Beheaded on the altar--horrors of Iraq church bombing revealed; global protests planned today

[Liberty Belle]

DU friends - This has received hardly any press. Did you know that extremists who bombed a church in Baghdad Oct. 31 have threatened violence against ALL Christians throughout the Middle East? They beheaded two priests on the altar and massacred at least 55 people (wounding 77 more) inside a church in Baghdad Oct. 31. In San Diego, the Iraqi community grieves for their lost loved ones; was the only non-Iraqi media present to cover the mass memorial service here. I interviewed relatives of survivors and as usual the mainstream media was nowhere to be seen. Now today there is a worldwide protest slated calling for the UN, US and Iraq to help stop the genocide of Christians occurring in the middle east. P lease help spread the word!


MONDAY PROTEST DOWNTOWN JOINS GLOBAL EFFORT TO HALT GENOCIDE OF CHRISTIANS IN IRAQ AMID ESCALATING VIOLENCE

East County Magazine

“We will keep our church open ‘til our last drop of blood is shed.” – Father Waseem Petrus, shortly before he was beheaded on the altar of his church in Baghdad on Oct. 31

“Enough bloodshed by the Christians. Our rights have been violated. This is not ony for the Christians in Iraq; this should be the concern of every Christian in the world.” –Vivian Haisha Shabilla, president, San Diego Chapter of the Assyrian Aid Society


November 7, 2010 (Spring Valley) - Hundreds of mourners filled Santa Sophia’s Catholic church in Spring Valley tonight, where a mass was held in memory of at least 58 Assyrian Christians who died and 75 who were wounded in the October 31st attack by terrorists at an Assyrian church in Iraq. Many here lost family members or friends; their photos stood in front of the church altar, each with a single red rose—a little boy, a woman, men young and old. Draped across the altar a banner bore images of two slain priests: Fathers Thamir Abdal, 32, and Waseem Petrus, 27.

<snip>

A campaign on Facebook to organize worldwide demonstrations Monday to demand protections for Assyrians and other Christians in the Middle East has drawn over 45,000 signatures. The page is titled The March Against the Ethnic Cleansing of Iraq’s Indigenous Christians. According to the website www.ChristiansforIraq.com, Assyriains of Iraq have suffered genocide since June 25, 2004, date of the first church bombing. Since then, 66 churches have been bombed and thousands have been murdered.

<snip>

On Monday, November 8, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., a demonstration will be held outside the federal building at 880 Front Street (corner of Front and Broadway) in downtown San Diego. Other demonstrations are planned in major cities in the U.S. and worldwide, including London, Cairo, Sydney, Los Angeles, San Jose, Modesto, Detroit, Windsor, Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Hartford, Toronto, and locations TBA in in Holland, Germany and Sweden. Organizers are asking that a United Nations or Iraqi commission be established to investigate the church massacre and recommend actions to protect Assyrians. They also call for the U.S. Congress and State Department to address Assyrian safety issues and for creation of an autonomous Assyrian state with its own police force to protect Assyrians.

(note to moderators: I am the author and give permission to have slightly over 4 paragraphs here.)


I posted on this last night and didn't get a single recommendation or reply, probably because it was so late.

Please help spread the word about the brutality of what's happening to Iraqi Assyrian Christians, descendants of the ancient Babylonians, the first Christians in Mesopotamia. This is heartbreaking and the media is ignoring it!

Full story: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/4724

[Brickbat]

1. Horrible all around.

K&R. Thanks for posting this.

[JDPriestly]

2. We should strongly advocate for religious tolerance all over the world

in every country including Saudi Arabia.

[chaplainM]

23. Better yet, religious FREEDOM around the world.

When everyone is equal, nobody's beliefs need to be "tolerated."

[WinkyDink]

33. Way to make a black-and-white issue an ineffectual gray.

[JDPriestly]

39. Wherever people are persecuted for practicing their religion, it is

a black and white issue. I'm not making it gray. I am just pointing out that we should be advocating much for strongly for tolerance if not appreciation for each other's religions everywhere. Every country should honor religious freedom. Every people should allow their neighbors to worship as they wish (or not worship if that is what they wish), according to their consciences in peace.

[kestrel91316]

3. There is an Assyrian Christian church just around the corner from where I live.

We have a large Middle Eastern community here in the San Fernando Valley - Muslims, Jews, Christians, and nonreligious - they all get along fine here.

Sad how the concept of freedom of conscience/freedom of religion is not global.

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[LeftishBrit]

5. This is truly horrible

Condemned by Amnesty International, though I don't know whether anyone will listen:

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19065

and some countries including the UK are still deporting asylum seekers back there on the argument that it is now 'safe' - I don't THINK so!

