Posted on 10/14/2004 11:15:09 AM PDT by marshmallow
Fides News Service has sent the following report from Father Nizar Semaan, a Catholic priest in Iraq.
People in Mosul, mostly Christians, are terrified since radical groups act in broad daylight and no one stops them. Their intention is to destroy social harmony and upset peaceful co-existence between Christians and Muslims. The situation is critical and a solution must be found to prevent the worst from happening.
In recent weeks in Mosul Dominican Friars and the Christian community have been told by Sunni Wahabit Muslim groups to take their things and leave. However the few Christians who do decide to go, are finding it very difficult to sell their shops or business in Mosul since the Imam has told Muslims not to buy - but simply to wait until the Christians are chased away and take the shops and businesses for nothing.
When I asked one local Muslim known to be a man of peace the reason for this violence, he said that all the week he is calm but when he goes to the mosque on Fridays and hears the Imam preach violence he loses his reason and feelings of hatred and violence grow in his heart.
More and more Christians have to put up with being insulted and offended on the streets and girl students at university are forced to wear the Muslim veil.
Christians are asking: who will protect us? If we ask the Americans to help we will be called traitors and risk death. If we ask the Kurds to protect us we will be accused of working against unity in Iraq.
Many Muslims of good will in Mosul are don't agree with the threats but are too afraid to speak out.
The mayor warned these groups to stop offending and attacking Christians and we hope something will be done before the situation is out of control.
Quite a few Christians, including rich Christians in Baghdad, are moving away to Syria or Jordan, or to the north where they feel safer with the Kurds. Many engineers, doctors and university teachers are leaving Iraq, after receiving threats. Those who want to stay are told they must pay large sums of money for protection. There is a war on people with talent and those working to improve the situation in our country. The aim of the extremists is to empty Iraq of educated people and businessmen so terrorists can take over and Iraq will be at the mercy of ignorant people and radical Islamic groups.
Security is a problem in large towns and in villages where Christians are a majority. These villages are surrounded by Muslim villages where people are armed to the teeth with weapons which belonged to Saddam's army.
We are not armed because we do not believe in the law of armed force. But how long can Christians resist waiting for death with their arms crossed?
I call on the international civil society and all people of good will to intervene to prevent a massacre. We do not want another Darfur. We must act quickly, the world must know how we suffer.
We want to stay in our country. I wonder what would happen to Iraq if its Christians were to abandon the country? The future would certainly be black, the presence of Christians is a sound contribution towards building a democratic Iraq. "
© Independent Catholic News 2004
Good luck, friend!
Support Iraqi Christians through Voice of the Martyrs, www.persecution.com, or Catholic Near East Welfare, www.cnewa.org.
Same tactic they use in America. They buy a strip shopping center and refuse to renew the leases as they expire. They then move one of their countrymen in to open the same type business in the same space.
The business owners can't sell their businesses because the Muslims won't lease to the new owners.
Many can relocate their business, but many have to go out of business because alternate space isn't available or they can't afford the cost of a new build-out. This is especially true of restaurants, dry cleaners and c-stores with gas.
Usually the Muslims won't even permit the lessees to take their signage if it is attached to the building.
Muslims have no honor when dealing with infidels.
It's too bad those stories aren't reported, but it isn't safe for the Iraqi Christians (or other Iraqi non-evildoers) to talk to the press.
I didn't know they were getting satellite TV - cool! VOM has radio broadcasts and videos and cassette tapes for the Middle East.
My 8-year-old son wants to be a missionary to Iraq!
Oh my, good job, mom!
For heartening (and often heartbreaking) news - Google search, keywords: [Chaplain, Iraq, 2004, (current month)].
He came up with it on his own. My suggestion was early admission to the Marines, or maybe a career in demolition :-).
check out www.aina.org and www.assyrianchristians.com
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