Iman Chairman condemns ongoing persecution of Christians and minorities by Islamic extremists
Martes, 24 Diciembre 2013
Persecution at Christmastime
National Review
24 DECEMBER, 2013
During this holy season, Christians turn their thoughts to that first Christmas and to the early Christians. This year, we should prayerfully reflect on the fact that those church communities founded by Thomas, Mark, Paul, Andrew, and the other disciples of Jesus, communities that have remained faithful for 2,000 years, are now suffering mightily for their faith.
The reason is religious persecution. Christians will always be persecuted, the Scriptures tell us, but the unbearable scope of this wave is due to burgeoning extremism within some Muslim sectors. It now poses an existential threat to Middle Eastern Christians — though it is not limited to the Middle East.
At an address this month in Rome before Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project, Archbishop Louis Sako of Baghdad, the Chaldean Catholic patriarch of Babylon, expounded on this development:
For almost two millennia Christian communities have lived in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. . . . Unfortunately, in the 21st century Middle Eastern Christians are being severely persecuted. . . . In most of these countries, Islamist extremists see Christians as an obstacle to their plans. Some nations, dominated by extremist ideas, do not want so-called “Arab Spring” democracy. Freedom and pluralism are dangerous to them and their goals.
On December 17, Britain’s Prince Charles, after visiting Middle Eastern churches in London, made a similar point: “Christians in parts of the Middle East are being deliberately targeted by Islamist militants in a campaign of persecution.” This observation was considered so extraordinary it made headlines in Britain.
The Islamist religious-cleansing campaign is now acute in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, countries that are home to three of the four Mideastern Christian communities of significant size. New data released by the United Nations Committee for Refugees estimates that 850,000 Christians have fled Iraq since 2003, meaning that as few as 250,000 might remain. Syrian Christians have well-founded fears that this is now their fate, too. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of oppressed Egyptian Copts are hedging their bets and buying houses in Georgia, Cyprus, and the United States.
The voices of the persecuted are searing. In addition to relating the horrors they face, they frequently raise another problem, their abandonment by the West. “We feel forgotten and isolated. We sometimes wonder, if they kill us all, what would be the reaction of Christians in the West? Would they do something then?” Archbishop Sako asks.
Congress’s impassioned champion of religious freedom, Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia, speaks frequently about his own frustration that Western leaders are silent about this immense human-rights crisis. “We’re seeing the destruction of Syrian Christianity. The road to Damascus, the very road where Paul found Jesus, may be the one that passes close by Maaloula,” he emphasized in a recent conversation with me. He was referring to the historic Christian town recently laid siege by jihadists and from where a dozen Orthodox nuns were taken hostage this month.
A few days ago, I received a message from Rima Tüzün of the European Syriac Union. Like the Iraqi archbishop, she voices palpable despair:
Kidnapping, killings, ransom, rape . . . 2013 is a tragedy for Christians in Syria. All Syrians have endured great suffering and distress. The Christians, however, often had to pay with their lives for their faith. Our bishops and nuns have been kidnapped, our political leader killed by torture. After our Christian villages have been occupied, our churches have been destroyed and even mass graves were found in Saddad. Referring to latest information from December 16th: Two thousand Christians are hostages in the hands of the Islamists. On Saturday night rebels of Al-Nusra occupied the Christian city Kanaye, region Idlib. Since then, the Christian residents of Kanaya are being held hostages. The Islamists have put [to] the Christians the alternative: Islam or death. Why [is] the West just watching?
Many Middle Eastern Christians are leaving, and some are now refugees twice over. This month, my Smith College alumnae magazine features Taleen Dilanyan, a Smith sophomore majoring in chemistry. In 2006 she fled her homeland of Iraq to Syria, only to have to flee again five years later, from Syria to Massachusetts. “I’m thankful for each day that I’m living here and not having my life threatened,” she says. Like many Americans, her classmates have little awareness of the ongoing religious persecution in that part of the world and are surprised that she, or any of her compatriots, could be Christian. “People assume I’m a Muslim because I’m Iraqi,” she notes.
It has been a hard year for Egypt’s Copts, too. My colleague Egyptian analyst Samuel Tadros concluded that last August’s mass attacks against Egyptian churches have been the single largest onslaught against the Copts in 700 years. There were other firsts as well, such as the first assault against Cairo’s St. Mark’s cathedral, seat of the Coptic pope, while inside a funeral was being held for four Copts murdered by a mob that had been incited by a rumor of blasphemy.
The Copts’ problems did not end with the military ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood government. On December 10, Bishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church testified before the Africa Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives that the attacks by “radical elements in society” are “increasingly disturbing” because they “are not merely on individuals but on the Christian and minority presence in its entirety.”
Commenting on the situation, Iman Chairman, Ribal Al-Assad said:
"During the festive season, as we celebrate with those we love and reflect on the year gone by, it is so important to remember that many Christians around the world are still persecuted for their faith.
The acts perpetrated by these Islamists are horrific, mindless and a gross violation of human rights. Their belief is anchored in a perverted ideology where Christians, minorities and all those who do not share their extremist views are the enemy - 'Infidels' and 'Apostates' who must be wiped of the face of the earth.
I very much welcome the recent statements made by Prince Charles, Archbishop Louis Sako of Baghdad (Chaldean Catholic patriarch of Babylon), Bishop Angaelos, (General Bishop of Coptic Orthodox Church
in the United Kingdom) and the Archbishop of Canterbury on this issue.
People should be able to live free from persecution and should not be subjected to Sharia Law imposed by an Islamic caliphate state. This is a fundamental tenant of human rights and the international community must come together to rid the world of Islamic extremism in order to protect the freedoms of all civilians who are killed, beaten and tortured every day for their beliefs.
Those who call on 'jihad' against anyone who does not share their extremist ideology should be robustly death with; we must not allow the Middle East, with its beautiful mosaic, to fall victim to sectarian violence and the perverted ideology of those who incite religious and sectarian hatred and violence.
Let us not forget about all those who are suffering persecution at this time, my thoughts and prayers are with you."
