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Showing posts with label Bangladesh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bangladesh. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Of Course There Are Bad People Coming To The US--Not All But How Many?

Spanish-language network reporter reveals who is ‘infiltrating’ migrant caravan heading to US

Oct 22, 2018 6:08 pm
Spanish-language network reporter reveals who is ‘infiltrating’ migrant caravan heading to US
A Spanish-language reporter covering the migrant caravan from Honduras said that he had seen several migrants from Bangladesh infiltrating the group. (John Moore/Getty Images)
A reporter for the Spanish-language network Univision revealed that he had met people from a Muslim-majority country were infiltrating the migrant caravan from Honduras headed towards the U.S. border.
“They infiltrated themselves in this caravan”
Univision correspondent Francisco Santa Anna was reporting from a bridge in Guatemala where the migrant caravan was attempting to cross into Mexico on their way to the United States. Santa Anna said he had himself met people from Bangladesh.
The Daily Caller reported a translation of Santa Anna’s claims as he reported from Mexico.
“The borders in Central American are not as strong as the U.S., which makes it possible for people from Panama and Ecuador to cross easily,” Santa Anna explained. “They cross from Costa Rica, then later go through Guatemala and eventually make it into our country.”
“Yesterday when we were traveling through Guatemala, we noticed people from El Salvador and even people from Bangladesh,” he continued.
“Can you imagine what they had to do to get here?” he said. “They infiltrated themselves in this caravan and tried to cross with the crowd. That would have benefited them greatly.”
Santa Anna continued to say that they were identified and detained by immigration officials.
Here’s the video of the report in Spanish from the Daily Caller:
Mexican officials appeared to listen to President Donald Trump’s demands to stop the caravan from arriving at the U.S. border, but recent reports indicate that some officials are aiding the migrants on their trek.
The Mexican ambassador to the U.S. admitted Thursday on Fox News that they believed the caravan to be at least in part politically motivated.
“We have evidence that this caravan is also very much politically motivated,” ambassador Gutierrez said. “We’re obviously sensitive to the humanitarian situation that we encounter, and we’re acting precisely.
“But we have also made very clear that there’s no legal ground on which Mexico can issue a permit by which people can just go through Mexico toward the United States,” he concluded.
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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Another Country Going Towards Islamization


Bangladesh: Tipping Farther Toward Fundamentalist Islam?

by 
  • As soon as the statue of "Lady Justice," blindfolded and holding a scale, was erected in the Bangladeshi capital, fundamentalist groups began to protest, on the grounds that the piece of art was "un-Islamic" and constituted idol-worship.
  • Since 2013, dozens of people have been slaughtered, many with machetes. Although ISIS claimed responsibility for many of the brutal killings, no formal investigation into the murders was ever launched.
  • Instead, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the opportunity to arrest more than 11,000 people, only 145 of whom were Islamist terrorists. The rest were charged with crimes such as theft and drug-dealing, indicating that it might have been part of Hasina's crackdown on critics since her election in 2008.
The arrest on May 26 of 140 secular activists in Bangladesh is the latest in a string of incidents indicating a disturbing shift towards Islamic fundamentalism in the East Asian parliamentary democracy.
The activists were rounded up by police during a demonstration against the government's removal of a statue outside the Supreme Court building in the capital city, Dhaka. They were charged not only with holding an illegal gathering and obstructing justice, but with the attempted murder of the law enforcement agents dispatched to quell the protest.
The statue was a depiction of "Lady Justice" -- the Greek goddess Themis (and Roman Justitia), blindfolded and holding a scale -- this one wearing a sari. As soon as the iconic, universal symbol of jurisprudence was erected last December in the Bangladeshi capital, fundamentalist groups began to protest, on the grounds that the piece of art was "un-Islamic" and constituted idol-worship.

