Conversion or exile: the stark choice facing Christians in Iraq

BY ANABEL INGE
IRAQI CHRISTIANS must choose between "conversion or exile" as they face shocking persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists, according to a local archbishop.
Muslim fanatics are targeting specific areas in an attempt to rid the war-tom country of Christianity, says Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk.
The prelate explained that now even Christians in the supposed "safe haven" in the northern Nineveh Plain area of the country were at risk.
He said that the terrorists were attacking the sanctuary in a "political gesture, as if to say: 'We can hit anywhere, nowhere is safe.'" The archbishop's stark assessment of the plight of Iraqi Christians comes amid reports of a surge in sectarian violence in the north.
Figures show that the number of Christians in Iraq has dropped from 1.2 million to around 700,000 since the invasion.
The United Nations has also reported that almost half of all Iraqi refugees are Christian, even though the faithful make up just four per cent of the population.
Archbishop Sako told AsiaNews: "In Iraq Christians are dying, the Church is disappearing under continued persecution, threats and violence carried out by extremists who are leaving us no choice: conversion or exile."
Iraq needs its Christians, added the archbishop, who is president of Iraq's council of Catholic churches' committee for interreligious dialogue.
"Christians are one of the oldest constituents of the Iraqi people," he said. "Since the beginning, they have incorporated with its other constituents like the Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Sabea, and Yazedis, playing a pioneering rote in the building of the civilisation of Iraq.
"Christians have tong lived with Muslims, whether Sunnis or Shies, in mutual respect, and shared the good and the bad days together with them.
"They have been part of the Islamic culture for the last 14 centuries, by and large without problems. Today, they want to continue this existence in the spirit of love and under the charter of human rights."
Archbishop Sako's words follow comments last week by Archbishop Silvana Tornasi, the Vatican representative to the UN, who highlighted the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. He called on the international community to increase its support for the thousands of refugees fleeing "horrific violence" on a daily basis.
Archbishop Tomasi said that religious and ethnic diversity needed to be preserved in Iraq, to help provide a "democratic experience" and a link with the rest of the world.
-The world is witnessing an unprecedented degree of hate and destructiveness," he said, adding that the violence in Iraq was spreading its "deadly impact" across the Middle East.
"This is not the time to look at technical definitions of a refugee," he said.
More nations need to open their doors, he argued, "so that pressure within the region may be alleviated on a short-term basis".
Recent sectarian atrocities in northern Iraq have included a car bomb close to a school in the Christian village of Tell-el-skop, which killed nine people, of whom two were children.
A further 60 were wounded in the blast, and a nearby convent of Dominican nuns was badly damaged.
The attacks come against a background of persecution against Iraqi Christians, who, in areas where Sharia law is being imposed, are banned from openly professing their faith, forced to wear the veil and threatened with kidnappings and extortion.
Churches in Baghdad are also reportedly being forced to take down crosses from their domes.
Sectarian violence has risen dramatically in recent months in spite of the arrival of 21,500 American troops to combat the death squads.
Increasing bloodshed has also spread to the south of the country, where the British Army has this month suffered its highest number of fatalities since the invasion four years ago.
As The Catholic Herald went to press, 1I members of the Armed Forces had been killed in April, bringing the total to 145.
In November, America's Catholic bishops asked Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to gam asylum to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing persecution. They said they were deeply alarmed by the "rapidly deteriorating situation of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq".
The bishops were responding to reports of gruesome outrages against the faithful in Iraq, including the alleged crucifixion of a teenage boy in BEMS and the brutal murder of a priest in Mosul.
Pope Benedict XVI is so concerned about the situation that in his Easter message he said that "nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees".
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