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Egypt’s North Sinai: Residents stuck between Islamist rebels and brutal anti-terrorism operations
Author: Abir Sorour
Publication Date: 19/2/2021
Source: Africa Now
Ten years ago in North Sinai, following the ouster of the then president Hosni Mubarak, *Ashraf, then a 15-year-old child, was accompanying his mother to stage a protest in front of one of the city’s burnt police stations in the Sheikh Zuwied district.
The protesters demanded the release of Ashraf’s father, who had been arrested in connection to the 2005 bombings that targeted South Sinai.
“While the whole country was celebrating freedom and democracy after Mubarak left, we were just starting to demand the most basic of our rights,” Ashraf, now a 26-year-old construction worker based in Suez, tells The Africa Report.
Russia plays up ties to Syrian Christians
Author: Khaled al-Khateb
Publication Date: 16/2/2021
Source: Al Monitor
Russia declares its support for the Orthodox Christian militias fighting alongside the Syrian regime, as it shows great interest in the ideological factor within its expansion and domination strategy in Syria.
Pope remembers Coptic Christians martyred by ISIS
Author: Inés San Martín
Publication Date: 15/2/2021
Source: Crux Now
Pope Francis on Monday released a video praying for 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by Islamic fundamentalist on a beach in Libya in 2015.
“I hold in my heart that baptism of blood, those twenty-one men baptized as Christians with water and the Spirit, and that day also baptized with blood,” Francis said, in a video posted on Twitter, a rarity for the leader of the Catholic Church, who has over 40 million followers in several languages.
“They are our Saints, Saints of all Christians, Saints of all Christian denominations and traditions. They are those who have blanched their lives in the blood of the Lamb, they are those… of the people of God, the faithful people of God,” the pope said.
Christians detained for their faith in Iran paid nearly £1m in bail in 2020
Publication Date: 13/2/2021
Source: Christian Today
The cost of bail for detained Iranian Christians reached almost £1m last year, a report by human rights organisations has found.
Pope Francis begins historic Iraq visit despite virus and security risks
Publication Date: 5/3/2021
Source: BBC
Pope Francis has arrived in Iraq for the first ever papal visit there, and his first international trip since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid and security fears have made this his riskiest visit yet, but the 84-year-old insisted he was "duty bound".
Iranian Christians ordered not to meet – in person or online
Publication Date: 3/2/2021
Source: Article18
Eleven Christian couples from a city just outside Tehran have been ordered by agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence to sign commitments to refrain from meeting together – either in person or online.
Survey Finds Increasing Religious Diversity in Iran Despite Persecution
Publication Date: 18/2/2021
Source: Persecution
According to a recent poll conducted by a European research organization, the Iranian regime’s policy of discrimination and, in some cases, persecution of non-Shia Muslim groups may be having the effect of driving Iranians to other religions.
Apologists Call Assad Secular. Assad Tells Syrians Otherwise
Boghos never expected to find himself in one of Syria’s underground dungeons.
He was a devoted Christian who opted for a literal interpretation of Romans 13:1-2, where Paul the Apostle writes, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God,” and, “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.”
Arab Christian figures rebut argument for removing US sanctions on Syria
A Jan. 21 letter claimed “unilateral coercive measures” imposed by the US have made the plight of Syrians worse
Critics of the letter say the Assads have a history of using minorities as a means to burnish their image abroad
Iraq: Full of Historic Sites Important to Understanding Christianity
Author: Dale Gavlak
Publication Date: 17/2/2021
Source: The Tablet
Pope Francis hopes to embark on the first-ever papal visit to the biblical land of Iraq in early March in a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts to the place known in Arabic as the “land of the two rivers” — the mighty Tigris and Euphrates — and once renowned as Mesopotamia, the “cradle of civilization.”
