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And the two sisters in this story were denied admission to Australia -- precisely the sort of thing Fred Nile recently called attention to. Islamic Tolerance Alert. "In Jordan, Christians from Iraq harassed," by Dale Gavlak for Associated Press:
AMMAN, Jordan - Iraqi sisters Nasrin and Rihab enjoyed a relatively peaceful life in Baghdad until the night almost a year ago when militiamen tortured and beheaded their only brother.
Then came threatening phone calls, said the sisters, both members of Iraq's small Christian community. And not long afterward, armed men broke into their home and beat them.
They "started hitting us, pulling our hair and pounding on my sister's stomach with their boots," wailed Nasrin, now 51, in an interview in their tiny apartment in Amman.
Rihab's gallbladder burst, and blood came out of her mouth, the sisters recalled. She was rushed to a hospital and when she recovered, with a large scar still across her middle, the two fled to Jordan.
"We escaped after that. They vowed to kill us," said Rihab, 56, who like her sister would not allow her family name to be used for fear of more attacks.
Their story is a chilling reminder of troubles faced by minority Christians in Iraq amid sectarian fighting between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Churches have been bombed, and businesses — particularly hair salons and liquor shops _destroyed.
As a result, many Christians have joined the flood of Iraqis fleeing their country. There are an estimated 750,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan, including about 2,000 Christians. An additional 1 million Iraqis have fled to Syria.
Jordan has been especially worried about the influence of Shiite refugees, who are seen as a menace to the country's security and predominantly Sunni character. But Christians — most are Chaldean Catholics — have also faced a tough time here.
Rihab and Nasrin, who have put several locks and deadbolts on the door of their two-room apartment, say they are haunted by memories of Baghdad.
Militants kidnapped their brother, Muhanna, tied him up in a deserted house and tortured him, then killed him.
"He tried to call us from his phone, but the line went dead," Rihab said. "They took his cell phone and made threatening calls to us. .. We realized that something terrible had happened."
Police later discovered his body.
"Now we have no one at all to care for us and protect us," wept Rihab, clutching pictures of the bloody body.
The sisters, neither married, can barely afford their $200 monthly rent here. They have no family left in Iraq. A niece lives in Australia; the sisters were recently denied permission to settle there.
"I help an old woman. ... I'm tired. ... but we trust in God," said Nasrin.
Rihab believes Christians no longer have a future in Iraq, and thinks militants targeted her family because of their faith.
"'We will kill you, like we killed your brother,'" she said the militants threatened, over the phone, after the brother's death. "They shouted obscenities at us, telling us, 'You are Christians.'"
Afterward, the family home was attacked and they fled.
Leila Salman, a Christian whose two daughters were killed by Shiite militiamen last year, is also now living in Jordan and is grim about the future.
Her daughters, Linda and Rita, both in their 20s, were killed when men fired on a minibus taking workers home from a U.S. military facility in Baghdad. The two had washed clothes and worked at a dispensary for the U.S. military.
"We're being persecuted because the allied forces are Christian, and they think we are collaborators," their mother said.
Posted by Marisol at March 15, 2007 2:15 PM
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Muslims are practising ethnic cleansing, just look at any country where they become a majority...christians and other Non Muslims become past history..
this is why you do not want them in your neighborhood....ban Muslim immigration now...
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at March 15, 2007 2:30 PM
Get Prince Charles on the case! It's probably just a bit of a mix up. He keeps telling us islam is so peaceful (he never has any bother).
Posted by: Celsius at March 15, 2007 4:10 PM
Perhaps Catholic Charities, other Christian denominations and Jewish relief organizations can bring some of the beleaguered Iraqi and other middle eastern Christians to the US. If you are a Catholic, why not speak to your priest or bishop to see what can be done to help these poor folks.
Posted by: eve_anne_gelical at March 15, 2007 4:25 PM
A niece lives in Australia; the sisters were recently denied permission to settle there.
This is what Rev Nile was alluding to - the ongoing persecution of Christians in Muslim nations, and that Australia should offer assistance to such people. But as we see, Christians find it difficult to get into the West. If they had been Muslims though, there would be no problem at all. In the UK, we have a positive discimination policy for Muslims - or atleast it appears to be so.
at March 15, 2007 6:50 PM
Lebanon should be made the Christian homeland in the Middle East. These Christians should be swapped with Muslims from Lebanon.
Turkey: Christian Armenian Genocide Sources
Turkey cleansed itself of Christians.
It is false to say that Christians and Jews have less of a claim to a land in the Middle East than Muslims. It is also false to claim they have not been cleansed from every land. Both Christians and Jews have a right to their own homelands in the Middle East. These should be greater Lebanon and Greater Israel, with a swap out of Muslims.
