Political Quotes

“The Christian owner of a car repair shop was killed execution-style in Mosul, police said Saturday, raising concerns about the possibility of new attacks against religious minorities in the northern city. This chilling excerpt was taken from a recent AP story, which went on to say that the attack followed a pattern of violence and intimidation that sent thousands of Christians fleeing from their homes in Mosul this fall. This is not the first time that we have seen targeted killings. We need to look no farther than the 2008 kidnap and murder of Archbishop Rahho of Mosul, an Assyrian Christian of the Chaldean Church, or Youssef Adel, an Assyrian Christian priest who was fatally shot in a drive-by attack in April of 2008. These high-profile killings are indicative of wider-scale persecution and fear experienced by this suffering community. The numbers tell the story. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Iraqi's Christian population has fallen from as many as 1.4 million in 2003 to between 500,000 and 700,000 at present.”