Muslim Persecution of Christians, December 2014

Christmas celebrations were, as usual, tense and sometimes bloody:

Somalia: Islamic terrorists boasted of successfully slaughtering Christians while "they were celebrating Christmas." Eight Islamic gunmen infiltrated the main African Union base in Mogadishu and killed three peacekeepers and a civilian contractor. Later, the Islamic group Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack; it announced it had killed 14 peacekeepers whom it described as "Christian enemies": "We targeted the enemies at a time they were celebrating Christmas," said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, spokesman for Al Shabaab. Western diplomats who were celebrating Christmas in Mogadishu were evacuated to safety bunkers until the raid was over. Witnesses reported hearing bomb blasts and volleys of gunfire throughout the day.

Iraq: In mid-December, as people in the West were doing their last minute Christmas shopping, churches under IS authority were turned into torture chambers for Christians. According to a witness, "churches are being used as prisons and for torture. Three of the Christian prisoners died because they were sick and nobody cared for them." The witness, known as Abu Aasi, said that Christian prisoners in the churches are being forced to convert and that IS members have been "breaking all the crosses and statues of Mary." Other reports told of how Christian prisoners — blindfolded and handcuffed — were held at the ancient Chaldean Church of the Immaculate Conception in eastern Mosul, and that St George's monastery was now a female prison.

Pakistan: Christian minorities celebrated Christmas "with religious fervor by offering prayers in different churches under tight security," said one report : "heavy contingents of police were deployed in and around the churches at cantonment and city areas where movement of other people was restricted and the citizens were allowed only after thorough body search."
In Peshawar alone, approximately "2,000 policemen were deployed in addition to personnel in plain clothes ... while the entry points leading to the churches had been closed by placing cemented blocks and barbed wire." Peshawar, of course, is where Islamic suicide bombers attacked the All Saints Church in September 2013, leaving nearly 90 worshippers dead — including many Sunday school children, women, and choir members — and approximately 120 injured.
Also in Pakistan, Elisabeth Bibi, a 28-year-old pregnant Christian mother of four, was "beaten, scorned and humiliated, deprived of her dignity [and] forced to walk naked through the town" by two Muslim brothers, the pregnant woman's employers, following an argument. In the ordeal, she lost her baby. Another report states that she was beaten with "pipes" and then robbed by the two Muslim men. Rights activists say the attack "was motivated because of Bibi's [Christian] religious beliefs." Bibi herself said that the Muslim family often tried to persuade her to convert to Islam. Police, as often happens when Muslims attack Christians, failed to arrest the two brothers, and Christian activists received threats to drop the charges.

Egypt: With the approach of the Christmas season, Islamic clerics and websites warned Muslims to refrain from any form of participation in Christian celebrations and condemned Muslims who offer their best wishes to their Christian neighbors during Christmas. There were also death threats and incitement to violence against churches, with particular reference to Christian communities in the governorates of Minya, Alexandria and Fayyum, where the Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood have a strong presence.
On December 24, or Christmas Eve, security forces "arrested seven members of a terrorist cell led by a 50-year-old deputy headmaster of a secondary school in the Minya governorate, who is accused of plotting violent acts during the Coptic Christmas celebrations," reports Zawya. Those arrested "were caught in possession of Molotov cocktails, pictures of the ousted Egyptian president [Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood], and circuitry connected to mobile phones to detonate bombs from a distance, as part of a plan to disrupt the Christmas celebrations."
Elsewhere in Egypt, Christians "had to pray outdoors in spite of the cold air and the coming of Christmas, as the police were unable to protect them from Islamists' attacks," in the words of the president of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, and because many of their churches, despite military promises, remain partially destroyed after 2013 Brotherhood uprisings (see church section below for more).
Iran: On Christmas day in Tehran province, nine Christians were arrested after a paramilitary force and armed plainclothes agents raided a house church where they were celebrating Christmas. The Christians were transferred to an unknown location. NCR-Iran adds, "The clerical regime in Iran continued human rights abuses in Iran during Christmas. At dawn of the 25th December, on Christmas day when hundred[s] of millions of people around the world were celebrating the birth of the Christ, the barbaric regime of Iran hanged 7 people in mass execution in Shiraz."
Nigeria: The Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri, capital city of Borno State in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, experienced another tense Christmas. The city has been besieged by the Islamic organization Boko Haram, and streets were left vehicle-free on December 25 to avoid suicide attacks. Most of the 5,000 displaced persons welcomed in Maiduguri are in fact refugees from other regions that have fallen to Boko Haram.
These people, said Fr. Gideon Obasogie "have no homes, cannot celebrate Christmas as usual with their relatives and friends and are forced to live in a state of hopelessness. Despite fears of terrorist attacks — including widespread rumors of suicide bombers disguised as nuns — "the Catholic faithful went to Christmas Mass ... to express their faith in an eloquent manner," reported the priest.

A Nigerian army emplacement in Maiduguri. (Image source: TV360 video screenshot)

Due to the continually worsening plight of Christians in the Middle East, even Britain's Prince Charles, who is often criticized of being overly sympathetic to and apologetic of Islam, said:

It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.... Christianity was literally born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ... Yet today the Middle East and North Africa has the lowest concentration of Christians in the world — just four per cent of the population and it is clear that the Christian population has dropped dramatically over the last century and is falling still further.... We all lose something immensely and irreproachably precious when such a rich tradition dating back 2,000 years begins to disappear.

The rest of December's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Jihadi Slaughter of Christians

Kenya: Gunmen from the Islamic organization Al Shabaab launched an early-morning raid on quarry workers while they slept in their worksite tents near the city of Mandera, along the Somali border. Christians and Muslims were separated before the Christians, thirty-six of them, were beheaded or shot dead. Afterwards, Al Shabaab posted a statement condemning the "crusaders" — a standard jihadi reference to Christians — and added: "We are uncompromising in our beliefs, relentless in our pursuit, ruthless against the disbelievers and we will do whatever necessary to defend our Muslim brethren suffering from Kenya's aggression." The killings occurred 10 days after Al Shabaab's attack on a bus and the massacre of 28 of its non-Muslim (primarily Christian) passengers. Again, Muslim passengers were singled out and left unharmed.

Libya: Unidentified men broke into a Christian household the middle of the night. They handcuffed and killed the father, according to his brother-in-law during an interview. Then they entered the children's bedroom. The mother was there, cried out, tried to fight back, and was killed. They took the oldest daughter, Katherine, and fled with her. The girl's body was later found in the desert, shot three times (graphic pictures here). The other two younger daughters were left for two-and-a-half hours in their bedroom with the body of their slain mother. In the early morning, they fled the house and ran toward their school where they were intercepted by the principal who asked them, "Why are you coming to school alone today? Where's your father?" They answered, "Daddy is in heaven." Ansar al-Sharia ("Supporters of Islamic Law"), an Islamist organization that rose to power during Libya's "Arab Spring," is believed to be responsible for the targeting of this, and other, Christian families. In February 2014, after Ansar al-Sharia offered a reward to any Benghazi resident who helped round up and execute the nation's Coptic Christian residents, seven Christians were forcibly seized from their homes by "unknown gunmen," marched out into the desert and shot execution style, some 20 miles west of Benghazi (graphic pictures appear here).

Nigeria: In Taraba State, over 100 Muslim Fulani herdsmen slaughtered 16 Christians, including a one-year-old infant and his mother, and torched several churches and Christians' homes in two separate village attacks. A resident from one of the villages said, "We have buried those killed in the attack, and the sad thing is that this is not the first time that such an attack was carried out on Christian communities here. No one cares about us. Lives and properties are being wasted on [a] daily basis, and the government is not doing anything to stop the killing of our people."
Catholic Priest Clement Mkperaga, whose church building was destroyed and who barely escaped with his life, said: "The village has been destroyed, and all my parishioners have been displaced. Ten of my parishioners were killed during the attack on our community. I have been forced to flee the village, as both the church building and the parish house have also been destroyed."
Many similar attacks on Christian villages have been launched by Muslim Fulani herdsmen who "are always working together with Muslim terrorist gunmen [Boko Haram]," said another Christian local: "Whenever they invade a Christian community, they kill and burn houses at will and go unchallenged. That is precisely how they attacked our village."

Christian Churches Under Islam

Egypt: Although the military promised to rebuild the dozens of churches damaged or destroyed by Islamic mobs angered at the June 2013 revolution that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, parishioners are still waiting. According to the Global Post, "The army's work to rebuild the churches has been slow. Even the help they do provide is partial," meaning the congregation has to pay for the bulk of repairs. Some churches are not even receiving partial aid, such as the charred shell that is the Anba Moussa church: "Nothing has been moved since the day a mob burned and looted the church and the priest's apartment. They took everything, down to the doorframes and the toilet seats, after driving a car through the front doors. Only an ever-thickening layer of dust attests to the passage of time."
According to that church's caretaker, "They say the army will come, but up to now we haven't seen anything." Islamic law holds that new churches are never to be built in Muslim lands and existing ones never repaired. Even so, many of these partially wrecked churches continue to be used, and are even packed, during church services. (Click here for many pictures of these wrecked churches.)

