Posted on 12/05/2006 11:40:17 AM PST by Kaslin
Demonstrators at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. tell of 'ethnic cleansing'
Faced with growing repression by Muslims, Christians from an ancient tradition in Iraq are calling on American political leaders for help before their entire community is extinguished.
Christian Assyrians and some of their supporters demonstrated in front of the White House yesterday, highlighting an alarming trend reported by the U.N.: While representing just 5 percent of the Iraqi population, 40 percent of the refugees fleeing the country are Assyrians.
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.
The zone, called the Nineveh Plains Administrative Unit, would allow Assyrians and other Christians to practice their faith, speak and teach their language, and work their land without fear of persecution.
Unlike the Sunnis and Shiites, the Christians have no militia and are completely defenseless, Shea said.
"They need to administrate their own governmental unit to protect themselves," she said. "Otherwise, with the chaos and violence and persecution targeting Christians for religious reasons, which the U.N. has documented, they will disappear.
Shea insisted it's in the interest of the U.S. to take a stand.
With the loss of the highly educated and skilled Christians, she argued, Iraq is "experiencing a brain drain as well as sane drain – a force of moderation and a bridge to the West."
"They have served the U.S. in Iraq nobly, and they will leave a real vacuum," said Shea.
While the Christians in Iraq have been repressed for decades, Shea pointed out, they have suffered more since the war began, with kidnappings, crucifixions and dozen of churches bombed by jihadist terror.
Among the atrocities documented this year:
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 fulfilled 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 noted that the Kurds, who control the north, have been denying the Christian Assyrians many of the benefits that have come from U.S. largesse.
The electric grids created by the U.S., for example, are left to the discretion of local governments to distribute and manage, and the Christians say they aren't getting their fair share. They cite instances of Kurdish villages receiving electricity while neighboring Christian villages are denied service.
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.
She has not received a positive response.
"One of the issues here is that the Christians don't create trouble, they are just victims," she said. "They don't blow up things, so they don't get attention.
Some have told her the U.S. government doesn't want to establish a precedent of favoritism, by responding to special pleadings.
But Shea argues, "It's not favoring one group to make sure they get their fair share of U.S. construction aid.
The White House did not respond to WND's request for comment.
If anyone wants to help, a good way to start would be contacting your local church or diocese and make them aware of the situation the Assyrians are in right now. Together you can come up with ways to assist them. With it being the Christmas season, people are a lot more willing to donate their time and money to help those in need so it's the perfect opportunity to get started and find other volunteers.
Muslim ethnic cleansing. Jews first, Christians second, Shiites / Sunnis (depending) third.
Ping. Prayers for the persecuted...
Oops sorry about that. Now I wonder. Why didn't they face this level of persecution before the invasion. Hmmmmm.....But, but...I bet they've all got a purple finger so that's okay I suppose.....
Again, partition Iraq and Lebanon
Yes, cause Lord knows partioning of existing land to create new nation states worked so well in 1918....wait a minute, where did Iraq's current borders come from again?
*I would prefer 1 million Assyrian Christians in exchange for 1 millions illegal Mexicans*
You are so correct. Here in San Diego we have over 30,000 Iraqis, most are Chaldean (Christian) and are educated,work, etc.
We also have tens of thousands of illegal Mexans in San Diego. Work, education, HA! not when they are handed everything at tax payer expense and are not motivated to begin with.
It's the Muslims' fault, but it's ours too. We opened this Pandora's Box, these people were in no special danger before we got there.
I think God can forgive a 14-year-old for failing to give a theologically correct statement whilst being mobbed and murdered by members of the Religion of Peace.
I guess letting 9500 Muslims from Russia move to the US because of persecution in Russia wasn't establishing a precedent of favoritism!! With each passing day I am more disgusted with President Bush and some of his stupid policies. People are dying because of them. We should have allowed the Christians to move to America, instead of forcing them to stay where they will all surely be killed. At least they were safe when Saddam was in control.
F**king Islamoanimals...
See my tag line.
We have 11 children, two of them married so far.
We are Christian.
Eighth grandchild on the way.
.
Ah I see. It's acceptable to break up a nation if you take into account all social aspects? Gotcha.
You seem quick to point out the mistakes, so what is your solution to the endless sectarian and ethnic violence?
Hmmmm, wait a second...oh I know the answer to this one. Stop interfering in the internal affairs of other nation states? If they want to hammer it out, let 'em. If they don't, that's their business. I can't wait until the next 'conservative' (probably Bush) recommends we get involved in Darfur. It's 'for the children' don't you know?
After which Saddam promptly spat in our faces by invading Kuwait, undertaking the development of chem/bio weapons, and beginning work on a nuclear weapon.
But, really, our biggest problem is that, with Saddam now deposed, we've got 50,000 wannabe Saddams running around loose, with easy access to weapons and willing cohorts, and we've NOT got the latitude our troops on the ground need to hunt them all down and kill them.
Southwesterners know, when you get too many rattlers, you call a hunt, and let folks that want to come in and wipe 'em out by the umpteen thousands. We've got to treat Iraq, er, correction -- we SHOULD HAVE treated -- the insurgent/jihadist infestation in Iraq in exactly the same way -- BEFORE we transferred control to the provisional government.
NOW, however, it's probably too late. Because we kow-towed to domesting morons and rushed the transfer of control, we very likely cannot achieve the goal of handing over a stable Iraq to an elected, democratic government.
We botched the job, franlky, by ranking the establishment of an Iraqi government ahead of completely stabilizing the country.
We continue to blow it by believing that we can, by pure virtue of excellent training, perform the Iraqi equivalent of building an interracial police force in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1866.
We ain't got the 'sand' to make it real.
We can ONLY ultimately win -- that is, give the Iraqi people a stable, free, democratic country -- if we put the present government on 'hold' and get down to big bad and tyrannical with every sand rat we find until they've all been bled into the dust. Brutal, violent annihilation is the only langaue these jihadi freaks understand, and our stupidity has been in mistaking THEM for people who a) ARE civilized or b) WANT to be civilized. They are neither, and as long as they exist, they will be an uncivilizing and destabilizing pox on the whole region. Without their being made to vanish, Iraq will never be either stable or free.
>but why did the kid say he was not a sinner?<
Because he was a kid? A kid who tried to be good?
May he rest in the arms of the Lord.
This is so sad. These Moslems are fanatics. Nobody mentions the once large Iraqui Jewish population which was forced to flee for its life.
Nobody was safe under Saddam.
All of what you said, plus, he was a 14 year old kid, not an expert on theology.
When asked if youre a dirty anything, the instinctive response of most teenagers is an antagonistic one.
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