₦airaland Forum

“I don’t understand this smear campaign,” said Isabelle Surply, a councillor (formerly RN) in Saint-Chamond (Loire), in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper published on Friday April 8. More than a month after she denounced the radical sermons of an imam in a mosque in the town, she continues to be the subject of a defamation complaint by the Conseil départemental du culte musulman and the target of threats.

Following this complaint, she had been summoned to a voluntary hearing on March 4. “It seemed clear to me that the criminal file was blank and that after this interview there was a possibility that the case would be dropped,” she explains. This was nevertheless summoned before the investigating judge, who “considered” her indictment.

“I have only denounced dangerous sermons which the Minister of the Interior himself has described as unacceptable,” she outraged to the newspaper Le Figaro. Imam Mmadi Ahamada had said in his sermons, among other things, “You Muslim women, try to obey the finger of your husbands, stay in your homes and do not display yourselves in the manner of women in the times before Islam”. He was suspended. As he is a Comorian citizen and holds a residence permit as a “visitor”, he had been obliged to leave French territory (OQTF). However, this decision was overturned by the administrative court, which considered the reason of “threat to public order” to be unfounded. He was also able to carry out his preaching again.

Isabelle Surply claims that she got “hundreds of messages threatening her with death, rape and beheading”. She filed several complaints, but they were ” fruitless “. The police gave her a “direct contact number” on Friday April 8 to warn her of an imminent threat. On April 15, she will be questioned by the judge in connection with the defamation case.

https://medforth.biz/france-politician-who-denounces-an-imams-inflammatory-sermons-is-threatened-with-murder-and-rape/

CAIRO — A knife-wielding man mortally wounded a Coptic priest during an attack at the popular seaside promenade in Alexandria on Thursday evening, Egypt’s interior ministry said.

The priest was identified by the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria as Arsanious Wadid, 56.

Sectarian violence is not uncommon in Egypt, where an Orthodox Christian minority, the Copts, is believed to be among the world’s oldest Christian communities.

https://robertspencer.org/2022/04/egypt-muslim-stabs-christian-to-death-al-azhar-grand-sheikh-warns-that-such-acts-might-instigate-religious-wars

France: A hooded person with a firearm shoots into the air in the street in Grenoble, shouting “Allah Akbar”, several streets are blocked, schoolchildren taken to safety

Several streets in the south of Grenoble were closed on Thursday April 7 after a man was spotted on the street carrying a handgun.

According to police, he had fired into the air, shouted “Allahu akbar” in the area and chased two people who were near a dealing point. The suspect was arrested.

Residents and students on the outskirts of the Abbaye and Teisseire neighbourhoods in Grenoble witnessed an exciting afternoon on Thursday April 7, when a shooting and the arrest of two men, aged 50 and 22, took place.

Around noon, the headmistress of the Grand Châtelet school called the police. A mother of a pupil reported that a person in the area had made use of a firearm. At least this is what the nun who witnessed the incident assured the police.

According to the police, the hooded person even shouted “Allahu akbar” in the neighbourhood before firing from his handgun.
Several squads of patrol cars were deployed to the scene. Some streets in the neighbourhood were cordoned off. Students were kept in the schools.

https://medforth.biz/france-a-hooded-person-with-a-firearm-shoots-into-the-air-in-the-street-in-grenoble-shouting-allah-akbar-several-streets-are-blocked-schoolchildren-taken-to-safety/

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Almost two weeks after an attack on a Nigerian passenger train killed eight people and more than 150 remain missing, families say they are yet to get updates from the Nigerian government.

On March 28, suspected bandits detonated a bomb on the tracks and opened fire on the train just outside the northwest city of Kaduna, stopping the train on its tracks. As many as 168 passengers remain missing and are believed to have been abducted by the armed group.

Families of abducted passengers say they have been in anguish since and accuse the Nigerian government of neglect and an information blackout.
“An answer is all we have always wanted,” Amriah Sani* who asked for her real name to be withheld to avoid endangering the safety of her two family members in captivity, told Al Jazeera.

She was one of those who organised a small protest in Abuja at a Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) event, to demand answers from the government about the whereabouts of their loved ones.

“Ever since this started, there has not been one single government official that has called any of the family members to say have you heard from family members or to even ask us for intel,” she said. “The abductors have reached out to us and [let] our family members speak with [us]. You might expect that this might interest the government right, even [if] they are not going to help us.”

In the past decade, there has been an escalation of violence and attacks on civilians and recently, the military in Nigeria’s northwest. The attacks are credited to a medley of criminal groups known locally as bandits , who use forests as operation bases to launch attacks across mostly rural parts of the region.

According to the Kaduna state government, at least 343 people were killed in bandit attacks between July and September 2021, while 830 people were kidnapped within the same period.

Who are the suspects?

In the northeast, Boko Haram, an armed group seeking to topple the Nigerian government and institute an Islamic caliphate has also been
masterminding attacks since 2009 . The group has now been joined by bandits and amorphous groups that have spread across central and northwest Nigeria.

Recently, the attacks have spread into urban areas typified by an earlier attack on Kaduna Airport which killed one – and the train attack.

Two days ago, a video surfaced on the internet. In it, four men clad in full military gear and sporting heavy ammunition including an RPG, stand with another man whom media reports identified as the Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture, Alwan Ali-Hassan.

The armed men announced Ali-Hassan’s release as a “Ramadan gesture” because of his age but according to Reuters, his family said an undisclosed ransom was paid.

The men in the video also announced that they have told the government what they want but families of the victims say they have no idea which group was behind the train attack.

Bulama Bukarti, a senior analyst with the Extremism Policy Unit at the Toni Blair Institute for Global Change said the men also spoke Kanuri, the main language of Borno, the birthplace of Boko Haram’s operations.

