Muslims in eastern Pakistan went on a rampage over allegations that a Christian man had desecrated the Koran, demolishing the man’s house, burning churches and damaging several other homes, police and local Christians have said.

The scale of the violence prompted the government to deploy additional police forces and send in the army to help restore order.

The attacks in Jaranwala, in the district of Faisalabad in Punjab province, erupted after some Muslims living in the area claimed they had seen a local Christian, Raja Amir, and his friend tearing out pages from a Koran, throwing them on the ground and writing insulting remarks on other pages.

Police chief Rizwan Khan said this had angered the local Muslims.

A mob gathered and began attacking multiple churches and several Christian homes, burning furniture and other household items.

Some members of the Christian community fled their homes to escape the mob.

Police eventually intervened, firing into the air and wielding batons before dispersing the attackers with the help of Muslim clerics and elders.

Authorities also said they have started launching raids in an effort to find all the perpetrators.

Dozens of rioters were arrested.

Police chief Bilal Mehmood told reporters they were also looking for Mr Amir, who went into hiding to escape the mob, and would detain him to determine whether he had desecrated the Koran.

Videos and photos posted on social media show an angry mob descending upon a church, throwing pieces of bricks and burning it.

In another video, two other churches are attacked, their windows broken as attackers throw furniture out and set it on fire.

Several policemen are seen in the videos watching the situation without intervening to stop the vandalism.

In yet another video, a man is seen climbing to the roof of the church and removing the steel cross after repeatedly hitting it with a hammer as the crowd down on the road cheered him on.

Khalid Mukhtar, a local priest, said most of the Christians living in the area had fled to safer places.

“Even my house was burned,” he added.

Mr Mukhtar said there are 17 churches in Jaranwala and he believes most of them were attacked.

The authorities did not immediately confirm that figure.

Mr Khan said additional police forces were later deployed in Jaranwala and an investigation was under way.

He said all involved in the attack would be prosecuted.

“Our first priority was to save the lives of all of the Christians,” he said.

Later in the evening, troops started arriving in Jaranwala to help the police.

Angry Muslims were urged to go back to their homes, allegedly with promises that the man who allegedly desecrated the Koran would soon be arrested.

A delegation of Muslim clerics also arrived in Jaranwala from the city of Lahore to express solidarity with the Christians.

Blasphemy accusations are common in Pakistan.

Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death.

While authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy, often just the accusation can cause riots and incite mobs to violence, lynching and killings.

In one of the worst attacks on Christians, a mob in 2009 burned an estimated 60 homes and killed six Christians in the district of Gojra in Punjab, after accusing them of insulting Islam.

Wednesday’s attack drew nationwide condemnation from top leaders and major political parties.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said he was “gutted” by the images coming out of Faisalabad.

“Stern action would be taken against those who violate law and target minorities. All law enforcement has been asked to apprehend culprits & bring them to justice,” he tweeted.

A senior Christian leader, Bishop Azad Marshall, appealed for help on social media and said he was “deeply pained and distressed”.

“We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland that has just celebrated independence and freedom,” he tweeted.

Former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif also condemned the rampage, saying: “There is no place for violence in any religion.”

In the southern port city of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province, dozens of Christians rallied to denounce the attacks in Jaranwala.

Domestic and international human rights groups say blasphemy allegations have often been used to intimidate religious minorities in Pakistan and settle personal scores.

In December 2021, a Muslim mob descended on a sports equipment factory in Pakistan’s Sialkot district, killing a Sri Lankan man and burning his body publicly over allegations of blasphemy.

Read more: Man accused of blasphemy stoned to death by mob in Pakistan

Islamic State carried out an attack on Egyptian security forces in Sinai a week ago and captured a Christian criminal research expert, the militant group said

The man was involved in the government’s campaign against militants, the group said in its weekly newspaper al-Naba, published on Thursday. It gave no further details.

The attack took place on Jan. 18, west of al-Arish, the capital of the North Sinai province, the group said. One Egyptian officer was killed and two soldiers injured, it said, adding several Egyptian soldiers had been killed or wounded in the past week.

Two security sources in northern Sinai confirmed the incident, saying three security personnel were killed. The Christian man was riding a bus when he was captured, they said.

On Tuesday, the military said Egyptian security forces had killed 59 militants in the Sinai peninsula recently and had lost seven of their own men.

The figures covered the “last period”, the military said without specifying dates or locations of operations. It did not give the identity of suspects or their affiliation.

