Chinese Christians and other religious minorities are increasingly targeted by their communist government for oppression. While not enough of us are paying attention, it seems China is rapidly devolving into a police state to rival North Korea. Last week The Stream spoke with Bob Fu, a Chinese dissident who founded China Aid and who advocates for religious freedom and the rule of law in China ~ China Demolishes Crosses, Mandates Surveillance in Churches as Religious Persecution Rises. According to Fu ~

President Xi Jinping considers Christians one of the greatest threats to his power. Underground churches are listed as one of the “new black five” national security threats in China. It’s new under this president for churches to be classified as a national security threat […]
 
On February 1 of this year, a new law called “Regulations on the Administration of Religious Affairs” took effect. Things have become dramatically even worse. Bible-burning campaigns are happening across China. Now his successor Governor, who ran this campaign, has been promoted to Secretary General of the state consul in Beijing […]
 
 
The government-sanctioned churches that are allowed to exist right now have unique restrictions. Each church has to install a facial-recognition camera in front of the pulpit (?!). The purpose is to identify certain people in the congregation.

 
This state-sanctioned version of religion is what I was writing about last month ~ Pope Francis throws Chinese Catholics under the bus. Rather than confront this growing totalitarian oppression, the pope seems inclined to enable it. So naturally, it’s only escalating.
 
And Christians aren’t the only targets. Fu discussed China’s horrifying treatment of the Uyghurs, a separate ethnic – predominately Muslim – minority ~

Every three blocks, Chinese police are stationed to look for so-called dissidents. They will stop you and examine your smartphone. If they find anything in the Uyghur language or a Uyghur song, you are immediately sent to a labor camp. Today, there are currently one to three million Uyghurs in concentration camps. They are being tortured. We have interviewed many witnesses whose family members are in prison or were killed.
 
“Millions of [Uyghurs] are imprisoned. They are facing imminent gas chambers. It’s a serious deal. If we allow China to take them, then next will be our group.”
 
 
This is all well-documented. The Chinese government regime has designed special headphones for the Uyghurs to wear. They have to have them on seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It broadcasts the Communist Party songs to brainwash them. After three days of hearing this nonstop, how could you bear that? Many have gone crazy.
 
They force these Muslims to sell and eat pork. I am not fabricating anything. The Uyghurs are currently facing genocide. The Tibetans already experienced this to a degree. Where is the United Nations? The world is not paying attention as they should.

 
If China gets away with ethnic cleansing of these people, while the world looks away, are Christians next?
 

Four years ago, faith in China was growing at such a rapid pace that the country was on track to have the largest Christian population in the world by the year 2020. It seems the communist government is determined to prevent that from happening at all costs.

How can we help? Bob Fu has three suggestions ~

 
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Related:

• Chinese ‘underground’ bishop detained by police for fifth time in two years ~
• China: Cultivate ‘patriotic’ clergy, Henan officials told
• China introduces three-person teams to monitor religious groups
• Pope Francis throws Chinese Catholics under the bus

• China: 6 churches closed, crosses removed from 3 others
• China’s Internet guidelines a ‘serious violation of people’s freedoms’
• The Persecution of the Uyghurs

This is just a quick update on the Asia Bibi story. While the free world rejoiced just two short weeks ago over her release from years of unjust incarceration in Pakistan, the celebration was very short-lived. Almost immediately the Islamists in that country took to the streets to express their outrage. How could a Christian woman possibly be allowed to live after drinking from a Muslims-only water pitcher!

(M)assive street protests by extremist Muslims immediately erupted to pressure the government to delay her release. The phone network in some areas was suspended for reasons of “security”. Rioting caused schools in Islamabad, Punjab and Kashmir to close. Roads were blocked, paralyzing parts of Islamabad, Lahore and other cities. Christian schools warned parents to come and get their children for fear of violence. Churches were put on high alert. Protesters hold placards that read: “Hang Asia Bibi.”

Many of these crazed fanatics won’t stop at just marching in the streets ~

The Muslim judges who acquitted Asia Bibi, Supreme Court President Mian Saqib Nasir and Judge Asif Khosa, have also received death threats. They were doubtless aware of the potential danger to their lives, but bravely went ahead and took the risk of becoming targets of the vigilante groups.
 
“They all three deserve to be killed,” an Islamist leader, Muhammad Afzal Qadri, told a protest in Lahore. “Either their security should kill them, their driver kill them, or their cook kill them… Whoever, who has got any access to them, kill them before the evening”[…]
 

Salman Taseer, a brave Muslim who was governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, paid with his life just for expressing support for Asia; he was murdered by his own bodyguard, who said “he did this because Mr Taseer recently defended the proposed amendments to the blasphemy law.”

 
Unfortunately, because this is how things work in Muslim-majority Pakistan, it was inevitable that authorities would yield to the Islamists ~

Threats by vigilante mobs who called for her death and warned of national unrest evidently worked. Pakistan’s government, after saying it would begin the process of preventing Asia Bibi from leaving the country, has now been accused of signing her “death warrant”.
 
