• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Africa Horn Now

"We don't take sides; we help you see more sides."

Africa Horn Now

ካብ ውሽጢ ቤት ማእሰርታት ኤርትራ

Published: May 6, 2021

PBS: Escaping Eritrea … [Read More...] about ካብ ውሽጢ ቤት ማእሰርታት ኤርትራ

Islamic State video shows massacre of 30 Ethiopian Christians on Libyan beach

April 20, 2015 By Africa Horn Now

By Kareem Shaheen, 20 April 2015, Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

Beheadings and shootings latest in line of atrocities committed by Islamic State.

 The beheadings and shootings publicised by the group are the latest assault on minorities across the Middle East, thousands of whom have been forced to abandon their ancestral homes to flee the group’s broadening reach in the region.

It follows a video released in February that showed the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on the shores of the Mediterranean, a move that prompted air strikes by the government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi against the group’s stronghold in a Libya torn by civil strife that has enabled Isis to entrench.

The footage released yesterday depicts the beheading of 15 Ethiopian Christians by masked Isis militants, their blood staining the surf on a strip of beach. In another scene in a desert landscape, masked gunmen shoot another 15 Ethiopians in the back of the head with rifles.isillibyaethiopia

“To the nation of the cross, we’re back again,” says a masked militant in the video before the execution. “Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap. We swear to Allah … you will not have safety even in your dreams until you embrace Islam.”

Ethiopia denounced the murders. “We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians or not,” said Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein.

The 29-minute video, titled “Until there came to them clear evidence”, appeared primarily aimed at offering religious justification for the targeting of Christians, saying their slaughter is permitted if they refuse to convert to Islam or decline to pay a protection tax in lands where the terror group holds sway.

It also sought to depict Christians living in areas under its control as being treated respectfully and fairly by its courts.

Christians fleeing ancestral homes
Thousands of Iraq’s Christians fled their ancestral homes in the Nineveh plains last summer in the face of the lightning Isis offensive that swept through northern Iraq, fearing death or forced conversion.

Other minorities such as the Yazidis have also faced mass starvation and slavery at the hands of the terror group, which has ethnically cleansed large swaths of Iraq and massacred thousands.

It has also destroyed significant portions of the ancient heritage of Iraq’s Assyrian community – Shia and Christian shrines that Isis says are polytheistic and contrary to its brand of puritanical Islam.

The group’s rampage has all but ended millennia of coexistence between Iraq’s diverse communities.

The video, which features the same high production values common to the group’s media releases, with computer-generated scenes of old Islamic battles, begins by recounting the early history of Christianity and an outline of the schisms that led to the creation of the Coptic, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, as well as the development of Protestantism.

The video condemns the doctrine of the Trinity as a form of apostasy, and brands Christians as infidels. The narrator says Christians must pay the “jizya”, a protection tax imposed on them during the early Islamic conquests in Asia and Europe, or face slaughter.

An Isis cleric, Abu Malik Anas al-Nashwan, offered religious justifications for fighting non-Muslims, saying it is permitted if they refuse to convert to Islam or pay the protection tithe.

He says in the video that Christians in Raqqa, Islamic State’s capital in Syria, have refused to convert, but pay the jizya to the group, and its sharia courts rule on their disputes with Muslims. The video also features interviews with Christians living in areas under the group’s rule, who claim to be living in safety.

Al-Nashwan sought to justify the forced exodus of Iraq’s Christians, saying they refused to meet Isis representatives and the payment of the jizya. He portrayed their exodus as a mercy bestowed on them by Isis, which he said had chosen not to slaughter them instead.

The video then shows scenes of Isis fighters destroying churches, crosses and paintings depicting the Virgin Mary, before moving on to show the massacre of the Ethiopian Christians, indicating the price that religious minorities would have to pay for defying the group’s edicts.

Many Ethiopian Christians are members of the Coptic church, and travel to North Africa seeking employment or as a transit route to Europe.

“We tell Christians everywhere that the Islamic State will spread, God willing,” al-Nashwan says at the end of the video.

“It will reach you even if you are in fortresses. Those who embrace Islam or jizya will be safe. But those who refuse … will have nothing from us but the edge of the sword.

“The men will be killed, the women and children enslaved, and their money seized. That is Allah and the prophet’s judgment.” – Guardian News & Media 2015

Filed Under: AHN NEWS

Primary Sidebar

A New Administration Won’t Heal American Democracy

Published: November 6, 2020

The Rot in U.S. Political Institutions Runs Deeper Than Donald Trump Larry Diamond | November 5, 2020 | Foreign … [Read More...] about A New Administration Won’t Heal American Democracy

Archives

  • May 2021
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • June 2019
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014

Log In

Copyright © 2025 Africa Horn Now · WordPress · Log in