by rebel forces began quickly after open hostilities broke out. In April of last year, for example, multiple churches, aid organizations, and human rights groups reported that the Christian minority — estimated at about 10 percent of the population before the war started — was being massacred and driven from its homeland in growing numbers.

At the time, the Syrian Orthodox Church, which represents over half of Syrian Christians, issued a statement saying revolutionary fighters had expelled some 50,000 Christians from the embattled city of Homs. That figure was estimated to account for about 90 percent of the Christian community in the city. Hundreds more Christians — including women and children — were slaughtered, according to charitable organizations operating in the area.

The Orthodox Church referred to the persecution as the “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians” by Muslim militants linked to al Qaeda. According to its report, the so-called “Brigade Faruq” was largely to blame, with Islamic extremists going door to door and forcing followers of Christ to leave without even collecting their belongings. Their property was then stolen by rebels as “war-booty from the Christians.”

Christians in Homs were reportedly told by rebels that if they did not leave immediately, they would be shot. Then, pictures of their brutalized dead bodies would be sent to the pro-Syrian-regime-change Al Jazeera — a media broadcaster controlled by the dictatorship ruling Qatar, which is arming and funding the rebels — with a message claiming that forces loyal to Assad had murdered them. It would hardly be the first time opposition fighters perpetrated atrocities and blamed the regime.

Aid agencies also documented the terror aimed at minorities, especially among the church. “Christians are being forced to flee the city to the safety of government-controlled areas,” noted a spokesman for the Christian relief agency Barnabas Fund, which reported that over 200 Christians had been murdered by insurgents at the time. “Muslim rebel fighters and their families are taking over their homes.”

Other reports noted that Christians were being kidnapped by rebels for use as human shields. “Some Christians who tried to escape a week ago were stopped from leaving by the rebels and were instead forced to go to a mosque to act as shields,” a Syrian priest from Hamidiya was quoted as saying by the U.K. Daily Telegraph. “They thought that, because Christians support Assad, the government would not attack them.”

According to reports from sources on the ground, Muslim militias also used churches to attack government forces. “Most of the time militiamen were using the churches and the Christians as shields to protect themselves from shelling,” explained regional director Issam Bishara with the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). “It is also important to mention that some icons inside the churches were damaged on purpose by the militias.”

Since then, the brutality has only gotten worse, and countless numbers of Christians have been forced to flee into neighboring countries to avoid the brutality and slaughter. The ancient Christian communities, which were protected by the secular Assad regime, feared genocide if the dictatorship were to eventually fall and be replaced by a Sunni Muslim theocracy — as rebels hope. Analysts said those concerns were well founded.

Such a development would also be in line with what has occurred in other nations where the U.S. government has intervened. In Iraq, for example, the ancient Christian communities were all but eradicated following the American-led, United Nations-approved military invasion and occupation. Many fled to Syria. Following the Obama administration-backed so-called “Arab Spring,” Christians are also under fire in Egypt, Libya, and other nations. President Obama’s unconstitutional war on Libya led to ethnic cleansing of blacks by U.S. government-backed “rebels” as well.

The U.S. and Russian governments are currently planning to host an international conference about the Syrian war in Geneva next month, and the Assad regime has agreed “in principle” to participate. Of course, the Obama administration and its allies, including European powers and ruthless Muslim dictators, have been bankrolling, arming, and training rebel forces for “regime change.” On the surface, Russian authorities have been publicly backing the Assad regime, supplying weapons and international support.

While foreign powers continue to pour fuel on the already-blazing inferno raging in Syria, estimates suggest as many as 100,000 people have been killed. An estimated 1.5 million have already fled abroad. The number of tragedies and the ferocity of the human rights abuses, meanwhile, continue to soar, with innocent civilians paying the heaviest price.

Whether rebel forces will openly begin an ethnic cleansing program to eradicate non-Sunni Muslims, as threatened by the FSA spokesman last week, remains to be seen. However, it appears that minority communities in Syria are already the most vulnerable, and if rebel forces do eventually seize power, the future of Christians, Jews, Shias, and Alawites in Syria is uncertain at best.

