RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16985/persecution-of-christians-december

Muslim fighters tortured a 58-year-old Christian woman of Armenian descent by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet before finally executing her. — Medium.com, January 14, 2021, Artsakh.

As to why she was mutilated before being killed, jihadis often cite the Koran’s calls to cut off the hands, feet, and throats of infidels (e.g., Koran 5:33, 47:4). — Artsakh.

One of the survivors… managed to escape his home in time and hide in the outside bathroom: “through the ventilator of the latrine he saw the rebels killing 4 members of his family including his wife and 3 children.” — Virtueonline.org, December 3, 2020, Democratic Republic of Congo.

“My husband began reading verses in the Koran that allowed men to beat their wives if they disobey them, and after that he started beating me….” — Morning Star News, December 17, 2020, Uganda.

The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of December, 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: In a video that appeared on Dec. 29, Islamic terrorists executed five Christians. The footage shows five armed members of the Islamic State (West African province) standing behind five men dressed in orange suits, and on their knees with their arms tied behind their backs. The terrorists order each of the men to say their names and the hostages oblige, each adding, “I am a Christian.” One of the terrorists then says “This is a warning to Christians in all parts of the world and those in Nigeria…. Use the heads of these five of your brethren to continue with your ungodly celebrations,” a reference to Christmas. The five Muslims then open fire into the back of the Christians’ heads and kill them.

A few days earlier, on Christmas Eve, and into the early morning of Christmas Day, Muslim raiders terrorized a Christian village, where they slaughtered between seven and 11 people, including a 5-year-old, and kidnapped 11 more (it is believed that the five Christians who were executed on video were from among these 11). Riding on trucks and motorcycles, the jihadis opened fire indiscriminately, torched 10 homes and one church, and plundered the food supplies meant to be distributed on Christmas Day. Although traumatized, some Christians remained defiant. A text by Markus Bulus, a local, on Christmas Day states:

“Whatever Boko Haram planned against us has failed. Whatever it is, we shall still celebrate Christmas. Jesus, we’re so grateful this day even with the bad experience we had last night. We have nothing to offer as our thanksgiving, but we offer our hearts in deep supplication to your majesty on this Christmas Day.”

Elsewhere throughout month of December, Muslim Fulani herdsmen “killed 33 Christians, destroyed 18 homes and displaced more than 2,500 people.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16973/turkey-christians-abducted

“About 20 people who knew us wanted to help us with the searches, but the gendarmerie prevented them from coming…. and civilians were not allowed to help. If the permission required had been given, we would have found my mother right away….” — Father Remzi Diril, a priest of the Istanbul Chaldean Church and one of the couple’s sons, after his mother’s body was found bullet wounds in the head and back; interview with Milliyet, January 11, 2021.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Assyrians in southeast Turkey “suffered forced evictions, mass displacement and the burning down of their homes and villages.” They were exposed to severe persecution “including abductions (including of priests), forced conversions to Islam through rape and forced marriage, and murders. These pressures, and other more insidious forms of discrimination, have decimated the community.” — Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, Assyrians, updated June 2018.

Today, EU candidate and NATO member Turkey is still not willing or able to provide security and basic human rights for this persecuted minority.

One year after the abduction and disappearance of an elderly Christian couple in southeast Turkey, their children are still asking the Turkish authorities for help in locating their missing father and holding the perpetrators accountable.

Hurmuz Diril (72) and Şimuni Diril (65) are Assyrian Christians who lived in the village of Mehr/Kovankaya in Şırnak Province before their disappearance on January 11, 2020. Two months later, on March 20, Şimuni Diril was found dead by her children in a nearby river. There has since been no news concerning the whereabouts of Hurmuz Diril.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16984/iran-presidential-show

The aim, here, is exclusion rather than qualifications.

One fake university with an address in the island of Saba, in the Caribbean, has sold over 500 doctorates to Iranian officials for $25,000 apiece.

To complicate matters further, the conditions demand other qualifications that are hard if not impossible to measure…. For example, how do you prove “heartfelt belief in the necessity of religion” or “transparent hostility to the West” or “opposition to all seditions that have taken place against the Islamic Revolution”?

Things become more complicated when would-be candidates are asked to prove loyalty not only to the regime and all its policies but also to be committed to preserving all the existing institutions of the Islamic Republic. This means that those who dream of reforming let alone disbanding the High Council of Guardians of the Constitution or merging the Revolutionary Guard with the national army need not apply.

Perhaps to divert attention from here and now problems, such as the ravages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic meltdown, hyperinflation and rampant corruption, Tehran’s ruling elite have decided to give an early start to a presidential election expected to be held in June.