Egypt’s military says several hundred militants have been killed since it launched a major campaign in February last year to defeat militants linked to Islamic State in Sinai.

On the 30th of November 2018, Deeni News, broadcast this interview with a number of religious leaders based in the United Kingdom. What is so distressing about this interview is that these UK based individuals are demanding the release of violent extremism promoter, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who leads the extremist Tehreek-e-Labaik party in Pakistan. This is not so much a political party, as a group of religious zealots who use force and intimidation against people they regard as ‘blasphemers’.

One of the speakers says the following which is chilling:

“The decision around Asia Masih (Christian), has not only been rejected by the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), but all the religious circles in Pakistan and the entire Muslim Ummah has rejected it”.

“Secondly, we strongly condemn the torture and arrest of the leaders of TLP and all other religious leaders. We would like to clarify this to the Government of Pakistan that such acts are disgracing the country and would be damaging for the safety and security of the country.”

What the religious leaders fail to even consider is that the safety of the country has been damaged on numerous occasions by Khadim Hussain Rizvi and the TLP. Their ‘sit-ins‘ have been intimidating, led to the deaths of people and targeted minorities in Pakistan.

They go onto add:

“The issues surrounding Namoos -e-Risalaat, (the honour of the Prophet Muhammad), is not just a problem of one sect or group but a problem of the entire Ummah. Also, because it is a religious issue so it has to be resolved in the Shariah courts.”

So, just to summarise the nature of the public conversation. UK based religious leaders have asked for the release of a violence promoting extremist, said that his incarceration is a threat to the security of Pakistan and that the ‘honour’ of the Prophet Muhammad is something that is of global and worldwide concern. They then bring in the need for ‘Shariah’ courts to determine such matters. No doubt, any Shariah court would gleefully let of this extremist.

On a visit to Israel two years ago, far-right Brazilian lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro leaned back into the River Jordan in a white robe to be baptized in the arms of a fellow congressman and evangelical pastor.

While still an avowed Catholic, Bolsonaro is riding a wave of support from Brazil’s evangelical Christians, who have helped make him the presidential front-runner heading into the first round of voting slated for Oct. 7.

Evangelicals account for one of every four voters in the world’s largest Catholic country and more than 20 percent of its federal lawmakers. Many have been captivated by Bolsonaro’s eager embrace of the culture wars and his strident anti-gay rhetoric. In a 2011 interview with Playboy Brazil, for example, the father of five said he would not be able to love a gay son. “I would rather that my son died,” he said.

These voters now want the former Army captain to lead a conservative counter-attack against the progressive agenda of the leftist Workers Party (PT), which led Brazil for most of the past 15 years.

These supporters view Bolsonaro’s election as critical to ending recognition by Brazil’s courts of same-sex civil unions and to stopping momentum towards gay marriage.

They also want to halt legislative efforts to legalize abortion, drugs, gambling and stem-cell research. And they aim to block any attempts to penalize discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Above all, they want to see education on LGBT rights removed from public schools.

“The left went too far,” said Bishop Robson Rodovalho, founder of the Brasilia-based Sara Nossa Terra church, which has 1.6 million followers. “Indoctrinating school children on sex revolted many parents. Today we are seeing a boiling over of reaction.”

Like many other evangelical leaders, he is calling on his followers to back Bolsonaro, whose middle name is Messias, Portuguese for “Messiah”.

Bolsonaro’s campaign managers say those votes will be decisive in securing victory. They have met with religious leaders throughout the country to hear their vision for Brazil. Bolsonaro regularly attends prayer sessions held by evangelical pastors in their congressional offices in Brasilia. And the thrice-married candidate accompanies his evangelical wife to church on Sundays, aides said.

Evangelical volunteers have responded by distributing campaign flyers outside churches and talking up Bolsonaro to friends and neighbours. Such grassroots organising is critical to Bolsonaro’s low-budget campaign; he has no major political party behind him and very little ad time on radio and television.

Still, he draws nearly five times the support from evangelical voters as does environmentalist Marina Silva, the only evangelical politician among major candidates. Recent surveys by Brazilian polling firms Ibope and Datafolha said 36 percent of evangelical voters will cast their ballot for Bolsonaro next month, and only 7 percent or 8 percent for Silva.

Bolsonaro’s popularity grew further after he was stabbed in the abdomen by a mentally disturbed assailant at a campaign rally earlier this month. The candidate was forced to stop campaigning while he recovers.