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Posted by Theodore Shoebat

Iranian Pastor Imprisoned

May 27, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

From Stefan J. Bos, reporting for BosNewsLife:

TEHRAN, IRAN (BosNewsLife)- Iran’s largest Persian speaking Pentecostal church was closed Monday, May 27, after one of its leaders was detained during a worship service and moved to an unknown location, Iranian Christians told BosNewsLife.

The closure of the Central Assemblies of God church (AoG) in Tehran and the earlier arrest of its Pastor Robert Asserian on May 21 come while Iran prepares for presidential elections next month.

Eight candidates were approved for the June 14 presidential poll to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run again because of term limits.

Islamic authorities eager to maintain their influence are wary of groups deemed dangerous to their power base, including growing Christian churches, especially at a time of elections, according to a BosNewsLife analyze based on several reports from Iranian Christians and rights groups

STOPPING SERVICES

“These incidents appear to be an attempt to stop worship services from being conducted in Farsi, the language of the majority of Iranians,” said George O. Wood, general superintendent of the AoG in the United States. “Services are allowed in Armenian, a minority language that most Iranians do not speak or even understand.”

Wood expressed concern about the future of the AoG in Iran and the whereabouts of the pastor. “Before going to the church, authorities raided Pastor Asserian’s home where they confiscated a computer and several books. Then, they found Pastor Asserian at the church leading the prayer service, immediately arrested him, and announced the church’s imminent closure.”

He confirmed that, “At last report, the pastor’s whereabouts are unknown.”

Iranian Christians said the closure of AoG in Tehran will set a precedent for closing all Farsi-language churches in Iran. “Such a move would essentially remove all open witness of the gospel of Christ in the country,” Wood warned. No exact figures of members of the AoG were released, but mission groups have suggested there are at least 100,000 evangelical Christians across Iran, with some giving higher estimates.

PRAYERS URGED

Wood said he had appealed to AoG member churches to “earnestly pray for Pastor Asserian and all fellow believers in the Iranian Assemblies of God” and “request prayer that the authorities in Iran will uphold the rights of people to worship freely according to their conscience.”

Besides Pastor Asserian, other pastors are known to be detained in several prisons across Iran. One of those pastors is Behnam Irani who is held in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj city, one of the toughest jails in the country, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the nation’s capital Tehran.

“He has been sentenced to five years in prison for his Christian activity,” explained Jason DeMars of advocacy group Present Truth Ministries, who is involved in the case.

Irani began a one-year prison term in 2011 but was later told he would also have to serve a five-year, previously suspended, sentence for “crimes against national security”.

DEATH SENTENCE?

Iranian Christians also fear a court verdict suggesting prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for “apostasy”, or abandoning Islam, said Firouz Khandjani, a council member of the ‘Church of Iran’ movement to which the pastor belongs.

“He is in a cell with 38 other people, most of whom are in prison for murder and dealing drugs,” DeMars told BosNewsLife.

“As a result of prison conditions he is suffering from intestinal inflammation that is causing a bleeding ulcer, diminished eyesight, and an herniated disc in his back.”

DeMars said the pastor “walks with a limp because of the pain. Some close to the case believe that Iran’s secret police is seeking to use these circumstances so that Pastor Behnam dies in prison.”

WHITE HOUSE PRESSURED

He urged Christians around the world not to forget the pastor and sign a petition asking the White House “to take immediate steps to put pressure on the Iranian government to secure the release of Pastor Behnam Irani.

“Most of the focus of the American church, regarding persecution, has been Saeed Abedini, the Iranian-American pastor who is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran,” he said.

“I’m very thankful that so much attention has been given to him [but there are also] others in prison serving a sentence for their Christian faith.”

Iranian authorities have defended their perceived harsh policies towards especially evangelical Christians, who include many former Muslims, saying they are upholding the laws of the strict Islamic nation and its Islamic values.

