Limits of Religious Freedom
On 8 December, the Solemnity the Immaculate Conception, it was reported that a cardinal archbishop stated: ‘It is important in the context of respect for the rights of the person and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Dec, 2022
On 8 December, the Solemnity the Immaculate Conception, it was reported that a cardinal archbishop stated: ‘It is important in the context of respect for the rights of the person and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 6 Dec, 2022
In what appears to be a minor victory for the Iranian women, on Saturday Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said the Islamic Republic has disbanded the ‘morality police’, which, he stressed,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Nov, 2022
This past Saturday in my residential city of Florence, Italy, I took part of an organised march to protest against the hostilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed, it...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 13 Nov, 2022
US President Joe Biden said last week during a wide-ranging campaign speech in California vowed to liberate Iranians from their draconian regime. Indications were that the two-month-long demonstrations to oust the government...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 9 Nov, 2022
When we hear of acts of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories, what automatically comes to mind is the usual religious Jewish-Muslim conflict. Unfortunately, many are unaware of indigenous...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 19 Oct, 2022
On 7 October, the Catholic Church celebrated the Feast of the Holy Rosary. Originally called Our Lady of Victory, it was instituted by Pope St Pius V who attributed Christian victory...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 18 Oct, 2022
It has been approximately three weeks since a twenty-two-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini or Zhina Amini, died in a Tehran hospital after she was arrested and beaten by...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Mar, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin has backed allowing volunteers, including from abroad, to help pro-Moscow separatists fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region, more than two weeks after he sent thousands of Russian...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 15 Feb, 2022
Christian persecution in the Islamic world, as well as in communist China and North Korea, has gotten worse. However, hate crimes against those who profess to be follower os Jesus...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Feb, 2022
Lebanon remains on the brink of collapse politically, socially and economically. This does not bode well for Israel, and Jerusalem has reached out repeatedly with offers to assist its neighbor to the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Feb, 2022
On Friday, the Biden administration restored some sanctions relief to Iran’s atomic program as world powers and the Islamic Republic continue talks aimed at salvaging the languishing agreement. U.S. Secretary...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 15 Nov, 2021
The New York Times recently published an article titled “The 1619 Project and the Long Battle Over U.S. History” in which Jake Silverstein, commenting on Nikole Hannah-Jones book “The 1619...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Nov, 2021
“Imagine putting recording devices in the confessional in a Catholic church? Imagine that they can do this in a place that is meant to be safe … people trust their...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Oct, 2021
It has been two years since ISIS leader and self-proclaimed (universal) calif Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi committed suicide in order to avoid being captured or killed by U.S. Special Operations forces...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Oct, 2021
Last week in Afghanistan the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan brought together families of suicide bombers at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, praising the deaths of their children and siblings in...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Oct, 2021
Today October 7 marks the 450th anniversary of the institution of the Feast of the Holy Rosary. Originally called “Our Lady of Victory,” Pope St. Pius V in 1571, wanted...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Sep, 2021
It has been over two weeks since Harriet Namuganza, an 83-year-old Christian widow in eastern Uganda was hospitalized after being physically beating by Islamic jihadists; one of the attackers posed...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Sep, 2021
Joe Biden’s on Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly was his first as president. In it he stated: “We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan. And as we close...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Sep, 2021
It has been over a month since the U.S. tumultuous. Since then the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken steps to both fill in the political vacuum in Afghanistan and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 14 Sep, 2021
One of the excuses President Joe Biden presented for his surrender to the Taliban (or Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) during the chaotic and bloody evacuation of American citizens was that...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 4 Sep, 2021
In recent days, some Republican members of Congress have expressed concerns that the Biden administration allowed Afghans with criminal records or ties to terror groups to be evacuated while thousands...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 1 Sep, 2021
President Joe Biden publicly announced the evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies as if it were a triumph, and that his Administration had planned for such a contingency in...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 28 Aug, 2021
On August 24, the special session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) held a special session on Afghanistan and remarkably failed to condemn the Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan),...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 27 Aug, 2021
The United States stated that the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) was responsible for the deadly attacks outside Kabul airport that killed at least 72 Afghans and 13...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 13 Aug, 2021
As the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, known as the Taliban, continues its onslaught all the way to the Afghan capital of Kabul, the civilized world — not the Muslim countries...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Aug, 2021
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a video conference mentioned that Americans cannot be trusted, and that they are liars and violators of promises. He said that the Iranians...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Aug, 2021
Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that Afghanistan’s government is arming local groups as part of a three-phase plan to push back the Taliban offensive, the Afghan interior minister General Abdul...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Aug, 2021
This week marks the beginning of another new (Islamic) Hijri year for Muslims throughout the world. The date marking the new Hijri year is determined by various techniques — including...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 6 Aug, 2021
August 6, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ, when according to the gospels (Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36): “And He [Jesus] was transfigured...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 2 Aug, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden announced Friday his “intent to nominate” Rashad Hussain as the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, the first Muslim to occupy the post. Under the Obama administration...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 31 Jul, 2021
Saudi Arabia reopened its borders on Sunday for the first time in a year and half after imposing restrictions prior to start of the Covid-19 outbreak. As part of the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Jul, 2021
It has been practically four months since the face-to-face meeting between Pope Francis and the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in Iraq. The Pope’s visit to Iraq, according to the Chaldean Patriarch,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Jul, 2021
The Blaze reported Wednesday that Collin County, Texas, District Judge Andrea Thompson “effectively denied [in March] a U.S. citizen,” a Muslim woman named Mariam Ayad, “her constitutionally protected due process rights,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Jul, 2021
Eleven men and women from around France were found guilty on Wednesday of using the internet to harass a teenager who became the focus of heated debates about free speech...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Jul, 2021
The Taliban, or as the jihadists call themselves the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), has “prevailed” in its battle with the West in Afghanistan, said General Lord Dannatt, the former...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 2 Jul, 2021
The U. S. State Department on Thursday added Turkey to a list of countries that are implicated in the use of child soldiers over the past year, placing a NATO...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 28 Jun, 2021
Reuters recently reported that YouTube had blocked videos posted by Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights’ channel, a human rights group in the Republic of Kazakhstan — the largest country in Central...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 27 Jun, 2021
Last week in the German town of Wurzburg a 24-year-old Somali man immigrant knifed three people to death and wounded six more in a street rampage as he yelled “Allahu...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 22 Jun, 2021
The White House released this month a National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, a step welcomed by numerous of counter terrorism and countering violent extremism professionals who have long been...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 20 Jun, 2021
Afghan nationals who risked their lives to work with the U.S. government over the 20-year war are pleading with the Biden administration to get them and their families out of...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Jun, 2021
Iranians went to the polls on Friday to elect a new president as the Islamic Republic of Iran confronts challenges from a cratering economy to heightened tensions with its regional...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 15 Jun, 2021
A young man accused of taking part in anti-government riots when he was a teenager has been beheaded in Saudi Arabia, despite a moratorium on the death penalty for minors....
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 9 Jun, 2021
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that a refugee camp set up to shelter women and children after the defeat of Islamic State has instead turned into a mini-caliphate...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Jun, 2021
In a historic moment, last month a UN investigation team known as UNITAD declared that the Islamic State committed genocide against Yazidis. The announcement comes after years of advocacy by...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 4 Jun, 2021
While anti-semitic violence and harassment continues to rise since the fighting between Israel and Hamas began last month—as of last month approximately 250 such incidents in the United States have been...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 3 Jun, 2021
It has been nearly one year since the free world sadly witnessed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) forces storm into Hong Kong arresting human rights activists, consequently bringing democracy in...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 May, 2021
A so-called radicalized French ex-prisoner on a watch list of potential terrorist threats stabbed a policewoman inside her station in western France last Friday before being killed in a shoot-out...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 24 May, 2021
Last Thursday Fulani herdsmen killed the wife and nephew of a Christian in Plateau state, Nigeria in an attack on their home. Jeffrey Moses, 26, said he and his wife,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 May, 2021
The New York Times published an article on Monday entitled “In Taliban-Controlled Areas, Girls Are Fleeing for One Thing: an Education” offering a glimpse in Afghanistan’s northwest region in which...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 May, 2021
While the world seems to have stopped at the deadly conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinians, specifically speaking the terrorist organization of Hamas, hardly any mention has...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 14 May, 2021
French authorities are investigating after a police officer was stabbed by a woman in Bordeaux on Monday. Prosecutors say the woman “threw herself” at the official while “armed with knives”...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 May, 2021
At least 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian health ministry, after Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement)—a Sunni-Islamic militant...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 May, 2021
Al Jazeera recently posted online a report entitled “Muslim women are reviving forgotten tradition of Quran recitation” showing how in certain Islamic-majority countries, such as Algeria, Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 4 May, 2021
Breitbart reported on Tuesday that a grooming gang survivor has revealed that she was sexually abused by hundreds of Pakistani Muslims for years, but despite reporting her abusers to the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Apr, 2021
