Islamic extremist assault, security force operation leave at least 58 dead.
ISTANBUL, November 2 (CDN) — Amid questions about lax security, mourners gathered in Iraq today to bury the victims of Sunday’s (Oct. 31) Islamic extremist assault on a Syrian Catholic Church in Baghdad, one of the bloodiest attacks on the country’s dwindling Christian community.
Ethnic cleansing in Iraq has caused half of 1.4 million Christians who lived there to leave the country.
Quoting the Assyrian International News Agency, the report said that these Assyrian Christians compose less than 4 percent of Iraq’s population.
They speak Aramaic, a dialect close to what Jesus spoke 2000 years ago, and are descendants of the first converts to Christianity.
Indyposted said that post Sadaam Husssein, many traditional protections that were given to non Muslims are no longer enforced due to various Muslim factions in Iraq.
Ethnic cleansing has taken place through bomb attacks, assassinations, rapes and kidnappings, Indyposted reported.
The report adds that Iraqi Christians who have fled are oftentimes denied asylum in other countries.
Many are living underground in Sweden. According to AINA, Iraqi Assyrians in Sweden are arrested, put in a plane, then flown back to Baghdad.
According to Indypost, instability for Iraq’s Christians has been an outgrowth of the war in Iraq.
The London Telegraphnoted that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has branded Iraq’s religious persecution “of particular concern” and called on the Obama administration to intervene before the ancient religious communities are exterminated.
So far their appeal has not moved Hillary Clinton according to the London Telegraph, adding that “In these paranoid times, to defend Iraqi Christians from their Muslim fellow-citizens could be misinterpreted as an attack on Islam.”
Two bombs were set off within minutes of each other in a Christian populated area in Iraq recently, killing one and injuring 80 others, the Associated Press reported.
The explosions took place in the northern city of Mosul, where a large Christian community resides.
There have been attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents against the Christian minority in Iraq, especially in Mosul.
Some extremist Sunnis view Christians as nonbelievers and believe that Christians support the Shiite-led government, which they oppose.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that minorities including Christians could be caught in the crossfire of longstanding feuds between Arabs and minority Kurds for the area’s oil-rich resources and land, Radio Free Europe reported..
Wisam Jarji, a student who was wounded in the blast said, “I could see blood stains and hear screams all over the place.”
The U.S.-based National Council of Churches sent a letter last week to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to lobby for more protection for Iraq’s Christian community from the government.
They were particularly worried in the aftermath of the March 7 parliamentary elections as various political forces still vie for power, the AP said.
The U.S. Commision on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) noted in its recent 2010 annual report that President Obama has fallen short of doing what he can to lobby for the protection of religious freedom in the world.
The report noted that until now, President Obama has failed to appoint an Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom, a request that was made to him last month in a petition signed by lawmakers, scholars and human rights groups.
The same petition requested that the position be given equal level to other Ambassadors-At-Large who report directly to the Secretary of State, according to The Christian Post.
The USCIRF also noted that under Obama’s watch, no countries have been rated CPC, or “countries of particular concern” for having the worst religious violations.
Such a rating can prompt government action including trade restrictions, sanctions, embargoes, and withholding of military or financial aid, among others, The Christian Post said.
The same report said that the USCIRF, an independent US government commission, made these observations even as it said that with every year the issue becomes less and less important to the White House and the State Department.
The position of Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom, for example, was created in 1998, but it had only been filled in its initial year, and has remained vacant since 1999.
The commission warned Obama that failure to fill the position sent a message to the international community that religious freedom is not an important issue to the American government, the Christian Post said.
The same report noted that USCIRF took issue with the fact that Obama rarely mentioned religious freedom when he visited Ankara and Cairo last year.
Furthermore, Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton replaced the words religious freedom with “freedom of worship.”
The commission said authoritarian governments could skirt the issue by noting that faiths that are okay with them can freely worship.
Credit:svilen001/sxc.hu
They could also permit only token houses of worship for minority faiths.
According to CNN, the USCIRF also reported that:
* Over 24 countries are religious freedom offenders and practice religious persecution.
* Forms of religious persecution may include imprisonment, murder, being fired from jobs, and being kicked out of universities; being forbidden to have bank accounts, driver’s licenses and even birth certificates, among others.
* 13 countries should be rated CPC or “countries of particular concern” because they have the worst religious violations. These countries include Myanmar (Burma), China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Suda, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.
* 12 countries on the watch list are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Venezuela.
* The report has five more countries under CPC rating than does the State Department’s 2009 report, which did not include Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan or Vietnam.
* 3 countries, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka, should be closely monitored.
Specific Countries
* Egypt. Members of the Baha’I faith and minority Muslim sects are imprisoned, fired from jobs, kicked out of universities, and barred from having bank accounts, birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
* Nigeria. A decade of violence between Muslims and Christians in the Jos state recently culminated in 500 men, women and children hacked to death with machetes and dumped into wells.
* China. Cracked down on Uyghur Muslims in the west.
* Iran. Labeled domestic political opponents “enemies of God” which is a capital offense and can merit severing of the head.
