Posted on 04/18/2007 10:53:00 AM PDT by kellynla
Christians in a Baghdad neighborhood are being required to pay a "protection tax" because Muslims have begun enforcing an Islamic law demanding either the tribute – or conversion to Islam, according to Christians in Iraq.
The report from the Assyrian International News Agency follows on complaints from Iraqi Christians that they have been caught in a no-man's land between the Coalition forces and Muslim militants in Iraq, watching as their churches have been bombed, and men and women assaulted and killed.
The newest report said Muslims in the Dora neighborhood are forcing Assyrians, who also are known as Chaldeans and Syriacs, but who largely are Christian, to pay the jizya, the poll tax demanded by the Quran.
Christians – and Jews – must pay the tax "in exchange for being allowed to live and practice their faith as well as being entitled to 'Muslim protection' from outside aggression," the agency reported.
(Story continues below)
The news agency said elements of Al-Qaida have moved into the region, and there is no evidence of any security forces, either from the Iraqi national armed services or Coalition forces being led by the United States.
In one section of the region, "people have been warned by these insurgents to uninstall the satellite dishes since this is 'haram' [forbidden] is Islam," the report said. "Where Christians live in Hay Al-Mualimeen [teachers quarter] and Hay Al-Athorieen [Assyrian quarter] is where they are telling people to convert, leave, pay 'jizya' taxation," AINA reported.
According to an e-mail uncovered by the agency, one person reported that it has been going on for some time.
"We talked to many people within the American Embassy and Iraqi Government, but it seems nobody really cares, because they have done nothing, or sometimes I wonder if they care at all," said the e-mail, from an unidentified resident in the region.
"Neither the Iraqi nor the U.S. Army have any activity there, and they have delivered Dora to insurgents; and above all the U.S. Army went and put a camp in the Chaldean church [Babylon Theology College] to raise the hate among those Muslims toward Christians, as they are seeing them [as] allies for Americans, and that worsened things more."
Another Syriac, now a refugee in Syria, confirmed the actions. "Today a family [name withheld] arrived from Dora/Mualimeen street, and they said some terrorists knocked on their door and when they opened the door they were told to either pay money [jizya] or support the insurgents or convert to Islam, or leave the house within 24 hours or else be killed," the individual said.
AINA had reported several weeks earlier that the practice was beginning. The organization said then that "at least" two cases had been reported to the government in which Christian Assyrian wives had been ordered to go to a certain mosque and make payments, which "they did out of fear."
"The stated reason for the payment was 'we do the fighting and you pay to support,'" AINA said.
Such tributes have been collected since the arrival of Islam in 630 A.D., but the last systematic collection by the Turks came to an end in 1918 when the Ottoman empire was defeated and partitioned at the conclusion of World War I.
A report from Assist News said that the names of the individuals who have spoken up were being withheld to protect them from retaliatory actions.
Christians in Iraq repeatedly have sought help from American political leaders, demonstrating in front of the White House just a few months ago to highlight the persecution under which they suffer. Although they represent just 5 percent of the Iraqi population, 40 percent of the refugees fleeing Iraq are Christian.
One of the speakers at the rally, Nina Shea of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom in D.C., told WND that because of the "ethnic cleansing," the Christians want an autonomous district in Iraq they can administrate.
Among the atrocities documented just in recent months:
Father Paulos Eskandar, of Mor Afrem Syriac Orthodox Church, was kidnapped Oct. 9 by Muslims and decapitated two days later. He was murdered despite Christians fulfilling a demand to post a text on the church doors condemning the pope's statement about Islam.
On Oct. 4, a car bomb detonated in a Christian area and killed nine people, including Georges Zara, member of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac National Council.
A 14-year-old boy was crucified and stabbed in the stomach, mimicking what was done to Jesus, in Albasra.
On Oct. 21, in Baquba, a group of veiled Muslims attacked a workplace where a 14-year-old boy named Ayad Tariq worked. The men asked the boy for his identity card. After seeing he was Christian the men asked whether he was a "dirty Christian sinner." Ayad answered: "Yes, I am Christian, but I am not a sinner." The rebels yelled he was a dirty Christian sinner and continued to grab him and to scream, "Allahu, Akbar! Allahu, Akbar!" The boy then was decapitated.
