Nigerian Catholic Massacre: The Murderers are Muslims

The Catholic League points out the taintedness of the media's coverage of the Nigerian Catholic Massacre.

This was only the latest in a series of killings carried out by radical Islamists against Christians in Nigeria, though the media are reluctant to discuss the identity of the terrorists.

No one was better at describing what happened than Nina Shea, whose expertise is monitoring religious liberty worldwide at the Hudson Institute. “The massacre in a church while filled with Sunday worshippers is an atrocity that we’ve repeatedly seen in northern Nigeria over the years. Those were the work of Islamist extremists.” Mostly Muslims live in the north of Nigeria; the south is populated by Christians.

Among the media who did an accurate job reporting on the mass shooting was Christianity Today, Quartz Africa and Reuters. They made it clear that Muslim radicals were to blame.

The New York Times and the Associated Press made a passing reference to the role of Muslims (abcnews.com and the Washington Post picked up the AP story). Many others were worse.

There are many reasons why people like to cover for the violent actions of Muslims, but they all cause the truth of Islamic violence to be supressed in the name of something of lesser value than the truth. Sensitivity ("They have a different culture..."), equality ("Christians can be violent, TOO!") and even tolerance ("We have to try to understand their point of view!").

Here's the harsh truth from a page on the Christianity.com site.

By most conservative counts, the Quran contains over 100 passages that call Muslims to take up arms against unbelievers in the name of Allah.

“Kill them [unbelievers] wherever you find them… And fight them until there is no more unbelief and worship is for Allah alone” (Quran 2:191-193).

“Strike off their heads and strike from them every fingertip” (Quran 8:12).

“Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties; in exchange for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah, so they slay and are slain” (Quran 9:111).

“Truly Allah loves those who fight in His cause in battle array…” (Quran 61:4)

“The Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” (Sahih Muslim 1:33).