Earlier reports had credited the attack to suspected bandits but researchers monitoring insecurity in the north say there is emerging evidence the attack might have been carried out by Boko Haram.

“There are three broad reasons why this could be Boko Haram,’’ said Bukarti. “When you look at the video closely, the language used mimics that of Boko Haram. In the beginning, they started with [a] religious opening which is typical of jihadist groups and there was no time bandits opened with that kind of opening as we saw in their videos.

‘’Second, they kept using religious terminologies throughout. Also, the two speakers in the video do not have the Fulani accents because we know that bandits are overwhelmingly Fulani. And more generally their appearance, they dress in full military attire. Bandits don’t look as professional terrorists as these ones do.’’

The group in the video did not directly state their affiliation but there have been concerns about the possible expansion of Boko Haram or any of its factions, Ansaru or ISWAP, the the Islamic State in West Africa Province, to the region. The latter has since allied itself with ISIS (ISIL).

In October, Kaduna state governor Nasir El-Rufai
had said that “the biggest fear we have in the northwest is that they [Boko Haram] are relocating to the northwest because they are being chased out from the northeast by ISWAP.”

“It has been absolutely mute from the government and we are all in the dark and we are all just making assumptions,’’ Sani said of the families’ plight.

“Today, we think it is Boko Haram, the next we think it’s bandits, the next we think it is Ansaru. And we really do not know what is going on.’’

Despite the emerging evidence, others have called for caution in making presumptions.
‘’We can only be very hypothetical at this stage,” Vincent Foucher, a research fellow with the French National Centre for Science Research who also researches Boko Haram, told Al Jazeera. “It could also be bandits demanding the liberation of some of their own.”

“We cannot sleep”
Aisha Mohammed*, a 43-year-old woman whose two siblings were among the abducted passengers, was among those who led the gathering yesterday in Abuja. She also wanted her real name withheld for fear of angering the government and endangering security of her relatives.

She bemoaned the scarce attention given to the families at the event, claiming an official called their presence “an embarrassment to the government”.
They continue to wait but say the pain they feel is even more crushing because of government inaction.

“There is food [but] we cannot eat,” Mohammed said in a teary voice. “We cannot sleep. Our minds are only imagining things, where are they? What situations are they in?”

For commuters along the ever-busy Kaduna-Abuja routes which are links between the capital city and the economic powerhouse of the north, there are no safe alternatives. All forms of transportation have come under attack in recent months, leading to fatalities and abductions.

“This train belongs to the federal government and the government makes us believe that the train is the safest mode of transportation [along the routes],” she lamented. “We cannot go to Kaduna by air and by road. We decided to join the government’s train and here we are.”


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/8/nigeria-families-of-missing-train-passengers-bemoan-govt-silence

Does Islam condone slavery? Does Islamic teaching allow Muslim men to keep women as sex slaves?
Islam neither ignores nor condemns slavery. In fact, a large part of the Sharia is dedicated to the practice.

Muslims are encouraged to live in the way of Muhammad, who was a slave owner and trader. He captured slaves in battle; he had sex with his slaves; and he instructed his men to do the same.

The Quran actually devotes more verses to making sure that Muslim men know they can keep women as sex slaves (four) than it does to telling them to pray five times a day (zero).


Quran
Quran (33:50) - "O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those (slaves) whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee" -This is one of several personal-sounding verses "from Allah" narrated by Muhammad - in this case allowing a virtually unlimited supply of sex partners. Other Muslims are restricted to four wives, but they may also have sex with any number of slaves, following the example of their prophet.

Quran (23:5-6) - "..who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess..." -This verse permits the slave-owner to have sex with his slaves. See also Quran (70:29-30) . The Quran is a small book, so if Allah used valuable space to repeat the same point four times, sex slavery must be very important to him. He was relatively reticent on matters of human compassion and love.

Quran (4:24) - "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." -Even sex with married slaves is permissible.

Quran (8:69) - "But (now) enjoy what ye took in war, lawful and good" -A reference to war booty, of which slaves were a part. The Muslim slave master may enjoy his "catch" because (according to verse 71) "Allah gave you mastery over them."

Quran (24:32) - "And marry those among you who are single and those who are fit among your male slaves and your female slaves..." -Breeding slaves based on fitness.

Hadith and Sira

Sahih Bukhari (41.598) - Muhammad establishes that slaves are property. They cannot be freed if an owner has outstanding debt, but they can be used to pay off the debt.

Sahih Bukhari (62:137) - An account of women taken as slaves in battle by Muhammad's men after their husbands and fathers were killed. The woman were raped with Muhammad's approval.

Sahih Bukhari (34:432) - Another account of females taken captive and raped with Muhammad's approval. In this case it is evident that the Muslims intend on selling the women after raping them because they are concerned about devaluing their price by impregnating them. Muhammad is asked about coitus interruptus. (Coitus interruptus is the act of having raw intercourse without ejaculating inside her sexual organ.)

Sahih Bukhari (47:765) - A woman is rebuked by Muhammad for freeing a slave girl. The prophet tells her that she would have gotten a greater heavenly reward by giving her to a relative (as a slave).

Sahih Bukhari (34:351) - Muhammad sells a slave for money. He was thus a slave trader.

Sahih Bukhari (72:734) - Some contemporary Muslims in the West (where slavery is believed to be a horrible crime) are reluctant to believe that Muhammad owned slaves. This is just one of many places in the Hadith where a reference is made to a human being owned by Muhammad.

Sahih Bukhari (52:255) - To discourage emancipation, Muhammad says that the slave who accepts Islam and continues serving his Muslim master will receive a double reward in heaven. This is better than freedom for both parties, as the master benefits from slave-labor free of consequence, and the slave has the promise of eternal reward over the temporal. In other words, it is better to be a slave to the Arabs than to be a free mankind because Allah will greatly reward us for the former.

