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| Iraq |
| Iraqi Christians demand autonomous region, Yazidi minority objects |
| 2011-04-07 |
| (Alarabiya.net) - Iraqi member of parliaments representing Christians demand to form an autonomous area in the country's northern province of djinn-infested Mosul, al-Sumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network reported Tuesday. Iraqi politicians welcomed their demands, and said that an autonomous Christian region should be based upon "new administrative grounds that could be supported by external parties hosting Christian refugees," al-Sumaria TV's website said. Iraqi MPs representing their Christians constituency see their demand as reasonable after the continuous marginalization of their community who were caught between Shiite-Sunni cross-fire ever since the U.S. 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein. Yazidis object Other minorities' representatives mainly by the Yazidis rejected their demands, saying that the Christian component is a minority in these regions and therefore not eligible to form an autonomous presence. Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking people whose religion trace back to the ancient Indo-Iranian roots with a mixture from the Islamic Sufi doctrine. Violence against Christians reached its zenith on October 31, 2010, when al-Qaeda-linked Sunni cut-thoat group, Islamic State of Iraq, grabbed credit of an attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic cathedral of Storied Baghdad. The attack left at least 58 people dead, after more than 100 had been taken hostage. Since the church attack, some 1,000 families have decamped to the north of Iraq, the United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... High Commissioner for Refugees said, and more Christians started fleeing abroad. Christian Iraqis constitute more than a third of their 53,700 country nationals resettled in the United States since 2007, according to State Department statistics. Estimate round up the Christian to be 400,000 to 600,000 in Iraq's 29 million population, down from a prewar level which was as high as 1.4 million by some estimates. Observers fear that minorities' call to preserve their rights could escalate into new rows in Iraq. |
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| #3 tw: It works both ways. Someone once noted that at the border of Poland and Russia, on the Polish side the Jewish homes were made of brick, but on the Russian side, they were made of wood. It was explained to him that by law, the Russians required the homes of their Jews to be made of wood, so that when pogroms were ordered, their houses could be burned. Tearing down brick houses was too much trouble. Then he made the simple observation that there was no real border, so why would any sane person live on the Russian side? "Tradition." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-04-07 18:24 |
| #2 The ghetto walls were originally conceived as defence against rampaging mobs, Anonymoose. They became cages with doors guarded on the outside. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-04-07 16:38 |
| #1 Not just in Iraq, but around the world, Christian minority communities should seek laws permitting foreign Christians to assist them with "specifically non-religious development aid", so that they "will not be an economic burden" to their home country. While indeed there would be some of this, what would not be said is that part of this aid will be in improving security for the Christian areas, to make it much harder for Muslims to persecute them. Send in a platoon of MacGuyver types with some very ordinary looking construction supplies, like anti-blast wall paint, cans of "plastique patch putty", "additives for mud brick", and a bunch of other mundane stuff, and they could make a Christian area pretty impervious to small arms or mobs. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-04-07 10:11 |