Only 57 Churches Left In Iraq; From 300 In 2003

Only 57 Churches Left In Iraq; From 300 In 2003

http://www.christianpost.com/


Iraq had 300 churches and 1.4 million Christians in 2003, but now only 57 churches and about half a million Christians remain with members of the minority fleeing Islamist attacks, according to local reports.

Patriarch Louis Sako of the Chaldean Church told Mideast Christian News the remaining 57 churches also continue to be targeted. The number of Christians has fallen from about 1,400,000 in 2003 to nearly half a million now, added William Warda, the head of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, a registered local non-governmental organization.

This means more than two-thirds have emigrated, Warda said. "The last ten years have been the worst for Iraqi Christians because they bore witness to the biggest exodus and migration in the history of Iraq."

The attack on Our Lady of Deliverance Church by extremists, and other attacks in 2010, contributed to Christians fleeing abroad, according to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Iraqi Christians, one of the oldest communities in the world, have faced several bomb attacks, killings, abduction, torture, and forcible conversion to Islam ever since the U.S.-led liberation war began in 2003.

Around 75 percent of the Iraqi population is Arab, and roughly 15 percent is Kurd. Over 95 percent of all Iraqis are Muslim – 65 percent Shi'a and 35 percent Sunni.

Iraq's politics had largely been dominated by the Arab Sunnis until the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, following which the federal government of Iraq was governed by Shi'ite parties led by the Islamic Dawa Party.

Christians have not only been targeted for their faith by al-Qaeda and related terror groups, but they are also caught in the crossfire of the Arab-Kurd and Shi'a-Sunni conflicts, which rose to new heights after the 2003 U.S. operations.

"The large blocs, unfortunately, have worked to confiscate political decisions in the country after the change, and the changes brought by the Americans did not depend on size, but capacity," a prominent Christian politician, Youkhanna Kanna, was quoted as saying.

"Christians in Iraq, a proportion of all the Christians in the Middle East, are the main builders of this region at all levels and in all fields. They have unquestionably played a significant role in modern Iraq, but what happened after the change is that the sectarian and ethnic system of quotas has allowed large-sized blocs to monopolize political decisions," Kanna said.

The United States should "streamline its Iraq policy to deal with the failure of the federal and Kurdistan governments to protect Christians and other minorities, and to ensure enactment of special laws to prevent impunity after incidents of religiously motivated violence," the World Evangelical Alliance has said.

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department


October 10, 2011 By Edwin Mora

In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan's new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country.

The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the State Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and covers the period of July 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, also states that “there were no Christian schools in the country.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/not-single-christian-church-left-afghanistan-says-state-department

The price of regime change
By David Warren, Ottawa Citizen

There are millions of Christians in Syria, who probably have the Russians and Chinese to thank that they may live there a little longer. The Security Council vetoes, a fortnight ago, on a resolution calling upon Syria's dictator to step down, and supporting an Arab-sponsored plan to "end the violence," put paid to any immediate prospect of western intervention.

The outrage expressed by Hillary Clinton, William Hague, and other western foreign ministers, probably concealed a little relief, for the vetoes provided the excuse they needed to avoid the issue, while continuing to posture about "humanitarianism" and "democracy."
…….


Christians were as common in Syria as in Egypt, before their numbers were immensely swelled by refugees from Iraq - well over a million fleeing up the Euphrates River valley, from anti-Christian persecution by Iraq's Islamists. By now, there could be more than four million Christians within Syria's borders.

When the Assad regime falls, it will be open season on them, on the Alawites, and all the other minorities. Granted, Assad is a monster who has earned an ugly fate. But at what expense should we indulge the fleeting satisfaction of deposing him?


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/price+regime+change/6173293/story.html

Tariq Aziz, Saddam's Foreign Minister was Christian, but he's under a death sentence currently. As far as atrocities against citizens, charges against him were pretty non-existant in that particular area, but I guess you pay for the company you keep.

There are no high ranking Christian officials in the current U.S. supported government in Iraq. Christians lived fairly safely under Saddam as can be gathered from the article. But now that we've "liberated" Iraq, many of them have had to flee for their lives.

Ironic, eh? God bless America.

.Church leader urges Iraqi Christians to quit country


A senior Iraqi Christian has called on believers to quit the country, after gunmen targeted a church in Baghdad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11705032