The Supreme Court of Bangladesh, in Dhaka. (Image source: F2416/Wikimedia Commons)

Although secularism is enshrined in the constitution of Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been accused -- with good reason -- of accommodating Hefazat-e-Islam, an Islamist lobby group comprised of madrassah educators and students, which has called for the enacting of blasphemy laws. The group's leader, Allama Shafi, is infamous for demanding the death penalty for atheists and anyone defaming Islam. He is also known for referring to women in derogatory terms, while urging parents not to educate their daughters past the fourth or fifth grade.
In a meeting in early April with Shafi and other Islamic scholars and imams, Prime Minister Hasina not only succumbed to the demand that Lady Justice be taken down, but said that she herself had been unhappy about its placement outside the Supreme Court. Within a few weeks, the statue was being taken down -- in the middle of the night.
The ensuing protest in the streets and on social media by Bangladeshis bent on maintaining their country's separation between mosque and state turned out to be effective, however, in spite of the mass detention of demonstrators. On Sunday evening, the statue was returned, albeit a few hundred yards from its original location, in a place less visible to the public.
Shafi's response was both swift and sharp. "Do not play with our religious beliefs, national spirit and heritage," he said, aiming his anger at the government. "Do not push the country towards the curse of Allah through such anti-Islamic activities."
Indian journalist and managing director of Republic TV Arnab Goswami wrote on Sunday that Hasina's accommodation of Shafi and his Islamist cohorts should come as no surprise, given the country's political trends in general, and Hasina's maneuvers in particular.
Goswami cites, for example, the government's recent capitulation to Hefazat-e-Islam's demand that certain secular content be removed from Bandladeshi textbooks. In January this year, that demand was met by the Bangladeshi Education Ministry, which deleted more than two dozen pieces of literature written by non-Muslims from elementary school books. The government then announced that it was distributing the new books for free, causing many parents and teachers to consider the move political -- to curry favor with Hefazat-e-Islam and garner votes from all sides in the next general election, slated for late 2018/early 2019.
Despite denials on the part of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board that Hefazat-e-Islam was behind the editorial changes, altering the public-school curriculum had been listed in the group's 2013 13-point plan -- a list of demands -- for bringing Sharia law to Bangladesh, along with a threat that if Hasina's government did not comply, it would not be able to maintain its power and would lose the next election. In addition, Shafi happily took credit for the new books. "After our long struggle and rally," he said, "the authorities could finally understand the gravity of the issue and brought changes in the textbooks."
This is mild compared to the Bangladeshi government's timid reaction to a spate of violent Islamist attacks on secular intellectuals, bloggers, religious minorities and LGBT activists, which have been carried out during the past four years. Since 2013, dozens of people have been slaughtered, many with machetes. Although ISIS claimed responsibility for many of the brutal killings, no formal investigation into the murders was ever launched.
Instead, Hasina took the opportunity to arrest more than 11,000 people, only 145 of whom were Islamist terrorists. The rest were charged with crimes such as theft and drug-dealing, indicating that it might have been part of Hasina's crackdown on critics since her election in 2008. To thwart her decades-long arch-rival, Khaleda Zia, Hasina dismantled the caretaker electoral system and began taking steps to consolidate her authoritarian rule. These, according to the Asia-Pacific current affairs magazine The Diplomat, have included silencing her critics by attacking the media and accusing opposition parties of being behind the slayings, such as that of an LGBT magazine editor in April 2016.
The statue of Lady Justice may have been restored to what should be its rightful place outside the Supreme Court, but the incident highlights the broader issue of how increasingly hard it is for justice to be preserved in a Muslim-majority country where fundamentalists are gaining momentum.
Ruthie Blum is a journalist and author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama and the 'Arab Spring.'"
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
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Friday, April 28, 2017

Did Hillary Actually Threaten An IRS Audit? If So, Is That Legal? If Not, Should Charges Be Brought?

