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November 9, 2005
Iraq: Mosul Muslims Threatening Christians
From today's Florida Catholic News, a report that Christians in the northern city of Mosul are being subjected to extortion and jizyah tax by Muslims.
Two Iraqi priests have claimed that the Christians are threatened with kidnap or murder if they do not pay large sums of cash to the Islamists.
A 43-year old Christian father of three children was killed recently because he did not pay up, said Dominian Father Mekhail Nageeb, of Nineveh near Mosul, speaking in a phone conversation a week ago. When the extortionists arrived at his workplace, the man tried to flee, but was shot.
Father Nageeb claims that he knows more than 10 or 15 people in Mosul who are being threatened with death or abduction of family members if they do not pay large amounts of money. The figures are astronomical by Iraqi living standards - from $100,000 to $150,000. Such amounts mean the selling of virtually all their possessions. Many are unable to pay and flee the country. This appears in some cases to be a motivating factor - a form of ethnic cleansing via extortion and fear.
Father Sabbah Patto, a Chaldean, said on a visit to Rome that Christians are told they are paying a "protection" tax. He claimed that some Muslim leaders were telling people not to buy homes nor property from Christians "because they will become free (at no cost) for people" after the Christian owners are forced to flee the area."
Father Nageeb, a Dominican, confirmed this, stating that there are more than "20 or 30" homes formerly owned by Christians which now stand empty after their owners fled the country.
When asked why Christians were the target of extortion and forced migration, Father Patto said it is because some fundamentalist Islamic groups fuel the notion that "if they do something against an unbeliever," that is, someone who does not believe in the Quran, "it's not a sin or there is no problem in it because the unbeliever is wrong."He said that many of those who do flee are eventually forced to return, because they cannot afford the cost of living in Turkey and Syria, and because "nobody gives them a visa or papers to leave the country'.
Father Nageeb claimed it was important for the Christian population of Iraq to see Christian bishops and priests remain in Iraq, and urged Christians in Western communities to support them with financial assistance and prayers.
"Jizyah" is a tax which Christians and Jews had to pay to Mohammed and his successors, when they were living in lands controlled by Muslims in a state of "dhimmitude", which essentially means "slavery".
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 9, 2005 8:15 AM
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