Christian Today (CT) reported on Thursday that according to Morning Star News there was another massacre of Nigerian Christians by Muslims, this time in Abagena, Benue State (north-central Nigeria). What...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 18 Apr, 2021
This past March in Uganda, an imam ordered the rape of three Christian girls after a mosque leaders’ wife was baptized into the Christian faith. In a clear act of retribution, the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 15 Apr, 2021
“We have won the war and America has lost,” were the words echoed by Haji Hekmat, a local mayor for Afghanistan’s Islamist army and shadow government, the Taliban after President...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Apr, 2021
In an April 1 video statement — this was not an April Fools’ joke — the U.S. State Department proclaimed the month of April as Arab American Heritage Month, reflecting...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Apr, 2021
While President Joe Biden expressed his sorrow over the death of a Capitol Hill police officer after last week’s attack at the Capitol Friday, which killed a Capitol police officer...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Mar, 2021
The Taliban has been quite audacious of having coerced its main 20-year-old opponent, the U.S., into signing a deal last year — Doha Agreement — that would require the complete...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 22 Mar, 2021
While the West is preoccupied with fighting hate speech, Islamophobia, and far-right supremacist groups, it seems to have willfully ignored the cultivation of Muslim hate speech and supremacist attitudes toward...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 20 Mar, 2021
Turkey announced on Saturday that it has pulled out from a landmark European treaty protecting women from violence. In a move that will please Muslim conservatives, Turkish President Recep Tayyip...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Mar, 2021
Many Christians today have been quite perplexed by the Inter-religious meetings promoted by Pope Francis. And his “Abrahamic” gathering during his visit to Iraq last week, in which not a...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 9 Mar, 2021
The Biden administration on Thursday rescinded former President Donald Trump’s restoration of U.N. sanctions on Iran, an announcement that could help Washington move toward rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 Mar, 2021
Last week in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad a female doctor was killed in a bomb blast just days after three female media workers were shot dead in the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Mar, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden announced Friday his “intent to nominate” Rashad Hussain as the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, the first Muslim to occupy the post. Under the Obama administration...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Feb, 2021
United States intelligence agencies concluded that Jamal Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi hit squad operating under the command of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — Saudi Arabia’s...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 19 Feb, 2021
The Vatican recently announced that it will organize online conferences promoting the Virgin Mary as ‘model for faith’ for both Christianity and Islam. Organized by the by the Pontifical Academy...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Feb, 2021
The complex and appalling stream of reports describing Muslim women being punished under sharia law for everything from wearing pants to not having sex with their husbands to being raped...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Feb, 2021
Not too long ago I was confronted by someone on one of my previous articles Fighting Child Slavery in the Islamic World in that Christians equally approved the practice of...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 9 Feb, 2021
Amid a surge in high-profile assassinations and violent attacks, President Joe Biden is indicating he will keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan past a May withdrawal deadline laid out in the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Feb, 2021
While so many of us have heard of child marriages in the Muslim world where sharia law prevails, one young heroine has been fighting for their rights. Nada al-Hadal, the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Jan, 2021
There has been a push under the Biden administration to work with reformed Muslims in order to combat Islamic radicalism. The dilemma here, as C. Holland Taylor, the chairman and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Jan, 2021
Agenzia Fides, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies, reported on January 18, that the body of a Catholic priest, Fr. John Gbakaan, was discovered in Nigeria on Saturday,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 21 Jan, 2021
Newly inaugurated President Joe Biden with the stroke of a pen annulled former President Donald Trump’s the 90-Day Travel Ban of March 6, 2017, as “inconsistent with American values.” Biden’s...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Jan, 2021
The Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Athens and of all Greece Ieronymos, during an interview last week said that Islam was not a religion but a political party. “They are the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Jan, 2021
A small girl, used by the terrorist group Boko Haram, blew herself up in the middle of a crowded park in northern Cameroon, killing at least 15 people last Friday...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 3 Jan, 2021
As Joe Biden comes even closer to being inaugurated at the 46th U.S. President of the United States, many are wondering if ( and how) he would rejoin the Iran...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Dec, 2020
Palestinian Christian Bishara Bahbah, who served as Yasser Arafat’s advisor on international affairs, posted on his blog “A Christmas message to Hamas.” He stated how the Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist and militant...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 27 Dec, 2020
In mid-December, the top U.S. military official, Army General Mark A. Milley,chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held unannounced talks with Taliban peace negotiators in Qatar to urge a...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Dec, 2020
Last week outgoing President Donald Trump granted presidential pardons to four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater—a private security company, has since changed its name to Academi—who were...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 22 Dec, 2020
We know from history that the once powerful Roman and Christian North Africa, the land that gave birth to a number of great heroes and heroines, such as saints Cyprian,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Dec, 2020
Last week, a total of 333 boys from the Government Science Secondary School—an all-boys boarding school—were kidnaped by Boko Haram in the northwestern state of Katsina, Nigeria. While this story...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 13 Dec, 2020
