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Overnight the Islamic State (IS) group captured a major centre for the Christian minority, Qaraqosh in Nineveh province, after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces.

A majority of Nineveh inhabitants left their homes overnight, according to an international Christian organisation based in Paris. As many as 100,000 people are believed to be fleeing toward the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

The BBC reports Pope Francis has made an impassioned appeal to the international community to do much more to address the crisis. A Vatican statement said the Pope appealed for “all necessary help” to be given to those forced to flee their homes, “whose fate depends entirely on the solidarity of others”.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has called for the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting over the situation.

The 25^th anniversary of Tiananmen Square last month has provoked a fresh look at human rights in China, especially religious freedom.

Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and M. Zuhdi Jasser, a USCIRF Commissioner, write in The Washington Post.

“From repressing Muslims to bulldozing churches and tearing down crosses, Chinese officials have been denying the internationally guaranteed right to believe or not believe. The simple proposition that individuals have the right to live out their beliefs openly and peacefully, without fear or intimidation, clearly frightens Chinese authorities, as evidenced by their repressive persecution of numerous faith communities.”

Uighur Muslims were denied freedom to fast and fulfil other religious rites during the recent month of Ramadan, especially in Xinjiang province, according to Swett and Jasser. Threats, detention and arrests have been faced by those opposing the ban.

“In recent years, officials have shut down religious sites; conducted raids on independent schools, leading to multiple injuries and even deaths; confiscated religious literature; restricted private study of the Quran; monitored the sermons of imams and forced them to undergo political training; restricted Muslim dress and religious expression; banned children from being brought to mosques; and arbitrarily deemed religious gatherings and activities illegal.”

Buddhists also suffer under the communist regime. More than 130 Buddhists, including 61 monks, nuns or former nuns, have immolated themselves since May 2011 in Tibet as a protest against the deterioration of religious freedom conditions. Members of the Falun Gong community have been imprisoned with reports of death in custody, psychiatric experiments and the harvesting of organs.

Christians still face persecution with any groups refusing to register with the Government being arrested, fined and having the churches shutdown. An official directive to wipe out all unregistered Protestant churches during the next decade has also been issued by the Government. Registered churches too now face persecution with more than 100 churches in Zhejiang province being recently demolished, altered or forced to remove crosses by government officials. Pastor Zhang Shaojie of Nanle County Christian Church in Henan province was given a 12-year prison sentence on 4 July on trumped-up criminal charges.

“China’s leaders undoubtedly believe — as did their predecessors — that repression and fear will solidify their control and bring security. They are mistaken. By denying the bedrock freedoms of conscience and religion, China risks more restiveness and instability.

“If China is to assume a truly honoured place among the community of nations, its leaders must reject the dark ways of repression and embrace the light of liberty for all.”

Human rights abuse in Pakistan is still extremely serious with deadly attacks on different faith groups throughout the country, according to the United Nations.

Christian Aid issued a parliamentary briefing on the country, the sixth most populous country in the world, following the publication of a US Commission report on international freedom.

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan, contrary to international law. Religious minorities suffer mob attacks and vigilante violence, especially in Punjab. The US Commission said Pakistan used these blasphemy laws at a level ‘incomparable’ to anywhere else.

The report says that more than 300 Shia Muslims have been killed by Sunni militants since January 2013. Hindu temples have been attacked several times and the desecration of Ahmedi Muslim graves has also been reported. Christians face false charges on property and business rights – and a suicide bombing killed 81 worshippers and injured 130 others during a church service in September 2013.

The Christian Aid briefing said: “According to the UN, the human rights situation in Pakistan is extremely serious. Human rights are alleged to be violated in Pakistan with impunity. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, 6982 people were killed in Pakistan in 2013. There is judicial corruption, honour killing, trafficking of women and children, torture in custody, disappearance after arrest, suicide attacks on religious sites, forced marriage, and poverty levels have risen to 34 per cent.”

Law enforcement and security agencies are legally allowed to shoot suspects on sight, search houses without warrant, confiscate property and tap telephones after two ordinances were made without parliament approval; following the merger of the Ministry of Human Rights with the Ministry of Law and Justice.

Women and girls of all faiths face persecution, with a danger of being killed if they assert rights to education, work or for making personal decisions. The poorest girls in Pakistan are twice as likely to be out of school than those in India and six times as likely as those in Bangladesh.

