Raymond Ibrahim/The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church/Nasir Saeeid: Pakistani High Court Upholds Death Sentence of Christian Brothers Charged with Blasphemy/حياة السود التي لا تهم: مقتل50 مسيحيًا في كنيستهم النيجرية/المحكمة العليا الباكستانية تؤيد حكم الإعدام بحق الإخوين المسيحيين المتهمين زوراً بالتجديف

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EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / A man walk past the blood the stained floor after an attack by gunmen at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town, southwest Nigeria on June 5, 2022. - Gunmen with explosives stormed a Catholic church and opened fire in southwest Nigeria on June 5, killing "many" worshippers and wounding others, the government and police said. The violence at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town in Ondo State erupted during the morning service in a rare attack in the southwest of Nigeria, where jihadists and criminal gangs operate in other regions. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

ريمون إبراهيم /معهد جيتستون: حياة السود التي لا تهم: مقتل 50 مسيحيًا في كنيستهم النيجرية
The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/June 12, 2022

 ناصر سعيد/معهد جيتستون: المحكمة العليا الباكستانية تؤيد حكم الإعدام بحق الإخوين المسيحيين المتهمين زوراً بالتجديف
Pakistani High Court Upholds Death Sentence of Christian Brothers Charged with Blasphemy
Nasir Saeeid/Gatestone Institute/June 12, 2022
They were accused of posting blasphemous contents on the internet… Judge Javed Iqbal Bosal sentenced them to death, with a 100,000 rupee (USD $719) fine.
The brothers have maintained their innocence, and say the allegations came after a fight had broken out between Qaiser Ayub’s Muslim friends over one of the friend’s sisters.
“This will be the 3rd case of blasphemy which will be heard by the supreme court. We still believe that the brothers are innocent and it has not been proved that they had published any blasphemous contents.” — Nasir Saeed, director of CLAAS-UK.
Lynching and vigilante justice have become everyday phenomena in Pakistan. Because of the government’s inaction and support from hardline religious groups, criminals are encouraged and continue killing innocent people with impunity.
Those who take the law into their own hands are considered heroes, as we have seen in the case of Punjab Province Governor Salman Taseer, who was murdered by his own bodyguard, Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Every time Qadri attended a court hearing, people would shower rose petals on him…
The Pakistani government is aware of its misuse but has unfortunately failed to bring any changes to the law or stop its misuse.
Pictured: The Lahore High Court Building in Lahore, Pakistan. (Image source: MariyamAftab/Wikimedia Commons)
On June 8, the Lahore High Court in Pakistan upheld the death sentence of two Christian brothers, Qaiser Ayub and Amoon Ayub, in a blasphemy case.
They were accused of posting blasphemous contents on the internet; in June 2011, the complainant, Muhammad Saeed, submitted an application at the police station in Talagang to register a case against the Ayub brothers.
Saeed told the police that while he was browsing the internet, he saw blasphemous content posted by Qaiser Ayub on June 9, 2011, and a case was registered against the Ayub brothers under sections 295A, 295B, and 295C.
In December 2018, a trial court found them guilty of posting blasphemous content on their blog. Judge Javed Iqbal Bosal sentenced them to death, with a 100,000 rupee (USD $719) fine.
The brothers have maintained their innocence, and say the allegations came after a fight had broken out between Qaiser Ayub’s Muslim friends over one of the friend’s sisters.
Amoon Ayub believes his brother’s Muslim friends, Zaryab Sheikh and Sheraz Qureshi, created the website using his information, to settle the score.
The Centre for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement (CLAAS) submitted an appeal to the High Court against the death sentence. On February 28, 2022, the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench, comprising Justice Raja Shahid Mehmood Abbasi and Justice Chaudhry Abdul Aziz, heard the appeal and reserved the judgment, which was announced on June 8, upholding the Ayub’s death sentences.
CLAAS’s team in Pakistan has visited the brothers in prison and Qaiser has signed a power of attorney, and now CLAAS is taking this case before the Supreme Court, with the hope that it will do justice for them and God willing, they will be freed.
Nasir Saeed, director of CLAAS-UK, has said that the CLAAS team in Pakistan met the brothers in prison and when they were told about the decision of the high court, Amoon burst into tears while Qaiser also became very sad. Their reaction was natural. Saeed added:
“We all were hoping that because the court had reserved the verdict, and because they were taking so long to announce it, blasphemy charges against them would be dropped and both would be freed.
“But to the contrary, the High court upheld their death sentence. Both brothers were looking weak as they are already suffering from health issues.
