Middle Eastern Christian Refugees in Europe Are Bullied, Threatened by Muslim Refugees

A Pakistani Christian, who has fled to the Netherlands, has made a video of life in a refugee center and uploaded it to YouTube. The video has received national attention in the Netherlands because the refugee says he’s regularly bullied and threatened by other refugees, most of whom are Muslim.

He explains:

I am a refugee and live in the refugee center at Gilze en Rijen. There are a lot of Syrian Muslims here who fled the war in their own country. These Muslims have made life impossible for us [red.: for Christian refugees]. I fled from my own country because I thought I’d be safe and welcome here. But I still have to hide here. I contacted the government agency that deals with refugees, but they refuse to intervene. I’ve arrived at a point at which I don’t know what to do.

ChristianUnion MP Joël Voordewind commented after watching the video that this isn’t the first time Christian refugees have complained about Muslim refugees. It happens very often, he says, that radical Muslims take over refugee centers and bully all those who hold different religious beliefs. At the same time, however, they appeal to the Dutch government to get residence permits, saying they aren’t safe in their own countries because of… wait for it: radical Islamic violence.

Although part of the video is in Dutch, the individual fragments are not. The video starts with a short introduction, after which refugee N. Bashir shares scenes he secretly shot when people didn’t know he was filming. In one such scene, the Islamic call for prayer is heard, after which Muslim refugees take over the kitchen to pray. Non-Muslims aren’t allowed to enter the kitchen during prayer times; they have to wait until the Muslims are done with their ritual prayer.

In another scene, one of Bashir’s roommates is seen praying. The man is Muslim, while Bashir and the other roommate are Christian. When Bashir prays (which he does five times a day), the Muslim roommate forces the others to be quiet. If they make a sound, he gets angry with them and starts shouting. As a result, the two Christians don’t dare say or do anything until the other “refugee” is done.

The roommate also tries to irritate and even convert his roommates. He does so by, among other things, playing the Muslim call to prayer loudly on his phone. When his Christian roommates object, he again gets angry and starts shouting.

Lastly, Mr. Bashir recorded a phone call with the authorities about this matter. Like him and his roommate, they are too afraid to intervene, fearing it’ll make the radical Muslim refugees go wild. In the end, a “solution” is offered: the two Christians are allowed to move into another room. Obviously, Mr. Bashir rejects that offer because it means that he, once again, has to take a step back in order to placate fundamentalist Muslims; that’s exactly why he left Pakistan in the first place.

The video and appeal for help have caused a firestorm in the Netherlands, where increasingly more people are worried about the effects of mass-immigration from Muslim countries. Many of these immigrants call themselves refugees, but refuse to assimilate. They’re also, more often than not, fundamentalists themselves who have zero tolerance for people of other faiths.