December 10th: The Day of Genuine Human Rights

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Hatune Dogan is a Turkish-German Orthodox Christian nun. In the video below, recorded on December 10th in Vienna, Sister Hatune gives a shocking description of the situation for Christians in Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Many thanks to Henrik Ræder Clausen and the International Sakharov Committee for the recording, to Carpe Diem for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

Warning: This footage contains graphic images and video clips:

Sister Hatune’s talk was given as part of International Human Rights Day in Vienna. Below is the report on the day’s events from the International Sakharov Committee.

December 10th: The Day of Genuine Human Rights
The International Sakharov Committee

As has become a tradition, Austrian Christian and human rights organizations celebrated December 10th, the International Human Rights Day, by a march through the streets of Vienna and a dedicated mass in Stephansdom, one of the grand Viennese cathedrals. The International Sakharov Committee was invited to participate and to provide photographic documentation of the events.

It is worth noting that December 10th marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Islamic leaders have argued that inalienable human rights and equal rights for all are not compatible with Islam, and with Sharia in particular. For that reason, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation has adopted a competing Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which stipulates that Islam recognizes only one form of ‘human rights’: Sharia law. Thus, standing for the universal, inalienable human rights also implies making a stand against Sharia.

The march, with was lit by torches, was organized by the Plattform Solidarität mit Verfolgte Christen, CSI (Christian Solidarity International), Wiener Akademikerbund and others, and in total drew the support of 25 different organizations.

A special guest was Sister Hatune, a Turkish-German nun working tirelessly to aid victims of persecution, and to point out the source of persecution, in order that our governments may protect the vulnerable. On the same morning she had made a presentation with gruesome pictures from Iraq, Syria and Turkey (video to follow). In the evening she walked in front of the march with no fear, despite routinely receiving death threats from Islamists.

Starting at nightfall and carrying torches, the march set off from the famous Vienna Opera House, passing through the Christmas-decorated pedestrian areas to past the Maltheserkirche to Stephansdom, carrying banners about the grave situation for Christians world wide. Most were in German; translations are provided below:

Persecution of Christians on the rise, Europe chickens out
Murder, rape, burning churches, forced Islamization
Stop the persecution of Christians
The Platform for Solidarity with Persecuted Christians

Freedom of Religion
Also in Islamic countries
Christian Solidarity International

North Korea Tortures Christians
Because they pray peacefully
Christian Solidarity International

Freedom of Religion
is a human right
Christian Solidarity International

The march was joined by many Austrians who were out to going shopping for Christmas, and an estimated 800 took part. A similar number of people joined the event in the Stephansdom, where bishops and other representatives of the church conducted the mass, which included several speeches about the situation. The podium had a banner featuring the two bishops abducted from Aleppo, Mor Gergorios Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, with prayers for their return.

Sister Hatune speaking in Stephansdom, Vienna, Austria

Sister Hatune, in particular, pulled no punches pointing out the enemy: Islamists who seek to eradicate every non-Islamic religion and make Islam supreme on the Earth. That may have rattled the nerves of those inclined towards political correctness, as the approach used by the Sister certainly would earn them no flattery from their Islamic counterparts. But to the Sister, who works very directly with the problem, there is no possible doubt as to what the truth is and where it can be found: Common people, mainly Christians, are suffering massively, throughout the Middle East.

The mass, which was conducted in traditional Catholic manner with sermons, songs, prayer, Kyrie Eleison, and a concluding ecumenical prayer, was celebrated by representatives of many Christian denominations:

Ecumenical prayer for the protection of persecuted Christians all over the world.