In what is a small step for political Islam and one giant leap backwards for humanity, the Afghan government negotiators and the Taliban have agreed to have sharia law and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Dec, 2020
The Katsina State (northwest Nigeria) House of Assembly has recently passed a bill to protect children from abuse, but says the legislation will not regulate the age of marriage. The...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 9 Dec, 2020
The effects of Joe Biden’s election as the next president of the United States—still contested by President Donald Trump—may reverberate across the world, specifically in the Islamic Republic of Iran....
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Dec, 2020
Two years ago, I went to Kurdistan and the Nineveh region in northern Iraq to visit the persecuted Christians. Driving through the war torn areas with a Catholic priest, I...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 3 Dec, 2020
In response to the beheadings of Christians by Muslims in Paris and Nice, the French government launched a “massive and unprecedented” wave of measures to combat what it calls Islamic...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 25 Nov, 2020
This year’s G20 summit—made up of the European Union and 19 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 22 Nov, 2020
The presidential victory of Joe Biden — contested by the incumbent Donald Trump — is expected to alter U.S. policy in the Middle East. The question remains, with respect to political...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Nov, 2020
President Donald Trump, with two months left in office, last week during an Oval Office meeting with his top national security aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Nov, 2020
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan resigned following a deal last week that ended fierce fighting with Islamic Azeri forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In what has been nothing...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Nov, 2020
The United Nations has once again warned of millions of men, women and children in war-torn Yemen are facing famine as it issued yet another appeal for more money and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Nov, 2020
Last month the Western world was in shock when it leaned of the beheadings of carried out by Islamists in both Paris and Nice, France. While those tragic events got...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 Nov, 2020
On Sunday Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday his country’s forces had taken Shusha, the second-largest city in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Armenian officials immediately denied the claim. Aliyev said November...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 3 Nov, 2020
This Monday Austria became the latest Western European country to suffer an Islamic terrorist attack. At least five people were killed, including an assailant and 17 others were injured in...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Oct, 2020
As the Islamic world celebrates the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, jihadists such as Turkish President Recep Erdoğan said: “We, as believers… [need to] make more efforts to introduce the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 27 Oct, 2020
Tensions between France and Muslim nations have gotten worse after French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month: “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Oct, 2020
In a move that would certainly add fuel to the fire in the Middle East, The Trump administration is weighing a proposal to brand prominent human rights organizations as “anti-Semitic”...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Oct, 2020
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul (Iraq) Najeeb Michaeel Moussa, in a recent interview with stated that “the European Union has undoubtedly lagged behind the European peoples who have courageously mobilized...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 21 Oct, 2020
On October 2, French President Emmanuel Macron recently stated: “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today; we are not just seeing this in our...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 18 Oct, 2020
Finally, a Western leader who is taking on the Islamic threat in his homeland. And who would ever have guessed that it would be French President Emmanuel Macron? Macron has...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Oct, 2020
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud in Washington. In a joint-conference, Pompeo said: “It’s no secret that Iran’s...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 15 Oct, 2020
On Thursday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, after taking swipes from President Donald Trump, agreed to release emails from his predecessor Hillary Clinton, saying it was important for “transparency.” Pompeo denied any political...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Oct, 2020
Last Friday President Donald Trump received a vote of support for his reelection bid from an entity most in his party would reject: the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 4 Oct, 2020
The Vatican officially released Pope Francis’ new encyclical on “human fraternity” Fratelli Tutti (All Brothers) on Sunday — an encyclical, or letter from the pope, is a form of communication...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 3 Oct, 2020
It has been one week since fighting brokeup between Christian Armenia and the predominantly Islamic Azerbaijan — 85% of Muslims in the country are Shi’ites and 15% Sunnis — both...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 2 Oct, 2020
Many of us who follow the “non-mainstream media” have become acquainted with the unfortunate persecutions of Christians and religious minorities in the Middle East and in Nigeria at the hands...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Sep, 2020
U.S. Special Representative for Iran Elliot Abrams confirmed last week that North Korea, for quite some time, has been helping Iran’s quest to become a nuclear weapon state. Abrams, responding...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 25 Sep, 2020
This past Wednesday Saudi Arabia’s King Salman took aim at Iran during his debut at the annual United Nations meeting of world leaders, calling for a comprehensive solution to contain...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Sep, 2020
“We’re stuck.” that is how one delegate described the much-acclaimed intra-Afghan peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government-led delegation in Doha, that kicked on September 12. The impasse...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 21 Sep, 2020
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari recently revealed that when he met the U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on April 30, 2018, Trump unequivocally accused him of killing Christians in Nigeria....
