Judith Bergman : Ramadan: "A Month of Great Conquests"

Ramadan: "A Month of Great Conquests"

by Judith Bergman
May 30, 2017 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10437/ramadan-conquests

• "Ramadan has been not only a month of worship and of growing close to Allah the Almighty, but also a month of action and jihad aimed at spreading this great religion... throughout [Muslim] history, Ramadan has been a month of great conquests....". — 'Ali Gum'a, then Grand mufti of Egypt, Al-Ahram in July 2012.
• "According to Islamic practice, sacrifice during Ramadan can be considered more valuable than that made at other times, so a call to martyrdom during the month may hold a special allure to some." — Report by the U.S. State Department-led Overseas Security Advisory Council, The Independent, June 9, 2016.
• "Jihad in the Arabic language... means: ...striving... where the cause/objective is goodness & justice...Holy war [is] not an expression in the Qur'an: War is NEVER holy." — Anna Cole, 'inclusion specialist' for the UK Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), which represents more than 18,000 head teachers and college leaders.

"Our fight is Jihad and an obligatory worship. And every obligatory act of worship has 70 times more reward in Ramadan," said Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban, rejecting U.N.-led calls for halting hostilities during Ramadan.

ISIS also just released a YouTube message -- quoting the Quran -- urging its supporters to attack the "infidels... in their homes, their markets, their roads and their forums..."

"double your efforts and intensify your operations... Do not despise the work. Your targeting of the so-called innocents and civilians is beloved by us and the most effective, so go forth and may you get a great reward or martyrdom in Ramadan".

An article in the Ramadan issue of ISIS' Rumiyah magazine told readers to use the month of Ramadan to "maximise the benefit you receive on the day of judgement".
ISIS's call for increased jihad during the month of Ramadan is now a yearly occurrence. Last year, after an audio message by the ISIS spokesman at the time, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, calling on jihadists to "get prepared, be ready ... to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers...especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America", the U.S. government warned citizens at home and abroad of an increased terrorist risk:

"According to Islamic practice, sacrifice during Ramadan can be considered more valuable than that made at other times, so a call to martyrdom during the month may hold a special allure to some."

This year, the day the Ramadan began, Friday, May 26, 2017, jihadists attacked a bus filled with Coptic Christians travelling to a monastery in Egypt, and murdered 29 of them. Ten of the victims were children; one, only two years old. A few days earlier, jihadists in the Philippines warmed up for Ramadan by murdering 14 Christians and wounding more than 50. The Muslim Abu Sayyaf group, linked to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility. The day after the beginning of Ramadan, May 27, a Taliban suicide bomber murdered 18 people in Afghanistan, two of them children.

Smoke rises from the scene of fighting in Marawi city, southern Philippines, on May 30. The Philippine Army is fighting the Islamic Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the streets of the city. Abu Sayyaf murdered 14 Christians and wounded more than 50 in bombing attacks since Ramadan began on May 26. (Image source: Jes Aznar/Getty Images)

Ramadan in 2016 was one of the bloodiest in recent times. Estimates that at least 421 people were killed and 729 wounded in nearly 15 countries during that month alone. ISIS alone claimed to have killed or wounded more than 5,000 people, including the 49 people killed at a nightclub in Orlando, and 300 murdered in Baghdad.
Ramadan, evidently, is not only about religious spirituality and devotion. It appears to be also a month of jihad. In an article published in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram in July 2012, then-Grand mufti of Egypt 'Ali Gum'a wrote:

"[Throughout the history of] Islamic civilization, Ramadan has been not only a month of worship and of growing close to Allah the Almighty, but also a month of action and jihad aimed at spreading this great religion... throughout [Muslim] history, Ramadan has been a month of great conquests, which were an important factor in spreading Islam, [with] its righteousness and tolerance, across the world..."

Gum'a then lists a number of battles that occurred during the month of Ramadan from the battle of Badr in 624 up until the 1973 Yom Kippur war, known in the Arab world as the Ramadan War.
In 2001, Egyptian cleric and Al-Azhar lecturer Dr. Fuad Mukheimar wrote, "The nation's fasting is [itself] education for jihad, and as long as the nation fasts it will continue to be a jihad fighter."
In 2012, a Muslim Brotherhood member, Hussein Shehata, a lecturer at Al-Azhar University -- considered the world's leading center for Sunni Islamic learning -- wrote:

"Fasting [during Ramadan] is one of the most powerful means to educate the human spirit for jihad. Fasting involves a spiritual effort to act in a way contrary to what is accepted, and to completely abandon desires... It also schools the Muslim in patience, resilience, endurance, and sacrifice, which are all traits of the jihad fighter... Ramadan is the month of victory for those who wage jihad for Allah. Ramadan has seen the following battles, conquests, and victories: the great Battle of Badr [624 CE],... the conquest of Mecca [630 CE]... We call upon those who fast... to remember their brothers, those who wage jihad for the sake of Allah: in Palestine, against the Jews, the descendants of apes and pigs; in Iraq, against the Americans; in Bosnia-Herzegovina, against the crusader Serbians; in Chechnya, against the Russians; in Kashmir, against the idolatrous Indians... everywhere in [the lands of] the Islamic ummah [community], against those who fight the Muslims".

Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Muhammad Badi' wrote on the movement's website in August 2012:

"Allah the Almighty wanted the [Ramadan] fast to coincide with fighting, so that the Muslims would win and deal their enemies a crushing blow... Allah did not mandate [the fast] of Ramadan so that [we] sit idly and avoid jihad, action, and da'wa for the sake of Allah... it is a month of action and movement, of conquests and victories -- the month in which most of the defeats of the nation's enemies occurred..."

In an unprecedented move, after the attack on Coptic Christians, Egypt cancelled its annual celebrations marking the beginning of Ramadan.
While jihadists wage war on the West during Ramadan, the West pretends that Ramadan is just another religious holiday of purely spiritual significance. Some in the West eagerly seek to accommodate the Ramadan. In the UK, for example, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), which represents more than 18,000 head teachers and college leaders, has recommended that schools accommodate students who observe Ramadan; guidelines were issued in a paper authored by the ASCL's 'inclusion specialist' Anna Cole.

The ASCL urges schools to move revision classes and to consider rescheduling sports days to accommodate the needs of Muslim pupils fasting for Ramadan. It also urges that schools "show sensitivity" when organizing graduation celebrations, and change physical exercise lesson plans to make sure that activities are "less strenuous". Schools are also asked to provide prayer rooms. Last year, efforts to move school exams because of Ramadan were stopped by British education authorities.

