In The Spectator, Anthony Browne, European correspondent for The Times of London and a man with whom I once had the great pleasure of appearing on BBC Radio along with the illustrious jihadist leader Omar Bakri, reports on the world-wide persecution of Christians, beginning with post-Saddam Iraq (thanks to Mark Durie for the link):
For most citizens of Iraq, the invasion meant the end of tyranny. For one group, however, it meant a new start: the country’s historic Christian community. When the war stopped, persecution by Islamists, held in check by Saddam, started.At a church in Basra I visited a month after the war ended, the women complained of attacks against them for not wearing the Islamic veil. I saw many Christian-owned shops that had been firebombed, with many of the owners killed for exercising their legal right to sell alcohol. Two years and many church attacks later, Iraq may still be occupied by Christian foreign powers, but the Islamist plan to ethnically cleanse Iraq of its nearly 2,000-year-old Assyrian and Armenian Christian communities is reaching fruition.
There is nothing unusual about the persecution of Iraqi Christians, or the unwillingness of other Christians to help them. Rising nationalism and fundamentalism around the world have meant that Christianity is going back to its roots as the religion of the persecuted. There are now more than 300 million Christians who are either threatened with violence or legally discriminated against simply because of their faith — more than any other religion. Christians are no longer, as far as I am aware, thrown to the lions. But from China, North Korea and Malaysia, through India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they are subjected to legalised discrimination, violence, imprisonment, relocation and forced conversion. Even in supposedly Christian Europe, Christianity has become the most mocked religion, its followers treated with public suspicion and derision and sometimes — such as the would-be EU commissioner Rocco Buttiglione — hounded out of political office....
Browne finds that, despite their power, Christian states or peoples seem remarkably unwilling to use any of that power or strength in defense of oppressed fellow Christians:
While Muslims openly help other Muslims, Christians helping Christians has become as taboo as jingoistic nationalism....But just as Christian-majority armies control Iraq as it ethnically cleanses itself of its Christian community, so the power of Christian countries is of little help to the Christian persecuted where most Christians now live: the Third World.
Across the Islamic world, Christians are systematically discriminated against and persecuted. Saudi Arabia — the global fountain of religious bigotry — bans churches, public Christian worship, the Bible and the sale of Christmas cards, and stops non-Muslims from entering Mecca. Christians are regularly imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges of drinking, blaspheming or Bible-bashing, as some British citizens have found. Just last month, furthermore, Saudi Arabia announced that only Muslims can become citizens.
The Copts of Egypt make up half the Christians in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. They inhabited the land before the Islamic conquest, and still make up a fifth of the population. By law they are banned from being president of the Islamic Republic of Egypt or attending Al Azhar University, and severely restricted from joining the police and army. By practice they are banned from holding any high political or commercial position. Under the 19th-century Hamayouni decrees, Copts must get permission from the president to build or repair churches — but he usually refuses. Mosques face no such controls.
This is in full accord with Sharia provisions forbidding Christians to build or repair churches -- and yet learned commentators still maintain that Sharia is only found today in Saudi Arabia and Iran. And that's true in terms of full implementation -- but Christians still suffer in various ways as dhimmis all over the Islamic world. Read on:
Government-controlled TV broadcasts anti-Copt propaganda, while giving no airtime to Copts. It is illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity, but legal for Christians to convert to Islam. Christian girls — and even the wives of Christian priests — are abducted and forcibly converted to Islam, recently prompting mass demonstrations. A report by Freedom House in Washington concludes: ‘The cumulative effect of these threats creates an atmosphere of persecution and raises fears that during the 21st century the Copts may have a vastly diminished presence in their homelands.’Fr Drew Christiansen, an adviser to the US Conference of Bishops, recently conducted a study which stated that ‘all over the Middle East, Christians are under pressure. “The cradle of Christianity” is under enormous pressure from demographic decline, the growth of Islamic militancy, official and unofficial discrimination, the Iraq war, the Palestinian Intifada, failed peace policies and political manipulation.’
In the world’s most economically successful Muslim nation, Malaysia, the world’s only deliberate affirmative action programme for a majority population ensures that Muslims are given better access to jobs, housing and education. In the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, some 10,000 Christians have been killed in the last few years by Muslims trying to Islamify the Moluccas.
