Free Republic

CHIANWALA, Pakistan -- Frightened Christians stayed away from Sunday services in this tiny Pakistani village after a deadly Christmas Day attack here killed three girls and wounded 13 others. Many said they were too traumatized to return to their church. "There are no Sunday services in the church because people can't bring themselves to visit it," said the Rev. Rehmat Asim, head of the Protestant congregation, outside his simple, cottage-sized church. "They're in shock." Two assailants in burqas -- the all-encompassing garment worn by women in some Islamic countries -- burst into the white cement church Dec. 25, tossing...

Christians in the Muslim Middle East -- under relentless attack for centuries. (One in a series of excerpts adapted by Robert Locke from Dr. Serge Trifkovic’s new book The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam) Most people take for granted that the Middle East is a Moslem region of the world. What they forget is that this region, which was of course the birthplace of Christianity, has a long history of Christian communities. These, however, have been the most readily-accessible targets of jihad, so they have been under relentless attack for centuries. Let’s start in the late...

<p>With the aim of attracting support from Muslim states, Saddam Hussein has sought to portray himself as a defender of Islam against an imperialist West. To that end, he has abandoned long-standing secularist policies and stoked anti-Christian sentiment within Iraq -- not to mention his support for Hamas in its war on Israel. As a showdown looms with the U.S., no group within Iraq has been more negatively affected than the Assyrians, Iraq's indigenous Christians, who are likely to be pivotal in any long-term U.S. plan for the region. Indeed they might make the difference between stability and simmering civil war in northern areas which are too broadly (and ignorantly) considered exclusively Kurdish.</p>

Catholic Groups Sue Over Christmas Display Discrimination Thursday, December 12 @ 22:57:38 EST Summary: The Catholic League and Thomas More Law Center have joined in a lawsuit against the City of New York Department of Education on its discriminatory policies against Christmas displays during the Christmas holiday season. The Catholic League and Thomas More Law Center are suing the New York Education Department for its discriminatory policies against the display of Christian symbols this Christmas season. According to Catholic League President Bill Donohue, the education department has issued guidelines permitting the display of Christmas trees, the Jewish Menorah, and...

<p>Democrats need to stop blaming themselves for the Republican victories in the 2002 election and start understanding the religious right.</p> <p>Pat Robertson, founder of Christian Coalition wrote in his book "Millennium" in 1990, "with the apathy that exists today, a well organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree." History has proven Robertson to be correct.</p>

Persecution of Christians on the Increase 'Situation Will Only Get Worse as War With Iraq Draws Near' FRONT ROYAL, Va., Nov. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Christian Freedom International president, Jim Jacobson, warns, "There is a growing resentment toward Christians and Americans around the world." This past week alone there were many incidents of violence targeting Christians. Here are but a few reported events: -- November 21, 2002, American missionary, Bonnie Weatherall, 31, was shot dead in Lebanon; -- November, 18, 2002, teachers in Cambodia called for the word "God" to be removed from school textbooks amid reports of religious tensions...

<p>Following media analysis of the elections, I suggest looking at fundamentalist, Pentecostal, and charismatic churches. I think you'll find their members voted en mass along a straight Republican ticket, providing as many as 25 million votes.</p> <p>Why do the churches active in the religious right vote exclusively Republican? Because the religious right controls the Republican Party.</p>

Top Bishop in Colombia Kidnapped The Associated Press, Tue 12 Nov 2002 BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — One of Latin America's leading bishops was kidnapped as he went to hold a religious service in central Colombia in the latest attack on religious figures in this war-battered nation. No group claimed responsibility for Monday's kidnapping of Colombian bishop Jorge Enrique Jimenez, but the abduction took place in an area where leftist guerrillas are active. Jimenez is president of the Latin American Episcopal Conference, an organization of Roman Catholic bishops that determines church policy in the region. The conference's mandate covers the...

The media almost never point out that Christians are being killed, often at places of worship, in several countries with Islamic majorities or governments, not because they are Westerners or Americans (many are neither) but because they are Christians. Nor is the White House or Congress nearly as attentive--to put it mildly--to this pattern of killing as it is to any injury on either side of the conflict in Israel. ============================================== 17, bombs killed 6 people and wounded 143 in Zamboanga, the Philippines. While press accounts mentioned in passing that the victims were Christians, few conveyed to the reader that...

One of two survivors of last month's massacre of Christian charity workers in Karachi has disappeared after his release from police custody, his family and lawyer said on Wednesday. "I have no idea where he is and I am concerned now about his whereabouts," said his wife Elisabeth Robin. "I have contacted my family members and they too have no idea," she said. Robin Piranditta, a witness to the massacre, was rearrested in dramatic fashion on Tuesday after a high court had declared his detention illegal. He was then formally declared a suspect in the September 25 execution-style murder of...