List of participants:

  • Episcopus emeritus Mag. Herwig Sturm, Evangelical Church
  • Episcopus Auxiliaris Dr. Franz Scharl, Roman Catholic Church
  • Archbishop Matta Roham, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch,
  • Corepiskopos Dr. Emanuel Aydin, Syrian Orthodox Church
  • Deputy Bishop Karl Rühringer, Vienna
  • Pastor Dr. Hanna Ghoneim, Greek Catholic Church, Damascus

It is the hope of the organizers, and of The International Sakharov Committee, that our governments will take up these issues towards Turkey, Iraq and those supporting the war in Syria, in order that peace, human rights and genuine mutual respect can be reestablished. This is the intention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, appropriately commemorated on a dark day in December.

Video transcript:

0:00   I went to the Middle East in early October,
0:04   on purpose, to study the situation on the ground,
0:08   for I am a person who likes to be
0:12   a witness herself and sees things
0:16   rather than having heard of it.
0:20   I am a refugee myself. In 1985, after serious death threats,
0:24   I fled Southeast Turkey.
0:28   We are grateful we could save our lives and our faith,
0:32   and I think there are many in the Orient who don’t have this chance.
0:36   When we started school, a Christian could not become an official
0:40   in Turkey; automatically our teachers were Muslims.
0:44   We were forced to attend Islamic lessons every Friday,
0:48   even though all of us were Christians.
0:52   This is a state decree. If someone didn’t participate,
0:56   the whole class was against this, we had to stretch out our hands,
1:00   and we were struck with a metric rule made of metal
1:04   four times on each hand, from the very first day at school
1:08   for five years, every Friday.
1:12   Though there was no school on Sunday,
1:16   We were never allowed to go to church.
1:20   Except for Memorial Day,
1:24   we were not allowed to go to church the entire year.
1:28   That was forbidden. If someone went to church on Sunday,
1:32   we were struck again on Monday.
1:36   One example from third grade, so you can all hear
1:40   what rights we had and still have in Turkey.
1:44   The Turkish people are the most fanatic there is, inside their country.
1:48   To others it’s secular, liberal, European rights — when they speak,
1:52   but when they act, it’s the most fanatic people on earth.
1:56   We had snow-break inside, third grade, nine years old.
2:00   One of my classmates, his name was Habib,
2:04   he tried, he was proud that he could write his name
2:08   in his mother tongue, Aramaic, Jesus’ language, in this snow-break.
2:12   Suddenly, I can’t even tell why, the headmaster came in,
2:16   looked through the room, and there were two letters,
2:20   a consonant and a vowel, in Aramaic they are written above each other.
2:24   He looked, and: “Which heretic has written those heretical letters?”
2:28   Of course we kept silent, for we knew he had the right to kill him.
2:32   It was forbidden. And so all 24 of us had to come
2:36   to the blackboard, and exactly, strikes again, metric rule.
2:40   And then the brother who had written this
2:44   always pulled his hand back in fear. So he held it there
2:48   and he struck him with metric rule of steel
2:52   in front of my eyes, such tiny hands.
2:56   There was a red blister that burst and it bled and he kept on striking.
3:00   Why? Because of a single Aramaic consonant with a vowel.
3:04   Just a short overview of rights for Christians in Turkey.
3:08   I met this woman in Aleppo (Syria).
3:12   She and her nine-year-old daughter were raped
3:16   in front of her husband.
3:20   I met this woman in Damascus.
3:24   Her whole family, six people, were slaughtered
3:28   in front of her eyes. I say it on purpose — slaughtered.
3:32   She was the only one left, and we tried to help her
3:36   with food and money for the rent.
3:40   I met him in Northern Syria. There is a wound on his arm.
3:44   He and his brother were kidnapped.
3:48   They have cut pockets into the flesh
3:52   and filled them with salt.
3:56   The brother died and he survived somehow.
4:00   This is one of his wounds, these pockets.
4:04   This girl is…
4:08   She and her sister were kidnapped,
4:12   kept in one room for months, being raped,