In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, most of the five million Christians live as an underclass, doing work such as toilet-cleaning. Under the Hudood ordinances, a Muslim can testify against a non-Muslim in court, but a non-Muslim cannot testify against a Muslim. Blasphemy laws are abused to persecute Christians. In the last few years, dozens of Christians have been killed in bomb and gun attacks on churches and Christian schools.
In Nigeria, 12 states have introduced Sharia law, which affects Christians as much as Muslims. Christian girls are forced to wear the Islamic veil at school, and Christians are banned from drinking alcohol. Thousands of Christians have been killed in the last few years in the ensuing violence....
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Trust, which helps persecuted Christians, blames rising global religious tension. ‘More and more Christians are seen as the odd ones out — they are seen as transplants from the West, and not really trusted. It is getting very much worse.’...
You get the gist. Dr Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Centre for Religious Freedom in Washington, estimates that there are 200 million Christians who face violence because of their faith, and 350 million who face legally sanctioned discrimination in terms of access to jobs and housing. The World Evangelical Alliance wrote in a report to the UN Human Rights Commission last year that Christians are ‘the largest single group in the world which is being denied human rights on the basis of their faith’....
But the BBC, despite being mainly funded by Christians, is an organisation that promotes ridicule of the Bible, while banning criticism of the Koran. Dr Marshall said: ‘Christians are seen as Europeans and Americans, which means you get a lack of sympathy which you would not get if they were Tibetan Buddhists.’...
To this day, while Muslims stick up for their co-religionists, Christians — beyond a few charities — have given up such forms of discrimination. Dr Sookhdeo said: ‘The Muslims have an Ummah [the worldwide Muslim community] whereas Christians do not have Christendom. There is no Christian country that says, “We are Christian and we will help Christians.”’...
Today is a good day to read the entire article. And to give it to others to read.
If their isn't a muslim country (now or in the past) that has ever treated christians as equals to muslims why should we beleive that in europe or anywhere else that may become a majority muslim society in the future that we will have equal status?
Until the evidence changes, it isn't logical to conclude that we will be treated any better if we loose our majorities in terms of population to muslims.
The worst people in my opinion are those who tell us that to look at all the evidence and then come to the most logical conclusion is being offensive. Jesus said that false prophets only lead people blindly into ditches.
The Spectator, with regular contributions from Mark Steyn, Anthony Browne and Theodore Dalrymple (AKA Anthony Daniels)and Rod Liddle is one of the best magazines in the UK, and has tackled the subject of Islam fearlessly. However, its circulation is a paltry 60,000. Perhaps its employees should concentrate on promoting the magazine and spend less time shagging each other.
Tangentially relevant, there has been a complete media blackout (blogs as well as mainstream) on the drubbing that the cretinous Religious Hatred bill is getting in the House of Lords at the moment. Many Christians (and some Muslims) are opposed to this bill, having observed the recent catastrophic episode in Victoria, Australia. Ironically Hizb ut Tahrir (an extreme Islamist group) are opposed to it because they think it will muzzle some of the verses in the Koran about killing the infidels.
Unbelievable.
Christians are now being treated as if they were Jews.
We have had 2000 years of this but we were always a very tiny minority and could do little.
Wake up fellow followers of "The Book" before it is too late and your churches and cathedrals become mosques and your Eiffel and CN and other towers become minarets.
This must have been - without a doubt - one of the best posts I have ever read in JihadWatch.
Why not start a page with links to some of the most enlightening posts ever written at this site? I believe that it would be an excellent way to reach and teach those that don't read this site regularly.
The BBC has become one of the most disgustingly biased news networks in the whole world. Their stance towards Roman Catholicism in particular is atrocious.
A happy Easter to all of you.
I neglected to wish everyone a Happy Easter this morning when I made my first post. I have a head full of cold.
I hope you all had a Good Easter. Alleluia He is risen.
Alex
I am gunning for the BBC this weekend. I have posted before about my low opinion of the BBC. I have complained many times about various things and never got a satisfactory response, when I got a response at all. It's not the Easter/Spring quiz I am complaining about this time, although the way they described every Christian belief in terms that were very patronising (this is only their belief of course type of thing). It’s completely non JW so I won't bore you but it was a remark they printed in Have your Say about certain children that my husband and I found deeply offensive. I accept the woman’s right to her opinion but her term was completely out of order. So I have tried to complain. Except the phone number is constantly engaged and the on line complaint form will not submit. I have complained to the "complaint feedback" about the lack of a complaint mechanism with no response yet. I have written a letter which I will post. I'm not giving up on this one.
