US Ignores UN Session on Christian Genocide in Mideast

Why is the United States not responding to genocide against Christians in the Middle East and Africa?

by Raymond Ibrahim, April 4, 2015

As Christians and other minorities continue to be purged in the Middle East in general under the Islamic State and other jihadi organizations in particular, France sponsored an open UN Security Council meeting on March 27, to discuss “The Victims of attacks and abuses on ethnic and religious grounds in the Middle East.”

While several Western nations sent high ranking officials to attend, the United States did not.

Imam of Mecca’s grand mosque calls for all-out war against Shi’ites and Christians

"The Jews and cross” – meaning Christians – “I swear by Allah that they will have their days…The prophet said that Rome will be conquered."

As I wrote recently,  "We may be seeing even more such examples of Muslim countries increasing their already relentless persecuting of Christians as they strive to prove their Islamic bonafides and forestall the Islamic State's challenge to their authority."

More proof of this trend in this story, if you needed it.

• Related: Saudi grand mufti calls for demolition of churches

Imam of Mecca’s grand mosque calls for all-out war against Shi’ites and Christians
via Jihad Watch, April 3, 2015

The imam of the grand mosque in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam? How did Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais miss all the Qur’an’s peaceful teachings that Barack Obama, John Kerry, and David Cameron find so easily?

“Muslim Cleric Calls for ‘All-Out War,’” by Riyadh Mohammed, The Fiscal Times, April 2, 2015:

…Amid the ongoing Sunni-Shiite wars, on the eve of April Fools’ Day, an audio recording was circulated online of the man who presides over the holiest site for Muslim around the world. The caption on photo accompanying the recording read, “Imam of the grand mosque in Mecca calls for all-out war against Shiites.”

“Our war with Iran, say that out loud, is a war between Sunnis and Shiites,” Sunni preacher Abdul Rahman al-Sudais says in the nearly seven-minute clip. “Our war with Iran…is truly sectarian. If it was not sectarian, we will make it sectarian… The Jews and cross” – meaning Christians – “I swear by Allah that they will have their days…The prophet said that Rome will be conquered …Our disagreement with Rafidha” – another word for Shiites – “will not be removed, nor our suicide to fight them… as long as they are on the face of the earth….”

While cursing Jews is part of Friday prayers and speeches in many parts of the Islamic world, most Muslim imams avoid calling for all-out war with Shiites and Christians. Hearing that call from al-Sudais in the grand mosque in Mecca is an unprecedented escalation of hate speech (though, for what it’s worth, Al-Sudais’ page on Facebook didn’t confirm his alleged comments).

“Remember the date of 3/31/2015, the day the Shiite-Sunni war was announced. It will last more than the crusade wars,” said Ahmed Abul Hussein, the secular editor-in-chief of an Iraqi news agency, about the cleric’s speech. …

Kenya: Laughing Muslims taunted Christians as they massacred them, 'This will be a good Easter holiday for us'

via Jihad Watch, April 3, 2015

“We have come to be kill and be killed,” the Muslims screamed out as they shot the Christians.

Where did they get the idea to scream out something like that? From the Qur’an: 

“Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah, so they kill and are killed.” (9:111) 

Not that this has anything to do with Islam!

“Laughing Somali gunmen taunted victims in university massacre” 

by Adow Jubat, AFP, April 3, 2015:

Garissa (Kenya) (AFP) – Piles of bodies and pools of blood running down the corridors: survivors of the Kenya university massacre described how laughing gunmen taunted their victims amid scenes of total carnage.

Salias Omosa, an 20-year-old education student, said the victims were woken up at gunpoint in Thursday’s pre-dawn attack, and Muslims and non-Muslims picked out by “how they were dressed”.

“‘We don’t fear death, this will be a good Easter holiday for us,’ the attackers were shouting in Swahili, then shooting their guns,” Omosa recounted, still trembling with terror and sitting in the refuge of a military camp.

Coptic Priest: Islamic Law Trumps Egyptian Law in Case of Martyr’s Church

"This is like a disease that will spread everywhere."