Sahih Muslim 3371 - Muhammad and his men take captive " some excellent Arab women " from the Banu Mustaliq. Their dilemma then becomes that they want to rape the women, but they also want to 'ransom' them, knowing that their captives will be of less value if pregnant. When they ask Muhammad about coitus interruptus, their prophet tells them that it doesn't matter how they rape the women because " every soul will be born " anyway.

Sahih Muslim 3901 - Muhammad trades away two African slaves for one Muslim slave.

Sahih Bukhari 8:73:182 - Muhammad had an African slave acting as his chauffeur.

Sahih Bukhari 9:91:368 - Muhammad had an African slave acting as his butler.

Sahih Bukari 4:53:344 - Aisha learns that Muhammad has acquired slave girls as "booty" and asks for one as a maid.

Sahih Bukhari 7:65:344 - Muhammad kept a slave to acting as his tailor.

Sahih Bukhari 2:15:103 - "I was watching the display of black slaves in the mosque..."

Sahih Muslim 4345 - Narration of a military raid against a hapless tribe trying to reach their water hole. During the slaughter, the women and children attempt to flee, but are cut off and captured by the Muslims. This story refutes any misconception that Muhammad's sex slaves were taken by their own volition.

Sahih Muslim 4112 - A man freed six slaves on the event of his death, but Muhammad reversed the emancipation and kept four in slavery to himself. He cast lots to determine which two to free. (Even when a Muhammad follower realized in the end that slavery was wrong and decided to free his own slaves upon his death, Muhammad reversed his decision and kept the slaves to himself.)

Sahih Bukhari (47:743) - Muhammad's own pulpit - from which he preached Islam - was built with slave labor on his command.

Sahih Bukhari (59:637) - "The Prophet sent Ali to Khalid to bring the Khumus (of the booty) and I hated Ali, and Ali had taken a bath (after a sexual act with a slave-girl from the Khumus). I said to Khalid, 'Don't you see this (i.e. Ali)?' When we reached the Prophet I mentioned that to him. He said, 'O Buraida! Do you hate Ali?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Do you hate him, for he deserves more than that from the Khumlus.'" -Muhammad approved of his men having sex with slaves, as this episode involving his son-in-law, Ali, clearly proves. This hadith refutes the modern apologists who pretend that slaves were really "wives." This is because Muhammad had forbidden Ali from marrying another woman as long as Fatima (his favorite daughter) was living.

Abu Dawud (2150) - "The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: (Quran 4:24) 'And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." -This is the background for verse 4:24 of the Quran. Not only does Allah give permission for women to be captured and raped, but allows it to even be done in front of their husbands. (See also Muslim 3432 & Ibn Kathir/Abdul Rahman Part 5 Page 14)

Abu Dawud (1814) - "... [Abu Bakr] He then began to beat [his slave] him while the Apostle of Allah (pbuh) was smiling and saying: Look at this man who is in the sacred state (putting on ihram), what is he doing?" -The future first caliph of Islam is beating his slave for losing a camel while Muhammad looks on in apparent amusement.

Ibn Ishaq (734) - A slave girl is given a "violent beating" by Ali in the presence of Muhammad, who does nothing about it.

Abu Dawud 38:4458 - Narrated Ali ibn AbuTalib: “A slave-girl belonging to the house of the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) committed fornication. He (the Prophet) said: Rush up, Ali, and inflict the prescribed punishment on her. I then hurried up, and saw that blood was flowing from her, and did not stop. So I came to him and he said: Have you finished inflicting (punishment on her)? I said: I went to her while her blood was flowing. He said: Leave her alone till her bleeding stops; then inflict the prescribed punishment on her. And inflict the prescribed punishment on those whom your right hands possess (i.e. slaves)”. -A slave girl is ordered by Muhammad to be beaten until she bleeds, and then beaten again after the bleeding stops. He indicates that this is prescribed treatment for slaves ("those whom your right hand possesses".)

Abu Dawud 1:142 - "Do not beat your wife as you beat your slave-girl "

Sunan Nasai 2:12:1125 - Aisha said, "I noticed that the Messenger of Allah was missing from bed... I thought he had gone to one of his concubines" - Muhammad's wife thought that he had gone to one of his slaves for sex.

Ibn Ishaq (693) - "Then the apostle sent Sa-d b. Zayd al-Ansari, brother of Abdu'l-Ashal with some of the captive women of Banu Qurayza to Najd and he sold them for horses and weapons." -Muhammad trades away women captured from the Banu Qurayza tribe to non-Muslim slave traders for property. (Their men had been executed after surrendering peacefully without a fight).

Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller) (o9.13) - According to Sharia, when a child or woman is taken captive by Muslims, they become slaves by the mere fact of their capture. A captured woman's previous marriage is immediately annulled. This would not be necessary if she were widowed by battle, which is an imaginary stipulation that modern apologists sometimes pose.


Notes

Slavery is deeply embedded in Islamic law and tradition. Although a slave-owner is cautioned against treating slaves harshly, basic human rights are not obliged. The very fact that only non-Muslims may be taken as slaves is evidence of Islam's supremacist doctrine.

Of the five references to freeing a slave in the Quran, three are prescribed as punitive measures against the slaveholder for unrelated sin. They limit the emancipation to just a single slave. Another (24:33 ) appears to allow a slave to buy their own freedom if they are "good." This is in keeping with the traditional Islamic practice of wealth-building through taking and ransoming hostages, which began under Muhammad.

The taking of women and children as slaves, particularly during the conquests outside Arabia, belies the notion that Jihad was being waged in self-defense, since the enemy's families reside neither with the Muslims nor (generally) on the battlefield. These were innocent people captured from their homes and pressed into slavery by Muhammad's companions and successors.

