Islam

World Watch List Reveals Nations Most Hostile to Christians

January 17, 2019 by GregC

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Communist North Korea is once against the world’s worst persecutor of Christians, but Islamic oppression is by far the greatest threat to believers around the globe according to the 2019 World Watch List from Open Doors USA.

The list of 50 nations also shows persecution sharply on the rise in prominent places like India, China, and Russia.

While persecution is on the rise in many parts of the world, Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. David Curry says North Korea is still home of the worst brutality.

“If people know you’re a Christian, you’ll be arrested, taken to a labor camp and (you’ll) probably die there. You’re not allowed to have a bible. They’re illegal. They consider Christians to be the number one enemy of the state,” said Curry.

Eight Islamic nations follow North Korea on the list – Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, and Iran – with Afghanistan just a whisker behind North Korea for the worst nation to live as Christians. India is now up to the 10th spot.

Curry says the growing strength of the Taliban makes life very difficult for believers in Afghanistan.

“There’s an underground church there but it’s very difficult for them to function,” said Curry. “They don’t have the prison systems that North Korea does. It’s more of a vigilante kind of a justice. If they find out you are a Christian, you’ll be expelled from the family. You could be beaten, killed, or raped,” said Curry.

Thirty-four of the fifty nations listed due to “Islamic oppression.” So why do those government feel threatened by their Christian minorities?

“The ideology is what it’s all about for them. They see Christians as apostates, as infidels. These are radical Islamic folks who have an agenda to impose their world view on everybody, including the West if they could,” said Curry.

And why is India so high on the list? Curry says the country has changed drastically in just a few years.

“The government has a radical Hindu agenda. They’re attacking Christians and there are hundreds of cases against Christians and churches in that country. They are good citizens, but it runs contrary to the BJP party’s nationalist Hindu agenda where they say you’re not an Indian unless you’re Hindu,” said Curry, noting that the government is even harassing Mother Teresa’s organization helping the poorest of the poor.

He believes a strong stand by American business leaders could make a big difference.

“I would love to see the business community in America – Amazon, Google, all these people that want to get access to that big population – look at their corporate charters. What does it mean that we’re doing so much business in India when they have such a horrible human rights pattern here over the last six years,” said Curry.

Two other very prominent nations rocketed up the list in 2019. China surged 16 spots to 27th, while Russia was off the list and is now at 41st. Curry says Russia is still plagued by Islamic violence in the Caucuses but he is also worried about new religious expression rules being implemented by the government.

He considers China the big story of this year’s list, noting President Xi Jinping’s efforts to consolidate more and more power in the state. He says the Communist Party is infiltrating the churches because the regime is fearful of the 100 million Christians there. Surveillance cameras are everywhere to monitor services and those refusing the cameras are shut down. So are any pastors refusing to follow the demands for how churches ought to function..

Listen to the full podcast to hear much more about the World Watch List. Dr. Curry explains why Christian women in these countries are the most vulnerable people in the world, where there is a major bright spot in the middle of the Islamic world, and what he hopes people do with this information. Dr. Curry also talks about the perseverance of believers in the midst of persecution and how churches in many of these nations continue to grow.

‘The Death of Free Speech’

November 6, 2018 by GregC

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In late October, a major European court ruled that punishing someone for defaming the Islamic figure Mohammed is not an infringement of free speech, a ruling that one expert says amounts to a slippery slope that end in “the death of free speech.”

Last month, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld a 2011 conviction of “Mrs. S” after she held two seminars in Austria called “Basic Information on Islam.” In the seminars, “Mrs. S” referred to Mohammed marrying a girl when she was six years old and consummating the marriage when she was nine.

In upholding the earlier conviction, which resulted in the equivalent of a $547 fine, the ECHR said it “found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant’s statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”

“Mrs. S” is really Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who is directly linked to the largest grassroots national security organization in the U.S.

“The ‘Mrs. S’ who the case was about is our chapter leader, ACT for America’s chapter leader, in Vienna. She heads up our international ACT for Austria,” said ACT for America President Brigitte Gabriel. She is also the author of the new book, “Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedom.”

She says the impact of this decision will be profound.

“What have seen in Europe basically is the death of free speech and it is coming here,” said Gabriel.

She says the United Nations is already pushing a similar resolution to criminalize anti-Islam speech through a resolution sponsored by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

And Gabriel says there is a direct link between Europe’s abandonment of Judeo-Christian values and the whittling away of fundamental freedoms.

“We are seeing the erosion of our Judeo-Christian values and freedoms, which are the bedrock of western civilization. This is exactly what made western civilization great. The fact that we are able to come together and debate ideas and walk away respecting each other, but able to learn from each other after a vigorous debate of ideas,” said Gabriel.

