Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 10, 2022 / 05:14 am (CNA).
The offices of Oregon Right to Life in Salem, Oregon, were set on fire late Sunday night, the organization announced Monday.
“In the late evening on Sunday, May 8, the offices of Oregon Right to Life were attacked. An individual used incendiary devices, one of which exploded and caught the building on fire,” Oregon Right to Life said in a statement posted on its website.
“The office was vacant at the time, and no one was harmed. Fire and police departments responded quickly, minimizing damage to the building. The agencies are actively investigating the incident.”
“Understandably, our team is shaken up by this attack. We are committed to taking proper precautions to protect the safety of our staff as we move forward,” Lois Anderson, Oregon Right to Life executive director, said in the statement.
“We are thankful for the quick action of our first responders committed to maintaining a safe environment to operate in this community,” she said.
The attack is the latest in a wave of violence and other provocations against Catholic churches and pro-life organizations triggered by last week’s leak of a preliminary Supreme Court opinion in a Mississippi abortion case. Politico, which published the document, reported that a conservative majority on the court was poised to overturn the landmark decisions Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey that institutionalized legal abortion nationwide.
Among other incidents, the headquarters of a Wisconsin Family Action, an organization that advocates for the unborn, traditional marriage, and religious liberty, were set on fire Sunday. “A molotov cocktail, which did not ignite, was thrown inside the building. It also appears a separate fire was started in response,” a police report said.
Graffiti left outside the building, located on the north side of Madison, Wisconsin, said, “If abortions aren’t safe than you aren’t either.”
A pro-abortion group, Ruth Sent Us, called last week for abortion supporters to disrupt Catholic Masses on Mother’s Day, and on Saturday threatened to burn the Eucharist. The group also has published the addresses of Supreme Court justice and called for rallies outside their homes. Demonstrators gathered outside the home of Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who wrote the draft opinion, on Monday night.
Oregon Right to Life referenced the violence spree in its statement Monday.
“Oregon Right to Life has had long-standing opposition to the use of force, intimidation, and violence by any person pursuing pro-life activities,” the organization said.
“Our commitment to the well-being of all human life requires that we respect the inherent value and dignity of all people. Just as we condemn abortion and euthanasia, we oppose private acts that take human life, inflict bodily harm, or destroy another’s property. No board member, officer, employee, or chapter officer may participate in any illegal or harmful act against another person or property in pursuing pro-life activity. Oregon Right to Life will not knowingly do business with any organization or business which endorses violence in any way toward pro-abortion persons or businesses.”
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A photo of Deborah Emmanuel’s photo on her Facebook page. Emmanuel, a Christian student in Nigeria, was killed by an Islamic mob on her college campus on May 12, 2022. / CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2022 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
Deborah Emmanuel, the Nigerian Christian student who was murdered by a Muslim mob last month, spent her final hours with a close friend who has shared exclusive details of the brutal killing with CNA.
CNA is using the pseudonym “Mary” for the woman’s protection. A Christian herself, she nearly was killed by the same mob.
Significantly, Mary’s account contradicts the claim of authorities that they attempted to rescue Emmanuel from the mob but were “overwhelmed.”
On the contrary, the police “could have stopped the murder if they had really tried,” Mary told CNA.
Emmanuel’s so-called “blasphemy murder” took place on May 12 on the campus of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, Sokoto State, a major city located in the northwest corner of Nigeria. The city is home to the Muslim Sultan who serves as the top religious authority for Nigeria’s 100 million Muslim believers.
Prior to the attack, Emmanuel, a home economics major who attended Evangelical Church Winning All, was bullied by fanatical Muslim students at the teacher’s college for audio statements she made on WhatsApp, a messaging platform. She credited Jesus Christ for her success on a recent exam, and when threatened and told to apologize she refused, invoking the Holy Spirit, saying “Holy Ghost fire! Nothing will happen to me,” according to WhatsApp messages reviewed by CNA.
In the aftermath of these heated exchanges, a Muslim mob attacked Emmanuel on the college’s campus. After an hours’ long siege, the mob beat and stoned her to death, then set her body on fire with burning tires, according to graphic video footage posted online. The rioters also rampaged in a Catholic Church compound in Sokoto, according to reports. The riots spread to other Christian-owned properties over two days.
A relative of Emmanuel’s, who said he was standing approximately 60 feet from the mob, also told CNA he believes the police could have saved her. He, too, asked that his identity be withheld for his safety.
