Articles from Jun 25, 2013

Shias: The Arab Spring’s Latest Victims

The U.S.-sponsored “Arab Spring” continues to expose itself as a Sunni supremacist takeover. While the indicators are many—from the al-Qaeda Benghazi consulate attack to the ongoing persecution of Christian minorities—attacks on Shia Muslims are also on the rise.

Syria: Toddler reportedly chained to a fence and made to watch jihadis kill her Shia parents

In Syria, where foreign Sunni jihadis, supported and armed by the United States, are attacking all non-Muslims—Christians are prime and obvious targets, and reports of church attacks, abductions of Christians, and their slaughter are many—Shias, who are seen as “false Muslims,” are naturally also under attack. For example, Salafi Sheikh Yasir al-‘Ajlawni recently issued a fatwa saying that those Muslims fighting to topple secular president Bashar Assad and install Sharia law are free to “capture and have sex with” all non-Sunni women, specifically naming President Assad’s sect, the Alawites, as well as the Druze and other Shia branches.

Days ago, popular news outlet, Syrian Truth, posted a photo of a toddler living in the Deir ez-Zor Governate in eastern Syria, along the Iraq border, who was reportedly tied with chains to a fence from where she witnessed the killing of her Shia mother and father at the hands of the Sunni jihadis making the ranks of the “Free Syrian Army.” Syrian Truth correctly describes them as takfiris, that is, Muslims who, like al-Qaeda, accuse—and slaughter—other Muslims, in this case, Shias, for not being “true” Muslims.

And now in Egypt, where Shias make roughly one percent of the nation, a Sunni mob reportedly numbering in the thousands—also described by Arabic reports as takfiris—attacked the home of the spiritual father of Egypt’s Shia, Sheikh Hassan Shehata, killing him and four of his followers, and wounding dozens of other Shias that had congregated at his home. The mob descended on his residence last Sunday, savagely beating him and his followers with sticks, before setting his house on fire.

Watch the graphic video (also embedded below) as the mob beats the men and drags Shehata’s bloodied body all over the street. According to the general manager of Hawamdia Hospital in Giza, where the Shia leader was taken after his beating, “when Sheikh Hassan Shehata arrived to the hospital, he appeared to be slaughtered from his neck, in addition to several injuries around his body … the rest of the bodies had several injuries as well as skull fractures.” Another report mentions “numerous puncture wounds and severe bruising.”

Eyewitnesses told Ahram newspaper that police stood by and did nothing to stop the attack—just as they invariably do when Egypt’s Christian Copts and their churches are attacked.

Egypt: Shia cleric Hassan Shehata, before and after

Much of these recent attacks on Shias come in response to Salafi clerics—Salafis are ultra “purest” Sunnis—whipping their followers into frenzies against the Shias, especially in the context of the Syrian war. Countless clerics are calling on Sunni Muslims to go to Syria to join the battle against President Assad, not to mention Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president himself, Muhammad Morsi, who recently condemned Assad, cutting all ties with Syria.

Thus the “Arab Spring” is proving to be an Islamic takeover by the largest and strongest Islamic faction—Sunni supremacists—who are cleansing the lands of all “non-believers,” from indigenous Christians like Egypt’s Copts to all Shia branches. While apathetic Americans living a world away may think this has little to do with them, it is well to connect the dots and realize that all this is prelude to the resurrection of the caliphate—the chief goal of Sunni Islam, whether for the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaeda. And the caliphate exists for one ultimate purpose: to expand, until, in the words of Koran 8:39, “all religion is for Allah,” interpreted to mean, until Islamic Sharia law governs the entire world.

Raymond Ibrahim

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Obama to Egyptian Christians: Don’t Protest the Brotherhood

As Egyptians of all factions prepare to demonstrate in mass against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi’s rule on June 30, the latter has been trying to reduce their numbers, which some predict will be in the millions and eclipse the Tahrir protests that earlier ousted Mubarak. Accordingly, among other influential Egyptians, Morsi recently called on Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to urge his flock, Egypt’s millions of Christians, not to join the June 30 protests.

While that may be expected, more troubling is that the U.S. ambassador to Egypt is also trying to prevent Egyptians from protesting—including the Copts. The June 18 edition of Sadi al-Balad reports that lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church’s legal counsel, said that during Patterson’s June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she “asked him to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood.

The Pope politely informed her that his spiritual authority over the Copts does not extend to political matters.

Regardless, many Egyptian activists are condemning Patterson for continuously behaving like the Muslim Brotherhood’s stooge. Leading opposition activist Shady el-Ghazali Harb said Patterson showed “blatant bias” in favor of Morsi and the Brotherhood, adding that her remarks had earned the U.S. administration “the enmity of the Egyptian people.” Coptic activists like George Ishaq openly told Patterson to “shut up and mind your own business.” And Christian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris—no stranger to Islamist hostility—posted a message on his Twitter account addressed to the ambassador saying “Bless us with your silence.”

Indeed, the U.S. ambassador’s position as the Brotherhood’s lackey is disturbing—and revealing—on several levels. First, all throughout the Middle East, the U.S. has been supporting anyone and everyone opposing their leaders—in Libya against Gaddafi, in Egypt itself against 30-year U.S. ally Mubarak, and now in Syria against Assad. In all these cases, the U.S. has presented its support in the name of the human rights and freedoms of the people against dictatorial leaders.

So why is the Obama administration now asking Christians not to oppose their rulers—in this case, Islamists—who have daily proven themselves corrupt and worse, to the point that millions of Egyptians, most of them Muslims, are trying to oust them?

What’s worse is that the human rights abuses Egypt’s Coptic Christians have been suffering under Muslim Brotherhood rule are significantly worse than the human rights abuses that the average Egyptian suffered under Mubarak—making the Copts’ right to protest even more legitimate, and, if anything, more worthy of U.S support.

Among other things, under Morsi’s rule, the persecution of Copts has practically been legalized, as unprecedented numbers of Christians—men, women, and children—have been arrested, often receiving more than double the maximum prison sentence, under the accusation that they “blasphemed” Islam and/or its prophet. It was also under Morsi’s reign that another unprecedented scandal occurred: the St. Mark Cathedral—holiest site of Coptic Christianity and headquarters to Pope Tawadros himself—was besieged in broad daylight by Islamic rioters. When security came, they too joined in the attack on the cathedral. And the targeting of Christian children—for abduction, ransom, rape, and/or forced conversion—has also reached unprecedented levels under Morsi. (For more on the plight of the Copts under Morsi’s rule, see my new book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.)

Yet despite the fact that if anyone in Egypt has a legitimate human rights concern against the current Egyptian government, it most certainly is the Christian Copts, here is the U.S., in the person of Ms. Patterson, asking them not to join the planned protests.

In other words, and consistent with Obama administration doctrine, when Islamists—including rapists and cannibals—wage jihad on secular leaders, the U.S. supports them; when Christians protest Islamist rulers who are making their lives a living hell, the administration asks them to “know their place” and behave like dhimmis, Islam’s appellation for non-Muslim “infidels” who must live as third class “citizens” and never complain about their inferior status.

Raymond Ibrahim

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