Tag: Middle East

Death threats, by Islamic State in Sinai, against Egyptian Copt sons who mourn dad

April 26, 2021 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Middle East

Nabil Habashi Salama, taken by unseen watchers; he was 'executed' by ISIS, March 2021

Fears that ‘Islamic State’ once again threatens the lives of some of the Middle East’s largest Christian population have emerged again, after the radical militant group killed an Egyptian Coptic businessman who’d funded the construction of the only church in his north Sinai village. The death of 62 year old . . . Read More

COVID-19 exacerbates discrimination against minority Christians globally

January 13, 2021 Global News -- No Particular Country Boko Haram, China, Fulani herdsmen, Hindu nationalism, Human rights, India, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Middle East, Minorities, Nigeria, Religious freedom, Turkey, Women

• Christians refused coronavirus aid in countries from India to Yemen to West Africa • COVID-19 legitimises increased surveillance and restrictions by authoritarian governments • Organised criminal groups use virus as means to extend their control, including over churches • Nationalism driven by majority religious identity rises in countries such . . . Read More

From sub-Saharan Africa to China, Christians experience ‘high’ levels of persecution

January 15, 2020 Global News -- No Particular Country BJP, Boko Haram, Churches, Islamic extremism, Middle East, Minorities, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, World Watch List

Poster memorials and crosses for Christians who died in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Easter Sunday, 2019

• In Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday more than 250 people, 45 of them children, were killed in attacks on three churches and hotels; more than 500 people were injured. • Bombs killed 20 at a Catholic church in Jolo in the southern Philippines. • In China, state-sanctioned and ‘underground’ . . . Read More

Key trends show in 2019 List of countries where it’s most difficult to live as a Christian

January 16, 2019 Global News -- No Particular Country BJP, Blasphemy, Boko Haram, China, Egypt, Hindu nationalism, India, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Middle East, Minorities, Nigeria, Religious freedom, World Watch List

WWL 2019 key trends, gender, China, woman (photo: VPA)

In its 2019 World Watch List, Open Doors International reports that 11 countries score highly enough to fit into the ‘extreme’ category for the level of persecution of Christians. It was the same last year, but five years ago, only North Korea was in that category. From roughly 2006, and accelerating from 2012, the NGO says the . . . Read More

Prince Charles praises ‘extraordinary grace and forgiveness’ of Christians in Middle East

December 5, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Islamic State, Justin Welby, Middle East, Prince Charles

Britain’s Prince Charles paid tribute to Christians in the Middle East and their “extraordinary capacity for grace and forgiveness” at an event in London yesterday, 4 December. At a special service at Westminster Abbey, attended by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and representatives of Churches in the Middle East, the . . . Read More

‘Next time we will not survive’ – Middle East Christian refugee

November 12, 2018 Aleppo, Batnaya, Beirut, Hasakah, Iraq, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Lebanon, Middle East, Mosul, Qaraqosh, Raqqa, Refugees, Syria, UN

Boy outside a tent in a refugee camp in Lebanon. (Photo: World Vision)

As many as 80% of Syria’s Christians have left their country since the start of the civil war in 2011, while 50% of Iraq’s Christians have been uprooted since 2006, according to a report produced by Christian charities Open Doors International, Served and Middle East Concern last year, which said the . . . Read More

Pope and Assyrian patriarch ‘share suffering’ of Christians in Middle East

November 12, 2018 Assyrians, Iraq, Middle East, Minorities, Pope Francis, Syria

Pope Francis met with Mar Gewargis III, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, at the Vatican on Friday, 9 November. (Photo: Getty Images)

Pope Francis and the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Gewargis III, have called for an end to the violence against Christians in the Middle East, following their meeting in Rome on Friday, 9 November, reports Catholic news site Crux. The church leaders said both communities “shared . . . Read More

Iraqi Christian boy Noeh under his own roof again

October 15, 2018 Iraq Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Middle East, Nineveh Plains, Pope Francis, UN, USA

Around 40,000 Christians who escaped from the 2014 attacks of Islamic State in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains have returned to their homes but are in a “very hard situation”, according to the Pope’s nuncio in Iraq: “There is still much to be done, much to rebuild. The houses were damaged, burned . . . Read More

‘UN must recognise persecution of Christians in Middle East as genocide’

September 17, 2018 Global News -- No Particular Country Europe, Genocide, Iraq, Islamic State, Jan Figel, Middle East, Sam Brownback, Syria, UN, Yazidis

At the moment of the photo taken, ISIS had just been pushed out of the home towns of these Christians. People were hoping and anticipating to return to their towns some day.

The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) is appealing to the United Nations to recognise the persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria as “genocide”, reports the US-based National Review. The ECLJ, an affiliate of the American Center for Law and Justice, said a “genocide” declaration is necessary to . . . Read More

‘Only jihadists want to see Christians leave the Middle East’

August 6, 2018 Arab Spring, Arabs, Cairo, Canada, Churches, Egypt, Europe, Islamic extremism, Lebanon, Middle East, Migrants, Minorities, North Africa, Palestinian Territories, Refugees, Syria, USA

Around 300 Christians went to Bartella during the Easter weekend of 2017, to have the very first Easter celebration in three years in their home town. A convoy of about 15 buses travelled from Erbil, crossing several Kurdish and Iraqi army checkpoints to reach the church. The people still live in Erbil and cannot go back to Bartella to live or to rebuild. But for this day many take the chance to celebrate Easter in their own church again. (Open Doors International)

“The only people that want to see all Christians leave are some of the violent jihadists,” concludes a new book. “Everyone else, including some we might term as Islamists, desires their continued presence. They recognise that it is Christians who are the leaven that permeates the whole of society.” The . . . Read More

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