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Another article on the persecution of Christians in Iraq, about which over the years we have posted a distressingly high number of articles. By Aqeel Hussein and Colin Freeman in the Sunday Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:
The snow has already settled on the mountains further north, but the Christians of the Iraqi city of Mosul are scared to put festive decorations outside their homes this year. Their ancestors settled here in the 1st century AD, yet as teacher Jamal Fadi has discovered, some of their Muslim neighbours want this Christmas to be their last. "A letter was delivered to my door with two bullets placed on top of it," said Mr Fadi, 32, standing watchfully in the neat garden of his two-storey villa. "It said: 'Leave, crusaders, or we will cut your heads off.' They want us to go from Mosul completely."After months as a nervous bystander to the spiralling civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Iraq's Christian minority now faces the spectre of sectarian violence coming to their traditional home city. They fear that al Qaeda-backed zealots within the Sunni community, which forms the bulk of Mosul's one million population, want to end nearly 1,500 years of co-existence with an onslaught of ethnic cleansing.
Residents say that the campaign, which they claim has intensified in recent weeks, is prompted by Sunni fears of a complete Shia takeover of Baghdad in coming years. In response, Mosul would be turned into a northern capital for a Sunni-dominated enclave, which would include Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit and stretch south to the anti-American towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.
The fact that no such blueprint has been endorsed by the Iraqi government is of little comfort to Christians. The plan's architects, they fear, are capable of enforcing it themselves through threats and indoctrination alone. For proof, they say, look no further than playgrounds, where Christian and Sunni Muslim children have played together for decades.
"Our children are told by other pupils that they are 'f***ing spies' who have brought the Christian occupation to Iraq," said Father Shamoun Butris, a Christian minister in Mosul. "It is not true, but makes no difference."
Posted by Robert at December 24, 2006 5:32 PM
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"want to end nearly 1,500 years of co-existence.."
--from the article above
What kind of "co-existence"? How was it that the Christians and Jews in the Middle East became, after the lands where they lived were conquered by relatively small numbers of Muslims, steadily islamized until their populations, over time, became Muslim majority, and now, in the Land of the Two Rivers, where Christians and Jews had lived for centuries (in the case of Christians half-a-millennium, and in the case of Jews a millennium-and-a-half) before the arrival of the Muslim Arabs, there are scarcely more than a handful of Christians left.
They may choose to believe in some Golden Age of co-existence, but "co-existence" today implies equality, and the non-Muslims under Muslim rule were never equal to Muslims.
Posted by: Hugh![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 24, 2006 5:50 PM
Either CAIR, and other supposedly "moderate" Muslim groups in the west who profess to be concerned about "bigotry" step up to the plate to address this sort of thing or they can go f**k themselves. We've all seen how quickly Muslims can spread the word among themselves internationally to make a stink about what they perceive as attacks on themselves, no matter how trivial. If they want to prove that they believe in fundamental equality between men, then they can step up to the plate here and rapidly organize some sort of global protest about what is happening to non-Muslims everywhere in the world where Muslims rule. If they won't do it, then they hammer one more nail into their own coffins as Christians and other infidels worldwide will come to despise them and with very good reason. And no number of hastily assembled "Islamophobia conferences" can possibly change that inevitable outcome.
Posted by: Caroline at December 24, 2006 8:17 PM
One good way to celebrate Christmas would be to crucify all supporters of Iraq the model project. That way, this continued enabling of the Mohammedan oppressors by the US would hopefully end.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at December 24, 2006 9:18 PM
OK, so the Iraqi Christians are part of a "Crusaders" plot to invade and conqueror Islamic Iraq. For the Islamic sin of belonging to the same religion as many of the American soldiers, Iraqi Christians must be hunted down and killed. But, how do the followers of the religion of peace explain their same "hunt them down and kill them" policies towards the Iraqi Mandaeans and Yazdis, who are not Christian but who are non-Muslim?
Posted by: maryrose at December 24, 2006 9:50 PM
One good way to celebrate Christmas would be to crucify
What a tasteless comment at this time of year - no doubt from a Non-Christian
Posted by: Voyager at December 25, 2006 12:56 AM
a Muslim idea of coexistence seems to be pay protection money to us, a.k.a.jizha or die. It really seems that Muslims in the Middle East. Remember, the Crusades with horror by then, the Crusaders did hand. The Arabs their heads and stopped when they figure is near Allah given right to sex slaves. And booty from those they considered infidels, and when non-Muslims refuse to bow down and kiss Muslim ass and pay jizha Muslim reaction is to try to kill those Muslims consider infidels, because Islam means submission and any to do not submit and embrace Islam or become dhimmi and pay protection money, a.k.a. a poll tax, known as jizha or be killed
Posted by: islamakapigeaters at December 25, 2006 1:08 AM
The plight of Christians throughout the middle east is all our fault - just ask our seriously testosterone-deficient Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2516916,00.html
Posted by: wallyUK at December 25, 2006 2:04 AM
The best way to celibrate Christmas is to spread the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to pray for the spirtual coming to faith in the Lord Jesus by those who do not believe in Him.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at December 25, 2006 8:12 AM
Despite the hardships of the Middle East Christians, the Christian faith is spreading faster in the global south because of this same good news of hope.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at December 25, 2006 8:14 AM
It's a known fact that standard Islamic conquest occurs in the following order:
1. Small numbers enter the infidel country at first, to gain the country's trust.
2. Hoards begin immigrating to that infidel country, and begin breeding rapidly.
3. When the Muslim population is sufficiently large, they start making unreasonable demands for special treatment. Namely playing the victim card where no persecution exists. Some jihad missions may also ensue.
4. Breed and Proselytize until Muslims are in the majority.
5. Assume control of the country and subject the infidels to Islamic rules: convert, pay jizyah, or die.
Great Britain is currently in stage 3.
Posted by: Truthseeker at December 25, 2006 10:46 AM
The Christians of Iraq should move to australia, us, canada and south america. There they will live in peace and live prosperously. Muslims in Iraq will remain as they always have been ingnorant, poor, corrupt and savage.
Posted by: callmeinfidel at December 25, 2006 6:57 PM
Still, it's nice to know that the plucky Archbishop of Canterbury and his brave Christian warriors in the Church of England are putting up such a ferocious fight for these beleagured people.
It must bring them such comfort, I'm sure.
Posted by: enemyofislam at December 25, 2006 7:49 PM
Callmeinfidel wrote: "The Christians of Iraq should move to australia, us, canada and south america. There they will live in peace and live prosperously."
I strongly disagree! We should not surrender any more to Muslims. The cities of Bethlehem and Ramallah were almost completely Christian 50 years ago and now they are overwhelmingly Muslim precisely because the indigenous Christians did as you suggest above.
Ten years ago, the governor of Mosul was a Christian as were over a third of the Iraqi cabinet, including the prime minister and foreign minister. Christians were favoured by the Ba'athists (an ideology invented by a Christian) since, except for his fellow Tikritis, Saddam didn't trust other Muslims.
Now that the US has conquered Iraq and imposed an Islamic government. They've given us a Stalin-like show trial to execute Saddam and all the Christian officials of Saddam's government have been exiled or imprisoned by the US occupation forces. All we're waiting for now is the US to withdraw and Iran to annex Iraq.
The best solution is a partition of Iraq. The Shi'ite South will go to Iran (better than the whole country). The Sunni middle will probably become a Saudi satelite state. The Kurds will remain US allies for a couple of years until they inevitably return to Islamic rule. Meanwhile the Christians are forgotten.
If there is any justice, we should demand that the Assyrians get their rightful independence. A sovereign Christian state in northwest Iraq would be a safe haven for the region's Christians, Mandeans, and Yezidis. An independence agreement where Assyria and Kurdistan would share the revenues from the Mosul oilfields could also help keep Kurdistan in the Western camp.
Unfortunately, the US is going to insist on a unified "democratic" Iraq which means an Iraq governed by Sharia. The only question is will it be the Saudi or Iranian version. In the meantime, another ancient Christian people faces extermination.
Posted by: Provoslavni at December 28, 2006 5:33 PM
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