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Posted by Theodore Shoebat

1000 Christians Have Been Killed In Syria Since 2011

May 27, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

Fiorello Provera writes (From AINA):

The recent abductions of Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Paul Yazigi, reflect not only the increasing brutality of Syria’s civil war, but also the escalating crisis for Christians across the Arab world — one that could end up driving them away altogether. According to the International Society for Human Rights, 80 percent of all acts of religious persecution worldwide in 2012 were directed against Christians. This surge in discrimination against Christian communities in countries where they have lived for many centuries can be explained largely by increasing Islamist militancy and the rise of political Islam in the wake of the Arab Spring. As Islamist parties have taken power in the region, a wave of intimidation and discrimination has been unleashed on Christian minority populations.

For example, on Feb. 26, at a garment market in Benghazi, Libya, members of a powerful Islamist militia rounded up dozens of Egyptian Coptic Christians — identified by crosses tattooed on their right wrists — whom they then detained, tortured and threatened with execution. Among the victims was a Coptic priest, whom the captors beat severely before shaving his head and moustache. Priests have also been assaulted in Tripoli and churches have been torched. All of this sends a clear message: non-Muslims are not safe in Libya.

While Libya has no significant religious minority, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians live and work in the country, where Christian proselytizing is illegal — and where one can be accused of proselytizing simply for possessing a Bible. But Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-controlled government does not seem particularly eager to protect its Christian citizens in Libya; it offered only a halfhearted call for the release of its detained citizens.

This reflects the similarly deteriorating situation for Christians in Egypt, where they account for roughly 15 percent of the population. In early April, a funeral at St. Mark’s Cathedral (the seat of the Coptic Church in Cairo) for four Christians killed in sectarian rioting days earlier descended into chaos, with thousands of mourners attacked as they tried to leave after the service. Police fired tear gas into the compound, standing by as those outside the cathedral launched petrol bombs, hurled rocks and shot at those inside. At least two died and 80 were injured in the five-hour clash.

Christians blame the Muslim Brotherhood not only for allowing Muslim Egyptians to attack them with impunity, but also for permitting — and delivering — incendiary anti-Christian rhetoric. For example, at an open rally for President Mohammad Mursi last year, the cleric Safwat Hegazy warned that Egyptian Muslims would “splash blood” on Christians who “splash water” on Mursi’s legitimacy.

In February, Egypt’s Coptic patriarch, Pope Tawadros II, sharply criticized the country’s leadership in a televised interview, calling the new constitution discriminatory and dismissing Mursi’s “national dialogues” as an empty gesture. This unusually assertive stance reflects rising frustration among Christians, as well as among the secular and liberal opposition, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s power monopoly.

Syria, which once welcomed thousands of Christians fleeing war-torn Iraq, is experiencing an analogous change, as the country’s increasingly sectarian civil war generates fear and mistrust throughout the population. Although Christians have largely sought to remain neutral in the conflict, they have become involved gradually, some by taking up arms and others as victims of kidnapping and violence.

Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III recently stated that, since 2011, over 1,000 Christians have been killed and more than 40 churches and other Christian institutions (schools, orphanages, and care homes) have been damaged or destroyed. Some estimate that 300,000 Christians have fled Syria.

Furthermore, fallout from relentless regional conflict is destabilizing Lebanon, a country that offers Christians a constitutional guarantee of political representation. Some 400,000 refugees — many of them Sunnis, including fugitive rebels — have poured over the border from Syria, exacerbating sectarian tensions and threatening to disrupt Lebanon’s delicate social and political balance.

Given that, as Gottingen University’s Martin Tamcke points out, there is no remaining alternative for Christian refugees in the Middle East. They are increasingly heading to Europe and North America. If this trend is allowed to continue, the Middle East will gradually lose its Christian congregations. In order to prevent such a tragic outcome, Western leaders must take a more active role in advocating the protection of Christian minorities throughout the Arab world.

Ultimately, Christians and Muslims in the Arab world have the same desires: freedom, dignity and equal rights. Those who are persecuting Christians should recognize that the Arab Spring should benefit all Arabs.

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Posted by Theodore Shoebat

Nigeria. 400 churches destroyed by Boko Haram

April 29, 2013/1 Comment/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

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The Christian Elders Forum of Northern States, CEFNS, called on the Federal Government to rebuild the over 400 churches destroyed by Boko Haram insurgency in the region.