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards at the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on March 8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards at the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on March 8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Aides Threatened Prime Minister’s Son With IRS Audit, He Says

Photo of Richard Pollock

Reporter
9:17 PM 04/25/2017
Hillary Clinton’s Department of State aides allegedly threatened a South Asian prime minister’s son with an IRS audit in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of a close friend and donor of Clinton’s, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group learned.
A Bangladesh government commission was investigating multiple charges of financial mismanagement at Grameen Bank, beginning in May 2012. Muhammad Yunus, a major Clinton Foundation donor, served as managing director of the bank.
Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and permanent U.S. resident, recalled the account of the threatened IRS audit to TheDCNF. The allegations mark the first known instance in the U.S. that Clinton’s Department of State used IRS power to intimidate a close relative of a friendly nation’s head of state on behalf of a Clinton Foundation donor.
Wazed told TheDCNF it was “astounding and mind boggling” that senior State Department officials between 2010 and 2012 repeatedly pressured him to influence his mother to drop the commission investigation.
The commission report was released in early 2013.
“They threatened me with the possibility of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service,” he said. “I have been here legally for 17 years and never had a problem. But they said, ‘well, you know, you might get audited.'”
“They would say over and over again, ‘Yunus has powerful friends’ and we all knew they were talking of Secretary Clinton. Everybody knew it was Mrs. Clinton,” Wazed told TheDCNF.
The Prime Minister originally disclosed in general terms the pressure exerted on her son at a February reception in Munich.
“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy had to face pressure from the US State Department to keep Muhammad Yunus as the Grameen Bank managing director,” the Dhaka Tribune reported.
“Hillary Clinton phoned me and exerted the same pressure. Even the U.S. State Department summoned my son Joy three times and told him that we would face trouble,” Hasina added.
Hasina said State Department officials told Joy that Clinton would not take the matter lightly.
“Convince your mother,” she recalled Joy quoting officials.
However, Hasina never provided details of the ordeal her son faced until his interview with TheDCNF.
The World Bank also decided to rescind a $1.2 billion loan to Bangladesh while the IRS was pressuring Joy in 2012. The money was requested in order to build a key bridge near the capital city of Dhaka. The World Bank leveled bribery charges against two Canadian officials, but a Canadian court later acquitted both individuals.
Former Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, who twice met with then-Secretary of State Clinton, told TheDCNF it was apparent there were links between the World Bank loan cancellation and Yunus. Moni now is chairwoman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs.
“Whether there was any abuse by the U.S. Government or the secretary of state, that I cannot say,” Moni said. “I can only say we saw two facts: One was the communications from the State Department, and then the other one was the withdrawal of World Bank’s loan.”
But she was more direct about Yunus’ role in the World Bank cancellation.
“Professor Yunus obviously tried to punish or tried to retaliate and punish the government of Bangladesh, especially [Prime Minister] Sheikh Hasina,” she said. “He knew how important the Padma [bridge] was for our economy, for our people’s government, and it would revive the whole of south of Bangladesh.”
“Obviously, he tried to use that to get out of the situation he was in, and he wanted to punish the government,” she said.
Wade claimed he received threats from all levels of the State Department.
“The threats came from all levels. It came from the U.S. Embassy in Bangladesh to pretty senior officials within the State Department.”
Wade regularly met many State Department officials as he lived near the nation’s capital. He considered many to be friends and colleagues, but the tone and substance of the discussions radically changed beginning in 2010.
“Previously, we pretty much discussed many issues, things like trade, finance or national security. But then, the only thing they would be harping on was Yunus. They had one obsession, to save Muhammad Yunus.”
Clinton met with Yunus three times as secretary of state while the Bangladesh government investigation was underway, according to an August 2016 Associated Press report on Clinton Foundation donors.
Throughout the Bangladesh government’s investigation, “He (Yunus) pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him,” AP reported.
Nonprofit government watchdog Judicial Watch obtained Clinton emails that showed her aide Melanne Verveer regularly updated Clinton on Yunus’ ongoing plight.
Clinton also supported Yunus in other ways. The U.S. Agency for International Development, part of State Department, partnered with the Grameen Foundation for a $162 million micro-finance project in 2009. The agency separately awarded $2.2 million to the foundation.
Yunus first ran into trouble when a 2010 Norwegian documentary charged that he diverted nearly $100 million of Grameen Bank funds to finance his private enterprises. Yunus presently owns more than 50 private and nonprofit companies, ranging from Grameen Telecom to firms in the fashion industry and even a yogurt company.
Wazed said word of the $100 million diversion did not sit well with many Bangladeshis who earn an annual per-capita income of $1,314.
“The whole Grameen Bank embezzlement issue was important for us,” Wazed said. “You know, he took $100 million from Grameen bank and transferred to his private trust to create 57 personal, private sector projects.”
Wazed added that “Yunus eventually paid it back, but that’s not the point. He took the money, and the bank is a state-bank not authorized to provide big business loans.”
After the Bangladesh government commission report came out in 2013, officials removed Yunus as managing director. They invoked a rule stating bank executives can only work up to the age of 60. Yunus was 70 at the time.
Prior to the scandal, Yunus was a high-flying bank executive who championed “micro-credits,” small loans to try to lift the poor out of poverty.
He won the admiration and later financial and political assistance of the Clintons when the former president was governor of Arkansas.
The Clintons also frequently hosted Yunus at their foundation’s annual Clinton Global Initiative galas in New York. He was a heavily promoted as a CGI speaker nearly every year from 2008 to 2016, according to the foundation’s website.
Yunus was awarded the 2006 Noble Peace Prize, reportedly with backroom lobbying by Bill Clinton.
As a New York Senator, Clinton successfully pushed Congress to award him the Congressional Gold Medal. Then-President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, in 2010.
Yunus, in turn, was a donor to the Clinton Foundation. Grameen America, one of Yunus’ major American organizations, gave between $100,000 to $250,000 to the foundation, according to the Clinton Foundation website. His Grameen Research group donated $25,000 to $50,000.
TheDCNF contacted both Grameen America and the Clinton Foundation seeking comment but received responses from neither.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/25/exclusive-hillary-aides-threatened-prime-ministers-son-with-irs-audit/#ixzz4fY7Vw9MI
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Sunday, November 20, 2016

