RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/victims-anti-christian-persecution-jack-kerwick/

Now that the year is behind us, Open Doors provides a recap of some of the most telling stories of global anti-Christian persecution from 2019.

It’s important to look at specific accounts of this endemic phenomenon, lest appeals to statistics, which despite being quite revealing themselves, threaten to obscure the ugliness of the suffering daily endured by Christians the planet over.

Anecdotal proof of this oppression also permits a study in contrasts between the religious bigotry to which Christians are subjected and that claimed on behalf of the members of other religious groups.

A third virtue to be had from familiarizing ourselves with victimized Christians is that it brings into focus the true nature of a Western media elite that is silent in the face of real anti-religious persecution while acting apoplectically when, say, it is Muslims who, upon allegedly being viewed suspiciously at an American airport, claim to have suffered “Islamophobia.”

Some genuinely, thoroughly, bad stuff has been happening to Christians in various parts of the world multiple times a day, every day, and for a very long time.

(1) Last year, on Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, Christians who were in the midst of their religious services in Sri Lanka experienced the bombing of three of their churches.   

Three hotels were also bombed.

Over 300 people were killed, with 176 children losing either one parent or both.

Islamic militants were responsible.

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2020/02/i-j-benjamin-on-jews-in-mid-19th-century-islamdom-versus-america-sharia-versus-freedom/

Israel Joseph (I.J.) Benjamin [1818-1864], was a “maggid”, an itinerant Jewish preacher, best known for his extensive first hand mid-19th century travelogue accounts of the Jewish communities of Africa and Asia (“Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855”), and subsequently, America (“Three years in America, 1859-1862”). Benjamin’s writings were supported by letters and various other memorabilia he collected during his journeys, and ultimately garnered contemporary approval as “truthful and simple narrative” accounts, by respected scholars of his era such as Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, andJulius Heinrich Petermann.

I am unaware of any direct juxtaposition of Benjamin’s observations on the condition of Jews in mid-19thcentury Islamdom, i.e., under the jurisdiction of Islamic Law, Sharia, relative to their simultaneous American experience. Extracts from “Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855”, and “Three years in America, 1859-1862”, allow direct, res ipsa loquitur comparisons of Jews living under Sunni Ottoman Sharia in their indigenous homeland of Israel (historical “Palestine”), as well as the Shiite Persian Sharia, versus American Constitutional law, while the United States, in addition, was a devoutly Christian country (i.e., in the mid-19th century words of Tocqueville, “there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”)

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15526/france-blasphemy-censorship

Today, in France, using freedom of expression to criticize Islam is clearly an extremely dangerous act, even if you, like Mila, are a child.

France is rapidly going from laïcité (secularism) to lâcheté(cowardice); from freedom of expression to unconditional surrender. France keeps trying to procrastinate while Islamism thrives on the elites’ rapidly abandoning their Judeo-Christian values.

Feminist organizations, so quick to denounce “toxic masculinity” and “patriarchal structures of domination”, were also silent.

Today, in France, the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system…. are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy.

France had just come out of the fifth anniversary of the massacre at its satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo than it was plunged into a similar case. On January 18, Mila O., a 16-year-old French girl, made insulting comments about Islam during an Instagram livestream.

“During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a ‘dirty lesbian’. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she ‘hates religion'”.

Mila continued, saying among other things:

“Are you familiar with freedom of expression? I didn’t hesitate to say what I thought. I hate religion. The Koran is a religion of hatred; there is only hatred in it. That’s what I think. I say what I think… Islam is sh*t… I’m not a racist at all. One cannot simply be racist against a religion… I say what I want, I say what I think. Your religion is sh*t. I’d stick a finger up your god’s a**h*le…”

What she said might be considered a bit raw, but does she have the right to say it? After all, Jews are called the descendants of pigs and apes without the speech police having a stroke.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15556/hassan-rouhani-mask

In the meantime, conscious of the fact that Iranians are suckers for real or fake academic titles, to enhance his persona, Rouhani enrolled in a British college in Glasgow to obtain a PhD in Islamic law. Thus, in a few years’ time, he was able to rebrand himself as Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the “moderate reformist with Western education.”

By the 1990s, in Western policy circles, Rouhani had acquired the reputation of “a man with whom we can work”.

Rouhani’s message, peddled by cronies including Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, is that the internal opposition and foreign powers worried about Iran should be patient and help “moderates” re-orient the storm-stricken ship of the regime towards calmer waters.

