THE SPECIFICS OF SHARIA’S SAVAGERIES

INSIDE EVERY LIBERAL IS A TOTALITARIAN
SCREAMING TO GET OUT

WHY ST. PETER’S IN CAIRO WAS BOMBED

RAYMOND IBRAHIM, FRONTPAGE MAG — Although Western media regularly find no “motive” for many of the Islamic attacks on non-Muslims, many are by now at least vaguely aware that the Muslim perpetrators rely on generic Islamic teachings that foster hostility for “infidels.”

Yet often overlooked are the very stringent and detailed Islamic rulings behind many terror attacks.

Take the recent attack on St. Peter’s Cathedral in Egypt, which left at least 25 Christian worshippers—the majority of whom were women and children—dead and which ISIS claimed. While many might write it off as just a generic attack targeting Coptic Christian “infidels,” the reality is that ISIS and other Islamic groups and individuals regularly find arcane and little known Islamic rulings to justify their violence.

For instance, why was St. Peter’s specifically targeted?...

» Full Article

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RAYMOND IBRAHIM is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).

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SHARKS AND ISLAMISTS: EQUALLY MISUNDERSTOOD?

The Definition of Evil

Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated — I recently spent some time watching Shark Week on television. Being fascinated with large predatory fish, I’ve watched many shark programs throughout the years. And I’ve reached one conclusion: the “liberal” response one is accustomed to when the topic of Islam and Islamists come up—that they are misunderstood, that we need to respect their ways and be tolerant, that it’s our fault we get attacked—has become so embedded in the Western psyche that it now colors our understanding of the animal world as well.

Almost every shark program follows the same pattern: the large predators are portrayed in all their grandeur, roaming the seas; then we hear of several anecdotes of shark attacks on humans, often with the survivors recounting their experience.

The prevalent theme is this: it’s not the shark’s fault that it attacked and maimed this or that surfer, swimmier, or kayaker. Rather, humans are responsible for entering the shark’s domain, the ocean. If anything, then, it’s the human’s fault for getting attacked. Even great whites, so we are assured, only attack humans by mistake, never intentionally. Finally we get the speech about how sharks are in fact the one’s being mistreated by humans, etc.

To those familiar with the way liberal talking heads constantly whitewash the violence and intolerance of Islam, does this not all sound familiar? From the notion that “it’s our fault” we got attacked, and we “had it coming,” to the idea that we need to be more “understanding and respectful,” the “progressive” memes are all there.

Similarly, two types of survivors often recount their experiences. Most explain how they do not at all blame the shark that attacked them; more magnanimously, others say that, since they lost this or that appendage, they have dedicated their lives to protecting sharks.

The second, more atypical kind of survivors openly demonize sharks and come off less “enlightened.” Such was this one Australian survivor I watched, who seemed the quintessential “hillbilly”—missing teeth and all. He appeared on one of the programs emphatically declaring that all sharks are “evil.” In other words, he was something of an ignorant, bigoted “sharkaphobe.”

One important caveat: I am not “hating on” sharks, suggesting they are “evil,” or siding with this or that perspective. But as a rational person, I know that sharks—especially great whites, bulls, and tigers—are dangerous creatures. As animals of instinct, I do not believe they have the capacity to act “good” or “evil,” but I do not doubt that, given the chance and especially if hungry, they will attack and eat humans. (See this atypical article, for example, which suggests that “thousands of missing drowning victims actually die of shark attacks.”)

Rather, the point here is that this business of always apologizing for Islamic violence, insisting that it is some sort of misunderstanding, which “enlightened” Western persons should be patient of if not completely overlook, has so penetrated society that it has metastasized to almost anything and everything that is potentially dangerous, including ravenous sharks.

Nor does the analogy end here. When Western liberals hold Muslims to a lower standard than the rest of humanity—ignoring the beheadings, massacres, rapes, enslavements, and church burnings habitually committed by the likes of the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, et al.—are they not, in essence, placing such Muslims on a “subhuman” level? Are they not, in essence, saying that they are like brute and instinctive animals—sharks for instance—not to be held responsible for their actions?