4:16   and finally got her left breast cut off, like the other girl,
4:20   because they were not satisfied with the ransom money.
4:24   I’ve spoken to 218 girls in total who had been
4:28   kidnapped, raped and bought free.
4:32   Thirteen of them had their labia cut off,
4:36   three had a breast cut off.
4:40   I don’t know the number of unreported cases. I tell you the ones I know of.
4:44   I got 174 videos like this one from family members.
4:48   They say that God orders them to do that,
4:52   They would only fulfill the Word of God.
4:56   You will be sacrificed for God.
5:00   Death to the USA, death to the West, that is written here.
5:04   That’s their ceremony when the Jihadists slaughter people.
5:08   If somebody doesn’t want to see it then, please, look away.
5:12  
5:44   His name is Joseph. He’s a Christian from Baghdad.
5:48   His sister gave this video to me.
5:52   I think,
5:56   I turn it off there.
6:00   I’ve met someone —
6:04   A priest told me: “Sister, here is someone you have to meet.”
6:08   He was one of those killers.
6:12   He had severe psychological problems.
6:16   He became a Christian and gave it all up.
6:20   I only asked: ”What do you do with the blood you collect?”
6:24   He said: “That’s a big business. A small bottle of Christian blood
6:28   sent to the fanatics in Saudi Arabia is worth a $100,000.”
6:32   After their Islamic conception,
6:36   when they wash their hands with this blood, they
6:40   become part of this sacrificing for Allah.
6:44   Not our God, their Allah.
6:48   It’s their Allah who asks for human sacrifice. It’s not the same God, for heaven’s sake.
6:52   So, that means they were doing great business with that Christian blood.
6:56  
7:00   Here I’ve been to the refugee camps.
7:04   This is Saint Abraham in the South East of Turkey.
7:08   Turkey boasts they have a camp for Christians, but
7:12   there’s only two Christians there and 3000 Muslims.
7:16   I went there to look for them and I spoke to them.
7:20   I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, but I did.
7:24   Right, I just want to say why all of this happens.
7:28   The Quran and the Sharia are the cause
7:32   of all the atrocities in the world.
7:36   Anyhow, time is short. I could keep on talking till tomorrow.
7:40   I thank all of you for being here, and I hope that Europe wakes up.
7:44   But there is one little story about a little child.
7:48   In 2010 I was awarded the German Cross of Merit.
7:52   I was invited to Wiesbaden, so I get on the train.
7:56   There’s a child with his father and he looks at me:
8:00   “Spanish, Italian or Greek?” I said: “No. I’m from Turkey.”
8:04   “Christians in Turkey?” “Yes, we had to flee.”
8:08   So, I told him the reasons like I have told you.
8:12   “Ah, now I get it.” I asked: “What?”
8:16   “Here, do you see my son Tobias? I’m living next door to
8:20   an Islamic Turkish family. Our kids were even born in the same week.
8:24   But for two month this child didn’t come to us anymore,
8:28   though they had been good mates. He had almost lived
8:32   at our place, we cooked for him without pork, and now he doesn’t show up.
8:36   So, two weeks ago I put him in a corner and asked him to explain.
8:40   Mohammed, why don’t you come to Tobias anymore?
8:44   He stretched his arms out and said: Please, don’t come close to me.
8:48   You are a heretic, you are impure, you are an infidel.
8:52   I’m a real Muslim now, a true believer. I attend Quran school, and
8:56   my school tells me that I mustn’t make friends with you, and
9:00   Allah, o Allah, I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to make friends
9:04   with the infidels. Please, forgive me.”
9:08   So, that happens in Germany. Every Quran school teaches such fanatic elements.
9:12   What will happen in Europe with our kids and this Mohammed?
9:16   Or your grandchildren, how will they get along with each other in Europe?
9:20   I’m not preaching Islamophobia, but this is reality.
9:24   How will this Mohammed get along with your grandchildren?
9:28   Ask yourself, but also appeal the politicians so they wake up
9:32   and these Quran schools get monitored.
9:36   I’m fine with a faith being taught, but under control.
9:40   What’s bad for the people needs to be stopped. No matter who does it.
9:44   I love Muslims, but I hate their laws that harm people.
9:48   Thank you.
 

