Touching Jesus, St. Joseph’s Chaldean Church, Baghdad, Iraq
She was praying for peace (September, 2003). I am writing this on Easter Day, 2011. Baghdad is 11 hours ahead of us (those of us on the West Coast in the U.S.). “A bomb exploded outside the church this morning, wounding seven, according to the Associated Press. The AP story states, “Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi Christians have suffered repeated violence and harassment from Sunni Muslim extremists who view them as infidels and agents of the West.”
While this is overtly true, the statement gives the impression that Christians are targeted more so than other religious groups. It would be difficult to define who gets targeted ‘most,’ but I’d like to point out that Christians worship openly in Baghdad. St. Joseph’s has a giant concrete cross on the roof that can be seen for miles around. And in the months following the invasion in 2003, Sunnis were bombing Shia, and Shia were bombing Sunnis long before anyone bombed a church (I believe the first bombing of a church took place in October of 2003 (more than six months after the U.S. invasion).
According to Human Rights Watch, Iraqi Yazidis—not Christians, but members of an ancient Kurdish religion rooted in part in Islam—have suffered the most lethal attacks (more than 300 dead and 700 wounded in simultaneous truck bombings in August of 2007).
HRW says Christians (as well as Yazidis, and Shabaks) have suffered “extensively” since the invasion, but does not (as far as I can tell in reading their reports) say that Christians are being targeted excessively compared to other ethnic or religious minorities. The agency does condemn Kurdish government officials for failing to protect the rights of minorities who found civic associations that challenge (or threaten to challenge) the Kurdistan Regional Government. But note (if you link the HRW report) that the alleged basis of the attack is that the minority groups are being targeted because they threaten the power of the Kurdish government, not specifically because they are ethnically or religiously distinct.
The AP story goes on to say that the bombings are “forcing many of them [Christians] to flee the country either to the safer northern Kurdish self-ruled region or abroad.” This is true, because the bombings [as well as the shootings at checkpoints by U.S. troops, and the random incarcerations of Iraqis] have forced anyone who wants to live to flee the country. What subgroup of Iraqis is fleeing the violence? The subgroup of those who want to survive.