Human Rights Leaders Plead With Obama to Stop 'Nazi' Campaign Against Christians

A woman mourns with the framed picture of a man said to be among the 30 Ethiopian victims killed by members of the militant Islamic State in Libya, in the capital Addis Ababa, April 21, 2015. Ethiopia said on Monday that the 30 Christians shown being shot and beheaded in Libya on a video purportedly made by Islamic State were its citizens (REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri).

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

WASHINGTON -- After viewing the video that was released April 19, showing the murder of two groups of Ethiopian Christians by Islamic State terrorists, Jewish and Christian human rights groups have issued a joint statement calling on President Obama to intervene with force to stop the ongoing extermination of Christians in the Middle East.

In a gruesome repeat of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in February, masked IS militants marched 15 Ethiopian Christians along Libya’s shore of the Mediterranean Sea and beheaded them. Another group of 15 was shot in another murderous act in an area of Libyan shrub land.

Open Doors USA, a global advocacy group for the persecuted, was joined by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization, in condemning the killings and calling for the United States to intervene.

In a joint statement, the groups claimed to have alerted Western governments for months “that a religious genocide of Christians was taking place” with little response, and took particular aim at President Obama for his lack of action.

“While we welcome the White House acknowledgment that these victims were targeted because of their faith, much more needs to be done,” wrote David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, along with colleague Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, who serves with him as director of interfaith issues.

They chided the president to fully acknowledge the “religious extremism” and “theologically fueled hatred” that is at the heart of Islamic State terrorism. Likewise, they called on him to lead NATO to “forge an action plan” to protect Christians in the Middle East.

“We must not stand idly by and watch as thousands of Christians are murdered for their faith,” they said.

Calling the Islamic persecution of Christians a type of “Nazi ideology” that unabated “will continue to infect the hearts and minds of the ever-growing number of youth around the world,” they said, “The time to act is now.”

Read more by clicking below:

Human Rights Leaders Plead With Obama to Stop 'Nazi' Campaign Against Christians

Egyptian Christians Face Harassment, Violence in Attempting to Rebuild Church

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Coptic Orthodox Christians in the small village of Samalout, 137 miles south of Cairo, unexpectedly received permission from local authorities to rebuild their destroyed church building. Permits to build or rebuild local village churches in Egypt are rarely granted and usually bring strong Muslim opposition.

However, when the construction work started last week, Muslim extremists in the village stirred up a group to forcibly stop the work. Eventually, the Samalout police department called for a meeting between leaders from the church and more than 100 Muslims from the village who didn't want the church rebuilt. Police attempted to persuade the angry crowd to allow the construction of the church to take place with without opposition.

After the meeting ended with no resolution, the angry Muslims returned to the village. They took to the streets, shouting: "Egypt will become an Islamic State." They also chanted hostile slogans against Christians and stoned the houses of some Christians. That brought fear to the hearts of peaceful Christians of the village.

Although Christians had legal permission to build the church, the hardness of fanatic Muslims in their village did not allow them to build their church.

Read more by clicking below:

Egyptian Christians Face Harassment, Violence in Attempting to Rebuild Church

Piece By Piece, Middle Eastern Christianity is Being Shattered

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Still reeling from last week's news of the Islamist beheading of 21 Coptic Christian migrant workers in Libya, Middle Eastern Christians were again targeted by a large scale Islamist terror attack with thousands of victims Monday, in Syria. Islamic State jihadists laid siege to a string of Christian Assyrian villages, along the Khabour river, in northeastern Syria, kidnapping or killing scores of residents. Those abducted are now in imminent peril and thousands more who were expelled have joined the ranks of mendicant displaced.

Piece by piece, Middle Eastern Christianity is being shattered.

What this means for the Islamist militants are gains in strategic ground and further headway in the goal of religious cleansing. In other words, the Islamic State also known as ISIS is still winning -- militarily and politically. And despite upbeat statements about our counter-terrorism strategy by new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and last week's Counter Violent Extremism conference at the State Department, our side -- those who oppose this barbarism -- finds itself still back on its heels.

Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East emailed that sources in the city of Hassakah, reported that some 3,000 of the villagers managed to flee, either to that city or to Qamishly, where they are being sheltered in churches. According to his source, who requested anonymity, the captives included "50 families in Tel Shamiran, 26 families in Tel Gouran, 28 families in Tel Jezira, and 14 young people (12 males and 2 females) who were defending Tel Hormiz." Milad, a 17-year-old man, was "martyred."

Since a family averages five people, this translates to over 120 Christians captured by ISIS. The Islamist militants reportedly separated the captives, men from women and children -- a pattern also seen when ISIS attacked Iraq's Yizidi community on Sinjar mountain last August. The Syrian Christians' fate is unknown but could include murder, enslavement, rape or traded as a hostage. Churches in the seized villages could be seen ablaze from the opposite river bank.

Syrian-Catholic Archbishop of Hassakah-Nisibi, Jacques Behnan Hindo, told the Vatican press Fides that the Christians feel like they are "abandoned into the hands" of ISIS.

