Congressman: Who Will Defend the Christians?

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^{by Rob Kerby, Senior Editor}

Christians in Egypt feel increasingly unprotected since the revolution that toppled the government of Hosni Mubarak, reports Congressman Frank R. Wolf of Virginia. He cites a rash of recent attacks on church buildings, Christian-owned businesses and Christians that followed. In North Sinai, store owner Mamdouh Nasef said it was a miracle he survived an attack on a Christian-owned grocery in Rafah. Nasef was away with his family when two masked men riding motorcycles opened machine-gun fire on his shop, according to Morning Star News. The attack came after Christian families in the town received anonymous threats – leaflets placed at their doorsteps in the night stating that if the families didn’t leave within 48 hours, they “will suffer.” The leaflets also mentioned that Rafah was a part of an “Islamic Emirate in Sinai,” implying that Christians were not welcome there. Such attacks have continued their upward spiral. But why, asks Wolf, is there nothing in the evening news about Christians’ plight in Egypt?

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An Idaho pastor’s wife fears that silence is all she’s going to hear. Mrs. Naghmeh Shariat Panahi told World Watch Monitor that the last time she heard her husband, Pastor Saeed Abedini's voice was January 9, during a 3-minute cell phone call between their home in Boise, Idaho and Tehran, Iran. Abedini's family in Iran held two cell phones together – one linked to Panahi in America, the other to Abedeni in a holding cell – so the two could exchange words. "He wanted to hear the kids' voices," Panahi said from her Idaho home. The couple has a 6-year-old girl, Rebekkah, and a son, 4-year-old Jacob. After the 3 minutes were up, "we heard there will be no more phone calls," she said. Abedini, 32, was sentenced Sunday by a Revolutionary Court judge who concluded that Abedini's work to establish Christian churches threatened Iran's national security. A native of Iran and born Muslim, Abedini converted to Christianity in 2000 and spent several years establishing small "house churches."

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Panahi said she cannot phone her husband in prison. Nor can she visit him. "This is the very hard, heartbreaking part of it," she said. "As a wife, my first reaction was to travel and be there. Unfortunately, I was threatened that if I step one foot in an airport in Iran, I would be arrested, and then the children would have no mother or father." She said she and the children are living with her parents, in Idaho. Her church community, Calvary Chapel of Boise, has rallied around the family with prayer, she said. Her attorney, Barrans, is international legal director for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based group, which represents Panahi. "The greatest support has been prayer," Barrans said. Urgent prayer.

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“I recently encountered this haunting account by a German Christian,” writes Congressman Wolf, co-chair of the U.S. Congress Human Rights Commission. He cites the book, When a Nation Forgets God:

“I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it? A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more. I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing to intervene.”

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“The parallels are imperfect,” writes Congressman Wolf, “but the sentiments are the same. Has our comfort led to complacency? A phrase not often heard outside the majority Muslim world is ‘First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.’ The 'Saturday people' are of course the Jews. Their once vibrant communities in countries throughout the region are now decimated. In 1948 there were roughly 150,000 Jews in Iraq; today, few remain. In Egypt, there were once as many as 80,000 Jews; now there are almost none. It appears a similar fate awaits the ancient Christian community in these same lands. Iraq’s Christian population has fallen from as many as 1.4 million in 2003 to between 500,000 and 700,000 today. Churches have been targeted, believers kidnapped and families threatened if they stay."

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In Egypt, with the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood, Coptic Christians numbering roughly 8 million to 10 million are leaving in droves. In the midst of devastating bloodshed in Syria, the Christian population there is particularly vulnerable. A recent ABC News story reported, “They [Christians] are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Islamic groups.” Over the span of a few decades, the Middle East, with the exception of Israel, was virtually emptied of Jews. The same thing will happen to the Christian community if the current trajectory holds true. And yet such stories receive scant attention in the mainstream media and, perhaps more strikingly, are rarely spoken of from our pulpits, says Congressman Wolf.

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Anguished Prayers – Congressman Wolf continues: Christians in Pakistan know viscerally the New Testament’s frequent references to suffering for being a Christian – largely overlooked by Western Christians. When a Christian is martyred the survivors also feel the pain, living out the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:26 that, “If one member suffers, all suffer together.” In Lahore, Pakistan, anguished Christians prayed after suspected Islamic extremists shot a 70-year-old Swedish woman who had served the country for 38 years as a teacher at Bible school, director at a technical training institute and overseer of an orphanage. Birgitta Almby was shot as she arrived home in Lahore on December 3, 2012, according to Morning Star News, she died 10 days later in her native Sweden.