"When you see all these things, look up, for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21)
To "granny weatherwax" re monitoring the BBC:
Today, on the BBC, between 4:05 and 4:10 p.m. EST (5 hours later in England, the BBC's World Service carried a respectful interview with one Alastair Crooke, and the "confidential talks" that he and "other former diplomats, etc." were holding with "various groups in the Middle East" such as "Hamas" about common points of interest, or better ways to "understand" each other. It was all presented as if these were serious and important and disinterested Western intelligence agents. Only at the end was this Crooke referred to as "Alastair Crooke of Conflicts Forum." The unwary listener would still believe that Crooke was some sort of high muck-a-muck attempting valiantly to head off some sort of quite unnecessary conflict between "Islam" and "the West" -- you know, the thing that that mad dog Bush and his Zionist friends are just whipping up out of thin air because everywhere Muslims rule non-Muslims are treated with such kindness and respect, and please -- no mention of the word "jihad" in polite company please.
Crooke is simply one more man on the make, along with Mark Perry and a bunch of others who are most interested in getting Arab (especially Saudi) money for their transparent public relations efforts, some of them quite sinister, to keep EU members (and to a lesser extent the United States) from becoming alert to such dangers as the real nature of Islam, the growing Islamization of Europe, and the need to impose our will on the Saudis and others, not the reverse.
Now Crooke is himself no different from all sorts of ex-diplomats who have been touting their "services" to the Arab petrodollar states for several decades. But the pitch is a little different, though just as transparent. They would always call themselves "international businss consultants" (check out Raymond Close, former C.I.A. station chief in Jeddah, for a start).
But Crooke, along with Mark Perry, a female (Milton-Edwards by last name), and assorted people with -- you know -- "backgrounds" in teh Middle East (Timur Goksel, amusingly, shows up --the Turk who used to head the U.N. contingent in south Lebanon, and who no doubt wishes he had gotten Sevan's job at the U.N.), is cruising for petrodollars, so that "What We Offer" here at "Conflict Forums" is obviously the kind of apologetics now all decked out in the Peace-making mode of How Do We Avoid A Clash of
Civilizations -- oh, the Saudis should be paying a goodly sum for that.
Check out Alastair Crooke. Simply google his name, along with that of Conflict Forums. Go systematically through "Who We Are" and "What We Offer" and "Consultancy" and all the rest, so clearly suspect.
And then ask yourself this? Who at the BBC -- why, could it be our old friend John Simpson, bosom friend of Peter Hounam of Vanunu fame -- who decided to present this group of hirelings as a serious effort, by serious people to conduct "serious diplomacy" that governments could not -- instead of being simply shills for Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups.
Oh, one more thing. Alastair Crooke apparently was -- or at least he calls himself -- formerly a close adviser to Javier Solana, head of the EU's Foreign Affairs. If true, then a man who is now selling his services hither and yon to Arab interests was, just recently, at the highest level of the EU bureacracy.
This should be brought -- and will be brought -- to the attention of American officials and American Congressmen. Let's find out more about the Solana connection -- and just who is buying the "services" of Conflicts Forum.
And then we have to find out who, at the BBC (John Simpson, or someone else? Someone in the Foreign Office, that runs the BBC World Service? ) chose to lend credence to this commercial enterprise in recycling petrodollars?
This should be made something of in England as well -- starting with Beebwatch, and ending -- well, at Questio Time, when the BBC can be brought up for discussion. Why Question Time? Because of the BBC's questionable practices, that's why.
Most Christians have no idea how dangerous it is to be a Christian outside the West. Bringing democracy to Iraq and other Muslim countries is really irrelevant to the question of freedom because the clerics and culture tell people how to vote -- vote whatever is best for Islam, not what will bring freedom, for freedom is anathema to that ideology that must control every thought, word, and deed.
Democracy has brought the franchise to Iraq -- but no freedom, nor will there ever be genuine freedom in any Muslim-dominated area.
