RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274134/teen-leah-sharibu-remains-boko-haram-captivity-jamie-glazov

Today, 16-year-old Leah Sharibu, a Christian girl from the town of Dapchi, Nigeria, remains in the monstrous hands of the Islamic terror group Boko Haram – which keeps Leah in its barbaric captivity because she refuses to deny Jesus Christ and convert to Islam.

Leah was just 14 years old when, with 109 other girls, she was abducted from her school in Dapchi by Boko Haram on February 19, 2018. The other kidnapped girls were freed (5 were killed) in March of that same year, but Leah remained in the Jihadist group’s hands because she refused to renounce Christ.

For such a young girl under such circumstances not to give up her faith, staying true to what she believes in spite of these horrible consequences it has had for her through all these past months, is mind blowing to me.

That quote is from Sonja Dahlmans, a researcher on the abduction, rape, and forced conversions of Christian girls and women, and also of other non-Muslim women, in several countries from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. A student of Theology and Orthodox Christianity at two universities in the Netherlands, Sonja is currently heading a petition on behalf of Leah that she hopes will add pressure on Nigerian authorities to squeeze her captors for her release.

Sonja kindly agreed to answer a few of my questions about her petition, where exactly Leah’s frightening situation stands, and about the overall nightmarish conditions for Christians in Nigeria.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14448/africa-christians-persecution

“In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN.” — The Independent Review of FCO support for Persecuted Christians.

“The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused. They ordered them to gather under a tree and took their Bibles and mobile phones. Then they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead.” — World Watch Monitor, May 2, 2019.

As the British report demonstrates, persecution against Christians and other non-Muslims is not about the ethnicity, race or skin color of either the perpetrators or the victims; it is about their religion.

If these crimes are not stopped, it is highly likely that the fate of the African Continent will be like that of the Middle East: Once it was a majority-Christian region; now, Christians are a tiny, dying, defenseless minority.

According to a recent interim report published in the U.K., “it is estimated that one third of the world’s population suffers from religious persecution in some form, with Christians being the most persecuted group.”

Although the full report — commissioned by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and conducted by the Bishop of Truro, the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen — was due to be released by Easter this year, “the scale and nature of the phenomenon [of Christian persecution] simply required more time,” according to the report. As a result, Mounstephen explained, the “interim” findings released in April are incomplete, and the final report will be published at the end of June.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14447/iran-attacks-escalate

Iran’s actions are clear; there has been virtually no attempt on its part to disguise hostile intentions. Why is there no international outrage? The mainstream media continue to fail to report adequately Iran’s attacks. There has been no focus placed on the increase over the past two months of these attacks.

On several occasions, the Trump administration invited Iran to the negotiating table in an attempt to deescalate tensions. It is Iran that rejects the talks and continues to act aggressively, all while openly threatening the U.S. and its allies.

How many people must be threatened, tortured, or slaughtered, before Trump’s response will be deemed warranted?

Criticism continues to fly at the Trump administration in response to the White House’s attempts to deter Iran’s threats. Despite increasing acts of violence, and aggressive behavior towards the US, President Trump is criticized by some people for his determination to hold the Iranian government accountable.

By using its military to attack the US and its allies, the Islamic Republic has been unabashedly resorting to hard power tactics. Iran’s actions are clear; there has been virtually no attempt on its part to disguise hostile intentions. Why is there no international outrage? The mainstream media continue to fail to report adequately Iran’s attacks. There has been no focus placed on the increase over the past two months of these attacks.

The Iranian government’s policy appears to be two-pronged. The first facet seems linked to instructing its proxies across the region to attack and wreak havoc on entities linked to the United States, European countries, and Gulf states.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/iran-says-new-u-s-sanctions-mark-permanent-closure-of-diplomacy/

Iranian officials said Tuesday that new U.S. sanctions mean “closing the doors of diplomacy” between the two countries amid increasingly acrimonious relations.

The sanctions, which target the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top Iranian officials, are “outrageous and idiotic,” President Hassan Rouhani said.

“You sanction the foreign minister simultaneously with a request for talks,” Rouhani complained, before calling the White House “mentally retarded.”

“Trump’s government is annihilating all the established international mechanisms for keeping peace and security in the world,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi wrote on Twitter, calling the Trump administration “desperate.”

In response, President Trump issued a warning that attacking American targets will result in disaster for Iran.

“The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”

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Last week, Trump called off airstrikes planned as retaliation for Iran’s downing of an unmanned American drone with just minutes to spare. He later cited concerns about the potential casualties, which he said would have been around 150, in justifying the decision.

Tensions with Iran have been escalating ever since the White House backed out of the 2015 nuclear weapons deal last year, brokered by the Obama administration and consistently disparaged by Trump.