Contrary to popular belief, converting to Islam does not automatically earn a slave his freedom, although freeing a believing slave is said to increase the master's heavenly reward (Muslim slaves are implied in Quran (4:92 )). As far as the Islamic courts are concerned, a master may treat his slaves however he chooses without fear of punishment.

By contrast, Christianity was a major impetus in the abolishment of slavery. Abolition had to be imposed on the Islamic world by the European West.

Given that there have never been abolitionary movement within the Islamic world, it is astonishing to see contemporary Muslims write their religion into the history of abolition. It is a lie.


One of Muhammad's closest companions was Umar, who became the 2nd caliph only two years after the prophet of Islam died. It is fair to say that he would have known Islam better than any contemporary apologist - those who say that slaves can only be captured in war and wars can only be waged in self-defense. He obviously did not agree with this.

Under Umar's authority, Arab armies in Egypt invaded Black Africa to the south and attempted to conquer the Christian Makurians who were living there peacefully. Although the Muslims were held off, the Makurians had to sign a treaty to prevent recurring invasions. The terms of the Baqt included an annual payment of 360 "high quality" African slaves. The treaty stood for 700 years without the least bit of moral objection from generations of Muslim clerics and scholars.

Umar himself was stabbed to death by a slave whose liberty he refused to grant. In this case, the slave was captured during the campaign against Persia, one of many offensive wars waged by the Muslims against people who were not attacking them.

Modern day apologists trying to defend slavery under Islam generally ignore the basic fact that reducing people to property is dehumanizing. They distract from this by comparing the theoretical treatment of slaves under Sharia with the worst examples of abuse from the era of European slavery.

The first problem with this is that the actual practice of Muslim slavery was often remarkably at odds with the relatively humane treatment prescribed by Sharia. For example, according to the Ghanian scholar John Azumah, nearly three times as many captured Africans died in harsh circumstances related to their transport to Muslim lands than were ever even enslaved by Europeans.

A more insurmountable problem for the Muslim apologist who insists that slavery is "different" under Islam are the many examples in which Muhammad and his companions sold captured slaves to non-Muslim traders for material goods. The welfare of the slave was obviously of no consequence.
Some contemporary apologists interpret sex slavery as a favor done to the subject - a way in which women and children are taken care of in exchange for their sexual availability to the pious Muslim male. Although morally repugnant in its own right, this is easily belied by the fact that slavery would be unnecessary if the arrangement were of benefit to the slave.

Another myth about Islamic slavery is that it was not race-based. In fact, it was. Muhammad's father-in-law, Umar, in his aforementioned role as caliph, declared that Arabs could not be taken as slaves and even had all Arab slaves freed on his deathbed. This helped propel the vast Islamic campaign to capture slaves in Africa, Europe and Asia for import into the Middle East.

The greatest slave rebellion in human history took place in Basra, Iraq beginning in 869. A half-million African slaves staged a courageous uprising against their Arab-Islamic masters that lasted fifteen years before being brutally suppressed. See Zanj Rebellion (http://libcom.org/library/zanj-slaves-rebellion-ad-869-883)

Literally millions of Christians were captured into slavery during the many centuries of Jihad. So pervasive were the incursions by the Turks into Eastern Europe, that the English word for slave is based on Slav.

Muslim slave raiders operated as far north as England. In 1631, a French cleric in Algiers observed the sale of nearly 300 men, women and children, taken from a peaceful English fishing village:
"It was a pitiful sight to see them exposed in the market…Women were separated from their husbands and the children from their fathers…on one side a husband was sold; on the other his wife; and her daughter was torn from her arms without the hope that they’d ever see each other again." (from the book, White Gold, which also details the story of an English slave, Thomas Pellow, who was beaten, starved and tortured into embracing Islam).

The Indian and Persian people suffered greatly as well - as did Africans. At least 17 million slaves (mostly black women and children) were brought out of Africa by Islamic traders - far more than the 11 million that were taken by the Europeans. However, these were only the survivors. As many as 85 million other Africans are thought to have died en route.
Most telling, perhaps, is that slavery is still practiced in the Sudan, Niger, Mauritania and a few other corners of the Muslim world - and you won't see any of those Muslim apologists (who shamelessly repeat the lie that Islam abolished slavery) doing or saying anything about it!

In 2003, a cleric in Saudi Arabia's highest religious body declared (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saleh_Al-Fawzan) , " Slavery is part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam. Those who argue that slavery has been abolished are ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever say such thing is an infidel."

In 2011, Salwa Al-Mutairi, who is considered a women's rights activist in Kuwait, suggested (http://rt.com/news/activist-sex-sold-war/) that Russian women be taken captive in battle and turned into sex slaves in order to keep Muslim husbands from committing adultery.


After the Islamic State kidnapped and pressed into slavery thousands of Yazidi women and children in 2014, the caliphate issued an FAQ of sorts on slavery, which included rules on sexually molesting children: "It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however, if she is not fit for intercourse, then it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse."

In 2016, a scholar at Egypt's al-Azhar, the most prestigious Islamic school in the Sunni world, stated (http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/egypts-al-azhar-professor-suad-saleh-rape-allowed-by-allah-islam-only-regulated-the-practice-makes-infidel-women-slaves-26321/) that non-Muslim women could be captured in a time of war become "property " and can be raped "in order to humiliate them."

A 12-year-old girl taken captive by the Islamic State explained that her 'master' would pray before he raped her: "He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to Allah." Other sex slaves have been forced to pray before the rape or recite passages from the Quran during. When a Yazidi woman begged a caliphate member not to rape a little girl, he responded , " She's a slave... and having sex with her pleases God."

In 2017, African slaves were freed from captivity in Libya, where their Arab masters not only raped and starved them, but forced them to drink from toilets.

