Tag Archives: Christian Persecution

Young Egyptian Boy’s Prayer For Iraq Goes Viral

The sound of a small, fragile little boy’s voice is being passed around the world to remind people to pray for persecuted Christians in Iraq.

The boy, known only as Mario, lives in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt.  He is a regular watcher of an Arabic Christian television satellite network called SAT-7 KIDS.  He called into a show because he wanted to pray for the families in Iraq because he was hurting for them even though they were hundreds of miles away.

This is Mario’s prayer translated into English:

“We thank you for extending your glory to everything in our lives, Lord…

We pray for Iraq and all the Arab countries, they’re in your hand, Lord. Let there be peace and forgiveness, oh Lord, in terms of those who are doing bombings. Watch over the innocent people…

Even those killing others, you love them very much. You wait for them that they may come back to you again, oh Lord.

Lord Jesus, you said, ‘Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Yes, Lord. May we come back to you in everything, Lord Jesus.

Whether it be a small problem or a big problem, whether it be among nations or something material, or anything. If it be household problems, you will be glorified, Lord Jesus.

I thank you for hearing and answering us. Amen.”

The World Evangelical Alliance had called on Christians worldwide to focus on Christians and other minorities being persecuted by Islamic terrorists in Iraq.

Islamic Terrorists Cut 5-Year-Old Christian Boy In Half

The Islamic extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has committed a horrific war atrocity that was caught on video:  the cutting in half of a 5-year-old Christian boy.

The boy, named Andrew, was the child of a founding member of St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad.  He was slaughtered in 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.”

The family had fled to Qaraqosh, which had been under the protection of Kurdish fighters.  However, the Islamic State overran the Kurdish fighters and slaughtered as many Christians as they could capture as the believers fled the city.

The dead boy’s parents and brother were able to make it to the city of Arbil, which President Obama said would be under the protection of the U.S. military because of the U.S. consulate being located in the town.

The Christian Post reports that Iraqi church leaders have asked for the world to pray for them and to send money so they can purchase supplies, food and clothing for the tens of thousands of Christians fleeing the terrorists.

Alabama County Rejects Anti-Christianists Opposed To “In God We Trust” Plaque

County commissioners in Mobile County have stood up to anti-Christianists furious that they posted a plaque with the national motto, “In God We Trust.”

The Mobile County Commission had voted in June 2-1 to display the national motto in the Government Plaza despite the outcry of anti-Christianists who said that any reference to God is automatically endorsing Christianity.

“I strongly urge the commission to reject the display ‘In God We Trust’,” anti-Christianist Amanda Scott told the Commissioners. “It would only serve to divide Mobile on religion when we’re already so divided on other issues.”

Commissioner Jerry Carl said that the word “God” is universal to multiple faiths and that it doesn’t designate a specific faith.

Anti-Christianists and other groups responded by attempting to pay for plaques that would promote their views over everyone else but the Commissioners rejected them all, instructing those who have an issue with the national motto to take it up with Congress.

Judge Orders Ten Commandment Display Removed

A federal judge has ordered the city of Bloomfield, New Mexico to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from city property in response to a lawsuit from anti-Christianists.

U.S. District Judge James A. Parker issued a ruling that the 3,000 pound monument violated the First Amendment because its existence meant a government “establishment of religion.”

“In view of the circumstances surrounding the context, history, and purpose of the Ten Commandments monument, it is clear that the City of Bloomfield has violated the Establishment Clause because its conduct in authorizing the continued display of the monument on City property has had the primary or principal effect of endorsing religion,” he wrote in his ruling.

The monument was placed in 2011 after the city passed a resolution allowing private citizens the right to post historical displays at the Bloomfield City Hall.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city to make sure the reference to Judaism and Christianity was removed from public view.

“I am surprised and had never really considered the judge ruling against it because it’s a historical document just like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights,” Mayor Scott Eckstein said to the Farmington Daily Times. “The intent from the beginning was that the lawn was going to be used for historical purposes, and that’s what the council voted on.”

Anti-Christians Threaten To Sue Missouri National Guard

An anti-Christian organization is threatening to sue the Missouri National Guard because a display of Bibles was located on a base.

The anti-Christian American Humanist Association had a lawyer send a threatening letter to the Missouri National Guard demanding the removal of a display of Gideon Bibles from the General Services Administration building in St. Louis.

The AHA claims that the Bibles in a government building “represents a clear breach of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.”

“The machinery of the U.S. military … is being used to distribute Bibles,” the letter claims. “ … The religious endorsement is particularly egregious in this case because unlike in many of the school cases where private citizens distributed the Bibles, the government is the entity distributing the Bibles here.”

The Bibles are available for someone to take if they want them but they are not given to soldiers nor are soldiers required to take them.  Various courts have permitted similar placement of Bibles across the nation.

However, the anti-Christianists say the mere existence of the Bibles is coercion.

Iraqi Terrorists Seize Iraq’s Biggest Christian Community

Tens of thousands of Christians fled northern cities Thursday as the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria launched an offensive into Christian communities in the mostly autonomous Kurdish region.

