'What Is the Sin Committed by Christians?': The Persecution of Christians, May 2023

by Raymond Ibrahim  •  July 2, 2023 at 5:00 am

• "Is it because we're Christians that we're being attacked, and the Muslim-controlled state and federal governments do not care to protect us?" — A Christian, reported by Morning Star News, June 1, 2023, Nigeria.

• [A] Muslim bulldozer driver at a construction site, killed his supervisor, a Christian, by crushing him to death. — copticsolidarity.org, May 18, 2023, Egypt.

• Both sides [in the civil war in Sudan] are led by Islamists, "trying to portray themselves to the international community as pro-democracy advocates of religious freedom...." — Morning Star News, May 24, 2023, Sudan.

• "Sudan has been governed by sharia (Islamic law) since 1983, and is one of only a few countries in modern times where the death penalty for apostasy has been carried out." In one such case from 1994, "two Christians from a tribal group that had converted from Islam in the early 1970s were executed by crucifixion." — barnabasaid.org, May 23, 2023, Sudan.

• "I answered him that [the Bible] is a holy book. He... beat me that night and told me that he was punishing me for leaving Islam, and that he will automatically be rewarded in Jannah [paradise] by Allah.... He took me on his vehicle and dumped me inside Queen Elizabeth National Park to be eaten by wild animals." — Morning Star News, May 30, 2023, Uganda.

• "When I was little, Muslim children would spit on the Christian cross and kiss the Islamic crescent moon in front of us. We, the Christian children in the village, were called slaves and cockroaches.... The hatred towards our [Christian] communities may be less visible now, but it is still there. This is because Muslims know that the authorities are behind them.... [O]ne boy taught other Muslim children to say 'kill the infidels.'" — palnws.be, June 28 2023, Turkey.

• A Baby Jesus in a 400-year-old painting had his throat slit with a knife. — Journalistenwatch.com, June 2, 2023, Germany.

• "[T]he extent of attacks on Christian symbols in Central Europe [is significant but suppressed]." — Journalistenwatch.com, June 2, 2023, Germany.

• The heads of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus were decapitated from a statue standing in Ajaccio, the capital of the French island which in recent years has taken in Muslim migrants. — corsematin.com, May 23, 2023, Corsica.

The heads of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus were decapitated from a statue standing at the the seafront in Ajaccio, the capital of the French island of Corsica, which in recent years has taken in Muslim migrants. Pictured: The seafront at Ajaccio. (Photo by Pascal Pochard/Casabianca/AFP via Getty Images)

The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of May 2023. Note: Because there were so many incidents of persecution in Pakistan, a separate article was dedicated to it here.

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: Muslim terrorists of the Fulani variety slaughtered 43 Christians during raids on two villages in Nasarawa State. A local Christian described the jihad on Takalafiya village, on the night of May 12-13, as the Christians slept:

"Most of the victims killed during the attack are women, children and the aged, as most of them were unable to escape as the armed Muslim terrorists and herdsmen shot randomly at anyone they sighted during the ambush on the village."

A pastor and his wife were among those murdered. The village church was also torched.

Another Christian, discussing the same raid, said:

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Remembering the Start of American TV

by Lawrence Kadish  •  July 2, 2023 at 4:30 am

If we wish to point to the one individual who made the sale of television sets a national success, it was Milton Berle. He was host of NBC's Texaco Star Theatre between 1948 and 1953, and is considered the first major television star. At one point it was estimated he captured more than 90% of the nation's television audience. Pictured: Milton Berle at a rehearsal of his show at NBC studios in 1955. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

From the dominance of streaming video to the retreat of AM radio, this is an era that is witnessing a dramatic revolution in how, where, and when we get our news and entertainment.

Yet today's events are nothing compared to what an earlier generation of Americans experienced in the years immediately after World War II.

It was television that transformed our nation literally overnight and while the technology was amazing for its day, it was an array of performers who sold these early, expensive, and finicky TV sets to the American public.

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Anatomy of a Very Russian Affair

by Amir Taheri  •  July 2, 2023 at 4:00 am

• Wagner is a monster that Putin created and, for almost a decade, denied that it even existed. Now, however, he has assumed ownership of the creature and is trying to integrate part of it into the Russian regular army while keeping another part for profitable adventures abroad.

• Without Wagner, Putin would not have been able to emerge as a big player in such places as Libya, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Mali and, more recently, Burkina Faso with the possibility of expanding further in west and east Africa. Even in Syria, where Putin used Iranian troops and their Afghan, Pakistani and Lebanese mercenaries as his boots on the ground, Wagner was actively present as President Bashar al-Assad's praetorian protector and prison warden. More recently, Wagner also established a presence in Venezuela and Nicaragua, reviving memories of a time when Russia, as the USSR, was able to do mischief in United States' backyard.

• Putin's choice of one of his closest allies, Prigozhin, as Wagner's leader was no surprise. The oligarch had known Putin since their Saint Petersburg days and is said to be one of the few intimates to know the location of at least part of his boss's fortune.

• All this might explain why Putin, badly shaken by the "incident" has been unwilling to unleash his thunder bolt against Prigozhin and Wagner.

• The alternative to Putin isn't necessarily going to be a pro-West bleeding-heart liberal. Putin may be bad, but his successor could be worse. At the same time, no one would benefit from chaos in Russia, an event that could affect the whole of Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East and beyond.

• Putin has proven to be a bluffer and the best way to deal with a bluffer is not to be bluffed. This is why there may just be one tiny possibility of trying to shorten the tragic war in Ukraine.

The Wagner Group is a monster that Russian President Vladimir Putin created and, for almost a decade, denied that it even existed. Now, however, he has assumed ownership of the creature and is trying to integrate part of it into the Russian regular army while keeping another part for profitable adventures abroad. Pictured: Members of the Wagner Group with a tank in the city of Rostov-on-Don, on June 24, 2023. (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

Last weekend when Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his abortive attempt at marching on Moscow at the head of the Wagner Group militia army, he did not know that it was on the same day, June 24, 1812, that Napoleon had launched his forlorn march towards the Russian capital.

Another thing that the self-styled warlord didn't know was that Rostov-on-Don, his hometown and the launching pad for his insurrection, was also the town from which Cossacks had started their rebellion against Catherine the Great two centuries earlier.

However, Prigozhin did know two things: First, that in Russia power changes hands only through force; smooth transitions belong to "decadent" Western Europe. Next, while in the West, notably in America, if you have money, you can get power, in Russia you can get money only if you have power.

In other words, the "incident" as Russian propaganda likes to call it, was a very Russian affair.

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