At least 11 journalists were killed in Pakistan last year, 2013. Some 1,200 websites are also banned by the Government.

 

A UN Expert investigating religious freedom during a fact-finding trip to Vietnam found his quest blocked after individuals he wanted to meet were intimidated.

Heiner Bielefeldt, U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, feared ‘serious violations’ of faith freedoms in the country, he said on 31 July, after people he was meeting faced intimidation, harassment and surveillance by ‘unidentified agents’ reports Reuters.

Mr Bielefeldt told a news conference: “I received credible information that some individuals whom I wanted to meet with had been either under heavy surveillance, warned, intimidated, harassed or prevented from travelling by police.

“I was closely monitored of my whereabouts … while the privacy and confidentiality of some meetings could have been compromised.”

Some positive developments in the coexistence of faiths were observed by the UN expert. However his investigation was marred by the fact  there was no unsupervised access to interview people without the latter being threatened or punished, according to Mr Bielefeldt.

Vietnam is a communist country which is also mainly Buddhist. Faiths are under state supervision and any not registered with the Government are believed to be suppressed by the authorities.

 

Mother-of-two Meriam Ibrahim who was freed from jail after she faced Sudanese court sentences of flogging and death-by-hanging for her Christian beliefs has flown from Italy to the USA to start a new life with her family – arriving yesterday, 31 July.

The Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, greeted her in person and called her a ‘world freedom fighter’ compared to Rosa Parks who sparked the US Civil Rights movement and said people would always remember Ibrahim alongside ‘others who stood up so we could be free’.  He gave Meriam a small model of the Liberty Bell, symbolising American independence.

Meriam, a doctor by trade, will settle in the New Hampshire city of Manchester where wheelchair-bound husband Daniel Wani, a US-South Sudanese citizen, has family along with their toddler son Martin and baby daughter Maya who was born in prison when her mother’s legs were chained. Daniel Wani, in tears, spoke on behalf of his family to thank people for their outpouring of support after relatives and supporters, waving balloons and singing, met them at the airport.

The family had earlier spent a week in Rome after they were released to leave Sudan. Pope Francis met them and thanked Meriam for her witness to faith. They were given a private apartment with new clothes and driven by armed police for safety.

Recalling the week in Rome, Meriam said: “We saw the whole city, we went to the Colosseum, we went to mass on Sunday, and we went shopping. We returned to life. And now I don’t know what to expect but at least we will all be together. ‘

The family’s time in Rome and new life in the USA have been a very different experience from the persecution Meriam suffered earlier this year – facing death whilst pregnant for her religious beliefs.

Meriam has always been a Christian despite her absent father’s status as a Muslim and yet a Sudanese court sentenced her to death for apostasy whilst she was pregnant with Maya.

The mother was due to be executed by hanging when her child was two-years-old. She was also given a flogging sentence for marrying Daniel, a Catholic. Meriam’s son Martin, also a US citizen, stayed with her in prison.

International outcry led to Meriam’s release but Sudanese officials detained her again when she was leaving the country at Khartoum Airport. This time she faced forgery charges related to travel documents. There was also a legal wrangle from people claiming to be her Muslim family. The US embassy accommodated the family for a month before they were allowed to leave for Italy.

The Bishop of Tambura-Yambio in South Sudan, Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala, has said Meriam’s case was not isolated and the legal situation of Christians in Sudan is ‘worrying’.

A married church pastor who was a father to eight children was kidnapped and then killed by suspected members of Islamic militant group Boko Haram, from a location in the north of Cameroon.

Pastor Kesvere Jean Marcel, a missionary connected to the Fraternal Lutheran Church, was grabbed and then slaughtered by the fanatics at the same time as two Cameroonian soldiers were kidnapped sometime last weekend, 26 to 27 July. He leaves behind a devoted wife as well as the children.

The tragedy unfolded as part of an abduction spree by the militants who targeted towns in the north of Cameroon last week, kidnapping an unknown number of people.

Kolofata town was stormed by Boko Haram on 26 July which saw them shooting wildly and ransacking houses. The Deputy Prime Minister Amadou Ali’s wife and her maid were abducted as the family celebrated Ramadan at home. He was escorted to a nearby town as a security measure by police following the incident. Mayor Seini Boukar Lamine, a well-known religious leader, was also taken by the militants and three people were killed in that attack.