It needs to be noted that the ACSL has authored another pamphlet, also written by Anna Cole, 'Safeguarding children from extremism and radicalisation', which posits that, "ISIS is a "political ideology, which falsely portrays itself as being authentic Islam, which can be confusing to pupils whose understanding of Islam may be weak". According to the ACSL, jihad and holy wars are 'myths':

"Jihad in the Arabic language... means: ...striving... where the cause/objective is goodness & justice...Holy war [is] not an expression in the Qur'an: War is NEVER holy. In Islam war is either justified or not".

Accommodating Ramadan is nothing new in certain Swedish schools, where this has been a reality for years. In the Swedish city of Jönköping, an agreement between education officials in the municipality and local Muslim groups, ensuring special treatment for Muslim children, was allegedly in place already in 1994. In 2011, it was revised to include how schools should deal with Ramadan. The municipality was later reported to the national education authorities in Sweden; the charge was that the agreement legitimizes oppression and control over Muslim children.

Swedish diplomats are also eager to accommodate Ramadan. In May, they caused a small Facebook storm among Swedish users when they announced that they had moved the national holiday celebrations at their general consulate in Jerusalem, scheduled for June 6, forward to May in order to avoid a 'clash' with the Ramadan.
How many more people will be murdered in the name of jihad this Ramadan, while the West refuses even to know what it means?

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

UK Government to Hold Pro-Terrorism Expo in London?

by Denis MacEoin
May 30, 2017 at 4:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10428/palestine-expo-london

• "'Friends of Al-Aqsa' is one of the more extremist Islamist organizations at work in Britain today. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity 'Interpal' (proscribed by the US Treasury) and advertises it on its website. It collaborates with the Khomenist Iranian-funded faux human rights organization known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission in organizing events such as Al Quds day at which public support is expressed for the Iranian proxy militia Hizbollah." — UK Media Watch.
• Under these definitions, Hamas is exposed as a terrorist organization both by its repeated use of indiscriminate killing and the contents of its two Charters from 1988 and 2017.
• "There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except through jihad..." — Hamas Charters of 1988 and 2017, Articles 18 and 21.
• Hamas is not the only extremist organization to which Friends of Al-Aqsa has lent its support.

Mere weeks after the terrorist attacks in Britain -- on May 22 in Manchester and earlier in Westminster -- there is planned in London, on July 8-9, a major event which its organizers describe as:

Palestine Expo: the biggest social, cultural and entertainment event on Palestine to ever take place in Europe. In a year of immense significance for Palestine, we are pleased to announce, Palestine Expo 2017

The "biggest ever in Europe": heady stuff. In a major coup, the exposition will take place, not in a scruffy hall on the outskirts of the city, but in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, near the Houses of Parliament, in the shadow of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The prestigious centre is owned by the UK Government and its operation is conducted by an executive agency of the Department for Communities and Local Government. It has 2,000 square metres of exhibition space, four main auditoria, seven conference rooms and many smaller rooms, and specialises in events for more than 1,000 delegates. Palexpo[1] will occupy five of its six levels.
Events listed include:

Inspirational Speakers
Interactive Zones
Knowledge village
Food Court
Live Entertainment
Academic Workshop ("will be run by a group of academics from leading UK universities")
Student Hub
Gallery
Shopping Quarter

On the surface, it might appear that this is merely a cultural event designed to give the British public a taste of Palestinian cooking, music, art, in particular, history (starting in 1948!). A closer examination, however, reveals something less pleasant. Underneath the surface, this exposition is dedicated to a presentation of Palestinian victimhood and "resistance" (read terrorism), the same "resistance" as in Israel, and on similar false pretexts.
In Israel, the false pretext is that Jews -- who have lived in Canaan and Judea for 3,000 years, as is substantiated by enough documentary and archaeological evidence to sink a supertanker -- are supposedly occupying "Palestinian land". In Europe, the false pretext is "revenge for colonialism", which has historically existed under the Muslims, in their conquests of Iran, the Byzantine Empire, North Africa and the Middle East, northern Cyprus, Spain and most of Eastern Europe. This expansion has continued in the present day to Lebanon, northern Cyprus, Indonesia, the Philippines and is working its way through Europe, Canada and Australia. The Europeans are evidently gullible enough, it seems, to swallow all pretexts without bothering to check any facts.

The Queen Elizabeth II Centre is the venue for the upcoming "Palestine Expo 2017", organized by the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas activist group, "Friends of Al-Aqsa". (Image source: Jdforrester/Wikimedia Commons)

Who has organized this massive upcoming London event? One might have expected it to be the Palestinian Mission of the UK (often treated erroneously as an embassy, as it claims to represent the "State of Palestine", which does not exist). However, although the Mission will probably be a participant in the exposition, a direct link for it cannot be found. The same is true for the West Bank's Palestinian Authority.
The organizers of the event are, in fact, a relatively small British organization, Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), founded in 1997 by a British optician, Ismail Patel, closely involved in several Islamic organizations such as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI). The BMI is a front group for Hamas, and has been for many years "the most active organization in the U.K Muslim Brotherhood". Patel was a spokesman for the BMI. And the BMI was the chief organizer of London's 2008 IslamExpo, which Britain's Minister of Communities and Local Government at the time, Hazel Blears, strongly criticized:

"It was clear that because of the views of some of the organisers, and because of the nature of some of the exhibitors, this was an event that no Minister should attend. Organisers like Anas al-Tikriti, who believes in boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. Or speakers like Azzam Tamimi, who has sought to justify suicide bombing. Or exhibitors like the Government of Iran."

Friends of Al-Aqsa is, itself, an anti-Semitic pro-Hamas activist group. It helped establish in London the anti-Israel al-Quds Day events, in which extremists march to support the terror group Hizbullah and the theocratic Iranian regime that calls for England, Israel and America to be wiped from the pages of time.
Patel himself is an outspoken upholder of these values. In 2009, he addressed a Stop the Gaza Massacre demonstration in support of Hamas:

"Hamas is no terrorist organization. The reason they hate Hamas is because they refuse to be subjugated, occupied by the Israeli state, and we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel [...] to the state of Israel: you no longer represent the Jewish people."

