MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By BosNewsLife – “LAHORE, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)– Christian relief workers rushed to a volatile district in Pakistan’s Punjab province Saturday, February 9, after security forces and Muslim hardliners allegedly abused Christian women and raped at least one Christian girl.

‘Yesterday some Muslims and some [undercover] police men raided Kaila Masih’s house’ in the town of Pattoki [where they] ‘beat and tortured Christian women Zareena Bibi,Hameedan Bibi and Sharifan Bibi,’ said the Legal Evangelical Association Development (LEAD), an advocacy and aid group.

It was the second such incident in Punjab’s Kasur District within about two weeks, according to LEAD investigators. On January 25 a 15-year-old Christian girl, Fouzia Bibi, was raped by two influential Muslim men in the district’s village of Roday, LEAD Chief Sardar Mushtaq Gill told BosNewsLife.

Gill said he met a local pastor and victims and helped to register a criminal case against the alleged attackers of the women, including “police officials and other Muslims.”

INDEPENDENT POLICE?

LEAD also demands that the rape case be moved to more independent police in Pattoki amid concerns that authorities are reluctant to investigate the crime because of pressure from influential Muslims in the region.

Though police ‘arrested’ one suspect, ‘he was not yet sent to jail’, complained LEAD investigators.

Another alleged rapist ‘is free and making threats to Christians of the area,’ LEAD said, adding that both men should be jailed.” Read more.

• Flashback: Pakistan: Increasing Number Of Christian Girls Kidnapped By Muslims, Raped, Forced To Convert To Islam
• Flashback: Pakistan: Christian Girl Raped For 11 Days By Two ‘Influential’ Muslim Men, Forced To Convert To Islam
• Flashback: Pakistani Court Orders Kidnapped Christian Girl To Stay With Her Muslim Kidnapper
• Flashback: Pakistan: Christian Man And Wife Beaten For Touching Muslim-Owned Motorcycle, Mob Joins In When Christian Defends Himself

John 16:2b, “… the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.”

By David Wood, Answering Muslims – “A recent Dearborn Patch article addressed concerns about the location of the annual Dearborn Arab Festival. For several years, the festival has been held on Warren Avenue. However, because the sidewalks adjacent to the festival remain public property during the event, criticism and protest are protected by the First Amendment. In 2012, a group of anti-Islam protesters showed up with signs condemning Muhammad (not to mention a pig’s head on pole), and some young Muslims responded violently. Mayor John O’Reilly, a notorious defender of the city’s campaign against free speech, hopes that organizers will consider moving the festival to a closed location, where the city will not be responsible for handling protesters.

Of course, the only reason protesters show up at the festival is that Dearborn leaders (with occasional help from the American Arab Chamber of Commerce) spent years violating the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. I attended the Arab Festival in 2008 and 2009, and I didn’t see any protesters. In 2009, however, the Police Department declared that Christians wouldn’t be allowed to distribute pamphlets or Bibles, even on the public sidewalks around the festival. This was the same year we were attacked by security for asking a question at a booth that invited us to ask questions. The following year, we were arrested for having a peaceful discussion with some Muslim teenagers who approached us with questions about Christianity. Two days later, police took us into custody again for attempting to distribute Bibles outside the festival.

News (and videos) spread about Dearborn’s contempt for the First Amendment, and this drew a number of protesters to the city (including Terry Jones, who was convicted and jailed for planning to protest outside a mosque). Now that the city has gained worldwide attention for its stance against free speech, city leaders want to move the festival in order to escape the consequences of their actions.

The local population is divided over whether to move the festival, and, even more importantly, over how Muslims should respond to protesters. The Dearborn Area Community Members Facebook group hosted a discussion about the move, and some of the comments were enlightening. A Muslim named Aboudi Berro suggested moving the festival to an area where protesters could be more easily murdered …” Read more.

Flashback: Michiganistan

• Michigan: Israeli Flags Now Considered ‘Incitement’ In Dearbornistan
• Dearborn Muslim Sentenced After Attempting To Run Down Christians
• Michigan: Muslims Stone Christians In Dearborn, Chant ‘Allah Is Greater’
• Encapsulating ‘Something Akin To An Ever-Unfolding Prophesy Of America’s Future’
• New Study Shows That 80% of Mosques in America Teach Jihad Violence and Islamic Supremacism

By Alex Murashko, The Christian Post – “Two pastors in Kenya were shot Thursday morning by unknown gunmen who killed one of the men and wounded the other, according to a report from Open Doors, a Christian persecution watchdog.

