Christian Today

By Mark Yapching

The author of a monthly report on Christian persecution in various countries has ruled Nigeria as one of the least favourable nations for Christians to be in.

Raymond Ibrahim pens the monthly report "Muslim Persecution of Christians", which has chronicled instances of persecution against Christians in multiple countries since July 2011.

The "Muslim Persecution of Christians" reported is published by former US Ambassador to the UN John R. Bolton's Gatestone Institute.

Mr Ibrahim told the Washington Times that more than 1,000 churches have been destroyed in a four-year period by the extremist group Boko Haram. In addition, he revealed, the group laid 200 churches to waste from August to October alone as it waged a campaign of terror in the northeastern region of Nigeria.

Given the magnitude of persecution directed against Christians in Nigeria, Mr Ibrahim called it "one of the worst" places for Christianity.

Violence against Christians accompanied the previous election in 2011 of Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, as Nigerian president when he ran opposite Mohammadu Buhari, who is Muslim.

Hundreds of churches were reported to have been destroyed and Christians were also specifically "targeted and killed" by the mob.

The violence also coincided with the Boko Haram's "campaign of terror," human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health, global human rights and international organisations on Tuesday.

Mr Ogebe described the approaching February 14 elections in Nigeria as a possible "a Valentine's Day massacre for the poor Christians in northern Nigeria."

Candidates for the election include incumbent President Jonathan and Mohammadu Buhari.

In the midst of the ongoing terror attacks in Egypt, a bomb blast occurred in Port Said in the early morning of January 30, killing one person — the Brotherhood member who planted the explosive device: 22-year-old student, Bilal Osama Ibrahim al-'Arabi (pictured above). The man's father, also a Brotherhood member, is currently in jail on terrorism-related charges.

Connections between U.S. leadership and the Muslim Brotherhood — which is banned as a terrorist organization in many countries — have always been there, for those with eyes to see. And now this. According to the Washington Free Beacon:

The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week. Just days after a delegation that included two top Brotherhood leaders was hosted at the State Department, the organization released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad, according to an independent translation of the statement first posted on Tuesday. The State Department meeting was attended by a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor and other State Department officials. The Muslim Brotherhood statement also was issued just two days before a major terror attack Thursday in Egypt’s lawless Sinai region that killed at least 25.

Coptic Solidarity

While the world heard about Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, a female political activist who was tragically shot and killed by police at close range during January 25 demonstrations, Egypt’s Coptic Christians are asking why their own who died on the same day—by random bullets between police and the Muslim Brotherhood in different protests—have received little to no media attention.

Mina Maher, a 10-year-old Coptic boy was shot dead while he was on his way to the store to purchase something for his family, said his mother in a tearful interview. She heard he was shot in the neck and rushed to the hospital where a family member had taken the boy, only to find him dead in a “refrigerator box.”

Similarly, family members say that none of the media have mentioned Wasim Abdul Gabar, who was also shot dead during Brotherhood clashes with police on January 25 in a region where churches were also fired at. Distraught family members point out in interviews that he had waited for 12 years to have a child, his three year old son (pictured), only to leave him now as an orphan.

While the taking of any innocent life is tragic and strongly condemned, once again Copts find themselves seeking for some more balance and recognition in the Western MSM.

“The jihadis will not stop here [Syria], the war will spread to Europe. What will England be like in ten or 15 years?” — Archbishop Issam John Darwish of Furrzol speaking in 2012 (from Crucified Again, p. 246)

Although the Western world heard about the Charlie Hebdo attacks, similar and worse Islamic attacks in the Middle East remain unreported — despite the connection between the two.

On January 21, 2015, Homs, Syria "was targeted by a coward terrorist attack killing 20 Syrian civilians, and injuring others. An attack like the ones before it, done by the terrorists backed by the same world leaders marched in Paris less than 15 days ago."

The graphic video of bodies strewn on the street and people lamenting can be seen here.

About this attack, historian of religions Hanne Nabintu Herland writes: "When terror hits Paris and Western people loose their lives, either Europeans or Americans, the whole world writes about it, and rightfully so. When terror hits civilians in Syria just days afterwards, nobody reacts." Continues the African-born Norwegian author, who, having lived two decades in Africa is familiar with both the atrocities that occur in that part of the world and the hypocrisy that meets it:

In reality, when speaking about human rights, we actually talk about the human rights of mostly white skinned Europeans and Americans. What we fight for is basically Westerners' human rights, not universal human rights for all. There is little or no reaction when Arabs die, or like in this video from the war in Syria, when Syrian civilian lives are lost. In places like Syria, the West rather chooses to send in weapons and military aid that funds further disintegration and human suffering. This is Syria, the worst humanitarian catastrophe since the Second World War, with reportedly over 10 million internally displaced and refugees.