* Eritrea. Harassment of Orthodox Church members and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
* Vietnam. Imprisonment of Buddhists and Protestants.
The USCIRF report urged the government to double its efforts to protect international religious freedom and to raise issues of abuse to the highest levels of the world community, the Christian Post said.
“Anything less betrays our history and values, and fails to leverage the extraordinary capacity we have as a nation to promote religious freedom and related human rights for all,” the report said.
Amid mounting extremist attacks, the Christians of northern Iraq unveiled recently a statue of Jesus modeled after the giant Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
Although it is only a 10th of the size of the 130-foot statue in Brazil, it has become a popular shrine for Christian believers in beleaguered Hamdaniya, northern Iraq’s largest Christian town.
The statue stands at Baghdeda’s check point No. 1 at the entrance to the town.
Najib Attallah, head of the checkpoint where the statue stands, said the idea came from his security guards.
“In the past we would set up the crib at Christmas, but the guards wanted to build a statue for Easter that would resemble Christ Redeemer in Brazil,” said Fr. Louis Kassab, chairman of the Committee for Religious Affairs.
With two checkpoint guards devoting 18 hours weekly, plus 20 other volunteers, the construction lasted about a month and a half. The guards were Alaa Nasir Kithya and Amaar Anaya. The project was funded by donations from believers, at a total cost of some 130 dollars.
Violence
Christians in the area are familiar with violence. Bashar Jarjees Habash, the city’s coordinator of Christian affairs said the idea of building the statue was “to send a message …that we want to live in peace with all….even those who fight and threaten them,” he told the AFP.
In February, Human Rights Watch called on Iraq’s government to do more to bolster security and protect Christians after a string of deadly attacks on the community ahead of last month’s elections.
Eight Christians were killed in and around Mosul within 10 days in February, and since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, there has been no letup in persecution for the nation’s 550,000 Christians, most of them Chaldeans.
Pope Benedict XVI condemned the violence against Iraqi Christians in his Easter message this month, and urged authorities to do more to protect the “vulnerable” minority.
SANTA ANA, Calif., July 13 /Christian Newswire/ — At least 11 Christians were killed in attacks in Somalia and Iraq over the weekend.
Al-Shabaab, Somalia’s hard-line insurgents, reportedly beheaded seven Somalis for being "Christians" and "spies."
This news was announced by Reuters News Agency on Friday. The report stated that the incident took place in the south-central town of Baidoa.
In Iraq, the Associated Press reported a car bomb exploded near a church in Baghdad, killing three Christians and a Muslim.
Another Christian was killed in the northern city of Kirkuk. Several more churches were also bombed in Baghdad over the weekend.
The Reuters report from Somalia pointed out that although al-Shabaab has carried out similar severe punishments in regions under its control, these executions allegedly are the largest number done at the same time.
Somalia is believed to have a 99 percent Islamic following. There are only a handful Somali Christians inside the country and they have been forced underground. Some Christians have taken refuge in neighboring countries.
These decapitations follow an incident in Mogadishu on June 25 in which al-Shabaab amputated a hand and a leg each of four teenagers accused of stealing mobile phones and other possessions. With these actions al-Shabaab is extending its reign of terror across Somalia.
Somalia is ranked No. 5 on this year’s Open Doors World Watch List which ranks the top persecutors of Christians. The previous year Somalia was ranked No. 12.
"Those who come to Christ in Somalia do so at a huge risk. Most of them are Muslim Background Believers who face unbelievable pressure and persecution, even death as reported this weekend," said Open Doors USA President and CEO Carl Moeller.
"Somalia desperately needs our prayers as conditions deteriorate. This country needs both physical and spiritual nourishment. Please join me in praying for the tremendous needs of Somalia and for the few brave believers inside the country."
Iraq Christians Living In Fear
The car bomb detonated outside the Virgin Mary Church in east Baghdad. In addition to the four deaths, at least 16 others were wounded in the attack, according to the Los Angeles Times. The paper also reported five other bombs were exploded outside churches around Baghdad on Saturday night and Sunday.
CNN reported a gunman shot and killed Rizko Aziz Nissan on Sunday morning outside his home in central Kirkuk. Nissan was an Iraqi Christian, but the motives behind his killing were not immediately clear since he was also a government official.
One survivor of one of the bombings in Iraq told CNN that "if this [violence]continues, there will be no Christians left in Iraq."
Although it is difficult to state how many Iraqi Christians are in the country, the number in 2003, prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein, was around 550,000. Church leaders in Iraq conservatively estimate that almost 165,000 Christians live outside Iraq – in Syria, Jordan or the West – and that another 70,000 have fled to northern Iraq.
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.
"With U.S. troops pulling back from cities on July 1 and these weekend bombings, Iraqi Christians fear that this could mark a resurgence of anti-Christian violence," said Moeller.
"Christians have always been caught in the crossfire in Iraq. Many have fled the country. We need to lift up in prayer those who remain. They are scared and living in daily fear. Please pray that these bombings will end and believers can worship in peace."