Boko Haram militants, who have persecuted regularly both Christians and Muslims in Northern Nigeria, have also made raids into Chad, Niger, and Cameroon which lie along borders of the nation.

The group tried to extort traders in the far north of Cameroon at the end of 2013 by demanding that the people of Mayo-Sava implement Islamic law and block co-operation with westerners.

Boko Haram has been under the media spotlight after kidnapping 273 Christian and Muslim school girls from the enclave of Chibok in Nigeria – the students are still missing.

In a separate incident, Boko Haram was believed to have organised the throwing of a bomb at churchgoers leaving a catholic church in the northern city of Kano in Nigeria on 27 July – five people were killed.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has submitted the 2013 International Religious Freedom annual report to the US Congress which said there were great challenges around the world.  

The report said: “In 2013, the world witnessed the largest displacement of members of religious communities in recent memory. In almost every corner of the globe, millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and others representing a range of faiths were forced from their homes on account of their religious beliefs. In conflict zones, mass displacement has become all too common. Around the world, individuals were subjected to discrimination, violence and abuse, perpetrated and sanctioned violence for simply exercising their faith, identifying with a certain religion, or choosing not to believe in a higher deity at all.”

‘Countries of particular concern’ in the report were listed as Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan – and for the first time, Turkmenistan.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said: “When 75 percent of the world’s population still lives in countries that don’t respect religious freedoms, let me tell you, we have a long journey ahead of us. We have a long way to go when governments kill, detain, or torture people based on a religious belief.

“North Korea stands out again in this year’s report for its absolute and brutal repression of religious activity. Members of religious minorities are ripped from their families and isolated in political prison camps. They’re arrested and beaten, tortured and killed. And we’ve seen reports that individuals have been arrested for doing nothing more than carrying a Bible.

“North Korea is not alone. Earlier this month, Chinese officials sentenced Christian pastor Zhang Shaojie to 12 years in prison for peaceful advocacy on behalf of his church community. And just last week, I welcomed the release of Meriam Ishag, a mother of two young children who had been imprisoned on charges of apostasy in Sudan. From South Asia to Sahel, governments have silenced members of religious groups with oppressive laws, harsh punishments, and brutal tactics that have no place in the 21st century.

“In Iran, U.S. Iranian citizen Pastor Saeed Abedini remains imprisoned. The Iranian authorities sentenced him to eight years behind bars simply because of his religious beliefs. We will continue to call for his release and we will continue to work for it. And make no mistake: We will continue to stand up for religious minority communities under assault and in danger around the world, from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Baha’is to Ahmadi Muslims. So we have a long way to go to safeguard these rights.”

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The report was submitted as USA President Obama gave the role of US Ambassador-at-large to Rabbi David Saperstein. He will lead the State Department’s Office of International Freedom to monitor worldwide persecution of people for their religion.

The new Ambassador succeeds Pastor Suzan Johnston Cook, after he resigned in October 2013. At the age of 66, he is the first non-Christian to fulfil the role which was first created in 1998.

President Obama said: “I am grateful that Rabbi Saperstein has chosen to dedicate his talent to serving the American people at this important time for our country. I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead.”

Russell Moore, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, welcomed the nomination.

“I applaud President Obama for making a nomination to the important position of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, a position that plays a key role in our nation’s responsibility to act on behalf of the persecuted around the world.

“Rabbi Saperstein is a respected thinker and leader who brings gravity to this important task. He has my prayers and my pledge of full cooperation. The downgrade of religious freedom and the persecution of religious minorities around the world must end.”

The White House gives the following details about Rabbi Saperstein’s background: He is director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, where he has served since 1974. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches First Amendment Church-State Law and Jewish Law.

Saperstein serves on a number of boards, including The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. He was a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships from 2010 to 2011. Saperstein was a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2001, serving as its first Chair from 1999 to 2000. He received a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.H.L. from Hebrew Union College, and a J.D. from American University.

 

Islamic State (IS) extremists slaughtered 1,500 people in Iraq on 29 July, according to Canon Andrew White, the Vicar of St George’s Church in Baghdad.

Canon White wrote the following Facebook update on 30 July:-

“Over 1500 killed by Islamic State yesterday.

“Sorry FB is not working here so I am sending this message via the UK. Nothing is working here. The whole infrastructure is broken down. There is also no news getting out of here. Yesterday over 1500 people were killed. Did anybody hear this news? All we can do is pray, ‘Lord have mercy’.”