“The brothers have signed the power of attorney, we are taking this case to the Pakistan Supreme court and are very hopeful that justice will be done and they will be freed. Unfortunately, we cannot tell how long it will take but we are hopeful that the country’s highest court will do justice.
“This will be the 3rd case of blasphemy which will be heard by the supreme court. We still believe that the brothers are innocent and it has not been proved that they had published any blasphemous contents.
“Instead Muhammed Saeed, who already had some rivalry with them, claimed Qaiser had posted blasphemous contents on the internet. He informed the police, and the brothers were charged under the blasphemy law.”
The blasphemy law has a mandatory death penalty and has become a very sensitive and inflammatory issue in Pakistan. Mere blasphemy allegations often provoke mob violence and lynching of suspects, while those who make false accusations of blasphemy are never asked questions.
Religious intolerance has grown in Pakistan, and people take the law into their own hands without hesitation.
Lynching and vigilante justice have become everyday phenomena in Pakistan. Because of the government’s inaction and support from hardline religious groups, criminals are encouraged and continue killing innocent people with impunity.
Those who take the law into their own hands are considered heroes, as we have seen in the case of Punjab Province Governor Salman Taseer, who was murdered by his own bodyguard, Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Every time Qadri attended a court hearing, people would shower rose petals on him. Two senior retired judges, Khawaja Mohammad Sharif, former chief justice of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and former LHC judge Mian Nazeer Akhtar, represented the murderer in court.
CLAAS is among the organisations that have been campaigning to end the ongoing misuse of the blasphemy law for years. The Pakistani government is aware of its misuse but has unfortunately failed to bring any changes to the law or stop its misuse.
The article was originally released by the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement and is reprinted here by the kind permission of author.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

ريمون إبراهيم /معهد جيتستون: حياة السود التي لا تهم: مقتل 50 مسيحيًا في كنيستهم النيجرية
ريمون إبراهيم /معهد جيتستون / 12 يونيو 2022
The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/June 12, 2022
Where is the outcry? When an Australian, Brenton Tarrant, attacked two mosques and killed 51 Muslims in 2019 in New Zealand, the world stood in condemnation; the hand-wringing has not stopped since. The United Nations responded to that lone and aberrant attack by inaugurating a “combat Islamophobia” initiative. Where, after years and decades of being attacked, are the UN initiatives to “combat anti-Semitism” and to “combat Christian genocide”?
Ignoring the murder of Christians is, of course, only one piece of the puzzle; covering up the religious identity of their murderers is the other. In describing last Sunday’s massacre of more than 50 Christians, the words “Muslim,” “Islam,” or even “Islamist” never appeared in the AP report. Rather, we are told that “It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church.”
To maintain this ambiguity, the AP failed to point out that Islamic terrorists have routinely stormed churches and slaughtered many Christians over the years in Nigeria — a fact that might just offer a hint as to “who was behind the attack.”
All the UN seems interested in doing is sitting by and watching its members violate its regulations… The UN ignores unspeakable crimes against humanity such as slavery or China’s lies about the human-to-human transmissibility of COVID-19, while instead wrongfully persecuting Israel, a democracy that actually upholds human rights for all its citizens — whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian.
So, what will the UN and other large governmental bodies do now in response to the shooting up of yet another church and murder of more than 50 Christians? Probably nothing — apart from trying to silence whoever tries to expose the ideology that many of the murderers say drives them. We know this because the UN and many members of the clergy have done absolutely nothing in response to the countless other Muslim attacks on churches that have claimed thousands of Christian lives over the years — except for trying to cover up the motivation of the murderers, as in “high on cannabis” or the “mental illness defense.”
Worse, the Biden administration’s response to the jihadist onslaught against Christians in Nigeria — where 13 Christians are slaughtered every day — has been to remove Nigeria from the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern: nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom.
Where is the outrage? Where are the “hashtags” in support of Christian Nigerians? Why don’t these black lives matter?
Last Sunday, Islamic terrorists murdered more than 50 Christians who were peacefully worshipping in St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo State, Nigeria. Over the years, Muslims have assaulted, shot up or torched countless churches in Nigeria. Where is the outrage? Where are the “hashtags” in support of Christian Nigerians? Why don’t these black lives matter? Pictured: The bloodstained floor of St. Francis Catholic Church, on June 5, 2022.
Last Sunday, June 5, 2022, Islamic terrorists stormed St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo State, Nigeria, and massacred more than 50 Christians who were peacefully worshipping their God. Videos, according to one report, “showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed.”