Open Doors, who has ministry workers in the east Africa country, received information that Pastor Ibrahim Makunyi of the East Africa Pentecostal Church and Pastor Abdi Welli were attacked by the gunmen in the city of Garissa, Kenya. Welli was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital while Pastor Makunyi was immediately rushed to a hospital. Makunyi’s condition was described as stable and out of danger.

Welli, who was evangelized, discipled and mentored by Makunyi, is survived by his wife Hellen and three young sons.

Garissa is a violence-stricken city in northeastern Kenya. Al-Shabaab, an Islamist terrorist group, has been targeting Christians and Christian churches in the area, Open Doors stated. Last July, terrorists killed 16 people during bombings at two churches in Garissa.

‘The attack today is the latest in increasing violence, especially in the Garissa area. It was reported by Open Doors that 22 Christians were killed in incidents last year and over 100 seriously injured or maimed,’ said Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra.” Read more.

Flashback: Kenya: Al-Shabaab Claims Responsibility For Church Attacks, Will Continue To Kill Those Who Do Not Worship Allah – “Somalia militia group Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s twin attacks on two churches in Garissa County that left 17 people dead. The latest development came even as muslim leaders in Kenya agreed to form self-defence groups to protect churches following the deadly attacks. In a tweet on Wednesday morning, the insurgents said they carried out the attacks in retaliation for Kenya Defence Forces (KDF)’s incursion in Somalia. An Al-Shabaab loyalist Sheikh Hassan Takar said that the militia killed people who did not profess allegiance to Allah.” Read more.

Morning Star News – “Among files on arrested converts from Islam, kidnapped Christian girls and beaten monks piling up on the desk of a noted lawyer in Egypt, on top is the case of two boys about to be tried for allegedly showing contempt of Islam.

Attorney Karam Gabriel said anti-Christian hostilities in the restive country are getting worse as the two boys are to be tried in a court in Beni Suef – the same city where a mother and her seven children were convicted last month for reconverting to Christianity – for showing ‘contempt to Islamic religion and insulting the Koran.’

The accusation against Nabil Naji Rizq and Mina Atallah (identified in some press reports as Mina Nadi Faraj), who were 10 and 9 years old respectively at the time of their arrest in late September, of insulting the Koran made headlines throughout the country after a man saw them playing in rubbish that he claimed included pages from the Koran. Accusing them of tearing pages of Islam’s holy book – a later version of the story had them allegedly urinating on it – he filed a report that led to the arrest of the two children. They were released in early October.

Angry protestors from Beni Suef reportedly intimidated Christian residents of the nearby village of Ezbat Marco at that time and prevented them from going to work.

‘They are just small children, and they don’t really understand what all the fuss is about – they can’t even tell the difference between the Koran, the Bible or any other holy book,’ Gabriel said.

Clearly outraged at recent cases of hostility toward Coptic Christians in the post-Hosni Mubarak era, Gabriel said that since Mohamed Morsi came to power last June, the Christian community is in dire need of protection. Tensions are such that, for the moment, there is no information on the exact date of the two boys’ trial, as authorities fear it will exacerbate hostilities in the city.

Beni Suef became a greater flash point last month after a criminal court sentenced Nadia Muhammad Ali and her seven children to 15 years for re-converting to Christianity after having converted to Islam. Leaving Islam is punishable by death in the traditional view of sharia that most Muslim scholars uphold, and sharia is cited as a source of law in Egypt’s new constitution approved in a December referendum.” Read more.

• Related: Egypt: Entire Family Sentenced To Prison For Converting To Christianity
• Related: ‘Conquest Is Coming’: Muslim Brotherhood Candidate in Egypt Says Christians Must Convert To Islam, Pay ‘Jizya’, Or Leave

AINA – “On December 23, 2012, 13-year-old Agape Essam Girgis from the village of Nahda, el-Ameriya, near Alexandria, went to school as usual. Failing to return home, the family knew that she went out of school accompanied by the Muslim social worker Heba and two teachers, one of the them a Salafist. She stayed missing for 9 days during which the family and sympathizers organized a sit-in in front of the renowned Alexandria Library. The Coptic Church in Alexandria also organized a conference on December 30 on the abduction of Coptic girls, with focus on Agape, which was attended by journalists and the public.