Support for the front-runner has since levelled off at 28 percent in a crowded field of 13 contenders. If no candidate wins a majority on Oct. 7, as is predicted, the top two vote-getters will square off in a second round of voting on Oct. 28.

The fiery Bolsonaro has the highest rejection rate of all candidates, which could be a handicap in a run-off.

Polls currently predict his likely challenger will be PT candidate Fernando Haddad, the former mayor of Sao Paulo. He replaced jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the ticket when Lula was barred from running due to a corruption conviction. An Ibope poll on Wednesday showed Haddad defeating Bolsonaro by a 6-point margin in a head-to-head race.

SEX IN SCHOOL

Many of Bolsonaro’s evangelical supporters are united in their fear that the family, the main institution of a Christian society, is under threat from a godless state.

These voters chafed when Lula’s government set up a national program to promote LGBT rights. But evangelicals were particularly incensed when the administration of Lula’s hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, attempted to distribute a manual instructing educators on how to teach children tolerance of gay and lesbian relationships. Opposition to the material, which critics dubbed the “Gay Kit” was so fierce that the initiative was dropped.

Pastor Everaldo Pereira, the politician who baptized Bolsonaro in the River Jordan, said parents, not the state, should teach their children about sex and traditional marriage between a man and a woman.

Pereira, the leader of the Social Christian Party, is now running for the Senate. He wants to push through a law reversing a 2011 Supreme Court decision that allowed same-sex civil unions. He says putting Bolsonaro in the nation’s top job could help that dream come true.

“Bolsonaro will restore order to the chaos,” Pereira said.

The faithful, meanwhile, have turned away from one of their own. Support for Silva, the former senator who won about 20 percent of the votes cast in the two previous presidential elections, has plummeted mainly among evangelical voters.

Silva has long advocated keeping her evangelical faith separate from politics. That is a position many believers interpret as unwillingness to defend their values.

Bolsonaro, for example, has vowed to veto any legislation seeking to legalize abortion, which is allowed only in cases of rape, fetal deformation and to save a mother’s life. Silva favours a plebiscite to let Brazilians decide.

“That’s Marina. Let’s save the turtle eggs but kill foetuses,” said unemployed teacher Madalena Venancio, 44, at a Bolsonaro rally. “I prefer his frankness.”

LAW AND ORDER

Bolsonaro has cast himself as an anti-establishment figure in the mould of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose policies he admires.

But despite nearly 27 years in Congress he has few legislative achievements to show for it. Instead, his career has consisted largely of courting controversy. He has repeatedly expressed support for the nation’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, and made headlines with racist, sexist and homophobic comments.

Reviled by many critics as a backbench blowhard, Bolsonaro displayed shrewd political instincts by tapping into public anger over rampant corruption and rising crime. He wants to loosen gun laws so more Brazilians can arm themselves. And he favours giving police carte blanche to kill suspected criminals.

That get-tough stance has won admirers in a nation that saw a record of nearly 64,000 murders last year.

Leaving an evangelical church service recently in Ceilandia, a working class suburb of Brasilia, Maria de Conceiçao said she was leaning toward voting for Bolsonaro.

“He says he will restore discipline in schools, where students do what they want and hit their teachers,” Conceiçao said. “Maybe we should try a military officer now.”

Lorens Listo’s name may not headline the world’s sports pages, but on the streets of his native Mostar he is hailed as a champion among champions in a sport that is central to the Bosnian city’s identity: high diving.

Mostar is home to the Stari Most, a 16th-century Ottoman peaked bridge that spans the river Neretva and, at its highest point, stands 79 feet (24 m) above the water.

The picturesque town has become famous for the diving competition from the white bridge, rebuilt in 2004 and a symbol of reconciliation after it was destroyed by Bosnian Croat artillery in 1993 during the Bosnian war.

Listo won the competition’s head-first diving category for the eleventh time on Sunday with his trade-mark swan dive, before a crowd of about 5,000 people. It was the 451st contest held since the first in 1556.

“Jumps are the identity of Mostar,” he said. The plunge from the bridge is a ritual for local youths to signal their transition into manhood. It is also a major tourist attraction, and a unifying force in a divided city.

Croats and Muslims, known as Bosniaks, live on opposite sides of the river and tensions linger from Bosnia’s 1990s war that saw fierce fighting between the two communities. But post-war, Croats and Bosniaks come together for the diving contest.

“Jumps connect both sides because we are together, looking forward to see who is winning. Boundaries are just in people’s mind, they actually don’t exist,” he said.

