Take A Good Look
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| Arzoo Raja / Aid To The Church In Need UK photo |
The constant threat to public safety caused by the adherents of a particular religious ideology is barely mentioned in the secular media.
Abductions of young Christian girls are widespread. Deadly attacks on Christians throughout the Middle East and Africa are frequent, committed not by a mere few lost souls but by a hoard of perpetrators that appears to be multiplying every week (World Watch List 2020).
- 2983 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons. On average, that's 8 Christians killed every day for their faith. (World Watch List 2020)
Given that the abductors, rapists and murderers mentioned in the articles below explicitly and undeniably self declare their associations with a particular religious ideology, e.g., by the declaration of the Takbir, and given reputedly learned courts guided by a particular religious jurisprudence condone such behavior, one could be forgiven a charge of bias for merely acknowledging that the fuel of such behavior is, given the abundance of evidence, the teachings constituting a particular religion.
It is difficult to imagine that entire cultures built upon a particular violent religious ideology will stop persecuting religious minorities overnight. An end to the persecution can't arrive soon enough. Said societies must realize their inability to restrain their violent factions. Only a turn away from their primary motivation to a different religion that preaches love of enemies, for example, and insists on the love of one's neighbors and the inalienable dignity of every person, will bring an end to the violence. Western societies that have abandoned Christianity for sham secular ideologies are producing violent mobs comparable to gangs or militias and individuals in Pakistan, Africa and elsewhere.
CNA Staff, Oct 29, 2020 (CNA).
Catholics in Pakistan are protesting a judge’s decision not to intervene after a 44-year-old man allegedly kidnapped a 13-year-old Catholic girl, forced her to convert to Islam, and then married her.
According to UCA News, Arzoo Raja, a 13-year-old Catholic from Karachi was kidnapped in broad daylight Oct. 13 by Ali Azhar. Raja’s parents were informed days later by the police that their daughter had converted to Islam and had married Azhar, allegedly of her own free will. Her parents filed a police report.
Two weeks after her abduction, on Oct. 27, the Sindh High Court ruled the marriage was valid and that Azhar would not be arrested.
Technically, child marriage is illegal in Pakistan, but courts typically do not enforce these laws. Sharia Law, which is used in some judicial decisions in Pakistan, permits a child to be married after her first menstrual period.
Approximately 400 people protested the decision at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Karachi, and Christians in other parts of the country protested as well.
Fr. Saleh Diego, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Karachi, condemned the court for ruling without properly investigating the circumstances.
“Whatever happened in the court was shameful and deplorable. It was all lies that the girl was being sent to a shelter home,” said Diego. “The court, without checking or determining Arzoo’s age, ruled in favor of the abductors.”
Documentation proved that Raja was born in 2007 and is 13 years old.
UPDATE:
MUMBAI, India – Catholic leaders in Pakistan are demanding the government “take serious notice” of the kidnapping and forced conversion and marriage of a Christian girl in Karachi earlier this month.
Arzoo Masih, 13, was taken from outside her home on Oct. 13 by Ali Azhar, 44, a local Muslim man. Her parents immediately filed a kidnapping complaint with the local police, but two days later the police told them their daughter had converted to Islam and married the man. The police also claimed the girl was 18.
Although civil and Church documents proved the girl was 13 and a student in the 6th grade, the High Court of Sindh sided with Azhar, and ordered that no arrests be made in the case.
“Unfortunately, Pakistani society has become increasing intolerant and living as a religious minority is becoming extremely challenging,” said a statement from the by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), an agency of Pakistan’s Catholic bishops’ conference.
“Arzoo’s case is a reported one while there are many such incidents that do not get reported. Arzoo’s family has produced her government birth certificate that proves she is 13 years old and that the marriage to Azhar violates the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act,” the statement continues.
And, there is the well know case of the recent killings of three people in Nice, France.
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| Two of the three slain: Vincent Loques and Simone Barreto Silva |
CNA Staff, 29OCT2020 - An attacker killed three people at a church in Nice, police in the French city said Thursday.
The incident took place at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice Oct. 29 at around 9am local time, according to French media.
Christian Estrosi, Nice’s mayor, said that the perpetrator, who was armed with a knife, was shot and arrested by the municipal police.
