"'This is an extremely dangerous development that puts Pastor Saeed's life at grave risk," ACLJ chief counsel Jay Sekulow said. "Not only is Pastor Saeed facing threats from Iranian militants who have imprisoned him because of his Christian faith, he now faces new and perhaps even more dangerous threats from Iraqi ISIS prisoners who want to murder Pastor Saeed because of his faith. We call on President Obama and Secretary [of State John] Kerry to intervene immediately to secure Pastor Saeed's release and to ensure that he is protected during this transfer to freedom. Pastor Saeed, who is approaching his second year of imprisonment in Iran, must be returned to his family without delay...'"
"Saeed Abedini, the American pastor imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith, has received death threats from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists being held in the same prison, the American Center for Law and Justice reported today (Aug. 13).
"'This is an extremely dangerous development that puts Pastor Saeed's life at grave risk," ACLJ chief counsel Jay Sekulow said. "Not only is Pastor Saeed facing threats from Iranian militants who have imprisoned him because of his Christian faith, he now faces new and perhaps even more dangerous threats from Iraqi ISIS prisoners who want to murder Pastor Saeed because of his faith. We call on President Obama and Secretary [of State John] Kerry to intervene immediately to secure Pastor Saeed's release and to ensure that he is protected during this transfer to freedom. Pastor Saeed, who is approaching his second year of imprisonment in Iran, must be returned to his family without delay...'"
0 Comments
Islamic extremists from Somalia, upset that a Christian widow would not send her children to a Muslim school, attacked her and seek to kill her because she reported the assault to police, community members said. Hadiya Ali (surname withheld), 51, said she has had to move house before in the face of violence from her Somali countrymen; two of her adult sons were beaten unconscious as “apostates” in separate assaults by Somali Muslims in Nairobi in 2011. Now she listens to her children implore her to move the family again.
“Please Mum, get us a house elsewhere lest we are killed here,” her 16-year-old daughter tells her. Having fled Somalia more than 10 years ago after the death of her husband, Hadiya still has six school-age children – two from remarriage, though her second husband recanted his Christian faith amid a wave of persecution and returned to Somalia in 2010 – and they live in fear. No fewer than 10 Islamic elders visited her to warn that she was risking her life by filing a case on the attack. After the assailants were released on bail, a neighbor pleaded with her to tell police that her life was in danger. Hadiya returned home from a market in the Bulbul area north of Nairobi on the evening of June 28 to find eight Somali Muslims outside her house. One of them, she noticed, was a former neighbor from an area she had left three months before because Muslim neighbors had been questioning her children about her whereabouts when she left for church. Unlike many Somali immigrants who meet in secret fellowships because they are considered Muslim for having been born in Somalia and therefore are now “apostates,” Hadiya openly attends a large undisclosed church in Nairobi. After she entered her house, her 16-year-old daughter (name withheld) told her that the group outside – three men and five women – appeared to be armed. Hadiya immediately locked the doors; during the recent Islamic ceremonial month of Ramadan, Muslims in the area had pressured her to take her children to a madrassa (Islamic school). The neighbor from her previous home where she had lived for three years, identified only as Mohammed, and a sheikh (Islamic teacher) had offered to sponsor two of her children, ages 10 and 6, so that they could attend the Islamic school, Hadiya told Morning Star News. They pressured her to buy the children clothes that met the Islamic dress code, she said. Two days later, the Islamic teacher arrived for a follow-up visit with Hadiya. She refused to comply with the sheikh’s demand, and she said he angrily accused her of “ruining the children.” Hadiya told him that she had not requested any sponsorship for her children to attend the Islamic school. Shortly after she entered her house the evening of June 28, the group knocked on the door. Hadiya told them it was late in the evening and that they meet in the morning. The group grew furious, broke through the door and forced their way inside, she said. “I hid myself under the bed as two women got into my bedroom and pulled me out, dragging me on the floor to the sitting room,” Hadiya said. “Mohammed strangled me, while one lady knifed me on my left leg near the foot, while another [Mohammed] hit me in my stomach. My daughter tried to rescue me but was overpowered and injured her hand during the struggle.” Hadiya fell down unconscious and bleeding near the door, her daughter said, adding, “I screamed for help, and neighbors arrived to rescue us.” Once outside, the daughter said, the assailants began shouting, saying, “You are ruining the