Ezzat Kromer’s resistance to his kidnappers did not last long. One of the masked gunmen fired a round between his feet as he sat behind the wheel of his car and said with chilling calm, “The next one will go into your heart.”

The Christian gynecologist says he was bundled into his abductors’ vehicle, forced to lie under their feet in the back seat for a 45-minute ride, then dumped in a small cold room while his kidnappers contacted his family over a ransom.

For the next 27 hours, he endured beatings, insults and threats to his life, while blindfolded, a bandage sealing his mouth and cotton balls in his ears.

Kromer’s case is part of a dramatic rise of kidnappings targeting Christians, including children, in Egypt’s southern province of Minya, home to the country’s largest concentration of Christians but also a heartland for Islamist hard-liners.

The kidnappings are mostly blamed on criminal gangs, which operate more freely amid Egypt’s collapse in security since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Crime has risen in general across Egypt, hitting Muslims as well. But the wave of kidnappings in Minya has specifically targeted Christians, and victims, church leaders and rights activists ultimately blame the atmosphere created by the rising power of hard-line Islamists.

They contend criminals are influenced by the rhetoric of radical clerics depicting Egypt’s Christian minority as second-class citizens and see Christians as fair game, with authorities less likely to investigate crimes against the community.

Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

[…]

The latest crackdown is further confirmation that the Muslim Brotherhood’s most hard-line elements are consolidating control in Egypt, according to Shaul Gabbay, a professor of international studies at the University of Denver.

“It will only get worse,” said Gabbay. “This has been a longstanding conflict, but now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power, it is moving forward to implement its ideology – which is that Christians are supposed to become Muslims.

“There is no longer anything to hold them back,” he continued. “The floodgates are open.”

That Arab Spring and ‘Freedom and Justice’ Party are just doing wonders over there!

Egypt’s prosecutor general on Monday ordered the arrest of five prominent political activists accused of inciting violence against President Mohamed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, a step the opposition decried as a reversal for democracy.

I could have sworn Obama and company said this Arab Spring thing was supposed to embark on a new age of freedom and democracy in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. So far, all it has encouraged is the continued gang rape of women, violence, murder, religious persecution and the replacement of one dictator with another.

And we’re sending this savage money and arms.

Great call as always, Barry.

Egypt’s public prosecutor, Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah, has ordered an inquiry into the leaders of the National Salvation Front, Hamdeen Sabahi, Amr Moussa and Mohammed ElBaradei. Appointed by President Mohammed Morsi, Abdallah wants the three opposition leaders, the last two former presidential candidates against Morsi, investigated on charges of “incitement” to overthrow the government and high treason. All three have led mass demonstrations against Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s new Qur’an-based constitution.

The legal action against the three main pro-democracy leaders comes amid criticism against the constitutional referendum, deemed invalid because of a low turnout (one third of the electorate) and numerous cases of electoral fraud by Islamists.

Unconcerned by the prevailing atmosphere of tensions, President Morsi signed the constitution on 26 December. Shortly, he will also announce the official date for new parliamentary elections.

The decision by the pro-Islamist prosecutor is further exacerbating tensions between Egyptians in favour of a secular state and defenders of a Sharia-based government, bringing the country that much closer to a civil war.

That Arab Spring just keeps sprouting new, exciting and freedom producing roots by the day. Any more freedom and democracy gets poured upon these people and who knows what whacky shinanigans will happen.

I’ll bet those now-free Egyptians are just thrilled to go from a Mubarak dictatorship to an radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship. 

Islamic leaders continue to portray the popular protests against President Morsi and his recently passed Sharia-heavy constitution as products of Egypt’s Christians. Recently, Muslim Brotherhood leader Safwat Hegazy said in an open rally, as captured on video:

“A message to the church of Egypt, from an Egyptian Muslim: I tell the church — by Allah, and again, by Allah — if you conspire and unite with the remnants [opposition] to bring Morsi down, that will be another matter…. our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Muhammad Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him.”

