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The Christian population in Iraq has been decimated in a little over a decade, dropping from 1.4 million in 2003 to just 275,000 today, according to a report released this month. The recent joint report, compiled by the Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians (IDC), tells a horrific story of a religious and ethnic purge in the Middle East that has produced the systematic eradication of Christians from the territory. Christianity’s roots in Iraq date back as far as the first century and yet now has fallen prey to Islamist militant groups committed to the extermination of Christians.

U.S. at Easter: Ignore the Muslim Slaughter of Over 10,000 Christians and Destruction of 13,000 Churches in Nigeria Par for the course of the Obama administration. March 28, 2016 Raymond Ibrahim    Originally published by the Gatestone InstituteRaymond Ibrahim is a  Shillman Fellow at the Freedom Center Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamic extremist group, has killed more people in the name of jihad than the Islamic State (ISIS), according to the findings of a new report. Since 2000, when twelve Northern Nigerian states began implementing or more fully enforcing Islamic law, or Sharia, "between 9,000 to 11,500 Christians" have been killed. This...

AsiaNews spoke to Josephine, one of hundreds of Christians from Al-Hasakah, who spent a year in the hands of the Islamic State group. She talked about psychological suffering, conversion attempts, and separation from her male relatives. She survived thanks to her faith. Her mother Caroline, a Caritas official, is the only one in her family to have been spared the ordeal. She also negotiated their release with IS, and gave a Jihadi copies of the Bible. Now she hopes “to meet the pope” with her entire family. Damascus (AsiaNews) – Josephine Martin Tamras is a young Assyrian woman. For a...

According to the Obama administration, the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, etc.) is committing genocide against certain religious minority groups — excluding Christian minorities. During a February 29 press briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest was asked: "Is the Islamic State carrying out a campaign of genocide against Syria's Christians?"

White lives do not matter, according to a student debater/activist from the University of West Georgia. Miguel Feliciano, along with fellow West Georgia student Damiyr Davis, reportedly participated in a recent debate with other students at Harvard University. During an exchange with their opponents, Feliciano suggested that white people should kill themselves because of their “white privilege.” The exchange was caught on video and posted on YouTube. [Video] “White life is wrong,” Feliciano was quoted as saying by Infowars.com. “Our argument is that we should never affirm white life. White life is based off black subjugation.” When a white debater...

Secretary of State John Kerry formally declared ISIS' slaughter of Christians, Yazidis and Shia Muslims in Iraq and Syria a genocide this morning, following in the footsteps of Congress and the European Parliament.

The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, reported Wednesday that in only five years of conflict and persecution, the Christian population in Syria has been reduced by two thirds, from 1.5 million to only 500,000 today.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – White lives do not matter, according to a student debater/activist from the University of West Georgia. Miguel Feliciano, along with fellow West Georgia student Damiyr Davis, reportedly participated in a recent debate with other students at Harvard University. During an exchange with their opponents, Feliciano suggested that white people should kill themselves because of their “white privilege.” The exchange was caught on video and posted on YouTube. “White life is wrong,” Feliciano was quoted as saying by Infowars.com. “Our argument is that we should never affirm white life. White life is based off black subjugation.” When a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will miss a deadline set by the U.S. Congress for determining whether Islamic State atrocities against Christians and other religious groups are genocide, but he should have a decision soon, a spokesman said on Wednesday. Congress directed Kerry in legislation passed last year to consult with government agencies and rights organizations and report back to lawmakers on whether atrocities committed by Islamist extremists against Christians and other religious groups should be considered mass atrocities or genocide under U.S. law. The legislation sought a similar determination on whether Buddhist extremists in Burma...

In the Yemeni port city of Aden earlier this month, Islamists attacked a Catholic home for the indigent elderly. The militants, believed to be soldiers of the Islamic State, shot the security guard, then entered the facility where they gunned down the old people and their care-givers, including four nuns. At least 16 people were murdered. Such atrocities are no longer seen as major news events. Most diplomats regard them – or dismiss them -- as “violent extremism,” a phrase that describes without explaining. On America’s campuses, “activists” are deeply concerned about “trigger warnings” and “microaggressions.” Massacres of Christians in...