As Uzy Bulut keenly observed, "A religion that encourages destructive rioting and killing over cartoons, but shows no sign of sorrow as little girls are sold and raped, does not have much to contribute to advancing civilization."

Since Muhammad was a slave owner and slavery is permitted by the Quran, the Muslim world has never apologized for this dehumanizing practice. Even Muslims in the West will often try to justify slavery under Islam, since it is a part of the Quran.

For futher reading: https://thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/slavery.aspx#hadith

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A Muslim in central Uganda is suspected of hanging his wife and two children because the young mother and oldest child received Christ after attending Christmas Day and Sunday worship services, sources said.

A neighbor on Dec. 28 found Shamira Nakato hanged with her two children, ages 3 and 8, in their house in Bwetyaba village, Kayunga District, after area residents witnessed signs of violence against her, a church leader said. She was 27.

Another neighbor had invited Nakato to attend a Christmas service at her church on Dec. 25 while Nakato’s husband was away on a two-day trip, said the pastor of the church, unidentified for security reasons. At the end of the service, the pastor spoke with Nakato and prayed for her and her children.

Nakato and her two children returned to the church for the Sunday service on Dec. 26.
“At the end of the service, Nakato remained behind and told me that he she had a deep conviction to embrace Christ after the prayer of Christmas Day,” the pastor said. “I then prayed for her and invited her for a special prayer day on Monday, Dec. 27.”

Nakato’s 8-year-old child also received Christ, the pastor said.

While Nakato and her children were attending the service on Dec. 27, her husband arrived home earlier than expected, and a Muslim neighbor told him that his wife was seen attending church services on two consecutive days with the Christian neighbor, area residents said.

The Muslim neighbor told Nakato’s husband, Hamidu Kasimbi, that she might be gone to another service, and Kasimbi left his house and went to the church site, residents said.
“When he entered the church, his wife and the children were seated at the back,” the pastor said. “He pulled her out of the church, and about 100 meters away, a member saw him beat his wife.”

At mid-day, another neighbor heard screaming from Kasimbi’s house, the pastor said. At about 4 p.m., a neighbor saw two men wearing Islamic prayer caps outside Kasimbi’s house putting together an undefined wooden structure.

Late at night, area residents heard brief screaming in Kasimbi’s house, the neighbor said. When he went to the house early the next morning (Dec. 28) to borrow a tool for cutting firewood, he did not find anyone at the compound.

The neighbor said the door was unlocked, so he entered the house and found Nakato and her two children hanged. The wooden structure built earlier appeared to have been used to elevate the victims before hanging, he said.

“I made an alarm that brought area residents, including the chairperson of Local Council 1, Fred Sekatonya, rushing to the scene,” he said. “Later the police arrived from Bukaloto police post, and the three bodies were carried to Kayunga Hospital for postmortem.”

The results of the portmortem were unknown, but the neighbor noted other injuries indicating that one or more of the victims might have been strangled before being hung.

Kasimbi has disappeared and is sought by security agencies. Police registered a homicide case (SD REF 27/27/12/2021).

Sekatonya, the council chairperson, said Nakato suffered head and neck injuries. The wooden structure that Kasimbi and the two accomplices were making were used for the hangings, he said.

https://morningstarnews.org/2022/01/mother-children-in-uganda-hanged-for-faith-in-christ/

A group of Christian converts cleared of any wrongdoing in November are now being forced to undertake “re-education” classes in the Islamic faith.

The Christians, from the western city of Dezful, were called by intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) late on Friday night and told they must come to see them the next morning.

Some of the Christians – 10 in all, including the eight who were cleared in November of any crime – went as instructed, at 10am on Saturday, despite their lawyer telling them it was against the law to be summoned over the phone.

“I told my clients not to go, and to say, ‘We have a lawyer, so summon us legally,’” Iman Soleimani explained. “But they were anxious and worried.”

Those who didn’t attend the meeting were then called and asked why they hadn’t.

The Christians were then informed that, as they had been “misled”, 10 sessions with Islamic clerics would soon be arranged, to “guide them back onto the right path”.

A growing trend
As highlighted in Article18’s latest annual report, published last week, the IRGC is increasingly involved in the harassment and prosecution of Christians.

In 2021, Revolutionary Guards were responsible for 12 of the 38 documented incidents of arrests of Christians or raids on their homes or house-churches.

And one of those 12 incidents involved this group of Christians in Dezful, for whom the IRGC was responsible for their initial arrest, the threats made against them, the charges brought, the confiscation of their property, and now these compulsory “re-education” classes.

And, as in the confiscation of their property, once again the IRGC is acting outside the bounds of the law by refusing to accept the ruling of the prosecutor of the Civil and Revolutionary Court of Dezful, who just two months ago ruled that the Christians had done nothing illegal and therefore could not be charged.

They “merely converted to a different religion”, and “didn’t carry out any propaganda against other groups”, the prosecutor stated, adding that “apostasy” from Islam was something that could be punished under Islamic law (Sharia) “and in the hereafter”, but was “not criminalised in the laws of Iran”.

Despite this, the Christians must now endure 10 compulsory sessions with Islamic clerics, who will attempt to revert them to Islam in what is a clear breach of their rights under the international covenants to which Iran is a signatory.

Such so-called “re-education” sessions have become much more common in recent years, even appearing in the list of “corrective punishments” on official court papers.

https://articleeighteen.com/news/10283/

Islamist militants killed at least 21 civilians in an overnight attack on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a local human rights group and a witness said on Monday.

Fighters believed to be from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked the village of Masambo on Sunday night, said Ricardo Rupande, president of the group, the Ruenzori Sector Civil Society.

