http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20879483,00.html
"Muslim boys urinated on Bible"
Cameron Stewart
06dec06
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "TWO Muslim students have been expelled from an Islamic school in Melbourne for urinating and spitting on a Bible and setting it on fire.
The explosive incident has forced the East Preston Islamic College to call in a senior imam to tell its 650 Muslim students that the Bible and Christianity must be respected."
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The Bible desecration took place last week at a school camp held near Bacchus Marsh, about 50km west of Melbourne, attended by 33 teenage Muslim boys ranging in age from Year7 to Year 10.
A school report of the incident, obtained by The Australian, says it happened late at night and involved three students and another two watching.
"The main perpetrator (a Year 7 student) urinated on the Holy Bible, tore some pages from the Holy Book and burnt them then finally spat on the Holy Book," the report says.
The second boy, from Year 9, "tore pages from the Holy Book and burnt them", while a third student, from Year 7, "tore pages from the Holy Bible and then he rolled it up like a cigarette and pretended to smoke it".
The boys come from a variety of ethnic Muslim backgrounds -- one is believed to be an Albanian/Malaysian, another Lebanese and another Indonesian."
PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org
===
===
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s06120022.htm
ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Assyrian Christians ’Most Vulnerable Population’ in Iraq
By Michelle Vu, Christian Post
Special to ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- Assyrians were joined by faith-based leaders and religious freedom activists on Monday, December 4, in a White House rally to call U.S. political leaders to “save” Iraq's “most vulnerable population.”
The rally outside the White House
Christians for Assyrians of Iraq (CAI) organized a rally to raise awareness of the plight of Iraq's Assyrian (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs) Christian population which has been called a humanitarian crisis.
“This should be a priority because Assyrian Christians are the indigenous people of Iraq and many people don't know that,” explained Paul Isaac, one of the rally's organizers. “Because of their small population, weak status, and lack of regional support they have no one to protect them from all the violence.”
Isaac pointed to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) report statistic that although Assyrians comprise only five percent of Iraq's population, they make up nearly 40 percent of the refugees fleeing Iraq. He said that although all the ethnic and religious groups are suffering in Iraq, “it is clear that the Assyrian Christians are suffering by far the most…and they really have no one to protect them…”
In addition to the troubling Assyrian refugee statistic, there has been a rise in reports of persecution of Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Recently, in October, a 14-year-old boy near Mosul died by a crucifixion-murder. In the same month, Father Paulis Iskander was beheaded in Mosul.
“Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East are an inconvenient minority,” said the Rev. Keith Roderick, Christian Solidarity International's Washington representative. “Even though they are indigenous they are made to feel as they are interlopers.”
Roderick added that 27 churches in Iraq have been attacked or bombed in the past two years and 13 Christian Assyrian women were kidnapped and murdered in August.
CAI's solution is the formation of an autonomous zone in Iraq for Assyrians and other Christians. The zone, called the Nineveh Plains Administrative Unit, is likened to a state where Assyrians and Christians can practice their faith, speak and teach their language, and work without fear of persecution.
Note: This story was kindly made available by the Assyrian International News Agency at www.aina.org.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.