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Ruined by Rage – In a country of more than 1 billion religiously tolerant people, a fractional minority of Hindu extremists in India wreak daily havoc on Christians. There is a continual stream of attacks on Christians and church properties in remote parts of the country by Hindu nationalists who view Christianity as a threat to national identity. In Karnataka state, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, armed Hindu extremists on Nov. 20 attacked Blessing Youth Mission Church and burned Bibles after locking 12 Christians into their houses and threatening to kill them if they came out. Morning Star News reports damage to the church building in Chippagiri Gowtown village, Yellapura Taluk District, was estimated at about 150,000 rupees, or US$2,765.

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Nigerian Widows – The scene has played out thousands of times in the past two decades – funeral services for Nigerians slain for their faith. The widows of six of the nine Christians killed by suspected Islamists on Sept. 16, 2012, mourn at a service in Bauchi state. Gunmen shot the nine men – retirees and community leaders in their 60s – as they played cards under a tree in Zango village, outside Bauchi city. The Rev. Lawi Pokti of the Church of Christ in Nigeria in Bauchi urged Christians to refrain from avenging the deaths of those killed by Islamic extremists. International media, learning of such violence first by Islamist-dominated press in Nigeria, tend to portray the deaths as the result of tribal property conflicts, as Fulani herdsmen who are primarily Muslim have long fought with farmers who are primarily Christian. But Morning Star News notes that in recent years Islamists have used the conflicts to stoke a dramatic increase in Fulani attacks on Christians.

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Bullet-Riddled Sanctuary – The Islamic extremist attack on Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq on Oct. 31, 2010, left at least 58 people dead. With the Al Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgent group Islamic State of Iraq claiming responsibility for the hostage-taking assault, it was just one in many nerve-shattering waves of attacks on Christians that have overwhelmed the war- and terrorist-ravaged country since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Since then, it is estimated that more than half of Iraq’s 1.5 million Christians have fled the violence to other countries, Morning Star News reports. The restored cathedral was rededicated on Jan. 15 as a hard-line Iraqi ayatollah issued a fatwa from Egypt warning Iraqi Christians to convert to Islam or die.

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Martyred – In Kenya, Islamic extremists from neighboring Somalia are becoming an increasingly deadly threat. In Garissa near the Somali border, assailants launched a grenade through the sheet-iron roof of the Administrative Police compound church on Nov. 4, 2012; chaplain Julius Mukonzi died instantly when it landed near him as he preached. The blast seriously wounded 11 others. Police suspected Islamic extremists from the Somali rebel group Al Shabaab. Kenya is nearly 83 percent Christian and 8.32 percent Muslim, according to Operation World, but Garissa is rife with Islamic extremists, with a large presence of Al Shabaab rebels. Morning Star News reports that Kenyan churches and other facilities have been the target of several bombings and shootings since Kenya sent troops into southern Somalia in October 2011 in response to Al Shabaab kidnappings and other attacks in Kenyan territory.

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Vulnerable to Attack – After a hard-line Islamist and his co-religionists in Pakistan beat Parvaiz Masih for touching his motorcycle, the gang along with others from an Islamic extremist group totaling about 20 went to his home – as they had threatened – and attacked him again, as well as his wife Sobia (pictured). Forcibly entering his home in Barnala village near Safdarabad in Punjab Province on Nov. 16, 2012, they beat him with clubs and the butts of their guns; when Sobia tried to intervene, they beat her too. Morning Star News reported that the ring-leader tore her shirt from the front, a means in Pakistan of deeply humiliating Masih and his family. Police were able to take three suspects into custody but did not officially arrest them due to pressure from influential political and Islamic figures. Sharply marginalized due to their low economic status and faith, Christians in Pakistan rarely stand up for justice.