In the end, however, the shark analogy fails. After all, sharks attack and kill for survival—like the rest of us carnivores—whereas the Islamists intentionally attack, torture, rape, massacre, mutilate, and incinerate humans simply for not being Muslim.

That is the definition of evil.

» Full Article

» Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated
» Raymond Ibrahim | Article Archive

About the Author

RAYMOND IBRAHIM is a Middle East and Islam specialist and author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). His writings have appeared in a variety of media, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, World Almanac of Islamism, and Chronicle of Higher Education; he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, NPR, Blaze TV, and CBN. Ibrahim regularly speaks publicly, briefs governmental agencies, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and testifies before Congress. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a CBN News contributor. Ibrahim’s dual-background -- born and raised in the U.S. by Coptic Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle East -- has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former.

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ISLAM: ‘APPALLING AND ABHORRENT’ IN THE EYES OF A BLIND WORLD?

“Considering that Muslim converts to Christianity are being attacked all throughout the Islamic world—including in nations as diverse as Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Kyrgyz—surely the source is not something as simple as “Sudan’s legal system.”

Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated — A few days ago in Sudan, an eight-month pregnant wife and mother was sentenced to death by hanging for refusing to renounce Christ and embrace Islam. According to the LA Times:

Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, who has a young son and is married to a Christian from South Sudan, violated Islamic sharia law, the court said. She insists she was raised Christian, not Muslim.

The court also ordered Ibrahim to be flogged for having sexual relations with her husband, since her marriage is not recognized by officials.

Ibrahim refused a court order Sunday giving her several days to renounce her Christian faith, which resulted in the sentencing Thursday….

Ibrahim, currently jailed with her son, will be allowed to give birth and raise her second child until the age of 2 years but then faces execution. Sudanese authorities refuse to allow Ibrahim’s son to reside with her husband because the husband is Christian.

Tragic as this story is, it is also immensely commonplace in Islamic countries. Why? Because Islamic law does in fact punish the apostate from Islam—including with death—in accordance with the commands of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Indeed, many Muslim clerics believe that “If the [death] penalty for apostasy was ignored, there would not be an Islam today; Islam would have ended on the death of the prophet,” as top Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi once declared on live television.

Of more significance is the Amnesty International statement concerning Meriam Ibrahim’s plight. While its criticism is aimed at Sudan’s legal system, the statement unwittingly provides a glimpse of how the international community would view Islam if it could actually understand that these human rights abuses are not products of this or that government or regime, but of Islam itself.

According to the Amnesty International statement:

The fact that a woman has been sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is appalling and abhorrent.

Adultery and apostasy are acts which should not be considered crimes at all. It is flagrant breach of international human rights law. The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which includes the freedom to hold beliefs, is far-reaching and profound; it encompasses freedom of thought on all matters, personal conviction and the commitment to religion or belief (emphasis added).

If, as Amnesty International declares, flogging and executing a person, in this case a pregnant woman, because of her “religious choice” and marrying a man of a “different religion” are “appalling and abhorrent”; if they are a “flagrant breach of international human rights law”—what do we make of the fact that Muslim converts to Christianity are punished and sometimes killed all across the Islamic world?

Consider the following anecdotes, a few examples, most from 2013 alone (culled from my monthly “Muslim Persecution of Christians” series and listed in country alphabetical order):

Afghanistan: A member of Afghanistan’s Parliament said that all Afghans who convert to Christianity should be executed. His exact words: “Afghani citizens continue to convert to Christianity in India. Numerous Afghanis have become Christians in India. This is an offense to Islamic Laws and according to the Quran they need to be executed.” As one of many live examples, Said Musa, an amputee and father of six young children, was once charged with apostasy and pressured to renounce Christianity, but he refused. So he was imprisoned, suffering “sexual abuse, beatings, mockery, and sleep deprivation because of his faith in Jesus.”

