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Testimony of Dr. Marshall
in House International
Relations Committee
For understandable reasons the Report
does not deal with Iraq, but I believe that it is vital to address
the situation of the religious minorities there. Of course, many
Iraqis irrespective of religion have been attacked and threatened
by terrorists and everyone's security needs to be assured. However,
the especially vulnerable Christian minority has been targeted
for their faith.
Consequently, we are particularly concerned
about the current situation of the ChaldoAssyrian community in
Iraq. The Iraqi government and the media report that a mass exodus
of ChaldoAssyrians, the native Christians from Iraq, is now underway
due to targeted religious violence against them. Beheadings,
kidnappings, and assassinations have been documented in recent
months, including in September when six ChaldoAssyrian workers
were murdered in Baghdad for "collaborating" with the
United States. According to reports of the Catholic relief group,
Aid to the Church in Need, over the past 18 months, more than
80 Christians have been killed at the hands of Muslim terrorists
and extremists, 20 of which murders occurred last month.
In September in Mosul, terrorists kidnapped
and beheaded a 30-year-old Chaldean Christian, a manager of a
small gift shop the third recent beheading of members of
this community. In the last month, Christian homes in the small
village of
Bakhdeda between Kirkuk and Mosul suffered two mortar attacks
that killed and injured children sleeping in their beds. On August
1, Islamic extremists bombed five churches in Mosul and Baghdad
during Sunday worship services.
In the face of such savagery, according
to Iraqi government records, 40,000 ChaldoAssyrians have fled
over the past two months, especially in the immediate aftermath
of the August church bombings. This pattern is reminiscent of
the bombing of synagogues in 1948 that eventually led to the
flight of virtually the entire Iraqi Jewish community.
An estimated 800,000 ChaldoAssyrian
remain in Iraq and constitute the country's largest non-Muslim
minority. They form one of the nation's most moderate and educated
communities. The "ethnic-cleansing" in Iraq of its
Christians would diminish the country's prospects of developing
as a tolerant, pluralistic and democratic society.
Without a sizeable non-Muslim minority, moderate Muslims may
encounter far greater intimidation in raising their
voices against the imposition of the strict Islamic law favored
by some prominent Islamic parties and clerics.
We urge congress to ensure that the
following specific measures are taken on behalf of the ChaldoAssyrians
of
Iraq:
1. Establish as a safe haven for them,
the administrative unit included in the Transitional Administrative
Law
(Article 53D). This safe haven should include the chiefly traditional
community villages located near Mosul, in the
Nineveh Plains.
2. Provide the ChaldoAssyrians in Iraq
with direct and expedited support from the Congressionally-authorized
funds for Iraq's development in order that they may rebuild their
destroyed villages, roads, schools, and clinics as
well as undertake start-up economic development projects. The
community has been shut out of funding due to
discriminatory practices that favor Muslim and Kurd groups, as
well as due to general bureaucratic delays.
3. Allocate funds for the resettlement
of Christian refugees. Many educated and professional young people
of
the ChaldoAssyrian community, in particular, have fled the country
over the past year and are now living in legal
limbo in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Greece and elsewhere in the
Middle East.
4. Facilitate the ability of those forced
to flee by the Hussein regime, or exiled in recent months, to
register to vote
if they are eligible.
5. Provide across the board political
support against the active and passive ethnic cleansing to which
they are
being subjected throughout Iraq because they are Christians and
because they resist complying with official
demands to register with state and local governments as Kurds
or Arabs.
The next few months will be critical
ones as the Iraqi people undertake a census, elections and constitution
writing. If the ChaldoAssyrians are now treated, as they often
have by the great powers of the past, as one more
inconvenient minority in the Middle East who must be sacrificed
to the greater good of mollifying Arab, Kurd and
Muslim sentiment, the United States will have presided over the
demise of one of Iraq's, indeed the world's, most
ancient religious groups and peoples. We will also have undercut
our goal of reconstructing a more tolerant,
democratic government in Iraq.
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View the entire testimony below:
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/mar100604.htm
Freedom House Advocates a safe haven
for Christians of Iraq
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Elyse Bauer, (202) 296-5101 ext. 136
CENTER SENIOR FELLOW TO TESTIFY BEFORE
HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE ON SAUDI ARABIA, IRAQ
AND VIETNAM
WASHINGTON, DC, October 5, 2004 -- Dr.
Paul Marshall, senior fellow of Freedom House's Center for Religious
Freedom, will testify tomorrow before the House International
Relations Committee, on the State Department's Country Report
on Religious Freedom.
In his testimony Dr. Marshall will focus
on six countries-Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Egypt, China
and Iraq-with particular emphasis on new developments in Vietnam,
Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
The full Committee hearing will be held
at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, in 2172 Rayburn House Office Building.
Dr. Marshall, in welcoming Vietnam's designation as a "country
of particular concern," will point to evidence that
Vietnamese authorities continue to carry out anti-Christian persecution
against Hmong and Montagnard ethnic minorities.
Dr. Marshall will also speak to growing
evidence of ethnic cleansing against native ChaldoAssyrian Christians
in Iraq. Tens of thousands of ChaldoAssyrians are believed to
have fled Iraq since coordinated church bombings in Mosul and
Baghdad during Sunday worship services on August 1. Approximately
800,000 Christians remain in Iraq, constituting the largest
non-Muslim minority.
Dr. Marshall will also bring attention
to proposals of the ChaldoAssyrian community, including the creation
of a safe haven in Iraq, as described in Article 53D of the Transitional
Administrative Law.
Dr. Marshall will also welcome the addition
of Saudi Arabia to the U.S. list of "countries of particular
concern." He will discuss an issue not addressed in the
State Department's recent report on global religious freedom:
the world-wide proliferation by Saudi Arabia of an ideology of
religious hatred against Christians, Jews and other religious
believers including moderate Muslims.
The Center for Religious Freedom is
currently preparing a report on Saudi-propagated Wahhabi materials
that have been collected from mosques in the United States.
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