Hamas has, in fact, been condemned as a terrorist group by the US, the UK, the EU countries, Egypt, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Terrorism itself has been difficult to define legally, mostly because the countries that use it do not wish to define it; nevertheless, several countries have matching definitions. The British 2006 Terrorism Act provides a basic list of activities that constitute terrorism:

(1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where-

(a) the action falls within subsection (2),

(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and

(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

(2) Action falls within this subsection if it-

(a) involves serious violence against a person,

(b) involves serious damage to property,

(c) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action,

(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or

(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Section 1(3) to (5) goes on to expand on the effect and extent of this definition.
The Canadian Department of Justice definition reads in similar terms. Another definition also attributed to Canada reads:

"A terrorist is a man who murders indiscriminately, distinguishing neither between civilian and innocent and guilty nor soldier and civilian."

Under these definitions, Hamas is exposed as a terrorist organization both by its repeated use of indiscriminate killing and the contents of its two Charters from 1988: ("la hall li'l-qadiyya al-Filastiniyya illa bi'l-jihad -- There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except through jihad." Article 13) and 2017:

"Hamas confirms that no peace in Palestine should be agreed on, based on injustice to the Palestinians or their land. Any arrangements based on that will not lead to peace, and the resistance and Jihad will remain as a legal right, a project and an honor for all our nation's people." -- Article 21. (Emphasis added.)

Hamas is not the only extremist organization to which Friends of Al-Aqsa has lent its support. The outlawed Northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which has close Hamas affiliations, is led by Shaykh Raed Salah. Salah has aided organizations that fund Hamas, and claims that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks (and that 4,000 Jews stayed away from work at the World Trade Center that day). Salah has also called Osama Bin Laden a martyr, and has said that honor killings of young women are acceptable.
According to Tamar Pileggi:

"In late 2015, Israel banned the radical Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, accusing it of maintaining links to terror groups and of stoking a wave of violence that saw dozens of deaths in a spate of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks."

Before that, in 2011, FOA along with other extremist groups brought Salah to the UK, despite a travel ban. When Salah was arrested and to be deported, Patel spoke out in support for him. But Salah had well before that delivered bloodcurdling sermons calling on Palestinians to become martyrs while attacking Israeli soldiers.
According to UK Media Watch:

"Friends of Al Aqsa" is one of the more extremist (sic) Islamist organizations at work in Britain today. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity "Interpal" (proscribed by the US Treasury) and advertises it on its website. It collaborates with the Khomenist Iranian-funded faux human rights organization known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission in organizing events such as Al Quds day at which public support is expressed for the Iranian proxy militia Hizbollah.

For the Jewish community of the UK, Friends of Al-Aqsa and Patel represent a real threat. The group has published anti-Semitic authors. One, the journalist Khalid Amayreh, claimed that Jews control America, and that the Iraq war "was conceived in and planned by Israel through the mostly Jewish neocons in Washington". Another was the Jewish British self-declared Holocaust denier Paul Eisen, who runs the anti-Israel organization Deir Yassin Remembered. Friends of Al-Aqsa has also published material by Gilad Atzmon, who has accused the Jews of Germany of waging war against Hitler and has said of the Holocaust:

"The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it [the Holocaust] is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. It made vengeance and revenge into a Western value."

Of the speakers listed for Palexpo, several are well-known for their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views. Ilan Pappé of Exeter University is a highly radical and much-criticized historian who has called for the elimination of Israel and its replacement by a single Arab state.
John Pilger is an Australian journalist and film-maker, one of whose documentaries has been described as "a veritable encyclopedia of every anti-Israel canard in existence today". He has suggested that terrorist group Hezbollah represented "humanity at its noblest"; approvingly cited the arguments of the above-mentioned anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Gilad Atzmon; has suggested that "influential" Jews around the world are culpable in "Israeli crimes" and has likened Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi's treatment of the Jews. According to Pilger , "the Zionist state remains the cause of more regional grievance and sheer terror than all the Muslim states combined."
Pilger has also asserted that "killing children seems like sport for the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]". His distortions are breathtaking. He has defended Hamas strenuously. Here, for example, he accuses his most hated countries, American and Israel, of distorting the truth:

"The majority [of Gazans] voted for the 'wrong' party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist."

He added the astonishing comment that, "Indeed, the vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace" -- about an organization whose Charter declares that, as mentioned, "The only solution to the Palestinian question is through jihad".
Ben White is one of the UK's most extreme anti-Israel speakers and writers. In his eyes, Israel can do no right; the Palestinians, including Hamas, no wrong. He "writes extensively about what he terms 'Palestine/Israel' to the point of near obsession and was a regular contributor to [the Guardian's] 'Comment is Free' and the virulently anti-Israel 'Electronic Intifada'". Here is a list of quotations from his writings. He is a supporter of the anti-Jewish one-state solution and an ardent promoter of the fiction that Israel is an "apartheid state". He regularly downplays Hamas and Palestinian terrorism, and instead places all blame for violence on Israel.
Among other speakers with reputations for extremist views are Miko Peled, who regards the Israeli army as terrorists (despite international recognition of it as "the most moral army in the world"). His anti-Semitism became clear when, commenting on a US-Israel aid deal, he said:

"Then theyr [sic] surprised Jews have reputation 4being sleazy thieves. #apartheidisrael doesn't need or deserve these $$."

Peled has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and called for a Palestinian state to replace Israel.
Tariq Ramadan is a famous Egyptian-Swiss Muslim scholar, philosopher and writer closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (he is the grandson of the Brotherhood's founder, Hasan al-Banna'). He is famous for duplicity and use of doublespeak.[2] He has donated money to the terrorist group Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and he has been denied a visa to the United States for his links to Hamas. He "was barred under a section of the Patriot Act, which bars entry to foreigners who have used a 'position of prominence ... to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.'" He "has often been accused of being an Islamist, anti-Semitic, and sexist. He has drawn severe criticism from numerous Western public figures, ranging from scholars and journalists to political, religious, and community leaders".
The other speakers listed fall into similar categories as supporters of trying to destroy Israel through economic means, Palestinian "resistance" to Israel, and anti-Semitism.
Currently, Friends of Al-Aqsa and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are planning to sue Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW) for libel, forcing the rights group to instruct lawyers to act in their defence. From the evidence presented here, JHRW could scarcely have a better case. Its appeal to the management of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre for the cancellation of a terror-linked event is entirely in line with British concerns about radical and terrorist ideologies, anti-Semitism, and international terrorism. Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, their supporters, and the various organizations to which they are linked, have never changed their beliefs regarding Israel, the Jewish people, or the West.

