The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #136372   Message #3596716
Posted By: Keith A of Hertford
30-Jan-14 - 03:06 AM
Thread Name: BS: Christian Persecution
Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
Link no good.
Paste in http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-war-on-christianity-the-religions-followers-are-dwindling-in-the-land-of-its-birth--and-its-not-a-crisis-of-faith-but-one-of-violence-9094363.html

Jim, here is a list of incidents provided on the same page.
Hardly a racist, hate site!

A sample of atrocities across these countries gives an idea of the rising tide of terror from which Christians are suffering:

µ In Egypt, many supporters of deposed President Morsi irrationally blamed Coptic Christians for his downfall, and took revenge on them. They seized control of the remote town of Delga, burning down three of the five churches there, and forced thousands of Christians to flee. They looted the 1,600-year-old monastery of the Virgin Mary and St Abraam and set fire to it. "They [the Copts] alone were set up as scapegoats and erroneously blamed for instigating the violent dispersal of pro-Morsi demonstrators," Bishop Angaelos, of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK, told a US Congressional hearing.

µ In Syria, as jihadists gained the upper hand over more moderate rebels, the village of Maaloula, where many still speak ancient Aramaic, the language of the Bible, was invaded by rebels who attacked churches, forcing many among the 3,000-strong population to flee. Elsewhere in the country, two archbishops were abducted by gunmen in April last year and have yet to reappear.

µ In Iraq on Christmas Day, 24 people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a church in Doura, southern Baghdad, as worshippers were leaving at the end of a service. Dozens more Christians were killed elsewhere in the country during the Christmas period. Prior to the Iraq war, there were 1.4 million Christians in the country, around 3 per cent of the population. Since then, the number has fallen to about 300,000. Raphael I Sako, the Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad, said: "If emigration continues, God forbid, there will be no more Christians in the Middle East. [The Church] will be no more than a distant memory."

µ In Pakistan, 85 Christians were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a historic church in the frontier city of Peshawar in September 2013. Standing in the church's courtyard and comforting the wounded, the Bishop Emeritus of Peshawar, Mano Rumalshah, commented afterwards: "It's not safe for Christians in this country. Everyone is ignoring the danger to Christians in Muslim-majority countries. The European countries don't give a damn about us."