To The Reader’s Forum:

Muslims in Nigeria and throughout various regions of Africa have been in constant danger of rape, raids, plunder, and murder. Hardly a day goes by without a Muslim being a victim of a heinous crime or a Muslim girl being kidnapped for exploitation or Muslim villagers being displaced from their homes after watching them set on fire by maniacal marauders. Just today as I write, 24 in Burkino Faso were murdered in cold blood as they worship. Where’s the media? Why the silence? With all these victims, the mainstream press looks the other way, as the genocidal death toll of dead Muslims mounts. There’s just one problem. The victims are not Muslim. They’re actually Christians.

The president of the Nigerian Catholic bishops’ conference pleads for Western nations to “make known the atrocities” inflicted upon Christians and other groups in Nigeria by Islamic terrorists. Another bishop, Augustine Akubeze, told a church relief agency that Boko Haram “have attacked both Muslims and Christians in the past. But presently, they are focusing mainly on the killing and kidnapping of Christians.” Please tweet about this, President Trump.

We in the church must remember our persecuted brothers and sisters in the faith in prayer and even pray for our enemies. For Christians in many parts of the world, loving your enemies as Christ commanded is a harrowing one-way street, since the Koran tells Muslims to kill the infidel.

Bringing this to the attention of the West subjects you to being smeared with the labels of “Islamophobia” and “xenophobia,” not to mention being called a “hater” and “intolerant.” As you see the mute button pressed on the pleas from the Catholic bishops in Nigeria, the truth is neither received well nor publicized especially by the left in the media, academia, and liberal denominations.

Posting on a website which keeps watch on worldwide jihad attacks, an individual observantly remarked, “I’m going to be picky here: As jihad is a core component of but one religion, there’s no reason to say ‘Islamic jihadists’: As we know… pretty much every Muslim in the area, and ‘fighters’ from around the world would either abet those jihadis or join in the jihad themselves. Long past time, IMO, for folks like the [Nigerian] Bishop to just say ‘MUSLIMS’ are bent on ‘killing Christians’ and ‘destroying Christianity’, and let Muslims prove otherwise.” With over 36,000 acts of terror in the name of Islam since 9-11 alone, who can deny the proposition in his post?

The Rev. Mel McGinnis

Frewsburg