On December 31 state security contacted Bishop Pachomios and told him that they have the kidnapped girl. She was handed over to her family and the church priest where she stayed with his family for some time due to the terrible ordeal she experienced during her abduction.

Bishop Pachomios said in an aired interview with Al Balad TV that what happened to Agape is ‘heart-breaking.’ He said that she went in a taxi with her school’s social worker Heba and two men, and that she was drugged and awakened to find herself in a secluded place with an elderly woman. He said that after she returned home he spoke to her and she said that the Salafists tried to convert her to Islam.

Activist Ramy Attia Zakaria, of the April 6 Liberal Movement in Alexandria, interviewed Agape upon her return and said it is now confirmed that her Muslim social worker Heba was behind the abduction. ‘Agape left school with her and two teachers. The girl was drugged in the car to wake up in a secluded house with two sheikhs and an elderly woman,’ Ramy said. He added that Agape stayed there for about eight days until three sheikhs came and spoke with one of the sheikhs she was staying with, telling him that Agape has to returned to her family as they are making demonstrations for her return. Agape said that during her stay with the Salafis sheikhs they tried to make her convert to Islam by saying the ‘Islamic Two Faith Confessions’ but she refused. They forced her to wear the full veil and took photos of her in this dress. Agape said that she was beaten two or three times when she refused to convert to Islam.” Read more.

• Related: Egypt: Islamists Boast, ‘We Won’t Leave Any Christians in This Country’
• Related: Egypt: Christian Girls Kidnapped by Islamists and Forced to Convert to Islam
• Related: Egypt: Thousands Of Christian Girls Being Kidnapped By Muslims, Forced Into Servitude
• Related: ‘Dysfunctional’ Obama Administration Ignoring Muslim Abuse Of Christian Women In Egypt
• Related: Egypt: Attacks Against Christians Under Way In Northern Egypt After Call To Murder All Who Refuse To Convert To Islam
• Related: Egypt: Christian Father Fights For Daughter Abducted By Islamists, ‘Become A Muslim And We’ll Spare Your Life’

By Jibran Khan, AsiaNews – “Younas Masih died this afternoon after he was shot five times last Thursday as he made his way home. An unknown gunman fired at the 55-year-old Christian man. From the beginning, his conditions appeared critical. It is believed he was attacked after he resisted pressures from co-workers to convert to Islam.

Masih worked for a company in Chaman. His friends describe him as honest and reliable. Strong in his Christian faith, he was regularly involved in his local parish.

Speaking anonymously, local sources told AsiaNews that Muslim co-workers had began pressuring him to convert, which he rejected, standing firm in his beliefs in Christ.

Despite the fact that people were talking behind his back and had made repeated threats against him, he continued to work for the same company and stood firm against pressures and attempts at blackmail.

Last Thursday, his co-workers tried again, asking him to convert. A heated discussion followed that included insults and threats. When he went home Masih was attacked by a gunman who fired five bullets into him.

After he was rushed to a hospital, his conditions appeared critical from the start. Doctors removed the bullets and had him moved into the intensive care unit where he eventually died.

His son tried to file a First Information Report (FIR) with local police who refused to register his complaint. Despite repeated attempts, they refused to heed the family’s pleas for justice. Devastated by his death, the family now feels abandoned by the authorities.” Read more.

Flashback: Christians In Pakistan Told To Convert To Islam Or Leave, ‘Otherwise They Will Face Consequences’ – “Last Sunday when Church service was over, more than dozen Muslim criminals gathered in front of Church and started harassing Christian girls who were leaving after services. Ahmed Bhatti and Muslim home owners of area ordered their Christians tenants to convert to Islam otherwise vacate their properties. They have vacated some shops that were run by Christians. One Christian man had his Gospel music on in the shop; they beat him up and kicked him out from that shop on gunpoint. Ahmed Bhatti on his microphone was shouting, ‘I am giving Christians this invitation to convert to Islam otherwise they will face consequences’ while announcement was made gathering of Muslims were raising Islamic Slogans.” Read more.

