The Assyrian Democratic Organization
By: Nick Mackenzie
Baghdad- religiousintelligence — Patriarch Emmanuel III (pictured), who leads the Chaldean Church, has accused the governing coalition in Baghdad of ignoring the plight of the country’s minority Christian population, many of whom have fled the country amid ongoing strife there.
The Partiarch said that Christians were being “chased out of their homes before the very eyes of those who are supposed to be responsible for their safety.” It is known that the number of Christians in the country has fallen by half since 1991.
His call was echoed by other Christian leaders in Iraq, including the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syrian-Orthodox Bishop of Aleppo, who said there was a need to preserve the “social and religious mosaic” of the country.
The situation appears to be most severe in the areas of Mosul and Baghdad, where there are reports that Christians are being pressured to convert to Islam or to pay protection money. If those threats fail, the Christians are forced to leave their homes and belongings. Mgr Gregotios Yohanna Ibrahim from Syria said: “The forced emigration of Christians is terrible and not accepted either by Islam or by Christianity, or by reasonable human beings.”
He warned that “in Iraq, there are those who want to exploit this situation to change the social structure of the country, to implement a specific plan aimed at undermining the national unity of Iraq, the cultural, religious and ethnic mosaic made up of all its citizens.” Some observers say that Iraq’s Christian community has begun to talk about creating a Christian enclave in the Kurdish region.