Algeria: The wife of Ali Touahir, a 52-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity, left him, taking their seven-year-old daughter, and is divorcing him in court. One of his wife’s brothers openly threatened to kill apostate. The wife’s lawyer asserted: “It is not possible that my client [the Muslim wife] still remain under the same roof with a man who has renounced his religion, as he became apostate; and we are not ignorant of the punishment that is due an apostate under sharia [death].”

Cameroon: Two Muslim converts to Christianity were shot dead and two others wounded, in the Christian-majority African nation where Muslims make approximately 20 percent of the population. One of them was previously threatened by the Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram to return to Islam or “face Allah’s wrath.”

Egypt: A court sentenced an entire family—Nadia Mohamed Ali and her seven children—to fifteen years in prison for converting to Christianity. A born Christian, Nadia had earlier converted to Islam and married a Muslim man; reconverting back to Christianity after the death of her husband, she attempted to reflect this change formally on her identity card and her children’s, which created suspicions among security, who arrested the family. Separately and days ago in Egypt, after a former Muslim woman on live television announced her apostasy and lack of faith in Muhammad as the “Messenger of Allah,” she was insulted, ridiculed, and thrown off the set by the host.

Iran: Imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini was reported as “facing physical and psychological torture at the hands of captors demanding he renounce his beliefs.” The 32-year-old married father of two, who left his home in Boise, Idaho, to help start an orphanage in his former country, once detailed “horrific pressures” and “death threats” in a letter to family members: “My eyes get blurry, my body does not have the strength to walk, and my steps become very weak and shaky… They are only waiting for one thing…for me to deny Christ. But they will never get this from me.” The imprisonment and torture of Muslim converts to Christianity in Iran is quite common (recall the plight of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani). According to Adnkronos News, “renouncing the Muslim faith is punishable with the death penalty [in Iran]. Over 300 Iranian converts to Christianity have been arrested over the past two years, according to opposition websites.”

Kyrgyz: After a young Muslim girl converted to Christianity, her parents “wanted her to recant and renounce her faith in Christ, so they began to beat her systematically till she lost consciousness… It was winter when all of this happened, so her parents put her into a cold room and kept her there for several days. Still they were unable to break her spirit. They then started pulling her hair and put her face against the stove, burning her face. In spite of this, she remained faithful.”

Morocco: A fatwa, or Islamic decree, by the government’s top religious authority, calls for the execution of those Muslims who leave Islam, causing many Christian converts to live in fear. Lamented one Christian: “The fatwa showed us that our country is still living in the old centuries—no freedom, no democracy. Unfortunately, we feel that we aren’t protected. We can be arrested or now even killed any time and everywhere. The majority of the Christian Moroccan leaders have the same feeling. We are more followed now by the secret police than before. Only the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ gives us courage and peace.”

Pakistan: A 16-year-old Muslim boy who converted to Christianity was abducted in Peshawar by Taliban-linked Islamic militants “and his fate may already be marked, as he is considered ‘guilty of apostasy.’” As one Pakistani pastor explained, “If a young Muslim converts to Christianity in Pakistan, he is forced to live in hiding. Every Muslim might feel compelled to kill him. The change of religion is not punished by the civil law, it is punishable by Islamic law. For this reason cases of Muslim conversion to Christianity are very rare and some convert in secret.” Muhammad Kamran, a Muslim convert to Christianity, exemplifies the pastor’s words. After he told his wife of his conversion, she abused and exposed him, resulting in his being severely beaten by local Muslims. In his words: “No one was willing to let me live the life I wanted [as a Christian]—they say Islam is not a religion of compulsion, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims who don’t find satisfaction in the religion [such as myself] become liable to be killed.”

Saudi Arabia: After a woman was exposed as having converted to Christianity, she was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes. Although she managed to flee the nation and went into hiding, the Christian Lebanese man accused of introducing her to Christianity received six years in prison and 300 lashes.