Will Rouhani’s scenario, for easing Khamenei off his pedestal, work? I doubt it. Rouhani may be a talented man of a thousand faces, but 40 years of experience has shown that every one of those faces turned out to be a mask.

Whatever one might think of Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one thing is certain: had things gone differently in Iran 40 years ago, he might have become a writer of penny-dreadfuls with provincial themes. Rouhani’s talent for fiction writing is demonstrated by the way he has reinvented himself over the decades.

In 1977, when the first rumbles of revolution roared in Iran, he was a student, going by the name of Hassan Fereidun, in England, seeking a degree in textile design.

A few months later, he re-named himself Rouhani, meaning spiritual or clerical. Fereidun was a Persian nationalistic name and would not do for a man plotting to cast himself as a champion of faith.

He then spent a few weeks of holidays taking classes in Shiite theology. In the meantime, he grew a beard and cast off Western clothes, thus creating a persona soon aggrandized by the claim which he minted that he was the first to grant Khomeini the title of Imam. Rouhani claims that he did so when addressing a memorial service for Khomeini’s son Mostafa, who had passed away in Iraq. There is, of course, no evidence that Rouhani was even present at the service which, incidentally was reported complete with a photo in the daily Kayhan.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/trumps_withdrawal_from_syria_may_be_a_disaster____for_iran_and_turkey.html

In December 2018, Trump ordered the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, where they’d been hard at work destroying the last military vestiges of ISIS, the one-time “JV team” that ignited a reign of terror across Iraq and Syria. The Democrat party and its lapdog media promised us that our Kurdish allies would be slaughtered and we’d be on the verge of yet another one of the many Trump initiated World Wars.

None of that happened, but it appears that two regimes hostile to American interests are at each other’s throats. And of course, it’s always preferable when one’s enemies turn their aggression towards each other.

The New York Times´ reporting from 2018 about Trump’s planned withdrawal is a good example of the concern the Democrats and the foreign policy establishment had that Trump would get America into war by getting America out of war:

In overruling his generals and civilian advisers, Mr. Trump fulfilled his frequently expressed desire to bring home American forces from a messy foreign entanglement. But his decision, conveyed via Twitter on Wednesday, plunges the administration’s Middle East strategy into disarray, rattling allies like Britain and Israel and forsaking Syria’s ethnic Kurds, who have been faithful partners in fighting the Islamic State.

Berserk Thai sergeant major is SHOT DEAD by security forces after killing his commanding officer and a fellow soldier over a financial dispute then shooting at least 19 at shopping mall while posting selfies on Facebook
Sergeant Major Jakrapanth Thomma went on a killing spree in Korat, 155 miles from Thai capital Bangkok
Thomma hijacked an army vehicle, shot an officer and soldiers, and sprayed a volley of bullets at civilians 
He’s then believed to have taken hostages at a shopping centre that Thai forces later tonight laid siege to
Rogue soldier was shot by Thai security forces after holing himself up in a basement for more than 14 hours  

https://spectator.us/terror-cells-britain-prisons-became-finishing-schools-extremists/

Sometimes it appears as if, over the past 10 years, the British government has been actively trying to destroy the whole criminal justice system. It’s like an evil experiment: impose a 20 percent cut in the prisons budget, meaning a 26 percent reduction in the number of operational front line staff — then sit back and see what happens. What happened was predictable, with disastrous consequences for both inmates and the public. As a previous Conservative home secretary once said, our prisons became places that ‘make bad people worse’.

Imagine a young man like Sudesh Amman arriving in prison after his first offense. He was already a drug user, known to have a cannabis habit. He was mentally unstable and radicalized by Islamist propaganda. He entered a prison that’s usually overcrowded, frequently filthy and with too few staff struggling just to keep people alive (themselves included) from one end of the day to the other.

Inside, all of his problems are not addressed but exacerbated. In most prisons there’s a rampant drugs economy that destroys lives and drives much of the violence. It makes the task of reforming offenders near impossible. The money to be made from drugs inside is extraordinary. The predators can access their customer base without leaving their cells. Mobile phones actually designed and sold for their ability to be stored where the sun don’t shine have handy apps to transfer the cash to the dealers. It’s also convenient for the dealers that many of the captive consumers have huge unmet needs with mental health problems. Finally, charismatic hate preachers are in close proximity to credulous, violent, addicted young men in search of meaning and excitement.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25160

Faruqi’s modern application of Islamic religious doctrine to “Abrahamic dialogue” has engendered a supremacist, jihadist and anti-Israel “interfaith” dialogue.