Iraq: The Islamic State blew up yet another Christian church in Mosul. According to Pastor Behnam Raad, "Members of the extremist organization cleared the Church of Virgin Mary of its contents in al-Arabi area, north of Mosul and blew it up after [a] few hours." The nearby convent of the Chaldean Sisters of the Sacred Heart was also reportedly bombed by IS. Once a Christian-majority city, Mosul is now an IS stronghold.

Sudan: On December 2, police beat and arrested 38 Christians from Bahri Evangelical Church in North Khartoum, for still using the church that authorities had condemned to destruction, and which had already been raided and partially demolished during the previous two weeks. "We have enjoyed worshipping and praising God in prison," one of the arrested Christians said. "The power of God was present among us; let the name of God be praised and glorified from now and evermore."
According to Morning Star News, Sudan's security agents and police have "broad powers to arrest Christians and other lowly regarded people without cause, for creating a public disturbance. The Christians were released after being sentenced to pay a fine of $250 each."
And on December 21, security agents arrested and held the Rev. Yat Michael of the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church right after he delivered a sermon about standing firm against persecution at the North Khartoum church. "The level of persecution has become too much for us in Sudan," another church leader said. "But God is good all the time; He will help His church face this persecution."

Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism

Kenya: A pastor of Somali descent whom Islamic Al Shabaab militants have threatened for leaving Islam lives in fear and terror. The Islamic group has offered a reward to anyone who kills the Rev. Mahad H. Birik. This comes after a video of the apostate describing his conversion from Islam seeped into Somali media two months earlier. Since then, disturbing signs — such as known hit men following him to church and masked men asking around about a "Somali pastor" — have taken place. "My family is now living in a sleepless state," said the father of two children — one aged 15 from a wife who, according to Islamic law, was taken from him when he left Islam, and a 2-year-old from remarriage. "My life and that of my family is in imminent danger. It is very serious and real, as Muslim extremists are strategizing on having my head."
On December 1, after two of Birik's Somali relatives argued with him over his conversion to Christianity, one of them said, "I wish I could get an opportunity to kill this infidel — just hit him right in his face." In Somali, converts to Christianity who get exposed are regularly beheaded by Islamists.

Pakistan: Eleven Christian residents of Islamabad, including a pastor, were collectively accused of blasphemy by Naseem Bibi, a former Christian woman who converted to Islam 20 years ago and married a Muslim man. She claims that Pastor Karamat Masih and 50 other Christians stormed into her home where they harassed and threatened her. Others, however, say the Muslim woman is exploiting the blasphemy law in order to avenge herself on some of the Christians with whom she has a personal dispute. Speaking of this case, a Pakistani Christian activist and lawyer, Sardar Mushtaq Gill, said, "There are always more and more frequent cases where the blasphemy law is used to target religious minorities or to settle cases of disputes and private rivalries, or simply as an instrument of blackmail."

Turkey: Approximately 10,000 New Testaments and other Christian books were destroyed during a fire that was started by a suspected arson attack at the offices of the Bible Correspondence Course in Turkey [BCC-Turkey], located in a multistory building, which also houses a church, in the Kadikoy neighborhood of Istanbul. There were no injuries or structural damage. Concerning the identity of the arsonist(s), David Byle, co-founder of BBC-Turkey, said "Our hunch is it is people who don't like people who do the activities we do here — mainly giving out free New Testaments and explaining the Christian faith to people." Concerning police response, Byle said,

"We were disappointed by how little interest it seemed was shown by the authorities investigating this. If a depot in Germany or England located right above a mosque, in the same building full of thousands of Korans, had a fire start right exactly where the Korans were stored, and if the policemen from England or Germany arrived at the scene and took a quick look and said, 'Oh, well this is obviously just an accident,' and then just tried to convince all the on-lookers it was an accident and didn't even bother to call the police in, that man would be out of a job very quickly."

(In April 2007, several terrorists attacked a publishing house in Malatya, Turkey, for distributing Bibles. They bound, tortured and slaughtered three Christian employees. One suspect later said: "We didn't do this for ourselves, but for our religion [Islam]…. Let this be a lesson to enemies of our religion.")

Egyptian Dhimmitude

According to the Justice Organization for Development and Human Rights, a Salafi plan exists in Egypt to expel the Christian Copts from the Upper Egypt governorates of Minya, Asyut and Beni Suef, where an Islamist presence is strong. Accordingly, unidentified people set four Coptic Christian owned shops on fire in Minya. Firefighters were barely able to extinguish the fire. Police later said the fire was caused by an electric short circuit, although most Copts are skeptical.

Separately, Mina Thabet, founder of the People's Initiative Party, said that cases of Coptic abductions for ransom are on the rise in Minya and are proving to be a lucrative "business" for "thugs and terrorists" of the Islamic persuasion in an area that is "at an all-time low and ridden with corruption." Thabet says that since January 25, 2011, the date of Egypt's original "Arab Spring," these kidnappings have cost Coptic Christian minorities over 120 million Egyptian pounds (nearly USD $16 million). According to Thabet, "incomprehensible laxity" concerning the safety of Christian minorities prevails, making them extremely vulnerable to profit-making kidnappings.

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some — by no means all — of the instances of persecution that surface each month.
It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.
It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Muslim Persecution of Christians, October 2014

In just two months, from August to October, nearly 200 Christian churches were destroyed in Nigeria by the Islamic organization Boko Haram and its Muslim allies, after their capture of towns and villages in the north-eastern states of Borno and Adamawa. In the words of Reverend Gideon Obasogie, the director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese in Borno State: "The group's seizure of territory in both states has seen 185 churches torched and over 190,000 people displaced by their insurgency."
Obasogie added that Boko Haram's "ransacking and torching" of churches was "sad, heart-aching and potentially dangerous to the territorial integrity and common good of Nigeria.... Our priests are displaced, while citizens... are counting their losses and regrets as they have been reduced to the status of Internally Displaced Persons [IDP]. Where is the freedom?... Life is really terribly difficult."
In 2011, hundreds of Christians were killed and 430 churches destroyed or damaged in Nigeria by Boko Haram. In 2012, 900 Christians were slaughtered and an unknown number of churches destroyed. In 2013, 612 Christians were slaughtered and approximately 300 churches destroyed.

This suggests that in the last four years alone, approximately 1,000 Christian churches have been destroyed by Boko Haram and its Muslim sympathizers in a nation that is approximately half Christian half Muslim.

Moreover, according to an October Human Rights Watch report, Boko Haram has so far been responsible for killing 2,053 people in 2014—a number that likely exceeds the previous four years put together.

A typical church attack in Nigeria that occurred in October was reported as follows: "Armed Muslim extremists stormed two churches in Taraba state on Sunday (Oct. 19) and killed 31 people as they worshiped... Two pastors, one pastor's son, and 28 other Christians were slain in the attacks." According to the Rev. Caleb Ahema, president of the Christian Reformed Church of Christ in Nigeria, "The attack on Christians in Taraba state is a planned genocide against Christians by Islamic insurgents who have invaded the southern part of the state, inhabited mostly by Christians, since February."
The experiences of Adamu, a 28-year-old Christian man who refused to abjure Christianity for Islam, appeared in October. One day while working on his farm, a Boko Haram member came to him:

He told me to convert to Islam and join them in waging a jihad to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria. I told him that I will not renounce my Christian faith in order to embrace Islam. He left me there on my farm without saying anything again. [Two days later, five other Boko Haram members showed up.] They said their member told them that I refused to renounce being a Christian and wanted to know whether it is true that I refused to become a Muslim. [Adamu repeated his decision again.] They then told me that since I refused to recant, they would kill me.... They pinned me down and told me they will make death painful and slow, as they are not prepared to waste their bullets on me. They also said they would not give me the honor of slaughtering me by cutting my neck from the front, because that is the way they slaughter their rams. They forced me down on my stomach and then proceeded to slaughter me by cutting my neck from the back. I was bleeding and went blank as the knife cut through my neck. It was pains I cannot explain to you. After cutting my neck, they left me bleeding…. It was only after I was taken to the hospital that I was told that the Boko Haram members who attacked me on the farm had gone to the village shortly after leaving me bleeding to death and had warned other Muslims that if any of them dares to rescue me, he would be killed. They sternly warned other Muslims in Musari, "We have butchered an infidel there on his farm. Be warned that if any of you Muslims dares to assist him, he is also an infidel and we shall make sure that he too is killed.'" [Days later, a fellow Christian snuck onto the farm and rescued the barely living man.]