25 thoughts on “December 10th: The Day of Genuine Human Rights”

  2. Quote:

    Episcopus emeritus Mag. Herwig Sturm, Evangelical Church
    Dr. Mihailo Popovic, Russian Orthodox Church,
    Episcopus Auxiliaris Dr. Franz Scharl, Roman Catholic Church
    Archbishop Matta Roham, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch,
    Corepiskopos Dr. Emanuel Aydin, Syrian Orthodox Church
    Deputy Bishop Karl Rühringer, Vienna
    Pastor Dr. Hanna Ghoneim, Greek Catholic Church, Damascus
    end

    Conspicuously missing: the Protestants and the Church of England.
    Given its meaning, this event should have drawn more denominations, or more recognition, than it did.

    • Sometimes I believe the Protestants to be in a denial fog. Do they not care about the sufferings of the Christians of the Middle East or are they just thinking BETTER THEM THAN US?? Or what about, the sooner this persecution of those folks gets REALLY HOT, it will mean the end of the world and JESUS comes on back with a shout?

      Problem: will Jesus be so oh so very happy to see the deniers or the “better them than us crowd” or the folks who thought “OH! GOODY!! We get to see Christ and be OH we are so special”?????

      Somehow, I think NOT!

      HE will be looking for those who tried to help HIS followers NOT the timid, not the faithless and surely NOT the war mongers who fed and armed and clothed the heathen villains who killed HIS FOLLOWERS.

      John McCain and Obama you better start looking for the rock/mountain to hide under!

  3. Do you want to know what is going to change with all this talk and prayers? Nothing, a little hemming and hawing and business will go on as usual, sorry the powers that be do not care one bit, the Pope in Rome, does not care and is more worried about some Marxist Jesuit teaching session. Forget about the Church of England or the protestants period. If you want to help the Christians in the ME, it is up to you as individuals and groups of likeminded folks to arm them. Anything else is an exercise in futility. Time to quit turning the other cheek in the face of full blown Islamic jihad and start getting a Crusader mindset.

  4. Having been a Protestant, I will explain the silence. They don’t believe these are genuine Christians. The more fundamentalist, sola scriptura/sola fide types simply see these people as heretics and not genuine Christians. They hold the same views for Roman Catholics, believing that they are apostates. They don’t identify with them in their suffering, because all they see are icons, statues, repetitious prayers (idolatry and vain repetitions).

    I would say this is the case for many fundamentalist sects, which I belonged to, but on the flip side of the coin, the mainstream Protestant sects have become so invested in sympathizing with the Muslims in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, that they simply don’t see any other villains in the middle east but Israel. Ultimately, in their minds, it is all Israel’s fault.

    You see the problem?

    • First you have to hear about the victimization of Christians to even begin to act.

      YKW’s in the press and DWL don’t report these ethnic and religious cleanings as genocide.

      However explicitly Christian media does repeatedly tell this story as persecution and genocide. Pat Robertson, an otherwise oily unctuous smarm merchant repeatedly points out that Christians are being wiped out in the ME. The people running interference with this story chose to present OUR Christian oppression of poor widdle Muslims…it’s a deliberatly chosen editorial policy. I think 7,000 Catholic clergy were murdered in the Spanish Civil war, but all we hear about is Orwell, Hemingway and Picasso. You don’t hear about the near dissolution of Catholicism during that war.

      • PS

        The massacre of the Clergy in that war was common knowledge among the pious. It’s no surprise that fascism as exemplified by Franco became a popular option in the late 1930s.

      • It is believed that over 2 million clergy , Christian educators, choir leaders and choirs, laymen and even the janitors of the Russian Orthodox Church were murdered by the Commies under Lenin and Stalin BEFORE WWII.