This is even as the Defence Headquarters, DHQ, yesterday sent a high powered team of senior officers to Baga, Borno State, to assess the recent military operation in the town.

Also, six policemen and five members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect were killed in fresh clashes in Borno and Yobe states.

The NESCEF leaders, who met at their annual conference in Abuja, also called on President Goodluck Jonathan not to grant state pardon or amnesty to the Boko Haram sect.

In a communiqué signed by its Chairman and Secretary- General, Evangelist Mathew Owojaiye and Mr. Iliya Yusuf respectively, the NOSCEF said the present atmosphere of insecurity facing the nation would not give Nigerians credible elections in 2015.

The forum added that the Federal Government must rebuild the churches destroyed by the insurgents in the North, while it must also compensate Christian victims before any pardon could be granted.

The communiqué reads in part: “Over 400 churches have been destroyed or closed down. Christians are now being individually targeted and eliminated. Thousands of Christian businesses ruined, over 1,500 Christians, innocent lives wiped out. Why is government not talking about pardon to Boko Haram but amnesty? There should be no discussion of amnesty to Boko Haram until all the victims have been adequately compensated.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence has sent assessment team to Borno State to find out what happened in the border town of Baga last weekend in which close to 200 persons were killed in clashes between soldiers and Boko Haram insurgents.

President Jonathan had said on Wednesday that soldiers found guilty of committing atrocities will be punished.

Leader of the assessment team, who is also the Chief of Training and Operations, Defence Headquarters, Major Gen. Lawrence Ngubani, while on a courtesy call on Governor Kashim Shettima, said the team was mandated to find out the veracity or otherwise of the casualty figures as widely reported by local and international media.

According to Gen. Ngubani, the team was constituted at the instance of Chief of Defence Staff, (CDS), Admiral Ola Ibrahim, following the global outcry over the high level of purported number of victims reported by the media.

“The CDS felt that there was urgent need for the Defence Headquarters to carry out an independent and comprehensive on the spot assessment to find out if the actual number of civilians, claimed to have been killed in the violence is indeed true. So we are in the state to interact with the local officials, surviving victims, traditional and religious leaders as well as other stakeholders of the affected community”, he said.

The military chief added that the latest preliminary assessment of the entire episode proved that the casualty figures being reported were far from the truth, they were actually exaggerated.

“The assessment team visited Baga town and had an audience with the victims and other and relevant persons. We visited two separate graveyards where the dead victims were purportedly buried, what we saw was extremely below what was reported. We are not undermining the death of a single Nigerian, in fact it is a great loss to the nation”, he declared.

Gen. Ngubani further reiterated the determination of the Nigerian Army to partner with the state government in addressing the persistent security challenges confronting the state and the entire country at large.

In his remarks, Governor Shettima regretted the Baga killings, saying the number of the victims should not be a center of great concern, rather even it were a death of a single Nigerian, similar concern should be displayed.

“The time of who to be blamed for the incident should not be an issue for now, rather we should all concentrate on how best to restore peace and normalcy”, Shettima said.

The governor restated the determination of his administration in tackling abject poverty among youths, which described as the underlining cause of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Meanwhile, the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, yesterday began the distribution of relief materials to victims of the Baga clash.

Already the agency and the Nigeria Red Cross who arrived in the town on Wednesday have set up camps for the victims.

The camp was set up at the Local Government Clinic in Baga town.

Materials distributed include food items, mats, clothing and toiletries.

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Some of the victims who needed medical attention were also attended to by the agency and the Red Cross team.

NEMA Director of Rescue and Search Operations, Air Commodore Charles Otebegde, who led a delegation of the agency officials from Abuja, said they were in the town following a directive from President Jonathan to provide immediate relief to the affected victims.

On Wednesday, the North-East Zonal Coordinator of the agency, Alhaji Mohammed Kanar, led a team of officials to some villages where some of the victims relocated and the agency convinced them to come to the camp.

