SHI’I, CHRISTIAN CLERICS SAY PEOPLE UNITED, NO SECTARIAN SEDITION IN IRAQ

Al-Arabiya TV
July 17 2008
United Arab Emirates

Dubai Al-Arabiya Television in Arabic at 0618 gmt on 17 July carries
a video report by Faris al-Mahdawi on the "diminishing" sectarian
violence in Iraq. The report displays the Iraqi people as being
"unified in their stance to quell violence and sectarianism," even
after the large number of bombings that killed and wounded several
people as well as causing damage to religious sites all over Iraq,
as the report says.

Al-Mahdawi reports that the violence began after the bombing of
the tombs of Shi’i Al-Askari Imams in Samara in 2006. Al-Fadilah
Party member Sabah al-Sa’di comments on the repercussions of the
attack, which fomented sectarian violence in Iraq, praising the
role of religious leaders in quelling the violence. Al-Sa’di says:
"The positions of the great religious authorities and the political
authorities, who took it upon themselves to contain the situation,
were able to contain this situation." Deputy Khayrallah al-Basri
comments on the violence saying: "There is no hostility among the
Iraqi people. Hostility among Iraqis is an illusion that was made
by politicians, and sanctioned by some extremist religious men from
both sides."

Al-Mahdawi notes that the violence began to spread outside the
sphere of Muslims to include other religions, the fact that forced
these people to flee Iraq even before the US invasion in fear of
abduction or death. Archbishop Emanuel Dabaghyan, head of the Armenian
Catholic church in Iraq, comments on the current situation, saying:
"We shunned each other, but we were always brothers, we are brothers,
and we must remain brothers because this land is ours, and we lived
in this land for centuries. How can anyone forget these years of
peaceful coexistence?"

Al-Mahdawi concludes by saying that the Iraqis have proven the "depth
of their unity after calls by politicians and religious men to curb
the sectarian sedition." Al-Mahdawi believes that the incidents in
Samara were "a failed attempt at inciting civil war plotted for by
the architects of struggle among religions."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress