In this mailing:
- Raymond Ibrahim: 'These Attacks Have Racist, Religious Motives': The Persecution of Christians, July 2022
- Amir Taheri: How the West Built a Russian Enemy
by Raymond Ibrahim • September 11, 2022 at 5:00 am
After raping a Christian woman, her Muslim employer told her and her family—both still not over the shock—to get back to work. — Pakistan.
"The scale of killings, displacement and wanton destruction of property by these Fulani jihadist militia only buttresses the now revealed agenda to depopulate Christian communities in Nigeria and take over lands. Tellingly, the government in power in Nigeria at the moment continues to do nothing about these persistent attacks, save to give laughable reasons like 'climate change' or that some Muslims too are sometimes killed in attacks by so-called bandits." — Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, Independent Catholic News, July 19, 2022, Nigeria.
On July 4, a Christian mechanic [Ashfaq Masih, 34] who had been imprisoned for the last five years while awaiting trial under a false accusation of allegedly insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, was sentenced to death by hanging in a Pakistani court. — churchinchains.ie, July 19 2022, Pakistan.
"I told the real story to a police officer but he did not record my version but conducted investigation ex-parte." — Ashfaq Masih, churchinchains.ie, July 7, 2022, Pakistan.
"The judges are aware that such cases are made to punish and settle personal grudges with the opponents, especially against the Christians.... Masih's case was very clear—the shop owner wanted him out and Naveed was a business rival who implicated him in a false blasphemy case. He is innocent and has already spent five years in prison for a crime he never committed." — Nasir Saeed, Director of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, claas.org.uk, July 7, 2022, Pakistan.
On July 4, Ashfaq Masih, a Christian mechanic who had been imprisoned for the last five years while awaiting trial under a false accusation of allegedly insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, was sentenced to death by hanging in a Pakistani court. (Image source: iStock)
The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of July 2022: The Muslim Abuse and Rape of Christian Women in Pakistan After raping a Christian woman, her Muslim employer told her and her family—both still not over the shock—to get back to work. Rimsha Riaz, 18, and several others of her Christian household worked at a glass crushing company, where they were described as "hard-working loyal employees for Haji Ali Akbar, a successful Muslim businessman." On July 6, after a tiring shift, as the family was preparing to go home, a supervisor told Rimsha to go to Akbar's office for some extra paid work. Her mother and brothers returned home; Rimsha arrived an hour later, visibly distressed. When her mother pressed her as to what was wrong, the 18-year-old broke into tears and said she was raped by Akbar at gunpoint. In her own words:
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by Amir Taheri • September 11, 2022 at 4:00 am
On a broader tableau, Putin started blocking NATO's plans to gain a presence in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Moscow helped overthrow the pro-West regime in Kyrgyzstan, acquired military bases in Armenia and Tajikistan, and clinched a $4 billion deal to supply arms to Iraq.
At the same time, Putin armed secessionists in Moldova and eastern Ukraine and, in August 2008, invaded Georgia to annex Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The US reacted by sending a warship on a brief tour of the Black Sea.
In hindsight, it seems that Putin had worked out a careful plan to test the Western powers' limit of tolerance as he went from one mischief to another.
In 2012 Putin started getting involved in the Syrian civil war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Tehran. After testing the waters, Putin also cast himself as a big player in Libya in the hope of getting a chunk of it when and if it was broken into pieces.
Each time Putin misbehaved, Western powers reacted with bland statements, the expulsion of a few diplomats, and expressions of sympathy for Alexei Navalny, one of Tsar Vladimir's more colorful critics. Meanwhile, Putin built a political support base in the West by financing several parties of both left and right.
Putin at first seized control of chunks of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk and, once convinced that no one would stop him, went along and annexed the whole of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. He also obtained a base in Syria, restoring Russia's military presence in the Mediterranean for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Empire. His next move was to turn the Caspian Sea into a Russian lake, excluding "outsiders", meaning the Western powers.
It is hard to know what goes on in Putin's mind. But his favorite "philosopher," Alexander Dugin, has dismissed the leaders of Western democracies as a bunch of lily-livered pansies interested in nothing but money and show-off.
Western money, technology and, above all, greed helped Putin become, in the words of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a threat to world peace.
In hindsight, it seems that Russian President Vladimir Putin had worked out a careful plan to test the Western powers' limit of tolerance as he went from one mischief to another. Pictured: Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via a video link at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 9, 2022. (Photo by Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
"One would think the Tsar is back!" This is how a colleague covering the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg in July 2006 commented after a visit by President Vladimir Putin to the facilities provided for journalists covering the "historic event." Historic because this was the first time that Russia, admitted as a full member of the club of "great powers" in 1997, was hosting the summit. Putin wore his usual disdainful grin like the man who broke the bank in Monte Carlo. To show that Russia is back, Putin had chosen the Konstantinovsky Palace as the venue for the G8 summit. The elegant chateau had been started in 1714 by Peter The Great as a Russian answer to the Versailles Palace in France.
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