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 20 Sep, 2020
Iran has promised to inflict a “decisive response” against the United States for acting like a “bully” to adversaries and allies alike after Washington said it would reimpose UN sanctions —...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 19 Sep, 2020
The European Parliament recently urged the European Union member states to impose an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and its now five-year genocidal war...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Sep, 2020
In what was a groundbreaking event on Tuesday at the White House, President Donald Trump presided over the signing of a Middle East agreement between Israel and two Gulf nations,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Sep, 2020
A U.S. federal judge directed Saudi Arabia’s government to make 24 current and former officials, including a former ambassador to the United States, available for questioning in litigation claiming it...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Sep, 2020
As the United States is less than two months away from Election Day, it is still stigmatized by the riots and other forms of violence by the anarchist movements that...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 Sep, 2020
A court in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has sentenced a Christian man to death for having committed “blasphemy,” his lawyer says, in the latest case of Pakistan’s strict...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 7 Sep, 2020
Saudi Arabia announced today, in what has been dubbed as a “mockery” of a trial, that it convicted eight men charged in the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi — a...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Sep, 2020
On Thursday the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against six companies for their support of a petrochemical firm that does business with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Based in China,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 4 Sep, 2020
There are many misconceptions about equality in the Islamic religion, especially on the status between a man and a woman. It is, in fact, worse than the then-“separate but equal”...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 31 Aug, 2020
While our American homeland since the George Floyd killing has had to deal with riots, looting and killings from right-wing domestic terrorists, such as the Boogaloo movement, as well as...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Aug, 2020
Last Wednesday local Nigerian news reported that Boko Haram insurgents killed more 75 elderly people in the town of Gwoza in Borno state (northeastern Nigeria). The Nigerian tragedy is one...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 28 Aug, 2020
Back in 2018, the Clarion Project published an article “First-Hand Report: Why is the World Ignoring This Genocide?” It was based on my first-hand account after my visit to northern...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Aug, 2020
After President Donald Trump brokered the deal of the 21st century between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the U.S. tried to convince Saudi Arabia that it would be...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 24 Aug, 2020
Next month will mark nearly two decades since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on our American home front by Islamic jihadists—the U.S. government’s ‘official’ story, most of terrorist who...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Aug, 2020
Last week the Israeli Middle East Media Research Institute published an article entitled “Articles In Saudi Press Call To Amend Thousands Of Scribal Errors In The Quran, Reexamine Islamic Texts...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 22 Aug, 2020
Last Thursday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking on behalf of President Donald Trump, mentioned that the U.S. is initiating the restoration of virtually all UN sanctions on Iran lifted...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Aug, 2020
It has been nearly two weeks since the explosions occurred at the port of the city of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon—the second explosion was extremely powerful, and caused at...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 14 Aug, 2020
This Thursday most of the Islamic world was surprised when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel agreed to establish full diplomatic relations—the deal was brokered by the Trump administration—Trump...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 13 Aug, 2020
On July 25 the U.S. (and Spanish) soldiers withdrew from the Iraqi Basmaya base, south of the capital, and handed it over to their Iraqi counterparts. Just one day prior...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Jul, 2020
Many of us have come to know, no thanks to the mainstream media, of the Christian persecutions in the Islamic world—a topic that most leftwing and neoconservative politicians refused to...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Jul, 2020
While the Trump administration is subtly pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, many, including myself, are concerned as to the would-be state of affairs in the Afghan region if and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 21 Jul, 2020
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Saudi King Salman al-Saud and President Donald Trump touching the glowing orb of wealth and knowledge in Riyadh, May 2017. (Photo: Rex/Shutterstock) In 2016, then-candidate...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Jul, 2020