Somalia: The Al-Qaeda linked Al Shabaab (“The Youth”), which has vowed to cleanse the Horn of Africa of all Christian presence, has slaughtered countless Muslim converts to Christianity—men, women, and children—in the last few years. Most recently, Al Shabaab shot to death 42-year-old Fartun Omar, a widow and mother of five, for converting to Christianity. Months earlier, they had killed her husband for the same “crime,” and had been hunting for the wife. In a separate incident, Al Shabaab publicly executed a 28-year-old man after determining that he had in fact become a Christian. Al Shabaab Muslims also seized Hassan Gulled, 25, for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, and imprisoned him, and tortured him. According to local sources, “Al Shabaab have been torturing him to see whether he would deny his Christian faith. Since last week, no information has surfaced concerning Gulled. There is a possibility that he could have been killed.”

Tanzania: At the time pregnant and with three children, Lukia Khalid explained how when she told her Muslim husband that she had converted to Christianity, “He threatened to kill me if I was to stay with him. I then decided to escape that night with my three children to a neighbor’s house…. We left only with the clothes that we were wearing. The command was so urgent that we could not wait any longer. We had to leave immediately.” Last heard, they were living in destitute conditions.

One can go on and on with examples (see Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, pages 96-135, for a more thorough expose, including on the doctrine and history of apostasy in Islam, and dozens of more recent examples).

Returning to Meriam Ibrahim, the pregnant Sudanese mother set to be executed for refusing to recant Christ and embrace Islam, some questions and observations are in order:

Are all the other anecdotes listed above not equally “appalling and abhorrent”—to use Amnesty International’s words describing Meriam’s specific plight? Are they not all a “flagrant breach of international human rights law”?

If so, and if the international community is actually serious about putting a stop to them, should it not try to ascertain the true source behind them?

After all, considering that Muslim converts to Christianity are being attacked all throughout the Islamic world—including in nations as diverse as Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Kyrgyz—surely the source is not something as simple as “Sudan’s legal system.”

The fact is, Muslim converts to Christianity are even under attack in Europe. In Norway alone, for example, two Iranian converts out for a walk were stabbed with knives by masked men shouting “infidels!” One of the men stabbed had converted in Iran, was threatened there, and immigrated to Norway, thinking he could escape Islam’s apostasy penalty. Earlier, an Afghan convert to Christianity was scalded with boiling water and acid at a Norwegian refugee processing center: “If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you,” his attackers told him.

Of course, the true source for all these attacks on Muslim converts to Christianity—in nations that do not share race, language, culture, politics, or economics—is Islam itself. Anyone with common sense, anyone with the ability to be honest with oneself, must concede as much. There is no other reasonable way to explain such identical patterns of abuse in such a wide array of nations.

But so long as the international community and human rights organizations fail to employ some common sense and honesty—fail to call a spade a spade—so will they ensure that countless more innocent humans like Meriam Ibrahim continue to suffer “appalling and abhorrent” treatment, simply for trying to exercise their “right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” under Islam. » Full Story With Related Articles

» Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated
» Raymond Ibrahim | Article Archive

About the Author

Raymond Ibrahim is a Middle East and Islam specialist and author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). His writings have appeared in a variety of media, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, World Almanac of Islamism, and Chronicle of Higher Education; he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, NPR, Blaze TV, and CBN. Ibrahim regularly speaks publicly, briefs governmental agencies, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and testifies before Congress. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a CBN News contributor. Ibrahim’s dual-background -- born and raised in the U.S. by Coptic Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle East -- has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former.

» WORLD WATCH: CHRISTIAN PERSCUTION

Christian Intolerance, Attacks and Persecution Growing in U.S.

NIGERIAN ‘SEX-SLAVES’ DISRUPT OBAMA NARRATIVE ON ISLAM

Obama Administration Officials Who Helped
Empower Nigeria’s Islamic Terrorists Now Wring
Their Hands And Feign Outrage At Their Behavior

Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated — Islamic law permits the possession of concubines, or sex slaves. This has been demonstrated countless times, including through Islamic clerics quoting Islamic scriptures, and through ordinary Muslims, past and present, acting on it.

That said, Islamic sanctioned sex-slavery does not perturb the Western world simply because the powers-that-be—specifically academia, media, and government—ignore it, and all other unsavory phenomena associated with Islam, out of existence.