Unarmed campus security personnel made a futile attempt to rescue Emmanuel, according to a campus security report shared with CNA. But Emmanuel’s relative said there were dozens of armed police officers on the scene who didn’t fire their weapons.
The commissioner of police in the state also said officers did not fire their weapons. However, he maintained that only 15 of his officers were at the scene, according to a report in The Epoch Times.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto has strongly condemned the attack and called on Emmanuel’s killers to be brought to justice..
“This matter must be treated as a criminal act,” he said. You can read his full statement here.
A plea for help
On the day of Emmanuel’s death, Mary received a frantic phone call from her around 9 a.m, asking for help. By that time, women who lived in her dormitory had begun slapping Emmanuel, Mary told CNA.
Mary arrived at the campus to see her friend surrounded by a mob and being led by a campus staffer to a gatehouse building for her protection. The Muslim students had bloodied her face and head with blows from rods and were joined by male students who believed their duty was to execute a blasphemer on the spot, Mary said.
“Allahu Akbar!” meaning “God is Great” was bellowed for hours, she said.
Mary initially stayed outside the building and tried to intercede for her friend, but she said it wasn’t long before the mob turned on her, too. Within moments Mary was trying to ward off punches and blows from sticks as she backed away from the gatehouse and toward the gate of the college 40 feet away.
Mary said a college lecturer rescued her and brought her to join Emmanuel inside the gatehouse by 10 a.m.
At 10:25 a.m., the relative said, six officers of the Department of State Security (DSS) — the equivalent to the FBI in the U.S. — arrived, firing their rifles in the air but with no effect. Five minutes later, he said, a group of Sokoto police came on the scene and fired tear gas, temporarily scattering the mob.
The above map is based on eyewitness accounts of the murder of Nigerian Christian student Deborah Emmanuel on her college’s campus on May 12, 2022. Graphic by Alexander Hunter
For about 10 minutes police had an opportunity to disperse the mob and force their way to the gatehouse to extract Mary and Emmanuel, Emmanuel’s relative believes. But that did not happen.
By 11 a.m., the mob had returned to the building, holding cloths against their faces to ward off the tear gas. The mob tried hurling stones at Mary through the windows of the locked gatehouse, but Mary barricaded herself behind a table.
The mob then threw gasoline on the women through the front windows and attempted to burn them alive, Mary said.
“Deborah was soaked with gasoline, but when lighted plastic was pitched in through the windows, I quickly stamped the flames out,” Mary said.
No escape
All of this transpired as police and DSS officers watched from a safe distance, according to Emmanuel’s relative.
The traumatized women said little to each other, but Emmanuel was still hoping to do her examination that day, Mary said. At one point, she recalled, Emmanuel asked, “What time is it? I have an examination at noon.” Mary said she looked at her cell phone and told her it was 1 p.m.
After another excruciating hour of siege, the mob pushed down a single Sokoto policeman guarding the door, broke the padlock on the door, and rushed in to find Mary and Emmanuel hiding behind furniture, Mary and the relative related. Two rioters placed a chain around Mary’s neck and pulled it hard, trying to strangle her, she recounted.
“Let this girl go! She is not an offender,” Mary recalled one of the rioters shouting. But as they released her, a young man in the mob grabbed Emmanuel and took her to the front steps of the gatehouse. There she was bludgeoned with steel pipes and wooden rods and stoned, the relative said.
Two DSS officers attempted to rescue Emmanuel but were hit by stones and pushed aside, the relative said. The police officers remained in position and did not come to her aid, he alleged.
Mary collapsed inside the gatehouse gasping from the strangulation. Approximately 40 minutes later, she said, she was roused by one of the mob to leave the building, which was on fire.
As she walked through the smoke, Mary saw the gatehouse burning and Emmanuel’s lifeless body in flames.
The face of Christian persecution
In the aftermath of Emmanuel’s murder, human rights advocates and others have leveled sharp criticism at Nigeria’s government leaders for not doing enough to stem the rising tide of violence directed at Christians and other non-Muslims.
Relatives of Deborah Emmanuel at her burial in Niger State, Nigeria. Courtesy of the Emmanuel family
Anti-Christian hatred was evident in days of rioting in Sokoto following the arrest of two suspects in Emmanuel’s murder. The rioters reportedly were incensed that there were any arrests at all.