Listen to the full podcast as Gabriel explains how the erosion of values and freedom happened in Europe and why the U.S. will be the last line of defense in this fight.

‘The History of Jihad:’ Fourteen Centuries of Conflict

July 27, 2018 by GregC

From the response to the 9/11 attacks to the confronting of ISIS, Americans and other western leaders regularly refer to Islam as a “religion of peace,” but a new book contends the 1,400 years of Islam is a timeline awash in bloodshed and conflict.

Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer is author of the new book “The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.” He says there is a consistent attern of carnage since the earliest days.

“What I found is that through fourteen centuries, without any break, without any let-up, without any reformation or reconsideration, without any period of tolerance – although there are a lot of historical myths about that – Islam has been responsible for conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims for fourteen uninterrupted centuries,” said Spencer, who is quick to point out that most Muslims are not Jihadists.

“Obviously, not all Muslims are involved in this and not all of them approved of it. Nonetheless, in every century and in in every place in the world where there have been Muslims, there have been jihadis who thought that it was one of their responsibilities before Allah to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers,” said Spencer.

History books tell us that Islam was founded in 622 A.D. Mohammed died in 632. By 732, at the Battle of Tours in modern-day France, Charles Martel led a decisive Frankish victory against Muslim invaders who had already swept through North Africa and Spain.

But how did those invaders get from the Arabian Peninsula to the Atlantic coast within 100 years? Spencer says it was accomplished through violent conquest, and he contends most people who deny the violence perpetrated in the early years of Islam are arguing from a position of ignorance.

“People aren’t really aware of this history. This is one of the reasons why I wrote this book. The Islamic advance was incredibly swift. And not only did they get all the way to the Atlantic and to Spain within 100 years of the death of Mohammed, but they also went in the other direction, conquered one of the great powers of the day in Persia and went into India,” said Spencer.

Spencer says his book is the first work in the English language to detail the jihad against India, which he calls “an extraordinary and bloody story.”

In addition to those who don’t know the history, Spencer says others believe a false version of history.

“I think a lot of people take for granted the idea that there was some kind of mass conversion to Islam, that people were converting to it because they were convinced that it was true and that this is what was responsible for the Islamization of the Middle East and North Africa. That’s actually not the case. It was all done by conquest,” he said.

Spencer further asserts that ISIS is not the exception or some radical departure from Islam over the centuries. He claims ISIS looks much like jihadists throughout the past fourteen centuries.

“I show in the book there are movements like that all through Islamic history. Many of them were responsible for the conquest of Spain and its 700-year occupation by Islamic forces. Many of them have also been responsible for jihad warfare elsewhere. There was nothing new that ISIS did, nothing different. It was exactly the same in its beliefs as jihadis throughout history,” said Spencer.

Jihadists also played a key role in the first major military engagement of the United States when President Thomas Jefferson was forced to confront the Barbary Pirates off the coast of North Africa.

“They were jihadis, as I show in the book. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote a report to Congress about how the Moroccan ambassador had explained that they were fighting them because it was explained in the Quran and they felt they had a divine responsibility to do so,” said Spencer.

That conflict is also how U.S. Marines became known as “leathernecks.”

“They’re leathernecks because they wore leather collars that would prevent them from being beheaded. The (Marine Corps) song with the ‘shores of Tripoli’ was all about them facing the jihadis,” said Spencer.

In multiple speeches, President Obama stated Muslims have been a vital fabric of the United States from our very beginning. Spencer says other than being our first opponent in war, Obama’s assertions do not hold up.

“In terms that Obama’s claim that Muslims were in the United States and were involved in it since the founding; that’s complete historical fiction and has no basis in fact whatsoever,” said Spencer.

Today, Spencer believes the U.S. and other western nations make a habit of whitewashing the ugly history of jihadism.

“The West in general has had a drastically wrongheaded response to this threat and that’s primarily been characterized by simple denial. They just proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace and leave it at that. The most notorious example of that is George W. Bush right after 9/11,” said Spencer.

But if jihad is historical Islam, why do most Muslims not engage in it?

“Jihad is risky. You can get killed. You can get maimed. You can have all sorts of disasters happen to you. That takes a certain amount of courage. Not everybody is going to do it. Also, there are people simply not religious enough to care,” said Spencer, who suggests others do their work more surreptitiously these days.

“There are also people waiting and biding their time, working in other ways. The Muslim Brotherhood and other groups of its kind are working to achieve the same ends as jihad terrorists, which is Islamic (Sharia) law ruling the world but through different means: through elections, through civilizational change and so on,” said Spencer.