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Callista Gingrich, in an official January 16, 2020 written statement on the launching, at her residence, of the so-called “Abrahamic Faiths Initiative,” (AFI) opined, rapturously,

“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative serves as a powerful demonstration that, through fraternity, cooperation, and mutual respect between the Abrahamic faiths, peace in our world is possible.”

Last February, 2019, to commemorate the signing of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, in conjunction with a visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University—Sunni Islam’s Papal equivalent of its Vatican—UAE despot Sheikh Al-Nayan ordered the construction of the Abrahamic Family House on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. When Ambassador Gingrich gave her live remarks to the AFI at Villa Richardson on January 14, 2020, she acknowledged Grand Imam Tayeb’s signing of the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity” as critical inspiration for the initiative:

“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative was inspired in part by the seminal Document on Human Fraternity and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi last year.”

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/iranian-nationalists-reject-arabias-islamic-yoke

Iranian Nationalists Reject Arabia’s Islamic Yoke

The “average Iranian, though he may sympathize with the Palestinians, cannot identify with the Arabs, whom he regards as an ancestral foe,” Iranian expatriate author Amir Taheri has written. As this occasional series has previously explored, such national historical memories underline Iran’s conflicted relationship with Arabs and the Islamic faith that their past imperialism imposed…
www.jihadwatch.org

The “average Iranian, though he may sympathize with the Palestinians, cannot identify with the Arabs, whom he regards as an ancestral foe,” Iranian expatriate author Amir Taheri has written. As this occasional series has previously explored, such national historical memories underline Iran’s conflicted relationship with Arabs and the Islamic faith that their past imperialism imposed upon Iran and its ancient heritage.

“The early Islamic conquerors of the seventh century spread Islam and the Arabic language throughout the Persian Empire and attempted a wholesale replacement of the indigenous culture,” Middle East analyst Sarah Katz has noted. Iran scholars have observed that as the

conquest of most of Iran turned out to be permanent, Islam eventually spread among Iranians, and Arabic became the language of religion, literature, and science in Iran. In this respect the Muslim Arab conquest marks a major turning point in the history of Iran.

“Over time, most of the country’s population converted to Islam, but Persia’s historical and cultural legacy proved resilient,” Katz has noted, as at the aptly named Persians are not Arabs website. It has boasted that “Persians actually pride themselves that they fought to remain as Persians, not Arabs,” and “did everything to maintain their language when Egypt and other countries from north of Africa started to speak Arabic.” Iranian-American Amil Imani has concurred: “Unlike the Persians, the Egyptians became completely Arabized, and have little or no nostalgia for their ancient past. Islam has dominated the Egyptians’ lives.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15553/geert-wilders-show-trial

The emails indicate that Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself was involved in the decision to prosecute Wilders.

“Minister Van der Steur has deliberately withheld those documents, as is apparent from these documents. Moreover, it appears that another Justice Minister, Minister Opstelten, lied…” — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020

“Mr. Presiding Judge, the Minister of Justice interfered in detail with my conviction. The documents even state that the Ministry of Justice instructed the public prosecutor — you will find the word ‘instruct’ in the documents….” — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020

“And every day that this trial continues and you do not punish the conspiring prosecution, and the Ministry of Justice for their lies and haggling with the principles of an independent, fair and balanced trial, by declaring them inadmissible, every day this trial continues is a black day in the history of Dutch justice.” — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020

“In the Wilders case, we certainly do not have to rely on the judge to agree with Wilders and to reach the conclusion that there has been a political trial, which is therefore not legally valid…. Wilders case appears to have been pre-cooked in the cabinet itself…. [Prime Minister] Rutte himself was involved…. The lying and spinning must stop somewhere…. This rule of law, in which judges and prosecutors receive instructions by the politicians on how to act, is rotten from within.” – Joost Niemöller, Dutch Journalist, Ongehoordnederland.nl, February 5, 2020

Newly released documents show that senior members of the Dutch government — including the prime minister and two former justice ministers — applied political pressure on public prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV), for hate speech for comments he made about Islam and Moroccan immigrants.