IDF Infographic

 

Blast Hits Catholic Church in Northern Tanzania

Reuters:

A suspected bomb blast struck a Catholic church in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha on Sunday, police said, wounding a number of people.

Sectarian tensions have been simmering in east Africa’s second biggest economy after two Christian leaders were killed in the predominantly Muslim islands of Zanzibar earlier this year and there have been attacks on Muslim leaders and mosques.

“Some kind of explosion went off at the church. It is believed to have been a bomb but we don’t know what type of bomb it was,” Tanzania police spokesperson Advera Senso said.

Senso could not confirm if anyone had been killed in the attack or how many had been wounded.

Tanzania’s foreign affairs minister Bernard Membe said in a message on Twitter he was “deeply shocked” by the explosion.

President Jakaya Kikwete has warned about rising religious tensions in several televised addresses.

 

Islamic Radicals Have Turned Nigeria Into a Christian Killing Field

CBN:

Last year more Christians were killed in Nigeria than any other country. The onslaught of bombings gave Nigeria the sad distinction of being the nation with the highest Christian death toll.

More than 900 Christians reportedly were killed in Nigeria in 2012, all victims of the Boko Haram group and other Islamic militants.

“They are so radical they don’t even spare Muslims. If Muslims are sympathetic to any cause at all…if they are sympathetic to the Christians cause, or the minorities cause, they are also termed as infidels,” Mark Lipdo, program coordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, said.

In 2013, radicals have killed more than 120 Nigerians, most of them Christians.

Gregory Lar, an international human rights attorney, said, “It is happening at this time because it appears there is a new resurgence, a new Islamic awareness in the need to propagate their religion.”

The new wave of violence has caused various groups in Southern Nigeria to take up arms. They are determined to protect Christians.

Attorney Emmanuel Ogebe warns the country may be on the brink of broader conflict.

More here.

 

Death to Churches Under Islam

A study of the Coptic Church.

Christians throughout the Islamic world are under attack. Unlike Muslim attacks on Christians, which are regularly confused with a myriad of social factors, the ongoing attacks on Christian churches in the Muslim world are perhaps the most visible expression of Christian persecution under Islam. In churches, Christians throughout the Islamic world are simply being Christians—peacefully and apolitically worshipping their God. And yet modern day Muslim governments try to prevent them, Muslim mobs attack them, and Muslim jihadis massacre them.

To understand the nature of this perennial hostility, one must first examine Muslim doctrines concerning Christian churches; then look at how these teachings have manifested themselves in reality over the course of centuries; and finally look at how modern day attacks on Christian churches mirror the attacks of history, often in identical patterns. The continuity is undeniable.

Because tracing and documenting the treatment of churches across the thousands of miles of formerly Christian lands conquered by Islam is well beyond the purview of this study, a paradigm is needed. Accordingly, an examination of the treatment of Christian churches in Egypt suffices as a model for understanding the fate churches under Islamic dominion. Indeed, as one of the oldest and largest Muslim nations, with one of the oldest and largest Christian populations, Egypt is the ultimate paragon for understanding all aspects of Christianity under Islam, both past and present.

Muslim Doctrine Concerning Churches

Christians throughout the Islamic world are under attack. Unlike Muslim attacks on Christians, which are regularly confused with a myriad of social factors, the ongoing attacks on Christian churches in the Muslim world are perhaps the most visible expression of Christian persecution under Islam. In churches, Christians throughout the Islamic world are simply being Christians—peacefully and apolitically worshipping their God. And yet modern day Muslim governments try to prevent them, Muslim mobs attack them, and Muslim jihadis massacre them…

Do read on here.

 

Lego Accused of Being Anti-Islamic

So what do they do? Well, pull the toy of course:

What do Salman Rushdie and Lego have in common? They’ve both been accuse of ridiculing Islam. But while Rushdie’s crime was to write a book parodying the faith, Lego’s mistake to release a toy model that looks a bit like a building in a Muslim country. Don’t laugh: I’m sure this is how Nazism started.

Lego has announced that it’s pulling its infamous Jabba the Hutt-themed play set and insists that the toy has simply come to the end of its run. But Birol Kilic, head of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, is claiming glorious victory after a long campaign that accused Lego of fanning the flames of racism. Kilic says that Hutt’s palace looks eerily similar to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and that because Jabba is a villain this will reinforce negative attitudes towards Muslims…

Oh, please! Rest here.

 

Egyptian Mosque Turned into Torture House for Christians

Fox News:

Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into  torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling  Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear  will only get worse.

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s  Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated  much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators, some of whom  were Muslim, say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in  suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line  militia members.