Pressure is mounting on the Obama administration to take action following a unanimous Congressional vote Monday approving a resolution to designate the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the Mid East by the Islamic State as “genocide.” The resolution, which passed in the House in a 383-0 vote, comes ahead of a March 17 deadline requiring Secretary of State John Kerry to announce a final decision. The designation would legally categorize the targeting, torture, uprooting and slaughtering of Christians, Yazidis and Kurds as "genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity." For the executive branch to officially take a position...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted 393 to 0 tonight in favor of a resolution declaring that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is committing “genocide” against Christians, Yezidis and other religious minorities in the Middle East. The vote on the resolution, which was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R.-Neb.) and co-sponsored 203 other members, brought together as broad a coalition as possible in the House. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (the chairman of the Democratic National Committee) joined with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R.-Texas) in...

When I went to Israel for the first time in the summer of 2014, I visited the Museum of the Bible. Inside I found a Bible from 9th Century Mosul, Iraq, carefully protected behind glass walls. The wood bound Bible’s handwritten and delicate pages, with a Syriac translation of the Gospels, struck me more than the rest of all the history in the museum as the Islamic State continued its march across Iraq, destroying centuries-old Christian sites and executing an entire religious population along the way. According to a study released last year by the charity Aid to the Church...

An Iraqi Christian woman fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul sits inside the Sacred Heart of Jesus Chaldean Church in Telkaif, Iraq, in July 2014. (CNS photo/Reuters) “If this is not genocide, then truly this word has no moral or legal meaning.” That’s according to a Chaldean Catholic priest from Iraq, speaking at a press event today accompanying the release of a new report documenting ISIS atrocities against Christians. The 278-page report is the work of the group In Defense of Christians and the Knights of Columbus, in an effort to convince the US State Department to...

Secretary of State John Kerry has had quite a week recently. On March 1, he admitted that while there may be alleged violations to the Syrian “ceasefire” that he negotiated, which should be tracked down, “there was currently no evidence to suggest it would destabilize the fragile peace.” The Syrian opposition begged to differ with Kerry, and considering that the “ceasefire” that was agreed to by the Russians, who are currently doing most of the bombing in the country, does not actually require them to cease their firing against Syrian groups, including ISIS, al-Nusra and other Syrian opposition militias, they...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Bob Morrison, who served in the Reagan administration.President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have until March 17th to issue a determination that ISIS’ attacks on Christians in the Mideast are genocide. Time is running out. The foot-dragging and hesitancy of this administration in calling it genocide is inexplicable. Why do they have to be prodded to do what is right? All of us have seen the horrific images of 21 Coptic Christians lined up on a North African beach and beheaded. These Egyptian martyrs died with the name of Jesus on their...

The Obama administration says Islamic State’s persecution of Christian minorities in Iraq and Syria is not genocide. The point where it is accurate to term it as such “has not been reached,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press briefing. TrendsIslamic State Asked whether Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) is practicing genocide in its extermination of Christians in Syria and Iraq, Earnest said: “My understanding is the use of that word involves a very specific legal determination that has at this point not been reached. “We have long expressed our concerns with the tendency of – well, not...

Some of Europe's earliest inhabitants mysteriously vanished toward the end of the last ice age and were largely replaced by others, a new genetic analysis finds. The genetic turnover was likely the result of a rapidly changing climate, which the earlier inhabitants of Europe couldn't adapt to quickly enough, said the study's co-author, Cosimo Posth, an archaeogenetics doctoral candidate at the University of Tübingen in Germany. The temperature change around that time was "enormous compared to the climactic changes that are happening in our century," Posth told Live Science. "You have to imagine that also the environment changed pretty drastically."...

Asked on Monday if Islamic State terrorists are carrying out a campaign of genocide against Syria's Christians, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said the word genocide "involves a very specific legal determination that has, at this point, not been reached." He condemned the terrorists' "willingness to target religious minorities, including Christians." Earnest noted that the Obama administration has long expressed its concerns over ISIS/ISIL's "slaughter" of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. ...

Do psychopathic dictators spawn monsters? Jay Nordlinger's answer is a qualified yes. And it's the qualifiers that make Children of Monsters: An Inquiry Into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators such a riveting and informative read. In the easy, elegant style that is to be expected from a senior editor of National Review, Nordlinger coaxes his reader into a universe of evil all the more astonishing for its ubiquity: the twenty men whose offspring he selects for scrutiny span the globe. China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Cuba, Haiti, five African countries (the Democratic Republic of the...