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By Shavana Abruzzo
Brooklyn Daily
Christians began their 40-day holy period of prayer and fasting this week on Ash Wednesday, but some 100 million of them living in Muslim nations did so at the risk of imprisonment, lashing, deportation, torture, and even death, because they are forbidden to practice their religion freely.
Their persecution is a forgotten epidemic. It barely registers a blip on a public radar in our nation where civil rights attorneys sue the NYPD for daring to keep an eye on Muslims as part of their counter-terrorism efforts, even though U.S. law enforcers have foiled 53 terror plots since 9-11 — all of them hatched by Islamo-nuts, the likes of whom have memorably passed themselves off before as upstanding civilians.
The 9-11 hijackers blended silently and seamlessly into their mainstream communities, and proved that untold disasters lie just one successful scheme away.
The FBI erodes, moreover, any notions of anti-Muslim sentiment with cold, hard facts.
It reported 157 hate crimes against Muslims in 2011 — the latest figures available — compared to a whopping 771 against Jews. But that hasn’t stopped Muslims from advancing their fiction in the planet’s most tolerant city by taking to the streets in Queens last month to protest their alleged abuse.
The egregious double standard is exposed by Open Doors U.S.A. in a damning new report of 50 nations where Christian persecution is the most intense. It is no coincidence that 39 of them are Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of Islam and a model for all Muslim nations — whose constitution bans religious freedom.
The blow-by-blow account also noted violence against Christians in Africa — an escalating hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism — and warned of more to come.
“Radical Islamic groups are patiently waiting for the right time to show their power,” the group assessed.
Incidents of Christian persecution in the Muslim world are staggering.
www.persecution.org/2013/02/07/three-pastors-in-laos-arrested-for-spreading-christianity/">Three pastors are arrested in Laos for spreading their faith. An Iranian-born pastor and U.S. citizen is sentenced to eight years in prison for doing missionary work in Iran, including helping to build an orphanage. Two boys, ages 9 and 10, stand trial in Egypt for “insulting” the Koran, after their mother converts her family to Christianity. A pastor is fined for reading the Bible “illegally” in Kazakhstan. More than 200 Muslims pelt rotten eggs at Christians holding a Christmas Mass on barren land in Indonesia after their church is illegally shuttered. Twelve Christian worshippers, including the pastor, are killed during Christmas Eve services in Nigeria.
And on and on — and on — ad nauseum. But not a peep, mind you, out of Muslims who are too busy crying wolf.
We don’t need Ash Wednesday to reflect on the rampant, unchecked violence directed at Christians — but it’s as good a time as any to start.
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Read Shavana Abruzzo's column every Friday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail here at sabruzzo@cnglocal.com.