Interesting, therefore, are the responses from the authorities—comical one might even say—when one of these everyday anecdotes actually does surface to the general public.

Enter the recent abduction of nearly 300, mostly Christian, teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram, yet another Islamic terrorist organization plaguing mankind. As expected, the group justified its actions in Islamic terms, with its leader declaring on video, “I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah….There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.”

Of course, for those in the know, none of this is surprising. In March 2012, Boko Haram warned that it would do just this, declaring that it was preparing to “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.”

Moreover, of all the human rights abuses I catalog in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians—and these are depressingly many—Boko Haram’s has resulted in more Christians killed than in the rest of the world combined.

The group has bombed or burned hundreds of Christian churches in the last several years, most when packed for service, including on Christmas Day and Easter Day, leaving countless worshippers dead or dismembered. In its bid to cleanse northern Nigeria of all Christian presence—a repeatedly stated goal—it has threatened to poison the food eaten by Christians and stormed areas where Christians and Muslims were intermingled, singling the Christians out before slitting their throats.

Go to my monthly “Muslim Persecution of Christians” series (currently 31 in all), and see the innumerable atrocities that Boko Haram has been responsible for in the last two-and-a-half years—many of which make the recent Nigerian girls’ abduction pale in comparison.

The real news here is that the so-called mainstream media, which generally downplays or ignores Boko Haram’s terror campaign (see here for example), actually reported on this particular atrocity, prompting both Western and Muslim authorities—who are much more accustomed to, and comfortable with, pretending these sorts of things don’t exist—to respond in awkward, hypocritical and, in a word, foolish, ways. Thus,

Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. had been in touch with Nigeria “from day one” of the crisis. But repeated offers of U.S. assistance were ignored until Kerry got on the phone Tuesday with [Nigerian president] Jonathan amid growing international concern and outrage over the fate of the girls in the weeks since their abduction…. “I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort,” Kerry said at a State Department news conference. “And it will begin immediately. I mean, literally, immediately.”

“Convinced everybody”? Is Kerry referring to himself? After all, there might not have been any need for “greater effort,” the need to act “immediately. I mean, literally, immediately” had Kerry only let the Nigerian president and government do their job one year ago, when they were waging a particularly strong and successful offensive against Boko Haram in the very same region that the schoolgirls were recently kidnapped.

Back then, in May 2013, soon after Nigerian forces killed 30 Boko Haram members, Reuters reported that “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strongly worded statement [to the Nigerian president] saying: “We are … deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism” from Boko Haram.

Perhaps this sheds more light on why “repeated offers of U.S. assistance [regarding the kidnapped girls] were ignored” by Nigeria, “until Kerry got on the phone” (whatever that means).

As for Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who is now bemoaning the lot of the kidnapped girls in Nigeria—saying it’s “abominable, it’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible”—when she was Secretary of State, and in a position to help offer “the fullest response possible” she repeatedly refused to designate Boko Haram as a “foreign terrorist organizations,” despite the countless atrocities it had already committed, despite the fact that it had boasted it would “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women,” as it just has, and despite urging from the CIA, FBI, Justice Department, and several congressmen and senators.

Her logic was once voiced by her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton. Back in February 2012, in a speech in Nigeria, Clinton declared that “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff”—a reference to Boko Haram’s terror—and warned the government that “It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence”—a precursor to Kerry’s May 2013 condemnation of the Nigerian government’s tough offensive against Boko Haram, which would supposedly “only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.”

In short, just like the Obama administration has been a thorn in Egypt’s war with the Muslim Brotherhood, so too has it been a thorn in Nigeria’s war with Boko Haram—despite all its current handwringing and “outrage” over this latest—that is, known—atrocity.

As for the “Islam” aspect of Boko Haram’s violence and Christian persecution, needless to say the Obama administration rejects it outright. Thus, after the 2012 Easter Day church bombings by Boko Haram that killed dozens of worshippers, U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson was quick to insist that “religion is not driving extremist violence”—or, in the aforementioned words of Bill Clinton, “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff.”