American soldiers in a village about 90 miles northeast of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2006. (Photo: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times) Donald Trump, referring to Afghanistan, tweeted in 2013: “We should...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Jul, 2020
Medics attend to Furja Saleh Mabkhout, 4, at a hospital in Sanaa to which she was rushed after she was injured in an air strike in the northern province of...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Jul, 2020
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that the Istanbul’s—traditionally know as Constantinople—sixth-century basilica church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) that was built by the Emperor Justinian, which became a...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 10 Jul, 2020
Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Xi Jinping. (Photo: Washington Post) The free world last week witnessed in sadness as Chinese Communist forces stormed into Hong Kong arresting human rights activists,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 6 Jul, 2020
Last Wednesday another Nigerian was killed by the Islamist group Boko Haram village in Chibok Local Government Area of Borno State. According to a villager: “We just received the news...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Jun, 2020
In the latest double-standard measure taken since the George Floyd killing on racial justice was that of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). On June 17, the member-states of...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Jun, 2020
The Trump administration has escalated discussions to end a decades-old practice of notifying Congress of major arms sales to foreign countries, arguing that lawmakers are preventing the United States from...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 19 Jun, 2020
Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughter of the late Malcom X, stated on the pro-Islamic al-Jazeera news in a segment A message to Black Lives Matter protesters: Organise: “There are so many people...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 31 May, 2020
While Americans all of the sudden have forgotten about the COVID-19 amidst the staged riots after the George Floyd killing—notice how social distancing is not a problem for those hooligans...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 20 May, 2020
Early this month French President Emmanuel Macron signed a decree authorizing the Arabic language and Islamic culture to be taught in schools as part of their new curriculum. In like...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 18 May, 2020
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, said on Monday that the U.S. State Department inspector general (IG) Steve...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 May, 2020
When immigrants arrived to the United States of America via New York Harbor between the latter half of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries, they were greeted...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 May, 2020
This Thursday U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said that he participated in a “lengthy” meeting with Taliban leaders as the militant group and Afghan government concerns mount that...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 3 May, 2020
In recent months the world has been focused on the coronavirus pandemic given that this has been the central theme reported by the mainstream media. But there is another “pandemic”...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 28 Apr, 2020
A place of worship in Syracuse, New York, that had been a Roman Catholic church for over a century became a mosque almost six years ago—the Mosque of Jesus, Son...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 25 Apr, 2020
Saudi Arabia announced it abolished flogging as a form of punishment. The country’s supreme court said on Saturday that the “human rights advances” are part of reforms pushed by King Salman...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Apr, 2020
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he has instructed the U.S. Navy to “shoot down and destroy” any Iranian gunboats harassing American ships, in the wake of a tense encounter in the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 22 Apr, 2020
Al-Jazeera—Qatari state-funded broadcaster in the capital city of Doha—reported this week that according to a tally combined by Tal’at, an independent political feminist movement, eleven Palestinian women have been killed as a result...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Apr, 2020
This Wednesday (April 16) was the International Day Against Child Slavery by the Christian Cultural Movement of Spain. The inspiration behind this annual observance is 12-year-old Pakistani Christian slave, Iqbal...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 13 Apr, 2020
The Associated Press reported on Monday of dozens of police reports in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan of sexual harassment, rape and physical abuse by Islamic clerics teaching in madrassas (religious...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 Apr, 2020
Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council called President Donald Trump “more dangerous than coronavirus” opposing efforts by the International Monetary Fund to assist Iran during...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Apr, 2020
This Saturday a small French town, Romans-sur-Isère, near Grenoble, was in horror as a Sudanese Muslim refugee in his 30s went on a stabbing spree killing 2 and injuring 5....