“There is no longer anything to hold them back. The floodgates are  open.” – Shaul Gabbay, University of Denver professor on Egypt’s Muslim  Brotherhood.

“They accompanied me to one of the mosques in the area and I discovered the  mosque was being used to imprison demonstrators and torture them,” Amir Ayad, a  Coptic who has been a vocal protester against the regime, told MidEast Christian News from a  hospital bed.

Ayad said he was beaten for hours with sticks before being left for dead on a  roadside. Amir’s brother, Ezzat Ayad, said he received an anonymous phone call  at 3 a.m. Saturday, with the caller saying his brother had been found near death  and had been taken to the ambulance.

“He underwent radiation treatment that proved that he suffered a fracture in  the bottom of his skull, a fracture in his left arm, a bleeding in the right  eye, and birdshot injuries,” Ezzat Ayad said.

Officials at the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque said radical militias stormed the  building, in the Cairo suburb of Moqattam, after Friday prayers.

“[We] deeply regret what has happened and apologize to the people of  Moqattam,” mosque officials said in a statement,  adding that “they had lost control over the mosque at the time.” …

 

Christians Evacuated from Sudan

Barnabas Fund has transported over 2,300 Christians from Sudan since the start of its rescue mission four months ago.

The Christians are being evacuated because of increasing hostility in the majority-Muslim country.

After South Sudan gained independence in 2011, the largely Christian Southerners living in Sudan lost their citizenship rights and were ordered to leave.

There is little sign of conditions improving as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has vowed to bring in a fully Islamic constitution and strengthen sharia law…

Read on here.

 

Athens Is Only EU Capital Without a Mosque

And the BBC is not impressed:

Stressing that Athens is the only EU (European Union) capital without a mosque, the BBC has revealed that some 300,000 Muslims living in the Greek capital are sandwiched in basements to pray, the To Vima (Greek) website reports today
(December 28, 2012).

“The absence of a mosque here (Athens) is a great tragedy for us Muslims,” said Mohammad Jamil Sient, a native of Pakistan now living in Athens. He added, “Greece invented democracy, culture, and respect for each other’s religion, but does not respect us Muslims enough to give us a normal, legitimate mosque.”

There is resistance from various quarters — including some priests of the Greek Orthodox Church — that are opposed to a mosque in Athens. Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus — the seaport area of Athens — told the BBC, “Greece suffered five centuries of Islamic tyranny under the Turkish yoke and construction of the mosque would insult witnesses who liberated us.”

A BBC correspondent said Seraphim’s viewpoint is Islamophobic and discriminates against Muslims.

Militant Islam the Greatest Threat to Middle Eastern Christianity

A British think tank has released a lengthy report claiming that militant Islam is the greatest existential threat to Middle Eastern Christianity, bringing Christian communities in the region “close to extinction.”

The London-based Civitas, also known as the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, published the report in December. “Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression,” reads a statement from the group issued Sunday.

“But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they will be accused of racism.”

Titled “Christianophobia” and written by reporter and Religion Editor for The Times Literary Supplement Rupert Shortt, the report details the persecution of Christians in Burma, China, Egypt, India, Iraq, Nigeria, and Pakistan…

Read on here.

While noting the large-scale persecution of Christians in societies that are  Communist, Buddhist, or Hindu, Shortt stressed the growing impact of intolerance  in Islamic countries.

“In the large area between Morocco and Pakistan, for example, there is  scarcely a country in which church life operates without restrictions. Syria has  been one of the exceptions until now,” wrote Shortt.

“The prognosis for the rest of the Middle East is hardly encouraging: there  is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical  heartlands…

 

Israel, Jerusalem and the Western Wall Will Remain Ours Forever

Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“Over the weekend, Hamas held festivities and demonstrations in Judea and Samaria to mark 25 years since it was founded. With the approval of Mahmud Abbas, they called for the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem and from every point in the State of Israel. We have been here in Jerusalem , not for 25 years; we have been here in Jerusalem for 3,000 years. We have been in the Land of Israel for close to 4,000 years. We have a strong and steadfast national will, continuous historical consciousness and strength of soul of a people that have struggled for its homeland and know how to maintain its state.

“Last night, I lit the eighth Chanukah candle from the closest possible place to the spot where the miracle of the jar of oil occurred, I actually touched the Western Wall. I said it there and I say it here: The Western Wall is not occupied territory. The Western Wall is ours; it symbolizes the foundation of our existence here for thousands of years. We will stand steadfast in the face of all those who want to expel us from here. The State of Israel, Jerusalem and the Western Wall will remain ours forever.”

Source