ISIS Video Claims To Show Murders of 30 Ethiopian Christians

A 29-minute video released by the Islamic State yesterday claims to show the slaughter of 30 Ethiopian Christian prisoners by Islamic State fighters.

The Ethiopian News Agency has confirmed the deaths of 30 citizens, captured in Libya by the Islamic State branch there, and shown to be executed in two groups in the video. The victims are given the choice to convert to Islam, or die, and are then shot in the head or beheaded.

“To the nation of the cross, we are back again,” the narrator says in Arabic, according to CNN. “Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap.”

“We swear to Allah... you will not have safety even in your dreams until you embrace Islam,” he continues, according to the Guardian.

The video is titled “Until There Came to Them Clear Evidence,” and primarily focuses on providing justification for the group’s targeting of Christians. The narrator claims that slaughtering Christians is permitted if they refuse to convert to Islam and fail to pay a protection tax to the Islamic State.

People who claim to be Christians are also featured in the video, testifying that they are living happily under the Islamic State in cities like Aleppo and Raqqa, Syria, after paying the tax.

The Guardian explains:

The video... begins with a recounting of the early history of Christianity and an outline of the schisms that led to the creation of the Coptic, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, as well as the development of Protestantism.

The video condemns the doctrine of the Trinity as a form of apostasy, and brands Christians as infidels. The narrator says Christians must pay the “jizya” – a protection tax imposed on them during the early Islamic conquests in Asia and Europe, or face slaughter.

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“You pay (tax) with willing submission, feeling yourselves subdued,” the narrator says, according to CNN. “Our battle is a battle between faith and blasphemy, between truth and falsehood, until there is no more polytheism -- and obedience becomes Allah's on its entirety,” the narrator says.

The video mirrors one released by Islamic State showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya.

“We tell Christians everywhere that the Islamic State will spread, God willing,” the narrator says at the end of the video, according to the Guardian. “It will reach you even if you are in fortresses. Those who embrace Islam or jizya will be safe. But those who refuse... will have nothing from us but the edge of the sword. The men will be killed, the women and children enslaved, and the money seized. That is Allah and the prophet’s judgment.”