Around The World, Muslims Attack Christians

"Allah, Kill the Despicable Christians"

Muslim Persecution of Christians, August 2016

by 
  • "Allah, kill the despicable Christians. Allah, kill each and every last one of them...." — 16-year-old Muslim son of an Islamic cleric living in Belgium.
  • "ISIS is not the problem... They shaved my head, they put my head in freezing cold water and then into boiling hot water. They burned their cigarettes on me, they electrocuted me." — Majed el-Shafie, imprisoned and tortured in Egypt for converting to Christianity.
  • A Christian girl faces death threats if she does not return to her Muslim abductor who forcibly converted her to Islam. The family of a Christian girl who was kidnapped, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and then forcibly married to a Muslim are now under threat if they refuse to hand back their daughter to her captors.
Islamic hate for Christians was on display throughout the month of August. Shortly after an 80-year-old Catholic priest in France was slaughtered by Muslims who stormed his church during mass, the 16-year-old Muslim son of an Islamic cleric living in Belgium made a video and posted it on social media. In the video, he appears walking along the main street of the Belgian city of Verviers during Ramadan while making prayers to Allah, which include: "Allah, kill the despicable Christians. Allah, kill each and every last one of them...." According to Immigration Minister Theo Francken:
"It's obvious that his father, the imam, is promoting such ideas not just to fighters to join the battle in Syria, but also to his own children. The young man who appears in the video reflects the father's views, and I understand and empathize with the great concern that city residents have over this."
A deportation order was last reported as pending a court appeal.
Similarly, in the August edition of Dabiq, ISIS's propaganda magazine, the jihadi organization urged Muslims to destroy the "arrogant Christian disbelievers" and urged them to "pray for Allah's curse to be upon the liars." ISIS also threatened Christians to "break the cross." Those who do and convert to Islam will "enter the Gardens of Paradise," and those who reject Islam and cling to the cross will die in a "futile" war against ISIS.
As if the Christians of Nigeria were not persecuted enough by Muslim groups, Boko Haram's new leader, known for killing nonconformist Muslims as well, announced that Christians are now its number one and primary target, and that Boko Haram will continue to "bomb churches and kill Christians while ending attacks on mosques and markets used by ordinary Muslims." Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the new leader, also spoke of "booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those who we find from the citizens of the Cross."