children, making them kafir [infidel]. We will burn this kafir. The sign of the cross has been stamped on her buttocks. This kafir has been converting our Muslim women to Christianity. You have been following this bad religion for many years, but still you are very poor.” The assailants lingered outside the house for two hours, discussing how to kill Hadiya and her children, Hadiya said. Her daughter called a family friend, a lecturer at Africa International University (name undisclosed for security reasons) to help them leave the place. At 1 a.m., the friend arrived. She took Hadiya to a nearby medical clinic, and later into her home. The following day Hadiya recorded a statement at Bulbul police station. The police started looking for the attackers and arrested three suspects: Mohammed and two others identified only as Fatima and Halima. The others had absconded. The area chief and Muslim elders were said to have provided bail of US$200 for the release of the three attackers. The friend told Morning Star News she provided accommodation for Hadiya and her family for a week, taking care of their basic needs for shelter, food and medication. When Hadiya returned home, she learned that the assailants had been released. She went back to the police station to complain, she said. When she returned home from the station, 10 Muslim elders arrived. They warned her that she should drop the case or she would be risking her life, she said. “Since then, things have been very difficult for me,” Hadiya said. “I feel a lot of pain in my stomach. The doctors are suspecting that my spleen might have been affected. I sometimes faint. A scan is needed.” A neighbor (name undisclosed for security reasons) recently visited the family and informed them that hard-line Muslims were planning to kill her. “Muslims will kill you, please go to the police station and report that your life is in danger,” the neighbor told Hadiya. Hadiya appeared traumatized as she spoke of her ordeal. If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at http://morningstarnews.org/donate/? ### © 2014 Morning Star News. Articles/photos may be reprinted with credit to Morning Star News. Morning Star News is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that relies solely on contributions to offer original news reports of persecuted Christians. By providing reliable news on the suffering church, Morning Star News’ mission is to empower those in the free world to help and to encourage persecuted Christians that they are not forgotten or alone. For free subscription or to make tax-deductible donations, contact editor@morningstarnews.org, or send check to Morning Star News, 24310 Moulton Parkway, Suite O # 157, Laguna Hills, CA 92637, USA. "The U.S. Navy is reportedly removing all Bibles from hotels that are located on bases, a decision that has upset religious military members and families. The Navy is bowing to the demands of atheist group Freedom From Religious Foundation (FFRF), that filed a complaint with the organization..."
"...Ron Crews, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty executive director said, "This is just one more assault by military leaders against anything Christian. It's getting tiresome to see senior military leaders cave in to those who appear to be offended by Christians, by Christian symbols and now by the Bible itself.'" "It’s bad enough fleeing one time for your life, never mind four. But for some, trekking into a civil war zone in Syria is safer than staying where they are. Over the weekend, over 200,000 displaced Iraqis Christians, Shiite Muslims, and adherents of Shabak faith crossed the border into Syria to escape the ISIS violence in Iraq.
"Baptist Global Response Executive Director Jeff Palmer confirms, “What we’re trying to do is help people who have gone back and forth. Imagine that you’re in a place where you think you’re safe: you’ve already fled home, and then you’ve got to go back to that place. It’s just extremely confusing and extremely hard on the families.” "Palmer explains that some of these Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are Iraqi Christians who fled to Syria two or three years ago, left Syria when civil war broke out, and headed back to Iraq. Now, as jihadists advance, tens of thousands of these IDPs are on the move. So desperate is their situation, they have sought safety in a country aflame in a civil war. Palmer says, “It’s extremely hard for the aid givers, like us, to keep up with where folks are and where they need the help the most.” "Islamic State militants warn people should convert to their version of Islam, pay religious tax, flee, or face death. They have left a trail of brutalized corpses in the wake of towns they conquer. Palmer warns that will continue. “You’ve got a group that is looking at setting up its own government, its own military, and its own state. It’s not just in one country: it crosses borders...'” "Islamic State (IS) militants have reached a new level of terrorism as the Muslim extremists have began systematically killing Christians in a mass genocide. According to respected Chaldean-American businessman Mark Arabo, the militants hang men, rape and kill women and behead children.