More recently, Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim — who earlier praised Allah for the death of the late Coptic Pope Shenouda,cursing him to hell and damnation on video — made another video, entitled, “A Notice and Warning to the Crusaders in Egypt,” a reference to the nation’s Copts, which he began by saying, “You are playing with fire in Egypt, I swear, the first people to be burned by the fire are you [Copts].” The video was made in the context of the Tahrir protests against Morsi: Islamic leaders, such as Hegazy and Ghoneim, seek to portray the Copts as dominant elements in those protests; according to them, no real Muslim would participate. Ghoneim even went on to say that most of the people at the protests were Copts, “and we know you hid your [wrist] crosses by lowering your sleeves.”

The heart of Ghoneim’s message was genocidal: “The day Egyptians — and I don’t even mean the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafis, regular Egyptians — feel that you are against them, you will be wiped off the face of the earth. I’m warning you now: do not play with fire!”

Along with trying to incite Egypt’s Muslims against the Copts, and threatening them with annihilation, Ghoneim made other telling assertions, including:

Addressing the Christians of Egypt as “Crusaders,” once again showing Islam’s simplistic, black-and-white vision, which clumps all Christians — of all nations, past and present, regardless of historical context and denomination — as one, in accordance with an Islamic tradition that states “All infidels are one religion.”

I just love how the Arab Spring and that secular organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, has just brought improvements, freedom and justice to the region in leaps and bounds.  What a great day for human kind.

Good grief.  And people actually think Obama isn’t an Islamist supporting traitor considering how he has supported these animals, had them to the White House several times and has their operatives working in government positions.  Keep it up, chuckleheads.

Last July when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Egypt she was met with widespread protest from Coptic Christians and secular activists objecting to what they all believed was the Obama administration’s role in helping the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) ascend to power in Egypt.  

The secretary had requested to meet with ten Christian leaders, myself included. All of those invited refused to meet with her and boycotted her visit. Most of us had been both publicly and privately warning members of Congress and the administration of the danger the Muslims Brotherhood poses and about their desire to turn Egypt into a theocratic Islamic fascist country. Yet we were ignored.  

Going back to April 2007, Democrats made special efforts to link up with the MB when visiting then-House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., met with Dr. Saad el-Katatni, the MB’s parliamentary leader, at former U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone’s home, at a time when then-Secretary Condoleezza Rice has publicly refused to meet with the Brotherhood.  

Mr. Ricciardone, who I can call a friend, once told me that his friendship with another MB leader, Essam El- Erain, extended for close to 30 years. Perhaps that was the catalyst for this meeting and subsequent meetings that took place at his residency.  

A stream of meetings as well as public and private contacts followed between current U.S. Ambassador Ann Paterson and members of the Brotherhood since her arrival to Egypt shortly after the revolution. The ambassador seemed to favor the Brotherhood and the hardliner Salafis over the rest of the secular players in Egypt.

In fact, she has turned down requests for meetings from heads of political parties and other secular politicians, myself included, who opposed the Brotherhood.  

In addition to the ambassador, other U.S. officials such as Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Sen. John Kerry made the pilgrimage to the MB headquarters and made sure to meet with their leader, Khairat El-Shater, at times even publicly praising him, as did Mr. Kerry. Those visits were made during a time where no political group had emerged as a leader in post-revolution Egypt.

The MBs used these high-level meetings to tell the Egyptian people that the U.S. was supporting them and did not object to their rule. Many of us reached out to U.S. officials at the State Department and complained that the U.S. policy regarding the MB was putting the secular forces in Egypt at a disadvantage because it seemed to be propping up the MB, but our concerns were dismissed.   

We warned of the MB’s desire to impose Sharia law once in power and the grim effect it would have on the rights of the millions of Christians and moderate Muslims, including women and children, yet all of our warnings were dismissed. It seems that a policy decision was made to bring the MB to power in Egypt at all costs, and it happened.

After being in office for less than six months, President Morsi issued an edict exempting his decrees from judicial review, and he is now forcing Egyptians to vote on a constitution that would impose Sharia law, violate human rights and religious freedom of Christians, degrade women, regulate child labor, and kill the tourism industry for violating Islamic Sharia. 