Among those presently at the camps, Aisha Sanni Gogobiri, a 30-year-old mother of seven said her husband is still missing since the crisis erupted.

She was evacuated along with her seven children by the NEMA team to the camp.

Meanwhile, gunmen suspected to be members of the sect laid ambush to a patrol vehicle in Bama Local Government Area of Borno State, killing four occupants.

National Mirror learnt that the terrorists attempted to kidnap the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, who was suspected to be aboard the vehicle, but he escaped.

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However, the hoodlums were said to have escaped from the scene in the patrol vehicle.

Bama is about 70 kilometres from Maiduguri.

Our correspondent gathered that the incident took place about 10a.m. around Bama central market when the terrorists, armed with sophisticated weapons, came in four unmarked vehicles and shot sporadically throwing explosives targeted at some security posts in the town.

While trying to repel the attacks, a reliable source said, the four policemen were killed. Several shops and residential houses close to the Bama central market were equally set ablaze during the encounter.

In a text message sent to newsmen in Maiduguri, the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Gideon Jubrin said no DPO was involved in the attack, even as he admitted that there was an attack in Bama, but declined comment on the killing of four policemen, claiming that the details were still sketchy.

In Yobe State, five policemen and 20 people, suspected to be Boko Haram militants died after a midnight shootout between the insurgents and security forces in Gashua town, according to residents and security sources.

Gashua is about 185 kilometres from Damaturu, the state capital, and also a known centre of sect activities, which had witnessed series of killings and bombings in recent times.

The Commissioner of Police in Yobe, Alhaji Sanusi Rufai, said that five policemen and 20 gunmen had been confirmed dead with over N9m carted away from a commercial bank during the attack by Islamic Boko Haram terrorists in Gashua, Yobe on Thursday.

The commissioner, who made the disclosure while briefing newsmen in Damaturu, said that two policemen also sustained injuries and were currently receiving treatment.

He explained that the gunmen had earlier seized the bank manager, forcing him to open the vault where the money was carted away from together with a Peugeot 406 and Toyota Corolla cars.

Rufai said that police and military men later engaged the gunmen in a gun battle, recovering the two cars and an Isuzu Hilux van, belonging to the terrorists.

The commissioner said that two guns, two locally made pistols; two long range rifles; 19 hand grenades and assorted ammunitions were also recovered from the gunmen.

He said that one of the gunmen was captured and was now assisting the police with information on the attack.

“It is the same group using police and military uniforms that attacked Tarmuwa, Gulani and Giedam in recent times,” Rufai said.

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Spokesman of the Joint Task Force, JTF, Lt. Eli Lazarus, said in a press statement sent to newsmen that most of the Boko Haram gunmen fled in the heat of the shootout and abandoned their vehicles and cache of arms.

Fati Umar, a female school teacher and resident of Gashua sent a text message out about 1a.m. saying ‘please do pray for us! We are in danger’.

Fati later confirmed on phone to journalists that dozens of Boko Haram gunmen invaded their Mobile Base area about midnight shooting and chanting Islamic slogan ‘Allahu Akbar’, meaning God is great.

“From the way they were moving, it was like they were going from house to house. They fired several gunshots around our house but the gate was firmly locked.

“It was this morning we heard they attacked a police station and the prison,” she said.

Lt. Lazarus said in his statement that the attack started at midnight.

“At about 12 midnight Thursday April 25, 2013, unknown gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram terrorists attacked JTF location in Gashua town, the Police Area Command and Gashua Divisional Police Station. Men of the JTF were able to repel and contain the attack on its location. Reinforcement was however dispatched swiftly and was able to engage the terrorists.

“Two police officers were killed in the attack while five of the suspected terrorists lost their lives during the encounter. Some of the suspected terrorists escaped in two vehicles with injuries while others are believed to still be at large. The fleeing terrorists took away one police Hilux vehicle fitted with siren at the top, one other vehicle, police uniforms and other items from the police stations.

“Items recovered include one Toyota Corolla car, one Peugeot 406 Saloon Car, one Isuzu Pick Up Van, One AK 47 Rifle, one Police Anti- Riot Gun, one locally made pistol, one Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) bomb, one generating set and large quantity of ammunition,” he said.