The government apparently succumbed to pressure and signed an agreement giving in to many of the demands of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP; an Islamist party that supports blasphemy laws). Pakistan’s government also promised not to oppose a legal petition to reverse Asia Bibi’s release, and to put her name on the “exit control list” (ELC), a no-fly list, to prevent her from leaving the country.

 
Subsequently, Asia is in hiding and her husband, Ashiq Masih, has requested asylum from the West ~

If she stays she faces almost certain death. Two of the politicians who bravely defended her – Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti – have already been assassinated, while her lawyer Saif Mulook has fled to the Netherlands.

Masih first appealed to the U.K. for help, a request which – astoundingly – was denied. Writing at Breitbart, Brit, James Delingpole is not amused ~

The obvious place (for Bibi and her family to flee to) would be the country with the strongest cultural and historical ties to the Indian subcontinent, the one that included what’s now known as Pakistan as part of its Empire for more than two centuries.
 
Unfortunately, the British government appears to have wussed out. Theresa May and her advisors, it has been reported, do not want to give refuge to this exhausted, sick, middle aged Christian woman because – allegedly – it would “cause security concerns and unrest among certain sections of the community and would also be a security threat to British embassies abroad which might be targeted by Islamist terrorists.” […]
 
Is Britain really saying to the world that it no longer dares to take a principled stand on certain key moral issues for fear of provoking an adverse response from all the Islamists on its home territory?

Bibi’s husband has also requested asylum from other Western leaders – including President Trump, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And although Trump seems to be assailed from every direction at the moment, American assistance in this case would surely receive bipartisan support. Delingpole highly recommends it ~

If Theresa May remains resistant to doing the right thing – it certainly wouldn’t be a first – then perhaps the leader of the free world should step in to show her how it’s done.
 
By rescuing Asia Bibi, Donald Trump could kill two birds with one stone: take the moral high ground while revealing one of the world leaders he likes least for the moral pygmy she is.

Meanwhile, keep praying.
 
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Related:
Scared of Muslim backlash, UK denies Asia Bibi asylum
Pakistan Christians wary as asylum offers flood in for Asia Bibi
Where’s the leftist outrage? Pakistani Christian woman faces execution for drinking from ‘wrong’ tap

The Tree of Life Synagogue massacre was the worst act of anti-Semitism we’ve ever seen in this country. But unfortunately it wasn’t an isolated incident of Jew hatred. In fact, when it comes to ethnic animosity in NYC ~

A recent New York Times piece noted, “there have been four times as many crimes motivated by bias against Jews (this year alone) — 142 in all — as there have against blacks.” It also addressed the bias and disinterest in these crimes, much of which target the city’s working class religious Jewish population in urban areas.

 
As it happens, a recently-apprehended, 26 year-old black man – ironically-named James Polite – is responsible for a good bit of the recent vandalism. He doesn’t fit the profile the Left wants you to assume in these cases (a red-neck, white supremacist) so you haven’t heard much about the guy. As Daily Wire reports ~

Authorities arrested 26-year-old James Polite, a former volunteer on Obama’s first presidential campaign, for allegedly vandalizing Brooklyn’s Union Temple on Thursday with anti-Semitic messages that included “die Jew rats we are here,” “Jews better be ready,” and “Hitler.” […]
 
 
According to the DCNF, Polite wrote a post this week that stated: “A dream with eyes wide open. civil war is here. Nobody gotta die. Mexico, latin America, carribean vs. Jew n***er pigs. One person touch me this whole shit a smoking.”
 
Polite also “posted a cell-phone picture of a burning American flag, with the caption ‘Sometimes things take a lil heat to grow,'” the DCNF’s report added. “Police suspect him of setting fires at ‘seven shuls and yeshivas in Williamsburg’ that same night, before the temple vandalism. Security footage captured that, too.”

The Daily Caller (DCNF) has much more on this troubled young man ~

(Polite) was a Democratic activist and former City Hall intern who worked on anti-hate crime issues […]
 
He is a “queer” black man informally adopted by a Jewish couple, and The New York Times’ charity, the Neediest Cases, helped pay for him to go to college where his focus was African American studies, according to a 2017 New York Times profile.
 
A political event with two Democratic candidates at the Union Temple of Brooklyn was canceled Friday after attendees found graffiti saying “Die Jew Rats” and “Hitler,” which one of the candidates said highlighted the need to vote out “hate.” Police arrested 26-year old James Polite later that night based on surveillance footage.

As I mentioned above, the leftist echo chamber was really hoping to pin the vandalism on alt-right neo-Nazis. Before Polite’s arrest, Governor Cuomo took a hard line in directing law enforcement to get to the bottom of the threatening behavior ~

Before it had been known that the suspect was a Democratic activist being paid by taxpayers to work on hate crime issues, Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was asking the state’s Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate the incident, and pointed to “an additional $10 million grant program to help protect New York’s non-public schools and cultural centers, including religious-based institutions. The disgusting rhetoric and heinous violence in this nation has reached a fever pitch and is ripping at the fabric of America.”