Also in October, the Center for the Studies of Global Christianity in the United States concluded that

About 100,000 Christians die every year because of their religious beliefs, that is to say one every five minutes. In addition, in many countries, many other religious minorities suffer violence and persecution. In countries such as Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia and Egypt the Christian elderly, women, men and their children live in conditions of total insecurity. They are driven from their homes; put in prison for blasphemy, and brutally killed during liturgical celebrations, churches are burned. Girls are kidnapped and forced to marry.

The rest of October's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Muslim Attacks on Churches

Egypt: According to a terse report relayed from Arabic media, "homemade bomb exploded today [October 7] next to the Evangelical Church of God, in Sarie district in Minya [Upper Egypt]. The bomb caused great panic, but no casualties or deaths. Police were reported and the matter is still under investigation."

Germany: Just as happens regularly in Egypt, a Coptic Christian church in the European nation was attacked and torched. According to the report, "The mayor of Berlin condemned attacking and burning St. Athanasius and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church in Berlin by extremists describing it as a crime against peaceful coexistence. On his part, Abba Demian, bishop of Germany, said that he didn't expect such attack against a church in Germany."

Iraq: Bombings by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State hit and devastated the Church of the Resurrection near the town of Qaraqosh. The Christian place of worship was being used as a base for jihadis, who had broken off the cross from the building's roof before occupying it.

Philippines: A grenade attack on a church during worship service left two Christians—Felomina Ferolin, a 54-year-old nurse, and teacher Gina Cabilona, 39—dead, and three others injured, one critically. Two men on a motorbike fired a grenade launcher at the door of the United Church of Christ before fleeing the scene. The attack took place in the island of Mindanao, where Islamic groups have previously targeted Christians and churches. In a separate incident, an attempted bomb attack took place on October 11 in Mindanao. At that time, the improvised explosive device was defused at the scene by security forces with no reports of injuries. Another location, Zamboanga had been the location of a previous attack on a church by Islamic militants in February 2014. Members of two other militant Islamist groups in the Philippines recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Sudan: The nation's air force dropped four bombs on an Episcopal Church in complex in the Nuba Mountains. According to the Rev. Youhana Yaqoub "The bombs have completely destroyed our church compound in Tabolo. A family living at the church compound miraculously escaped the attack, although their whole house and property were destroyed."

Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom

Iran: In what was called a "serious blow," three Christian leaders were sentenced to six years in prison for their involvement in house churches. Pastor Benham Irani, Abdolreza Ali-Haghnejad, and Reza Rabbani, all leaders in the Church of Iran, were sentenced for "action against national security" and "creating a network to overthrow the system" -- generic terms the Islamic republic uses to suppress Christian activities. All three are being moved to remote prisons along the nation's borders. Jason Demars, president of Present Truth Ministries, an evangelical group that works in Iran, said, "Basically they want to silence them—they want to move them away to a place that is tough to get to, for their family to get to. With no one on hand to know what is going on, it's easier to mistreat them." Separately, three other converts to Christianity were arrested by intelligence officers in Foolad-Shahr, Esfahan province. Security forces also raided the home of arrested Christian actor Shahram Ghaedi. It is thought that Ghaedi and the two other believers, Heshmat Shafiei and Emad Haghi, were targeted by authorities because of their involvement in a "Jesus Film" project.
Pressure had previously been placed on the filmmakers by the security authorities, forcing some cast members to leave the country and disrupting the project.

Kazakhstan: Two Christian men, Vyacheslav Cherkasov and Zhasulan Alzhanov, were given ten-day prison terms for distributing Christian literature after authorities claimed that one of the books incites religious hatred. The book Jesus: More than a Prophet—a collection of testimonies of former Muslims—which was among 252 Christian books seized by the authorities -- was found by officials who conducted "expert analysis" to contain "elements inciting religious hatred and discord." A Christian source in Kazakhstan characterized the plight of Christians in the Muslim-majority nation as follows: "The situation in every Central Asian republic is different, but we see that persecution is increasing. The Kazakh authorities put tougher pressure on… churches. All countries have passed new regulations in administrative and criminal laws that toughen punishments for illegal religious activity. At the same time the authorities don't protect… churches from zealous local Muslims or just criminals. [Violence] happens not very often but we don't have any protection from the authorities."

Lebanon: A Syrian-born Muslim convert to Christianity who goes by the name "Tarek" is in hiding from his father and stepbrothers who are determined to slaughter him: "They are searching to cut my throat. I've been told they have hired someone to find me to get the mission accomplished.... Sometimes, I feel in danger. Especially when I go into the streets, when I come to Beirut. You never know if someone is looking for you. I'm living in a place where the majority are Muslims. So whenever I go to church on Sunday, they would know I'm Christian. So I don't say anything about my religion, and when I go to mass, I say I am going to English classes because I plan to travel."
Malaysia: Ibrahim Ali, the leader of the Muslim supremacist organization Perkasa, said during a press conference that: "Muslims must unite to protect their religion. They must seize those Bibles, including the Malay editions, which contained the term Allah and other Arabic religious terms, and burn them. This is the way to show our anger against disrespect to our sensitivity." A police investigation was launched to see if Ali was in breach of Section 298, which criminalizes saying words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings, or Section 505, which criminalizes making statements that could cause public mischief. The government concluded that Ibrahim Ali would not be charged with anything because "he only meant to defend the sanctity of Islam." But as the Christian Federation of Malaysia points out, by portraying calls to burn the Bible as acts "to defend the sanctity of Islam," the government just gave "free rein to other extremists to do likewise, not just to Christians but to any other religious community that is not Muslim."
Pakistan: A court upheld the death penalty for Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of four, who was accused of blasphemy, imprisoned, and sentenced to death in 2010. She is alleged to have made derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass, because she was not Muslim and therefore "unclean." After Bibi's arrest in 2010, two top Pakistani politicians who sought to intervene on her behalf were gunned down, one by his own bodyguard.
 
Sudan: Ibrahim Ismaeil Ibrahim, a 34-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity and father of two, once worked as a human rights defender. Today he lives in a refugee camp after surviving an attempt on his life by Muslims trying to kill him for apostatizing from, and criticizing, Islam. Before leaving Islam, he worked as a writer and human rights defender in the Darfur region. As he chronicled human rights violations by Muslim militants, he became disillusioned with Islam and converted to Christianity: "I defected from Islam and started writing articles through my [pseudonymous] page on Facebook, in which I described Islam as a religion of terror and killing. Then some people discovered my identity and sent me messages of intimidation on my phone that they were looking for my head. Suddenly, I was attacked.... An unknown Islamic extremist broke into my house at midnight and opened fire on my room." Ibrahim and his family fled the nation. He later discovered that the government of Sudan was behind the Islamic assassins trying to kill him.

Uzbekistan: Artur Alpayev, a Christian man, was given a large fine—50 times the nation's minimum monthly wage—and threatened with further punishment after religious literature was seized from his home during a raid on a prayer meeting. Police also raided several other homes in the repressive country, in search of Christian materials. When sentencing Alpayev, Judge Oltinbek Mansurov said, "We will continue fining you unless you stop storing religious literature in your home." Police also raided the homes of two other Christian couples in search of religious literature; 65 Christian books and materials were seized, including children's Bibles.

Dhimmitude: Islamic Discrimination Against Christianity

Egypt: Lisa Nasim Basari, a 28-year-old Coptic Christian woman, made a video describing the advances of a Muslim man who has been pressuring her to convert to Islam and marry her. According to her account, Wa'il Hassan Abdul Mu'min began stalking her whenever she left home. He eventually asked her to convert to Islam and marry him —even offering her money—but she refused. In retaliation, he attacked and burned portions of the grocery store in which she worked; tore her clothes and sexually abused her. Lisa eventually went to local police to file a formal report against him, but, as she explained in the video, the police, far from interfering, actually incited the Muslim man—who appears to be affiliated with the police department—to keep harassing her. They also imprisoned her for a time and, as she said, "tortured" her into abandoning the complaint against the Muslim man. In the video, she pleas for help, begging some authority in Egypt to intervene and prompt Abdul Mu'min to leave her in peace. Another Coptic female was kidnapped. The 20-year-old Christian woman was on her way to St. George Church in Sohag governate in the early morning but never returned. The family later received a phone call from one "Muhammad" who said that if they wanted to see the girl again they must ransom her for 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($35,000). When her brother went to the authorities, the head captain told him, "So what, one Coptic girl missing? Look at how many millions of Muslims are dying in Palestine. Who would've thought so many millions of Muslims would die in Syria? And you're bothering us about one girl?"