      • Just to get your history correct, Franco only took on the clergy that sided with the communist, and I am a Catholic. Franco had a nice deal with the Catholic church after that.

    • How nice of those so-called Christians to use the Bible book put together by St. John the Divine and then have the nerve to call Orthodox andeven Roman Catholics heretics…. it is almost laughable if not so sad!

      Like I wrote before all those who profess to follow Christ and then desert their FELLOW CHRISTIANS just might discover that they themselves will need to look for the ROCK to cover themselves one of these days.

      Jesus Christ , Son of God have mercy on us , the sinners.

  5. Show support to your fellow Christians! RE-afirm your faith! Only a strong Christianity will defeat these awful people who wantonly murder and kill in the name of the Devil Cult. Allah is Satanic.

    Forget being called names like “racist” or “Islamophobic”- I get this all the time from the
    “progressives” and simply look in their face and say..

    “Yes I am! And what is wrong with that in the face of what you have done to Europe and the Middle East?”

    They have no answer…..because there isn’t one!

    Copy Jesus! You can’t go wrong! Never mind the hypocrites in the Vatican and being “Christian” doesn’t mean “dialoguing” or being a “soft touch”…not being “angry”…

    Christ showed righteous anger and did something about it- he kicked the moneyers out!
    We need to do the same to whatever level it takes….

    I am sick of wishy washy- luvvy duvy “Christians”. Christianity isn’t about being nice and kind to Evil. It’s about facing it down and defeating it with a clear no nonsense message. The original Crusaders were what real Christianity is all about- they defended Christendom from the invader infidel!

    It is perfectly in order to shed one’s blood for Christ in the defence of Right!

  6. Self-defence is even guranteed in the Geneva Convention and the UN Charter. Attacking and killing without good and lawful reason is a war crime! What Breivik did was a crime against humanity. He is rightly condemned. I often wonder if his act was a “black op” fomented by the EU elite to give them an excuse to persecute, prosecute those of us who hate what is happening to Europe….

    The Socialists and Islamics have a history of this. While a priest like me is forbidden to take life, it is not forbidden for properly lawful armies of Christian states to bring down these thugs… as we did Hitler, not so long ago! Some wars are quite legitimate and moral….Indeed just.

  7. It is really wonderful that Austrian Christians have demonstrated in defence of Christians living in Muslim countries. Of course, this demonstration will hardly make a big difference, but it is better than nothing.

    I greatly admire Sister Hatune for her courage and for her ardent faith. For a Christian, a Muslim country is not unlike pagan Rome. If the ruler is lenient, you are allowed to exist, but your existence is precarious. Should an anti-Christian fanatic come to power, you will be persecuted and probably killed. When a Muslim neighbour has a quarrel with you, he can make your life hell on earth, if he chooses.

    The Arab Spring, so popular with the Western Establishment, has been a disaster for Christian minorities in the Middle East. They face a fate not unlike that of Jews in Nazi Germany.

  8. I was privileged to be one of the 800 “protestants” in this movement. As a Lutheran Christian, and member of the Lutheran Church -Missouri Synod, I was proud to be part of the protest against Islamic hate and persecution of Christians. Evil must be identified and challenged wherever it is found, be that in Islam or some other “religion” like that of North Korea. The God-given solution is to share the good news of Jesus the Messiah with all people, and certainly with Muslims who are entrapped in a fearful web of deception. The hundreds of brilliant candles on December 10 symbolized Christ, of whom the Apostle John wrote: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 2:4-5).

    • Well Rev, as much as I admire your marching in protest, the time now has come where your going to have to pick up the sword and protect the faithful instead of just talk about it.

  9. The Muslims will persecute.
    They will swell up with self-righteousness and arrogance.
    And Christianity . . . will increase, increase, increase.
    Because unlike their oppressors, the Christians will show courage drawn from their faith in the Redemption given to humanity by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
    They will not see loss, suffering and death in childish terms of humiliation.

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