[Below is just a brief glimpse into this lengthy article relating to widespread Christian persecution around the world - open the length for the full story]
- Critics accused the United Nations in general and the British government in particular of continuing to discriminate against Christian refugees in favor of Muslim refugees from Syria. Barnabas Fund said it had "finally obtained figures proving that the UN has only recommended tiny token numbers of Syrian Christians ... for resettlement in the UK," whereas the "overwhelming majority of refugees recommended by the UN have been Sunni Muslims who form the majority in Syria. But Christians, and other minorities, have been repeatedly targeted for attack by Islamist groups such as IS... Disturbingly, UK officials tried to prevent the release of this information." - United Nations and the United Kingdom; Barnabas Fund.
- "After several reports showed that Christians were being systematically persecuted in German asylum homes, the problem has now moved from the homes to the streets..." – Germany; Chris Tomlinson, Breitbart.
- "Showing repentance will no longer prevent the death penalty from being applied for blasphemy and apostasy..." – Mauritania; News 24.
Germany: According to a November 11 report in The European, approximately 200 churches have been attacked and desecrated in the Alps and Bavarian regions alone. Large summit crosses atop mountains have also been felled and destroyed by axes and saws. "Young Islamists" are believed to be behind the widespread vandalism.
Philippines: Supporters of an Islamic militant group desecrated and tried to torch a Catholic chapel in the Mindanao region on Friday evening, November 10. According to the report, Archbishop Quevedo said "This criminal act is an abhorrent desecration of a place of Catholic worship."
Similar incidents occurred in May 2017, when "Islamic State-inspired gunmen burned the St. Mary's Cathedral in Marawi," notes the report; and in June 2017, Muslim militants "also desecrated a chapel in the neighboring province of North Cotabato."
Egypt: As in the previous month of October, when Muslim mob riots and attacks on churches prompted authorities to close at least four churches, the Pope Kerlis VI and Archdeacon Habib Gerges church continued to be threatened and was eventually shut down.
Algeria: On November 9, authorities shut down another church as well as a Christian book store. According to the report, "police raided the bookshop, accusing its owner of illegally printing Bibles and evangelistic brochures. They confiscated books and equipment but returned them when no proof of the allegations was found. Despite that, police issued and implemented a closure order for both the church and the bookshop.
Nigeria: A decade after Muslims attacked, slaughtered, and displaced Christians in a northern town—and then destroyed their churches—authorities continue to forbid returned Christians from rebuilding their eight destroyed (Catholic and Protestant) churches because local Muslims reject it. "Christians who have braved it and returned after the attacks in 2007 have no worship buildings up to today," explained a local Christian, because "the government of Kano state has banned us from rebuilding our churches."
Syria: Rita Habib Ayyub, an Assyrian Christian woman sexually enslaved by ISIS and other Muslims for over three years until rescued by the Syrian Democratic Forces, shared her experiences in an interview:
My name is Rita. The terrorists changed my name to Maria [indicating her Christian identity]. I am 30 years old. In the hospital in Mosul, we women were subjected to the most degrading abuse. Three children from my people were with me, and I witnessed them being sold to emirs in Mosul. I was sold to Abu Mus'ab al-Iraqi. In his home, there was also a Yazidi girl from Sinjar named Shata...she was only 14 years old. He raped the both of us over and over again. He made us watch videos with terrorists slaughtering non-Muslims. In one of them, they were beheading Shata's brother.... After six months, Abu Mus'ab sold me to another terrorist, and I was transported to Raqqa, Syria. But he did not keep me...he sold me to a third terrorist, a Saudi named Abu Khalid al-Saudi. Abu Khalid was married to a woman from Morocco. I was beaten and tortured by her every day. She would not give up until I was bleeding, from my head, for example. They made me read the Quran and threatened to kill me if I did not convert to Islam.
Nigeria: A comprehensive report—riddled with accounts of abduction, rape, sadistic torture, murder, and wholesale massacres—substantiates its charge that Muslim Fulani herdsmen are engaged in the "ethnic cleansing" of Christians. In one case, "A 13 year old girl was gang-raped and abandoned in the bush for hours before local vigilante group came to her rescue." In another, "A 10 year old boy" was "whipped severely with different sizes of cane and was abandoned in a shallow pit." One of the more telling portions of the report follows:
Some of the tactics used by the Hausa-Fulani Muslim herdsmen include abduction, rape and other forms of assault on women and children. Another strategy used by the Hausa-Fulani Muslim herdsmen ... is the disemboweling of pregnant women, to ensure that both mother and baby are killed. On the few occasions, when men are captured ... their limbs are cut off and they are then shot in the presence of their family. Sometimes, the family members are made to run and are then shot at; those lucky enough to escape the bullets are pursued. What lends credence to the perceived complicity of stakeholders from the Muslim north, is the silence and inaction of the Federal Government of Nigeria in the face of the massive atrocities committed against indigenous Christian communities in Benue State.
Philippines: New documents and reports made clear that, contrary to some initial reports, the Islamist siege of Marawi last summer, which included the slaughter of at least 25 Christians, was fundamentally fueled by an anti-Christian bias. According to Amnesty International,
The civilian victims were nearly all Christians, and most – if not all – were targeted because they were not Muslim. Militants often gave civilians a de facto religious test prior to killing them; they were asked to recite the Shahada, which is an expression of Muslim faith, or to respond to Muslim greetings. Civilians who did not recite the Shahada or failed to respond appropriately were often summarily executed.
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