Tag: Islamic State

Egypt: Coptic priest’s murderer sentenced to death

November 17, 2017 Egypt Beni Suef, Bishop Angaelos, Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Minya, Palm Sunday, Samaan Shehata, Sinai

Egypt’s North Cairo Criminal Court has sentenced to death 19-year-old Ahmad Saeed Ibrahim al-Sonbati for killing a priest and injuring another in a knife attack. The verdict has now been forwarded to the Grand Mufti, who must give his approval. He is expected to give his final verdict on 15 . . . Read More

IS renews threat to Copts as Al-Azhar head says Islam ‘at war with itself’

November 14, 2017 Egypt Al-Azhar, Egypt, Islamic State, Pope Francis, Terrorism

Pope Francis welcomes Sheik Ahmed Muhammad Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, during a private audience in Vatican, 7 November 2017. (Photo: AFP PHOTO / OSSERVATORE ROMANO / Handout)

A pro-Islamic State (IS) group media outlet has issued a new threat against Egypt’s Coptic Christians, saying they must be attacked as “infidel fighters” and their churches must be blown up. The message, issued by the Wafa Media Foundation, said Copts did not accept dhimmitude – the condition of submission imposed . . . Read More

Egypt: Copts request new church to honour 28 killed in bus attack

November 14, 2017 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Minya, Sohag

The governor of Minya in Egypt has said he will consider an application to build a church to honour the 28 Coptic pilgrims killed in May when militant Islamists intercepted the buses they were travelling on and opened fire. Anba Athanasius, Bishop of Beni-Mazar and Bahnassa, met General Essam Bedeiwi . . . Read More

‘My daughters have no future in the Middle East’

November 10, 2017 Lebanon Beirut, Divorce, Iraq, Islamic State, Lebanon, Refugees, Syria, UN

Suha, an Iraqi Christian living in Beirut with her four daughters and her mother

“I lived with my in-laws for 35 years. At the beginning it was like going to the gallows!” recalls Lydia Babayan, 57, an Iraqi-born Armenian Catholic. “My mother-in-law was very aggressive and my father-in-law was very strict. But my husband’s sister was good to me, she never said a bad . . . Read More

Lives in limbo – Iraqi Christians’ long wait for asylum in Lebanon

November 8, 2017 Lebanon Armenians, Assyrians, Asylum seekers, Beirut, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Lebanon, Middle East, Refugees, Syria, Trauma, UN

Petros Babayan strains to sit up as if each bone of his paper-thin frame were heavy as iron. His wife Lydia and adult daughter Rita rush to help him. In their tiny rented apartment in Beirut, his single bed takes up a quarter of the room in which they live . . . Read More

Nineveh Christians still talk of emigration, despite Iraqi-Kurd peace agreement

November 3, 2017 Iraq Dohuk, Iraq, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga

In an attack of IS on Friday 21 Oct 2016, about 50 students and 8 nuns were in the area where IS launched an attack on Kirkuk. Check also the article on GP, published 24 Oct 2016.

Christians in Kirkuk and other parts of northern Iraq continue to worry about insecurity in the Nineveh Plains despite the recent peace agreement between Kurdish and Iraqi forces. Recent clashes between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the combined forces of the Iraqi army and al-Hashd al-Shaabi – the pro-Iraqi militia groups – . . . Read More

Jordan charity ‘restoring dignity’ to Iraq’s refugees

October 31, 2017 Jordan Amman, Iraq, Islamic State, Jordan, Refugees, Trauma

There was a time when Maran, a mother of three, worked as an engineer and had a long career ahead of her. But when Iraqi refugees started arriving in Amman, Jordan’s capital, fleeing from the violence Islamic State had unleashed upon their communities, Maran was dismayed about the treatment they . . . Read More

Bangladesh orders removal of ‘jihad’ from madrassa textbooks

October 30, 2017 Bangladesh Al-Qaeda, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Education, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Madrassas

In a move to curb the growth of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh, the government has ordered chapters on jihad to be removed from next year’s textbooks for madrasas (Islamic schools), reports UCAN. According to the news agency, the National Committee on Militancy Resistance and Prevention, which advised the government on . . . Read More

Christians who fled IS displaced again as Iraqi and Kurdish forces clash

October 25, 2017 Iraq Alqosh, Bashiqa, Dohuk, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Nineveh Plains, Peshmerga, Tel Skuf

Fighting has erupted between Iraqi and Kurdish forces in a predominantly Christian town in northern Iraq, causing residents to flee. Around 900 families have fled Telskuf and its surrounding villages – part of the Nineveh Plains region of northern Iraq liberated last year from the Islamic State group – to . . . Read More

UK calls for action to secure freedom of religion for 80% of world’s population

October 25, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Ahmed Shaheed, Human rights, Islamic State, Nepal, Religious freedom, Rohingya, UK, UN

A new report urges the UK and other governments to take practical measures to turn the rhetoric of ‘freedom of religion or belief’ into reality, to protect the millions who are vulnerable to violence, discrimination and disadvantage as a result of its abuse. The report, presented in the UK Parliament today . . . Read More

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