Iraqi Christians Are Targets of Cleansing, Committee Told
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Jennifer Green, Ottawa Citizen, June 18, 2008
Muslim militants are crucifying children to terrorize their Christian parents into fleeing Iraq, a parliamentary committee studying the persecution of religious minorities heard yesterday.
Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents.
One infant was snatched, decapitated, burned and left on his mother’s doorstep, the committee was told.
Filham Isaac, speaking for the Nineveh Advocacy Committee, told the human rights committee that Iraqi Christian churches were bombed, clergy murdered and unveiled Iraqi women raped or scarred with acid.
It’s part of a systemic—and very effective—campaign to ethnically cleanse the area of any non-Muslims, he said. Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, known as Chaldo-Assyrians, were once the largest Christian minority in Iraq. They are also the oldest, descendants of ancient Mesopotamians who adopted Christianity in the first century.
The Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Church of the East are among the Christian churches in Iraq.
Today, about 300,000, or one in three, is a refugee, he said.
“It’s at a crisis point,” Mr. Isaac’s colleague, Zaya Oshana, said later. “Christians will be completely annihilated.”
Yet, the Chaldo-Assyrians do not want to leave their country en masse.
Instead, they are asking for help to settle the Nineveh Plains, in northwest Iraq, where they can have some independence and form their own state. The land is rich there, and there may be oil, too.
There is some support in the United States and Europe for this independent area, and international news reports indicate more than 700 police officers have begun training to protect the Christians in Iraq, but another 4,000 would be needed to fully secure the region and establish checkpoints on all highways and roads leading into the villages.
The committee also heard from the Ahmadiyya, an offshoot of Islam that began in India about 100 years ago. Ahmadi Muslims differ from mainstream Muslims on their views of Jesus, and on their interpretation of jihad, which they say must be non-violent.
However, they told the committee that they are increasingly persecuted in Pakistan, where they are told they are not Muslim at all and, therefore, their beliefs are an insult to Islam.
Nadeem Siddiq, general counsel for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Community of Canada, told the committee the Pakistani government has been capitulating to mullahs who call them a “cancer” and forbid them from carrying out their prayers, or even mentioning Allah on their wedding invitations.
“They say by ‘posing’ as Muslims, we hurt real Muslims. The mullahs are still not happy. They want our properties confiscated and they want us charged.”
Coptic Christians from Egypt had much the same story, with young girls regularly kidnapped, raped or forced to marry Muslim men. Despite these difficulties, there is no mechanism to claim refugee status in the beleaguered countries. Sam Fanous, of the Canadian Coptic Association, told the MPs that the Canadian Embassy in Cairo needed Canadian, not area Muslim, staff to evaluate refugee claims.
The committee passed a motion to research the issue further and to call for more testimony from minorities suffering religious persecution worldwide.
(Posted on June 26, 2008)
Comments
Well the neo-cons like Richard Pearle must be very pleased with what HIS war has unleashed on the Iraqi christians! If Americans don’t vote carefully in November then a war against Iran will be on the table planned by the same cabal!
Posted by AD at 7:34 PM on June 26
You can thank the neoconservatives for this. They manipulated a not very bright Bush into invading Iraq to advance their lunatic agenda. Under Hussein Christians were a protected and respected minority group. Tariq Aziz was the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Iraq under Hussein and he is a Christian. Anyone think Bush’s good buddies in Saudi Arabia would have a Christian running their corrupt decadent kingdom? The destruction of Iraq’s ancient Christian community is a direct consequence of the disastrous Iraq war. This war will probably end up costing us 5 trillion dollars - while our southwestern border is collapsing.
Posted by at 9:41 PM on June 26
“Well the neo-cons like Richard Pearle must be very pleased with what HIS war has unleashed on the Iraqi christians!”
Can ANYONE explain why the word “neo-cons” or “neo-conservatives” does not appear ANYWHERE on the DVD of Micheal Moore’s “Farenheit 9/11?”
Enquirying minds want to know!
Posted by at 10:01 PM on June 26
To think this is all happening during the reign of George Bush who constantly talks about his relationship with God and his christian faith. He also seems to believe that Islam is the religion of peace, and a branch of the christian faith. In many ways he is the most anti-christan ruler in the world.
If the american president was an athiest,
churches would be sprouting up like mushrooms.
Posted by flyingtiger at 11:54 PM on June 26
The ‘religion of peace’ never changes. It has many faces, depending on how powerful or not Islam is in any particular situation. Muslims can show a devout side or an explosive, fanatical side depending on who or what it is dealing with but the aim is always the same, the advancement of Islam.
A plea can seem reasonable to some, like the latest plea here in the UK now for special treatment for Muslims to be excused being vetted by sniffer dogs [unclean animals in Islam] as the rest of the public do, in airport line-ups etc. But it is the thin edge of the wedge & the drip, drip, drip of Muslim hegemony advances relentlessly & our so-called leaders fight foreign wars while ignoring the march of Islam in their own backyards.
Posted by at 1:26 PM on June 27
I was curious about the treatment of Christians in Iraq prior to the invasion and found this article:
http://ncregister.com/site/article/3291
They say that Christians weren’t persecuted by Saddam’s government, but they weren’t really protected by it either.
Posted by Dylan at 4:25 PM on June 27
They say that Christians weren’t persecuted by Saddam’s government, but they weren’t really protected by it either.
Posted by Dylan at 4:25 PM on June 27
No body was protected under Sadaam’s regime, some just got more preferential treatment than others but all were subject to his paranoid whims.
Posted by Skip at 5:58 AM on June 28
The Unites States has pledged to bring in large amounts of Iraqi refugees. Do you think the Iraqi Christians are at the top of the list?
Posted by Kellie at 10:35 AM on June 28
Its amazing how out of touch with reality Muslims, even the secularized Muslims of Turkey, are. I work with a Muslim woman, who described to me that the Turks used to rule the world (its true that the had a decent Ottoman Empire, but rule the world?) She then told me that when they did, that it was a world of peace and kindness (tell that to the Armenians and Greeks who were massacred and displaced). Their idea of peace is to crush and kill all dissent and questioners and then, yes, look we have peace. She even claimed that the reason Westerners have been in Iraq is because we want to convert all Muslims to Christianity, or failing that, kill them all. Apparently because Muslims have this view themselves towards others (and have demonstrated it time and again, as the above example in the story shows), it must be at the heart of our actions as well. The fact that we allow them to practice their religion to their hearts content and give privileges to foreign Muslims on our own soil in America and Europe, must completely have slipped her mind. She even told me that Muslims were not involved in 9/11.
Posted by Student at 5:03 PM on June 28
“The ‘religion of peace’ never changes. It has many faces, depending on how powerful or not Islam is in any particular situation.”
As has been said, when muslims are in the small minority, they are like lambs, when they are a very large minority, they are like foxes, when they are the majority they are like tigers.
Posted by kc at 7:39 AM on June 30
I’m curious does the US have a traditional white christian hertige group community like White Russian cossacks or Boar South Africans with loyalty to country and religion.
That seems to be the problem in white western countries no strong group cohesive cultural heritage to attach yourself to unlike Muslims. Plus western countries adopt a foreign policy hostile to conservative christian nations like Serbia and Russia. They seem to want to replace christian culture with a multicultural marxist one.
Posted by james at 6:35 PM on June 30