Iraq’s Christian minority flees from violence
RAVI NESSMAN, AP Worldstream
Published: May 06, 2007
Despite the chaos and sectarian violence raging across Baghdad, Farouq
Mansour felt relatively safe as a Christian living in a multiethnic
neighborhood in the capital.
Then, two months ago, al-Qaida gunmen kidnapped him and demanded his
family convert to Islam or pay a US$30,000 ransom. Two weeks later, he
paid up, was released and immediately fled to Syria, joining a mass
exodus of Iraq’s increasingly threatened Christian minority.
"There is no future for us in Iraq," Mansour said.
Though Islamic extremists have targeted Iraqi Christians before,
bombing churches and threatening religious leaders, the latest attacks
have taken on a far more personal tone, with many Christians being
expelled from their homes and forced to leave their possessions
behind, police, human rights groups and residents said.
The Christian community here, about 3 percent of the country’s 26
million people, is particularly vulnerable. It has little political or
military clout to defend itself, and some Islamic insurgents view it
as a fifth column _ calling Christians "Crusaders" _ whose real
loyalty lies with the U.S. troops they are fighting.
Many churches are now nearly empty during religious services, with
much of their flock either gone or too scared to attend. Only about 30
people sat scattered among the pews at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in
the relatively safe Baghdad neighborhood of Karradah during this
week’s Sunday Mass. About two dozen worshippers took communion in the
barren St. Mary’s Church in the northern city of Kirkuk on Sunday.
As many as 50 percent of Iraq’s Christians may already have left the
country, according to a report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom, which said it was increasingly
concerned about attacks on Christians and other non-Muslims here.
"These groups face widespread violence from Sunni insurgents and
foreign jihadis, and they also suffer pervasive discrimination and
marginalization at the hands of the national government, regional
governments, and para-state militias," said the report.
In addition to direct attacks on Christians, Islamic extremists have
also targeted liquor stores, hair salons and other Christian-owned
businesses, saying they violated Islam, the report said.
"This is not the culture of Iraqis or the nature of Iraqis. We have
lived during centuries together in a respectful attitude and
friendship," said Luwis Zarco, the Catholic archbishop of Kirkuk.
In much of the Middle East, Christians are a largely tolerated
minority that have achieved a measure of economic success in business
and the professions, but they are sometimes viewed with suspicion by
their Muslim neighbors.
In Saddam-era Iraq, Iraq’s 800,000 Christians _ many of them
Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, with small numbers of Roman
Catholics _ were generally left alone, and many, such as Saddam
Hussein’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz,
reached the highest levels of power.
But after U.S. forces toppled Saddam in 2003, their situation grew
more precarious. In the summer of 2004, insurgents launched a
coordinated bombing campaign against Baghdad churches, sending some
Christians fleeing in fear.
A second wave of anti-Christian attacks hit last September after Pope
Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be anti-Muslim. Church
bombings spiked and a priest in the northern city of Mosul was
kidnapped and later found beheaded.
In the recent violence, residents of the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora
said gunmen knocked on the doors of Christian families, demanding they
either pay jizya _ a special tax traditionally levied on non-Muslims _
or leave. The jizya has not been imposed in Muslim nations in about
100 years.
One man, Arakan Admon, was wounded in a drive-by shooting last week
when his family ignored the threats, relatives said.
In response to the threats, about 70 percent of Dora’s Christians have
fled, police said.
"The terrorists want to turn Dora into a base to attack other Baghdad
neighborhoods," said Christian lawmaker Younadam Kana. "Criminal gangs
made use of the situation and they started to kidnap Christians and
demand ransom. It is a coalition between terrorists and criminals."
The southern neighborhood is a Sunni insurgent stronghold that has
seen frequent U.S. shelling under a security crackdown against the
sectarian violence.
In the northern city of Mosul, men began knocking on doors last month,
demanding that Christian families pay a $3,000 tax that would be used
to fight the U.S.-led forces, local residents said. Some paid; others
fled.
Mansour, a 63-year-old retiree, said that while many other Christians
left, he chose to stay in his Amariyah neighborhood in western
Baghdad, hoping that the Baghdad security plan, which U.S.-led forces
launched on Feb. 14, would improve the situation.
"But the opposite happened," he said.
Mansour was kidnapped March 11 by gunmen who said they were from
al-Qaida and the Islamic State of Iraq group.
They told him: "According to the laws of the Islamic State of Iraq,
you are a Christian and an infidel and you should pay the jizya for
your protection and your participation in the holy war against the
Americans," he said in a telephone interview from Syria.
They said that if Mansour and his family did not convert, they would
have to pay US$30,000. After 15 days in captivity, his family paid the
ransom, he said.
The next day, they fled the neighborhood, leaving their home and
electric appliance store behind. Hours later, an insurgent called
demanding Mansour bring back his car, he said. He returned, handed
over the keys, then left the country.
Days later, a group of insurgents knocked on his brother Mudhafar’s
door, telling him to leave his house within 24 hours, because they
don’t want Christians in the neighborhood, Mansour said. His family
fled to Syria as well, leaving all its possessions behind.
The local Hammurabi group, a Sunni human rights organization, harshly
criticized the attacks and demanded the government protect all Iraqis.
"These actions violate the values of Islam," the group said.
___
Associated Press reporter Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this
story.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
