GD xpost: Beheaded on the altar--horrors of Iraq church bombing revealed; global protests planned

[rug]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9512310

“They were beheaded right on the altar,” Vivian Haisha Shabilla, president of the San Diego Chapter of the Assyrian Aid Society, told me. Shabilla translated portions of the mass, which was conducted in four languages: Aramaic, Arabic, English, and the Syriac dialect. Non-Catholics and even some Muslims attended to show solidarity and concern for the many Iraqis in East County now grieving for their lost loved ones.

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Bishop George Al Morr from Jordan also participated in the mass. Father Al Sheikh told those present that the Bishop met with Father Petrus shortly before he was murdered. “He asked, how are you surviving the situation in Iraq,” Al Morr recalled. “He said `We will keep our church open ‘til our last drop of blood is shed, and that is exactly what happened. He gave his blood and lost his life.” Both young priests were beheaded by the terrorists.

A group with ties to Al Qaeda, calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the massacre at Our Lady of Salvation, a Syriac church in Baghdad. The group threatened to begin slaughtering Christians throughout the Middle East after an Egyptian church reportedly refused to release two women who converted to Islam.

Wameedh Tozy, left, had 5 relatives in the church during the attack; 2 have died.“I had five members of my family that were in the church,” Wameedh Tozy, 31, of El Cajon told East County Magazine. Tozy’s uncle and a cousin’s husband were killed. “My cousin, she is pregnant at four months and she had a bullet in her back. She is still in the hospital; it is very hard, they had to take it from the stomach out through the front,” Tozy said, adding that the baby is in stable condition. His aunt suffered shrapnel wounds and another cousin suffered head injuries that fortunately proved only surface wounds.

Original article: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/4724

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[madrchsod]

2. this has been going on since the war began

many iraq bloggers were reporting the rise in religious/ethnic murders. before the war most neighborhoods had a cultural/religious diversity. but the society started to break down after the first bomb fell.

both the citizens of the usa and iraq have reaped the whirlwind.

[cleanhippie]

3. It is appalling when religions do this. Christians are also committing atrocious acts in Africa too.

No religion is immune from these horrors, especially when condoned, either explicitly through doctrine and teachings, or implicitly through silence of more "mainstream" believers.

[humblebum]

4. It's not just the religious that do such things. Would ya care to

discuss the brutalities committed by atheists?

[darkstar3]

5. Sure!

One rule, though: You have to be able to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that atheism itself was the motivation for these supposed brutalities. That's gonna make your normal ranting about Communism fairly useless.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[humblebum]

7. Leave it to a militant atheist to make a joke out of a tragic situation.nt

[darkstar3]

8. So you admit you're a tragic situation? n/t

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Just so you know, the Iraqi Christians are not the result of fundie or any other kind of

modern missionaries.

They're an Eastern Orthodox church established in the first few hundred years of the common era, and they actually predate the Muslims.

The things that you all know or experience about American evangelicals do NOT apply in this case. The Christians in Iraq are far more liberal than the Shiite or even Sunni Muslims.

Oh, and implying that this is OK because of the Nigerian bishop and other weirdness in Africa is changing the subject.

[charlie]

11. The travesty surrounding this horror

is that we're likely birthing the mideast's newest theocracy. Or theocracies. I doubt a Sunni/Shia/Kurd tripartite will hold.

Because we had a preznit with Daddy Issues. Because we had the trillion bucks to do it. Because we're a nation of idiots.

I can't say aloud what I'd like to see happen to The Decider, who blubbers about Kanye West while innocents get headchopped by hardliners he let off the leash.

I. Am. So. Fucking. Ashamed.

[Divine Discontent]

12. nice post! thanks