In the case of Greater Israel, Jews already had to flee from Muslim lands, so they should now finish the swap by taking the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. There is no other way than a Jewish homeland in Greater Israel and a Christian homeland in Greater Lebanon for these peoples with over 2000 years of history in these lands to stay there.
Christians have already been forced out from many lands, it is time for Muslims in Lebanon to leave so as to balance the historic injustices done them. Iraqi Christians should go to Lebanon. Send the Shiites from Lebanon to Iraq or Iran.
There can not be justice to these two historic groups, Christians and Jews, in the Middle East but that each has its own homeland and that Muslims be swapped out. The Christians and Jews have been Dhimmied out for centuries so that the time to balance this centuries old cleansing is at hand and is achieved by Muslims leaving Lebanon and Greater Israel.
Posted by: Old Atlantic at March 15, 2007 8:22 PM
It is ahistorical to say Christians and Jews have no place in the Middle East by right. But in fact, this is what is happening and has been happening since 633 AD. All the cleansing and Dhimmi Cleansing from 633 AD are ignored by Muslims as if they never happened.
Baker Hamilton should have acknowledged this historic truth as necessary for fairness in the Middle East.
at March 15, 2007 8:26 PM
It is false to say that Christians and Jews have no place in the Middle East. It is equally false to say that they will have a place without each having their own separate homelands in the Middle East. Those are Lebanon for Christians and Greater Israel
for Jews.
Why? The Muslims won't let them live with them, as shown by the centuries of Dhimmicide. Thus the Christians and Jews must have countries of their own in the Middle East to have a place there in fact and not just a right to one in law.
Posted by: Old Atlantic at March 15, 2007 9:33 PM
I agree with Old Atlantic. Lebanon should be an internationally recognized homeland for all Christian minorities throughout the Middle East. But, with the strangle-hold that Muslim countries has on the UN, I have only a small hope that such a solution could or would happen. Unfortunately, the US presence in Iraq treats the non-Muslim minorities as inconvenient details in their larger vision of the Sunni/Shiite country of peace.
Posted by: maryrose at March 15, 2007 10:04 PM
IN Australia our prosperity relies on having a huge block of land 95% the area of 48 states USA for a population of 20 million. We have vast energy and mineral resources, and as much of the world's uranium as Saudi has of the world's oil.
Our prosperity is based on selfishness.
Shame on us...
Fred Nile is up for re election this Saturday. He seems a lone voice on these matters.
Posted by: payingattention at March 16, 2007 5:23 AM
As likely as not, immigration officials tend to treat any Iraqis or other middle eastern nationals who wish to immigrate as having a more-or-less equal claim to fear of persecution. And there is some truth to that, but only some.
And, given the extent to which Muslim fundamentalists managed, over the last decade or two, to land in various western countries by crying persecution, I can see why caution is involved.
Two things have to be done here. 1) immigration laws and the officials who administer them have to catch up with the times we live in; and 2) western governments have to impose serious sanctions against countries that don't protect their minorities from persecution.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at March 16, 2007 8:01 AM
"Iraqi sisters Nasrin and Rihab enjoyed a relatively peaceful life in Baghdad until the night almost a year ago..."
I know a lot of people at this site don't like me pointing this out but the above can also be read to say: "Christian Iraqi sisters Nasrin and Rihab enjoyed a relatively peaceful life in Baghdad as long as Saddam and his secular Ba'athists were in power."
Although a nominal Muslim (and that only for public consumption) Saddam did not believe in Sharia at all. Other than Christians who filled the ranks of the Ba'ath administration, the only people Saddam could trust were fellow member of his Tikriti tribe. Now both the Christians and the Tikritis have been decimated thanks to the US and Britain and Iraq has been transformed into an Islamic state. I rarely pray for a dead Muslim but may Saddam's memory be eternal!
Now that the Ba'athist secular hope for Christian safety has been destroyed, we should loudly demand that the Assyrian homeland in northern Iraq be declared an independent Christian state.
Posted by: Provoslavni at March 16, 2007 10:54 AM
I will go along with Provoslavni's remarks only to the question around whether Iraq is better off now without Saddam than it was before he was deposed.
I find the suggestion that Saddam's "memory be eternal" repugnant, beyond a comparison with Hitler.
Pray for yourself, not for dead dictators.
Posted by: payingattention at March 16, 2007 9:19 PM
payingattention,
I don't think it's regugnant at all. I hope the Iraqis all remember him and in doing so, remember how much better off they were under his secularist regime. Then maybe they'll rise up and overthrow the mullahs who are now in power.
Posted by: Provoslavni at March 17, 2007 12:25 PM
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