The spokesman urged the general public to be mindful of the fact that the terrorists are still around and are bent on wrecking havoc and instilling fear in law abiding citizens in order to make life unbearable for them. “Let no one be in doubt however, that JTF would continue to respond appropriately to such attacks”, Lazarus said.

The Task Force also urges all law abiding citizens to remain calm as it is currently on top of the situation. A cordon and search operation is currently on going in Gashua town.

To guard against the influx of illegal immigrants into Nigeria through the numerous borders, the House of Representatives yesterday passed a motion urging the Presidency to erect perimeter fences to demarcate the country’s borders with neighbouring nations like Chad, Mali, Cameroun and others.

The House in its motion sponsored by Hon. Hassan Saleh (PDP-Benue) also seeks to have the demarcations armed with sensors and cameras and decent incentives for immigration staff manning the borders to discourage them from cooperating with illegal immigrants.

In his motion, Saleh noted that most Nigerian land border posts were not “water tight”, despite the importance attached to our borderlines to ensure security, economic and social well-being of the country and its citizens.

He said: “It is disheartening to note that our borders with our neighbours remain poorly and inefficiently managed” adding that “at some of our borders, there are no flags, gates or any form of proper demarcation, rather what has been observed at some border posts such as Seme and Idi-Iroko are demarcations made of bamboo trunks.”

According to the lawmaker, besides the gross lack of security at the borders, “it has been alleged that there exists 1,497 illegal routes into the country, adding that most of our villages, towns and cities are filled with illegal immigrants who go about without any fear of being questioned about the legality of their stay in the country.”

He noted that Nigeria’s borders with other countries stretches through 3,140 kilometres running from Malaville, north of Republic of Benin stretching through Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe, Borno states down to Mfun in Cross River State that has a boundary with Cameroun.

He said that the rising tide of insecurity in the country today is a direct fallout of the porosity of the nation’s borders coupled with the lack of effective manpower, inadequate logistics and lack of conducive working conditions for those charged with the responsibility of manning the border posts.

Nigeria’s neighbours are Benin Republic, which has boundary stretching 773 kilometres in the South West; Niger Republic, 1,500 kilometres in the North West; Chad, 87 kilometers in the North East and Cameroun, 1,680 kilometers from the North East to the South South.

In another development, governors of the 19 northern states have sounded the alarm over the current destruction of lives and property going on in the region, saying that there is trouble.

Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State said except all hands are brought on deck to stop the menace, the danger it portends for the region will forever remain indelible.

Also the Governor of Niger State, Dr Babangida Aliyu, called on his colleagues to wake up to their responsibilities as chief security officers of their various states to ensure that peace returned to the zone even as he noted that the leaders in the North are facing serious challenges.

Speaking yesterday at the meeting of the Northern Governors’ Forum when it received reports of the committee it set up on Reconciliation, Healing and Security in Abuja, Yuguda said he weeps for the blood of innocent Nigerians being shed for no just cause.

He said it was regrettable that values that bound the North in the past had been eroded and thus paved way for the current insurgency going on at the moment.

Welcoming guests earlier, chairman of Northern Governors’ Forum, Aliyu, said he was happy over the report of the committee saying it has opened a new vista for resolving the Boko Haram menace in the country.

The committee in its report called on the northern governors to present a common development focus for the northern states in its bid to tackle the grim social and economic situation of the region.

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(National mirror)

Indonesia. Militant serving a 19-year prison sentence for beheading three Christian schoolgirls has “escaped”.

April 29, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

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A militant serving a 19-year prison sentence for beheading three Christian schoolgirls has escaped while visiting his sick wife and is still at large, Indonesian police said Friday.
National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said Basri, 36, fled from his house in the Central Sulawesi town of Poso last week when a guard who escorted him from jail to the home left him unguarded for several hours.

Basri, who like many Indonesians uses a single name, was sentenced to 19 years in jail in 2007 for the beheadings and a series of attacks that terrorized Poso, where a Muslim-Christian conflict killed at least 1,000 people from 1998 to 2002.

