Last Wednesday, at around 10:50am, in the district of Zehlendorf, Berlin, a 87-year-old pensioner, known as Anneliese L. was on her way home from the ATM machine at a nearby metro station when an unknown man “with a dark complexion” assaulted her.
He knocked her to the ground, so that her head hit the cobblestones, and dragged her along for several meters.
When a woman rushed to help, the attacker escaped on a bicycle with the victim’s purse.
The witness called police and an ambulance, and was able to describe the attacker. The badly injured octogenarian was taken to hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
A neighbour, who lives across the street, is still in shock. She told the Berliner Zeitung that she had witnessed the assault.
“I was just about to walk the dog, when I saw the lady across the sidewalk. She did not have a face anymore. Everything was hanging down. All was full of blood. The police officers cried. I have never seen anything as brutal as this in my life.”
According to a police spokesman, the victim’s face is so badly disfigured that police initially, mistakenly, thought that the attacker had stabbed her in the face with a knife. The responding officers received pastoral counseling.
Thanks to the witness, police released photos from the surveillance camera of the nearby metro, showing the suspect and his bicycle. Police are also looking for other metro passengers as possible witnesses.
But according to the new Facebook guide “harmful content” is “Islamophobia, anti-Muslim hatred, far right extremism”.
The guide does not mention Islamic incitement to violence, which is rampant on social media and – unlike the other content mentioned – has deadly and tragic consequences in the real world as witnessed in the latest attack in Berlin.
Terrorist attacks in the real world are also not carried out by Islamophobes, anti-Muslims or right-wing extremists.
In short, the overwhelming majority of persecution that 215 million Christians experience around the world, occurs at the hands of Muslims.
According to Open Doors, a human rights organisation, on its recently released World Watch List 2018 of the world’s 50 worst nations, Christians experience high levels of persecution.
Some 3 066 Christians were killed, 1 252 abducted, and 1 020 raped or sexually harassed on account of their faith; and 793 churches were attacked or destroyed.