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The foreign minister met Pope John Paul II Dec. 13, exactly one year after U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein and less than a week after an Armenian Catholic Church and a Chaldean Catholic bishop’s residence were damaged in an attack by armed men. Zebari also met with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, …

“We’ve been here for hundreds of years. We should be regarded as first-class and not third-class citizens as we were being treated under Saddam’s regime,” said Fouad Boudagh, head of the National Caldani (Chaldean) Council. Iraqi Christians, who make up just three percent of Iraq’s 26 million people, are estimated …

Advertisement In the letter, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux stressed that “some fundamental rights, in particular religious freedom, are not totally respected in Turkey, despite the reforms undertaken,” according to a statement published by the Episcopal conference. As the European Council will be meeting Dec. 16-17, Archbishop Ricard appealed to …

The Independent Electoral Commission extended a Dec. 10 deadline for submitting candidate lists until Dec. 15 after political groups demanded more time to form alliances and pick candidates, spokesman Farid Ayar said. The deadline already had been extended twice before, he added. Sixty-four of the lists came from political parties, …

Members of the churches, one Armenian, the other Chaldean, said gunmen burst in, forced people to leave and set off explosions inside the buildings, damaging them but hurting no one. Smoke poured from the Armenian church and flames could be seen inside the Chaldean church, Reuters reporters said. It was …

Deputy provincial governor Khasro Gouran said one blast struck a church about 2:30 p.m. in eastern Mosul’s Wihda neighborhood, wounding three people. An hour later, gunmen stormed a church in western Mosul, ordering a handful of people outside before bombing it, Gouran said. There were no casualties. The religious denominations …

In an interview, Yonadem Kana, the leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement in Iraq and a member of the Iraqi National Council, said the fighters have been deployed near the northern city of Mosul. “We do not want to transform our movement into a militia,” he said. “But if needed, …

Individuals/ Unabhangige Personen????? 1. Hikmat Hakim Organizations/Parteien ?Christian Democratic Party? CDP (Minas Ibrahim) ? ?Assyrian Patriotic Party? APP (Nimrod Baito) ? ?Chaldean Democratic Union? CDU (Fouad Budagh) ? ?Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union HBA/GHB (Giwargis Khoshaba) ? ?Assyrian Democratic Movement – ADM (Younadam Kanna) ? The Syriac Independent Group (Ishu Majid …

? The presentation entitled ?The Plight of the ChaldoAssyrian Christian Community in Iraq? was co-hosted by the Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Jubilee Campaign. The main speakers were Mr John Michael of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, Miss Shamiran Mako of Human Rights Without Frontiers, Professor Eden Naby of the Assyrian …

“This is the third time our churches — Catholic or Orthodox — have been attacked,” the patriarch told Catholic News Service in a Nov. 9 telephone interview from Baghdad. Car bombers targeted churches in August and again in October. Three people died and more than 30 were injured when the …