AllVoices – “In an interview with the Vatican missionary news agency Fides, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, Giovanni Martinelli, claimed that Christians are being driven out of the eastern Libya area of Cyrenaica by Muslim fundamentalists Vicar Martinelli called the situation ‘critical’ and the ‘atmosphere very tense’. Martinelli said that two religious communities had already left after pressure from fundamentalists. The Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi had been advised to take shelter before a large-scale demonstration scheduled for February 20.

Martinelli said: ‘In past days, the Congregation of the Holy Family of Spoleto who had been there for nearly 100 years were forced to abandon Derna. In Barce [located between Benghazi and Derna] the Franciscan Sisters of the Child Jesus will leave their home in coming days.’ Derna is east of Benghazi the main city in eastern Libya.

Martinelli also told Vatican Radio that Islamic fundamentalism now governs decisions in Libya. Before the overthrow of Gadaffi about 3% of Libyans were Christians but many hard-line Islamists were active in the battle against Gadaffi. Now in many areas they wield considerable power. Only a few thousand Christians now remain in Libya and many of them are expatriates.

Christian Copts, many from Egypt, have also suffered. In December 2012 two Egyptian Copts were killed in a blast at a Coptic Church in the town of Dafniya, with two other people wounded.

An article on ‘Religion in Libya’ in Wikipedia claims more than a few thousand Christians as being in Libya but perhaps the data is out of date: There are over 60,000 Egyptian Copts in Libya, as they comprise over 1% of the population alone. There are an estimated 40,000 Roman Catholics in Libya who are served by two Bishops, one in Tripoli (serving the Italian community) and one in Benghazi (serving the Maltese community). There is also a small Anglican community, made up mostly of African immigrant workers in Tripoli; it is part of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt.” Source – AllVoices.

Islamists Destroy Hundreds Of Christian/Jewish Graves In Libya

Marrying minors is good. Peace with Israel is evil. Greeting Christians is banned. Read the full article below for a good listing of more inspiring, logical fatwas being decreed in the enlightened era of a modern 21st century Egypt …

By Raymond Ibrahim, Frontpage Mag – “In previous decades in Egypt, the fatwas, or legal decrees issued by learned Muslims and based on Sharia law, revolved around questions like proper prayer, when and where women should wear the hijab, and if smoking was forbidden or permissible.

That was then.

The fatwas issued in the year 2012—the year when Islamists, spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood, assumed formal power—are, as one would expect, markedly different, that is, much less restrained.  The popular Egyptian Arabic website El-Watan News recently compiled a list of 2012’s most ‘notable’ (a euphemism) fatwas.  I translate a summary of their findings below, augmented with additional observations:

Destruction of the Pyramids and Sphinx

In November, Sheikh Murjan Salem al-Jawhari, a Salafi leader, called for the destruction of all idols, relics, and statues in Egypt, specifically mentioning the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids.  He called on Muslims to destroy such ‘idols’ just as they destroyed the Buddha statues in Afghanistan.  Of course, several months earlier, in July, I reported how several prominent Islamic clerics were calling on President Morsi to ‘destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As [the first Muslim invader of Egypt] could not.’ Then and now, the MSM scoffed at the very idea, portraying it as a ‘hoax.’ To date, reports from Egypt confirm that ‘some of the statues have already been destroyed by those belonging to the political Islamist parties.’

Marrying Minors (i.e., Pedophilia)

Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, Vice President of the Salafi Da‘wa movement, and thus an authoritative figure among Egypt’s Salafis, who are playing a prominent role in Egypt’s new parliament, opposed setting a minimum age in the new constitution concerning the marriage of minor girls, saying ‘they can get married at any time,’ while insisting that Sharia law is clear on this matter.  Indeed, earlier, another cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, after saying that girls can be married ‘even if they are in the cradle,’ explained the fundamental criterion of when they can copulate: whenever ‘they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men,’ which has less to do with age and more to do with individual capacity.

Permitting Lies and Hypocrisy

Dr. Yassir al-Burhami also permitted wives to ‘lie to their husbands’  about their whereabouts—if they were going to go and vote ‘yes’ on the Sharia-heavy constitution in Egypt, and if their husbands would otherwise have disapproved. The ever-expedient Salafi leader also permitted Read more…