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/acd8898fad2b705603b101e6adbd0b3d.htm

[renate]

6. heartbreaking indeed, and infuriating too

Organized religion gets a bad rap sometimes but people should have the right to assemble in peace. Religious intolerance of any kind to anybody is so closed-minded and this kind of violence is sheer evil.

Thank you for bringing attention to this. :cry:

[Bryn]

7. Speechless

:cry:

k&r

[Catherina]

8. 66 churches have been attacked or bombed since June, 2004 rec'd

We've brought all-out civil war to Iraq. Way to go America!

(AINA) -- 66 churches have been attacked or bombed since June, 2004: 41 in Baghdad, 19 in Mosul, 5 in Kirkuk and 1 in Ramadi. The following is a list of the bombings.

Click here for pictures of bombed churches

http://www.aina.org/news/20080107163014.htm

[snagglepuss]

9. dup self delete

[snagglepuss]

10. dup self delete

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TwilightGardener]

12. Terrible--those priests were very brave.

[eissa]

13. I'll be at the rally today

not very religious, but sick and tired of seeing my fellow Assyrians go through yet another massacre while the world ignores. One of the oldest surviving nations on earth is now at the brink of extinction; murdered off in their indigenous lands, and assimilated in the lands they escape to.

Oh, I forgot......thanks bush! :mad:

[Liberty Belle]

16. Thanks. Can you send me some photos, please?

[e-mail]

Is this the San Diego rally, or in another city?

[eissa]

20. Here are some for now

All the rallies are being held today across the globe. So far, each rally has drawn about 1,000-3,000 people. I'll try to keep track of the pictures and send them as they become available. I'm in Modesto and will upload the photos from that protest, and the one in the Bay Area as soon as I get them. Here's what I have so far:

ARIZONA







CHICAGO





DETROIT



TORONTO





LONDON

[Liberty Belle]

31. Thanks, I need photos that I can have the rights to run -

Can't just post something off someone else's news site. If you shot these photos or got permission from the photographers or publications I could use them, otherwise not due to copyright issues.

I'm especially interested in the San Diego protest; I couldn't go and there seems to be nothing on the news stations unfortunately.

[eissa]

43. You can use these

I took this myself. Sorry about the other ones, I didn't even think about copyright issues...D'OH!

[Radical Activist]

14. Almost no civilian casualties in Iraq are covered.

Your frequent complaint that this isn't being covered is a little too similar to the Christian radio networks that thrive on stories of persecution and unfair treatment by the media. Stories about Christians being killed are ignored just as much as all the innocent civilians killed by US and Iraqi soldiers every day.

[Liberty Belle]

17. I share your concern over all the civilian casualties.

I don't have much access to report on those stories a world away, but do have first-hand sources locally with relatives killed/hurt in this massacre, so did what I could to get the word out.

[sally cat]

15. Who exactly is behind "Ethnic cleansing of Iraq's Christians"? A group that can be targeted?

[Liberty Belle]

18. Yes, this group, according to the NY Times:

Al Qaeda in Iraq, or Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org

More on the attack here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html

[sally cat]

24. We need to send some troops in there to get that group then.

[Taverner]

19. When will this s**t stop?????

And most certainly, their blood is on our hands

[pacalo]

21. Horrible! What happened there & their anti-Christian attitude should serve as a reminder

in this country that we should be embracing our founders' wisdom in providing freedom of religion. The baggers need to know about this heart-breaking incident above anyone else because they are traveling down the same morally-destructive path. Not with beheadings, but with gunshots.

[sally cat]

25. Let the false equivalence go and concentrate on this act of genocide motivated by the religion of

Islam.

[pacalo]

28. You're right, of course.

It is through taking a public stand against this atrocity that the lesson can be taught in our own country before violence occurs.

You surely are aware of the hatred being exhibited against a mosque being built in NYC; hence, the correlation between the two mindsets.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

On the contrary, I think it illustrates how different they are.

"We do not like your religion, and so we will hold a peaceful protest against it" vs "we do not like your religion, and so we will murder you".

Trying to compare the two mindsets and implying that the primary reason to take a public stand against murders by muslims is to send a message to Christians suggests to me that your priorities are not what they should be.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

35. On the contrary, I think it illustrates how different they are.

"We do not like your religion, and so we will hold a peaceful protest against it" vs "we do not like your religion, and so we will murder you".

Trying to compare the two mindsets and implying that the primary reason to take a public stand against murders by muslims is to send a message to Christians suggests to me that your priorities are not what they should be.

[pacalo]

36. You don't think extremist hatred coming from the teabaggers could escalate into violence?

If their extreme views could move them to plant bombs at an abortion clinic, harass & defame those who work there, & murder a doctor who performs abortions, they're capable of anything. And, as I recall, they were against the mosque being built in NYC.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. I'm quite certain it won't into escalate into anything on this scale.