Canon White also wrote the following update on his blog (www.frrme.org):-

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Everyday we think that the crisis here cannot get worse and every day it does. Yesterday over 1500 people were killed and the Islamic State (formally known as ISIS) simply said we can do anything now the world is just looking at Gaza. In reality that is true Iraq seems like old news, yet things just get worse and worse here. It is as if hell has broken out here and nobody cares, that is apart from your our supporters who never leave us and keep supporting us in every way and to you I simply say thank you. Here are some of the awful pictures of yesterday. The situation is so serious and it is very easy to feel forgotten.

http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2014/07/29/sectarian-killings-by-islamists-in-iraq-pictures-posted-by-islamic-state/

So many of our people have left or are planning to leave. Even here in Baghdad people are terrified of what is happening around us. The I.S. has established their hidden cells within Baghdad and people are seriously under threat even though they are not in the areas controlled by the I.S. The number of kidnappings here has soared and people simply do not know what is going to happen next.

We are still involved in providing a lot of support for the Christians who have fled Mosul and Nineveh to the North but we are staying here as our archdeacon is coming and we are really looking forward to this. We cannot really believe he is willing to come into this but he is. The support we have raised is going to the various established churches and they are sharing what is most needed with their people.

Please continue to pray for us and support us in our crisis.

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IS militants forced one of the oldest Christian communities in the world to flee Mosul, Iraq’s second oldest city on 19 July. The militants have declared an Islamic caliphate and now control vast territory across northern Iraq and Syria. Both Christians and Muslims have been slaughtered by the extremists with beheadings, crucifixions and shootings reported.

Lord Alton of Liverpool, a Vice Chair of this APPG, opened the debate on the ‘orphaned’ human right of Article 18 – the freedom of religion or belief  — in the House of Lords last week.  Read the full story of this important debate here.

Lord Alton regular updates his blog www.davidalton.net with articles about human rights related to religion or belief. The following reflection on ‘Article 18 – An Article of Faith’ contains Lord Alton’s perspective on this crucial human rights issue which affects most people in nations around the world:

Events in Mosul (Iraq) suggest that we are regressing into the Dark Ages. The assault by medieval warlords on religious reedom and the failure of international authorities to protect vulnerable minorities makes a mockery of the United Nations’ doctrine of a “responsibility to protect”; of Article 18 of the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, born in the embers of the Holocaust; and of religion itself.

Bill Clinton once told his staffers, just to remember that “it’s the economy, stupid.” Today’s policy makers need to be more religiously literate when it comes to understanding those who terrorise and suffer in the name of religion: “it’s religion, stupid”.

Article 18 embodies freedom of belief and last year I helped launch the report, “Article 18: An Orphaned Right.” It noted that, “almost 75% of the world’s population live in countries with high levels of government restrictions on freedom of religion or belief”. Not only is Article 18 a universal human right; it is a human right that is violated universally.

Christian minorities, Mandeans, Yizidis, Baha’is, Jews and Ahmadis are among those who face unspeakable persecution. And so do Muslims. Recently, in Istanbul, the head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, Professor Dr Mehmet Görmez, told the World Islamic Scholars Peace, Moderation and Common Sense Initiative that 1,000 Muslims are being killed each day, and that 90% of the killers are also Muslims. He said: “They are being killed by their brothers”.

Article 18 insists that everyone must have the right to believe, not to believe, or to change their belief. Tell that to the elderly and sick of Mosul, unable to flee and forced to accept the uncompromising ultimatum by the jihadists of Isis to convert or die.

The last Christian has now been expelled from that ancient city, reducing the Christian population from 30,000 to zero.  The light of religious freedom, along with the entire Christian presence, has been extinguished in the Bible’s “great city of Nineveh” — the centre of Christianity in Iraq for two millennia.

Before pitilessly exiling the Christians on foot, Isis stole everything they had — homes, businesses, cars, money and even wedding rings, sometimes with the ring fingers attached. Churches have all been destroyed, shuttered or turned into mosques.

The war lords who dress their violent pursuit of power in the clothes of religion and are part of an ideological pattern which extends across North Africa and Asia.