And while a majority of Muslims do not engage in jihad and many do not even condone it, Spencer says they could do much more to condemn it. He says those who do speak out against jihadists like ISIS get a tepid following at best.

“A few years back when ISIS was in it’s heyday, every now and again we’d see Muslims against ISIS rallies. Invariably, they only attracted about 25-50 Muslims. Whereas, rallies against cartoons of Mohammed drew 800,000 people in Chechnya, hundreds of thousands in Pakistan and Iran,” said Spencer.

Spencer says the first step in the solution is to call out jihadists for what they are.

“The first thing we need to do is to speak honestly about this problem, call upon Muslim groups in the West to renounce the aspects of Islam, including jihad warfare, that are at variance with the constitutional principles of the United States and, in general, the principles of western free nations,” said Spencer.

He says the U.S. and our western allies must take a stand because the past fourteen centuries show that the problem won’t go away on its own.

“Everywhere there have been large numbers of Muslims, there has been conflict. Here again, it’s not all Muslims or every Muslim but there are always some among the Muslims who believe they need to wage jihad against unbelievers. Why do we think we’re going to be exempt from this and that it’s not going to happen to us?” said Spencer. “It is.”

The British Battle on Terrorism

June 6, 2017 by GregC

Cherished freedoms make the fight against radical Islam more difficult in the United States and the United Kingdom but the battle can be won through the ideas and by putting an end to cultural coddling of radical ideologies, according to a terrorism expert with extensive ties to the UK.

Frustrations over recent, deadly terrorist attacks in London and Manchester are more aggravated by stories revealing one of the terrorists was featured in a documentary called “The Jihadis Next Door” and made no secret about his support for jihad and that more than 20,000 people in the UK are of concern to authorities.

However, Anglosphere Society Founder Amanda Bowman says rounding up these suspects is much tougher to do in a free society.

“The problem that we are dealing with in the United States and the United Kingdom is that you can’t actually detain people until they do something, because in our countries we respect the right to speak out,” said Bowman, who also ran the New York office of the Center for Security Policy for eight years.

“We are now, both in the U.S. and the UK and in western Europe, the victims of our own tolerant societies and what makes it so worthwhile to be American or to be British,” said Bowman.

But that tolerance has a limit, as British Prime Minister Theresa May said in the wake of the London attacks.

“There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out, across the public sector and across society. That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations,” said May.

Bowman says May is right on target but has also contributed to the problem at times.

“I think she in many ways has, like much of the UK, in the name of multiculturalism, has been tolerant for the intolerant,” said Bowman.

Bowman says there has to be much stronger resistance to the Islamist ideology behind the attacks.

“We tolerate the intolerable and we don;t stand up and make our values the values that they need to embrace if they want to be part of British society. That’s a lesson for Americans as well,” said Bowman.

Bowman says May has a tough balancing act in getting tough on radical Islam while also reaching out to Muslims for cooperation on who is actually planning to carry out deadly attacks. She says May and others should be pointing out that it is in the best interest of Muslims to root out the evil from their midst.

“What she’s recognizing she has to do is to galvanize the more tolerant Muslim population so that they take on this as their problem and not look upon it as our problem. They have to stand up and be British before they’re Muslim,” said Bowman.

A big part of that, says Bowman, is gutting the allure of terrorism.

“Part of the problem is that for a lot of these young people, it all seems very glamorous and it’s not. It’s just wicked and evil and deeply against everything we stand for,” said Bowman.

Bowman says it’s impossible for any nation to marshal the resources to monitor 20,000 people 24 hours a day, but she says having vigilant eyes in key places is important, especially in the mosques.

“If you see something in your mosque, say something. Much of this radicalization, while much of it is online, a great deal of it happens in the privacy of mosques with radical imams. The United Kingdom has allowed radical imams in the name of free speech to speak out and to galvanize and to inspire these terrible acts,” said Bowman.

Bowman does expect May and the Conservative Party to win Thursday’s parliamentary elections, but by a much narrower margin than if the London and Manchester attacks had not taken place. She says Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has his own issues in the wake of the attacks since he has aligned himself very publicly with some radical Islamic figures.

Thus, Bowman does not expect many May supporters to switch sides, but she does fear a substantial number will stay home.

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Trump’s Terrorism Speech, Virginia Looking Blue, Trump & the Sword Dance

May 22, 2017 by GregC

After offering an alternative explanation for why some graduates walked out of Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement speech at Notre Dame, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud President Trump’s speech imploring Middle East leaders to do their part to stamp out terrorists. They also grimace as polling shows either Democrat running for governor in Virginia winning the general election by double digits. And they wonder what the Secret Service was thinking when they gave the green light to the elaborate sword dance in Saudi Arabia involving President Trump and members of his cabinet.