https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13851/christians-persecution-january
Police “behaved with the priests as they would with killers.” — Human rights lawyer, Minya, Egypt.
“The common factor among all [church] closures, however, is that they were done to appease fundamentalists and extremists to the detriment of the Copts. It appears to indicate that extremists now hold the upper hand, and appeasing them is the easy way out of problems…” — The local Christian bishopric, Minya, Egypt.
When it comes to offering asylum, the UK “appears to discriminate in favour of Muslims” instead of Christian minorities from Muslim nations. Statistics confirm this allegation: “out of 4,850 Syrian refugees accepted for resettlement by the Home Office in 2017, only eleven were Christian, representing just 0.2% of all Syrian refugees accepted by the UK.” — Nicholas Hellen, Barnabas Fund, January 20, 2019, United Kingdom.
A New Zealand government spokesman said that refugees were considered for resettlement on the basis of “their protection needs and not religious affiliation.” However, considering that the Islamic State regularly targets people based on their “religious affiliation” suggests that Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities have more “protection needs” than Muslims.
Massacres Inside Churches and Attacks on Them
Philippines: On Sunday, January 27, Islamic militants bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral during Mass. At least 20 people were killed and 111 wounded. Two explosives were detonated about a minute apart in the vicinity of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo at around 8:45 a.m. According to one report, “The initial explosion scattered the wooden pews inside the main hall and blasted window glass panels, and the second bomb hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the cathedral.”
Photos on social media showed human bodies and remains strewn on the street just outside the building. The officiating priest, Fr. Ricky Bacolcol, “was still in shock and could not speak about what happened,” to quote a colleague. After the first bomb detonated, army troops and police posted outside the cathedral rushed in, then a second bomb went off. Fifteen of the slain were civilians; five military men; 90 of the wounded were civilians. The cathedral, located in a Muslim-majority area, was heavily guarded: it had been hit before. In 2010, grenades had been hurled at it twice, damaging the building; and in 1997, Bishop Benjamin de Jesus had been gunned down just outside the cathedral. The Islamic State claimed the attack, and adding that the massacre had been carried out by “two knights of martyrdom” against a “crusader temple.”