As a Brit I'd like to make a qualified defence of the BBC. The BBC has a lot of faults and is biased towards the Left. However, it is not all bad. The recent series on Auschwitz was excellent. Less well known is the one off documentary about an Israeli prison, in which the Israelis were portrayed in a very sympathetic light. Radio 4 recently did a hard-hitting documentary on Muslim oppression of women.
Another example of excellent work on the part of the BBC is Hardtalk. Sadly Tim Sebastian has now retired, but this programme was very searching and gave a hard time to politicians of all persuasions.
Politcal correctness is a disease infecting much of Europe, but I haven't given up hope on the UK just yet. 'The Telegraph', which, unlike the 'Spectator' has a healthy circulation, has published some very robust criticism of Islam, the equivalent of which I have yet to see in an American national newspaper (is there such a thing?).
Sorry to sound defensive, but I've been spending too much time on Little Green Footballs, where the UK is dismissed as just another France.
By the way, Hugh, Granny Weatherwax and BBC-watchers - is Alistair Crooke the same as Alistair Cooke? The first I'd never heard of, the second I think came from Lancashire (like me) broadcast a lot of Letters from America just before The Archers and died peacefully aged 94....
The BBC World Service is under the control of John Simpson, who in turn reports to the Foreign Office. Please google "Posted by Hugh" and "jihadwatch" and "John Simpson" to find out more about this man, #3 at Bush House, and discover why the BBC World Service, with the nasty-voiced Lyse Doucet and Judy Swallow particularly memorable, is even worse than the regular BBC.
Vladimir Bukovsky, who knows about totalitarianism, was attempting to start a campaign to end the mandatory licensing fees. It is still a good idea.
Lew Grade's son is now in charge, I believe, of the BBC. He should not be afraid, even if Jewish, of attacking the pro-Arab bias of the BBC's news programs, and he should clean the stables of the Arab-language networks. It can be done.
But perhaps he should start by looking at a film clip: the speech that Dennis Potter gave to an assembled group from the BBC, called "Occupying Powers." In it Potter denounced the forces of market dumbing-down and constriction of artistic freedom. He singled out two men for praise: one of them was the current head of the BBC.
Potter had a few glancing swipes at Arabia -- the scene with the man-camels and the ugly dancing girls in the last hour of "Lipstick on Your Collar," and the aggressive Arab male at the hospital in the opening scene of "Karaoke" who yells at the polite and accommodating English receptionist, when asked where he is staying, and she can't quite understand him, "Clah-Re-Gis" a few times, with increasing thin-skinned rich-Arab-in-Europe-used-to-getting-his-own-way testiness, until she finally realizes he is attempting to say "Claridges."
Had he lived, he would have dealt a greater blow at Eurabia. And the BBC is now, as is much of Europe, dancing to an Eurabian tune. It is the Arabs and the Muslims who are now the "Occupying Powers" in Europe -- Mr. Grade should begin to read a little bit, beginning with Bat Ye'or, and ask himself what, for example, by Dennis Potter, or for that matter what else (which of the Talking Heads of Alan Bennett, for example), could possibly be shown, much less created, in a world where Muslims can influence what is shown, what is said, what is thought.
This must be understood now, not in 30 years, 20 years, ten. Now.
Hugh, there is plenty of politically incorrect stuff, especially comedy, shown on the BBC right now. Long may this continue. 'Little Britain', 'The Catherine Tate Show', and the wonderfully tasteless 'Nighty Night'. Alan Bennett is old hat - he was very funny once but has lost touch with his roots and no longer has an ear for contemporary speech.
One thing that puzzles me is that in the UK we cannot get BBC World, though you can get it anywhere else. Very odd. The BBC World Service (Radio)is broadcast when most Brits are asleep. Perhaps it's one agenda for external use and one for internal consumption. Not sure what that is about, but it's probably deliberate.
Christians don't help Christians and no wonder, with examples like the Dhimmi Pope kissing the Qur'an, and the outright and blatant dhimmitude of Eastern, Orthodox and Latin Churches, especially in Muslim lands.
You really must read Bat Ye'ors Islam and Dhimmitude, she lays it out pretty good, Christian churches are willing Dhimmis, so that they church leaders can maintain control over their flocks.