A chilling report recently published in the Egyptian newspaper, al-Masry al-Youm, reveals that the torture chambers once utilized by the Hosni Mubarak regime to tamp down protesters are being put to the same if not greater use by the country’s new, self-proclaimed dictator, Mohammed Morsi.

Despite the Obama administration and worldwide media’s insistence that the election of the Muslim Brotherhood leader was a watershed moment for democracy in the Middle East, it would seem those hopes are on a rapid downward trajectory as reports of savage beatings and brutality against Egyptian protesters, abound.

This disturbing revelation came to light just days ago when an al-Masry al-Youm reporter, with the help of a Brotherhood-owned and operated television station, was given an exclusive tour of the torture chambers. While one might think the decision to grant a journalist access to such a chilling look into the way the Muslim Brotherhood treats its critics as counter-intuitive, it makes perfect sense. After all, what could possibly ever serve as better warning for those even thinking of resisting Morsi’s push for a totalitarian regime based on sharia law than to know what will happen to them if they do?

An Egyptian activist told ONTV’s Yousri Fouda early Thursday morning that Muslim Brotherhood members attack the field hospital she had been in on Wednesday evening, attempting to take the injured and threatening women, demanding they leave the area.

Naglaa Bader said the Brotherhood supporters entered the area and began pushing and moving protesters at the field hospital, which had been set up to give medical assistance to protesters injured in the ongoing violence near the presidential palace.

“They looked through one injured man for his ID,” she told Fouda.

When Bader asked the men what their intentions were with the injured, she was told that they did not want to kill anyone.

“We will just break his hand, the hand that threw rocks at us, so he spends 6 months in treatment to give us a break,” Bader said he told her.

Then the angry Brotherhood attackers tried to throw out the women at the hospital, including Bader and Mona Mina, the head of the Doctors Without Rights organization.

The women refused, saying they would only leave if everyone was forced out.

Then, “one of the men came over and threatened to kill Mina. He said that if he ever saw her face again he would,” she added. “The threat came in an extremely scary tone.”

ONTV is showing a live feed of the ongoing violence, including angry Brotherhood groups singling out anti-President Morsi protesters and beating them brutally, with sticks, sharp objects and knives. In one of the many images, a man is seen being surrounded by a group of men. He is hit by something and when his head turns to face the camera, blood is seen streaking down his face.

Egyptian activists and political groups confirmed the death of two anti-President Mohamed Morsi protesters around the Presidential Palace after Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters attacked the two and killed them.

Yay freedom!  Way to pick ‘em, Barry.

Nothing but good news out of that Arab Spring.

Egypt’s ruling party is paying gangs of thugs to sexually assault women protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square against President Mohamed Morsi, activists said.

They also said the Muslim Brotherhood is paying gangs to beat up men who are taking part in the latest round of protests, which followed a decree by President Morsi to give himself sweeping new powers.

Around 200,000 people gathered yesterday in Tahrir Square, the heart of last year’s revolution which toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

Large marches from around Cairo flowed into the square, chanting ‘Constitution: Void!’ and The people want to bring down the regime.’

But amid the calls for democracy a sinister threat has emerged.

Magda Adly, the director of the Nadeem Centre for Human Rights, said that under Mubarak, the Government paid thugs to beat male protestors and sexually assault women.

‘This is still happening now,’ she told The Times. ‘I believe thugs are being paid money to do this … the Muslim Brotherhood have the same political approaches as Mubarak,’ she said.

One protestor, Yasmine, told the newspaper how she had been in the square filming the demonstrations for a few hours when the crowd suddenly turned.

Before she knew what was happening, about 50 men had surrounded her and began grabbing her breasts. She said they ripped off her clothes, starting with her headscarf and for nearly an hour, indecently assaulted her with their hands.

Yep. Those Egyptian men just be lovin’ them a good public sexual assault. Good thing Obama is throwing his support behind Morsi and the Brotherhood otherwise them females would start thinking they could do just about anything without the fear of being raped.  Gotta keep those second class citizens in their place.  Right, B-Rock?