Dr Denis MacEoin PhD (Cambridge 1979) is a scholar of Islam and Persia, a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies and currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

---

[1] Not to be confused with Geneva's Palexpo: Palais des Expositions et des Congrès
[2] See Caroline Fourest, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, New York, London, 2008 and Paul Berman Flight of the Intellectuals, NY and London, 2011, Chapter One. See also Christopher Hitchens here.

Judith Bergman : Sharia Down Under

Sharia Down Under

by Judith Bergman
May 29, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10380/sharia-australia

• Sharia law, the president at the time of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils ludicrously argued, far from discriminating against women, "guarantees women's rights that are not recognised in mainstream Australian courts".
• The Australian Federal Police investigated 69 incidents of forced or under-age marriage in the 2015-16 financial year, up from 33 the previous year. While there are no official numbers, it is estimated that there are 83,000 women and girls in Australia who may have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM).
• The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has spent the past four years probing numerous religious organizations, has made no inquiries into Islam. The commission has held 6,500 one-on-one private interview sessions with survivors or witnesses making allegations of child sexual abuse within institutions, but only three sessions in relation to Islamic institutions.

What legacy did Australia's former Grand Mufti, Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali -- named "Muslim Man of the Year" in 2005 and the country's most senior, longest-serving (1988-2007) Muslim cleric -- leave behind?

In 1988, when Hilali was imam of the largest mosque in Australia, he gave a speech at Sydney University in which he described Jews as the cause of all wars and the existential enemy of humanity.

In July 2006, he called the Holocaust a "Zionist lie" and referred to Israel as a "cancer".

In October 2006 -- insinuating that the long prison sentences handed to Sydney's Lebanese gang-rapists for attacking young teenage girls in the year 2000, were unfair -- he compared Australian women who do not wear the Islamic veil to meat left uncovered in the streets and then eaten by cats.

During his long career, Hilali also praised suicide bombers as heroes and called the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States "God′s work against oppressors" and "the work of 100 percent American gangs".

At the time, Hilali's principal adviser and spokesperson, Keysar Trad, wrote, "The criminal dregs of white society colonised this country and... the descendants of these criminal dregs tell us that they are better than us."

Trad subsequently served as president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils -- the national umbrella organization, which represents Australian Muslims at national and international level -- from July 2016 until May 2017.
According to Australian senator Cory Bernardi:

"In 2009, the New South Wales Supreme Court found that Mr. Trad 'incites people to commit acts of violence', 'incites people to have racist attitudes' and is a 'dangerous and disgraceful individual'... When talking about the gang rape of young women in Sydney by a group of Lebanese men... Mr. Trad ... described these types of perpetrators as 'stupid young boys'... Mr. Trad did not condemn Sheikh Hilali's disgraceful comments about women being 'uncovered meat' in a speech about rape. Instead Mr. Trad chose to defend that speech and the sheikh's comments".

In February, Trad told Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt that an angry husband can beat his wife as "a last resort" but should only use his fists against her once he sees that "counselling" -- chocolate and flowers, according to Trad -- does not work.
Trad also called for the introduction of polygamy in Australia. He said that taking a second wife was "an alternative to divorce", as, "in our religion, god hates divorce".
Recently, in May 2017, after an emergency election, Rateb Jneid replaced Trad as president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
Since 2011, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, who does not speak English and relies on translators, has been the Grand Mufti of Australia. In 1995, before moving to the West, Abu Mohamed wrote:

"The West does not bring to us any good, all they bring are their diseases, their designs and their shortcomings... They insist to impose on us their corrupt values, and their philosophy and mannerism, the very things which brought disease, fear, crime and stress to them, the very things which severed ties and broke relationships."

According to the Daily Telegraph:

The Grand Mufti's views were also laid bare... with the release of details of a book he wrote saying non-Muslims wanted their women to walk around 'exposed as a piece of sweet pastry ... ­devoured by the eyes of men'".

In December 2012, Abu Mohamed led an Australian delegation of Muslim scholars to the Gaza Strip, where they met senior Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. Abu Mohamed told local news agencies:

"I am pleased to stand on the land of jihad to learn from its sons and I have the honor to be among the people of Gaza, where the weakness always becomes strength, the few becomes many and the humiliation turns into pride".

In 2013, Grand Mufti Abu Mohamed visited sheikh Yusuf al-Qara­dawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, in Qatar. Qaradawi advocates suicide bombings; has urged the world's Muslims to fight in Syria and has said that killing people who leave Islam is essential, as Islam would otherwise disappear.

After the Paris attacks in November 2015, Abu Mohamed implied that the ISIS atrocities were partly caused by "Islamophobia", saying:

"It is... imperative that all causative factors such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed."

With Muslim leaders such as former Grand Mufti Hilali, former president of the Association of Muslim Councils, Kayser Trad, and current Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, it should hardly come as a surprise that sharia -- and indeed jihad -- have made significant inroads in Australia. In 2011, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils sent a submission to the Federal Parliament's Committee on Multicultural Affairs, asking for Muslims to be able to marry, divorce and conduct financial transactions under the principles of sharia law. Sharia law, the president at the time of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils ludicrously argued, far from discriminating against women, "guarantees women's rights that are not recognised in mainstream Australian courts".

Although polygamy is illegal in Australia, a study in 2011 found that, "Valid Muslim polygynist marriages, lawfully entered into overseas, are recognized, with second and third wives and their children able to claim welfare and other benefits". When former Prime Minister Tony Abbott called for action after learning about the issue, he was told that it would cost more to pay the wives the single parent benefit. Centrelink, the Australian authority responsible for welfare and other benefits, said that it did not hold data based on polygamous relationships or religion, and that Islamic marriages are not registered. The problem of unregistered Islamic marriages and social welfare fraud is a familiar issue in Europe.

Last year, a 14-year-old Melbourne girl was forced to marry Mohammad Shakir, 34, in a ceremony at a Victoria mosque. In March, Shakir pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of forced-marriage. Ibrahim Omerdic, the Melbourne imam who performed the Islamic wedding ceremony, is also due to appear in court on criminal charges.
Muslim Australian girls, some allegedly as young as nine, have also been taken overseas, or are being threatened with it, and forced to become child brides.

