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Truth about persecution of Christians under assault

Ministry cites 3 attacks that could limit reporting on facts

Published: 21 hours ago (1/28/17)

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

A stunning trio of crackdowns on information is threatening organizations that report persecution of Christians around the world, according to the Barnabas Fund, which aids persecuted Christians.


In a new report, Barnabas explains that whether there are attacks on Christians by Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, it’s important to “report both incidents of anti-Christian persecution and the ideology motivating such attacks.”

It’s what the ministry has done for many years.
However, Barnabas said the right to provide that service to readers now is under attack through three efforts to impose politically correct thought.

“First, although the press has been free from government regulation since 1694, there is now a serious possibility that the [U.K.] government will require all media outlets with multiple writers to sign up to a state sponsored press regulator. If they do not, in the event that they are sued, they will have to pay both their own and the complainant’s legal costs, even if they win. In other words, they could be quickly bankrupted,” the report said.

Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea have collaborated to create “Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians,” which confirms that groups like Pew Research, Newsweek and The Economist also identify Christians as “the world’s most widely persecuted religious group.”

The issue is significant because the commissioners who will provide regulation “are reported to be strong supporters of a campaign to stop major brands advertising with the Daily Express and Daily Mail because of their alleged negative portrayal of religious minorities.”

“In fact, these two newspapers have repeatedly spoken out against Islamism and the persecution of Christians in Islamic countries – it was the Sunday Express front page, closely followed by the Daily Mail, that published the story Barnabas Fund first broke of archbishops from Syria and Iraq being denied U.K. visit visas to attend the consecration of the U.K.’s first Syriac Orthodox cathedral,” Barnabas Fund explained.

The British magazine the Spectator said the proposed plan to force news outlets to submit to a regulator would abrogate “a 300-year tradition of press freedom.”

“Press freedom is, once again, hanging in the balance,” the Spectator said. “For generations, politicians have been annoyed that their writ does not extend over newspapers. Now and again, they volunteer themselves as custodians of press freedom and architects of a new regulatory regime. David Cameron did so in the aftermath of the hacking scandal. Following the resulting Leveson inquiry, the government set out a royal charter for press regulators. No newspapers signed up to it. The question the government is now considering is whether to force them to do so.”

But the magazine said “if a libel action was brought against a newspaper, it would be forced to pay the legal costs of its opponents even if it won the case.”

“It is not hard to see where this would lead. Rich and powerful people who had something to hide would be able to threaten newspapers into pulling stories they found inconvenient. The risk of huge legal costs would be used as a battering ram against truthful reporting.”


Barnabas Fund said the second prong of the attack comes through last year’s deal between the European Union and companies such as Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter. The plan is to take down Internet posts within 24 hours if third-party “civil society” groups claim they are “hate speech.


“This effectively allowed lobby groups, including Islamists, to censor opinions they disagreed with by getting their members to mass report them. At the time the National Secular Society raised concerns that Facebook were censoring ‘atheist, secular and ex-Muslim content’ after false ‘mass reporting’ by ‘cyber jihadists,'” the organization said.


The ministry had reported at the time said there remained “serious concerns” because the definition of “hate speech” could be used to “censor anything deemed politically incorrect.”


That could include criticism of Islam, mass migration or even the European Union itself.


“This could have serious implications for Christian organizations such as Barnabas Fund, which are reporting on the persecution of Christians, such as converts from Islam,” the group said.


The plan has the high-tech companies working with outside groups who will be given the authority to decide what is acceptable, and remove what they determine is not.

“By adopting this policy the EU is … giving Islamic organizations the power to censor any online comments critical of Islam, including those discussing the rapidly spreading persecution of Chfristians in Muslim majority contexts.”

The third attack comes from “hate crime legislation.”

“In addition to investigating ‘hate crimes,’ which are criminal offenses, police are also required to record ‘hate incidents.’ The Association of Chief Police Officers and the Crown Prosecution Service have told the police to investigate all ‘hate incidents’ – stating that these are where any person claims that any action or words by anyone else were motivated by prejudice, even if they do not constitute a crime.”

Barnabas Fund explained: “In other words, it is an ‘opinion’ reported to the police by anyone, however unconnected with the event, that some words or actions were allegedly motivated by prejudice, even though it was not a crime. Moreover, the person alleged to have said them cannot prevent the police logging it as a ‘hate incident.’

“That is a blank check for Islamists to weaponize ‘hate speech’ to censor any articles critical of Islam. Indeed … Barnabas Fund recently told a government Select Committee that this misuse of hate speech laws potentially inhibits us from speaking about some of the main causes of anti-Christian persecution, including the treatment of Christians stipulated by Shariah.

How far can the censorship go?
Pretty far, Barnabas said.

“A fortnight ago, the irony of this bizarre situation came to light when it was revealed that police recorded a ‘hate incident’ against Amber Rudd, the British Home Secretary, after someone complained about a speech she made at her party’s annual conference in October. The person who complained later admitted that they had not even heard the speech, yet the police were still required to record it as a non-crime ‘hate incident.'”


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/01/truth-abo...cuXuhe31B8l.99