Tag: Iraq

Iraqi MPs reject ‘safe areas’ for Christians

September 28, 2016 Iraq Assyrians, Genocide, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Shia, Sunni, Yazidis

A majority of Iraq’s Members of Parliament have rejected any proposals to set aside safe areas for Christians and other indigenous minorities in the country’s Nineveh Plains, once the province is liberated from the “Islamic State” (IS). “The Parliament has voted to keep Nineveh’s provincial boundaries as they were prior . . . Read More

Run over by US tank, run out of his home by IS: Iraqi monk’s own experience helps others

September 27, 2016 Iraq Baghdad, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Qaraqosh

First he was run over by a US tank, then an invading Islamic State militia forced him to abandon his monastery in northern Iraq. Raeed, a monk from Qaraqosh – Iraq’s largest Christian town – had to flee and set up a temporary monastery in a displacement camp in Erbil. . . . Read More

‘Face of displaced Iraqi Christians’ is ordained

September 22, 2016 Iraq Ankawa, Baghdad, Erbil, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains

The ordination of Martin Baani, a Catholic priest who became one of the when he dedicated himself to the needs of thousands of people in displacement camps, has been celebrated as a revival of Christianity in the Middle East, reports . Louis Sako, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, who performed . . . Read More

Freedom of religion or belief ‘the defining issue of our time’

September 16, 2016 Global News -- No Particular Country Angela Merkel, Boko Haram, Canada, Copts, Egypt, India, Iraq, Islamic State, Jan Figel, Kandhamal, Myanmar, New York, North Korea, Norway, Pakistan, Religious freedom, Saudi Arabia, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi, Syria

Over 100 parliamentarians from 60 countries met this week in Berlin for a series of workshops and seminars under the title, “An Embattled Right: Protecting and Promoting Freedom of Religion of Belief”. The second conference of this size after last year’s meeting in New York, it was organised by the . . . Read More

Only 0.5% Syrian refugees now in US are Christian

September 7, 2016 Syria Iraq, Islamic State, Lebanon, Refugees, Syria, USA

Christians were a meagre half-percent of the Syrian refugees welcomed to the United States in 2016, according to a report researched by Fox News. The figure, representing a minority group Washington has already described as subject to genocide, contrasts sharply with last year’s estimated 10% Christian population of Syria. Since . . . Read More

In violence-racked Baghdad, the few Christians still there struggle to cope

September 6, 2016 Iraq Baghdad, Iraq, Islamic State, Ramadan

At the height of its scorching summer, Iraq saw its worst attack since the Allied Forces ousted Saddam in 2003. Some 324 people lost their lives when a van exploded in the bustling al-Karada neighbourhood of Baghdad – during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan. The 3 July destruction claimed by . . . Read More

‘ISIS on a mission to exterminate Christians’

August 26, 2016 Al-Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Idlib, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, London, Mosul, Salafism, Syria

Shiraz Maher, senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, in a 2015 photo.Morten Brakestad / Stortinget / Flickr CC The so-called Islamic State will not stop until it has “exterminated” all other religious groups, according to a former Islamic extremist . . . Read More

Frontier town sees first Communion despite IS

August 18, 2016 Iraq Alqosh, Assyrians, Chaldeans, IDPs, Iraq, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains

A Christian town some 50km north of the Islamic State’s Iraq stronghold of Mosul has celebrated its first Communion Mass, completing the initiation of a hundred boys and girls in the faith. In what was described as a “historic moment”, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako presided over the ceremony . . . Read More

Iraqi Christians confront two-year trauma with drama

August 5, 2016 Iraq Christina Abada, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Lebanon, Qaraqosh

Part of a play performed by Iraqi Christians forced to flee to Kurdistan after the self-proclaimed Islamic State seized their northern town of Qaraqosh.Video capture / World Watch Monitor “The streets are empty! Why are the streets empty?” The shocked actor shouts at the top of his lungs: “Qaraqosh, . . . Read More

Iraq Patriarch to Shia clerics: ‘update discourse’

July 28, 2016 Iraq Iraq, Louis Raphael I Sako, Shia, Sunni

A high-ranking Iraqi Catholic leader has urged visiting Shia religious figures to stress more “equality and rights”, reports said. During a visit by representatives of major Shiite institutions in both Iraq and Iran, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako outlined the experience of Christians, urging the language of religious . . . Read More

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