Last April, police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants hurled as many as 53 Christians overboard during a crossing from Libya. The motive was that the victims “professed the Christian faith while the aggressors were Muslim.” Another report cited a boy seen praying to the Judeo-Christian God. Muslims commanded him to stop, saying “Here, we only pray to Allah.” Eventually the Muslims “went mad,” in the words of a witness, started screaming “Allahu Akbar!” and began hurling Christians into the sea.
It gets worse. When Christian refugees finally do make it to Western shores, they continue to be attacked by Muslims, or fellow “refugees.”
According to a September 30 report, in Germany, “Many Christian refugees from Syria, Iraq or Kurdistan are being intimidated and attacked by Muslim refugees. In several refugee centers set up by the local authorities, Sharia law is being imposed and Christians—which are a minority—are the victims of bullying.”
Gottfried Martens, pastor of a south Berlin church, said that “very religious Muslims are spreading the following idea throughout the refugee centers: Sharia law rules wherever we are.” Martens expressed especial concern for Muslims who convert to Christianity—apostates who, according to Islamic law, can be killed: “There is a 100% chance that these people will be attacked.”
Earlier, in July 2014, the weekly Die Zeit explained how “an atmosphere of intimidation and hostility towards Christians” reigns in the refugee centers. Referred to as “pigs,” Christians have limited access to communal kitchens. According to local authorities, “The police have reached their absolute breaking point. Our officials are increasingly being called to confrontations in refugee homes.”
In Sweden, a July report told of how two small families of Christian asylum seekers were harassed and abused by approximately 80 Muslim asylum seekers from Syria. The Christians and Muslims—described by one Swedish newspaper as “fundamentalist Islamists”—resided in the same asylum house. As in Germany, the Muslims ordered the Christians not to use communal areas and not to wear their crosses around their necks.
After extensive harassment and threats, the Christian refugees who thought they had escaped “ISIS” left the Swedish asylum house “fearing for their own safety.” A spokesman for the government migration agency responsible for their center said:
They dared not stay. The atmosphere became too intimidating. And they got no help… They chose themselves to organize new address and moved away without our participation because they felt a discomfort.
In Denmark, according to the conclusion of a study conducted last year, “Christian asylum seekers are repeatedly exposed to everything from harassment to threats and physical abuse by other [Muslim] refugees in the asylum centers, simply because they have converted from Islam to Christianity.” An eight year old Christian boy was repeatedly bullied and beaten by larger Muslim boys on his way to school, to the point that he dropped out. And someone tampered with a Christian asylum seeker’s bicycle so that he crashed and broke both hands.
According to Niels Eriksen Nyman, who led the study:
There are certainly many more cases around the country than the ones we hear about in the church. I hate to say it, but I’m afraid that on some of the asylum centers there are some very unhealthy control mechanisms when the staff turns their back… I refuse to support Islamophobia, but we have a serious problem here.”
It certainly seems so. After all, such persecution is not limited to refugees. Christians of Mideast or Asian backgrounds who have been living in the West for years are also being targeted.
Last week in Gothenburg, Sweden, Markus Samuelsson, who is of Assyrian descent, found the walls of his restaurant covered with jihadi graffiti, including messages of “Convert or Die” and “The Caliphate is Here.” The Arabic letter ن (“N” for “Nasara,” or “Christian”) were painted on the walls of the next door pizzeria and the local bakery, though non-Assyrian businesses were left untouched. (The Islamic State is known to mark out Christian homes and businesses with this letter before attacks.)
In Muslim-majority areas of Denmark—voted 2013′s “happiest country in the world”—Christians of Middle Eastern backgrounds experienced “harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims”…