Still, because this latest kidnapping anecdote has received sufficient media attention, including in the Arab and Muslim worlds, some Muslim leaders have been forced out of their comfort zone to respond.

Thus, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayib, the Grand Sheikh of Egypt’s Al Azhar—regularly touted as the Muslim world’s most prestigious institution of Islamic learning—was quick to condemn Boko Haram’s actions of kidnapping and selling “infidel” women, saying, “these actions have no connection to the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam.”

As for Egypt’s minister of endowments, Dr. Muhammad Mukhtar al-Gum‘a, he too released a statement saying that “the terrorist deeds of Boko Haram have nothing to do with Islam, especially this latest deed of kidnapping girls. Instead, they are terroristic, criminal actions, and Islam is clean of them.” He then went into White House spokesperson mode, saying that poverty, economics, and the rest were the true motivators for Boko Haram’s savagery.

One can sympathize with Egypt’s state sheikhs—after all, they are busy fighting their own brand of Islam misunderstanders, the Muslim Brotherhood and their fellow ideologues, who have been abducting male Coptic Christians for ransom and females for sexual abuse, slavery, and/or conversion to Islam.

Happily for these moderate clerics, few are openly challenging their assertions that Islam is clean of Boko Haram’s actions. Based on precedent, they often have no response and can become hostile.

For example, some years back, when Sheikh Gamal Qutb, a one-time Grand Mufti of Al Azhar, was asked on live Arabic-language TV if Islam permits sex slaves, he refused to give a direct answer, preferring to prevaricate. When pressed for a clear answer by the Muslim female host, he became hostile and stormed off the set. He eventually returned, only to be implored again by the host, who said, “Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of sex slavery in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it,” to which he gruffly responded, “You don’t need to understand!”

And there you have it. From Obama administration officials who helped empower Nigeria’s Islamic terrorists, only to wring their hands and feign outrage now at their behavior, to Islamic clerics who confidently dismiss accusations against Islam, only to put their heads in the sand and hope no one calls them out—here is just a small example of what officialdom would have to deal with if the full totality of crimes committed in the name of Islam were to become common knowledge. » Full Story With Related Articles

» Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated
» Raymond Ibrahim | Article Archive

About the Author

Raymond Ibrahim is a Middle East and Islam specialist and author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). His writings have appeared in a variety of media, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, World Almanac of Islamism, and Chronicle of Higher Education; he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, NPR, Blaze TV, and CBN. Ibrahim regularly speaks publicly, briefs governmental agencies, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and testifies before Congress. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a CBN News contributor. Ibrahim’s dual-background -- born and raised in the U.S. by Coptic Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle East -- has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former.

EGYPTIAN LAWYERS NAME OBAMA AS MORSI CO-CONSPIRATOR IN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Obama’s War Crimes Charges

“This week’s episode of The Glazov Gang was joined by Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center who is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.

He discussed Obama’s War Crimes Charges, shedding light on Egyptian lawyers filing formal complaint at the International Criminal Court accusing U.S. president of crimes against humanity.”

Guest Website:
» Raymond Ibrahim: Islam Translated

» The Glazov Gang
» Jamie Glazov Productions

About Dr. Jamie Glazov

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror. His latest book is High Noon For America: The Coming Showdown.

OBAMA ACCUSED OF ‘CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY’

Complaint Charged Obama As An Accessory
To The Muslim Brotherhood Violence In Egypt

Raymond Ibrahim, Islam Translated — According to Egyptian newspaper El Watan, a group of Egyptian lawyers has submitted a complaint charging U.S. president Barrack Hussein Obama with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

The complaint charges Obama of being an accessory to the Muslim Brotherhood, which incited widespread violence in Egypt both before and after the June 30 Revolution.

Along with Obama, the complaint reproduced by El Watan mentions several Brotherhood members by name, beginning with the leader of the organization Muhammad Badie, and other top ranking leaders such as Mohamed al-Beltagy, Essam al-Erian, and Safwat Hegazi, adding that “Obama cooperated, incited, and assisted the armed elements of the Muslim Brotherhood in the commission of crimes against humanity in the period from 3/7/2013-8/18/2013, in the Arab Republic of Egypt.”

