by Raymond Ibrahim
"The Taliban are offering money for Afghans to turn in any Christians they know. And Afghans are desperate, further heightening the security risk to Christians." — mnnonline, April 3, 2023, Afghanistan.
Police raided a large group of Christians, mostly college students, as they "gathered to sing and record video clips for social media." One-hundred-and three of them, "mainly students," were arrested and sent to prison. "This latest arrest puts the number of Christian prisoners detained indefinitely without trial in Eritrea to more than 500.... Mai Serwa [prison]...is ... known for its use of torture and other forms of mistreatment, including beatings, starvation, and denial of medical care.
The Eritrean government detains individuals without charge or trial and has held many in detention for years without access to legal representation or the due process of law." — International Christian Concern, persecution.org, April 24, 2023, Eritrea.
In one night of unfathomable horror ... men, women, and children were slaughtered like chicken...." -- persecution.org, April 28, 2023 — Democratic Republic of Congo.
The "pure genocide" of Christians, as it has been characterized by several international observers, reached new levels, according to an Apr. 10 report, which found that since 2009, 52,250 Christians in Nigeria "have been butchered or hacked to death." – Nigeria.
"Political Islam replaces the laws or interprets them differently so that they restrict the practice of other religions. It also works to change the culture of society — which puts it under great pressure — so that it becomes more radical and extreme, not only toward other religions but also toward other Islamic sects." — catholicnewsagency.com, 2023, Libya.
Police arrested two illiterate cleaners—a Christian widow and a Muslim gardener—on the accusation that they had intentionally burned pages from the Koran, thereby committing "blasphemy." — morningstarnews.org, April 24, 2023, Pakistan.
"Don't tell me that if you entered a church your faith would waver. Every other person of a different religion here hears the [Islamic] call to prayer five times a day [and their faith doesn't waver]." — Syed Saddiq, Malaysian politician, christiantoday.com, April 7, 2023, Malaysia.
"Indonesia's Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 (SKB) makes requirements for obtaining permits nearly impossible for most new churches. Even when small, new churches are able to meet the requirement of obtaining 90 signatures of approval from congregation members and 60 from area households of different religions, they are often met with delays or lack of response from officials. Well-organized radical Muslims secretly mobilize outside people to intimidate and pressure members of minority faiths." — morningstarnews.org, April 6, 2023, Indonesia.
For this eleven page article in pdf, please click here:
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, andThe Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Pictured: The scene of the murder of Diego Valencia, the sacristan, in Algeciras. (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)
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