“'They are systematically beheading children, and mothers and fathers...There’s actually a park in Mosul that actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick,” Arabo told CNN. “'This is a genocide in every sense. They are killing every Christian they see...'” "Four young FEBC (Far East Broadcasting Company) volunteers who were recently captured by pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine were brutally beaten to death simply for being Christians, according to a report from the organization last week.
“'These men volunteered for FEBC with zeal, passionately helping to spread the Gospel throughout Ukraine,” the organization reported. We are deeply saddened and shocked...'” "A 5-year-old boy, who's the son of a founding member of St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad, was slaughtered by Islamic State terrorists, better known as ISIS, who cut the boy in half during an attack on the Christian town of Qaraqosh.
"'I'm almost in tears because I've just had somebody in my room whose little child was cut in half," Anglican Canon Andrew White of St. George's Church told the Anglican Communion News Service Friday. "I baptized his child in my church in Baghdad. This little boy, they named him after me — he was called Andrew." "Christian refugees who fled to Qaraqosh seeking shelter in the Christian town were forced to flee again by the tens of thousands Thursday as Islamic State forces began invading the peshmerga-controlled regions of the country. "The deceased boy's parents and brother, George, who's named after the Anglican church in Baghdad, have reportedly fled with other Christians to the city of Arbil where the U.S. consulate is located, which President Barack Obama said would be protected by the U.S. military through targeted airstrikes against Islamic State convoys..."
Iraq's Religious Minorities Still in Danger as Fighting Continues and International Help Arrives 08/10/2014 Washington, D.C. International Christian Concern The United States military continued its operations on Saturday to provide air support to drive back the fighters from the Islamic State (IS, or ISIS) who continue to wage war across northwestern Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to more than 1.5 million people who have been forced from their homes. So far in its operations the U.S. has carried out three waves of airstrikes. The latest round included four operations targeted at protecting the Yazidi religious minorities who fled into the Sinjar mountains. Tens of thousands have been stranded in the hills without food or water. In addition to the air strikes, U.S. troops have also used cargo planes to drop dozens of pallets loaded with drinking water and food to families trapped on the mountains. Efforts are ongoing to open up a secure passage out of the mountains, westward to a secure location across the Syrian border. In a press conference on Saturday, President Obama said that the U.S. operations could continue for months, but repeated his assurances that he does not intend to put soldiers on the ground. Along with the U.S. relief operations by the military and USAID, numerous international actors are also providing aid, according to the UN. Saudi Arabia has committed large amounts of funds to relief, along with promises from the UK and France to send much needed goods to support these displaced communities. ICC's partners and contacts on the ground continue to report on the desperate situations they see around them and the overwhelming needs that they are unable to fully meet. "They have nothing. They have been looted," Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako told ICC on Saturday. "[They need] foods, water, medicines and a shelter," he continued, describing how many refugees had immediate needs for basic necessities. For interviews, contact Todd Daniels, Regional Manager for the Middle East: RM-ME@persecution.org # # # You are free to disseminate this news story. We request that you reference International Christian Concern (ICC) and include our web address, www.persecution.org. ICC is a Washington D.C.-based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441. "An Iranian pastor has been arrested for "Moharebeh," which means enmity against God, a crime that can be punishable by death. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), Pastor Matthias Haghnejad was arrested July 5, after Iranian security forces raided his home in Karaj and confiscated Bibles, pamphlets and his personal computer.
"'We urge the Government of Iran to end its harassment of Pastor Matthias, said CSW's Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas..." "...Christian Today reports the 2013 Islamic Penal Code prohibits the death sentence for Moharebeh unless a weapon is used to commit a crime, however, officials have previously executed eight men for Moharebeh, including a poet and a cultural rights activist..." Children Of Imprisoned Pastor Saeed Abedini Plead To Obama For Father's Release by Russ Jones Christian Headlines "The children of American pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been in an Iranian prison for two years are pleading with President Obama to help secure the release their father. Abedini has been imprisoned in Iran and sentenced to eight years for his faith. Charisma News reports, “Abedini's children, 7-year-old Rebekka and 6-year-old Jacob, are begging President Obama to put an end to their father's misery.” "In the video that is now circulating the internet the child[ren] plead, "Dear President Obama, please help bring my daddy home.'” |
|