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Driven into Caves – Non-Arab Christians in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains say they feel forgotten as Sudanese air forces use military conflict with rebels as a pretext for bombing civilians. Many of them have fled their towns and villages and taken refuge in caves. Since South Sudan split from Sudan in a referendum last year, ethnic Nuba peoples in Sudan’s South Kordofan state believe the government’s goal of quashing Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) rebels is also meant to rid the area of non-Arab peoples and Christianity. Since military conflict began in June 2011, the Sudanese military has bombed Nuba churches, schools and farms, with most civilian deaths taking place where there was no evident military target or rebel soldier, Morning Star News reports. The Nuba people have longstanding complaints against Khartoum – including neglect, oppression and forced conversions to Islam in a 1990s jihad – but as Sudanese citizens on the northern side of the border, they were never given the option of secession in the 2005 peace pact between northern and southern Sudan. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said post-secession Sudan will adhere more exclusively to Islam and Arabic culture.

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Beaten Unconscious – Hindu extremist violence in India is not limited to remote rural areas. On Oct. 14, 2012 in North West Delhi, Hindu nationalists outraged at the presence of a Christian fellowship attacked a pastor and his family at their home, continuing to beat him even after he fell unconscious, reported Morning Star News. About 10 extremists began by hurling stones and wood blocks at the house of pastor Lal Mani Prasad of Immanuel Believers Fellowship at about 7 a.m. in the Naya Bans area of Narela. Two men then broke into the house and started to verbally abuse them for their faith in Christ, before beating the pastor and his son, Samuel Prasad. The pastor received 18 stitches on his head. Another eight people then joined the extremists, among them four women who were brought to beat the female Christians; the pastor’s wife and three of their daughters also sustained injuries. The extremist Hindus have issued several threats to kill him if he continues Christian activities in the area.

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Teaching Hate – Nina Shea, Senior Fellow and Director of Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, has documented Saudi Arabia’s slowness to remove hateful content from textbooks used in the country’s schools. In October 2012 seven current and former heads of major U.S. publishing houses issued an appeal to Saudi Arabia to stop publishing hate-filled textbooks, Shea wrote in a commentary for Morning Star News. Among the texts were such statements as, “The apostate has two punishments; worldly and in the hereafter. Punishment in this life: Death if he does not repent”; “Major polytheism is a reason to fight those that practice it”; “Fighting the Infidels and the Polytheists has certain conditions and controls, including: That they be invited to Islam and they refuse to enter it and refuse to pay Jizya [a special tax]”; and, “As was cited in Ibn Abbas, and was said: The Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians.”

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A Child’s Police Mug Shot – In a Muslim-majority country where Christians are presumed to be so marginalized that few would dare to fight injustice, a 14-year-old girl in Pakistan narrowly escaped being sentenced to life in prison after she was framed for desecrating the Koran. Asserting, “Fake allegations should not be leveled against any Muslim or non-Muslim,” an Islamabad High Court judge acquitted Rimsha Masih of the charges on Nov. 20, 2012. Morning Star News reported that Muslim cleric Qari Khalid Chishti, also known as Khalid Jadoon Chishti, and the original complainant of the case, Malik Hammad, had fabricated the case against her. Chishti was later accused of adding burnt pages of the Koran to a bag of ashes that Rimsha had carried. In the attempt to remove a Christian from Pakistani society, her accusers initially had her tired as an adult, and only after a medical examination was her case transferred to a juvenile court, where the penalties are less severe. Her life in Islamabad permanently ruined due to traditional prejudice, Rimsha has been clandestinely relocated in hopes of trying to start a new life.

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Refusing to Recant -- As often happens in Islamic countries, a Christian accused of violating sharia (Islamic law) – whether blasphemy against Islam or leaving Islam – is incarcerated for years before and during trial. Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani demonstrated that he had never practiced Islam in the first place, but Iranian authorities ruled that he had become an apostate all the same – and thus deserving of the death sentence – because his ancestors were Muslims. Morning Star News reported that Nadarkhani had been in prison two months and 11 months – one month shy of a three-year sentence for proclaiming Christ – when international pressure led to his release on Sept. 8, 2012. In further harassment meant to make a statement, Iranian authorities re-arrested him on Christmas Day to serve out the remainder of the sentence, though he was released again on Jan. 7. The Iranian state has also targeted those that have offered legal assistance to Nadarkhani. His lawyer, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, was imprisoned in September for taking Nadarkhani’s case, in addition to other human rights cases. Held in Evin Prison in Tehran, notorious for its brutal conditions and detainment of political prisoners, Dadkhah has been disbarred for 10 years and is facing a prison sentence of nine years.