The Archbishop explained:

"Yesterday American bombers flew over the area several times, but without taking action. We have a hundred Assyrian families who have taken refuge in Hassakah, but they have received no assistance either from the Red Crescent or from Syrian government aid workers, perhaps because they are Christians. The UN High Commission for Refugees is nowhere to be seen."

Read more by clicking below:

Piece By Piece, Middle Eastern Christianity is Being Shattered

Egypt: 2 Christians dead in sectarian clashes : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic World News:

• Sectarian clashes between Muslims and Chrstians have broken out in towns around Assiut, a city of 400,000 in central Egypt.
• A Muslim driver destroyed the front of a store owned by a Coptic Christian in Paisari, according to the Egyptian news site Copts United. During a reconciliation meeting between the Christian and Muslim communities, violence broke out, leaving 10 injured.

Read more by clicking below:
Egypt: 2 Christians dead in sectarian clashes : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Surge in kidnappings of Egypt’s Christians : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

• Abductions of Christians near Minya, a city in central Egypt, have surged in the months following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
• Nearly 100 area Christians have been kidnapped since the Arab Spring began, with a spike occurring in recent months. Egypt’s Christians have tended to support the ouster of Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader – leading to attacks on dozens of churches and Christian institutions by Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

Read more by clicking below:
Surge in kidnappings of Egypt’s Christians : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Killing Copts for Ransom in Egypt

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

• Not only are the churches, monasteries, and institutions of Egypt's Christians under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters--nearly 100 now have been torched, destroyed, ransacked, etc.--but Christians themselves are under attack all throughout Egypt, with practically zero coverage in Western media.
• Days ago, for example, Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, a young Christian deacon who used to serve in St. John the Baptist Church, part of the Qusiya diocese in Asyut, Egypt. He was kidnapped on August 21 by "unknown persons" who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his impoverished family--1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed--his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth's body bore signs of severe torture.

Read more by clicking below:
Killing Copts for Ransom in Egypt

Video From Egypt Shows Muslim Mob Attacking Christian Church, Taking Down Cross

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

• Newly-surfaced video from Egypt shows a Muslim mob storming a Coptic church, setting cars on fire and then toppling a cross atop the steeple, in a shocking attack that Christians say has been played out dozens of times since the ouster of Mohammad Morsi.
• The video, obtained by MidEast Christian News, was shot Aug. 14 from a nearby building overlooking the diocese in the southern Egyptian city of Sohag. In the six-minute video, a crowd, incensed by the eviction of pro-Morsi supporters from camps in Cairo, masses outside the church. Several members of the group scale a wall and attack vehicles in a courtyard, setting several ablaze. The video culminates in the crown exhorting a man high up on the steeple to take down a cross, which he does.
• Dozens of Coptic churches were attacked by members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the military's move against Morsi, who critics say was turning Egypt into an Islamist state. Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million, but Morsi supporters blamed them for his ouster, according to Coptic leaders.
• Bishop Makarious, a Coptic leader from Minya, accused Muslim Brotherhood leaders of planning attacks on Christian churches, homes and businesses in an effort to divide the embattled nation.

Read more by clicking below:
Video From Egypt Shows Muslim Mob Attacking Christian Church, Taking Down Cross

Coptic Catholic Leader: Egyptian Government is Not Stopping Hate Speech Against Christians

The following excerpts are from AINA:

• Egypt's new interim government is doing nothing to prevent hate speech, which is inciting violence against Christians, a prominent Egyptian Catholic leader has said.
• "The state is paying no attention to sermons coming out of the mosques, which are inciting Muslims against Christians," said Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak.
• In a statement he said perpetrators involved in a wave of attacks on Christian institutions across the country since early July were not being apprehended, and those involved in the burning and destruction of churches should have been forced to repair them at their own expense and not at the cost of the state.
• He said southern parts of the Minya governorate had seen some of the most severe anti-Christian violence so far, and that "people there are so extreme that they are threatening the Copts with expulsion from their homes".

Read more by clicking below:
Coptic Catholic Leader: Egyptian Government is Not Stopping Hate Speech Against Christians

Middle East, Holy Land Christians Are Suffering Most

The following excerpts are from AINA:

• Minority religious groups face the reality of targeted violence against them in the region
• The leader of the Maronite Catholic Church has said that Christians are suffering the most from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
• Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï said that the situation in the Middle East is worsening, and that 'whenever a conflict breaks out in the Middle East, whenever chaos ensues, Muslim groups attack the minority Christian community, as if they were always the scapegoat.'
• The patriarch, whose church is in full communion with the Vatican, said Christians were 'paying the price' of outside interference in both Egypt and Syria.
• "I have written to the Holy Father twice to describe what is happening. I appeal again to the Holy Father, who only talks about peace and reconciliation," said the Maronite leader, who was made a cardinal in 2012.
• He also accused the international community of 'total silence' over Iraq, where he said 1.5 million Christians had fled in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall.

