Below is an excerpt from an article in Newsweek Magazine February 13, 2012 by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.

Read the full article – Ayaan Hirsi Ali:The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World

A prayer for the persecuted and for the suffering church:

Our Father in heaven

Thank You that You are the Lord who provides and that You meet all our needs, in

ways that we often do not recognise.

We pray for all those who are suffering harassment, discrimination and persecution

for their faith in You, O Lord. We pray that You will give them daily strength to

endure their pain, whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual. Today, we think

particularly of those who have been left homeless because of persecution and

violence. We pray that they will remain steadfast in their faith and seek Your face

in their trials, and that You will meet them in their time of need.

Lord Jesus, help us to remember to give thanks for all that You have provided for

us and to remember our responsibility to provide for other members of Your family.

(Prayer taken from Barnabas Fund Suffering Church Sunday resources)

Also see What the Arab Spring Means for Christians, “Australian Parliament calls for an end to Coptic Persecution in Egypt“