“Deborah Emmanuel, like kidnapping victim Leah Sharibu (who was enslaved by Boko Haram insurgents in 2019), has become the face of Christian persecution in Nigeria,” said Kyle Abts, executive director of the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON). “There has not been an official report from the security forces on the lynching of Ms. Emmanuel. Her killing and subsequent riots show clear government complicity and coverup.”
Tina Ramirez, founder of the international nonprofit Hardwired Global, also believes the Nigerian government has been unwilling to take a strong stand against blasphemy killings.
“The recent attacks on students are reminiscent of the attacks at Nigerian colleges two decades ago that were the precursor to the growth of extremist groups across Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt,” Ramirez wrote in a text to CNA.
We will probably never know the identity of the person (?) who leaked the document, but the violence unleashed in the week or so since the leak, with much more undoubtedly to come, leads us inevitably to that latin phrase – cui bono?
Let’s also keep in mind that behavior like this is their norm, that abortion is their holy of holies, and that for the most part the ‘press’ is sympathetic to them, so they won’t really cover too much of it, and what little coverage there is will be painted in sympathetic tones – “expressing their frustration” will probably be a popular one this time around.
BTW – It sure would be nice if our ‘catholic’ president came out and condemned the violence, but – I ain’t holdin’ my breath on that score.
Right, Terence. BTW! Wouldn’t it also have been nice if our Frank Catholic would have spoken to our president and legislators about a Catholic respect for all life, especially innocent and vulnerable, dependent on the love and care and protection by others.
Are we surprised at the violence? No. As you point out, these are the same people who have advocated and agitated for surgical excision and chemical ablation of future generations. If they would destroy life in a nascent phase in an innermost place, why should we hope they respect life or reason at any stage, in any place, in any circumstance that fails to meet their expectation? They seem to say: ‘Bow down and worship Baphomet, you F—ing Catholics of Disgrace!’
Maybe prolifers should leave those states that are proving to be pro death as the answer and turn them over to God. They should come to places like Ohio which is very prolife in most places. We would welcome them. Diane
We have then these people who mouth the expression “love-making” on one hand, and who then issue death-dealing all the while. These attacks are “reaction formations,” designed to give the appearance of defending some noble cause, like the right to “love-making,” yet are really motivated by the desire to cloak the real animal nature of the perpetrators. Killing fetuses that are late term , especially is not an art of a civilized society. (Nancy Pelosi disagrees, it seems.) These people need to be placed in the category of the “godless.” That label – that divide – needs to be revealed in the public debate.
We will probably never know the identity of the person (?) who leaked the document, but the violence unleashed in the week or so since the leak, with much more undoubtedly to come, leads us inevitably to that latin phrase – cui bono?
Let’s also keep in mind that behavior like this is their norm, that abortion is their holy of holies, and that for the most part the ‘press’ is sympathetic to them, so they won’t really cover too much of it, and what little coverage there is will be painted in sympathetic tones – “expressing their frustration” will probably be a popular one this time around.
BTW – It sure would be nice if our ‘catholic’ president came out and condemned the violence, but – I ain’t holdin’ my breath on that score.
Right, Terence. BTW! Wouldn’t it also have been nice if our Frank Catholic would have spoken to our president and legislators about a Catholic respect for all life, especially innocent and vulnerable, dependent on the love and care and protection by others.
Are we surprised at the violence? No. As you point out, these are the same people who have advocated and agitated for surgical excision and chemical ablation of future generations. If they would destroy life in a nascent phase in an innermost place, why should we hope they respect life or reason at any stage, in any place, in any circumstance that fails to meet their expectation? They seem to say: ‘Bow down and worship Baphomet, you F—ing Catholics of Disgrace!’
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us.
Maybe prolifers should leave those states that are proving to be pro death as the answer and turn them over to God. They should come to places like Ohio which is very prolife in most places. We would welcome them. Diane
We have then these people who mouth the expression “love-making” on one hand, and who then issue death-dealing all the while. These attacks are “reaction formations,” designed to give the appearance of defending some noble cause, like the right to “love-making,” yet are really motivated by the desire to cloak the real animal nature of the perpetrators. Killing fetuses that are late term , especially is not an art of a civilized society. (Nancy Pelosi disagrees, it seems.) These people need to be placed in the category of the “godless.” That label – that divide – needs to be revealed in the public debate.