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| Iraq |
| Sunni-Shiite padres work to issue joint fatwa against anti-Christian violence |
| 2011-01-13 |
| (AFP) – A summit gathering some of Iraq's top religious leaders in Copenhagen this week is hoped to result in a joint decree condemning violence against Christians, organisers said Wednesday. "I hope that we will be able to produce a joint Shiite-Sunni fatwa (religious decree) against violence towards Christians," said Canon Andrew White, head of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME) and vicar of St. George's Church in Baghdad. "There is a total unity between the Muslims and Christians: we need to do something radical," White told AFP on the sidelines of the three-day closed-door meeting that began Wednesday. The emergency summit at a heavily guarded Copenhagen hotel, organised by FRRME and the Danish foreign ministry, comes on the heels of a string of attacks on Christians in Iraq, as well as in neighbouring countries. FRRME, a British non-governmental group, had previously only revealed that eight of Iraq's Muslim and Christian religious leaders would take part, refusing to divulge their identities for safety reasons. On Wednesday, however, White revealed some of the participants to AFP, pointing out that one of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's top Sunni advisors, Sheikh Abdul Latif Humayem, was at the meeting. Shiite leader Sheik Abduhaleem al-Zubairi, Younadam Kanna, who represents Iraq's Assyrian community, and Archbishop Avak Asadorian, who is head of the country's Christian Council, were also present, White said. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #3 The Christians have to learn how to defend themselves. Then the fat would really be in the fire. Unbelievers are not permitted to raise their hands against Mohammedans. Mark Twain remarked upon that in Innocents Abroad, when he sought explanation for a gang of Istanbul boys beating an old Jewish man until he was bloody. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-01-13 19:21 |
| #2 Stopping the offense is not enough, because Islam is decentralized. The Christians have to learn how to defend themselves. Since one of the Christian sects is affiliated with the Vatican, the Vatican should offer to credential a volunteer Christian organization that would travel to Iraq to give the Christians security advice. Most of these people would be prior service military, familiar with Iraq, and the organization would not be a non-profit, but a not-for-profit. Cost to the Vatican would be minimal, mostly diplomatic, and it would save the government of Iraq money and embarrassment. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-01-13 09:44 |
| #1 It must be the water. |
| Posted by: Uleatch Dribble8106 2011-01-13 02:30 |