<p>BEIJING, China (AP) -- The leader of a banned Christian sect whose death sentence was overturned for lack of evidence has been convicted on different charges and sentenced to life in prison, a human rights group reported.</p> <p>The second trial came after an appellate court decision to overturn the initial death sentences -- an extraordinary move in a communist country where religion is tightly controlled and worship permitted only in the government-sanctioned church.</p>

<p>The State Department yesterday identified 32 countries that violate religious freedom, ranging from anti-religious dictatorships such as China to regimes such as Saudi Arabia that are hostile to minority religions.</p> <p>Countries designated as "authoritarian" are nearly all communist and suppress all religion, and nations cited for "state hostility" to unapproved faiths are predominantly Muslim, according to the fourth annual Report on International Religious Freedom.</p>

STATE OF NEW YORK EXECUTIVE CHAMBER GEORGE E. PATAKI, GOVERNOR Press Office 518-474-8418 212-681-4640 http://www.state.ny.us FOR RELEASE IMMEDIATE The following proclamation was issued by Governor of New York State, George E. Pataki, in commemoration of the 80th Anniversary of the Asia Minor Catastophe presented to the Holocaust Memorial Observance Committee of Asia Minor on Sunday, October 6, 2002. ************************************************************************************************************* P r o c l a m a t i o n Whereas, the Empire State is home to many ethnic communities whose members benefit from the freedom and democracy upon which our Nation was founded; as a global leader in...

Turkish Police close church for "offending society"ISTANBUL, Turkey, July 9, 2002 — Turkish security police ordered a Protestant Christian congregation meeting for 40 years in the southeastern port city of Iskenderun to close its doors in mid June, declaring the church had "no legal basis" and that its activities were harmful to society. Pastor Yusuf Yasmin, 71, was served official notice by the security police of Hatay province to close and stop all activities of the New Testament Church in Iskenderun. The abrupt two-page order was dated and delivered on June 14 to Yasmin, who was ordered to remove the...

KARACHI: (AP) - Angry and frightened after another deadly attack, Christians took to the streets Thursday demanding protection from Islamic militants believed behind the massacre of seven Christian charity workers who were bound, gagged and shot execution-style in their office. Black flags flew over churches and Christian schools were closed in mourning, while relatives began burying those killed in Wednesday's attack, the latest brutality against Christians and Westerners since President Pervez Musharraf began a crackdown on Islamic extremists and threw hissupport behind the U.S. war in Afghanistan. "We give the government 48 hours to arrest the killers," said Karamat Chochan,...

The number of Serbs living in Pristine before NATO started bombing in 1999 made up over 20,000 people. Currently, Serb population of Pristine, a real Serb ghetto, makes up only 200 people. After the ethnic cleansing operations held by militants of the allegedly disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, in the presence of KFOR and the UN Civil Mission, hundreds of Pristine Serbs were killed; kidnapped on the streets, hospitals, schools; and thousands were forced to leave their homes for central Serbia.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Fearing new attacks on Christian targets in Pakistan, police removed signs identifying churches set up in private homes and fortified other Christian sites with sandbag bunkers, authorities said Monday. The measures came after police found maps of two churches and a Christian school, along with weapons and explosives, during the arrest of two suspected Islamic militants in the southern port city of Karachi, Interior Ministry officials told The Associated Press. Police said the Christian sites were all in central Karachi and the maps showed entry and exit points, apparently for a planned attack. The two men,...

SERBIAN ORTHODOX DIOCESE OF RASKA AND PRIZREN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA INFORMATION SERVICE Urgent communiqué For immediate release WHY ARE CHURCH REPRESENTATIVES DENIED ACCESS TO ORAHOVAC ORTHODOX CEMETERYCemetery investigation begins without informing the Church and Serb community - Foreigners and Albanians allowed to participate, Serbs denied access Orahovac - Gracanica, September 16, 20002 The Diocese of Raska and Prizren received a direct report from Father Srdjan Milenkovic and a KIM Radio reporter who visited the Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Orahovac today that international representatives from UNMIK have already begun a search in the cemetery where 80 unmarked burial mounds were recently...

SERBIAN ORTHODOX DIOCESE IN KOSOVO SERIOUSLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE NEW GRAVES IN ORAHOVAC Orthodox priest in Orahovac fears that graves contain bodies of kidnapped and missing Serbs September 13, 2002 Serbian Orthodox parish priest in Orahovac, Fr. Srdjan Milenkovic has informed the Diocese about 80 unindentified graves which were found in Orahovac Serb Orthodox Cemetery. This cemetery was not used by Orthodox Serbs for almost three years after the war because of security reasons and it was only recently that the priest and several members of Serb community were allowed access to the site. During their first visit in June...

By ISTANBUL (BP)--In the wake of two more deadly terrorist attacks against Christian institutions in Pakistan in early August, government security officials have advised local church leaders to arm themselves for possible assaults by Muslim extremists. "It's their way of saying, 'We cannot protect you. You will have to protect yourselves,'" one Christian leader told Compass Direct news service. In a carefully planned set of assaults, armed Islamic militants shot six people dead on Aug. 5 at Murree Christian School for missionary children. Just four days later, another handful of extremists hurled grenades at the chapel of Taxila Christian Hospital,...