Libya: The old Christian cemetery in Tripoli has been vandalized three times since the fall of the Qaddafi government in 2011. According to an eyewitness who took pictures, several crosses were destroyed or had their sides broken off: "Halfway to the ossuaries, bent steel rods that once strengthened a large concrete cross reminded me of the trouble the Islamists had to go through to destroy that symbol of Christianity… The statues of an angel clutching a cross that was pushed over and of a small boy that had its head chopped off were among other Christian relics that were damaged…. As the Islamists' grip on Libya tightens and Tripoli's Christian population dies out, it is only a matter of time before the Christian cemetery is bulldozed and erased from history.

Pakistan: In a nation where the mere accusation of offending Islam leads to incarceration and possibly death—see Asia Bibi's entry above—offending Christianity leads to nothing. A Muslim shopkeeper started selling shoes which depict the Christian cross on their sole. Christians demonstrated but police did nothing. According to the report, "In Pakistani culture, showing the sole of one's shoe or foot is offensive because placing anything on the ground is considered to be an insult to the object. Therefore, something on the sole of a shoe is going to be constantly insulted as the person walks. The designs are considered very offensive by some local Christians, who feel that they are intended to insult believers, to express hatred towards them, and to try to stir up tensions between Christians and their Muslim neighbors." This is not the first case of its kind. In 2011 a similar case was lodged against a Muslim shopkeeper in Lahore for selling shoes with crosses on the top, although the police did not investigate the incident further.
Syria: Father Hanna Jallouf, a Franciscan priest and around 20 other Christians—among them young boys and girls—were kidnapped by brigades linked to the Islamist Nusra Front from a village near the border with Turkey. Members of the Franciscan order had been present in the village for more than a century.

United Kingdom: An otherwise successful Christian school was warned that it would be downgraded by inspectors and might even face closure after failing to invite a leader from another religion, such as a Muslim imam, to lead assemblies. According to the Telegraph, "In the latest case inspectors are understood to have warned the head that the school, which was previously rated as "good" that it would be downgraded to "adequate" for failing to meet standards requiring it to "actively promote" harmony between different faiths because it had failed to bring in representatives from other religions. They warned that unless the school could demonstrate how it was going to meet the new requirements there would be a further full inspection which could ultimately lead to it being closed. A Government consultation paper published in June, explaining the new rules, makes clear that even taking children on trips to different places of worship would not be enough to be judged compliant."

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Muslim Persecution of Christians, September 2014

The Muslim persecution of Christians in September started making prominent appearances not just in the Islamic world, but also in the West—in America, Australia and Europe.

In the United States, in Columbus, Indiana, three churches were vandalized on the same night. The words most frequently sprayed were "Infidels!" and "Koran 3:151." The verse from the Koran states, "We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve [or "infidels"] for what they have associated with Allah [reference to Christian Trinity] of which He had not sent down [any] authority. And their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of the wrongdoers."
Father Doug Marcotte of Saint Bartholomew's Catholic Church, one of those vandalized, said, "There's a lot of bad stuff being done in the name of Allah and so when people see this happening in Columbus, whether that was truly the person's intent or there's something else going on, it makes people nervous. It makes people upset. It makes them scared."

Meanwhile, in Australia, AAP reported that "Church-goers in Sydney's west have been left shaken after a stranger shouted death threats from a car bearing the Islamic State flag. The car drove past Our Lady of Lebanon Church at Harris Park on Tuesday and witnesses claim it had a flag similar to those brandished by Islamic State jihadists hanging out the window." A church official said the people in the car threatened to "kill the Christians" and slaughter their children: "They were strong words and people were scared of what they saw." Witnesses saw a flag outside the window with the words, "There is only one god and Muhammad is the prophet." And as happens frequently in Muslim-majority nations, police security was later dispatched to patrol the Harris Park church while hundreds partook of the mass inside.

People in a car bearing a jihadist flag verbally abused parishioners at the Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Sydney, Australia in September, threatening to "kill the Christians" and slaughter their children.

In Denmark—2013's "happiest country in the world"—Christians of Middle Eastern backgrounds continued to experience "harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims," reports TV2, especially in Muslim-majority areas, such as Nørrebro. One Christian, "Jojo," born in Denmark of Lebanese parents, shared her experiences. Once when sitting in her parked car, several Muslims surrounded it, harassing her about her Western attire. When one of them noticed she was wearing a cross, he said "Well, you have a cross on—then you are also a Christian f***ing whore. Do you know what we do to people like you? Do you know what we do to people like you? You get stoned [to death]."

Another Christian woman of Iranian background recounted how she and her son are harassed on the Muslim-majority block where they live—and where she stands out for not wearing a hijab, the Islamic veil: "My son is being called everything. I get called all sorts of things. Infidel. Filthy Christians. They tell me I ought to be stoned to death. My son was beaten at the bus stop. He was called pig, dirty potato (Muslim slang for Danes), and that 'you and your mother should die."'

Islamic dreams of conquering Europe were prevalent. A senior analyst in Spain warned that, because Islamists see the Iberian peninsula as being "under Spanish and Portuguese occupation," greater risk of terrorism exists there than in other Western areas. Because Iberia—or, in Arabic, Al-Andalus—was under Islamic domination for centuries, many Muslims consider it part of the Islamic world, or Dar al-Islam, which needs to be reconquered, no less than Israel, also seen as occupied Islamic territory.

More pointedly, in the Islamic State [IS], in a lengthy message partially addressed to the "crusaders"—a reference to the West—some members declared, "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah." Members of the IS also invoked a statement attributed to Muhammad, that Constantinople would be conquered before Rome—and it was, in 1453. The implication was that the Eternal City of Rome would be next.

Around the same time, Rome responded by rejecting a motion to name a street after the late Oriana Fallaci, a veteran journalist who had once written that, "the Muslim world is attempting to conquer the West in the name of Islam." In explaining their decision, local politicians described Fallaci's writings as containing "religious hatred," or "Islamophobia."
In Canada, while 80 special Muslims went to the trouble of attending a Muslim rally on behalf of persecuted Christians, sadly, another rally, an extremist Al Quds Day Anti-Israel Hate Fest, drew approximately 6,000 participants.
The rest of September's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Muslim Attacks on Churches

East Jerusalem: A Christian church was attacked numerous times: On September 29, young Muslim men, with ties to a Palestinian militant group, wired shut the door of the Living Bread Church and sprayed a gaseous substance at those inside. An earlier gas attack had already occurred on September 17. Hours before the second attack, someone threw a rock through one of the windows of the church, and the day before that, Sunday, September 28, a Palestinian and others assaulted a church member as he was emptying trash into a dumpster outside the church.
On Sept. 21, a Palestinian militant, without warning, ran up behind a church leader, Karen Dunham, and knocked her to the pavement: "This guy charged me as fast as he could," she said. "He came up behind me and just slammed into my back, and I fell and I hit the ground. My face is bruised. There's bruises on the side of my cheek, on my face, on my head, on my knee, cuts on my head, and my wrist was fractured."

Egypt: A Christian priest in Egypt appealed to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to intervene on behalf of yet another church being threatened by "religious extremists." So far, local authorities have done nothing. Four years ago, the Coptic Church of St. Abram in Shubra al-Khaima received a permit to build an additional building. During those same four years, seven "thugs"—in the words of the report—have prevented it from being built. The "thugs" had mobilized local Muslims to threaten and demonstrate against the church. "The priest lamented that 'after suffering many long years' they finally managed to acquire the permit to build, but then the next obstacle presented itself in the person of the aforementioned seven 'thugs' who constantly harass, and incite Muslim mobs, against the church, whenever it tries to exercise its right to build the services building. Islamic law forbids the building of new churches or the renovation of existing churches."

Iraq: Islamic State militants "completely destroyed" the ancient Green Church in Tikrit. They packed the church with explosives and detonated them -- completely destroying the ancient church, which belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East. Almost from the time it was built in the seventh century, when Islam overran Iraq, the church had been attacked, ransacked, and destroyed by Muslim rulers and others, but was restored on the orders of Iraq's late President Saddam Hussein in the 1990s.

Nigeria: Many more churches and a Christian university, Kulp Bible College, were forced to shut down as a result of the advances of the Islamic jihadi group, Boko Haram. In one instance, a pastor reported that "Boko Haram violence has been getting worse every day, and our members are fleeing the area by the thousands. Recent attacks in Borno and Adamawa states where our churches are located have seen Boko Haram take over the Army base. As a result, about 350 Christians have been killed."

