Wordlwatchmonitor - 27/3/18 For many Christian families in Qaraqosh, this Easter is particularly special, as they will be celebrating it at home for the first time since fleeing the city in 2014. The city, located in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, was occupied by the Islamic State group for over three years before its liberation in October 2017. Since ...
Coptic Solidarity - Raymond Ibrahim - January- February 2018 For another consecutive year in a row, Egypt has proven to be an inhospitable place for Christians, namely its most indigenous inhabitants, the Copts. According to Open Doors, a human rights organization that closely follows the treatment of Christians around the world, Egypt is the 17th worst nation (out of nearly ...
Pravoslavie.ru - 1/9/17 During the course of recent negotiations with Hezbollah and the Syrian army, the terrorist organization ISIS denied that it had kidnapped Metropolitan Paul of Aleppo and Oriental Orthodox Metropolitan Johanna Ibrahim, who were abducted on April 22, 2013, reports vimaorthodoxias.gr. Hezbollah and the Syrian army recently trapped 300 terrorists from the Islamic State on Mount Qalamoun, ...
RT.com - 17/6/17 Islamic clerics in Austria have produced a 9-point declaration, calling ISIS terrorists “black sheep” and urging fellow believers to play a greater role in society, days after Austria introduced a burqa ban and compulsory integration courses. 300 imams representing the mainstream Islamic Religious Authority of Austria unveiled a text that “condemns terrorist and extremist ...
By Paul Jeffrey Catholic News Service - 1/2/17 MOSUL, Iraq -- As some residents of the city of Mosul celebrate their new freedom from the Islamic State group, an Iraqi Christian leader who visited the war-torn city said Christian residents are unlikely to return. "I don't see a future for Christians in Mosul," said Father Emanuel Youkhana, a priest, ...
www.religiousfreedomcoalition.org - 10/12/16 On August 6, 2014, the Islamic State overran Iraq's largest Christian city, the city of Qaraqosh. The advance forced thousands of Christians to leave the city after it had been the target of jihadist attacks for weeks. One month before, the Islamic State took over the city of Mosul and many Christian residents from Mosul ...
AINA - 28/11/16 (AINA) -- A new English book titled 'Year of the Sword - The Assyrian Genocide, A History' has been published by Prof. Joseph Yacoub, an emeritus Professor at the Catholic University of Lyon, France. The book is an English edition of the French book published last year and titled "Qui s'en souviendra ?: ...
Raymond Ibrahim - 22/11/16 A human rights group recently published photos documenting the Islamic State’s fanatical and virulent hate for Christians — even dead ones. The photos show the Christian cemetery of Qarqoosh, Iraq that was vandalized by the Islamic group. Among other things, the jihadis opened coffins and desecrated the remains of the dead– in the picture below, by snapping ...
AINA - 11/11/16 BASHIQA, Iraq -- For the first time in 2 1/2 years, a group of Syrian Orthodox Church clergy visited churches in two villages near Mosul that had only hours earlier been cleared of Islamic State fighters by Kurdish peshmerga forces. Two days after entering the town of Bashiqa, peshmerga forces said they had it ...
Assyrian Confederation of Europe - 11/11/16 The Assyrian Confederation of Europe is concerned by the growing influence of churches in Assyrian politics in Iraq, which has been revealed in recent developments. Recent meetings on the subject of the future of the Nineveh Plain conducted in Iraq between Assyrian political groups have been initiated and attended by church leaders. ...
By Bridget Johnson – 25/10/16 PJ Media Iraqi and Kurdish forces are going town-by-town in the multi-front advance on Mosul, liberating villages as they go and finding varying degrees of ISIS resistance along the way. Bartella is an Assyrian town less than half an hour east of Mosul on Iraq's Highway 2. Once home to about 20,000 ...
Channel 4 News - 24/10/16 Read: More Iraqi Christian towns liberated from Islamic State control Kurdish forces claim they've taken back the town of Bashiqa from so-called Islamic State - as their advance on Mosul continues. But what's happening in the newly liberated towns? Two years ago we reported the story of Father John Tarachee, who was driven out ...
Christiantoday - August 2016 Christianity is in danger of disappearing across entire countries in the Middle East, the land of its birth, according to a senior Orthodox Church leader. There have been repeated warnings about the decline of Christianity in Iraq under the Islamic State onslaught. Eight in ten Christians have left Iraq since 2003. But the Patriarch of ...
Catholic News Service - August 2016 BAGHDAD -- Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad called for a united and strong stance -- by Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- to stop the spread of the "cancer" of Islamic State and other terrorist groups. In an Aug. 27 statement, the patriarch said it's about time "for Muslims and non-Muslim people ...
Raymond Ibrahim - Gatestone Institute- June 2016 Originally published by Gatestone Institute under the title, “Egypt: New Attacks on Christians.” In a chronically familiar scene, angry, rioting Muslims in Egypt burned down around 80 Christian homes on June 17. In the words of one of the victims, Moses Zarif, On Friday afternoon, after noon prayers, a large number of Muslims gathered ...
www.sputniknews.com - May 2016 According to an international human rights organization, at least 49 people have been executed by the Daesh militant group since February 2015 in the Libyan Mediterranean city of Sirte controlled by terrorists. MOSCOW (Sputnik) – At least 49 people have been executed by the Daesh militant group since February 2015 in the Libyan ...
www.m.clarionproject.org - May 2016 Islamic State launched a pre-dawn raid on the Christian-majority village Telskuf, just north of Mosul in Iraq on May 3. It was the second time ISIS had taken the village. Rita, in her early 20s fled the first time ISIS marched into town, and now lives in another Christian village not far away. "My village ...
www.aina.org - By Thomas D. Williams - May 2016 According to the Archbishop of Aleppo, when Westerners open their doors to Syrian refugees, it hurts, rather than helps, their cause. The solution lies not in welcoming more refugees, but in helping resolve the situation back home so they will not need to leave. Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart said ...
Assyrian Universal Alliance - 2/5/16 In a historic and unprecedented move at the request of the Assyrian Universal Alliance, the Australian House of Representatives today recognized without objection that crimes committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against Assyrians are 'genocide'. The lengthy and comprehensive motion recognizes the "Assyrian people" as "an original and Indigenous ...
www.rt.com - 2/3/16 The Obama administration says Islamic State’s persecution of Christian minorities in Iraq and Syria is not genocide. The point where it is accurate to term it as such “has not been reached,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press briefing. Asked whether Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) is practicing genocide in its extermination ...
18/2/16 (AINA) -- A coalition of 110 organizations and individuals has sent a letter to President Obama urging him to recognize the crimes committed by ISIS against minorities in the Middle East as genocide. The letter was spearheaded by the International Religious Freedom Roundtable. The Obama administration and the U.S. State Department have signalled that only the ...