Christians are subject to shocking persecution in Muslim countries, as the following report from Raymond Ibrahim of the New York based Gatestone Institute reveals. At the same time Muslims are paying criminal people smugglers to come here from a safe Muslim country, Indonesia, claiming refugee status. Most hide their papers presumably to make misrepresentations to the Australian authorities. So why is the Gillard government still so half hearted in taking the necessary measures to stop illegal immigration?

Raymond Ibrahim says that several reports appearing in July indicate that Christian minorities all around the Muslim world—especially women and children—are being abducted, tortured, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and/or enslaved. . In Egypt, at least 550 such cases have been documented in the last five years. They have increased since the revolution. He says Christians who manage to escape back to their families often find the government siding with the Muslim abductors. One young mother who recently testified before the Helsinki Commission explained how she was snatched in broad daylight, as her abductor shouted to bystanders while dragging her to a waiting taxi, "No one interfere! She is an enemy of Islam."

Mr Ibrahim says that identical reports are emerging from Pakistan, where "persecution, kidnapping and abduction of Christian women and girls," including many married women with children, are on the rise.

Last year the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that 1800 Christian and Hindu girls were forcibly converted to Islam. Most recently, the under age sister of a pastor was "kidnapped raped and forcibly converted to Islam." She "was kidnapped around a month ago by some Muslim men while returning home from college. She was held for days, suffered sexual abuse, threats and violence.

In such a state of terror and exhaustion, first she was coerced into converting to Islam, and then marriage. Her family reported the incident to the police station in Chunian, but no investigations have been conducted and instead her abductors have presented a report to the court attesting to the girl now being Muslim and legally married.

He says that the tiny Palestinian Christian community in the Hamas-run Gaza strip is also under siege, and charges that five Christians were abducted and pressured into converting to Islam. Because they made this forced conversion charge known, "members of the Christian community now fear reprisal attacks by Muslim extremists." One said that if the West continues to turn a blind eye to their tragedy, “in a few months there will be no Christians left in Palestine. Today it's happening in the Gaza Strip, tomorrow it will take place in Bethlehem."

While this is going on in Muslim countries, the Gillard government is still, as they say, ” intercepting” boats loaded with illegal immigrants. Intercepting? Make that welcoming.

Read more: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3318/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012