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 2 Apr, 2020
The U.S. State Department on Monday announced it was cutting $1 billion in aid for Afghanistan. The news comes after the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unanounced visit...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 30 Mar, 2020
The Islamic Republic of Iran is suffering the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East with more than 41,000 people infected and over 2,700 dead—the International experts also fear the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Mar, 2020
This past week marked the fifth anniversary of the start of the U.S.-backed Saudi military intervention in Yemen. Code-named Operation Decisive Storm, the Saudi-led coalition’s offensive operations has created the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 5 Feb, 2020
An interview with Father Mario Alexis Portella, author of a book that examines what Muslims believe and how Islam is portrayed in the West by Edward Pentin – National Catholic Reporter...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 29 Nov, 2019
British journalist Robert Fisk once stated, “The story of the Armenian genocide is one of almost unrelieved horror at the hands of Turkish soldiers and policemen who enthusiastically carried out...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 12 Nov, 2019
Juveniles about to be hung in Iran. – (Photo: irannewsupdate.com) International human rights law has long prohibited the use of the death penalty against people who were younger than age...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 27 Oct, 2019
ISIS leader and self-styled calif Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead. During a raid by U.S. Special Operations forces on a compound in northern Syria where Baghdadi was hiding out, Baghdadi...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Oct, 2019
Many in the West, whether willfully or not, continue to insist that Islam can coexist in a democratic society, thereby seeing any reasonable disagreement as xenophobic. Perhaps it is because to...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Aug, 2019
Hasan talking with his wives and children in England. Polygamous marriages in the West are more frequent than what we may think. (Photo: Channel 4 UK) Many women, especially in...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Aug, 2019
Most of us in the West have heard of the kidnapping of 276 female students were from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, (northeast)...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 23 Jul, 2019
The United States of America launched its newest policy last month in the Kingdom of with the hope to bring peace and stability to the Middle East region, specifically between...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 8 Jun, 2019
Muslims collectively believe, in light of their recent massive migration to the West and a much higher birthrate compared to Westerners, that they may sooner rather than later achieve their...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 May, 2019
“Where in the world is the worst place to be a Christian?” — The Guardian Newspaper had asked in a 2018 article on Christian persecution. It goes without say it listed the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 May, 2019
Early this year, a madrassa teacher and an imam of a mosque in Hatia Upazila, Noakhali (Bangladesh) were physically attacked by the Muslim community from allegedly trying to preventing a child marriage of...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 17 Apr, 2019
“Where in the world is the worst place to be a Christian?” — The Guardian Newspaper had asked in a 2018 article on Christian persecution. It goes without say it listed the...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 9 Apr, 2019
One of the reasons any a rational human being would disavow the Quran as a divinely revealed text from God is that, notwithstanding the many passages that speak of goodness...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Mar, 2019
We Americans have been overwhelmed by the polemics surrounding Somali-born House Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for a 2012 Tweet: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awake the people and...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 26 Feb, 2019
Afghan women are watching with trepidation as the US draws closer to a deal with the Taliban, distressed at the thought of losing any of the hard-earned progress they have...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 6 Feb, 2019
Last week, CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee saying — in contradiction to President Trump...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 28 Jan, 2019
Close to 60,000 thousand Christians have been killed by nomadic Muslims in Nigeria since 2001, according to one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers and chief counsel at the American Center...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 25 Jan, 2019
Historically the universal caliphate came to an end in 1924 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk secularized Turkey. Notwithstanding the ominous and pretentious claim of the Islamic State in 2014, there is in...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 11 Dec, 2018
The US government has recently expressed its satisfaction with the military victory reported on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, despite the militants maintaining a small presence in the Syrian territory....
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 1 Dec, 2018
NOV 30, 2018 4:26 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER Pope Francis is not going to be happy about this. Here is an English version of an article from the Italian newspaper...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 25 Nov, 2018
In today’s Western society many, if not most, believe that Christians and Muslims both “adore the one and merciful God.” In fact, the Declaration on the Relation of the Church...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 19 Nov, 2018
When immigrants arrived to the United States of America via New York Harbor between the latter half of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries, they were greeted...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 16 Nov, 2018
The concept of jihad, as explained in the Encyclopedia of Islam (1960-1986), stems from the fundamental principle of Islam’s universality: “this religion, along with the temporal power which it implies,...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 31 Oct, 2018
In the wake of the deadly October 27th shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, an overwhelming response from American Muslims in holding moments of silence and fundraising for the surviving victims...
· by Mario Alexis Portella · 27 Oct, 2018
The mysterious murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamaal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October can perhaps be categorized as the crime of the year. All fingers...
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