A nine-year-old girl reported that she would be taken to Afghanistan to marry, while others were told they would be forced to marry cousins of their parents when they turned 13. In 2012, a 16-year old refugee girl from Afghanistan was flown to Pakistan for a "family holiday" and forced to marry a man she had never met.
The Australian Federal Police investigated 69 incidents of forced or under-age marriage in the 2015-16 financial year, up from 33 the previous year. In the 2013-14 financial year, only 11 cases were investigated. Government agencies are said to consider the figure of 69 potential recent cases the tip of the iceberg, with many girls "too fearful to contact police". A government child-welfare hotline has received more than 70 calls for help in the past two years, mainly from concerned teachers, counsellors and school principals. Forced marriage was criminalized in March 2013 in Australia. However, the law is not retroactive and marriages entered into prior to the law are beyond the authorities' jurisdiction, meaning those girls are almost certainly lost.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is another Islamic practice that has recently come to public notice in Australia. In March 2016, three people, among them the mother and a Muslim cleric, were sentenced in Sydney for their role in the female genital mutilation of two seven-year-old sisters. While there are no official numbers, it is estimated that there are 83,000 women and girls in Australia who may have been subjected to FGM. 1,100 girls are born every year to women who may have had FGM, which means that their daughters are also at risk of being subject to FGM.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has spent the past four years probing numerous religious organizations, including Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses and obscure cults numbering a negligible amount of members, such as new age ashrams, has made no inquiries into Islam.

The commission has held 6,500 one-on-one private interview sessions with survivors or witnesses making allegations of child sexual abuse within institutions, but only three sessions in relation to Islamic institutions.

Four Islamic terrorist attacks, including the Lindt Café siege in Sydney in December 2014, in which the manager and a mother of three were killed, have taken place in Australia. Eleven attacks have been foiled, including planned public beheadings. This statistic does not include the January 2017 car-ramming in Melbourne. The driver, Dimitrious Gargasoulas, murdered six people, including children, and wounded 20 others, when he plowed his car into pedestrians. Even though a witness claimed that Gargasoulas was shouting "Allahu Akbar", police refused to treat the event as a terrorist attack and even allegedly told a reporter to remove her interview with the witness from the internet. Gargasoulas had apparently converted to Islam prior to the attack and told the judge in a subsequent court hearing, "Your Honour, did you know the Muslim faith is the correct faith according to the whole world?"

Recently, Australia adopted stricter vetting rules for immigrants to avoid admitting those who harbor hostile Islamic views. Evidently, this measure comes several decades too late: Those who harbor hostile Islamic views were let in a long time ago. Now, what will Australia do about those who are there?

A mosque minaret in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cole Bennetts/Getty Images)

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Giulio Meotti : Europe Fights Back with Candles and Teddy Bears

Europe Fights Back with Candles and Teddy Bears

by Giulio Meotti
May 28, 2017 at 5:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10430/terrorism-candles-teddy-bears

• Europe still has not realized that the terror which struck its metropolis was a war, and not the mistake of a few disturbed people who misunderstood the Islamic religion.
• We are apparently not ready to abandon our masochistic rules of engagement, which privilege the enemy's people over our own.
• It appears that for Europe, Islamic terrorism is not real, but only a momentary disruption of its routine. We fight against global warming, malaria and hunger in Africa. But are we not ready to fight for our civilization? Have we already given up?

This long and sad list is the human harvest of Islamic terrorism on Europe's soil:
Madrid: 191. London: 58. Amsterdam: 1. Paris: 148. Brussels: 36. Copenhagen: 2. Nice: 86. Stockholm: 5. Berlin: 12. Manchester: 22. And it does not take into account the hundreds of Europeans butchered abroad, in Bali, in Sousse, in Dakka, in Jerusalem, in Sharm el Sheikh, in Istanbul.

But after 567 victims of terror, Europe still does not understand.
 Just the first half of 2017 has seen terror attacks attempted in Europe every nine days on average. Yet, despite this Islamist offensive, Europe is fighting back with teddy bears, candles, flowers, vigils, Twitter hashtags and cartoons.

Candles and flowers left behind following an evening vigil on May 23, 2017 in Manchester, England, held after a suicide bombing by an Islamic terrorist who murdered 22 concert-goers the night before. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

After 9/11 and 2,996 victims, the U.S. under George W. Bush rose to the fight. The United States and a few brave European allies, such as the UK, Italy and Spain, proved themselves "the stronger horse". Islamic warriors were thrown on the defensive; Jihadist recruits dropped off and dozens of terror plots were disrupted.
But that response did not last. Europe quickly retreated into its own homefront, while the Islamists carried the war onto Europe's soil: Madrid, London, Theo van Gogh...

Since then, the situation has only become worse: a simple calculation shows that we went from one attack every two years to one attack every nine days. 
Take just the last six months: Berlin, London, Stockholm, Paris and now Manchester.

Europe has still not realized that the terror which struck its metropolis was a war, and not the mistake of a few disturbed people who misunderstood the Islamic religion. 
Today there are more British Muslims in the ranks of ISIS than in the British Armed Forces. 
According with Alexandre Mendel, author of the book Jihadist France, there are more violent Salafists in France than regular soldiers in the Swedish army.

Thirteen years after the attack on Madrid's trains, Europe's leaders read from the same script: hiding the images of pain, so as not to scare anyone; concealing that the Islamist attackers are "made in Europe" insiders; repeating that "Islam is a religion of peace"; being prisoners inside our liberties; watching them removed one-by-one while we proclaiming that "we will not change our lifestyle"; and eradicating the fundamentals of our civilization -- freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of movement, freedom of religion -- the entire basis, in fact, of the West.

Radical Islam is the greatest threat to Europe since Nazism and Soviet Communism. But we still have not been inclined to question any of the political or ideological pillars that have led to the current disaster, such as multiculturalism and mass immigration. 
Hard counter-terrorism measures, the only ones that could break the terrorists' plans and morale, have never been taken. These would include shutting down mosques, deporting radical imams, banning foreign funding of mosques, closing toxic non-governmental organizations, draining the welfare financing of Europe's jihadists, refraining from flirting with jihadists, and stopping foreign fighters from returning home from the battlefront.

We treat war and genocide as if they are simply mistakes made by our intelligence agencies.

We dismiss radical Islam as the "mental illness" of a few disturbed people.
Meanwhile, every week, two new Salafist mosques are opened in France, while radical Islam is preached in more than 2,300 French mosques. Thousands of European Muslims have gone off to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq, and fundamentalists are taking control of mosques and Islamic centers. In Brussels, all the mosques are controlled by the Salafists, who are disseminating radical Islam to the Muslim masses.

