Free Republic

The U.S. invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein was disastrously ill-conceived, as I explained before it started back in 2003. The resulting vacuum was filled by jihad groups who targeted the Christians, which they associated with the U.S. even though there has been a Christian presence in Iraq for 2000 years. “Two Decades of Persecution Leaves Iraqi Christians with an Uncertain Future,” International Christian Concern, March 21, 2023: 03/21/2023 Iraq (International Christian Concern) – This week marks the 20th anniversary of the launching of the U.S.-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq and the subsequent toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam...

Trump said during an event at an auto parts manufacturer in the city of Warren that his administration would grant an “extension” to Iraqi Chaldean Catholic immigrants, a group that has been targeted for immigration enforcement during his presidency. “We’re going to make sure that we do everything we can to keep people who have been good to this country out of harm’s way,” Trump said. “When I get back, we’re going to give those who need it an extension to stay in our country.” Trump hopes to be reelected in November and Michigan, which he won narrowly in 2016,...

Although Iraqi Christians, concentrated in the north of the country, lie far from the epicenter of deadly protests in Baghdad, their fate may be tied to the outcome of what demonstrators are calling a “revolution” in Iraq.While protestors in Baghdad have emphasized interfaith unity, protests have in fact been concentrated in Iraq’s nine Shiite provinces, with limited involvement from the Sunni Muslim and minority-dominated north. Most Christians live close to Mosul, Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab city, where the streets have been quiet. Mosul residents told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that after three years of war, people are...

The U.S. withdrawal from Syria puts Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities in danger, writes @pir_hadi https://t.co/MJQXYSNV0d— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 18, 2019 Trump’s Syria Exit Puts Yazidis in PerilISIS will re-emerge as soon as the pressure lets up.wsj.com

DOHUK, IRAQ - The U.S. State Department is hosting its second Religious Freedom Ministerial Roundtable in Washington, gathering international organizations, religious and government leaders, and social activists to tackle the challenges facing religious freedom. Ahead of the meeting, Iraq’s top Catholic cleric, Patriarch Cardinal Louis Sako, said he is concerned about the future of Iraq’s Christians. He says they are struggling after the destruction of their ancestral lands by Islamic State militants and the growing encroachment by Shi'ite militias linked to Iran, on their towns. Patriarch Louis Sako’s Chaldean Catholic Church represents about two-thirds of Iraq’s Christian community. The once-thriving...

The Iraqi government has officially declared December 25 a public holiday to mark “the birth of Jesus Christ”. All citizens of the majority Muslim nation will now mark the date as a national holiday, as opposed to just Christians. “Happy Christmas to our Christian citizens, all Iraqis and to all who are celebrating around the world,” the government said on Twitter. “We extend our warmest wishes to Christians in Iraq and around the world for a very happy and peaceful Christmas,” it added. The country’s Christian population has been decimated in recent years following the chaos surrounding the withdrawal of...

WASHINGTON, DC – President Donald Trump signed a law on Tuesday combatting genocide of Christians in the Middle East, legislation supported by the Knights of Columbus and a broad array of faith-based organizations. Christians are being systematically wiped out in Syria and Iraq, along with other religious minorities in parts of the Middle East. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and former Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) spearheaded the passage of H.R. 390, the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018, which the president signed in an Oval Office ceremony. Both congressmen stood with the president as he signed the...

The Christian population in Iraq has been decimated, dropping from 1.4 million in 2003 to just 275,000, according to a report released this month (2016). The report, compiled by the Knights of Columbus/IDC, tells a horrific story of religious/ethnic purge in the Middle East that has produced the systematic eradication of Christians... Christianity’s roots in Iraq date to the first century and has fallen prey to Islamist militants committed to their extermination. The Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil testified for many centuries Christians of Iraq experienced hardships and persecutions “but what we have now experienced are the worst acts of genocide...

WHISKY is back on the tables in Mosul, one of Iraq’s biggest cities. Until last year, boozing was punishable with 80 lashes...Families queue at restaurants on the banks of the Tigris. There is not a niqab, or face-veil, in sight....Now Iraq, home to nearly 40m people, is righting itself... About 45,000 Sunnis mustered alongside the Shia-led Hashd al-Shaabi, or “popular mobilisation units”. And millions of Sunnis fled the would-be caliphate to seek refuge in Kurdish and Shia cities. Religious minorities feel safer, too. Over 70% of the 100,000 Christians who fled to Kurdistan have returned to their homes on the...

The Easter holiday and Palm Sunday celebrations across Nineveh and in Mosul and Duhok seem to show a drive for reconstruction and energy being put in to the post-ISIS future Thousands of Christians celebrated the Assyrian New Year in northern Iraq over the last several days. The celebrations coincided with Easter and brought together groups of Assyrian Christian activists who are seeking to rekindle the flame of their community from the ravages of ISIS. The Easter Mass at the Saint Mary’s Assyrian Church of the East was attended by hundreds of worshipers on Saturday, the same day on which Juliana...

