Free Republic

Iraqi Christians Flee to Safer Ground INKAWA, Northern Iraq (IPS) -- Zaid Suleyman, a 34-year-old taxi driver, sits in the administration office of St. Joseph's, an Assyrian Christian church in the Kurdish-controlled north of Iraq. He and his wife fled the capital, Baghdad, for the comparative peace of this region in September, and have been renting a room from an elderly church member ever since. But despite the move, Suleyman has not been able to put the violence of Baghdad behind him. "I have a sister living in Baghdad still, and two months ago her husband was kidnapped," he...

The Struggle of Iraq's Christian Assyrians One day last October a small parcel was left at Sait Yildiz's home in Sodertalje, Sweden. Sait, who is the Chairman of the Assyrian Democratic Association of Sweden, realized that something was amiss when he saw that there was no return address and that the CD that it contained was unlabelled. When he, despite his misgivings, played the CD he realized that it was a video. It begins with men chanting Islamic fundamentalist slogans, accompanied by a mixture of soft pop with Arabic folk music. Shortly someone can be heard shouting "Traitors! Betrayers!...

Severe Islamic Persecution Reported in Rural Ethiopia VOM sources in Ethiopia have compiled a disturbing report from the town of Alaba (K'olito) and surrounding area in the Southern Region of Ethiopia. VOM has documented recent cases of severe physical abuse, confiscation and destruction of property, extortion, kidnapping, forcible marriage and the unlawful imprisonment of evangelical Christians in the area. VOM has also learned of the martyrdom of a Christian student named Serkalem on February 1, 2005, who was repeatedly stabbed by assailants as he returned home from school. His family has appealed to authorities but if past experience is any...

Christians Continue to Face Challenges in Indonesia Fire at VOM's Medical Treatment Centre Three separate stories from Indonesia in the past week demonstrate the continued difficulties faced by Christians in the most populous Muslim nation in the world. On January 25, The Voice of the Martyrs received the news that our medical treatment centre and storage facility in Indonesia had been totally destroyed by fire.  Valuable medical supplies and items for distribution to persecuted believers in the country were destroyed.  Thankfully there were no injuries.  The cause of the fire is under investigation.  Pray that the supplies needed for...

PEACE-KEEPING SOLDIERS KILL CHRISTIAN WOMAN Kano family fears missing son killed while in custody. February 7 (Compass) -- Judith Lan’guti, a young Christian woman in Numan, a town in the northern state of Adamawa, Nigeria, was shot dead without provocation on January 28 by soldiers who had been deployed to keep peace in the town following the outbreak of violence between Muslims and Christians. “The murder of Miss Judith is coming 19 months after the killing of our Rev. Esther Jinkai Ethan by a Muslim fanatic,” Mahula Tika, a Christian community leader in Numan, told Compass. “Up to this moment,...

AIN KAWA, Iraq - For the Toma brothers, life was getting more precarious by the day. One of them had survived two shootings. Their cousin had been murdered. A CD of beheadings named them as American agents. "Long Live Saddam Hussein" and "Allahu Akbar" had been painted on their church. It was clearly time to flee. Too late. As Hani and Khaled Toma backed out of the garage to make the two-hour drive from Mosul to the relative safety of Irbil on Sept. 2, a dozen gunmen riddled their red BMW with bullets, adding two more to the dozens of...

Christians on PalTalk Chat Service Tracked by Radical Islamic Web Site An explosive New York Sun article reprinted at the Counterterrorism blog. As you can see, I was consulted on this story, and I will be posting more about it momentarily: A radical Islamic Web site systematically tracks Christians on PalTalk.com, an Internet chat service on which a New Jersey man received a death threat two months before he and his family were murdered. The password protected Arabic Web site, at the address www.barsomyat.com, features pictures and information about Christians who have been particularly active in debating Muslims on PalTalk....

February 4 (Compass) -- Christian pastor Hamid Pourmand went on trial before a military court in Tehran last week, charged with deceiving the Iranian armed forces about his religion. It was the first time Iranian authorities have produced Pourmand, 47, arrested five months ago when police raided a church conference in Karaj, near Tehran. Although the nine other pastors and 76 laymen detained with him were all released within a few days, the Assemblies of God lay pastor has remained under incommunicado arrest since September 9, 2004. Relatives of the jailed pastor confirmed to Compass yesterday that Pourmand’s wife was...

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- The FBI is trying to determine whether an Islamic Web site that tracked users of an online chat room had anything to do with the killings of a Christian Egyptian family. The site, barsomyat.com, is no longer online. But before it was shut down by its Minnesota hosting company, it reportedly featured photos of Hossam Armanious and his wife, Amal Garas, referring to him as a "filthy dog" and "his filthy wife," according to the New York Sun.

