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To: RitaOK
Actually this is a direct result of the 2003 Bush war WON
In Iraq, Christians numbered about 1,500,000 in 2003, representing just over 5% of the population of the country. They numbered over 1.4 million in 1987 or 8% of the population.[1] After the Iraq War, it was estimated that the number of Christians in Iraq had dropped to less than 450,000 by 2013[2] - with estimates as low as 200,000.[3]

As of 21 June 2007, the UNHCR estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighbouring countries with a large majority of them Christians, and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.[11][12] A 25 May 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq were granted refugee status in the United States.[13] After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians rose, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings.[14] Some Christians were pressured to convert to Islam under threat of death or expulsion, and women were ordered to wear Islamic dress.[14]

In August 2004, International Christian Concern protested an attack by Islamists on Iraqi Christian churches that killed 11 people.[15] In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded and mutilated despite payment of a ransom, and in 2008, the Assyrian clergyman Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul died after being abducted.[14] In January 2008, bombs exploded outside nine churches.[14]

In 2007, Chaldean Catholic priest Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni and subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed were killed in the ancient city of Mosul.[16] Ganni was driving with his three deacons when they were stopped and demanded to convert to Islam, when they refused they were shot.[16] Ganni was the pastor of the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and a graduate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome in 2003 with a licentiate in ecumenical theology. Six months later, the body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, archbishop of Mosul, was found buried near Mosul. He was kidnapped on 29 February 2008 when his bodyguards and driver were killed.[17]

Christianity in Iraq

Of course things went from bad to worse under Obama.

14 posted on 09/19/2014 11:44:21 PM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Evolution!)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode
In August 2004, International Christian Concern protested an attack by Islamists on Iraqi Christian churches that killed 11 people.[15] In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded and mutilated despite payment of a ransom, and in 2008, the Assyrian clergyman Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul died after being abducted.

Point taken.

17 posted on 09/19/2014 11:55:32 PM PDT by dr_lew
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