In this mailing:

  • Raymond Ibrahim: 'A Variety of Tactics Designed to Induce Conversion': The Persecution of Christians, January 2025
  • Amir Taheri: Germany's Five Shaky Pillars

'A Variety of Tactics Designed to Induce Conversion': The Persecution of Christians, January 2025

by Raymond Ibrahim  •  March 2, 2025 at 5:00 am

  • "Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children's ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their 'legal wives.' — Morning Star News, February 7, 2025, Pakistan.

  • In just the three weeks between Christmas 2024 and these attacks of Jan. 15, at least 128 Christians have been slaughtered in the North Kivu region alone. — Congo.

  • "Paki establishment has created a nation where the rights of minorities are trampled upon with alarming regularity. By empowering hardline groups and allowing them free rein, the Army has nurtured a culture of extremism that targets Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis, and other minorities with brutal precision.... Police rarely act to protect victims, while legal loopholes and vague religious laws, such as the infamous blasphemy law, are weaponized against them. These tools of oppression serve not only to silence dissent but also to provide cover for the perpetrators of violence. In the case of minority girls, the judicial system often works to retain victims against their will, legitimizing forced conversions and marriages under the pretext of religious freedom. This legal framework is no accident—it is the product of an establishment that has long relied on radical Islamists as a tool of power. These alliances have turned Pakistan into a hotbed of extremism, destabilizing not just its internal fabric but the entire region. The unchecked violence against minorities is not an aberration but the inevitable outcome of decades of Army-sponsored radicalization." — News Intervention, January 7, 2025, Pakistan.

  • "There is also a new emphasis on targeting Coptic women who suffer physical or mental health problems, which make them doubly vulnerable. This enables the abductors to create confusion regarding the circumstances of a disappeared Coptic girl, creating a narrative of a love story utilizing existing relationships and communications, despite orchestrating the entire situation..." — Coptic Solidarity, January 29, 2025, Egypt.

  • Court documents make clear that these sentencings revolve around religion. — Iran.

  • According to multiple sources, non-Muslim students, many of whom are Christian, are being "subjected to a variety of tactics designed to induce conversion." — Malaysia.

  • "Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and adheres to the teaching." — Morning Star News, February 7, 2025.

  • "Christians in Indonesia say they are routinely pressured to make extra payments known as 'grease' to local officials or residents in order to obtain construction permits in the 83.3-percent Muslim country. When Muslim residents opposed to the St. Anthony church construction demonstrated in the street, one Catholic commented on social media, 'Those who demonstrate do it because there was no grease available.'" — Morning Star News, February 8, 2025.

  • According to an Indonesian attorney speaking on condition of anonymity, this "grease" is "a kind of bribery paid to protestors to keep them from blocking church construction, though not legally acknowledged even when it is paid in full view of police."

During the church funeral of Lucien Haddad, a Christian man who was "murdered by roving gangs of jihadists plaguing minorities" in Latakia, Syria, other Muslims connected with the ruling regime forced the congregation to recite the Koran's Fatiha chapter — which refers to Christians as "those who are astray" — before mourners could proceed with the Lord's Prayer. Pictured: Jihadist gunmen deploy outside the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St George in Latakia on December 25, 2024. (Photo by Aaref Watad/AFP via Getty Images)

The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of January 2025.

The Muslim Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls

Continue Reading Article

Germany's Five Shaky Pillars

by Amir Taheri  •  March 2, 2025 at 4:00 am

  • These newcomers [to Germany] helped reduce Germany's demographic deficit, due to a declining birthrate, but also created huge cultural, religious and security problems that foment xenophobia. An immigrant who has fled a war-torn country isn't the same as one coming from a peaceful place with the hope of working and building a better life for himself and his loved ones in the old country.

Is Friedrich Merz, winner of Germany's federal election last week, up to the daunting task he faces at a time when the entire European Union is in crisis? The fact that he is the first businessman to assume the chancellorship and the most "American" in style may help. Pictured: Merz speaks to the media on February 25, 2025 in Berlin. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

"Make Germany Great Again!" It was with this slogan that Friedrich Merz emerged as the main victor in last Sunday's general election in Germany.

Sounds familiar?

To be exact, the man who is set to become Germany's next chancellor borrowed the phrase made popular by President Donald Trump in the United States. The slogan Merz used was "Restore Germany's greatness and respect!", which expresses the same sentiment.

The German election put the twin center-right parties of Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union on top with their highest score since the golden days of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard, the men who rebuilt post-war Germany as a robust democracy. The CDU/CSU also put the idea of Germany as a nation-state rather than as part of a globalist conglomeration at the center of the debate, pushing aside the 80-year trauma of seeing nationalism morph into a version of Nazism.

Continue Reading Article

Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Donate
Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved.

You are subscribed to this list as [email protected]

You can change how you receive these emails:
Update your subscription preferences or Unsubscribe from this list

Gatestone Institute
14 East 60 St., Suite 705, New York, NY 10022