As terrible as this massacre might seem, it is just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”: over the years, Muslims have assaulted, shot up or torched countless churches in Nigeria. Below are just three examples:
Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014: Islamic terrorists torched a packed church; 150 Christians were killed and countless wounded.
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012: explosives planted by Muslims detonated near two packed churches; more than 50 Christians were killed and unknown numbers wounded.
Christmas Day, December 25, 2011: Muslim terrorists shot up and bombed three churches; 37 Christians were killed, 57 wounded.
The Christians of Nigeria are, in fact, being purged in a genocide, according to several NGOs (here and here, for instance). One Christian is killed every two hours in Nigeria. According to an August 2021 report, since the Islamic insurgency began in earnest in July 2009 — first at the hands of the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram, and later by Muslim Fulani herdsmen, also motivated by jihadist ideology, which impels them to seize Christian (“infidel”) land — more than 60,000 Christians have either been murdered during raids or abducted, never to be seen again. During that time, approximately 20,000 churches and Christian schools were torched and destroyed by Muslims shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is greater”).
Less than a month ago, the Islamic State in Nigeria released a video of its members slaughtering 20 Christians. Although it is very reminiscent of the 2015 video of another pack of Muslim terrorists slaughtering 21 Coptic Christians in Libya, it received significantly less media coverage. The 2015 video of the Copts itself had received six times less media coverage than the killing of a gorilla that occurred at the same time. Last month’s video of the Nigerian Christians barely made a peep in the Western media — as if to suggest that the ritual slaughter of Christians has become so hackneyed as to be unworthy of reporting on.
Where is the outcry? When an Australian, Brenton Tarrant, attacked two mosques and killed 51 Muslims in 2019 in New Zealand, the world stood in condemnation; the hand-wringing has not stopped since. The United Nations responded to that lone and aberrant attack by inaugurating a “combat Islamophobia” initiative. Where, after years and decades of being attacked, are the UN initiatives to “combat anti-Semitism” and to “combat Christian genocide”?
All the UN seems interested in doing is sitting by and watching its members violate its regulations. Iran’s genocidal threats, which violate the UN Charter, are grounds for expulsion. The UN ignores unspeakable crimes against humanity such as slavery (here and here), or China’s lies about the human-to-human transmissibility of COVID-19, while instead wrongfully persecuting Israel, a democracy that actually upholds human rights for all its citizens — whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian.
So, what will the UN and other large governmental bodies do now in response to the shooting up of yet another church and murder of more than 50 Christians? Probably nothing — apart from trying to silence whoever tries to expose the ideology that many of the murderers say drives them (such as here and here). We know this because the UN and many members of the clergy have done absolutely nothing in response to the countless other Muslim attacks on churches that have claimed thousands of Christian lives over the years — except for trying to cover up the motivation of the murderers, as in “high on cannabis” or the “mental illness defense.”
Indeed, just two weeks ago, when Members of the European Parliament, one of the European Union’s legislative bodies, submitted a proposal to have a discussion on the rising tide of Christian persecution around the world — ironically, in the context of the then latest atrocity in Nigeria: the stoning and burning to death of a Christian student, Deborah Samuel — the majority of the European Parliament, most of whom are affiliated with Leftist parties, refused even to have the discussion.
Ignoring the murder of Christians is, of course, only one piece of the puzzle; covering up the religious identity of their murderers is the other. In describing last Sunday’s massacre of more than 50 Christians, the words “Muslim,” “Islam,” or even “Islamist” never appeared in the AP report. Rather, we are told that “It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church.” To maintain this ambiguity, the AP omits pointing out that Islamic terrorists have routinely stormed churches and slaughtered many Christians over the years in Nigeria — a fact that might just offer a hint as to “who was behind the attack.” But dissembling over what is happening to Nigeria’s Christians is an old “mainstream media” tactic.
One only needs to consider the words of Johnnie Carson, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under President Barack Obama. Speaking after Muslim terrorists in Nigeria slaughtered more than 50 Christian church worshippers on Easter Sunday, 2012, Carson said: “I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence [in Nigeria].” Instead, “inequality” and “poverty” — to quote former President Bill Clinton — are “what’s fueling all this stuff” (“this stuff” being the massacre of Christians at the hands of Muslims). A decade — and countless Christian corpses later — the U.S. has not changed its position.
Worse, the Biden administration’s response to the jihadist onslaught against Christians in Nigeria — where 13 Christians are slaughtered every day — has been to remove Nigeria from the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern: nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom.
Where is the outrage? Where are the “hashtags” in support of Christian Nigerians? Why don’t these black lives matter?
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.