Abu Musab al-Barnawi (shown seated), the new leader of Nigeria's Islamist group Boko Haram, announced that Christians are now the terrorist group's number one target, and that they will continue to "bomb churches and kill Christians... booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those who we find from the citizens of the Cross."

In Egypt, after Muhammad Hegazi's nine-year long battle with authorities, Islam's honor was restored, although in a way apparently held suspect by many rights activists there. His battle began when he asked his religion to be changed to Christianity on his Egyptian ID card, and ended with his being arrested and tortured for years. Hegazi made a brief video announcing his return to Islam and praising Muhammad, adding "I say this out of my complete free will. I am not being held by any agency, nor am I under any pressure of any kind."
Another Egyptian, Majed el-Shafie, also imprisoned and tortured for apostatizing years ago in Egypt, wanted the world to know that, "ISIS is not the problem." As proof, he recounted his experiences — at the hands of Egyptian authorities:
"They shaved my head, they put my head in freezing cold water and then into boiling hot water. They burned their cigarettes on me, they electrocuted me. They cut me and put salt in my wounds. I still wake with nightmares about it, even now 20 years on."
The remainder of August's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians — not all of which was committed by ISIS — includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: Muslim Fulani herdsmen, believed to be connected to the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, increased their raids on Christian-majority villages:
  • Between August 1-3, they killed 13 Christians, burned Christian homes and churches, and displaced countless survivors during raids conducted in separate Christian-majority villages.
  • On August 13, Muslim shepherds killed another seven Christians during another raid. Some of the victims were shot; others were slaughtered with machetes.
  • On August 16, Muslim herdsmen attacked still another Christian-majority village and slaughtered ten people.
  • On August 25, a group of at least 50 Muslim herdsmen conducted a night raid into another Christian-majority village. Among their victims was a Christian woman six months pregnant, whose stomach had been ripped open.
According to one report,
Local Christian leaders were pleading with the Nigerian government to provide appropriate security measures in light of the crisis, which the state has so far left unaddressed. Since 2001, Fulani attacks on Christian-majority farming settlements across Nigeria's central "Middle-Belt" have grown increasingly violent; victims face their towns being wiped off the map. Fulani herdsmen have murdered tens of thousands of Christians, and have amassed a body count larger than Boko Haram has inflicted; attacks expand farther into Northwest and Southeast Nigeria, while the Nigerian government largely ignores the issue...
This indifference reportedly reaches to the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. According to a prominent Nigerian thinker and politician, Femi Fani-Kayode, despite the increasing violence against Christians, "the Muslim president has only awarded the murderers with impunity rather than justice and has staffed his government with Islamic officials, while doing essentially nothing to give the nation's Christians, who make up half the population, due representation."
Uganda: A group of Muslims murdered Pastor Robert Bakulubanywa, 38, as he was returning home after a Sunday evening at his church. A group of Muslims — reportedly angry with him for evangelizing to Muslims and refusing to sell them land — surrounded him, tied him up, and sliced him to death with a sword.
Democratic Republic of Congo: Muslim militants from the Allied Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Uganda gathered and tied up between 36 and 50 Christians, before hacking them to death. In recent years, the "liberation" front has targeted Christians with violence, abducting people, looting Christian villages, and destroying churches, although most Western media downplay the religious motives of the rebels.
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Indonesia: A teenage Muslim sitting among Christian worshippers during a Catholic church Sunday mass service suddenly went into jihad mode: he attacked the 60-year-old priest with an axe and tried to set off explosives, which could have killed hundreds of worshipers in the packed church. The bomb failed to go off properly and the 18-year-old Islamic terrorist was apprehended.
United States: In Riverside, California, Muslims in a car, who were repeatedly screaming"Allahu akbar!" through a bullhorn, terrorized St. Andrew Orthodox Church during worship service, "as the unnerved parents drew their infants close and exchanged worried glances," said the report. Some witnesses told police it looked as if one of the three men, in the green Honda Civic, had been taking surveillance pictures of the church.