According to the published text, the complaint begins by quoting Article 7/1 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, titled “Crimes against humanity,” which is reproduced below:

Article 7

Crimes against humanity

1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a) Murder;

(b) Extermination;

(c) Enslavement;

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f) Torture;

(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

Next, the complaint shows how Muslim Brotherhood leadership violated some of the above definitions, for example, by torturing, mutilating, raping, and killing Egyptians in their “sit in” camps (first reported here), with a highlight on the role the Brotherhood played in inciting violence and the killing of peaceful protesters around Itthadiya Palace back in December.

Above and beyond the accusations of crimes against humanity that the lawyer-drafted complaint cited by El Watan levels against the Brotherhood, one need only look to the fate of Egypt’s Christian minority, who were especially targeted by the Muslim Brotherhood—and thus, by extension, their supporter, Obama—to see numerous examples of nearly every aforementioned definition of crimes against humanity, as follows:

Religious Persecution and Apartheid (see h and j)

Right after Morsi was ousted, the Muslim Brotherhood, including its supreme leader, Muhammad Badie, and its spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, as well as several of the other Brotherhood members mentioned in the complaint, publicly scapegoated the Christian minority for daring to support the popular June 30 Revolution (that is, for acting like equal citizens as opposed to cowed dhimmis as required by Islamic law). The aftermath of the atrocities committed against the Copts are well known (to those who do not exclusively rely on the so-called mainstream media), and include the torching, destroying, and plundering of at some 85 churches, some of which were ancient. Islam’s back flag was raised above some churches; anti-Christian graffiti littered the sides of other churches and Coptic homes.

Murder and Extermination (see a and b)

Among many others to be murdered in response to Brotherhood-incitement against the Copts, a ten-year-old girl was shot and killed while walking back from Bible class. In the Sinai, a young Coptic priest was shot dead in front of his church, while the body of another Copt was found mutilated and beheaded. Four other Christians were slaughtered by Muslims in Luxor province. Most recently, a church wedding was attacked, leaving, among others, two girls, aged eight and twelve, dead and riddled with bullets.

As for “extermination,” the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have long been threatening the Copts with annihilation if they ever opposed them. Back in December 2012, Safwat Hegazi (a leading Brotherhood member named in the complaint, publicly declared during a Brotherhood rally:

A message to the church of Egypt, from an Egyptian Muslim: I tell the church—by Allah, and again, by Allah—if you conspire and unite with the remnants [opposition] to bring Morsi down, that will be another matter [screams of "Allah Akbar!" followed by chants of "With our soul, with our blood, we give to you, O Islam!"]… [T]here are red lines—and our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Muhammad Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him” [followed by more wild shouts of "Allah Akbar!"]

Around the same time, and more to the point, Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim—another vocal Brotherhood agitator who earlier praised Allah for the death of the late Coptic Pope Shenouda, cursing him to hell and damnation in a video he posted on YouTube—made another video telling Egypt’s Christians:

You are playing with fire in Egypt, I swear, the first people to be burned by the fire are you [Copts].” … The day Egyptians—and I don’t even mean the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafis, regular Egyptians—feel that you are against them, you will be wiped off the face of the earth. I’m warning you now: do not play with fire!… What do you think—that America will protect you? Let’s be very clear, America will not protect you. If so, it would have protected the Christians of Iraq when they were being butchered!

Ghoneim’s words have proven prophetic—an indicator that this Egyptian hatemongering sheikh, who was expelled under Hosni Mubarak, knows the conduct of America’s leadership better than most Americans. Along with Iraq’s and Egypt’s Christians, he could have mentioned the Christians of Syria as well, who are being decimated thanks to Obama’s support for al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists, AKA, “freedom fighters.”

