"Tied Up and Tortured": The Persecution of Christians, April 2021

by Raymond Ibrahim • May 23, 2021 at 5:00 am

In a video released on April 17, Muslims connected to the Islamic State in Sinai executed 62-year-old Nabil Habashi Salama, a Christian. Salama appears on his knees in the video, with three men holding rifles standing behind him....
"We should remember that Greece spent 400 years under Turkish Islamic rule and that the fight for freedom was bloody. With that in mind it is even more dramatic seeing these images of fighting age migrants desecrating Greek holy places and having no respect for the country they are allegedly seeking refuge in." — Greek City Times, April 12, 2021.
"[H]e was kept in at least three different police stations and illegal torture cells, where he was mentally and physically tortured to confess to the baseless accusation [of blasphemy]... [P]olice repeatedly threatened to kill him.... The police investigators...also tortured him into naming other members of the Bible study circle..." — Aneeqa Maria, Salamat Masih's attorney, Morning Star News, April 29, 2021, Pakistan.

On April 8, French prosecutors said they would file charges against an 18-year-old Muslim woman living in Béziers who is "accused of plotting a jihadist attack on a church over the Easter weekend." Pictured: Béziers, France. Image source: Sanchezn/Wikimedia Commons)

The Slaughter of Christians

Egypt: In a video released on April 17, Muslims connected to the Islamic State in Sinai executed 62-year-old Nabil Habashi Salama, a Christian. Salama appears on his knees in the video, with three men holding rifles standing behind him. The one in the middle launches into a typical jihadi diatribe: "All praise to Allah, who ordered his slaves [Muslims] to fight and who assigned humiliation onto the infidels" —pointing contemptuously at the kneeling Christian before him — "until they pay the jizya while feeling utterly subdued." The words are a paraphrasing of Koran 9:29, which commands Muslims to "fight the people of the book," understood as meaning Christians and Jews, "until they pay the jizya (monetary tribute) with willing submissiveness and feel themselves utterly subdued."

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Iran: 10 Characters in Search of a Protector

by Amir Taheri • May 23, 2021 at 4:00 am

With Iran arguably stuck in its deepest crisis in decades while economic meltdown, rampant corruption and Covid-19 chaos wreak havoc on an unprecedented scale, the Khomeinist regime is in dire need of reasserting its legitimacy.
The terms "Russophile" and "Americanophile" may need to be explained. Neither means any actual sympathy for either Russian or American ways of life and political systems.... Both want to "export" revolution, destroy Israel, if possible, and impose hegemony on the Middle East. In short, both wear beards, though of different styles.
Russia isn't a potential ideological rival because the "Russian way of life", unknown to most Iranians, lacks any seductive power capable of challenging Khomeinism. In other words, the Khomeinist regime has a better chance of survival under Russian protection than it could have under American tutelage.

Russian protection, or American tutelage? This is the choice offered to Iranians in next month's presidential election by a cast of candidates that resemble a caricature of characters in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Pictured: Mohsen Rezai, former chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, addresses the media after registering his candidacy for Iran's June presidential election, at the Interior Ministry in Tehran, on May 15, 2021. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

Within days the all-powerful Council of the Guardians of the Constitution is expected to publish the list of "approved candidates" for next month's presidential election in the Islamic Republic in Iran.

According to official reports, a total of 592 men and one woman have filled in the forms for consideration as a candidate. The council, however, is expected to approve no more than seven to 10 applicants.

What is not clear is whether the council will assess the applicants on the basis of existing regulations or in accordance with new rules it published last month. The Interior Ministry, which has the charge of organizing the elections, says nothing outside the existing regulations should be at play. The council, however, says the ministry's role does not include an assessment of applications.

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