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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi Moslems Cleanses Away the Country’s Dwindling Christian Minority |
| 2004-05-04 |
| Without any provocation on the part of the Christian population, Shi’ite and Sunni Arabs alike had begun targeting Christians of all ages for killing, beating, robbing, and raping. The story is a familiar one for the dwindling Christian minority. Every time an invasion or military incursion occurs, particularly by the "Christian" West, Iraqi Christians are blamed and must pay. Never mind that other Muslim parties invited the American invasion or cooperated fully with it, it is the Christian Iraqi population that must pay. And pay they have and will continue to do so. For the first time in recent history, Christians were ordered not to celebrate Christmas and did not do so at night. When I [Robert W. DeKelaita, an immigration attorney representing asylum seekers] visited Baghdad, I was informed of scores of incidents of kidnappings and threats against Iraqi Christian families which had stunned and frightened the population. It has become a common rule that Christian women, particularly young or attractive ones, should remain indoors. I sensed this feeling throughout Iraq among the ChaldoAssyrians. Iraq ’s cities are full of fear for the ChaldoAssyrians. Even under Saddam Hussein’s time, the Assyrian New Year was celebrated in the northern zone with a procession of about 30,000 people. There was none this April for fear of some sort of retaliation. Churches have been continually warned not to conduct normal services and to keep their hymns quiet. Women have been warned to wear the veil and to honor Islamic codes. Priests and bishops now hide their crosses and do not dare seek the assistance of the American troops for brining on further trouble. Women have been raped and children kidnapped. In their traditional villages around the ancient Nineveh plains, the ChaldoAssyrians are pressured to accommodate Arabs who are victimized by the newly invigorated Kurds. The ChaldoAssyrian must accept into their villages these Arabs, many of whom are Wahabists who detest Christians. Further north, Kurds have continued to confiscate Assyrian lands right under the noses of the liberating American troops. The Kurds are, after all, victims of Saddam and must be accommodated even at the expense of a dying community. The lawlessness is orchestrated by a majority against a minority, a scapegoat in every sense of the word. To add to the pains of the Christians, Islam has taken a prominent role in the new Iraq with little objection from the beleaguered Bush administration. Under siege from various forces in Iraq , some thought to be foreign; the U.S. simply uses overwhelming force and waits for the political and military results. The social and cultural results from such actions, however, are the creation of further hatred and loathing for the ChaldoAssyrians, who are unarmed and vulnerable, and if history contains any indication, ripe for massacres. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #2 Phil B - Isn't it already happening in those places? London - The post by "Another Dan" Paris - They'll always have Paris. Detroit - Mosques have flexed power. Munich - Don't know about Munich. Anybody? |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-04 8:39:52 PM |
| #1 No suprise here! Same thing happened/ing in Indonesia, Paleostan, Lebanon, Sudan, etc. I guess the Left will only take notice when it starts happening in Paris, London, Munich, Detroit, etc. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-05-04 8:29:59 PM |