The sad truth is that Europe has never had the political will to wage a total war against ISIS and the other jihadist groups. 
Otherwise, Raqaa and Mosul would already have been neutralized. Instead, Islamists have been taking over Molenbeek in Belgium, the French suburbs and large swaths of Britain. We now should be celebrating the liberation of Mosul and the return of Christians to their homes; instead we are mourning 22 people murdered and 64 wounded by an Islamic suicide-bomber in Manchester, and 29 Christians killed in Egypt this week alone.

Serious fighting would require massive bombing to eliminate as many Islamists as possible. But we are apparently not ready to abandon our masochistic rules of engagement, which privilege the enemy's people over our own.
Europe also never demanded that its Muslim communities disavow jihadism and Islamic law, sharia. 
This silence is what helps Islamists shut the mouths of brave Muslim dissidents. Meanwhile, Europe's armies are getting smaller by the day, as if we already consider this game done.

After every attack, Europe's leaders recycle the same empty slogans: "Carry on"; "We are stronger"; "Business as usual".
The Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, tells us that we must get used to daily carnage!
He says he believes that the threat of terror attacks is "part and parcel of living in a big city", and that major cities around the world "have got to be prepared for these sorts of things".
Does he seriously mean that we are supposed to get used to the massacre of our own children in the Manchester Arena? Islamic terror has now become part of the landscape of so many major European cities: Paris, Copenhagen, Nice, Toulouse, Berlin....

Instead of concentrating on jihad and radical Islam, Europe's leaders continue to talk about the "Russian threat". It would indeed be a mistake to neglect Russian expansionism. But did Vladimir Putin's troops attack Westminster? Did Russian agents blow themselves up, taking the lives of children at a Manchester concert? Did a former Soviet spy massacre Swedes walking in Stockholm? For Europe's leaders, talking about Putin appears a welcome distraction from the real enemies.

The French writer Philippe Muray wrote in his book, Dear Jihadists:

"Dear Jihadists! Quake before the wrath of the man in Bermuda shorts! Fear the rage of consumers, of travellers, of tourists, of holiday-makers, who rise from their caravans! Imagine yourselves like us, as we wallow in the joy and luxury that have weakened us".

It seems that for Europe, Islamic terrorism is not real, but only a momentary disruption of its routine. We fight against global warming, malaria and hunger in Africa, and for a global world of equality. But are we not ready to fight for our civilization? Or have we already given up?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Raymond Ibrahim : "Drip-Drip" Genocide: Muslim Persecution of Christians, February, 2017

"Drip-Drip" Genocide: Muslim Persecution of Christians, February, 2017

by Raymond Ibrahim
May 28, 2017 at 4:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10426/christian-genocide-muslims

• "They are burning us alive! They seek to exterminate Christians altogether! Where's the military?" -- Christian man fleeing Al-Arish, Egypt; video.
• "Historical churches in Iran being destroyed while UNESCO overlooks," is the title of one report.
• On the same day as Pakistan's government charged an elderly Christian man with blasphemy -- which carries a death penalty -- it acquitted 106 Muslims of burning down an entire Christian village.

The Islamic State is at it again. More stories of atrocities against Christians continued to surface. In one, a Christian man, Meghrik, said the bus in which he was riding in Syria was stopped at what turned out to be an ISIS checkpoint. Three men dressed in black entered and began checking all the passengers' identification papers. "Are you a Christian?" they asked him. "No," he said. He explained that he was raised by Christian parents and his family name was Christian, but that he was not. "You're lying," the fighter said. "Your name says you're a Christian. Come with me." He was taken to an ISIS judge who "concluded that he was a Christian" and said "You're sentenced to death." Thereafter Meghrik was severely whipped and tortured. At one point, he was thrown in a hole in the ground and surrounded by an execution squad prepared to fire. After 10 days of this treatment and for unknown reasons -- Meghrik cites a miracle and is now a devout Christian -- he was released.

While much of the world acknowledges that the Islamic State is engaged in acts of genocide against religious minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, in other Muslim states, such as Pakistan, Christians and other non-Muslim minorities are experiencing a "drip-drip genocide", said the noted author, journalist and Pakistani politician Farahnaz Ispahani:

"Right before the partition of India and Pakistan, we had a very healthy balance of religions other than Islam. Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Zoroastrians. Pakistan goes from 23 per cent [non-Muslim at the time of partition in 1947], which is almost a quarter of its population, to three per cent today. I call it a 'drip drip genocide', because it's the most dangerous kind of wiping out of religious communities.... It doesn't happen in one day. It doesn't happen over a few months. Little by little by little, laws and institutions and bureaucracies and penal codes, textbooks that malign other communities, until you come to the point of having this sort of jihadi culture that is running rampant."

Other accounts of Muslim persecution of Christians to surface in February 2017 include, but are not limited to, the following:

The Slaughter of Christians in Egypt

As in January, when five different Christians were killed in four separate hate crimes around the country, another murderous wave took non-Muslim minorities by storm, this time in al-Arish, Sinai. The murders may have resulted from a video released in February by the "Islamic State in Egypt." In the video, masked militants promise more attacks on the "worshipers of the cross" — a reference to the Coptic Christians of Egypt, of whom they also refer to as their "favorite prey" and "infidels who are empowering the West against Muslim nations." One of the militants, carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, added, "God gave orders to kill every infidel." Below is a list of Christians murdered in al-Arish:

• January 30: A 35-year-old Christian was in his small shop working with his wife and young son when three masked men walked in, opened fire and killed him. The masked men then sat around his shop table, eating chips and drinking soda, while the bodies lay in a pool of blood before the terrified wife and child.
• February 13: A 57-year-old Christian laborer was shot and killed as he tried to fight off masked men trying to kidnap his young son on a crowded street in broad daylight. The men, after murdering the father, seized his young son and took him to an unknown location (where, if precedent is accurate, he is likely being tortured or possibly killed, if a hefty ransom is not paid).
• February 16: A 45-year-old Christian schoolteacher was moonlighting at his shoe store with his wife, when masked men walked in the crowded shop and shot him dead.
• February 17: A 40-year-old medical doctor was killed by masked men who, after forcing him to stop his car, opened fire and killed him. He leaves a widow and two children.
• February 22: Islamic State affiliates killed a 65-year-old Christian man by shooting him in the head. They then abducted and tortured his 45-year-old son before burning him alive and dumping his charred remains near a schoolyard.
• February 23: A Christian plumber was shot dead in front of his wife and children at their home.