In August, 13 Assyrian Christian women in Baghdad were kidnapped and murdered.
In January, churches were bombed in Basra and Baghdad. Shea said she has been raising the plight of the Iraqi Christians with the U.S. government for several years, including in a face-to-face meeting with President Bush in her role as a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Dear Editor:
“Muslim Spain was a perfect example of a flourishing society in which Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in mutual respect and cooperation.”
Muslim Spain was Christian Spain for over 400 years before being conquered by Islamic Armies in the 8th Century. That is the way the Islamic Religion has been historically spread, though military invasion and occupation. Treatment of conquered people has the same goal, the minimizing of other religions and conversion of the indigenous people. Among other rules for non Muslims in Muslim Spain; Christians and Jews could not bear arms — Muslims could; Christians and Jews could not ride horses — Muslims could; Christians and Jews had to get permission to build or fix places or worship — Muslims did not; Christians and Jews had to pay certain taxes which Muslims did not; Christians could not proselytize — Muslims could; Christians and Jews had to bow to their Muslim masters; Christians and Jews had to live under the laws set forth in the Koran, not under either their own religious or secular law; Christian’s and Jew’s word in a court of law was not equal to a Muslim’s Word; Christian and Jewish families had to give up a son for conversion and military service in Muslim armies and the most beautiful and largest Christian Churches were converted to Mosques. And the list goes on.
Today, 1300 years later, a Christian or Jew living in an Islamic country will still have to live nearly under these very same laws. I can see why the head of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations would want us all to do “our part” to create such a world.
Regards,
2banana
Iraq, Bush’s worst decision.
The media is silent on discrimination in the muslim world.
Discrimination in South Africa was front page news. Lately Jimmy Carter and others have proclaimed Israel to be an Apartheid State. Islamic states practice genuine discrimination. Jews cannot even enter the country of Saudi Arabia. Non-muslims cannot enter the cities of Medina and Mecca. Non-muslims have fewer rights and protections under Islamic law.
No genius, this is not what we fight for.
This is the result for not fighting aggressively and with numerous troops (Iraqi or Coalition). The article indicated it’s terrorists brutalizing citizens in areas with no security forces.
The rebuilding of Iraq, perhaps. But not the decision to topple Saddam from power.
The difference between why war in Iraq and not Iran are many broken treaties. Saddam could’ve avoided war by stepping down.
If it was wiser to have Saddam in power because he kept down “terrorism” then perhaps we should adopt his methods for keeping terrorism down.
Maybe it is time to pull our forces out of Iraq and just give it the glass-floored, self-lighting parking lot treatment.
Clever of you to say that now.
By name, Islam is a religion. As it is practiced in too many areas of the world, it is really no different than any other organized crime operation, mafia, cartel, etc.
As in Kosovo, we are sowing the seeds of a new Caliphate.
So we should point out that Islam is an apartheid religion, as detailed in 2banana's letter.
We are not fighting in Iraq for the Iraqis we are fighting for our freedom and our way of life and those of our children, grandchildren, and many generations to come. We are fighting in Iraq because it is in Iraq where the world wide islamic terrorist movement has decided to take a stand and fight us to death. It is in Iraq where we are annihilating the terrorists by the tens of thousands. We cannot leave Iraq before we crush the terrorist there, if we do the consequences will be worst than any nightmare we can ever imagine.
If memory serves me correctly, isn't this in accordance with islam's practice of dhimmitude?
I’d pay the tax in hot lead.
Saddam treated Christians no worse than he treated Muslims.
Ok. Sorry for that.
When Americans break, Americans rebuild.
A poster said 'Iraq--Bush's worst decision'. Given what information was available at the time and the circumstances of the time, the decision to invade Iraq in order to meet a growing threat (and not to liberate its people as wrongly thought by many) despite almost universal opposition, is what makes Bush one of the greatest presidents in this country's history.
We can all now sit and criticize this and that and wonder if the threat was legitimate, but thats not the point. The point is Bush was faced with a circumstance that required immediate action and he ACTED. Thats what a presidency is about.
Jimma Cotta needs a padded cell! Why is this loose cannon allowed to interfere in matters of state?
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