The Christians in Kurdistan


The Mar Yousef (Joseph) Church in Sulaimani

A while ago Dr. Benjami of HyScience sent me an article about prosecution of the Christians in Kurdistan. I was busy at that time with the elections, but I think now it is time for me to reply.

While I don't deny that racism exists in Kurdistan as much as it exists in any other part of the world, but the good thing is that institutional racism does not exist.

I followed up Dr. Benjamin's sources and it turned out to be that the US based Assyrian International News Agency (AINA.ORG)

AINA.ORG is being set up by a group of nationalist Assyrians based in USA, some of them weren't even born in Iraq but they continued of their attack-on-all Kurdish related issues.

A Danish writer wrote this 3 years ago :

In a previous article I argued on the basis on my own experiences as a student of political science with the Kurds as my main field that the Assyrians are not being persecuted or denied any of their rights. This article support the views expressed in the previous article, however, this time the article is not based on my own experiences, but on the experiences of the Swedish aid organisation Diakonia. Diakonia is an aid organisation established by 7 Swedish Free Churches. The aid organisation is one of the largest in Sweden; it operates in approximately 45 countries all over the World except Europe and North America. Diakoni operates in the entire Iraqi Kurdistan Region with base in the Dohuk Region.

Article 1
Article 2

The 2 reports provide solid evidences that unfortunately AINA.ORG tries hard to destroy the peaceful coexistence between the various ethnic groups in Kurdistan.

Extreme Christian groups are also taking AINA.ORG as a respected and trusted source. I'd urge those who take AINA.ORG as a source for their articles to first question AINA's credibility and ask them for proof, because as most know AINA.ORG are not on the grounds, they are some God-knows how many miles away from Iraq and Kurdistan.

A trusted Christian (Assyrians and Chaldean) source is Ankawa.Com. (unfortunately no English just Arabic). Ankawa is a lively neighborhood of Erbil (Hawler) with a majority of ChaldoAssyrian populations and it is one of Hawler's best places.

The Assyrians and the Chaldeans have their own TV and Radio stations in their own languages as well as tens of newspapers and political parties.
There are some Christian Ministers with 7 members in the new upcoming Kurdistan parliament.

Recently some 200 000 Assyrians and Chaldeans and Kurds were deprived from voting in Mosul in which it resulted in mass demonstrations against the Iraqi Election Campaigners :
Photos from Ankawa
Photos from Ankawa 2

There are also reports that some Assyrians and Chaldean and Kurdish villages are now in talks with the Kurdistan Regional Government to create a new governate in Mosul and join it to Kurdistan because of the increase of terrorist attacks against Christians in Mosul. (see Pilling's post here)

Finally I praise the Assyrian and the Chaldean civilisations and their great contribution to the mankind's history. I am also looking forward for a peaceful coexistence between Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Turkmens, Arabs and others in Kurdistan as well as in Iraq.