Read more by clicking below:
Middle East, Holy Land Christians Are Suffering Most

Egypt's Coptic Christians face unprecedented reprisals from the Muslim Brotherhood - Washington Times

The following excerpts are from The Washington Times:

• Islamist mobs have torched schools and businesses owned by Christians, looted churches and even paraded captive nuns through the streets of a city south of Cairo in a display of rage unseen in Egypt’s recent history.
• The campaign of killing and arson is retaliation for the tiny Christian community’s support of the military coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government.
• “The Muslim Brotherhood were the ones who called for aggression [against Christians]. They are responsible,” said the Rev. Khalil Fawzi, a pastor at Kasr El Dubarrah Evangelical Church, the largest evangelical congregation in the Middle East. “Either they are in control or they burn Egypt.”

Read more by clicking below:
Egypt's Coptic Christians face unprecedented reprisals from the Muslim Brotherhood - Washington Times

Egypt: 2nd day of attacks on churches : News Headlines

The following excerpts are from CWN:

Photo: Nervana Mahmoud

• By the end of a second day of attacks on Christian institutions, homes, and businesses in Egypt, Islamists had burned down over 50 churches, a Coptic Orthodox bishop told CNN.
• The Muslim Brotherhood had declared a "Friday of Anger" to protest the actions, and Islamic militants took to the streets after gathering in mosques for Friday prayers. Their attacks on Christian targets followed police and military action against Muslim Brotherhood protestors who support ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Read more by clicking below:

Egypt: 2nd day of attacks on churches : News Headlines

AFRICA/EGYPT - The Bishop of Minya: with the lie of the "Coptic plot" Islamists will justify other terror against Christians - Fides News Agency

The following excerpts are from Fides News Agency:

• Western chanceries "have overestimated the real roots of political Islam in the Egyptian people" and now "remain floored and ambiguous before the scenarios opened by the revolution of 30 June", while the Islamists " emphasize the role of Christians in that uprising also to justify the terrorist attacks being prepared against them". This is what the Egyptian bishop Botros Fahim Awad Hanna reports to Fides Agency with regards to two dynamics he understood during the serious moment experienced by the North African country. In past days, blogs close to the Muslim Brotherhood have labeled the new structure found by the country after the overthrow of President Morsi as the "Military Republic of Tawadros", indicating Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II and his Church as the true architects of the popular uprising which led to the end of the Islamist government. "It is obvious" Anba Botros explains to Fides "that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to explain their political failure by resorting to the theory of 'Christian conspiracy'.
• To emphasize the role Christians had in the collapse of the Islamist regime will also serve to justify future terrorism against them. 

Read more by clicking below:

AFRICA/EGYPT - The Bishop of Minya: with the lie of the "Coptic plot" Islamists will justify other terror against Christians - Fides News Agency

From The Dignitatis Humanae Institute: Egypt's Embattled Christians Fear Exclusion Under New Islamist Constitution

Note: The following is a press release from The Dignitatis Humanae Institute

  London, 23 November 2012

As the Western media shift attention from crisis to crisis in the Middle East, one continuing, omnipresent tragedy goes wilfully ignored, the violent persecution of the regions' remaining Christians.  Nowhere is this more evident than Egypt, where the new government, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, press on with the drafting of a new constitution with Sharia Law it is core and little tolerance for Christians.

As Syria and Gaza dominate the headlines, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has quickly gone about shaping what was once a relatively moderate nation into an Islamist republic.  The Arab Spring's ambitious hopes for pluralist democracies has quickly faded, only to be supplemented with theocratic regimes potentially worse than those which preceded them.

The Christians of Egypt, amounting to approximately 10% of the population, have expressed growing despondency as to the nature of the draft constitution.  Church leaders have found themselves repeatedly shut out of dialogue by the nations' Salafis who are determined to enshrine their dominance into law.  While the future constitution looks bleak for religious minorities, the persecution of the Coptic community continues each day.  Since President Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood gained power dozens of Christians have been murdered in addition to increased attacks on Christian property and the burning of Churches.  Kidnappings are not uncommon as well as reports of qualified Christians being turned away from employment.

Speaking from his office in Westminster to the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, Lord Alton, Honorary President of the British Coptic Association and Chairman of the Cross-Party Working Group on Human Dignity, appealed to the Egyptian government to remain true to their election assurances: 

"Mohammed Morsi swept to power on the promise that he would rule for all Egyptians, including the Christian community.  As the future constitution is drafted and the next chapter of Egyptian history determined, President Morsi must be held accountable to his solemn pledge to bring peace and tolerance to the marginalised communities of Egypt.  The Coptic community have shown remarkable forbearance in these past five months, I sincerely hope their patience with the new government will not be betrayed through further degradation."

The Dignitatis Humanae Institute aims to uphold human dignity based on the anthropological truth that man is born in the image and likeness of God and therefore has an innate human dignity of infinite worth to be upheld. The Institute promotes this understanding by supporting Christians in public life, assisting them to present effective and coherent responses to increasing efforts to silence the Christian voice in the public square.