He said in a video posted to Twitter that the attacker repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during and after the attack.
“It looks like for at least one of the victims, inside the church, it was the same method as for the poor professor of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine a few days ago, that is absolute horror,” Estrosi said in the video, referencing the beheading of middle-school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris Oct. 16.
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that one of the victims, an elderly woman, was found “nearly beheaded” inside the church. It said that a man, identified as the sacristan, was also found dead inside of the basilica. A third victim, a woman, is said to have taken refuge in a nearby cafe, where she died from stab wounds.
Estrosi wrote on Twitter: “I confirm that everything suggests a terrorist attack in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice.”
Bishop André Marceau of Nice said that all churches in Nice had been closed and would remain under police protection until further notice.
The Basilica of Notre-Dame, completed in 1868, is the largest church in Nice, but is not the city’s cathedral.
Marceau said that his emotion was strong after learning of the “heinous terrorist act” at the basilica. He also noted that it occurred not long after the beheading of Paty.
UPDATE:
And these... .
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| Fr. Jacques Hamel / CNA |
CNA Staff, 19OCT2020.
Religious leaders gathered at a memorial to slain French priest Fr. Jacques Hamel Sunday, following the beheading of a Paris school teacher in an Islamist terror attack.
Catholic Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen was joined by representatives of Muslim, Jewish, and other Christian communities Oct. 18 at the memorial near the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, where Hamel was murdered by Islamists in 2016.
They laid a wreath in honor of Samuel Paty, who was killed Oct. 16 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. The religious leaders then observed a minute’s silence.
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| Samuel Paty |
How may more must suffer at the hands of wicked people?
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| Maira Shahbaz |
Pakistan: 14-year-old Maira Shahbaz Runs Away from Abductor
by Maria Lozano and John Pontifex, ACN 26AUG2020
Maira Shahbaz, the kidnapped Pakistani Christian girl at the recent center of international attention, has escaped from the home of Mohamad Nakash, the man who according to the Lahore High Court, is her legitimate husband. After her escape, she went to a police station to give her testimony, in which she also declared that she was filmed while by being raped by her abductor.
Maira fled Nakash’s home in nearby Faisalabad, where sources close to the family say she was forced into prostitution and now she, her mother and three siblings are on the run from their home. According to Maira, Mohamad Nakash has threatened to kill her and her family: “They threatened to murder my whole family. My life was at stake in the hands of the accused and Nakash repeatedly raped me forcefully.”
In her declaration the Catholic girl refuted her alleged conversion from Christianity, stressing that she had been tricked into signing blank documents extorted by the kidnapper. She added that the abductors and his accomplices threatened to publish the rape video online if she did not comply with their demands
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) received a copy of Maira’s statement to the police from the family’s lawyer, Khalil Tahir Sandhu, describing how she was kidnapped and the atrocious cruelties she suffered in captivity.
Yet Another Girl In Pakistan Abducted, Forcibly Converted And Forcibly ‘Married’ To Her Abductor by Ewelina U. Ochab
At the end of April 2020, a 14 year old Christian girl, Myra Shehbaz, was reportedly abducted and forced to marry in Faisalabad, Punjab. According to International Christian Concern, “Myra Shehbaz was abducted by a group of Muslim men led by Muhammad Naqash. Eye witnesses claim that Myra was attacked while she was traveling to her workplace as a domestic worker on Sunday afternoon. Pervez Masih, Younas Masih, and Naeem Masih, the eye witnesses, claimed that Myra’s abductors forced her into a car and that Myra tried to resist. These eye witnesses were unable to help Myra because abductors were armed and fired several shots into the air.” Myra’s mother, Nighat, told International Christian Concern that she feared her daughter would be “raped, forcefully converted to Islam, or even killed.”
Unfortunately, her concerns are not farfetched. According to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace (MSP), a human rights organization in the country, around 1,000 Christian and Hindu women and girls are kidnapped each year, forced to convert and marry Muslim men. The victims are usually between the ages of 12 and 25. Despite these shocking statistics, the number of victims may be even higher as many cases remain unreported, often due to the girls’ families limited financial means.
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