See all posts regarding the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya

by Raymond Ibrahim, April 1, 2015

(Coptic Solidarity) According to a local priest and Coptic spokesman, last Friday’s assault on a Coptic Christian church proposed to be built, with President Sisi’s permission, to honor the 21 Coptic Christians who were slaughtered by the Islamic State in Libya, was all too typical and a reminder that Islamic Sharia sentiment continues to trump the sovereignty of the Egyptian state.  During an interview he said:

The Kenya Attack: ‘Are You Muslim or Christian? Death to Christians!’

"This is the jihad on Christians that is raging all around the world wherever Muslims make for sizable populations—the jihad that will eventually go viral in the West according to Islam’s unwavering Rule of Numbers."

by Raymond Ibrahim, April 3, 2015

Al Shabaab’s Mohamed Mohamud,

wanted by Kenya’s government for role

in recent slaughter of college Christians

Muslim wholesale slaughter of Christians struck again on April 2 in Kenya.  Gunmen from the Somali Islamic group, Al Shabaab—“the youth”—stormed Garissa University, singled out Christian students, and murdered them, some beheaded.  A total of 147 people were killed in the attack—making this jihad more spectacular than the 2013 Al Shabaab attack on the Nairobi mall, which left 67 people dead (then, Islamic gunmen also singled out Christians for slaughter).

According to eyewitnesses present at Garissa University, the Islamic gunmen were careful to separate Christians from Muslims before they began the carnage of the former.  After all, although Kenya is 83% Christian, it is still approximately 11% Muslim.  Joel Ayora, who survived the attack, said gunmen burst into a Christian service, seized worshippers, and then “proceeded to the hostels, shooting anybody they came across except their fellows, the Muslims.”

Collins Wetangula, vice chairman of the student union, said he could hear from inside his room where he was hiding the gunmen opening doors and inquiring if the people inside were Muslims or Christians: “If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot.  With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die.”

The fact that Christians were singled out and slaughtered has received little attention in the mainstream media: most mention it, but only towards the very bottom as an incidental, peripheral matter of little significance (see for example the BBC’s minimal treatment); others portray it as a new tactic or phenomenon.

In fact, Al Shabaab has a long history of singling Christians out from among Muslims for slaughter. The following are just a few examples from Kenya that took place over the last few months, most never reported on any mainstream media:

Boko Haram Beheads 23 People in Kano, Nigeria - Time for an 'Open, Honest Discussion about Islam'?

David Wood over at AnsweringMuslims asks what seems to be the most obvious first question about this latest Muslim atrocity:

"How many more people have to be beheaded before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?"

We might adapt this question for any number of Islamic phenomena:

• How many more thousands of Christians have to be persecuted, killed or displaced by Muslims before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

• How many more thousands of Muslims have to leave the West to join ISIS before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

• How many more Muslim jihadi groups (such as Boko Haram) have to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State Caliphate (ISIS) before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

• How many more Muslims in the West have to be convicted of jihad terrorist activities, plots and funding before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

• How many more girls and women have to be abducted by Muslims before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

• How many more churches have to be destroyed by Muslims before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

• How many more Muslim jihadists have to justify their acts of violent extremism using specific citations from the Quran, the hadiths and the Sira (Life of Muhammad) before we can have an open, honest discussion about Islam?

Boko Haram Beheads 23 People in Kano, Nigeria

h/t David Wood at AnsweringMuslims, April 1, 2015

Kano, Nigeria (CNN)—Suspected Boko Haram gunmen decapitated 23 people in a raid on Buratai village in northeast Nigeria's Borno state, residents and a politician said Saturday. 

A Panegyric in Praise of the 21 New Martyrs of Libya

"I come to you weeping. I do not weep on your account, for men who received crowns do not warrant sorrowful tears. I weep because of you. For when the light of your faith became manifest, my weakness became apparent before my eyes."

See all posts related to the 21 Coptic New Martyrs of Libya, beheaded for refusing to deny our Lord Jesus Christ.

By Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Diocese of Los Angeles

February 24, 2015

Why did you not cry, pleading with those who are about to murder you, that they may free you? Why did you not acquiesce to their demands?

Did they not propose that you abandon your Christ? Wouldn’t they have had mercy on you had you accepted their religion?

Do you not fear death?! Whence did you acquire this courage?

What theological training did you obtain? From what seminary did you graduate? What monastery did you frequent? What clerical rank do you carry?

Tell me, how did you not resist death? I do not know your secret.

