Iraqi Christians are targets of cleansing, committee told

The Ottawa Citizen ^ | June 18, 2008 | Jennifer Green

[forkinsocket]

Muslim militants are crucifying children to terrorize their Christian parents into fleeing Iraq, a parliamentary committee studying the persecution of religious minorities heard yesterday.

Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents.

One infant was snatched, decapitated, burned and left on his mother's doorstep, the committee was told.

Filham Isaac, speaking for the Nineveh Advocacy Committee, told the human rights committee that Iraqi Christian churches were bombed, clergy murdered and unveiled Iraqi women raped or scarred with acid.

It's part of a systemic -- and very effective -- campaign to ethnically cleanse the area of any non-Muslims, he said. Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, known as Chaldo-Assyrians, were once the largest Christian minority in Iraq. They are also the oldest, descendants of ancient Mesopotamians who adopted Christianity in the first century.

The Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Church of the East are among the Christian churches in Iraq.

Today, about 300,000, or one in three, is a refugee, he said.

"It's at a crisis point," Mr. Isaac's colleague, Zaya Oshana, said later. "Christians will be completely annihilated."

Yet, the Chaldo-Assyrians do not want to leave their country en masse.

Instead, they are asking for help to settle the Nineveh Plains, in northwest Iraq, where they can have some independence and form their own state. The land is rich there, and there may be oil, too.

There is some support in the United States and Europe for this independent area, and international news reports indicate more than 700 police officers have begun training to protect the Christians in Iraq, but another 4,000 would be needed to fully secure the region and establish checkpoints on all highways and roads leading into the villages.

The committee also heard from the Ahmadiyya, an offshoot of Islam that began in India about 100 years ago. Ahmadi Muslims differ from mainstream Muslims on their views of Jesus, and on their interpretation of jihad, which they say must be non-violent.

However, they told the committee that they are increasingly persecuted in Pakistan, where they are told they are not Muslim at all and, therefore, their beliefs are an insult to Islam.

Nadeem Siddiq, general counsel for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Community of Canada, told the committee the Pakistani government has been capitulating to mullahs who call them a "cancer" and forbid them from carrying out their prayers, or even mentioning Allah on their wedding invitations.

"They say by 'posing' as Muslims, we hurt real Muslims. The mullahs are still not happy. They want our properties confiscated and they want us charged."

Coptic Christians from Egypt had much the same story, with young girls regularly kidnapped, raped or forced to marry Muslim men. Despite these difficulties, there is no mechanism to claim refugee status in the beleaguered countries. Sam Fanous, of the Canadian Coptic Association, told the MPs that the Canadian Embassy in Cairo needed Canadian, not area Muslim, staff to evaluate refugee claims.

The committee passed a motion to research the issue further and to call for more testimony from minorities suffering religious persecution worldwide.

[forkinsocket]

.

[nobama08]

Muslims are sub-human.

[bboop]

Oh, gee, nice to be fighting for THESE craven sub-humans to have a free country....

[2banana]

I am sure we will see this on the front cover on the NYT any day now...

[Diogenesis]

This was covered on all the MSM tonight, right?

Never mind.

[Kolokotronis]

I am a little bit surprised there was no mention here of that other American taxpayer subsidized, beloved of the neo-cons “country”, Kosovo. I am truly astonished that real Americans, especially those here on FR, can so blindly support a foreign policy which has lead to these Mohammedan atrocities at the hands of our “allies” quite literally everywhere we have become involved where there is a Mohammedan majority. I know it is within the nature of Mohammedans to act this way, but its beyond me why we stand by while Christians are killed, sometimes as in Kosovo actually protecting the perps, all the while financing them with our own money and then cheer the demons in Washington, past and present and future, who devised this policy.

[ken21]

the carter, reagan, bush, clinton, and bush administrations

have allowed lebanon to lose its christians also.

imo we should have stood the ground in lebanon.

[TASMANIANRED]

New age of maryters.

[444Flyer]

This is grievous. I have heard these stories before but they are no less shocking and horrible.

[eleni121]

BUMP!

[eleni121]

And we send more of our heroes to fight for these bastards...and we hail another Islamic pseudo state in Europe that does the same to Christians namely Kosovo.

What the hell has happened to our nation's foreign policy? Have we become that dhimmified and subservient to our masters the Saudis?

[Cronos]

ping

[happygrl]

I say, give all the visas available to those in these Middle Eastern countries of persecuted faiths, get them out of there, and let the Hammer drop on the rest who don’t know how to play nice.

[Kolokotronis]

“Have we become that dhimmified and subservient to our masters the Saudis?”

In a word, yes.

[NYer]

BOMBED CHURCHES IN IRAQ

Rather than repeat what is already available about absolute numbers and percentages of Christians emigrating, we direct our readers to two Web sites with such information. They are "Disappearing Christians in the Middle East " at: http://www.danielpipes.org/pf.php?id=1050 and "The Oppression of Middle Eastern Churches" at: http://www.foigm.org/IMG/phares.htm For English translations of inflammatory anti-infidel agitation & propaganda emanating daily from mosque & media in the Middle East, see the Web site of the Middle East Research Institute at: http://www.memri.org See also our page entitled Islam & the Church at: http://www.byzantines.net/epiphany/islam.htm and the books referenced below in footnote [8]

 

CHRISTIAN FLIGHT FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

[Romulus]

Surely no one could have seen this coming.

[redgolum]

Makes you wonder just whose side we are fighting for.

Funny thing though, in the Smithsonian magazine (my mother in law gave me a subscription as a gift), it talks about the “Saudi/American foreign policy” vs the “Syrian/Iranian” one.

Pretty honest there.

[jyro]

Islamic militants are who does this and that’s who we are fighting and killing daily. Islamic militants are al Qaeda. The surge has them on the run and Iraq is a better place with them dead.