The village is about 40 km (25 miles) east of the city of Beni in the Ruenzori district.
The ADF is a Ugandan militia that has been active in eastern Congo since the 1990s. It has been blamed for thousands of deaths since a resurgence in 2013, many in middle-of-the-night massacres carried out with machetes and hatchets.

"It is a miracle I survived. We were already in bed when we heard the sound of boots outside and bullets. It was after hearing victims' cries that we realized it was a rebel raid," said Kakule Saanane, a resident of Masambo.

He and Rupande both said 21 dead bodies had been found so far but that the number of deaths could rise.
Congolese army spokesman Antony Mwalushayi said the army would issue a statement after it had finished its security assessment of the zone.
Uganda sent more than 1,000 troops to Congo in December to undertake joint operations against the ADF.

https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/article-703174

A group of men came to Iqbal Masih’s snooker club in Lahore Development Authority (LDA) quarters in Model Town, Lahore, on the eve of February 13, 2022. What was meant to be a fun activity turned ugly, when they started arguing over the game – and some money matters. When Masih asked them to leave his club, the men abused him and ransacked his property. The situation worsened, as more representatives of the Muslim and Christian communities got involved in the fight.

Samsoon Gill, the victims’ uncle, filed an FIR against the attackers at 9pm on February 13. The next morning, on February 14, a group of some 150 to 200 Muslim men came to the Christian part of the LDA quarters with guns, bricks and iron rods, and threatened filers of the FIR. In the heat of the moment, they grabbed Iqbal Masih and beat him with bricks and iron rods and badly injured his brother and cousin. The victim succumbed to injuries in a local hospital shortly after. The residents of the LDA quarters called the police but they were not able to reach the crime scene on time because of the PSL activities in the Lahore.


Thirty-two year old Iqbal Masih lived in the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) quarters in Model Town, Lahore, where Muslim and Christian communities live separate lives. He was the only brother of six sisters and a son of a widowed mother. Masih ran a snooker club to earn a living.

While talking to Ravadari , Aamir Bashir, Chairman Voice of Minorities Pakistan, and representatives of Christian Lawyers Association in Pakistan condemned the incident. “Christians face difficulties in Pakistan. We cannot do business freely. Iqbal Masih lost his life while facing such difficulties,” said Bashir.

Rashid Masih*, a resident of LDA quarters, said, “The dispute between Christians and Muslims had been brewing since Iqbal Masih set up his club.”

Kiran Khokhar*, another resident of the area, said, “We decided to build a wall in the neighbourhood to allow Muslims and Christians to live separately in peace, and avoid daily squabbles between men who come to the Christian side to play snooker. The latest incident is not a result of tensions over the construction of the wall but years of discrimination against the Christian community living in Muslim majority area.”

Report by Christian Lawyers Association against the death of Pervaiz Masih

Essa Sukhera, SP Cantonment, reached the site on February 14 for further investigation. The dead body was moved to a morgue for autopsy. A large crowd attended Masih’s funeral ceremony on February 16, 2022 in the LDA quarters.

Christian Lawyer Association in Pakistan also condemned the killing of Iqbal Masih and demanded justice. Although some arrests have been made and forensic evidence has been gathered, the victim’s family is still seeking justice.

Injustices against the minority communities in Pakistan continue unabated in Pakistan. Since the start of 2022, five Christian have been victims of persecution. On January 24, Karachi police shot three innocent boys, aged 13, 16, and 18 respectively. They were bread earners for their low-income families. Pastor William Siraj was killed on January 30 in Peshawar and Iqbal Masih on February 14, 2022, in Lahore’s LDA quarters.

Bashir said, “My political party is protesting in all the major cities of Pakistan so we can get our rights and should have elected leaders who fight for justice for our people. Why do we need to repeat ourselves? Christians demand rights and political justice.”

https://www.thefridaytimes.com/2022/03/31/persecution-of-pakistans-christians-continues-unabated/

A female German convert to Islam was recently sentenced to over seven years in prison. The 44-year-old wife of a Palestinian man was found guilty of joining Islamic terror groups abroad, including the Islamic State in Syria. Moreover, according to a March 3, 2022 report

She had handed over her son, who was only 14 years old at the time, to the militias as a child soldier. … The boy had actively participated in fighting and had been in acute danger of his life on several occasions. On February 23, 2018, the boy, who was 15 years old by then, had been killed in a rocket attack. She had brought the boy into the IS territory, which is why the accused should also be convicted of involuntary manslaughter. … The accused had tried to present herself as a naïve wife who had only followed her husband.

As deplorable as this woman’s behavior was — she had also tried to get her older son to come and be “martyred” in Syria — the most telling aspect of and lynchpin to her persona is found in the following excerpt: “According to a witness, after the IS attacks in Paris in 2015, she had said that the victims deserved to die. She had told her son that it was important to humiliate and hate the infidels” (emphasis added).

Why would this native German woman, on converting to Islam, feel that “infidels” — all non-Muslims — are deserving of being hated and humiliated? Because Islam unequivocally commands it.

The doctrine of al-wala’ w’al-bara’ (which can be translated as “loyalty and enmity” or, more simply, “love and hate”), commands Muslims always to aid and support fellow Muslims (including jihadists, for example through funds or zakat).

It is the bara’ — the “enmity” or “hate” — that concerns us here. It manifests itself so regularly that even those in the West who are not necessarily acquainted with the particulars of Muslim doctrine sense it. For instance, in November 2015, after a series of deadly Islamic terror strikes in the West, then–presidential candidate Donald Trump said, “I think Islam hates us. There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there. There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us.”

What makes this “tremendous” and “unbelievable hatred” unintelligible to the West is that it is not a product of grievances, political factors, or even an “extremist” interpretation of Islam. Rather, it is a direct byproduct of mainstream Islamic teaching. Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse of this doctrine and speaks for itself. As Osama bin Laden, while quoting it, once wrote:

"As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High’s Word: “We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us — till you believe in Allah alone” [Koran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility — that is, battle — ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! … Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred — directed from the Muslim to the infidel — is the foundation of our religion." (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43).

