(By Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post). The United States has detailed the atrocities suffered by Christians and other minorities at the hands of the Islamic State terrorist group, specifically calling it genocide, in the Trump administration’s first International Religious Freedom Report, released Tuesday. “ISIS has and continues to target members of multiple religions and ethnicities for rape, kidnapping,…
(By William Doino Jr., First Things). Two years after its release, this still photo, taken from an ISIS propaganda video, remains as haunting as ever: a long line of Christian Coptic men in orange jump suits, forced to kneel and await execution simply for being Christian and refusing to renounce their religious beliefs. Even as the…
With 100 massacred in five months, leaving vengeance to the Lord is getting harder for Copts. (By Jayson Caspter in Cairo, Christianity Today). They couldn’t even wash their dead. Thirty Coptic Christians were gunned down by ISIS, ambushed in a church bus on a weekend outing to a popular monastery in the Egyptian desert. Their…
Synod of the Nile Moderator declares ‘unity and solidarity with the Coptic Orthodox Church’ (By Michael Parker, Special to the Presbyterian News Service). CAIRO, Egypt – Two Coptic Orthodox churches were the subject of suicide bombings on Palm Sunday, April 9, killing 44 and wounding 126. The first attack occurred at St. George Coptic Orthodox Church…
(By Jayson Casper, Christianity Today). Attacks at two Coptic Orthodox churches in Egypt’s Nile Delta killed more than 40 people and injured more than 100 others during Palm Sunday services—including the one where Pope Tawadros II was worshiping. ISIS claimed responsibility. In February, the Egypt chapter of the Islamist extremists had released a threatening video calling…
(By Ian Lee and Sarah Sirgany, CNN, Ismailia, Egypt) “Are you a Christian?” These were the last words 45-year-old Medhat Saad Hakim heard before he was shot in the head on his doorstep last month. The gunmen dragged Hakim’s screaming mother outside the house before going back inside and shooting his father dead. The attackers then looted the…
The recent burning to death of a Copt in Sinai is only the tip of the iceberg. (By Raymond Ibrahim, Frontpage Magazine). Yet another murderous wave is taking Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority by storm, leading to yet another exodus from their homes. Perhaps because of its sensationalist nature—burning a human alive—this story was reported…
ISIS forced the Christians of the Nineveh plain around Mosul to flee. Now they are returning, but in the key town of Qaraqosh, the fighting rages on. (By Florian Neuhof, The Daily Beast.) The church’s interior has been blackened by fire, and the altar has been vandalized. ISIS graffiti has been smeared on the walls,…
By Samuel Smith, The Christian Post. As conflicts in Iraq and Syria have forced millions of residents to flee their homes over the last several years, a leading Christian persecution activist has explained that over 80 percent of Christians have left Iraq in the last 13 years, while nearly half of all Christians have fled Syria…
By Raymond Ibrahim, The Gatestone Institute. More reports of the brutal treatment that Christians and other minorities experienced at the hands of the Islamic State emerged during May. One account told of a couple who, after their children were abducted by ISIS militants, answered their door one day to find a plastic bag on their doorstep….