France: During a mass held for Father Jacques Hamel — the 80-year-old priest slaughtered days earlier — at the St. George Church in Vivonne (Vienne), a small town of 4,000 inhabitants, the priest informed the congregation that the church had been vandalized: "the light of the tabernacle of the Real Presence had disappeared or had been stolen, and placed on the altar was a photo of the Nice terrorist, the Islamist Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel."
Iran: Authorities arrested 11 Christians during a raid on an house-church in the city of Isfahan. Books and other Christian literature were confiscated. According to the report, there was no further information about the status of the detainees.
Turkey: After giving previous permission, authorities banned Orthodox Christian liturgy from being held at a historic monastery. According to the report:
The doors of the Sumela Monastery reopened in June 2010, after 88 years. The Turkish government had given permission to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to have a patriarchal liturgy for the Feast of the Assumption every year. That permission has been suddenly revoked, perhaps permanently."
Sudan: Claiming that it was built illegally, local Muslim authorities issued a demolition notice to yet another church. The congregation was given one week to clear out or else further legal procedures would be taken, including forcing the church to pay the demolishing costs. The church was built on the land in 1976, a considerable time before the National Islamic Front seized power in Sudan through a military coup in 1989 — so how could it be illegal, argue church activists. Countless churches that once stood in Sudan for decades have met the same fate in recent times.
Pakistan: Christians accused the government of Gujrat of intentionally flooding a 130-year-old church with sewage. According to the report:
"Local Christians managed to cut the flow of sewerage after hours of skirmish efforts.... Agitated Christians claimed that the flow of the sewerage was maneuvered towards the church in order to prevent it from flooding neighboring Gujrat Gymkhana. The waste water swamped the flooring and carpets of the church."
Muslim Attacks on Christian Apostates, Blasphemers, and Preachers
Algeria: A Muslim convert to Christianity was sentenced to five years in prison for saying on social media that the light of Jesus will outshine Islam and its prophet Muhammad, which the court ruled was "blasphemous." According to his son, who accompanied the apostate during his hearing:
"The court sentenced my father to the maximum sentence! .... [M]y father was expressing his ideas and spread his political views on social networks as it has always done elsewhere. It is an attack on freedom of expression because, in my opinion, everything is subject to criticism, even religions."
Nigeria: After two university students got into a verbal argument, the Muslim student accused the Christian of insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Soon, a mob of Muslims formed and said the Christian must die; they savagely beat and nearly killed him. He only survived "because a fellow Christian intervened to rush him to the hospital with the help of a compassionate Muslim who volunteered his car to carry the victim." On the following day, mobs of Muslims rioted and vandalized Christian campuses and churches. According to a local source:
"They went to ECWA Church, Living Church, and Anglican Church. They vandalized the Anglican Church pastorium, destroying electronics and other property. I heard they also burnt down the home of the rescue volunteer Muslim man (who assisted the attacked Christian student to the hospital), trapping and killing eight persons inside who, sadly, happened to be Muslims also."
Separately, a Muslim man sought to divorce his wife of 24 years, after he discovered that she secretly converted to Christianity. The man stated that he cannot tolerate any other religion in his home except for Islam. The 50-year-old woman "broke down in tears while on her knees begging her estranged husband, Jamiu Adewunmi, not to divorce her." Addressing the court, she said: "Please court; help me beg him, where will I get a man at my age to marry me if my husband divorces me?"
Pakistan: A Christian girl named Asma faces death threats if she does not return to her Muslim abductor. The man, a powerful Muslim neighbor, kidnapped the girl, raped her, forced her to convert to Islam, and then forcibly married her and renamed her "Aisha," after the Islamic prophet's young wife. Several months later, Asma escaped and returned to her family, who are now under threat if they refuse to hand back their daughter to her captor. Local Muslim clerics claimed that Asma has re-converted to Christianity, and so is now an apostate and should be killed unless she returns to her husband and new faith.
Uganda: Eight children, ages 9 to 16, from four families of Islamic and pagan backgrounds, took refuge with Christians after their parents and other community members beat and disowned them for leaving Islam and animism for Christianity. Through the ordeal, the church in which they were able to seek refuge has also come under threat of destruction and violence by the local Muslim population. "Your church activities will not be tolerated in this area," one Muslim informed the pastor. "If you do not leave our village, then we shall soon come for your life." Separately, a Christian high school student received a serious head injury by the Muslim father of a young woman whom he proselytized.