Recall Boko Haram’s pledge to eradicate education in Nigeria and their abduction of 200 school girls; of Christians in Eritrea and Kenya, facing increasing threats and attacks from al-Shabaab; of the now happily freed Meriam Ibrahim, sentenced to death in Sudan for refusing to renounce her faith.  But Meriam case is not an isolated one. Archaic and cruel laws lead to stonings and lashings, with Al-Jazeera reporting that in one recent year, 43,000 women were publicly flogged.

The treatment of women is an outrage.

In unverified reports, the United Nations has reported that, in Mosul, ISIS has ordered all girls and women to undergo female genital mutilation. Worldwide, more than 130 million girls and women have undergone FGM. This and the barbaric practice of forcing the arranged marriage of little girls means more than 700 million women alive today were children when they were married.

Attacks on human beings, their freedom and dignity, are mirrored in the orgy of destruction of culture and heritage.

Recall the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan; the Sufi shrines and tombs in Mali; and the calls to blow up the Pyramids.  In Mosul, Isis has taken  a sledgehammer to the tomb of Jonah; replaced the cross with the black Islamic flag on top of Mosul’s St Ephrem’s cathedral, and beheaded or crucified any Muslim who dared to dissent.

It’s not just the brutality and the intolerance that this represents. What kind of place will these societies be if they cannot live with difference and with minorities?

Think of the disproportionate  contribution made by Copts, Armenians, Jews and other minorities to the success of the countries in which they have been permitted to live peaceably.

Research shows that there is a direct link between economic prosperity and religious freedom.

And it’s not just Islamic radicalism. As China demolishes churches and North Korea stands accused of crimes against humanity against Christians, let them recall Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council declaration on religious freedom, that “a society which promotes religious freedom will be enlivened and enriched and one that does not will decay.”

All over the world pluralism is in peril.

In Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto’s has failed to win the presidential election but continues to threaten religious coexistence.  The BJP’s election victory in India has emboldened its followers, some of whom recently attacked an evangelical church in Uttar. Religious freedom is under attack in Sri Lanka, where anti-Muslim violence has erupted; in Bangladesh, where, earlier this month, nuns were brutally attacked and beaten; in Malaysia, where a court has ruled that only Muslims can use the term “Allah”, even though Christians have traditionally also used that same term in their texts and in their languages; and in Brunei, where a full Sharia penal code is being introduced.

And in the horrifying crucibles of Syria and Iraq we can see where such intolerance leads. What kind of dreadful world is Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, now to be known as Caliph Ibrahim, surrounded by his black-clad, gun-toting acolytes, trying to create?

He says he is the successor of the first Abbasid Caliph, Mansour who, in 762, founded the city of Baghdad – known then as the Medinat Al Salam, or City of Peace. It was a place where Persian and Arab Muslims, Jews and Christians co-existed, respected one another and celebrated each other’s talents and contribution to the vibrant life of the city. It became a centre of learning and scholarship. His grandson, Haroun Al Rashid, founded a great library – the House of Wisdom. As religious tolerance flourished so did science and culture.

Caliph Ibrahim and his followers need to rediscover a capacity to live together not the violent, fascistic, and brutal netherworld of the Dark Ages.

In his book, The Dignity of Difference, Dr. Jonathan Sacks, the former British Chief Rabbi says: “The great faiths provide meaning and purpose for their adherents. The question is: can they make space for those who are not its adherents, who sing a different song, hear a different music, tell a different story? On that question, the fate of the 21st century may turn”.

Lord Sacks is right.

 

 

Sacred Islamic shrines in Iraq’s second largest city Mosul have been blown up by Islamic State (IS) militants with half a dozen revered places targeted and destroyed this past week, end of July 2014, reports The Guardian.

The latest building to be bombed by the radical jihadists was the Prophet Jirjis mosque built over the Quraysh cemetery in the 14^th century which included a small shrine to Nabi Jerjiis.

Other mosques which have been destroyed by the IS group include the mosques of the Prophet Sheeth (Seth) and that of the Prophet Younis which claims to be a burial place for Jonah. IS militants claim the shrines encourage apostasy, not true Islamic prayer.

IS militants have captured much land in northern and west Iraq and declared a caliphate and strict interpretation of Islamic law over the region under their control which includes parts of Syria.

One of the oldest Christian communities in the world was forced to flee Mosul because of the terror group. Muslims have also been persecuted by the extremists.

Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdish regional Government, has said the bombing of churches and mosques in Mosul goes against ‘the principles of the heavenly religions’.