I think it not impossible that it may lead to isolated nutcases resorting to violence - indeed, there have been sporadic isolated cases of far-right-wing inspired violence for decades.

I'm quite certain it won't lead to organised groups committing mass murders, though.


Far-right Muslims in Iraq are going in for this kind of violence at somewhere between a hundred and a thousand times the rate (I guess - I'm basing my guess on 30-300 deaths a year from a population of 3 x 10^9 vs 3000-30,000 deaths a year from a population of 3x10^8, and taking the lower end of the ratio to avoid being accused of hyperbole - it would not amaze me if the actual figure were even higher, depending on what exactly you count) of far-right Christians in the US. That's a number that demands to be acknowledged.

[malaise]

22. Very sad

Thank George Bush

[Freetradesucks]

37. Do you really think that George Bush

caused these people to do this? This has been going on for centuries, you sound like a fool.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. "An autonomous Assyrian state"? It's not going to happen

Yes, the massacre was horrible. Many mass killings in Iraq have been horrible. But to think that the UN, US or anyone can step in and stop them isn't being realistic. It's a nightmare that has killed hundreds of thousands, Christian, Sunni, Shiite and people who were just victims regardless of religious belief.

Inserting a call for a separate Assyrian (ie Christian) state with its own police force just looks like playing politics with the deaths of the victims, too.

[eissa]

27. They're the indigenous people, they deserve it

They've never stopped trying to re-establish their own territories on their lands, but the continuous massacres throughout centuries have left too small of a population to fight properly (the genocide of 1915, usually referred to as the "Armenian Genocide" took out about 600,000+ Assyrians.) Rather than sit back and watch an ancient community be desimated, what's wrong with giving them back a small piece of their own land to ensure their safety and continuance?

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. Carving out small bits of land for ethnic minorities has not gone well

Especially when religion is a significant part of the ethnic differences. You have fights over what bit of land they get, and the people from other ethnic groups you have to forcibly remove to give them the land get resentful and violent. See: Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan/India.

This church, for instance, was in Baghdad. Are you proposing that streets with a plurality of Assyrian Christians in should form this autonomous state?

[eissa]

42. The Assyrians make up the majority

in their ancestral land located in the Nineveh plains (northern Iraq.) It is a tiny part of what was originally their land, but it would at least be some place where Assyrians who are scattered around various locations in Mesopotamia could finally gather and live with some dignity, rather than continuously being treated like guests in their own home.

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. Are they really the majority there? This article describes Christians as a minority

who complained when a rule guaranteeing minorities such as themselves a number of seats was removed:

Demonstrators in the Nineveh province protest election law that no longer guarantees governing seats for Christians and other minorities

...
Hamdaniyah is one of the largest towns in Iraq’s Nineveh province, an area with historic Christian roots and a strong contingent of Assyrian political parties. Organizers and some church leaders, together with other minorities, came together Sept. 28 to begin what likely will be a week of protests over the election law passed by Iraq's parliament last week.

Throughout Iraq others are questioning the parliament's decision to delay a provincial vote in Kirkuk while allowing elections to move forward in the country's other 17 provinces. But the opposition in Nineveh has a different complaint: Baghdad lawmakers also scrapped a clause known as Article 50 that could have guaranteed seats for Christians and other minorities.

Article 50 called for seats on provincial governing councils to be apportioned according to the demographic makeup of each province so that minorities would have a guaranteed voice even if one party or ethnic group dominated at the polls. The problem is that since the war and lingering terrorist activity have uprooted millions of Iraqis, no census has been conducted to accurately show how many seats should go to which group.

http://admin.iraqupdates.net/p_articles.php/article/37286

And even if you can draw an area in which one ethnic group become a majority, you still have the problem seen in the examples I gave of what happens to the other groups, who suddenly find themselves in a state defined by religion. It ends in bloodshed.

[Catherina]

29. +1 n/t

[WinkyDink]

32. It's not cricket to criticize Muslims.

[Liberty Belle]

38. I haven't seen Christians, Hindus or Buddhists beheading people, have you?

For a religions that calls itself a religion of peace, they sure seem to have a lot of extremists. I know that there are many peace-minded Muslims and for them, I feel sympathy -- just as many of us abhor what the Christian right has done in the name of religion. But as abhorrent as the worst of the Christian right wing is in America, they haven't organized they slaughter of innocents as some Islamic extremist groups have done.

How can any decent human being MURDER innocent people, not in a combat situation, but butchering people in a church?

If there's a special place in hell, I would think such fiends would occupy it.

[NaturalHigh]

34. Anyone who would do this is the lowest form of life.

I was going to call these terrorists animals, but animals aren't capable of this degree of cruelty.

[Odin2005]

40. This is horrific. This BS needs to be called what it is: Genocide.