RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13582/pope-silence-persecution-christians

Unfortunately, Pope Francis’s stance on Islam seems to be coming from a fantasy world.

“Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence”, the Pope claimed, not quite accurately. It is as if all of the Pope’s efforts have been directed to exonerating Islam from any of its responsibilities. He seems to have been doing this even more than observant Muslims — such as Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, American author and physician M. Zuhdi Jasser, former Kuwaiti Information Minister Sami Abdullatif Al-Nesf, French-Algerian author Razika Adnani, Paris-based Tunisian philosopher Youssef Seddik, Jordanian journalist Yosef Alawnah, and Moroccan author Rachid Aylal, among many others — have been doing.

“Pope Francis could in no way be ignorant of the heavy problems caused by the expansion… at the very heart of the Christian domain… Let us note this again… the last religion that arrived in Europe has an intrinsic impediment to integrating into the European framework that is fundamentally Judeo-Christian…” – Boualem Sansal, Algerian author, in his best-selling book “2084.”

Pope Francis now faces the potential risk of a Christian world physically swallowed by the Muslim crescent — as on the Vatican logo chosen for the Pope’s upcoming trip to Morocco. It is time the appeasement is replaced.

4,305 Christians were killed simply because their Christian faith in 2018. This is the dramatic number contained in the new “World Watch List 2019” just compiled by the non-governmental organization Open Doors. It reveals that in 2018, there were 1,000 more Christian victims — 25% more — than the year before, when there were 3,066.

These days, 245 million Christians in the world are apparently persecuted simply for their faith. Last November, The organization Aid to the Church in Need released its “Religious Freedom Report” for 2018 and reached the a similar conclusion: 300 million Christians were subjected to violence. Christianity, despite stiff competition, has been called “the most persecuted religion in the world”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13630/persecution-converts-christianity

“[F]or millions of Christians — particularly those who grew up Muslim or were born into Muslim families — openly following Jesus can have painful consequences. They can be treated as second-class citizens, discriminated against for jobs or even violently attacked.” — Open Doors, World Watch List 2019.

“The root of the problem is that the existence and functions of Protestants and other non-Muslim groups are seen as a threat by the government institutions. And therefore, it is believed that all their activities should be banned.” — 2008 Report: “The Question of Places of Worship for the Protestant Community of Turkey,” prepared by the Legal Committee of the Alliance of Protestant Churches of Turkey.

Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan are all secular on paper. Yet, “the police, secret service and local authorities strictly monitor religious activities, with state authorities regularly raiding non-registered churches. In general, the Islamic culture makes life for Christian converts particularly difficult, but indigenous Christians with a Muslim background bear the brunt of persecution from the state and family, friends and community.” — Open Doors, World Watch List 2019.

“While Christians are indeed experiencing a ‘life of hell’ in North Korea, overthrowing Kim Jong-un’s regime could not only lead to a quick halt to this persecution but also to a rise of Christianity — as has happened recently in Russia… Unlike the persecution of Christians in Communist nations, persecution of Christians is perennial, existential, and… far transcends any ruler or regime. It unfortunately seems part and parcel of the history, doctrines, and socio-political makeup of Islam — hence its tenacity and ubiquity. It is a ‘tradition.'” — Raymond Ibrahim.

According to the human rights organization Open Doors, the number of Christians in the world subjected to persecution — 245 million — is 14% higher than it was a year ago.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13668/iran-pink-lines

Europeans, including British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, delude themselves in believing that by “working with Iran” they could prevent the Islamic Republic from “crossing the red lines.”

The problem is that the Islamic Republic does not cross those real or imaginary “red lines”. Like the now-defunct Soviet Union in its time, the Islamic Republic’s strategy is to cross only “pink lines”. The Islamic Republic has no troops in Yemen but manages to keep that tragedy going by helping Houthi rebels hang on to the patch of territory they hold.

In the EU countries, Tehran is careful not to cross “red lines”. But, it crosses “pink lines” when it can through mosques, hussainiyahs, religious endowments and fake charities. In Britain alone, the Islamic Republic controls at least a dozen tax-exempt “charities”, often used for financing violent groups across the globe or simply for money laundering.

Talk to any senior European Union official and you are sure to hear the Islamic Republic in Iran designated as “a threat to regional stability.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorses Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Iranian behavior as “unacceptable.”

French President Emmanuel Macron insists that Iran should carry out UN resolutions by closing its ballistic missile project. And, yet, EU’s Iran policy, assuming such a thing exists, is plagued by contradictions.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/02/theresa-may-invokes-jeremy-corbyns-support-pledges-battle-britain/

Theresa May has invoked the support of Jeremy Corbyn to insist the EU must offer concessions on her Brexit deal, as she pledges to “battle for Britain” when she travels to Brussels to re-open negotiations.

Writing in The Telegraph, Mrs May states that although the Labour leader refused to support her in the Commons last week, he also believes that the controversial Irish backstop “needs to be addressed with Brussels”.

Mrs May suggests that she will seek either an “alternative” to the backstop, or a time limit or unilateral exit mechanism to prevent the UK from being trapped in EU’s structures indefinitely – both of which have already been publicly rejected by Brussels.

But pledging that she will return to the city with “new ideas and a renewed determination” Mrs May also calls for unity in the Commons, stating: “If we stand together and speak with one voice, I believe we can find the right way forward.”

And she insists she remains “determined” to deliver Brexit “on time”, on March 29, despite public and private calls from MPs and ministers for a delay.

She warned campaigners for a second referendum to “put your efforts behind securing a better Brexit for all of us. Because the UK is leaving the EU.”

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/02

Britons voted on a very simple question: Leave the EU or stay? Now, after unsatisfactory negotiations, not to mention deliberate prevarication, there is talk of a second referendum that would see Remain once again on the ballot. If no resolution is found, is the the Queen not obliged to defend the people’s will?

Bill Shorten has promised a plebiscite on the “Australian Republic” in his first term, a pledge that fills this lapsed republican with anxious dismay — lapsed because the debate about the Australian Head of State has been so corrupted that, were a republic to come about, it would be a divisive moment, not a uniting one. With the current head of the Australian Republican Movement a grandstanding social justice warrior and all-round goose on constitutional matters, the only way to avoid the upwelling of poisonous social-media vituperation and the brandishing of identity politics is to spurn the debate altogether.

What prompts this thought about our own situation is the current impasse in Britain with regard to implementing the will of the people as expressed in the Brexiteers’ victory at the ballot box. I wonder, does the Monarch have a role to play? Parliament exists to give effect to the will of the people, whose interests the Queen was crowned with the responsibility to defend. If the Commons acts against the express and unequivocally stated desire of her subjects then it undermines one of Britain’s and, indeed, all the Western democracies’ fundamental tenets: representative government.

Let’s first examine if the British Parliament is acting against the will of the people. In 2016, after the largest voter turnout in UK history, the decision was made to leave the EU. There were no if or buts, no caveats. The referendum question was simplicity itself:

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?