Separately, in Kaduna state, where "Muslim Fulani assailants seem driven to rid the area of Christianity and use the land to graze their cattle," according to church leaders, 46 Christians, including two pastors, were slaughtered in raids. According to an eyewitness,

"Suddenly we heard sounds of gunshots around our village. The pastor was still in the pastorate when the Muslim Fulani gunmen forced their way onto the church premises. They cut him, his wife and a daughter with a machete, and then tied the hands and feet of the three of them before setting the house on fire. The three of them were burned to ashes in the living room of the pastorate. We only found the charred remains of the three of them the following morning.... The gunmen then came onto the church premises and began shooting. I heard them shouting at the top of their voices, saying they must obliterate any trace of Christianity in the town."

Although Muslim Fulani have historically had property disputes with Christian farmers, Christian leaders say attacks by the herdsmen constitute a war "by Islam to eliminate Christianity" in Nigeria.

Sudan: In the latest incident of a nearly two-year wave of church demolitions, closures and confiscations, security agents padlocked a 500-member church building, the Sudan Pentecostal Church [SPC] in Khartoum. The church also houses the Khartoum Christian Center (KCC). "The church is concerned that the building might be sold by the government, which renders more than 500 worshipers to have no place for worship," a source told the Morning Star News. The Islamist government appears to be seeking any pretext for closing churches, sources said. In this instance, the space for the church was originally designated as "office space." But, as one source asked, "How do you close a church building that has been in operation for 20 years in the name of the church being meant for offices?" The church has a deed showing that it owns the building and property -- a situation that raises the question of the government's right to sell it.
On June 30 bulldozers demolished the Sudanese Church of Christ in the Thiba Al Hamyida area of North Khartoum as church members watched, while security personnel threatened to arrest them if they tried to block the bulldozers, church members said.

Syria: The Islamic State destroyed the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Der Zor, seen as the "Auschwitz" of the Armenian Genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished in Der Zor and the surrounding desert during the genocide. In the summer of 1916 alone, more than 200,000 Armenians, mostly women and children, were massacred by Ottoman Turks. Armenia's foreign minister issued a statement calling the church's destruction a "horrible barbarity," and referred to the Islamic State as a "disease" that "threatened civilized mankind." The church was built in 1989-90 and consecrated a year later. A genocide memorial and a museum housing the remains of the victims of the genocide were also located in the church compound. Thousands of Armenians from Syria and neighboring countries gathered at the memorial every year on April 24 to commemorate the genocide.

Pakistani Rape and Dhimmitude

• Four young Muslims gang raped a 15-year-old Christian girl and filmed it. The girl's father, although he was threatened against filing a complaint, went to police, who confirmed the existence of a video that corroborates the violence. The video will apparently be introduced as evidence against the youths. A lawyer, Mushtaq Gill, issued a statement that, "Many Christian girls continue to be victims of sexual assault by young Muslims, who go unpunished" and that, "in this case there is also a video, flaunted as a trophy."
  
• Two Christian women were abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. Lawyer Mushtaq Gill said, "A Christian girl, Sairish, forced to marry a Muslim in 2009, in her heart never abandoned the faith and continued to pray to Jesus Christ even after her marriage. After a few years she found the courage to rebel against the situation and run away.... Her life is now in danger because if she declares herself Christian, Muslims may accuse her of apostasy and the punishment would be death." Each year, approximately 1,000 women in Pakistan are forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. Whenever a case of this nature reaches the law courts, those women, under threat and blackmail, often declare that their conversion and marriage were decisions freely made, and the case is closed.
  
• Another Christian family fled their hometown, Lahore, to save their daughters from forced conversion to Islam. According to the Justice and Peace Commission, the two sisters, aged 12 and 8, were studying in public schools, where learning to recite the Koran is mandatory. Apparently, because the girls recited the shehada, the Islamic declaration of faith, "an Islamic cleric, the father of a student stated that these girls had become Muslims and thus needed to be taken from their Christian parents and entrusted to adult Muslims." The parents pulled their daughters out of school, but then the headmaster and other Muslim teachers "warned the parents to send them back to school, offering the family financial aid regarding the school fees." The parents quit their jobs and fled the region.
  
• Police arrested 15 Christians and booked 45 other members of the minority community under the blasphemy law for allegedly desecrating Muslim graves in a village in Punjab province. According to the AP, "The case was registered after a local cleric filed a complaint alleging that the Christians had desecrated over 400 Muslim graves to occupy the land in Chak village in Faisalabad, about 150 kilometres from Lahore." Rights groups said it was a spurious charge meant to prevent the Christians from acquiring the land. In fact, the accusations were later proven false.
  

Dhimmitude: Islamic Discrimination Against Christianity

Egypt: Iman Sarofim, a 39-year-old Christian mother of five, returned home to her family after being kidnapped. Initially it was believed that she had voluntarily converted to Islam and fled her family to be with a Muslim man. The woman contacted the family from Suez, where she had been brought by the kidnapper. The return of the woman was celebrated by neighbors and relatives in the city of Gabal al-Tir. Her disappearance had been the cause of clashes between Copts and police, who believed the narrative that she had voluntarily left. In retaliation, police officers entered the homes of dozens of Coptic families and violently arrested dozens of Christians. Separately, Ehab Karam, a Coptic dentist, was killed after he was abducted by unknown persons, most likely for ransom. The kidnapping of Copts for ransom has evidently become a regular part of life in Egypt for Christians, particularly in Upper Egypt. Last February, for instance, police dismantled a crime network that for months had been organizing kidnappings, robberies and extortion against the local Coptic community. "Unfortunately," said the Coptic Catholic Bishop of Assist, Kyrillos William, "the phenomenon continues and there are no signs of improvement. Police operations are episodic and ineffective, they are unable to solve the problem."

Iraq: The Islamic State decreed that all schools in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain which bore Christian names, some since the 1700s, must be changed. Also, the teaching of the Syriac language and culture and Christian religious education has been abolished. Reports indicate that the Islamic State took these moves "in order to erase all traces of cultural and religious pluralism in the conquered areas and turn schools into propaganda tools of jihadist ideology among the new generations."

Saudi Arabia: In the Eastern Province city of Khafji, "religious police," or agents from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, raided a house where at least 27 Christians, mostly expatriates from various Asian nationalities, were gathered. The Christians, including children, were accused of practicing Christianity in a house church, and were arrested and detained overnight. Authorities also confiscated musical instruments and copies of the Bible. The house had been placed under surveillance after a citizen reported that his Indian neighbor had converted his home into a Christian church. After witnessing a large number of individuals enter the home, officers raided the house. The only religion allowed to be practiced in public in Saudi Arabia is Islam. In the land of the prophet, no public places of worship for non-Muslims are permitted to exist.

Turkey: According to the Armenian magazine, Agos, many of the primary and secondary education books being used for the current school year still describe the Armenians and other Christian communities as enemy forces at the service of foreign powers, including Russia and England, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. One eighth-grade history book tries to whitewash the Armenian genocide, which is portrayed as a "necessary deportation," never as a massacre.

Uzbekistan: Security forces reportedly raided the home of Pastor Stanislav Kim in Chirchik, 20 miles northeast of Tashkent, the capital. They detained 11 teenagers and three adults, who had gathered there for a volleyball game, and questioned them for more than four hours before releasing them. Officials also searched the pastor's home and confiscated a New Testament, a Bible, several other Christian books, more than 100 slides of hymns, as well as some computer equipment. Voice of the Martyrs, which says there are at least 65 unregistered congregations scattered throughout Uzbekistan, said in a statement, "Please pray that this pastor and his son will not face fines, but will soon be acquitted of any perceived wrongdoing. Ask God to strengthen each believer who was present during this unwarranted raid so that they will not give in to governmental intimidation and pressure, but instead be emboldened to serve our Lord faithfully."

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Muslim Persecution of Christians, August 2014

Muslims beheading Christians was a visibly growing spectacle throughout the month of August. Islamic State [IS] militants cut off a Christian man's head—after compelling him to say the shehada, the Islamic profession of faith, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger." When the shehada is spoken before Muslim witnesses, the speaker becomes Muslim and thus, in theory, safeguards his life and possessions from the jihad. Not so for this hapless man, who, after renouncing his Christian faith for Islam, was still slaughtered on camera (graphic video can be viewed here).
The Christian Post has the story:

A Christian man in Syria recently had his head brutally hacked off by Islamic militants after being forced to deny his faith and salute Mohammed as "the messenger of God".
The incident was caught on video for the world to see and broadcast as a warning to "everyone like him".
In the video that was posted to YouTube with translated captions, the helpless Christian man is surrounded by armed militants wearing masks and he is heard reciting as instructed: "There is no God but God and I testify that Mohammed is the messenger of God."
An apparent leader in the group of militants is then heard instructing the group: "No one will shoot him now, do you understand? He will not be killed by shooting because it is merciful for him."
"He will be beheaded because he is Kaffir, non-Muslim, sided [with] the government and was not praying at all. Everyone like him will have the same end, beheading," said the militant.
A militant armed with a machete then grabs the defenseless man by the hair and begins to cut his head from his body as the group cries "Allahu Akbar... there is no God but God."

