Sunday 27 September 2020

An "Unimaginable Nightmare": The Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls in Egypt

 

In this mailing:

  • Giulio Meotti: France: More Terrorism, More Silence
  • Raymond Ibrahim: An "Unimaginable Nightmare": The Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls in Egypt
  • Amir Taheri: The 'Nevertheless' Club and the World

France: More Terrorism, More Silence

by Giulio Meotti  •  September 27, 2020 at 5:00 am

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  • This brand of extremism has also managed to transform many European citizens into prisoners, people hiding in their own countries, sentenced to death and forced to live in houses unknown even to their friends and families. And we got used to it!

  • "[T]his lack of courage to follow in Charlie's footsteps comes at a price, we are losing freedom of speech and an insidious form of self-censorship is gaining ground." — Flemming Rose, Le Point, September 2, 2020.

  • "To put it simply, freedom of speech is in bad shape around the world. Including in Denmark, France and throughout the West. These are troubled times; people prefer order and security to freedom." — Flemming Rose, Le Point, August 15, 2020.

On September 25, in Paris, two people were stabbed and seriously wounded outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo, where 12 of the satirical magazine's editors and cartoonists were murdered in 2015. Pictured: Firefighters and paramedics evacuate a wounded victim from the site of the attack. (Photo by Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images)

On September 25, in Paris, two people were stabbed and seriously wounded outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo, where 12 of the satirical magazine's editors and cartoonists were murdered by extremist Muslims in 2015. The suspect, in police custody, is being investigated for terrorism.

The accused murderers in the 2015 attacks are currently on trial in Paris.

Shortly before the knifing attack, on September 22, Charlie Hebdo's director of human resources, Marika Bret, did not come home. In fact, she no longer has a home. She was evicted after serious and concrete death threats from extremist Muslims. She decided to make her "exfiltration" public for French intelligence to alert the public to the threat of extremism in France.

"I have lived under police protection for almost five years", she told the weekly Le Point.

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An "Unimaginable Nightmare": The Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls in Egypt

by Raymond Ibrahim  •  September 27, 2020 at 4:30 am

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  • "One of the strategies they used to gain the girls' trust was for the kidnapper, a Muslim man, to tell the Christian girl he loved her and wanted to convert to Christianity for her. They would start a romantic relationship until, one day, they would decide to 'escape' together. What the girls do not know is that they are actually being kidnapped." — Former Egyptian human trafficker, World Watch Monitor, October 5, 2017.

  • "The kidnappers receive large amounts of money. Police can help them in different ways, and when they do, they might also receive a part of the financial reward the kidnappers are paid.... In some cases, police provide the kidnappers with drugs they seize." — Former Egyptian trafficker, World Watch Monitor, October 5, 2017

  • "If all goes to plan, the girls are also forced into marriage with a strict Muslim. Their husbands don't love them, they just marry her to make her a Muslim. She will be hit and humiliated. And if she tries to escape, or convert back to her original religion, she will be killed." — Former Egyptian trafficker, World Watch Monitor, October 5, 2017.

  • "There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or at the very least bribed into silence. If there is any hope for Coptic women in Egypt to have a merely 'primitive' level of equality, these incidents of trafficking must cease, and the perpetrators must be held accountable by the judiciary." — From "'Jihad of the Womb': Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt," a report by Coptic Solidarity.

The kidnapping, sexual abuse and forced conversion of Christian women and girls in Egypt is rampant, with no signs of easing up. (Image source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person in the article.)

The kidnapping, sexual abuse and forced conversion of Christian women and girls in Egypt — a "particularly vulnerable group to exploitation" that is quietly living an "unimaginable nightmare" — is rampant, with no signs of easing up. This is the finding of a report published on September 10, 2020 by Coptic Solidarity, an international organization based in Washington D.C., that works to promote equal citizenship rights for Egypt's Christian minority.

In its 15-page report, "'Jihad of the Womb': Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt," Coptic Solidarity documents "the widespread practice of abduction and trafficking" and estimates that there have been "about 500 cases within the last decade, where elements of coercion were used that amount to trafficking," according to the UN's own definitions, particularly per its "Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children."

According to Coptic Solidarity:

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The 'Nevertheless' Club and the World

by Amir Taheri  •  September 27, 2020 at 4:00 am

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  • The tweet contains interesting indicators to how [the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard] Haas tries to dodge the issue. He presents Afkari's killing as a judicial "execution", enabling Zarif to say "well, you have executions in some states of the US as well."

  • In November 1938, a few days after Kristallnacht, the French ambassador to Berlin Robert Coulondre reported the event to Paris, describing the savagery in the heart of Europe, concluding that "nevertheless [néanmoins in French] one should understand German grievances against the Jews."

  • [I]n his expose at the CFR meeting, Zarif repeated the same claims, not to say lies, that he has been dishing out to the illustrious audience for years. And it seems that they gobbled it up with the same appetite as before. To hoodwink his audience, Zarif never used the term "Islamic Republic" and pretended that "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei doesn't exist. Nor did he talk of Islam and Tehran's strategy to "export the Islamic Revolution" to the whole world, including New York where the CFR is located.

  • Portrayed by Zarif, the Khomeinist regime is a peace-and-love enterprise where the judiciary is independent, all freedoms are respected, and the strategic aim is to establish peace and harmony across the globe. There are no political prisoners in Iran. Tehran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas is cultural and the Iranian presence in Syria is only advisory, at the invitation of the Syrian government. There are, of course, no American and other foreign hostages in Iran. If there is trouble in the Middle East it is the fault of the United States. OK, not of good Americans like John Kerry and Barack Obama but of people like Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo.

Speaking at a meeting of New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif repeated the same claims, not to say lies, that he has been dishing out to the illustrious audience for years. And it seems that they gobbled it up with the same appetite as before. (Photo by Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)

For the past few years, hosting the Islamic Republic's Foreign Minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, has developed into an annual ritual of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). This year, however, CFR's invitation to Zarif raised a storm of protest beyond the bubble in which American foreign policy junkies play games, indulge in fantasies, and address their principal task, which is fund-raising.

What triggered the storm was the alleged murder in a Tehran prison of Navid Afkari, a popular wrestling champion and a pro-democracy protester. The killing sent shock waves throughout Iran, including even among some elements of the Khomeinist establishment.

The CFR received many emails and telephone calls demanding that, as a show of sympathy with Iranians, Zarif be disinvited.

The CFR, however, refused to do so. Its director Richard Haas, a former State Department official, published this tweet:

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