Deportation, Extortion, Kidnapping, and General Abuse of Copts
(see c, d, e, f, g, and i)

Since the Muslim Brotherhood publicly denounced the Copts, entire towns and villages have been emptied of Christians—for example, more than 100 Christian families from El Arish. After mentioning the mass destruction of churches during a recent conference, and speaking of a different incident, Dr. Sherif Doss, an Egyptian activist, said, “But worst of all, about 140 families were evicted from their own homes; and worse still is that, not only were they thrown out of their houses, but their shops and properties were robbed and destroyed… General Sisi has promised to rebuild the churches and this takes time to be done. But we can’t wait all that time for those people destitute and in the streets, with no place to live and nowhere to work…. These people are in a very bad condition. If you go and see these villages, you will be amazed—it is as if a nuclear bomb exploded there. People burned and plundered their homes without mercy.”

Similarly, Muslim Brotherhood supporters are extorting Copts, rationalized in the context of making them pay jizya—the money, or tribute, that conquered non-Muslims historically had to pay to their Islamic overlords “with willing submission and while feeling themselves subdued” to safeguard their existence, as indicated in Koran 9:29. For instance, the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in south Minya province were recently forced to pay jizya. In some cases, those not able to pay were attacked, their wives and children beaten and/or kidnapped. As a result, some 40 Christian families had fled Dalga, joining the ever growing list of displaced Christians in the Middle East.

Days before the June 30 Revolution, letters addressed to the Copts threatened them not to join the protests against Morsi, otherwise their “businesses, cars, homes, schools, and churches” might “catch fire”—which of course they all did. The message concluded by saying “If you are not worried about any of these, then worry about your children and your homes.”

Such threats, as mentioned, were hardly limited to anonymous letters. During a TV interview, Sheikh Essam Abdulamek, a then member of parliament’s Shura Council, warned Egypt’s Christians against participating in the June 30 Revolution against Morsi, threatening them by saying “Do not sacrifice your children” since “general Muslim opinion will not be silent about the ousting of the president [Morsi].”

And the children of Copts have certainly been targeted—both during and after Morsi’s tenure. Some, especially young girls, are regularly abducted, raped, and shamed into converting to Islam and “marrying” their rapists. Coptic boys have increasingly been abducted from the doorsteps of their churches and held for ransom. Recently, a 6-year-old Christian boy was murdered by his kidnapper—after the boy’s family paid the ransom. (Read more about the jihad on Egypt’s Christian children.)

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In short, by simply focusing on the plight of Egypt’s Christians, almost every criterion found under the category of “crimes against humanity”—including murder, extermination, deportation, torture, rape, disappearance, apartheid and religious persecution—are met.

Only one is necessary for the charge to stick.

As for the Obama administration’s support for the Brotherhood, if most Americans are clueless or indifferent about it, average Egyptians have long known and resented it—hence the many large placards and signs held during the June 30 Revolution calling on Obama to stop supporting terrorism and calling on Americans to wake up.

One need only follow the words and deeds of Anne Patterson, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Hillary Clinton, et. al. to know that the U.S president is a firm supporter of the crimes-against-humanity-committing Muslim Brotherhood.

Of course, whatever the merits of El Watan’s report—here is another English-language article talking about apparently a different complaint of crimes against humanity leveled against Obama by Coptic activists—all these complaints seem futile, as the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court.

However, all technicalities aside, the facts are clear: by any definition, the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have committed numerous crimes against humanity in Egypt, especially in the context of the Christian Copts; and by its ongoing support for the Brotherhood, the Obama administration is complicit. Remember this next time the Obama administration cites concerns about “human rights” violations as reason to involve the U.S. in war—as it recently tried to do in Syria, again, to support more Islamic terrorists who are committing even worse crimes against humanity. » Full Story With Related Articles

Watch Raymond Ibrahim discuss this report on CBN News:


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About the Author

RAYMOND IBRAHIM, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. A widely published author, best known for The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007), he guest lectures at universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College, briefs governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual failures that dominate American discourse concerning Islam and the worsening plight of Egypt's Christian Copts. Among other media, he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, CBN, and NPR.

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