Apparently inspired by the spate of beheadings conducted by the Islamic State, a female British convert to Islam, who is believed to have relocated to IS-controlled territories, "is threatening to behead Christians with a blunt knife," according to the Daily Mail. Umm Hussain al-Britani—formerly Sally Jones of Chatham, a member of an all-girl rock band and single mother of two—warned in messages since deleted "You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at raqqa … Come here I'll do it for you!"
In Nigeria, the Islamic group Boko Haram, which seeks to enforce Islamic law over the whole African nation, beheaded a six-year-old boy, because he was Christian. During Sunday church services, over 100 Islamic militants descended upon Attagara, a Christian-majority village. With machetes and machine guns, they slaughtered men, women, and children.
According to Christian Today, "One villager, Sawaltha Wandala, was arriving at church for the second service when he saw children being massacred. One six-year-old boy had been slashed and thrown into a ditch, but he was alive. Wandala picked him up and was carrying him to a hospital in Cameroon, when he was stopped by five of the militants. The men reportedly took the child from Wandala's arms and beheaded him, then began beating the 55-year-old with tree branches. After striking him in the head with a rock, they left him for dead."
Another Christian man, John Yakuba, was told by Boko Haram members, "You must convert to Islam or else you will die a painful death."

When Yakuba refused to denounce Christ, they tied his arms and legs to a tree, and hacked his hands with a knife.
"Can you become a Muslim now?" the militants asked.
"You can kill my body, but not my soul," Yakuba cried out.
The men continued to cut his feet and back with a machete and knife to torture him.
"We will show you," they said.
Yakuba's head was slashed, and an axe was driven into his knee, reaching the bone.
He lost consciousness and was left tied to the tree for three days before someone found him, after which he was taken to the hospital in a coma.

In a separate attack by Boko Haram, where approximately 100 people from a Christian-majority region were killed, a survivor reported: "I thank God for sparing my life, but three of my neighbors and members of our church were killed during the attack. These Christians in our village had their throats slit with knives while their hands were tied behind their backs. Some houses were bombed as the Boko Haram gunmen were chanting, 'God is great!' in Arabic."
In Kenya, militants from the Somali Al Shabaab Islamic organization abducted a group of traders near the resort island of Lamu, and drove them into a dense forest. The militants eventually released three of them, because they were Muslims, but beheaded the fourth, a Christian.
While "infidel" Christian men were beheaded, Christian women—including children—were raped and enslaved in various regions of the Islamic world.
In Iraq, approximately 1,500 Christian and other minorities not able to escape the advance of the Islamic State were gang-raped and sold as sex slaves, some for as little as $25. A joint statement by two senior UN officials declared that "Atrocious accounts of abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, as well as Turkomen and Shabak women, girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes, are reaching us in an alarming manner." One young woman, who managed to hide a mobile phone in the prison, spoke of horrific experiences, including being raped by dozens of men over a few hours. Other women said children born out of rape were ripped from their mothers' arms, and never seen again.
In Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where Christians make up less than one percent of the population, dozens of men armed with machetes, knives and iron rods attacked the convent of Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions nuns in Boldipuku, a village mission in north Bangladesh. "The nuns were beaten and molested, ending when police arrived," reported Bishop Sebastian Tudu. According to Catholic Online,

"[S]ome 60 men attempted to loot the building and rape the nuns... The attackers first tied the hands and legs of the mission's two night watchmen and gagged them in the early morning hours .... Three PIME nuns suffered attempted rape and were sent to their provincial house in Dhaka, the national capital where they are trying to overcome the shock and mental suffering."

In Pakistan, yet another Christian girl, 12-year-old Muqadas ("Sacred"), was raped by a gang of Muslim men. The girl, who worked as a maid for a Muslim family, was returning home from work,

"when Muqadas was kidnapped by two Muslim men and three women. They took her inside a school (which was closed) and the two men, identified as Ashraf Alias Achi and Ghaffor Alias Paida raped her repeatedly in turn. The girl was later abandoned."

As usual, for filing a complaint with local police, her family received threats of more violence. According to the family's Christian lawyer, Sardar Mushtaq Gill,

"In Pakistan rape is used as an instrument of arbitrary power over Christian girls, who come from poor and marginalized families. It is a form of violence that wants to reiterate the submission to Muslims. The rest of society is not outraged because the victims mostly belong to religious minorities, who are the most vulnerable. Rarely rapists are punished. Furthermore, rape victims face terrible difficulties; they do not receive adequate medical treatment for sexual assault. Many girls are traumatized and become depressed and in need of psychological assistance."

(See here for more on the sexual abuse of Christian minors in Pakistan.) For his troubles, Gill, a vocal human rights activist who represents abused Christians, was again targeted for assassination: his home was sprayed with bullets overnight, for the second time.
Although beheadings and rape in the Islamic world may seem distant from the minds of most in the West, the exiled Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Iraq, warned the West that its turn will come. In an interview, Archbishop Amel Shimoun Nona, said:

Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future. I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.
Please, try to understand us. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. Also you are in danger. You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home.

The rest of August's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Muslim Attacks on Churches

East Jerusalem: Seven years of harassment and attacks by Muslims finally forced Calvary Baptist Church to leave their church building. The attacks began in 2007, soon after the congregation moved into the building, located in a predominantly Muslim area. Within 10 days of beginning meetings and worship services, a Muslim who lived near the church attacked a member with a knife. Then someone tried to set the building on fire. Next came vandalism. First, cars parked at the church were damaged, then property. Finally, some children were physically assaulted on their way to church. The congregation was finally evicted after the landlord was threatened. "How dare you do this," he was told. "This is a disgrace to Islam. If you don't do anything about this, we will." The landlord eventually succumbed to the pressure and the 110-member congregation had to leave the building. This is the third church in Muslim-majority East Jerusalem to be forced shut in recent years.
France: In the early morning of August 5 at Thonon-les-Bains, a man of about 30, described as a "young Muslim," committed major acts of vandalism in the church of Saint-Hippolyte and in the adjacent basilica of Saint-François-de-Sales. He overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows. (Click for images of the destruction caused in the church.)
Iraq: Soon after the unprecedented Christian exodus from Mosul, after the Islamic State told Christians to convert to Islam or die, a human rights organization went to northern Iraq to provide assistance and support to all displaced Christians. It reported that "around 45 churches in Mosul ... were destroyed and converted into mosques and centers for the Islamic State." According to Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako "This is a humanitarian disaster. The churches are occupied, their crosses were taken down," and up to 1,500 manuscripts, many ancient, were burnt.
Nigeria: According to Vatican Radio, "In Madagali, Boko Haram are said to have looted parish property, vandalized and then set alight buildings belonging to the church. Fr. Obasogie was not sure of the number of people killed or of other causalities in the Madagali attack but he says there are many. .... Christian Churches within Maiduguri Diocese have borne much of the brunt of the terrorist activities…According to Fr. Obasogie, all Christian churches on the major road linking Maiduguri and Adamawa state have been closed after several acts of terrorism at the hands of Boko Haram sects."

Muslim Attacks on Converts to Christianity

Iran: According to the Idaho wife of Iranian-American Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been imprisoned in Iran for nearly two years, her husband has received death threats from Sunni militants from the Islamic State, held in the same detention center: "He's already under threat because he is a convert to Christianity. Now we understand that ISIS members in the prison have said he is their number one target." The pastor is in the same ward but a separate section from the Islamic State adherents, his wife said, adding that he is afraid to leave his cell and join the general prison population in the yard for exercise. "I fear for his life," she said, adding that the couple's young children have submitted a video to President Barack Obama pleading with him to bring their father safely home. Separately, Pastor Matthias Haghnejad, a former Muslim, is charged with enmity against Allah, a crime that can be punishable by death, while the fate of two other Christians arrested with him remains unknown. The pastor was arrested when intelligence agents stormed his home. They arrested the church leader along with Mohammad (Vahid) Roghangir and Suroush Saraie, two other converts staying with him. The agents also seized Bibles, Christian booklets, and the pastor's personal computer. On August 3, after being interrogated for two hours, the pastor was charged with "Moharebeh," or "waging war against Allah," a capital offence in Iran. All three converts have been targeted by the authorities in the past, including for "evangelism" and "actions against public security."

Iranian-American Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been imprisoned in Iran since 2012, is pictured here with his family in happier times.