After the slayings, at least 300 Christians living in al-Arish fled their homes, with nothing but their clothes on their backs and their children in their hands. In a video of these Copts, one man can be heard saying "They are burning us alive! They seek to exterminate Christians altogether! Where's the military?" Another woman yells at the camera:

"Tell the whole world, look — we've left our homes, and why? Because they kill our children, they kill our women, they kill our innocent people! Why? Our children are terrified to go to schools. Why? Why all this injustice?! Why doesn't the president move and do something for us? We can't even answer our doors without being terrified!"

"We loved our country but our country doesn't love us," said the brother of one of the slain.

Muslim Abduction, Rape, Murder and Mutilation of Christian Women

Pakistan: 

Hours after being dropped off at the Convent of Jesus and Mary school in Punjab by her brother, Tania Mariyam, a 12-year-old Christian girl, was found dead in a canal. Despite all the evidence to the contrary — including her clothes being ripped off and signs of drugging — police investigations concluded that she had committed suicide. After three weeks of pressure from Mariyam's family and human rights groups, who insisted that the girl had been raped and murdered — as so many Christian girls (and boys) in Pakistan have been before her — police finally conceded that she had not killed herself. Even so, "the severe delays," says the British Pakistani Christian Association, "mean that much of the evidence has been lost."
"There was a disgusting police cover up," the murdered girl's father said, "and I fear that they have colluded with the murderer and know more than they are letting on. They do not care about Christians."

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West Africa: According to a report, "Muslims radicals punished the [14-year-old] daughter of a Christian missionary for her faith by subjecting her to brutal female genital mutilation. Currently, the young woman remains in a coma, struggling for her life." Lydia's father, Yoonus, formerly a Muslim scholar, had converted to Christianity. When the local Muslim community heard of this — and that he "was now leading Muslims to Christ" — they "urged him to return to Islam and promised to give him gifts if he rejected Christianity. However, Yoonus and his family refused to renounce their faith, resulting in increased persecution," including the attack on his daughter.

Egypt: Two new cases surfaced of young Christian girls being abducted with the indifference or complicity of the authorities. After Rania Eed Fawzy, 17, failed to return home, her parents and lawyer said it was "an incident of kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam." They "filed a complaint with the local police that a Muslim male named Rabee Radi Naghi had taken their daughter against her will." When the family lawyer contacted the Egyptian Attorney General, Nabil Ahmed Sadek, requesting "to remove Rania from hiding and deliver her to one of the Christian Orthodox homeless youth shelters"—as "[n]ormally in such cases the local authorities know where the kidnap victim is kept" — the Attorney General refused and said, "[T]he girl embraced Islam, what do you want?"
As the report explains, even if she did freely convert, "a child in Egypt is considered a minor until age 21. Until [one comes] of age, conversion from one religion to another is illegal."

"In such kidnapping cases, however, the authorities always settle the issue by accepting the minor Christian girl's 'conversion' to Islam ... never the other way around. In conversion from Islam to Christianity complaints, police go above and beyond their role to retrieve the girl and warn her of death from apostasy. Such cases suit the purposes of ideological jihad. By removing a non-Muslim young woman of child-bearing age from the Christian community, adding her to the Muslim girl population to bear Muslim children serves to increase the Muslim population while decreasing Christian numbers."

Separately, after an apparent ruse caused the older brother of Hanan Adly, an 18-year-old Christian girl, to step out of the house one night, she disappeared from the family farm. The family and their lawyer made a formal complaint to the police, accusing a neighbor, Mohamed Ahmed Nubi Soliman, 27, of kidnapping her. Prosecutors summoned the man and "he admitted a connection with the incident. However, he was released due to lack of physical evidence," says the report.

"A national security investigation was ordered, but ... there has been no progress with the case, despite protests outside the police station by friends and family of Hanan."

Mali: A Christian nun was kidnapped in the Muslim-majority African nation with "no claims or demands for ransom", said a local Christian leader. Sister Cecilia Narváez Argoti, of Colombian background, belonged to the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate.

"The kidnappers arrived on 7 February from a secluded location a bit far from the village where Sister Cecilia and her sisters were. They broke into the missionary center and plundered money and computer equipment. They then escaped with the ambulance of the medical center with the nun."

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches

Central African Republic: Supporters of a Muslim rebel group destroyed two churches and killed a pastor in what are described as "revenge attacks." After the national security forces, backed by UN peacekeepers, launched a military operation to interrogate Youssouf Malinga, a local Muslim militia leader known as the "Big Man," he and his men opened fire on the security forces and killed two passersby. Security forces responded with fire and killed Malinga and one of his men; three soldiers were also injured in the shootout. Malinga's supporters responded by surrounding an apostolic church and stabbing its pastor to death. "More than two dozen people were wounded. At least two churches were destroyed, along with a school," in the "revenge attacks," the report adds. "Central African Republic was plunged into civil war in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka militia."
Congo: Churches are "being desecrated and Christian nuns terrorised by 'violent thugs' amid a wave of increased hostility on Christians," according to reports. Elsewhere the "thugs" are described as "Islamist extremists." In February alone, "the extremists" burned a major seminary and

"sow[ed] terror among the Carmelite Sisters in nearby Kananga.... The extremists also attacked the St. Dominic church in the town of Limete. They 'overturned the tabernacle, ransacked the altar, smashed some of the benches and attempted to set fire to the church,' the archbishop said."

Iran: "Historical churches in Iran being destroyed while UNESCO overlooks," is the title of one report. After explaining that "Destroying church buildings has a long record in the history of the Islamic regime of Iran," it gives several examples in recent times. Sometimes churches are attacked by "extremist Muslims" who destroy crosses, statues, and icons with sledgehammers and axes; other times the government is responsible.
In one case, "judicial authorities in Kerman issued a ruling for a historical church building in their city to be brought down, even though a few years earlier this church had been registered as a national heritage site"; in another instance, a "historical evangelical church building in Mashhad that had been registered as a national heritage site in 2005, was destroyed." There "are around five hundred registered church buildings in Iran, with many of them abandoned or on the verge of destruction."

Sudan: The government ordered the "demolition of at least 25 church buildings" in the Khartoum area, relates one report. The government claimed the churches were built on land zoned for other uses, although mosques located in the same area were spared from the demolition order. Christian leaders said this is "not an isolated act" but rather part of a wider "crack-down" on Christianity that "should be taken with wider perspective." The Sudan Council of Churches denounced the order and called on the government to reconsider the decision or provide alternative sites for the churches. But Mohamad el Sheikh Mohamad, general manager of Khartoum State's land department in the Ministry of Physical Planning, said the order should be implemented immediately. "Sudan since 2012 has bulldozed church buildings and harassed and expelled foreign Christians," the report concludes.

