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=> We may be Witnessing a New Age of Christian Persecution

We may be Witnessing a New Age of Christian Persecution
Posted by Marcello (Guest) georgiomalik@yahoo.com - Sunday, January 2 2011, 2:41:20 (UTC)
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We may be Witnessing a New Age of Christian Persecution
by Mark Seddon Jan. 1, 2011 (Independent UK)

In villages and monastaries in northern Iraq, and in churches in
Baghdad, Irbil and Mosul, it is still possibel to hear Assyrian
Christians talking and praying in ancient Aramaic, said to be the
language of Christ. Fewer in number now, the Assyrians are the
direct descendants of the empires of Assyria and Babylonia, the
original inhabitants of Mesopotamia. The Church of the East, currently presided over by Archbishop Gewargis Sliwa in Baghdad is the world's oldest Christian
church.

Before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Christian
population numbered some one and half million. By and large,
Saddam's Ba'athist government didn't discriminate against the
country's minorities; indeed, Iraq's veteran Foreign Minister,
Tariq Aziz was the most visible of the country's Christians.
Today, barely, 400,000 remain, with church leaders claiming that
organised ethnic cleansing is taking place, unchallenged. Iraq's
Christians have in the past been accused of collaboratin with
Britain and America, and while both Sunni and Shia political
leaders say they want Iraq's Christians to remain, some church
leaders are urging their remaining flock to abandon Iraq before it
is too late and they are massacred

If al-Qaida has its way, this ancient culture and people will
soon be no more. In recent days, grenade and bomb attacks
killed two more Christians and injured 18 more in Baghdad.
Motorcyclists drove down streets, targeting Christian homes.
Back in October, suicide bombers attacked the Church of Our
Salvation in Baghdad, killing 58, before - and this was unreported
at the time - along with a child hostage, at the altar. In a
statement afterwards, al-Qaida said: "Christians are a legitimate
target."

Tensions between Muslims and Christians are not confined to
Iraq: yesterday morning, at least seven people were killed and
24 injured in an explosion at a Coptic Christian church, possibly
a retaliation for the rape of a Muslim girl.

Several years ago, I helped set up Save the Assyrians, to put
pressure on Iraq to protect its minorities. The campaign had
all-party support in Britain and a role in persuading the
European Parliment to work with the Iraqi authorities to
acknowledge the rights of Iraq'a Christians. Britain has a
special resposibility towards the Assyrians, who helped the
British to police Iraq in the early years of the last century.
Thousands were massacred in 1932 for "collaborating".

Now, Iraq's remaining Christians want an autonomous Christian
province in their ancient Ninevah Plains homeland in northern
Iraq. While Britain or the US many not help their cause, for
obvious reasons, the UN, EU and Commonwealth could add their
no inconsiderable weight. President Talibani of Iraq declared
in November that he had "no objection to a Christian province
in Iraq". One Assyrian in exile in Britain, however, told me,
"They keep talking, but nothing happens."

There is a widespread view among the Iraqi Christian diaspora that
their government is simply allowing what some now see as as inevitable
and unstoppable exodus of one of the world's most ancient civilisations.

Al-Qaida will have judged that a continuing campaign of terror could
send Iraq's remaining Christains fleeing within a decade. The terrible
irony is that the fate of Iraq's ancient Christian communities may have
been sealed when the avowedly Christian leaders of Britian and America
decided to topple Saddam Hussein.



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