The assault was so significant that Kurdish fighters who were protecting the Christian villages were forced to flee with the residents.

“The Nineveh plain yesterday was emptied of its people,” Tal Keif Mayor Bassem Bello told the Wall Street Journal. “There is not a Christian town left standing.”

Bello said that 30,000 Christian residents of the city fled overnight toward cities further into the Kurdish region hoping to find protection by Kurdish militia.

The terrorist group has been on a roll of successful attacks since they overran the defenses of the city of Mosul in early June.  The group has been taking surrounding towns, destroying churches and any buildings or emblems of Christianity or Judiasm.  They also issued commands to any residents remaining in the communities to convert to Islam or be killed.

The insurgents posted videos online of destroying Christians and Jewish homes while shouting “allahu akbar.”

Lebanese TV Station Adds Arabic “N” To Support Christians In Iraq

A Lebanese TV station has added the Arabic letter “N” to their name as a show of solidarity with the persecuted Christians of Iraq.

A news anchor that wore a T-shirt during an evening newscast emblazoned with the letter made the announcement.  Arabic language speakers pronounce the letter “N” as “noon”.

“From Mosul to Beirut, we are all Noon,” anchor Dima Sadeq said.  “We are all targets to be pointed at with a finger or a sword because we’re different, whether in terms of sex, religion or color of our skin. We are all targets of murder in this insane era. The era of radicals, dictatorships and Israel’s hatred. Only here [in the region,] are children killed on beaches, churches closed down, mosques raided, shrines of prophets destroyed.”

Viewers of the TV station flooded phone lines and websites with positive responses.

The letter has become a symbol of solidarity with Christians in Iraq because the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria sprays the letter on the homes and businesses of Christians.  The letter was chosen because it’s the first letter in Nazarene, the term they use for followers of Christ.

The exodus of Christians from the northern parts of Iraq has reached levels that some major cities have virtually no Christians left.  The city of Mosul does not have a single operating church within its borders.

Overland Park Pays $50,000 For Violating Rights of Christians

The city of Overland Park, Kansas has learned a very expensive lesson about violating the religious freedom of Christians.

The city has paid $50,000 in legal fees after a court ruled the violated the rights of Christians who were handing out materials about their soccer camp at a city-owned soccer complex.  The city had banned Victory Through Jesus Sports Ministries from handing out flyers on the sidewalk.  The U.S. District Court ruled that there was no difference between those sidewalks and any other public sidewalk.

Gordon Hunjak of Victory Through Jesus Sports Ministries filed suit after they were threatened with arrest for continuing to hand out the materials.  The city then passed a law saying that the soccer park and surrounding area was “a non-public forum.”

The city’s defense to the court was that they were trying to control litter and the flow of pedestrian traffic into the facility.  The court said if that was really the case, the response of the city was excessive.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Hunjak, said in a statement that the case should warn other cities that it is important to respect the religious freedom of citizens.

Kerry Spotlights Pastor Saeed Abedini

Secretary of State John Kerry is highlighting the case of Pastor Saeed Abedini as an example of Christian persecution in the Middle East.

“In Iran, U.S. Iranian citizen Pastor Saeed Abedini remains imprisoned. The Iranian authorities sentenced him to eight years behind bars simply because of his religious beliefs. We will continue to call for his release and we will continue to work for it,” Kerry stated.

The American Center for Law and Justice, who has been working to get Pastor Abedini freed, released a statement saying they were thankful that the Secretary of State was finally paying real attention to the case.

Kerry was speaking about the State Department 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom.

“On several occasions, however, senior U.S. government officials, including the President and the Secretary of State, raised directly with their Iranian counterparts the case of Christian pastor and dual U.S.-Iranian national Saeed Abedini, who is being held on charges related to his religious beliefs, and called for his release,” the report states.  “The Department of State also publicly called for the release of Mr. Abedini and other prisoners held on religious grounds.”

Prayer vigils around the country are planned on September 26th, the two-year anniversary of Abedini’s unlawful imprisonment.

End of Christianity Near In Iraq

A Christian leader in Iraq says the disappearance of all Christians from Iraq is “very near.”

Canon Andrew White, the vicar of the only Anglican church left in Iraq, says that as Islamic terrorists continue their campaign against those of other faiths, the Christian population is fleeing for other nations.

“Are we seeing the end of Christianity? We are committed come what may, we will keep going to the end, but it looks as though the end could be very near,” White told the Christian Post. “The Christians are in grave danger. There are literally Christians living in the desert and on the street. They have nowhere to go.”

The terrorists attempting to overthrow the Iraqi government killed 31 people in a homicide bomb attack last week.  They’ve driven all but a few hundred Christians out of the city of Mosul, where the remainder has been forced to pay high taxes.  However, worship in the city has ended.

“We have at least 25 churches in [Mosul],” Syriac Patriarch Ignace Joseph Ill Younan said.  “All are abandoned.  No more prayers, no services, no more Masses on Sundays in Mosul because no clergy, no people there that are Christian.”