Dear President Obama,
We Christians are very concerned about efforts to promote Islamic democracy, while failing to address the root causes of discrimination and oppression of religious minorities in Islamic nations. “That in many regions of the world, Christians are today ‘the most oppressed and tormented minority’ is a matter of fact.”
Ironically, the present Egyptian uprising has released a new wave of terror on the Church. According to FOX news:
• The uprising has led to new attacks on Egyptian Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population. A church in Rafah, near the border with Gaza, was hit with a firebomb, but the church was empty and no one was injured. Two days later, not far from Cairo, 11 members of two Christian families were killed in a brutal attack in which four others were wounded. That attack, which has not been widely reported in the mainstream media, apparently took place because of the lax security situation at the time…The New Year began with a bombing at a Coptic church in Alexandria that left 23 dead. While the Copts and other Christians may not have gotten the protection they needed under Mubarak, the situation will almost certainly be worse if the Muslim Brotherhood takes control of the country.
• “The Muslim Brotherhood has a long-term commitment to establishing an Islamic state under sharia rule in Egypt,” Nina Shea, Director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, told FoxNews.Com. “The Copts and other Christians should be worried. They would be reduced to dhimmi status – denied the right to celebrate Christmas and weddings or otherwise publicly display their faith.” Shea said “Christians would be defined by the state to be a dangerous fifth column,” and she predicts there would be a mass exodus of Christians, similar to the one in Iraq. Given the size of the Christian population in Egypt, Shea noted that “this would be tantamount to the end of religious diversity and pluralism in the Middle East and would inevitably lead to a deepening of Islamic radicalization.”
If persecution isn’t blatant in other Muslim nations, inevitably religious minorities are reduced to dependency and vulnerability under sharia law (Surah 47:4; 9:5; 9:29; 9:38-39). If true peace and democracy is to flourish, these disparities and double-standards (33:57; 3:27; 4:89; 5:54) must be addressed. Failing to do so will lead to no more than a deceptive “peace” and a cover for continued persecution.
"Iranian state television said Wednesday that leaders of the country's Christian minority have been arrested and accused of spreading a hard-line version of their faith…A website of Iran's political opposition [The Sahamnews.org] reported that 60 Christians have been arrested since Christmas, including a priest taken into custody on Friday."
If real democratic harmony is to be promoted, these offenses along with their root causes must be addressed. The Washington Times claims that,
• In incidents of terrorism foreign and domestic - such as the Fort Hood massacre, underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad - the Islamist reasons for the attacks remain officially unstated. The White House, of course, knows the root cause of the threat; it simply refuses to admit it. Anti-Christian violence is swelling in Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan, among other places, but the White House dares not say why.
Denying the root issues will not promote democracy and the protection of religious minorities. We therefore urge that you, President Obama, speak clearly and forcefully against Islamic violence and discrimination against its religious minorities and to assert our unwillingness to tolerate any of it.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Concerned Christians
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