Kenya: Hussein Hassan Mohammed, 30, a Muslim convert to Christianity, tearfully recounted his experiences at the hands of Muslims at Mogotio King's Outreach Church, where he originally announced his conversion in April. He told of how he was beaten unconscious inside a mosque, how Islamic leaders had paid assassins to kill him, and how his own father tried to poison him to death (similar to the experiences of another Muslim convert to Christianity in Uganda, whose aunt tried to poison him). For a while, he was arrested and tortured because authorities refused to believe that he had really converted to Christianity (they thought he was an Islamic terrorist pretending to be Christian, which happens frequently). Then, while he was recuperating in hospital, he called his father, 72-year-old Hassan Mohammed, who came to visit him at the hospital:
"Are you serious about what you told me, that you had embraced the Christian faith?" his father asked, to which Hussein, replied, "Yes." According to the Christian convert:

"My father came with the food, but my conscience rejected the food. The doctors noticed that I was restless. I was told to eat the food, but I refused. The doctor tried to give the food to the cat, but it too refused to eat it, hence the food was taken to the laboratory, where it was found that it was a poisoned food."

Police guarding Mohammed arrested his father. Questioned about why he would want to kill his son, he told them, "My son has forsaken Islam as well as defiling our community by joining Christianity." Said Hussein: "I thought my father had come to help, but I realized that he had come to kill me." Still, when he was discharged from the hospital, Hussein pled for the release of his father. Mohammed said he had forgiven his father, and police released his father.
New Zealand: Friends of Khalid Muidh Alzahrani, a Muslim convert to Christianity known as Daniel, "fear the refugee has been abducted from his Christchurch flat and taken back to Saudi Arabia—home to the Islamic holy city of Mecca—where it is against the law for Muslims to abandon their faith." Daniel arrived in Christchurch about five years ago on a Saudi government scholarship to study English, eventually converted to Christianity and applied for asylum. He was granted refugee status on the grounds that he would be persecuted in Saudi Arabia, and told friends he was terrified he would be kidnapped and forced to return. The Saudi ambassador to New Zealand said that Daniel had "insisted" on returning home to visit his mother and the consulate had paid for his air ticket. But, according to National,

[H]is friends don't believe it—they say he was last seen in the company of two strange Arab men and believe he was taken out of the country under duress, possibly by agents of the state or family members....
There have been numerous documented cases of Saudi nationals being uplifted from foreign countries. In 2012, columnist Hamza Kashgari, who'd been accused of insulting the prophet Mohammad on Twitter, tried to seek asylum in New Zealand but was intercepted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, sent home and jailed without trial.
In May last year, a young Saudi Christian who had arrived in Auckland two months earlier and claimed asylum was snatched off the street by three men just three days before his refugee interview and was flown back to Saudi Arabia, where it is believed he spent time in prison and was tortured. His lawyer, Roger Chambers, said the man had managed to secretly make contact with his friends in Auckland.
"He has had a dreadful time in Saudi Arabia," Chambers said. "[He was told] more than once if he did not renounce his Christianity that he could expect to be beheaded."

Yemen: Muslim relatives of a woman who converted to Christianity placed gasoline in one of her kitchen bottles, which caused her to catch fire while cooking breakfast for her family; eventually she died from the burns. Morning Star News reports:

In southern Yemen, Saeed woke to the sound of screaming. He shot out of bed, pushed panicked family members aside and saw his wife stumbling out of their kitchen, engulfed in flames. His wife, Nazeera, had been preparing breakfast at about 9 a.m. when she poured liquid from a cooking oil bottle into a hot pan. The liquid flashed, and the bottle exploded. While her four children watched, screaming, Nazeera was being burned alive. "I rushed out of the room," Saeed (full name undisclosed for security reasons) told Morning Star News, weeping. "I couldn't even speak to ask her what happened. All I could think about was putting the fire out and then getting her to the hospital. But my 16-year-old son, he couldn't stop himself and held on to her, hugging her while she was burning. He got hurt, and I had to pull him away from her." About two weeks later, Nazeera, 33, died as a result of her burns. When Saeed returned to his home in a village (undisclosed for security reasons) after her death, a relative told him the unthinkable—members of both his family and hers had taken the vegetable oil out of the bottle and replaced it with gasoline. Saeed knew the reason—many years ago, the two had become Christians and refused to return to Islam.

Dhimmitude: Islamic Discrimination Against Christianity

Libya: Roaming bands of armed Islamic militants went door to door in Tripoli's jewelry stores. They ordered the owners to stop selling any crosses or Christian icons. "Immediately thereafter," report Arabic media, "the store owners collected all the crosses and Christian icons and delivered them to their Christian villages outside of Tripoli. Other store owners hid the Christian crosses and icons deeply, in the hopes of transferring them somewhere later, because they live in Tripoli and have no outside Christian villages to deliver the banned Christian items to."
United Kingdom: Yasmin Jackson, a 24-year-old Christian mother, claims staff at Kingswood Daycare Nursery in Mitcham, south London "starved" her five-year-old daughter because her packed food was not halal—that is, prepared according to Islamic custom. According to the Daily Mail, Ms Jackson, a single mother and former nursery worker, said, "When I picked her up at the end of the day the first thing she said to me was, 'mummy I'm really hungry, can I have my lunch now?'" The mother went to speak with the manager. When she asked why her daughter was not allowed to eat her packed lunch, the manager said "We didn't know if it's halal." The mother responded, "We are a Christian family and it was a chicken sandwich," to which the manager said, "We don't allow any non-halal meat in the nursery."

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.
It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.
It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Muslim Persecution of Christians, July 2014

The purge of ancient Christian communities throughout Iraq that started in June culminated in great intolerance in July.

Among other Islamic attacks, a Christian church that had stood Iraq for 1,800 years -- a church that was erected less than 200 years after Christ -- was reportedly torched by the Islamic State, according to countless news agencies, including Al Arabiya.

A fire rages in the compound of Mosul's 1800 year-old church, July 2014.

Islamic State jihadis also stormed and took over an ancient monastery in northern Iraq. St. Behnam monastery had stood since the fourth century and was one of Iraq's best-known Christian landmarks. It was built by an Assyrian king as a penance for executing his children Behnam and Sarah for converting to Christianity.

The jihadis expelled its few monks; they said, "You have no place here anymore, you have to leave immediately." The monks pled to be allowed to save some of the monastery's ancient relics, but the jihadis refused and ordered them to walk miles along a deserted road with nothing but their clothes.

The Islamic State issued a July 19 deadline for Mosul's Christians either to convert to Islam or face execution. Islamic State members also singled out Christian homes by placing the Arabic letter for "N" -- based on the Arabic word Nasara, or "Nazarenes," the Koran's pejorative for Christians -- on the sides of their homes. The result, in the words of Patriarch Louis Sako, is that, "For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians."

In response to the Islamic State's latest atrocities against Iraq's Christian minorities, the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Mount Lebanon and Tripoli, George Saliba, denounced not just the Islamic State but Muslims in general for their long "history of violence and oppression against Christians":

What is happening in Iraq is a strange thing, but it is normal for Muslims, because they have never treated Christians well, and they have always held an offensive and defaming stand against Christians.... We used to live and coexist with Muslims, but then they revealed their canines [teeth].... [They don't] have the right to storm houses, steal and attack the honor of Christians. Most Muslims do this; the Ottomans killed us and after that the ruling nation-states understood the circumstances but always gave advantage to the Muslims. Islam has never changed...

Islamic organizations responded by denouncing the Syriac bishop's words as "hateful" and Islamophobic, demanding an apology.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also made some telling remarks concerning the plight of Christians, especially in those Mideast countries the U.S. is involved in. When asked if he was "troubled" by the Presbyterian Church USA's decision to withdraw $21 million worth of investments from Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people, the prime minister said:

You know I would suggest to these Presbyterian organizations to fly to the Middle East, come and see Israel for the embattled democracy that it is, and then take a bus tour, go to Libya, go to Syria, go to Iraq, and see the difference. And I would give them two pieces of advice; one is, make sure it's an armor plated bus, and second, don't say that you're Christians.