Approaching 40, Listo has a muscular physique, adorned with tattoos on his arms and thigh, and a buzz-cut hairstyle.

“I could say that everything that I do, my business, my life, my family, everything is dedicated to jumping off the bridge for at least 18 years”, he said, adding that he saw diving as a second full-time job, rather than a hobby.

Listo, who works as the local director of a fuel company, says the threat of injury hangs over the sport. “We fly, we don’t just jump,” Listo said, adding he had broken a finger and injured his back over the years diving from the bridge.

Others have not been so lucky. Listo said a handful of people have died jumping from the bridge over the years, though never during the competition. Listo’s friend Andrej Beuc also died last year diving in a different competition in Bosnia.

President Donald Trump will visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, the White House said on Monday amid controversy in Israel over reported comments by a U.S. diplomat that the wall was in the occupied West Bank.

Trump will say a prayer at the Western Wall, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said, as well as pay a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered by Christians to be the site of Jesus’ tomb.

The wall, representing the remains of the Jewish Second Temple, sits on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and has been a flashpoint of violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israel will be the second stop on Trump’s first foreign trip, following Saudi Arabia. The Republican president will meet with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The announcement of Trump’s visit to the Jewish holy site came amid the controversy in Israel over a report that a U.S. diplomat preparing Trump’s visit referred to the Western Wall as being part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel’s Channel 2 reported that during a planning meeting between U.S. and Israeli officials, the Israelis were told that Trump’s visit to the wall was private, Israel did not have jurisdiction in the area and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not welcome to accompany Trump there.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.

An official in Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that Israel has contacted Washington about the matter.

Asked about the matter, a White House official told Reuters on Tuesday: “These comments were not authorized by the White House. They do not reflect the U.S. position and certainly not the president’s position.”

McMaster sidestepped questions on Tuesday about whether the Trump administration considers the Western Wall part of Israel.

Pope Francis called attention on Sunday to the plight of people affected by war and conflict in the Middle East as U.S.-backed forces close in on Islamic State militants in Iraq.

“So many innocent people are being sorely tested, be they Christian, or Muslim, or from minority groups like the Yazidi, who are suffering tragic violence and discrimination,” Francis said after his regular Sunday address in the Vatican.

“I encourage the different communities to follow the path of dialogue and friendship, to build a future of respect, security and peace, far from any sort of war.”

The battle for Mosul, the densely populated northern Iraqi city that Islamic State made its de facto capital, was approaching an end on Sunday after seven months of gruelling combat.

Many Yazidis, whose beliefs combine elements of several Middle Eastern religions, were persecuted and held in Mosul by Islamic State, which considered them devil-worshippers.

Pope Francis said on Saturday he would be “sincere” with U.S. President Donald Trump over their sharp differences on subjects such as immigration and climate change when the two hold their first meeting at the Vatican later this month.

But the pope also told reporters aboard a plane returning from Portugal that he would keep an open mind and not pass judgement on Trump until first listening to his views at their meeting on May 24.

“Even if one thinks differently we have to be very sincere about what each one thinks,” Francis said in a typically freewheeling airborne news conference.

“Topics will emerge in our conversations. I will say what I think and he will say what he thinks. But I have never wanted to make a judgement without first listening to the person.”

The pope’s meeting with Trump could be potentially awkward given their diametrically opposed positions on immigration, refugees and climate change, which he told reporters on the plane “are well known”.

Last year, in response to a question about then-candidate Trump’s views on immigration and his intention to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, Francis said a man with such views was “not Christian”.

Trump, who grew up in a Presbyterian family, shot back saying it was “disgraceful” for the pope to question his faith.

SEEKING COMMON GROUND

The two men also disagree strongly about climate change.

Trump signed an executive order dismantling Obama-era environmental legislation.

Francis has made defence of the environment a key plank of his papacy, strongly backing scientific opinion that global warming is caused mostly by human activity.

Still, Francis said he was willing to find common ground with Trump.

“There are always doors that are not closed. We need to find the doors that are at least partly open, go in, and talk about things we have in common and go forward, step by step,” he said.

Trump will visit the Vatican during a tour of the Middle East and Europe that will also include a meeting in Sicily of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading economies.

The pope is a head of state as well as being leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Such meetings allow for an exchange of views on world affairs and a chance for the pope to encourage ethical solutions to world problems.

About 21 percent of Americans, or 70 million people, are Catholic. Washington has had full diplomatic relations with the Vatican since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan saw Pope John Paul, a Pole, as a crucial ally against communism.

