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Iraq's anti-Christian pogroms

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  • Iraq's anti-Christian pogroms

    Iraq's anti-Christian pogroms
    By Charles Tannock

    Manila Times, Philippines
    Oct 6 2006

    The world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil
    war between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But in this looming war of all
    against all, it is Iraq's small community of Assyrian Christians that
    is at risk of annihilation.

    Iraq's Christian communities are among the world's most ancient,
    practicing their faith in Mesopotamia almost since the time of
    Christ. The Assyrian Apostolic Church, for instance, traces its
    foundation back to 34 AD and Saint Peter. Likewise, the Assyrian Church
    of the East dates to 33 AD and Saint Thomas. The Aramaic that many of
    Iraq's Christians still speak is the language of those apostles-and
    of Christ.

    When tolerated by their Muslim rulers, Assyrian Christians contributed
    much to the societies in which they lived. Their scholars helped usher
    in the "Golden Age" of the Arab world by translating important works
    into Arabic from Greek and Syriac. But in recent times, toleration
    has scarcely existed. In the Armenian Genocide of 1914-1918, 750,000
    Assyrians-roughly two-thirds of their number at the time-were massacred
    by the Ottoman Turks with the help of the Kurds.

    Under the Iraqi Hashemite monarchy, the Assyrians faced persecution
    for co-operating with the British during the First World War. Many
    fled to the West, among them the Church's patriarch. During Saddam's
    wars with the Kurds, hundreds of Assyrian villages were destroyed,
    their inhabitants rendered homeless, and dozens of ancient churches
    were bombed. The teaching of the Syriac language was prohibited
    and Assyrians were forced to give their children Arabic names in an
    effort to undermine their Christian identity. Those who wished to
    hold government jobs had to declare Arab ethnicity.

    In 1987 the Iraqi census listed 1.4 million Christians. Today, only
    about 600,000 to 800,000 remain in the country, most on the Nineveh
    plain. As many as 60,000, and perhaps even more, have fled since
    the beginning of the insurgency that followed the United States-led
    invasion in 2003. Their exodus accelerated in August 2004, after the
    start of the terrorist bombing campaign against Christian churches by
    Islamists who accuse them of collaboration with the allies by virtue
    of their faith.

    A recent UN report states that religious minorities in Iraq "have
    become the regular victims of discrimination, harassment, and,
    at times, persecution, with incidents ranging from intimidation to
    murder," and that "members of the Christian minority appear to be
    particularly targeted."

    Indeed, there are widespread reports of Christians fleeing the country
    as a result of threats being made to their women for not adhering
    to strict Islamic dress codes. Christian women are said to have had
    acid thrown in their faces. Some have been killed for wearing jeans
    or not wearing the veil.

    This type of violence is particularly acute in the area around Mosul.

    High-ranking clergy claim that priests in Iraq can no longer
    wear their clerical robes in public for fear of being attacked by
    Islamists. Last January, coordinated car-bomb attacks were carried
    out on six churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk; on another occasion, six
    churches were simultaneously bombed in Baghdad and Mosul. Over the
    past two years, 27 Assyrian churches have reportedly been attacked
    for the sole reason that they were Christian places of worship.

    These attacks go beyond targeting physical manifestations of the
    faith. Christian-owned small businesses, particularly those selling
    alcohol, have been attacked, and many shopkeepers murdered. The
    director of the Iraqi Museum, Donny George, a respected Assyrian,
    says that he was forced to flee Iraq to Syria in fear of his life,
    and that Islamic fundamentalists obstructed all of his work that was
    not focused on Islamic artifacts.

    Assyrian leaders also complain of deliberate discrimination in the
    January 2005 elections. In some cases, they claim, ballot boxes did
    not arrive in Assyrian towns and villages, voting officials failed to
    show up, or ballot boxes were stolen. They also cite the intimidating
    presence of Kurdish militia and secret police near polling stations.

    Recently, however, there are signs the Iraqi Kurdish authorities are
    being more protective of their Christian communities.

    Sadly, the plight of Iraq's Christians is not an isolated one in the
    Middle East. In Iran, the population as a whole has nearly doubled
    since the 1979 revolution; but, under a hostile regime, the number of
    Christians in the country has fallen from roughly 300,000 to 100,000.

    In 1948 Christians accounted for roughly 20 percent of the
    population of what was then Palestine. Since then, their numbers
    have roughly halved. In Egypt emigration among Coptic Christians is
    disproportionately high; many convert to Islam under pressure, and
    over the past few years violence perpetrated against the Christian
    community has taken many lives.

    The persecution of these ancient and unique Christian communities,
    in Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole, is deeply disturbing. Last
    April the European Parliament voted virtually unanimously for the
    Assyrians to be allowed to establish (on the basis of section 5 of
    the Iraqi Constitution) a federal region where they can be free from
    outside interference to practice their own way of life. It is high
    time now that the West paid more attention, and took forceful action
    to secure the future of Iraq's embattled Christians.

    Charles Tannock is vice-president of the Human Rights Subcommittee of
    the European Parliament and UK Conservative Foreign Affairs spokesman.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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