 
Yet, after Polite turned out to be the perpetrator – crickets.
 
When the reality doesn’t fit their skewed worldview, progressives just move on looking for other opportunities to deceive the low-information crowd.
 
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Related:
Black Nazis Terrorize Jews in New York ~

Conflating anti-Semitism with white supremacism, as the Left does, is misleading. And even when it comes to neo-Nazi signage and slogans, the perpetrators are just as likely to be black Nazis.
 
The Left claims that it wants to fight Nazis. But it quickly changes its mind when the Nazis are black.
 
Insisting on fighting Nazis only when they’re white isn’t opposition to either Nazism or anti-Semitism. It’s an endorsement of both as long as they are being practiced by the racial supremacists of the Left.

One hundred years ago today, World War I officially ended with the signing of the armistice in France. Several years later, the Bladensburg Peace Cross was erected in Maryland, to honor 49 Bladensburg-area men who gave their lives while serving in the Great War as it was referred to at that time. First Liberty (a law firm dedicated to defending our religious liberty) shares the history behind that monument ~
 

A century ago, thousands of American service members paid the ultimate price fighting for freedom in World War I, the “great war to end all wars.” Among those, were the “Fallen 49” heroes of Prince George’s County, located just outside of Washington, D.C.
 
In the aftermath of this horrific conflict, 10 Gold Star Mothers, led by Martha Redman and Mrs. William Farmer, began their earnest mission to build nation’s first WWI veterans memorial to honor their sons’ sacrifice. To them, the Bladensburg memorial was and IS their sons’ “grave stone,” as many never made it back from overseas.
 
Shortly after the project began, returning veterans of the war – members of the local American Legion post – worked arduously to complete the Bladensburg WWI Veterans Memorial, which was accomplished in 1925.
 
Today, this proud symbol of sacrifice stands at the intersection of the National Defense Highway, nearest to Washington, D.C. and just 26 miles from Annapolis. On its base, a bronze plaque lists the names of the 49 fallen heroes, along with the dates 1917 and 1918, and the inscription: This Memorial Cross Dedicated To The Heroes of Prince George’s County Who Gave Their Lives In The Great War For The Liberty Of The World.

Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day ceremonies, as well as other civic gatherings, are regularly held at the site. More importantly, the cross represents a huge piece of our American history. It’s a visible reminder of the selfless sacrifices made by those who came before us, which made possible the freedoms we enjoy today.
 

 
But now, almost a century after its dedication, a handful of anti-God, anti-American folks feel that the monument’s very existence somehow tramples on their right to believe in nothing. So off went the American Humanist Association (“AHA”), and a group of other perpetually-offended individuals, to sue for its removal. When a district court ruled against them, they appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which erroneously decreed that the cross had to go.
 

As I’ve pointed out several times, separation of church and state has been a phony pretext since progressives first started using it decades ago to eliminate religion from the public square. Their specious assertion is easily debunked by pointing out the hundreds of ways in which every level of government – from the time the nation was first founded – have supported, honored, even promoted the worship of God – never favoring a particular denomination, but in a very ecumenical sense.

 
Clearly, if this cross is unconstitutional now, it was unconstitutional when it was erected. And therefore never would have been permitted 100 years ago. As ACLJ (American Center for Law & Justice) points out ~

(A) longstanding war memorial does not “offend the Constitution” by virtue of it being in the shape of a Latin cross, a common and well-known symbol of sacrifice, honor, and respect. What truly offends the Constitution in this case is not the Bladensburg Peace Cross, but the decision of the Fourth Circuit striking it down.

The good news is, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case and will do so over the course of the next several months, with a final decision due by the end of June. Let’s pray they reach the correct conclusion. Because this case is monumentally important ~

In deciding whether the Peace Cross can continue to stand in Bladensburg, Maryland, the Supreme Court will also decide the fate of similar monuments, markers, and statues throughout the country, such as the memorial war crosses found in Arlington National Cemetery.
 
The Court must put an end to the anti-religious heckler’s veto, where one offended individual can use litigation to tear down a beloved monument not to his liking or that is hurtful to his feelings. The Establishment Clause was not intended to be weaponized in this fashion.

 
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Related:
What Veterans Say About Effort at Supreme Court to Remove Peace Cross War Memorial ~

“The nearly 2 million members of the American Legion are rather bothered by the fact that our opponents want to erase the sacrifices of the 49 brave men who gave up their lives for Prince George’s County, Maryland,” said Jeremy Dys, deputy general counsel for First Liberty Institute, which represents the veterans organization in the case.

 
Defend Bladensburg WWI Memorial Cross ~ Please sign this ACLJ petition

DontTearMeDown.org