It doesn't matter how many faithful die or are persecuted, so long as the remmnant handful are able to hang on, submissively in ecstatic dhimmitude, and of course the clergy can retain their position, with the support of the Ulamma and state, so long as they are appropriately submissive.
The mentality is that of a crumb from the loaf is better than no crumbs at all.
Forbid the Pope and leaders of churches in the west get outraged and start publicly denouncing the Muslims, they might not only be called Islamophobes, but the remnant of faithful will suffer. I guess so long as their is at least one Christian left in the world, then their justification for existence as religious leaders is satisfied.
Individual Christians who live in the free and affluent nations have a responsibility to support and encourage Christians who are being persecuted for their faith. Some ways to do this are to support organizations like Barnabas Fund and others that
minister to persecuted Christians and to write
letters of encouragement to Christians who are
imprisoned for their faith.
M.O.T. As a fellow person of the Book (a Jew who believes M'shiach has come? or, as Cseslaw Milosz once described himself, a Jew of the New Testament?), I feel awake.
Unfortunately, my denomination frowns on gambling. If it didn't, I'd ask for odds on how quickly the MSM would start shouting "Crusader!" "Civilizational Warrior!" "Bigot!" aftre we Christians start making audible noises about the treatment of our coreligionists in Pakistan and elsewhere.
Cor, I've got up this morning to a lot of food for thought.
There are quite a lot of things the BBC does well which is one of the reasons for perseveing with them. Nice to see you back Intrested, I thought you were away. Little Britain is indeed brilliant, Catherine Tate had a big drawback as a comedy programme in being completely unfunny. But thats just my opinion which others do not share. And did any UK watcher see the new Dr Who on Saturday? I posted last week on a topic about Al Jazeera my opinion how influential they could be for good in Asia and the Middle East were their agenda different.
Much of my gripe is about the distain with which they treat their listeners/viewers even when the complaint is about nothing at all controversial or political, such as cancelling a favourite childrens programme for televised snooker (or was it darts.) But this time it's personal.
I was not a huge Dennis Potter fan, so tended not to watch his work, so I will take your word for it, Hugh, about his anti arab stance. It sounds good stuff. And I will look up the matter you suggest. I did tell the BBC that Bat Yeor was easily available on Amazon during my last complaint (pro Islamic bias during What the Ancients did for us)but I never even got an acknowledgement of that little matter.
Finally, I could not agree with you more bgordon about the work of the Barnabas Fund. I came to know of their work through the leaflets at my own church where we have several Moslem converts who have not had an easy time.
Granny Weatherwax - hello, I've not been away, I've had builders in and a busted computer but have now got my life back!
Dr Who is quite spectacularly good, though I wish they'd use the original version of the theme music, which used to send me scurrying behind the sofa. Good to see Billie Piper as more than a bimbo.
I thought Dennis Potter was a bit of a dirty old man, and as for the Singing Detective, I just wanted to have a good pick. But that's just my opinion, and I agree with Hugh and others that the BBC is generally far too pro-Arab and Muslim.
Coming back to Dr Who, is time-travel haram? I'm going to Ask the Imam. Also, if you're praying and a dalek passes by, does that invalidate the prayer as if would if it were a dog or a woman?
Please post what he says if you get a chance. It is bound to be good. It was alright for Solomon to travel around on a magic carpet, covering a distance between lunch and bedtime that would normally take a month
(source http://answering-islam.org.uk/Responses/Naik/quranclaims3.htm )
I would image the Iman will approve. Cos Allah knows best. I thought it was Mother that knew best, but then the Iman never met my Mum.
Anybody left alive and still praying in the wake of a Dalek is much blessed, yea verily, and obviously favoured.
alexposted: The BBC has become one of the most disgustingly biased news networks in the whole world.
Too true. This started to happen since the Lebanon war in the eighties. It was then that I began to note the change from objectivity to a pro-islam and pro-palestinian bias.
The BBC in its news and Ceefax coverage has even been condescending to Christians celebrating Easter - and this is officially a Christian country. The BBC should be asked if it could sustain an anti-islamic bias if it was broadcasting from a muslim nation. Well I suppose they could till all of them were beheaded.
The BBC was once a truly great news and entertainment organisation. Now it is just a publicly funded broadcaster for the un-informed Left-liberal view.