ASIA/IRAQ - IRAQI CHRISTIANS APPEAL TO PEOPLE OF MOSUL: “A MINORITY OF EXTREMISTS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO DESTROY MOSUL’S TRADITIONAL IMAGE OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE ”

Baghdad (Fides Service) –The Christian community in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul is subject to increasing pressure by Muslim extremists. Local sources told Fides that one night last week a group of at least 10 armed men broke into the Chaldean Patriarchate in Mosul. The assailants did not use violence but they threatened those present: “You see we can attack you when and where we want to”.
This episode is one in a long series of acts of intimidation, including threatening letters slipped under the door of the Chaldean Bishops’ residence. The letters said Christians who did not convert to Islam would be killed. Some letters gave a telephone number which was answered by a recorded message urging Christians to convert or die.
Local Christian leaders have appealed to people in Mosul to isolate extremists. “This is the only path open to us” local sources told Fides. “We cannot ask for the protection of Coalition Forces. This would only increase the hatred of extremists and make us look like traitors of Iraq. The local police is still too weak to guarantee effective protection. We see dialogue as the only weapon we can use to defend ourselves from extremism”.
“Thank God” - the local source told Fides - “we have good relations with local Muslim leaders. We have asked them to see that the extremist vision does not prevail and that we can continue to live peacefully side by side. This is the sense of our message to the people of Mosul: a minority of extremists must not be allowed to destroy our town’s traditional image of religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence ”. (L.M.) (Fides Service 17/12/2003, lines 27 words 316)