Muslim Discrimination against and Abuse of Christians
Saudi Arabia: According to an Arabic-language news report published on August 27, officials from the desert kingdom arrested 27 Christians — among them several women and children — for the crime of "conducting Christian prayers" and being "in possession of Bibles." The group of Christians, most if not all of whom were Lebanese nationals, were celebrating a Virgin Mary feast day when authorities stormed their residence and arrested them. The dreaded "religious police" proceeded to strip them of their visas and deport them back to Lebanon. Such religious intolerance is actually better than that meted to other Christians caught engaging in "acts of Christianity" In 2012, for example, 35 Christian Ethiopians were arrested and tortured in prison for almost a year, simply for holding a private house-prayer. One of them reported after being released: "They [Saudis] are full of hatred towards non-Muslims."
Pakistan: The son of a Muslim landlord sexually assaulted the five-year-old daughter of a Christian couple renting a room. Afterwards, "the landlord purportedly barred the Christian couple from reporting the incident to the police for seven days. Because of the harassment, parents of the victim were unable to acquire a medical report of their daughter who was sexually assaulted," said the report.
"As a result of lack of medical report, there is no substantial proof of the assault. The influential landlord and his rapist son hurled threats at the Christian family stating that entire family of the victim will face dire consequences if action is taken against the culprit."
Separately, a historic Christian cemetery is falling into decay due to willful neglect from local authorities. According to the report:
"Local Christians claim the graveyard is undergoing wear while the local authorities are overlooking the situation. They expressed serious concerns over the desecration of graves of their loved ones. They said that the Christian population had been residing in the area, even before the creation of Pakistan."
Egypt: Arguing that they are being treated as second-class citizens, about three dozen Christians staged a rare protest in downtown Cairo and demanded that the government uphold their rights. Standing on the steps of a courthouse in the capital, the demonstrators defied Egypt's draconian positions on protests. "I am an Egyptian citizen above all," said Michael Armanious, a Christian demonstrator. "We pay taxes, we serve in the army, we are dealing with all the same economic problems in Egypt with the rest of our countrymen, why should we have fewer rights?" Police — who often take hours to appear when Muslims attack Christians — quickly dispersed the protesters.
Separately, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights reported that there have been 77 cases of extreme Muslim-on-Christian violence between the years 2011 and 2016 — excluding the huge spate of attacks on Christians and dozens of churches that directly followed the ousting of former president Morsi. Coptic Pope Tawadros also confirmed that Christians are victims of a serious attack by Muslims on average once a month. At least ten incidents this year have resulted in discord, death and destruction.
Sudan: Prosecutors accused two imprisoned pastors, both members of the Sudanese Church of Christ, of crimes against the state, and called for the death penalty against them. The pastors denied the charges, and local sources say there is no evidence against them, but that the hardline Islamist prosecutors are persecuting them for their faith.
Bangladesh: Rosaline Costa, a Catholic newspaper editor, fled to the United States after receiving countless death threats, prompted by editorials published the paper about growing religious discrimination and violence in the country. Because there has been a rise in Muslim attacks on Christians in Bangladesh — including outright murder — the Catholic woman decided to leave before she was next. Christian minorities further allege that Bangladeshi authorities and the judicial system either cannot or will not do anything to stop the persecution and discrimination against them.
Germany: Christian refugees continue to face daily harassment and threats from Muslim majorities living with them in asylum centers. In one instance, 14 Iranian Christian men were threatened with death for refusing to abandon their faith. During Ramadan, Christians had to hide their Bibles and were forced to eat leftover food in the shelter after the meal times were changed to accommodate Muslims, who do not eat during daylight hours during the Islamic holy month. One pastor said many Muslims in the camp regard their fellow Christian migrants as "unclean" and "more impure than dogs." In several asylum centers, throughout Europe, Christian minorities continue to be harassed and attacked.

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

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