Similarly, the Islamic State once confessed to the West in the context of Koran 60:4 that “we hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.” As for any and all political “grievances,” these are “secondary” reasons for the jihad, ISIS said:

"The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you."

Incidentally, from here one also understands why the recently sentenced German mother insisted that non-Muslims must also be humiliated: Koran 9:29 — which calls on Muslims to war against Christians and Jews, until they pay jizya (tribute) and are “fully humbled” — requires it.

As for the murderous hate, Koran 58:22 goes as far as to praise Muslims who kill their own non-Muslim family members: “You shall find none who believe in Allah and the Last Day on friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and his Messenger — even if they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred.”

According to Ibn Kathir’s mainstream commentary on the Koran, this verse refers to a number of Muslims who slaughtered their own non-Muslim kin. (One slew his non-Muslim father, another his non-Muslim brother, a third — Abu Bakr, the first revered caliph of Islamic history — tried to slay his non-Muslim son, and Omar, the second righteous caliph, slaughtered his relatives.) Ibn Kathir adds that Allah was immensely pleased by their unwavering zeal for his cause and rewarded them with paradise.

Verses that support the divisive doctrine of al-wala’ wa’l-bara’ permeate the Koran (see also 4:89, 4:144, 5:51, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 60:1). There is one caveat, captured by Koran 3:28: when Muslims are in a position of weakness, they may pretend to befriend non-Muslims, as long as the hate carries on in their hearts (such is taqiyya; for other Islam-sanctioned forms of deception, read about tawriya and taysir).

Little wonder, then, that America’s supposed best Muslim “friends and allies” — such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar — have issued fatwas calling on all Muslims to “oppose and hate whomever Allah commands us to oppose and hate, including the Jews, the Christians, and other mushrikin [non-Muslims], until they believe in Allah alone and abide by his laws, which he sent down to his Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him.”

Indeed, because enmity for non-Muslims is so ironclad in the Koran, mainstream Islamic teaching holds that Muslim men must even hate — and show that they hate — their non-Muslim wives, for no other reason than that they are “infidels.”

If Muslims must hate those closest to them — including fathers, sons, brothers, and wives — simply because they are non-Muslims, is there any surprise that so many Muslims hate foreign “infidels” who live oceans away — such as Americans, who are further portrayed throughout the Muslim world as trying to undermine Islam?

In short, jihad — or terrorism, war on non-Muslims for no less a reason than that they are non-Muslims — is simply the physical realization of an ignored doctrine that precedes it: Islam’s unequivocal command for Muslims to hate non-Muslims.

So ironclad is it that a German woman, on converting to Islam, and thus being duly instructed in al-wala’ wa’l-bara’, came to hate fellow Germans, to the point of sacrificing her own son in a foreign nation in the name of Islam.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/what-made-german-mother-hate-infidels-point-raymond-ibrahim/


"We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed," Isa Aliyu Pantami, President Muhammadu Buhari's communications minister.
https://saharareporters.com/2021/04/18/flashback-we-are-all-happy-when-unbelievers-are-killed—minister-pantami

Three female teachers of a seminary in Dera Ismail Khan were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly killing a former colleague after accusing her of blasphemy, according to District Police Officer (DPO) Najamul Hasnain.

The DPO told Dawn.com the murder occurred early in the morning outside the Jamia Islamia Falahul Binaat. According to the first information report (FIR), a copy of which is available with Dawn.com , when police reached the site of the crime, they found the victim lying in a pool of blood with her throat slashed.
Sharp objects were used in the attack on the victim, the FIR added.

DPO Hasnain said the suspects — aged 17, 21 and 24 respectively — killed the 21-year-old victim over "difference of opinion on religious issues" and allegations of blasphemy.

He said the victim was a follower of well-known religious scholar Maulana Tariq Jameel, which was not liked by the suspects.

The DPO quoted the suspects as saying that a 13-year-old female relative of theirs "saw a dream last night" in which she found out about the alleged blasphemy committed by the victim and was subsequently "ordered to slaughter her".

A register containing details of the dream has been recovered during the initial investigation, the DPO said, adding that the trio of suspects, along with their relative, have been arrested.
The women belong to the Mehsud tribe and hail from South Waziristan tribal district, he said, adding that their current residence was in DI Khan's Anjumabad area.

Following the incident, Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia Pakistan, which is a board of seminaries, condemned the murder, terming it "unfortunate".
In a statement, the board demanded an independent and fair investigation into the incident and called for arresting and punishing the culprits.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1682417/woman-slaughtered-in-di-khan-over-alleged-blasphemy-3-seminary-teachers-arrested

Before Sadi Bwanga could make it home from the church service in eastern Uganda where he had just put his faith in Christ, Muslim relatives found out and intercepted him.

Bwanga, 20, had prayed to receive Christ at the Feb. 6 church service in Kadama, Kibuku District that morning, said the evangelist taking him home on his motorcycle. The grandson of a former Muslim sheikh who had led Kadama Sub-County for many years, Bwanga was half way back to his home in predominantly Muslim Bulocho village when relatives stopped him and the evangelist driving the motorcycle.

A relative had seen Bwanga and the evangelist, whose name is withheld for security reasons, enter the church that morning and then told other family members. Driving a car to the church 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away, the relatives found Bwanga carrying a Bible that the church had given him, took him to the roadside and told the evangelist to leave, the friend said.

“One of them told me, ‘We know that you are a Christian, but our son is a Muslim – we do not want to see you here,’” the evangelist said. “So I left immediately. Just a little distance away I heard loud screaming from Sadi crying for help.”