The rest of July's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Muslim Attacks on Churches and Carnage

Afghanistan: According to BosNewsLife, the central Asian nation's "tiny Christian community was left in shock Friday, July 25, after two Finnish Christian aid workers were shot dead." The attack "underscored the dangers faced by Christian aid workers." The two women were slain by motorcycle riding gunmen in the western city of Herat, "the latest in a series of attacks targeting Westerners, including Christian believers. The Christians, who represented International Assistance Mission (IAM), had been working in Afghanistan since the 1990s… They both spoke Dari well and knew and respected the culture of Afghanistan." Among those the aid workers were helping were people with mental disabilities and illiterate women.
Central African Republic: At least 27 Christians were slaughtered during a July 7 attack on the St. Joseph's Cathedral compound in Bambari, where thousands of people, mostly Christian, were receiving sanctuary. The attackers were fighters from the Islamic Seleka rebel movement and Muslim civilians. The armed attackers entered the grounds at around 3pm and began shooting indiscriminately. Women and children were among those killed; over 20 people were injured. The Islamic attackers burned down 20 buildings within the church compound, set fire to three cars, and stole two others as well as a number of motorbikes. Weeks earlier, on May 28, another attack on a church compound in Bangui, the capital, left around 20 people dead.
Kenya: On July 5, Muslims attacked the Covenant Church, three kilometers north of Hindi, just as Bible study was closing. As the Bible study participants fled, two men chose to hide inside the church building -- and were burned alive after the Islamic attackers set the building on fire. On the same night, a Catholic church building in the village of Gamba, in neighboring Tana River County, was also destroyed by attackers. Two days earlier, 15-20 assailants armed with guns and knives attacked Gamba and the village of Hindi. The assailants killed at least 13 people, including a 12-year-old student and a 30-year-old man, "who was found in a pool of blood with a Bible on his back," according to Morning Star News. One survivor of the attacks said the invaders were heard "saying non-Muslims should get out, and if not they should convert to Islam." Another survivor said, "I was removed with my daughter from the house while the attackers tied my husband to the bedside before setting the house on fire. The attackers, who spoke mainly in Somali, targeted non-Muslims, whom they tied with ropes before slitting their throats." (Gamba is about 28 miles from Mpeketoni, another Christian town where gunmen killed at least 57 people in a June 15 attack.)
Lebanon: A shadowy group known as the Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade, which had only recently pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State, announced on its twitter account that a "specialized group of free jihadists were tasked with cleansing the Islamic state of Bekaa in particular and in Lebanon in general from the churches. We will target crusaders in the state and in Lebanon to silence the ringing of the bells." (According to Islamic Sharia law, churches under Islamic authority are forbidden from ringing their bells.) The Brigade has claimed responsibility for several rocket and bomb attacks inside Lebanon, the last of which were the suicide blasts in Dahr al-Baydar and Raouche's Duroy Hotel.
Nigeria: A bomb blast inside the Saint Charles Catholic Church left five people dead and eight injured. The attack came shortly after Sunday mass ended, when an improvised explosive device was thrown in the city of Kano, which has a strong presence of Boko Haram, the local Islamic terrorist organization. On the same Sunday, also in Kano, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside a university after police prevented her from carrying out an attack. Five officers were injured. According to a police spokesman, "A female suicide bomber was isolated (by police) as she was walking towards the gate of the university." She had hidden the bomb under her "long black hijab" and was singled out for behaving strangely, said the spokesman. Police were about to ask a female colleague to frisk the woman when she detonated the bomb, killing herself and injuring the police officers. Also in July, Nicholas Okoh, primate of the Church of Nigeria, said in an interview that, despite Boko Haram's nonstop attacks on Christians and their churches, for long "the United States did not come out to say anything about Boko Haram. They kept talking about economic problems, [saying] that Boko Haram is fighting because of economic problems. That is not true ... The United States deliberately ignored the fundamental issues of religious ideology."
Sudan: In adherence to Islamic law, the east African nation formally announced a ban on the construction of any new Christian churches in the country. This move came after the authorities bulldozed several churches to the ground. Some had been in existence for decades. The most recent one destroyed was the Sudanese Christ Church at El Izba residential area in Khartoum North, on July 1. According to Pravoslavie, "The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Religious Endowments Shalil Abdullah announced that the government will henceforth not issue permits for the building of churches in the country. Minister Shalil Abdullah told the press on Saturday [July 12] that the existing churches are enough for the Christian population remaining in Sudan after the secession of South Sudan in 2011." Since 1989, Sudan has been governed by an Islamic regime that enforces Sharia law. Reverend Kori El Ramli, the Secretary-General of Sudan Council of Churches, criticized this move as contradicting the nation's Constitution, adding, "Yes, we are a minority, but we have freedom of worship and belief just like the rest of the Sudanese as long as we are Sudanese nationals like them."
Turkey: A band of Muslims attacked the Saint Stephanos Church in Istanbul during a baptismal service held on July 15. Yelling obscenities, and with one waving a knife and threatening to stab a parishioner, they pushed their way into the baptismal service. The attack occurred during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which often sees a rise of intolerance in Muslim majority areas. Two months earlier, men in their late teens and 20s had entered the church at night, ripped out most of its audio equipment and destroyed what they could not carry away. They also took some of the ceremonial candles, lit them and started setting items in the back of the building on fire. They stacked all remaining candles into a pile, lit them and left.
Uganda: A gang of Muslims armed with machetes stormed a church during services. They hacked one 18-year-old woman to death and left three others, including a one-year-old baby, injured. A group of approximately 20 Christians had gathered at Chali Born Victory Church in Kyegegwa district for their regular Friday night prayer session when armed Muslims burst into the building around 2 am. Pastor Jackson Turyamureba was preaching when he saw somebody looking through a window. According to the pastor,

I thought he was a drunkard and told him to either enter or go away. Shortly after that I heard doors being banged and men shouting 'Allahu Akhbar' ('Allah is Greater') as they stormed the church brandishing pangas (machetes) and beating worshippers…. One of the attackers followed me and threw a panga which went over my head. I ran through a garden and the man who was pursuing me fell down and gave up the chase.

The Muslim attackers then fled to a nearby mosque. Police surrounded the mosque; one officer was killed when the attackers opened fire. Two suspects were arrested. According to the pastor, the church has had problems in the area with a group of Muslims who had unsuccessfully tried to convert its members to Islam. Church member Polly Tashobya added that members of the group had said they wanted to transform Uganda into an Islamic nation and would kill anyone who refused to convert.

Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom and 'Dhimmitude'

Iran: Authorities detained a pastor and two other members of the Church of Iran, one of the country's largest house-churches. Pastor Matthias Haghnejad, Mohammad Roghangir, and Suroush Saraie were arrested on July 5 by security forces at the pastor's home in the city of Bandar-Anzali. According to BosNewsLife, "Their detention comes amid an ongoing government campaign to halt the spread of Christianity in the Islamic country. Especially converts from Islam, many of whom visit the Church of Iran, have been targeted." Security forces reportedly confiscated the pastor's belongings, including his Bible, and several other books. That loss would be just the latest setback for Pastor Matthias, who was jailed for his faith on three other occasions between 2006 and 2011.
Separately, a judge sentenced a Christian man to have his lips burnt with a cigarette for eating during the day in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink during daylight. The punishment was carried out in public in a square in the city of Kermanshah. Five Muslim men were also flogged in public with 70 lashes for not fasting during Ramadan. A spokesperson from The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a political coalition which opposes the government, denounced the treatment as 'savage' and called on Western countries to respond: "The silence of the world community, especially of western countries, vis-à-vis these medieval punishments under the excuse of having nuclear talks with Iran has intensified the brutal and systematic violation of human rights in Iran."
Somalia: Muslim converts to Christianity who fled Somalia and reside in Kenyan refugee camps remain in mortal danger. One convert, known only as "Abubakr," and his wife reportedly held each other under their bed in their refugee camp as gunmen suspected to be from the Islamic terrorist organization Al Shabaab pounded on their door. They ordered the man to come out and called him an "infidel" (in both the Arabic and Somali languages), saying, "We need your head." When the apostate refused, they opened fire through the spaces of the poles of the couple's hut, striking their legs. Then they heard the attackers say, "We have killed the infidels" as they shot into the air while leaving. The Christian couple was found two days later lying in their own pool of blood. According to Abubakr, far from providing security for the hiding apostates, Muslim guards at the refugee camp actually help Al Shabaab militants locate them. Another Somali convert from Islam, Abdikadir, saw Muslim relatives and other Somalis burn down his home in one of the Dadaab refugee camps in April. In the course of destroying his home, they took away his wife and four children. He fled the camp and is now living elsewhere.
United Kingdom: According to the Telegraph, "Children were taught that all Christians are liars and attempts were made to introduce Sharia law in classrooms as part of an alleged 'Trojan Horse' takeover plot of Birmingham schools, an inquiry has found." Commissioned by Birmingham City Council, the inquiry found "evidence of religious extremism in 13 schools as school governors and teachers tried to promote and enforce radical Islamic values." Among other anti-Christian and pro-Islamic measures, schools canceled Christmas festivities, put up posters warning children that they would "go to hell" if they did not pray, and girls were taught that women who refused to have sex with their husbands would be "punished" by angels "from dusk to dawn." The report found that the extremism went unchecked because the council "disastrously" prioritized community cohesion over "doing what is right."

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.