“When the guard came to take him back to the prison, he found that Basri was no longer at his house,” Amar said. “He is still at large.”

Police are searching for Basri, whom Amar described as a “dangerous militant,” and are investigating why he was escorted by only one guard.

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“We call on people who know his whereabouts to report to authorities immediately,” Amar said.

Basri, who was arrested along with five other militants in February 2007, admitted to beheading one of the three girls in late 2005 as they walked to school along a quiet jungle path overlooking Poso.

In an interview with The Associated Press days after their arrests, Basri said he and the other militants learned weapons handling and bomb making from members of the al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.

Footage of the 2007 counterterrorism operation that led to their arrest was posted on YouTube and Muslim websites, sparking outrage among Islamic groups.

The video shows uniformed officers from Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism unit yelling and shooting rounds to scare the shirtless, bound suspects, who were lying face down on the ground. One man wearing only underwear and shown with a bloody hole in his back, presumably from a gunshot wound, was identified as Wiwin Kalahe, another beheading convict.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has won praise for arresting and convicting terrorists since the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

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(AP)

Morocco. Highest Islamic institute: death penalty for Christian converts.

April 28, 2013/0 Comments/in Christian Persecution /by Keith Davies

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Christian converts in Morocco feared for their future Thursday, April 25, after the country’s highest Islamic institute issued a fatwa demanding the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their religion.

The Supreme Ulema Council of Morocco (CSO), a body of Islamic scholars headed by King Mohammed VI, said that Muslims who reject their faith “should be condemned to death.” CSO is the only institution entitled to issue ‘fatwas’, or religious decrees, in Morocco.

The ministry of Islamic affairs declined to comment on the issue.

The fatwa dates back to April 2012 when a legal report was prepared by the government, but it wasn’t published at the time, according to local media.

Mahjoub El Hiba, a senior human rights official in the Moroccan government, denied to reporters that the government received a fatwa on “apostasy” — the word used for abandoning Islam — as the Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm had claimed.

CRACKDOWN FEARED

The different statements could not be immediately reconciled, but local Christians expressed concern about the situation, saying it could lead to a new crackdown on the country’s tiny Christian community of some 22,000 people.

“There’s a lot of confusion and discussion in Morocco right now about the fatwa,” said a pastor near the city of Marrakech in a statement distributed by advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC). “We fear that if the fatwa is approved, the government will use it to harass us and even arrest us during our meetings,” the church leader added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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“The [Islamic] fundamentalists will have an excuse to harm us,” the pastor reportedly said.

ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, Aidan Clay, agrees that the fatwa adds to concern about the position of Christians in the Islamic nation of over 32 million people. ”

INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS

“The Moroccan government lost credibility among international human rights groups in 2010 when it deported more than 70 foreign Christian aid workers on charges of proselytizing without granting due process rights to a hearing,” he said.

In total, Morocco expelled as many as 100 foreign Christians since 2010, because they allegedly tried to convert Muslims.

Islamic extremism is the main “source of persecution” in Morocco, said Christian advocacy group Open Doors.

Among those already detained is 49-year-old Jamaa Ait Bakrim, an outspoken Christian convert, who was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in 2005 for “proselytizing” and destroying “the goods of others” after burning two defunct utility poles located in front of his own business in south Morocco.

MOROCCO LEGISLATION

Open Doors quoted activists and Moroccan Christians as saying that the severity of his sentence for a “misdemeanor” underscores Morocco’s attempt him behind bars as long as possible “because he persistently spoke about his faith.”

While apostasy is illegal in many Muslim countries and punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, Moroccan law so far does not directly prohibit it, according to experts familiar with the legislation.

Article 220 of Morocco’s Penal Code does state, however, that “attempting to undermine the faith of a Muslim or convert him to another religion” is punishable with six months to three years in prison. It was not immediately clear when and if the reported fatwa issuing a death sentence will become part of new legislation.

“We urge the Moroccan government to safeguard the religious freedoms of all Moroccans and to reject edicts that would constitute a breach of the country’s international human rights obligations,” Clay said.

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(BosNewsLife)