The Situation of Christians in the Middle East -- A Declaration of Concern 9SEP13

THE violence against Christians and other religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia is increasing. There is legislation in the US House, HR 301, and a petition at http://wh.gov/lDtCG that will require Pres Obama to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia. This from HuffPost, and there is much more on this in my previous post Anti-Christian terror is everyone’s concern & PETITION TO APPOINT A STATE DEPT SPECIAL ENVOY TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE NEAR EAST & SOUTH CENTRAL ASIA24OKT13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/anti-christian-terror-is-everyones.html

The Metropolitans of Aleppo in Syria, Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos (Paul) Yazigi were abducted April 22nd, 2013 by 'unknown persons' and their fate is still in question.
This repulsive event is just one of many serious examples of the increasing persecution that Christians are now experiencing in the Middle East.
Over the past year I have been working with Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, and "Pro Oriente" in Vienna, Austria. Today Cardinal Christoph Schonborn in his capacity as chairman of the "Pro Oriente" Foundation's board of trustees together with the Patriarchs Youhanna X (Antiochan Orthodox), Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (Syriac Orthodox), Gregorios III Laham (Melkite greek Catholic), Louis Raphael I Sako (Chaldean Catholic), Mar Dinkha IV (Assyrian), Nerses Bedros XIX (Armenian Catholic) published a joint declaration on the situation of Christians in the Middle East.
The unprecedented nature of this collective statement of Patriarchs and Cardinal is testimony to the extreme situations in which Christians in the Middle East now find themselves.
The precise wording of the declaration is as follows:

In deep concern regarding the situation of the Christians - and of all the people in the Middle Eastern countries where Christianity originated - we turn to the governments of those countries, to the leaders of religious communities, to international and regional organisations, and to representatives of civil society, that they may undertake everything in their power :

~ to obtain the immediate release of the kidnapped Metropolitans of Aleppo - and beyond this of all those who have been kidnapped in Syria,

~ to refuse the logic of violence and adopt the logic of dialogue,

~ to respect the sovereignty and unity of the States and to reject any illegal external military intervention,

~ to make it possible to return for all those who have been driven out of their homes or have had to flee,

~ to bring the suffering of the peoples and the conflict in Syria - which is also endangering the security and stability of the neighboring countries - to an end as quickly as possible through negotiations between all those involved,

~ to establish a political order in the Middle East which guarantees full respect of all human rights and thereby also religious liberty and freedom of conscience, but also full civil rights and equality for all the inhabitants of these countries.

The Christians in the Middle East are an essential and indispensable element of society. We are certain that in the future, too, they will contribute to building up a society characterised by peace, mutual respect and respect of human rights together with their fellow citizens who belong to other religious communities or have different political alignments.

With this in mind, we are united in prayer and in our efforts for a humane and dignified future with all Christians and people of good will.

I hope you will help me share this message with your friends and colleagues around the world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wolfgang-danspeckgruber/christian-persecution-middle-east_b_3895980.html

Anti-Christian terror is everyone’s concern & PETITION TO APPOINT A STATE DEPT SPECIAL ENVOY TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE NEAR EAST & SOUTH CENTRAL ASIA24OKT13

THIS is something our government, including the Obama administration, has been tolerant of for decades. The answer is not intolerance of other religions, or no religion, here in the U.S. Our Constitution guarantees each person the freedom of religion in the 1st Amendment. That was included because of the persecution of various religions of the emigres to the colonies and the religious violence among various Christian sects that was occurring in America while our Founding Fathers struggled with independence and nation building ( see my page on this blog The Great Debate of Our Season & ORIGINAL INTENT, GOD AND COUNTRY from MOTHER JONES DEZ2005 updated 21APR12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/p/original-intent-god-and-country-from.html  ). IT is time for the American government to stop ignoring the persecution, the terrorizing of Christians in countries around the world. This is a religious rights issue as well as a violation of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and any foreign government's sanctioned and / or tolerated discrimination against, persecution of, terrorizing of that nation's Christian community must be publicly challenged by the our government. Please sign the petition at http://wh.gov/lDtCG for a State Dept envoy to be appointed and then take the time to contact your Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and your Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and Pres Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and tell them to pass HR 301 in the House and Senate, and baring passage of the bill tell Pres Obama to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia. From the Washington Post.....