Dozens of churches burned in Niger by Muslim group

94% of the population in Niger practice Islam. Orthodoxy does not seem to have any significant presence, although the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Archdiocese of Lagos, has jurisdiction over Nigeria, Niger, Benin and Togo.

The Alabama Baptist, March 12, 2015 (h/t Religion of Peace)

Church in Jos, Nigeria, destroyed by Boko Haram.

NIAMEY, Niger — At least 68 churches, two of which were Baptist, have been burned in the West African country of Niger.

Panlieba Tchalieni, president of the Union of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Niger, reported that the church burnings, carried out by Muslim extremist group Boko Haram, occurred in the Zinder region and Niamey.

“In terms of Baptist churches in Niger, we have two churches that are burned: the first evangelical church in Niger built in 1928 and another behind the Niger River built 15 years ago,” Tchalieni said.

Boko Haram, a Nigerian-based radical jihadist group that seeks to establish Sharia law, has extended its activities to other countries in West Africa, including Niger, where it has carried out recent attacks in the southeast.

Icon of 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya now available to purchase

Let us pray for our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters throughout the Islamic world, and commemorate the Holy New Martyrs of the 21st Century under the Sword of Islam...

See also: All posts related to the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya

From Legacy Icons, which has an amazing range of rare-image, mounted icons at fair prices.

• Available in 4x5, 5x7, 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20 inches.
• Prices range from $22.95 to $139.95

The website describes* the icon as follows:

This icon, from iconographer Tony Rezk shows the 21 Coptic Martyrs in the orange jumpsuits they were wearing when they were Martyred.  The water behind them has turned red with their blood as 21 crowns descend from Heaven indicating their Martyrdom as Jesus Christ welcomes them into his glory. 

This icon comes with a certificate on the back which lists the names of each of the 21 Martyrs.  Also included with this icon is an additional copy of the certificate.  This can be placed next to the icon and is perfect for prayer. 

The iconographer has directed us to http://www.copticorphans.org for anyone looking to make a donation. 

*Because of the high volume of orders we receive for this icon and that they are custom made to order, please allow 7-10 business days for your order to ship.

More info, including images of the mounting and backing on the Legacy Icons website.

* Update, Dec. 14, 2016 - The description on Legacy Icon's product page has been somewhat altered, but the icon is still available, and links have been updated on this post to make it easier to order this special icon of the 21 Coptic New Martyrs of Libya.

Russia: Fatwa denounces Islamic State, says its members should be killed

Robert Spencer investigates the fatwa issued by the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia and finds it contains certain historical inaccuracies and misleading assertions.

by Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, March 31, 2015

It is telling that the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia recommends that Islamic State members should be killed — apparently it takes for granted the Sharia death penalties for heresy and apostasy. Also, this is still more window dressing to lull the Infidels into complacency, as I show in my comments below.

[RT article indented, Mr. Spencer's comments full width.]

Russian Muslims denounce ISIS as ‘enemies of Islam'

RT, March 31, 2015:

A major Russian Muslim group has issued a fatwa against the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) reviling them as ‘enemies of Islam’ and calling for the punishment of all its members as criminals. 

The Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia published the text of the fatwa on its website on Tuesday. 

“The members of the Ulama [Islamic scholars] council, on the basis of the Koran and Sunna and other legal sources, have shown and proved that all actions of the organization that calls itself “Islamic State” are contradicting Islam – starting from the creation of the group and calls for resettlement and finishing with their cruelty and public executions,” the document reads. 

“From the point of view of the Muslim canon the members of such criminal groups deserve either capital punishment or full lifelong isolation from the society,” the Russian Muslim leaders stated. However, they noted in the fatwa that every suspect must be convicted by a court verdict that would fully exclude all doubts of his or hers complicity in violence, robberies and killings. 

“The followers of ISIS are mistakenly interpreting Islam as the religion of brutality and cruelty, of violence, torture and killings of all discontent,” the Russian Muslims stated. In reality, the basic principles of Islam forbid to kill civilians, prisoners and envoys – and journalists and workers of humanitarian missions can be described as the latter, they added.

Where could the Islamic State have possibly gotten the idea that brutality and cruelty and violence had anything do with Islam?

Koran 5:33: “This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement.”