!!!!!-Iraqi Christians scorn West’s offer of help

!!!!!-Iraqi Christians scorn West’s offer of help

NOTE FROM TGR: TGR does not bother with this topic on a daily basis. That said, fresh articles concerning the ethnic cleansing being constantly directed against this community are available on a daily basis.

These articles are normally not available in the American media, nor are these incidents apparently discussed in American churches.



[The Lyon of Babylon]


uruknet.info
اوروكنت.إنفو




informazione dall'iraq occupato
information from occupied iraq

أخبار من العراق المحتل



Iraqi Christians scorn West’s offer of help

Azzaman

6_iraq_christians_hmed_8a.hmedium.jpg

March 22, 2008

The pledge by France to provide refuge for 500 Iraqi Christians is merely for 'propaganda purposes’ and does nothing to alleviate Iraqi Christians’ suffering, said Iraqi church leaders.

The leaders, refusing to be named, said their followers were paying for the West’s mistakes and blunders in dealing with the Muslim world.

"It is the second time in history we are being persecuted and paying dearly for what the Christian West does," said one of them.

He was referring to the Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages during which European states mobilized huge armies and invaded Palestine, parts of Syrian and Lebanon.

"Those crusades were carried out in the name of Christianity and many in the Muslim world thought we were accomplices because we shared the same religion," he added.

One another leader said the religious rhetoric of the current U.S. administration which has armies in two Muslim countries and supports Israel blindly mainly on religious grounds has again infuriated Muslim populations who see us as "brothers in faith."

U.S. troops practices at the start of the war, and the attempts by some U.S. churches to proselytize Muslims by handing out free copies of the Bible in Arabic, made many Muslims think that the invasion was yet another "crusade", said the cleric.

U.S. troops would decorate vehicles, particularly at the start of the war, with Christian symbols and U.S. Christian denominations began building or establishing new churches in Baghdad and other major cities.

"We keep telling everyone that we as Christians are different. We have got nothing to do with such practices but it seems they provided the fuel for the calamity we suffer from now," said one church source.

Until nearly the 11 century Christians were reported to be the majority in Iraq. The numbers started dwindling with the arrival of non-Arab Muslim invaders who took over most of the Middle East.

Even under Saddam Hussein, who the West had demonized, Iraqi Christians had the right to build churches, teach their traditional language, Aramaic, and give religious courses to their members inside their churches.

Monasteries and seminaries flourished despite the sweeping U.N. trade sanctions imposed in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

For example, there were 25 priests and 17 monks in the Chaldean order called the Hormozite. Chaldean nuns numbered more than 100 and run schools in Kuwait and the Untied Arab Emirates.

The monasteries and seminaries of Baghdad are all but deserted. And many churches almost empty due to the massive flight of Christians either to northern Iraq or to neighboring countries.

The hardships Iraqi Christians pass through now are unprecedented in modern history and started with the coming of the 'Christian’ Americans and Brits to Iraq.

One church source described France’s bid to offer asylum for 500 Iraqi Christians as "a joke."

He said there were nearly 1 million Christians most of them now on the run. "Who is going to save them? These statements are merely for propaganda purposes. We have seen nothing tangible on the ground."

:: Article nr. 42302 sent on 22-mar-2008 22:08 ECT

www.uruknet.info?p=42302

Link: www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-03-22%5Ckurd.htm

:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet .







The Free Lance-Star

The cost of faith











In Iraq: An archbishop is found dead; a Christian minority is persecuted

Date published: 3/23/2008

THE BODY of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, 65, of Mosul, Iraq, was found recently in a shallow grave, two weeks after he'd been kidnapped--just the latest example of the persecution plaguing Christians in that predominantly Muslim country.

There were nearly a million followers of Christ in Iraq before the war began. Today, half have fled or been killed or kidnapped. Those who remain are frequently subjected to "convert or die" diktats from Muslim clerics. Their women may be forced to don burqas. Yet they persist.

Indeed, the pressure seems to be getting worse. In January, bombs went off outside three Chaldean and Assyrian Christian churches in Mosul, two churches in Kirkuk, and four in Baghdad. Other clerics have been kidnapped for ransom or killed.

The Rev. Canon Andrew White of St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad, told the Episcopal News Service: "Despite the fact that the Christian community here is one of the most ancient in the world, my parishioners have been threatened and intimidated out of their homes and businesses. Those who are left are usually either poor or widowed--or both."

For Iraqi Christians, the decision to attend church involves so much more than what to wear. It's a matter of life and death--and faith.



Date published: 3/23/2008





BosNewsLife

http://www.bosnewslife.com/middle-east/iraq/3510-iraq-christians-dont-celebrate-5th-anniversar

Iraq Christians Don’t Celebrate 5th Anniversary Of US-Led Invasion










Fresh Reports Of Massive Killings



Wednesday, 19 March 2008

By BosNewsLife News Center

President George W. Bush says war can be won. Via VOA News


BAGHDAD, IRAQ (BosNewsLife)-- United President George W. Bush said Wednesday, March 19, that the war in Iraq is worth fighting and winning, but Iraqi Christians had no reason to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the US-led invasion amid reports of massive killings.

"Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it," said Bush, a self declared evangelical Christian. "The answers are clear to me. Removing [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision - and this is a fight America can and must win," he told an audience at the Defense Department in Washington.

Yet, five years on, Iraqi Christians are caught in the crossfire of violence - and even targeted - more than ever before, stressed Open Doors, an international organization providing aid to Christians who it says are persecuted for their faith.