January 31, 2005 Christians on PalTalk Chat Service Tracked by Radical Islamic Web Site An explosive New York Sun article reprinted at the Counterterrorism blog. As you can see, I was consulted on this story, and I will be posting more about it momentarily: A radical Islamic Web site systematically tracks Christians on PalTalk.com, an Internet chat service on which a New Jersey man received a death threat two months before he and his family were murdered. The password protected Arabic Web site, at the address www.barsomyat.com, features pictures and information about Christians who have been particularly active in debating...

COPTIC KILLINGS Christians stalked on Islamic website Murdered New Jersey man among several tracked by Muslims The New Jersey man brutally murdered with his family was just one of a number of Christians systematically tracked by a radical Islamic website because they debate Muslims on the popular Internet chat service PalTalk.com. The password-protected Arabic website www.barsomyat.com, includes the kind of death threat received by Hossam Armanious, a Coptic Christian from Jersey City, N.J., who was found Jan. 14 with his wife and two daughters, bound and gagged with their throats slashed, the New York Sun reports. Two months before his...

A close friend of Hossam Armanious and relatives of the family murdered in New Jersey have revealed the following: Shortly after the murders, members of the Egyptian consulate went to visit the family to encourage them to keep quiet. And many family members have obeyed, saying nothing to reporters or anyone else. However, two family members and another Copt viewed the bodies at the funeral home. One of these eyewitnesses said that he clearly saw that the family members had not suffered “stab wounds to the throat,” as the prosecutor’s report states, but rather the following: A. Both adults, Hossam...

1979) The Shah of Iran is deposed by Islamic fanatics. Months later Muslims stormed the US embassy and took hostages. Carter retaliates with a handful of troops against an entire country. Result...Burning choppers of Americans in the desert. 1982) US Embassy in Beirut was bombed by Muslims. Reagan sent in Marines. In '83 their barracks were blown up, Dems whined until Reagan withdrew. 1985) Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro was seized and a 69 year old American was shot and thrown overboard. Reagan tells the Dems to shut-up, Ollie North captures the terrorists for Italy and hands them over to...

One of Kabul's last remaining Jews dies By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer (Updated Tuesday, January 25, 2005, 6:55 PM) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The caretaker of Afghanistan's only functioning synagogue and one of the last remaining Jews in Kabul has died. But the man now believed to be the sole survivor of this once-thriving Jewish community, who feuded bitterly for years with the deceased, said Tuesday he was not sad to see him go. Ishaq Levin, about 80, died apparently of natural causes about a week ago in his quarters in the small synagogue in the Afghan capital, according...

...The Taliban was ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001. The fact that both remaining Jews survived the Taliban's five-year reign is something of a miracle. Taliban authorities, determined to stamp out practices they considered un-Islamic, outlawed music, whipped men who failed to grow long beards and demolished two enormous Buddha statues that were carved into a cliff 13 centuries ago. Kabul's synagogue, an unassuming, white-washed building that was erected around a small courtyard on Flower Street 40 years ago, may have escaped a similar fate because it was so modest, and also because it was deserted and in disrepair when...

Jews in fear as attacks riseViolence 'reflects national surge' in anti-semitism Rosie Cowan, crime correspondent, Friday January 21, 2005 The Guardian Tonight, worshippers leaving dozens of synagogues in north-east London's Stamford Hill will hurry home in groups, keeping an eye out for strange cars and taking care not to leave anyone on their own. For the large Jewish population in this part of the city has been subjected to a series of vicious attacks in the past six weeks. Eight orthodox Jewish men, mostly youths in their teens and early 20s, easily recognisable because of their strict dress code...

Somali militiamen have begun building a mosque on the site of an Italian colonial-era cemetery in Mogadishu, which they desecrated last week. The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan saw a small corrugated metal structure amid the coffins which litter the area. He says the capital has been very tense since the armed militia group occupied the cemetery last week. The Italian government has described the graves' desecration as barbaric. The decision to build a mosque has been condemned by many local residents, as well as by local Islamic authorities. Remains dumped The militia exhumed the human remains of some 700 graves...

MOGADISHU, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Somali militiamen, allied with Islamic clerics who rule by sharia law, have dug up hundreds of skeletons from an Italian colonial-era cemetery and thrown them in the trash, sparking anger in the Italian and Somali capitals. The motive for the mass exhumation by gunmen allied with the clerics who rule northern Mogadishu remained unclear on Friday. Witnesses said hundreds of corpses were dug up over the past five days and thrown away at a dump near Mogadishu's airport, which drew a strongly worded protest from Rome. "The profanation of a silent and historical place, sacred...

Along with the challenges facing Indonesia after the December 26 tsunami, Christians in Indonesia are continuing to be confronted with difficulties in this predominantly Muslim nation. According to VOM sources in Indonesia, three new churches have been threatened with closure when the head of the North Grogol community where they are located accused the churches of disturbing the community, as well as meeting illegally in business buildings. The three churches, Abraham Camp Church (GKA), Bellezza Indonesia Bethel Church (GBI) and GKRI Karmel, confirmed that the meeting halls could be used for business or other purposes, including religious meetings. The pastor...