*Tragically, Christians living in lands formerly under the control of the "Caliphate" have been betrayed by many in the West. Governments ignored their tragic fate. Bishops were often too aloof to denounce their persecution. The media acted as if they considered these Christians to be agents of colonialism who deserved to be purged from the Middle East. And the so-called "human rights" organizations abandoned them.*The West was not willing to give sanctuary to these Christians when ISIS murdered 1,131 of them and destroyed or damaged 125 of their churches.*We must now help Christians rebuild in the lands where their people...

Iraqi Archbishop Bashar Warda made the following observation during a recent speech: “Having faced for 1,400 years the slow-motion genocide that began long before the ongoing ISIS genocide today, the time for excusing this inhuman behavior and its causes is long since passed.” That Muslims have cleansed non-Muslim peoples by the sword since the seventh century to the present is of course factually well-documented. But what of the more subtle “slow-motion genocide”? How does that work? The answer is connected to another question: Why did so many non-Muslims become Muslim in the first place? Many modern day Muslims and Western...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Christian doctor, his wife, and mother were stabbed to death on Thursday evening in Baghdad’s eastern neighbourhood of al-Mashtal. Dr. Hisham Shafiq al-Maskuni, 61, a native of Baghdad, his wife Shaza Malik, and his mother Khairiya Dawood were killed, according to Rayan al-Kldani, head of the Christian militia group of Babylon, known as the Christian Hashd. The attack was carried out by an unknown group of armed people, Iraqi media reported. The attackers also stole some money and expensive items from the house, according to unverified media reports. This is not an isolated incident, Fr....

In the wake of Vice President Mike Pence's announcement last October that the United States government would provide direct aid to persecuted Iraqi Christians struggling to rebuild following the liberation of the Nineveh Plains, the Trump administration has taken concrete steps to follow through on its promises.Trump's administration announced that it has renegotiated an agreement with the U.N. to ensure that vulnerable Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities victimized by the Islamic State in Iraq will get the U.N. assistance they were previously denied.The administration has also announced that it's accepting proposals by private organizations on the ground in Iraq...

At this time of year American Christians are free to celebrate Christmas in any way they like, because freedom of religion is a cherished right in the U.S. for people of every faith. But in many predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East, the Christian minority is threatened and persecuted 365 days a year. As an Assyrian Christian who fled my native Iran in 1989 I know about this harassment and persecution from first-hand experience. And as the founder and president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council I know about this persecution because of the work my nonprofit does to...

Father Luis Montes, a priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, celebrated Mass earlier this month at St. George Monastery.MOSUL, Iraq — Following the liberation of Mosul, Iraq, from the hands of the Islamic State, Christians are cautiously returning to the city. And as they return, so does the Mass. Father Luis Montes, a priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, celebrated Mass earlier this month at St. George Monastery. The priest traveled to Mosul to record part of a documentary entitled Guardianes de la Fe (Guardians of the Faith), which seeks to show the reality of life...

Full title: State Department lawyers removing references to ISIS 'genocide' against Christians, other religious minorities The State Department's top lawyers are systematically removing the word "genocide" to describe the Islamic State's mass slaughter of Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria from speeches before they are delivered and other official documents, according to human rights activists and attorneys familiar with the policies. Additionally, Democratic senators are delaying confirmation of Mark Green, Trump's pick to head the U.S. Agency for International Development who has broad bipartisan support. These efforts guarantee that Obama-era policies that worked to exclude Iraq's...

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. — A few Sundays ago, federal immigration agents walked through the doors of handsome houses here in the Detroit suburbs, brushing past tearful children, stunned wives and statuettes of the Virgin Mary in search of men whose time was up.If the Trump administration prevails, more than 100 of these men may soon be deported, like the tens of thousands of other people rounded up this year as part of a national clampdown on illegal immigration.But the arrests may have stunned this community more than most.While President Trump was hurling verbal napalm at Mexico and vowing to keep...

A federal judge in Detroit issued a sweeping order Monday protecting more than 1,400 Iraqis from deportation while he determines whether his court has jurisdiction over the issue. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith took a decision from last week, which affected 114 mostly Iraqi Christians rounded up in the Detroit area, and stretched it across the U.S. for the next 14 days.

The number of Christians in Iraq has decreased from 1.5 million 15 years ago to a couple of hundred thousand today. As the battle of Mosul comes to an end and Islamic State (ISIS) about to be defeated in Iraq, rapid action from the international community needs to be taken to safeguard the existence of Christians in the country. This is their last stand. The battle of Mosul, Iraq’s second city, is in its final stages. Predictions are that the city might be fully liberated before the end of Ramadan. While, due to a decade of persecution of “infidels” in...