• By Steven B. Nasatir

• October 24 at 9:15 am

An Egyptian woman mourns during the funeral of several Copt Christians who were killed in Warraq’s Virgin Mary church in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Egypt’s Christians were stunned Monday by a drive-by shooting in which masked gunmen sprayed a wedding party outside a Cairo church with automatic weapons fire, killing several, including two young girls, in an attack that raised fears of a nascent insurgency by extremists after the military’s ouster of the president and a crackdown on Islamists. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

The persecution of any religious minority anywhere by anyone is an evil injustice. It requires all persons of conscience to speak out and, when possible, take action.
The upcoming 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht makes this an auspicious time to raise awareness about the contemporary violence targeting religious minorities and their places of worship. Of particular concern are attacks against Christian minorities that have occurred with alarming frequency from Syria to Egypt, from Iraq to Pakistan, and from Kenya to Sudan.
November 9 marks 75 years since the pogrom against Jews committed by mobs throughout the Nazi Reich. Often called Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” when rioters killed or injured hundreds of Jews; burned over 1,000 synagogues; destroyed 7,000 Jewish-owned shops and businesses; vandalized cemeteries and schools, and; sent 30,000 Jews to German concentration camps. It marked a turning point in the escalating campaign of persecution culminating in the Holocaust.
These events, seared into Jewish collective memory, make us doubly aware—and duty bound—to raise our voices when the deadly brew of religious bigotry and wanton violence are mixed.
Today in Syria, a once thriving Christian population—a community nearly as ancient as that country’s once great Jewish community—has been depopulated by 25 percent, according an estimate the Patriarch Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III Laham shared with the BBC.
In September, The Associated Press reported that Syrian Christians in Maaloula—a community dating to the birth of Christianity and that still speaks Aramaic—were driven out or forcibly converted to Islam by rebels aligned with al-Qaeda.
“It is chaos, it is violence, it is blood, it is death. Life has been paralyzed. We have lost everything,” said Archbishop Theophile Georges Kassab of Homs.
In Egypt, some supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi last summer unleashed their rage against that nation’s Christians, a historic community constituting 20 percent of the country’s population. Mobs burned dozens of Christian schools, convents, monasteries, institutions, and churches of any, and all Christian denominations. And just days ago, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside a Coptic Christian church during a wedding, murdering four, including an 8-year-old girl.
“It never happened before in history that such a big number of churches were attacked on one day,” Bishop Thomas, a Coptic Orthodox bishop in Assiut told Al Jazeera. “We normally used to have attacks once a month or so.”
As Kristallnacht teaches, the burning of houses of worship can be a red alert that worse is yet to come. September saw the horrific Taliban bombing of Anglican worshippers in Pakistan, which took 85 lives, and, according to accounts shared by witnesses, the targeting for murder of Kenyan Christians—deliberately separated from others in a chilling reminder of Nazi “selections”—by al Shabaab terrorists in a Nairobi shopping mall.
Attacks like these have contributed to a decline in the Christian population in the Middle East and North Africa from 9.5 percent to 3.8 percent of the total population from 1910 to 2010, according to a Pew Forum report on Global Christianity.
Tellingly, Israel is the only Middle East country where the Christian population has grown in the last half century, from 34,000 to 158,000, in large measure, according to many observers, because of the religious freedoms enjoyed there.
As a Jew, I’m proud of the status of religious minorities in the Jewish state. As an American, I’m especially proud to live in a society where people of different faiths (and no faith) share the values of tolerance and coexistence. Despite isolated though sometimes deadly instances of religiously-inspired terror during the past few decades, ours is a nation where no Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or person of any other faith must live in fear because of who they are.
It is time to sound the alarm about the religious persecutions of Christians and others. Let us raise our voices, and call on our elected representatives to take action. People of all faiths should support passage of H.R.301, legislation that would direct our President to appoint a State Department Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.
The bill will facilitate U.S government responses to human rights violations, combat acts of religious intolerance and incitement targeting religious minorities, and help address the needs of religious minorities.
Further, we must demand that international institutions designed to protect human rights, especially the United Nations, must actually do so without prejudice.
For people of conscience, for people of all faiths, now is not the time to be silent.
Steven B. Nasatir is president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/10/24/anti-christian-terror-is-everyones-concern/?wprss=rss_on-faith&clsrd