NPR’s In Depth Story of Iraq’s Christians and their Persecution

It aired this evening on All Things Considered and is very much worth noting.  What’s happening to the Christians of Iraq would be causing real outrage all around the world, if it were happening to any other faith group.  If Jews or Muslims in particular were being hunted and killed, the world would express just outrage.  So why not now?  Why the conspiracy of silence and the lack of US Government reaction?

Christians around Baghdad have been getting threats by text messages and envelopes with bullets inside. Officials in France and Germany have offered asylum to a limited number of Iraqi Christians. But diplomats in Iraq say that is a dangerous game. They say singling out Christians only makes them more of a target. What’s more, they say, in a country where hundreds of people still die every month, it’s not as if Christians are the only victims. Bashar Warda is a Chaldean Catholic archbishop. He says Christians have been part of this country since the 2nd century. But, unlike other Christian leaders, he can’t in good conscience encourage Christians to stay. “Practically, I cannot guarantee anything to any family. I would ask them if they have the patience to stay, if they could travel elsewhere, just for the meantime. That’s all,” he says.

Christians aren’t the only ones dying, that’s true. But they are being singled out only because they are not Muslims. And that’s the tragic truth.

It’s time for the US Government to do something about it. I say we need to open America to Iraqi Christian immigrants. Without reservation or restriction.

Related Articles

• More Christians are Fleeing Iraq (nytimes.com)
• Iraq: Christians on the Run (atwar.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Actual persecution vs imagined persecution (washingtonmonthly.com)