"Some say that in the past few years almost 500 Iraqi Christians, including pastors and priests, have been murdered because of their faith. Even more Christians have been killed in attacks, in fighting or kidnappings for money, Open Doors said

In one of the latest publicized cases, the body of a Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq in February was found outside the northern city of Mosul.

COMPANIONS KILLED

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was seized by gunmen in Mosul soon after he left Mass on February. 29. Three of his companions were killed, the latest in what church members called a series of attacks against Iraq's dwindling Christian community by Islamic extremists.

The violence is a far cry from what Iraqi Christians had anticipated, Open Doors stressed.
"Initially, the minority Christian population in Iraq was mostly elated with the fall of Saddam Hussein. They envisioned the coming of peace, safe places to work and live and complete freedom to worship." Many have now fled the country.

There were 750,000 Christians when the invasion began in Iraq, according to several church groups, although Open Doors put that figure at 550,000. Since 2003 however, at least 75,000 fled to neighboring countries or to the West, while another 75,000 are now in northern Iraq, the group added.

"That means less than 400,000 Christians remain in mainland Iraq. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that at least two million Iraqis have fled the country since 2003 and another two million are displaced inside the country.”

URGING PRAYERS

In a statement, Open Doors USA President Carl Moeller said his organization had urged supporters to pray for what he called "marginalized people of Iraq" and to “pray that 2008 will be the year when the violence will decrease and Christians will not be killed and kidnapped simply for their belief in Christ."

He said, "The situation continues to grow grimmer for the targeted minority Christian community in Iraq."

Despite the violence, Open Doors is one of the major providers of Bibles and Christian materials in Iraq, while also helping displaced Christians in northern Iraq, Syria and Jordan with housing, food, clothing and water. Iraqi Christians are no exception.

Some 200 million Christians worldwide, "suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with another 200 to 400 million facing discrimination and alienation," Open Doors said, figures backed up by other rights organizations. (With BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos).









BBC News

Last Updated: Thursday, 13 March 2008, 19:08 GMT








Christians besieged in Iraq

By Frances Harrison
Religious affairs correspondent

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho at the Vatican, November 2007

The archbishop was abducted minutes after leading prayers

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho is thought to be the highest-ranking Chaldean Catholic clergyman to be killed in the violence in Iraq.

He was the Archbishop of Mosul which, along with Baghdad, has been one of the worst places for attacks on Christians.

For the Christians still remaining in Mosul the reaction may very well be that this death is neither the first nor likely to be the last.

The Barnabas Fund, a charity in the UK that has tried to help Iraqi Christians, says there have been some very nasty cases of Christians being abducted, tortured and then killed and it says many Christians in Iraq are now deadened to the violence.

Bombs

But on the other hand the Archbishop was very high-profile and that will have a shock value.

What might make a difference to the reaction to this news is whether the Archbishop, who was elderly, just died of the stress of being kidnapped or was actively tortured and murdered. He was reported to be on medication for heart problems. Exactly how he died is not clear yet.

But his death is the latest in a string of attacks on churches, priests and lay Christians.

In January, bombs exploded outside three Chaldean and Assyrian churches in Mosul, two churches in Kirkuk and four in Baghdad.

The attacks seem to have been co-ordinated all over the country to occur at roughly the same time. And this was not the first time violence had come close to Archbishop Rahho.

Iraqi refugees waiting for aid in Syria, 11 February 2008

Christian refugees may now be more reluctant to return to Iraq

Last June, his secretary, a priest called Ragheed Ganni, was shot dead in his church along with three of his companions.

In 2005 the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Basile Georges Casmoussa, was kidnapped but released.

And in 2006, an Orthodox priest, Boulos Iskander, was snatched off the streets of Mosul by a group that demanded a ransom. Even though it was paid by his family they still beheaded him. Worse still, when his body was found, the priest's arms and legs had also been cut off.

Money motive

In many cases the motivation behind attacks on Christians is religious - to drive the minority out of Iraq. But very often criminal groups or bandits pretend to belong to a jihadist group in order to mask their true motive - which is money.

Christians are regarded as having money and they are known to sacrifice everything to pay ransom demands - partly because, unlike Shia or Sunni, they do not have powerful tribal or militia links to protect them, so they are a soft target.



It's thought about half the Christian population of Iraq has moved - the majority to Syria, fewer to Jordan and some to northern Iraq

In the university of Mosul, there are reports of Christian students being targeted - with notices being put up warning the girls to wear a hijab and giving Christians a choice between dying, converting to Islam or leaving the town.

A year ago there were also reports of a push to drive Christians out of the historically Christian suburb of Dora in southern Baghdad, with some Muslims accusing the Christians of being allies of the Americans.

Exodus

The charity Barnabas says one of its partners in Iraq conducted research into 250 Iraqi Christians displaced to the north of the country a year ago and found nearly half had witnessed attacks on churches or Christians, or been personally targeted by violence.

Nobody knows how many of Iraq's Christians have now fled. Before the war there were estimated to be about 800,000 and Chaldeans were the largest Christian community in Iraq.

It is thought about half the Christian population of Iraq has moved - the majority to Syria, fewer to Jordan and some to northern Iraq.

Of the 1.5m Iraqi refugees in Syria it is assumed around 20% are Christian, but firm figures are hard to come by.

That means, as a proportion, Christians are massively over-represented in the Iraqi refugee population.

Syrian churches have been helping the refugees and say they speak of being forced to convert to Islam or flee, women being told to wear Islamic dress and those who sell alcohol for communion being beaten.

The killing of the archbishop of Mosul and the spate of bomb blasts against churches in January may well put off those Christian refugees in Syria who were contemplating returning to their country, even if it does not trigger a new exodus from Iraq.