Nigeria: The Christian Association of Nigeria is calling on the nation's government to help rebuild destroyed churches in the Muslim majority regions of the nation's northeastern states. This comes after a report revealed that "at least 900 Christian places of worship have been destroyed by Boko Haram since the [militant Islamic] group began its violent activities." U.S. lawmakers said that Nigeria is the worst nation in which to be Christian. Christopher Smith, Chairman of US House of Representatives' Sub-committee on Africa, said that both his staff and he have "investigated the crises facing Christians in Nigeria today" and

"made several visits to Nigeria, speaking with Christians and Muslim religious leaders across the country and visiting fire-bombed churches, such as in Jos.... Unfortunately, Nigeria has been cited as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world and impunity for those responsible for the killing of Christians seem to be widespread."

What makes the African nation so hostile to Christians is Boko Haram, a militant Muslim group, which has "forced Christians to convert and forced Muslims to adhere to its extreme interpretation of Islam."

Pakistan: Catholic churches and schools in the Lahore area closed down after a Taliban splinter group, which had killed seventy Christians on Easter Day, 2016, carried out a suicide bombing at a rally and killed at least 14 people. The group had vowed a year ago that it planned on launching "more devastating attacks that will target Christians and other religious minorities as well as government installations."

Coptic Christians protest outside the church of St Peter and St Paul in Cairo, Egypt, after a bomb attack on the complex, on December 11, 2016. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Pakistani Justice

On January 28, a court acquitted 106 Muslims of burning down an entire Christian village in 2013 — including 150 homes and three churches. The attack came after one of its inhabitants, Sawan Masih, was accused of blasphemy. More than 80 prosecution witnesses, 63 of them with statements recorded about the attack, said they did not recognize any of the 106 accused. So they were all released.
Also on January 28, the government arrested an elderly Christian man on the charge of blasphemy — which carries a maximum death penalty. A mosque leader accused Mukhtar Masih, 70, of writing two letters containing derogatory remarks about the Koran and Muhammad. The report cites a source who said that "the charges against Masih were fabricated by local Muslims seeking to seize his property." Nonetheless, police raided the elderly man's home the same day and took his entire family into custody. His family was released but he was booked on charges of blasphemy, and beaten in an attempt to force him to admit to it.
Separately, the Pakistani government denied that "Christian minorities are being targeted by the country's controversial blasphemy laws," says another report — despite the well-known fact that religious minorities, chief among them Christians, are the demographic group most prone to being accused and convicted of blasphemy, to say nothing of being beaten, lynched, and burned alive in mob attacks. After alleging that, of 129 cases of blasphemy, 99 were leveled against fellow Muslims, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan said "religious minorities are not being embroiled in blasphemy cases more than Muslims." However, "[s]everal different persecution watchdog groups have pointed out that Christians are often heavily targeted by blasphemy laws." Pakistani human rights activist Wilson Chowdhry said officials are "twisting statistics":

"Sadly, Mr Khan's comments... [and] contrived results have failed to recognize that Christians in recent years have become the number one target of blasphemy allegations. It is our belief that a large proportion of the 26 percent of blasphemy convictions listed against minorities will have sentenced Christians, yet we contribute only 1.6 percent of the entire national population."

Muslim Hate for and Discrimination against Christians

Egypt: Fadi, a 15-year-old Christian boy, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of what human rights activists say is a false accusation. Last summer, a Muslim neighbor accused him of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old Muslim boy. Investigations and forensic examinations were performed but revealed no evidence of sexual activity. The family was still ordered to leave the village and the charges remained. According to Fadi's mother, Hana, he was targeted only because their Muslim neighbors, whose grandfather is an influential imam at the local mosque, "don't like Christians." She adds: the "judge convicted my son to 15 years because he is a Christian. If he was a Muslim boy, the judge would acquit him when he saw the forensic report, because the forensic report absolved my son," but "because my son is Christian," the judge "believed the speech of [the Muslim boy's] father instead of the forensic report."

Turkey: The Islamic terrorist who opened fire on an Istanbul nightclub during New Year's Eve celebrations confessed that "I wanted to stage the attack on Christians in order to exact revenge on them for their acts committed all over the world. My aim was to kill Christians." But for a variety of reasons that made it difficult for him to launch a spectacular attack on Christians, Abdulkadir Masharipov, of Uzbeki origin, ended up killing 39 people and wounded 65 others at a nightclub. He laments that he did not die then and there as a "martyr": "When I was out of bullets, I threw two stun grenades. I put the third one near my face to commit suicide, but I didn't die. I survived, but I entered Reina [nightclub] to die." Apparently to hurry him on his way to what he sought on the day of attack, Islamic paradise, Abdulkadir said that "it would be good if he were given capital punishment."

Iraq: Kurdish Peshmerga forces continue to be hostile to a Christian militia group also fighting the Islamic State. After William J. Murray, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Religious Freedom Coalition, visited the Christian town of Qaraqosh on the Nineveh Plain, he wrote that it

"has enemies other than the ruthless Islamic State, or ISIS, which left it in ruins. Currently the Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, is blocking aid to the NPU [Nineveh Protection Unit] that guards the town, because the NPU is the Assyrian Christian militia. It is the only armed Christian group in Iraq.... While for appearance and funding from Washington, the Kurds support Christian interests for now, the historical relationship between the two groups includes participation in slaughtering Christians by the tens of thousands. There is no room for a Christian enclave, particularly one that is armed, in the future of an independent state of Kurdistan..."

Kurds are Sunni Muslims.

France: A new study revealed that, in the Western European nation with the largest Muslim population, the overwhelming majority of "religious attacks" are against Christians. "Acts targeting Christian places accounted for 90% of all attacks on places of worship (Christians, Jews or Muslims)." Although the government responded to these statistics by saying that "all these acts have no religious motivation," and that out of 949 attacks on churches, "there was a possible 'satanic motivation' in 14 cases and an 'anarchist' motivation in 25," it did not reveal the source behind the other 910 attacks. Another report, however, from neighboring Germany gives a hint:

"Last year in Dülmen, following the arrival of well over a million [mostly Muslim] migrants in Germany, local media said 'not a day goes by' without attacks on Christian religious statues."

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About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by Muslims is growing. The report posits that such Muslim persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location.

Raymond Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (published by Regnery with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).

Follow Raymond Ibrahim on Twitter and Facebook
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