PERSECUTION International Christian Concern | August 2014
THE SOFT WAR AGAINST AFRICA’S CHRISTIANS A Deafening Silence Boko abducts 240 girls (90% Christian). How did the Press miss this?
“We’re Going To Kill You If You Don’t Deny Your Faith” Bits On Boko
What they won’t tell you about Boko Haram
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A Christian I Will Remain
PERSECU ION
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The perseverance of Meriam Ibrahim
I N T E R N AT I O N A L C H R I S TIAN CONCER N
Your Bridge to the Persecuted Church
A NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.” Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929)
There is a devastating war going on in Africa and the Middle East. This war looks like a series of catastrophes but unlike the quote above, it does not look like it’s going to end in victory unless the Lord or Western governments intervene.
Jeff King, President International Christian Concern
Since the war is fought by several seemingly disconnected militias (armies) with strange names, most see only trees and not a mighty forest. The armies are all heavily armed, well funded, vicious militias (armys) that have the same ideology (fundamentalist Islam), methods (extreme violence), end goal (establish Islamic States based on Sharia law) and funding source (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, as well as criminal activities in their own geographic sphere). They receive funding via the actual governments in the Gulf region but also receive huge revenue from the Zakat (tithes) of regular Muslims that flow through Islamic charities which are then funneled to these violent groups via money brokers and bank transfers. The West is slowly waking up to the problem but is war weary (rightfully so) and apathetic. There is no real answer presently other than the Lord! That’s always a good position to be in, isn’t it? Regardless of whether the West intervenes, our concern is for helping the victims and spreading the gospel into these tough areas. Into His suffering Church.
This suffering Church is His body and He feels the pain of the attacks and calls for us to use our treasure, time, and talents, to bring Him relief. So please join with us as we bandage and build His persecuted Church. As always, your donations will be used efficiently, effectively, and ethically. I Promise! Jeff King President, International Christian Concern / Persecution.org
THE
SOFT WAR
AN UNDECLARED WAR ON CHRISTIANS IN AFRICA What countries do you think of as the worst persecutors of Christians? North Korea? Pakistan? Egypt? Iraq?
near genocidal violence. On May 28, a Roman Catholic Church called Notre Dame de Fatima, was attacked by Seleka militants killing many of the Christians in attendance during the attack.
Christians Across Africa Under Attack It’s hard to imagine, but in just the past year, several places in Africa have become the deadliest killing grounds for Christians. Nigeria is now considered to be the “deadliest place to be called a Christian” on the planet. In 2014 alone, more than 1,500 people, the vast majority being Christians, have been killed by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
“We were in the church when we heard the shooting outside,” a survivor told the media. “There were screams and after 30 minutes of gunfire there were bodies everywhere.”
Commonality Africa is being ripped apart by an explosion of violence. If you pull back and analyze the conflicts to discern any major patterns or lessons, you will find three.
Line of Demarcation
The first lesson is that there is a geographic boundary to the violence. If one were to chart where Boko Haram, Seleka and al-Shabaab are perpetrating these acts of anti-Christian violence, one would draw a line across Africa dividing Africa’s Christian and animist south and its Muslim north.
Boko Haram’s Flag
They are attacking, terrorizing, and persecuting Christian communities who are in the way of establishing Islamic States and the onflict line is moving south.
Church bombings, military assaults on predominately Christian villages, and mass kidnappings are now part of a daily struggle for survival for Christians living in Nigeria’s north. In East Africa, Islamic militants from Somalia’s deadly al Shabab are committing murder and mayhem. On June 15, Al Shabab Islamist militants massacred more than 48 innocent civilians in Mpeketoni, a Christian stronghold in Kenya’s Muslim dominated Swahili Coast. Eyewitnesses reported that the Islamists were executing victims based on religion. “They came to our house at around 8 p.m. and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims,” one victim told the media. “My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest.” In Central Africa Republic (CAR), an Islamic rebel force called Seleka, led a successful coup against the Christian majority government of CAR. That coup and following chaos has ignited 3
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There is a clear boundary to the violence as armed Islamists head south
The Human Cost of the Soft War. . . .the Lives of Christians
Islam Is the Source The next lesson is that violence is perpetrated by Islamic extremist groups, all of whom are motivated by the similar goal of eradicating Christians and establishing Islamic States.
scale, you should “follow the money” to discover the source. Wars and soft wars are incredibly expensive and usually funded by state actors to enlarge territories, create buffer zones, or to destabilize enemy states.
Boko, Seleka, and al-Shabaab, are different faces of the same entity; radical Islam looking to take over nations, funded by the Saudis and Gulf States. In Northern Nigeria, Somalia and CAR, Christians are unwelcome in the planned Islamic States and they are being eradicated.
In this case, these conflicts are about enlarging territory, the territory of Islam! They are largely funded by the Saudi’s and Gulf States as well as massive funding from Islamic charities and in Boko’s case, money and arms flow from Islamist allies within the Nigerian government.