When another vehicle happened by, it stopped, and the occupants learned from the evangelist about the assault taking place, causing Bwanga’s Muslim relatives to put him into their vehicle and drive away, the evangelist said.

“I knew that they were going to kill my friend, so I alerted my pastor, who organized two vehicles immediately and we drove to Sadi’s home,” he said. “On arrival there were several people outside, but on seeing us they fled. We found Sadi outside his cottage lying in a pool of blood and half-naked at around 2:30 p.m., with serious head and leg injuries, but still alive.”

They rushed him to Kadama Hospital while Bwanga’s relatives demolished his living quarters, the evangelist said.

Church leaders reported the attack to the area chairperson, a Muslim who took no action, the church pastor told Morning Star News.

“We are planning to report this incident to the police as soon as Sadi recovers,” the pastor said. “We need prayers on the next course of action to take.”

Bwanga was released from the hospital on Monday (Feb. 14). He remains on an IV drip, and a nurse is monitoring his condition at a house at an undisclosed location.

The assault was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented.

Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.

https://morningstarnews.org/2022/02/new-christian-seriously-injured-after-church-service/

Musa Cerantonio, a former Australian Islamist preacher who persuaded a large number of foreign terrorists to join jihadi terror group in Syria, recently recounted his experience when he openly abandoned Islam. The background behind Cerantonio renouncing Islam and reporting it to the author of the article has been detailed in an article published in The Atlantic.

Cerantonio turned to Islam at the age of 17 after being born Robert Cerantonio into an Irish-Catholic family. According to Philippine authorities, Cerantonio travelled to the Philippines in 2013 and used YouTube to advocate for jihad and celebrate the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He was deported in July 2014 following his actions.

Cerantonio and four others were detained by Australian authorities in May 2016 for allegedly planning to sail to Indonesia with the intention of joining ISIS in Syria. Cerantonio was already communicating with ISIS terrorists on social networks for a long time before his arrest. He often used social media to demand the killing of US officials and to laud Syrian extremists.

Cerantonio repudiated ISIS and admitted his role in fuelling jihad in June 2021. He informed Graeme Charles Arthur Wood, an American staff writer for The Atlantic, that he had forsaken ISIS in a letter sent from Port Phillip Prison in Melbourne last year.
Dedication to tyrannical death cults led by suicidal maniacs is bad enough

In the article at The Atlantic, Graeme Wood wrote, “In block letters—the Arabic transcriptions neatly bedecked with diacritical marks, all in the right places—he explained his journey back from jihad.” Cerantonio stated in the letter that for the previous 17 years, he was completely wrong. “Seeing individuals dedicate themselves to tyrannical death cults led by suicidal maniacs is bad enough. Knowing that I may have contributed to their choices is terrible,” he wrote.

When ISIS advanced, Wood notes, “this neofundamentalist autodidact” possessed both the knowledge and the on-camera charm required to persuade thousands of other Muslims to go to Syria and Iraq to kill and die for the Islamic caliphate.


While in jail, Cerantonio began to read the Quran more thoroughly, focusing on the passages that perplexed him the most. Among these was the person known as Dhu-l Qarnayn, or “the two-horned one,” who appears in the 18th chapter of the Quran and is sometimes misidentified as Alexander the Great. Cerantonio discovered no connection between Dhu-l Qarnayn and the actual Alexander, but he did detect connections between Dhu-l Qarnayn and an Aramaic version of Alexander’s tale that was substantially fabricated. He assumed that the Aramaic version had replicated the Quran, but after getting a copy and deciphering it for himself, he came to the conclusion that the contrary was more plausible.

Cerantonio went on and added, “Realizing that Dhu-l Qarnayn was not at all a real person but was rather based on a fictional account of Alexander the Great instantly left me with only one possible conclusion: The Quran was not divinely inspired.”

Islam is intrinsically violent

“Of course, I would have preferred to have discovered all that 17 years ago and avoided much trouble,” he added. Cerantonio has so ditched not only ISIS but also Islam and religion in general.

He indicated that he was hesitant to go public with his defection because his detractors will say he was just trying to get out of prison early and not that he is fearful of being murdered by the Islamic jihadists.

When questioned why Alexander’s impersonation convinced him that ISIS was evil yet the group’s techniques of mass massacres and sex enslavement had never turned him off, he stated that the latter was coherent with the religion, but Alexander’s impersonation failed logical standards on its own terms. He was attempting to make the point that Islam is intrinsically violent and that no one should expect anything less.

There is nothing called true Islam

Cerantonio stated that practically all of the programmes in jails in Australia and throughout the world are a waste of time. They present counter-arguments to jihadism that jihadists can readily rebut. He considered the idea of exposing terrorists to “true Islam” idiotic.

Concerning author Richard Dawkins, whom he follows since becoming athiest, Cerantonio noted that he disagrees with what Dawkins says since he gets things incorrect when writing about Islam. “Dawkins quotes a scripture that claims martyrs will be given 72 virgins in paradise. That hadith is not authentic!” Cerantonio voiced his displeasure in a Skype session with Wood. He claimed that opponents of ISIS, even intellectual ones, become ignorant when fighting jihadism and mistakenly believe that the jihadists themselves are stupid.
ISIS deserves destruction

Cerantonio claimed that, thus far, nothing appears to have worked better than destroying ISIS on the battlefield, razing its caliphate, and encouraging its adherents to contemplate if God could be giving them a “message in the form of U.S. aerial bombardment.”

Cerantonio recounted persuading two jihadists by explaining evolutionary mechanisms to them. He went at them hard and laid out how a world without a supernatural Creator would appear, how it might make sense, and how it may be an alternative to their preconceived opinions.

https://www.opindia.com/2022/04/islam-inherently-violent-musa-cerantonio-isis-terrorist-australia-quit-islam/

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