Gunmen attacked security forces near St. Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt’s south Sinai on Tuesday, killing at least one police officer and injuring four others, the Health Ministry said, just a week after two deadly church bombings killed 45.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on a police checkpoint several hundred metres (yards) from the entrance to the monastery, one of the world’s most important Christian sites.

The attack comes just 10 days before Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Egypt and just over a week after two deadly suicide bombings on Christian churches, also claimed by Islamic State, plunged the country into mourning and marked one of the bloodiest days for the country’s Christian minority in decades.     

St. Catherine’s, founded in the 6th century and located at the foot of Mount Sinai, is one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world and a UNESCO world heritage site. It is part of the Eastern Orthodox church.

Egypt’s Christian minority, which makes up about 10 percent of the country’s 92 million people, has increasingly been targeted by Islamist militants, with three deadly church attacks in the span of four months.

In February, scores of Christian families and students fled North Sinai province after a spate of targeted killings.

A successful assault on St. Catherine’s would be the latest challenge to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has pledged to protect the religious minority as part of his campaign against extremism.

Egypt has for years been battling an Islamist insurgency in the rugged and thinly populated northern Sinai, which gained pace after the military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

Attacks in Egypt’s southern Sinai, a popular destination for  tourists dotted with Red Sea resorts, are by contrast rare.

Israel took the unusual step earlier this month of barring its citizens from crossing into the Sinai peninsula, saying the threat of attacks in the area inspired by Islamic State and other jihadi groups was high.

Shalom New North London
Erev Shabbat, 9 Tammuz 5776
Friday, 15 July 2016

Dear Community,

I’ve just spoken to my colleague David Touboul, rabbi of the Masorti community in Nice. Mercifully, it seems his congregation are safe, though many were nearby when the attack took place. But poor people of Nice. Our thoughts are with the bereaved, the wounded and the traumatised. Poor France, and alas for a world where so many people suffer terror or the threat of terror every day of their lives.

Only this winter I celebrated with Rabbi David the twentieth birthday of his congregation at which everyone sung and danced with the Torah.

The Torah is called Torat Chayim, The Torah of Life. To hold it is to embrace the tree of life, like a child who throws its arms around the trunk of an oak tree in the park. You feel as if its sap is rising not only into its branches and leaves, but through you; you push your heart against the bark and sense the great nourishment of the giver of all life.

Judaism, life itself, finds its strength and joy through attachment to the tree of life. In hours of pain and confusion we turn to the Torah and its teachings to seek healing; in times of celebration we sing and dance with the Torah, like the dance of life itself.

The aim of terror and hatred is to detach us from the tree of life, to kill us physically and to maim us spiritually by destroying our confidence and joy. Any terror outrage anywhere is an attack on the preciousness of life everywhere. We must never condone it, or, though we have to be vigilant, be cowed by it, or allow it to undermine our values, at the heart of which is the simple truth that every life and all life matters beyond any price that can be put upon its head.

It is our duty to bring healing wherever we can. There are innumerable ways in which we can make this part of our lives, each of us according to our gifts and opportunities. Healing is not just saving lives, though nothing is more important where life itself is at stake. Healing can be listening to stress and anger with patience, a kind word in an otherwise anonymous interaction, a gift to someone who is hungry, the offer of help with a lonely, challenging task.

It is also incumbent on us to reach out to others, now more than ever. There are many within our own community (whether that is Jewish, Christian, Muslim or the locality of our street or village) who are isolated by age, disability or distance from their loved ones. It is far harder to bear difficult times alone than within the embrace of a neighbourly group. There are also many who feel unheard, unwanted and unwelcome. We must respond to those who exploit differences to foster fear and prejudice by crossing the lines of apparent division to develop friendship, mutuality and trust. That is the only way to defeat hatred.

Most of all, it remains our privilege and responsibility to celebrate life. We respond to contempt for life by honouring life; to the destruction of life by the nurturing of life. Celebration is not the same as heedless hedonism. It is an affirmation of the privilege of being able to breath, feel, communicate, enjoy, care, love, – all the sensations and emotions of being human, many of which we share with other forms of existence as well.
It is a basic form of gratitude. It is a way of saying: we never hold life in contempt; we are never indifferent; we are grateful for this short gift of time and will use it to cherish and love our comrades in this partnership of life.

It is the way we put our arms around the tree of life, – and sometimes even that strong and sustaining tree needs our embrace as well.

Shabbat Shalom
Jonathan Wittenberg