For example, Boko Haram demanded in 2012 that Christians living in northern Nigeria leave the North so they could establish a “purely Islamic society” where they will implement Sharia law. Since then, Boko Haram militants have led military scale raids on Christian villages, killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands.
Boko Haram, Seleka, and al-Shabaab, are merely different divisions of an Islamic terror apparatus that exists to bring territory under the control of Islam. The Islamic word for this is Jihad and it has been ebbing and flowing for many centuries. Although relatively dormant for centuries, the oil revenue flowing to the Gulf has revived Islam’s Jihad on a massive scale and Africa’s Christians are paying the price.
The Hidden Hand The third lesson is that there is an entity behind these attacks. Whenever you see terrorist groups operating on any kind of You can help today! 800-ICC-5441
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“A Deafening Silence” 240 PREDOMINANTLY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL GIRLS ABDUCTED IN APRIL REMAIN IN CAPTIVITY
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t was late at night when they came. The girls were tucked away in their dormitories, studying hard for final examinations they’d been kept from taking when earlier that month, President Jonathan had forcibly closed schools in their district for “security concerns.” Boko Haram (BH) was notorious for its vitriolic hatred against Western oriented education. They’d attacked several school buildings, murdered educators and, earlier this year, set a boys’ dormitory on fire—with 59 young men inside. No one made it out alive. On April 14th, they came to the girls’ secondary school as they always do: well-armed and prepared to commit atrocities against “the infidels.” They raided the girls’ school, shooting security staff dead, pillaging the library, and burning compound buildings to the ground, all while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or, “Praise Allah.” When the gunfire ceased, men in military camos swept the halls of the terrified girls’ dormitories, instructing the girls to leave their studies and to gather in the courtyard. Believing they had been saved by the Nigerian military, they left textbooks open on desks, lamps lit and study guides half-completed. For months now, that’s how the dormitories have remained: vacant, abandoned in a moment’s notice, devoid of the conversation, debate, and even laughter that once filled their now silent halls. That lingering silence in the school, 5
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churches, and thousands of abandoned and attacked homes, speaks most deafeningly to the persecution of the nation’s Christians. For years, BH has utilized violence, abduction, and murder to push Nigeria’s Christians and others out of the increasingly radicalized Islamic north. This recent attack shows that BH is widening its tactics of terror. Shifting from its historical norm of violence against Christian men, Boko Haram has now adopted a policy of inclusiveness: anyone standing in the way of the establishment of a separate Islamic State ruled by Sharia law, is now a justifiable target. As the girls flooded the courtyard, they were instructed by the armed men to line-up and make themselves presentable. One-by-one girls were asked to board the military-grade trucks parked at the courtyard’s entrance. With more than 270 hand-selected girls loaded into the backs of their trucks, the men left the compound, ferrying the girls off to a living nightmare. For weeks the wails of mothers weeping for their lost daughters drifted through the streets of Chibok, vacated by the village’s men and boys now scouring the Sambisa forest for
“the Nigerian girls,” as they’ve come to be known.
tors, they have been forced to take the name of Allah.
Almost overnight, an international outcry flooded the halls of government and twitter feeds alike. The now infamous hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls, even made its way from social media to the White House, scrawled in permanent marker on a slip of paper held up to the cameras by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Boko Haram is not simply waging a war against “Western education,” as so many continue to state, nor is it waging a “war on women.” Boko Haram is waging a war against the Nigerian church, claiming members of the body of Christ for Islam, torturing the families of the Church’s daughters and selling the next generation of Christians into forced marriages and a lifetime of rape.
Human rights groups and faith-based organizations worldwide demanded action from the world’s governments and international bodies within days of the abduction. And within weeks, many of the world’s most significant leaders, including those representing the G7, publicly condemned the attacks and pledged their nations’ support in finding and returning those abducted. But barred from the conversation, explicitly left out of the speeches and kept from the fact sheets provided Congress is the fact that this abduction, while a gross human rights violation, was an act of Christian persecution. A list detailing the identities and religious preference of some of those abducted that was leaked to the media by a local pastor in May revealed that 90% of the more than 180 then-identified schoolgirls are professed Christians. Shortly after the leak, Boko haram released a video of some of those abducted dressed in hijabs (traditional dress for Islamic women) reciting Qur’anic passages as Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, declared, “and now they have been converted.” Not only have these girls been stolen from their families, robbed of an education and subjected to months of harsh treatment at the hands of their militants cap-
In abducting these girls, calling for a global war against Christians, and forcefully converting the defenseless to Islam, Boko Haram intends to make clear that Christians who refuse to bow will be next.
Above: Nigerian papers covering the story At the time of this article, more than 240 predominantly Christian schoolgirls remained captive. ICC continues to advocate for their safe return, pressure the U.S. and international bodies to take greater action, and pray for those abducted, their families, and their communities. You can learn everything you need to know about the case of the Nigerian girls by visiting ICC online at www. persecution.org. You can help today! 800-ICC-5441
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