Armenian National Committee of Wisconsin
4100 N. Newman Road
Racine, WI 53406
[email protected]

PRESS RELEASE
August 4, 2004
For Immediate Release

Contact: A. Zohrab Khaligian
[email protected]

ANC OF WISCONSIN ENDORSES SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLD

RACINE, WI–The Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Wisconsin is proud to
announce their endorsement of Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) for
reelection to the United States Senate.

“In his two terms in office, Senator Feingold has demonstrated to be a
strong advocate of Armenian-American issues,” stated ANC of Wisconsin
representative Zohrab Khaligian, “which is evident by his support of many
Armenian-related initiatives before the local Armenian community even
contacts him.”

“Additionally, Senator Feingold’s offices in Washington, DC and Wisconsin
maintain regular contact with the Armenian National Committee to ensure the
Senators’ continued support of Armenian-American initiatives,” continued
Khaligian.

The following is a brief look at Senator Feingold’s recent record on
Armenian issues:

* On June 12, 2003, he co-sponsored S.Res.164, which marks the 15th
anniversary of the US implementation of UN Genocide Convention, and calls on
the United States to learn from the lessons of past genocides–including the
Holocaust and the Armenian, Cambodian and Rwandan genocides–to prevent
future atrocities.

* On January 27, 2004, Senator Feingold joined Senators Barbara Boxer
(D-CA), George Allen (R-VA), Jon Corzine (D-NJ), John Kerry (D-MA), and Paul
Sarbanes (D-MD) in co-signing a letter encouraging President Bush to renew
his call for Turkey to immediately lift its decade-long blockade of Armenia.
This letter was sent in anticipation of a meeting at the White House between
President George W. Bush and visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan.

* On April 20, 2004, Senator Feingold sent a statement to be read at the
commemoration of the Armenian Genocide at the Wisconsin State Capitol. This
year’s statement read:

“Today, we remember the Armenian men, women and children who lost their
lives during the Armenian genocide. 89 years ago between 1915 and 1923, the
Ottoman Empire undertook a policy to isolate, exile and eliminate the
Armenian population. One and a half million Armenians were systematically
murdered in this campaign. Hundreds of thousands more were forced to flee
their homes.

The Armenian genocide must not be denied or forgotten. We have an
obligation to remember and remind others of the horror that occurred. As
seen by the killings in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda over the past decade,
targeting people for their ethnicity is still a frequent occurrence. Its
repetition demands that we speak out and inform others in order to prevent
future atrocities . . .”

* On April 23, 2004, Senator Feingold joined 21 of his Senate colleagues in
cosigning a letter to the President Bush, which urged him to characterize
the Armenian Genocide as “genocide” in his annual commemorative statement.

* On April 27, 2004, Senator Feingold submitted a statement to the United
States Senate in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. This year’s
statement read:

“People around the world are joining together to solemnly remember and honor
the men, women and children who perished in the Armenian genocide. 89 years
ago, one and a half million Armenians were systematically massacred at the
hands of the Ottoman Empire . . .

Throughout the 20th century, the international community failed to acts as
governments in Germany, Yugoslavia and Rwanda attempted to methodically
eliminate people because of their religion and ethnicity. Minority groups
were abandoned by the international community in each instance to be
overwhelmed by violence and despair. In Armenia, as in Rwanda and the
Holocaust, the perpetrating governments scapegoated their minority groups
for the difficulties they faced as societies. They justified their
campaigns of hatred with political and economic reasons in an attempt to
rationalize their depravity.

This is why we must remember the Armenian genocide. To forget it is to
enable more genocides and ethnic cleansing to occur . . .

In the shadow of the Holocaust, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide . . .
The Convention required its parties to create domestic legislation to hold
perpetrators of genocide accountable for their actions and to place these
perpetrators before domestic courts or international tribunals.

The international community has a long way to go in punishing and
especially, preventing genocide. But we have made the first steps. As we
move forward, we must learn the lessons of Armenia’s genocide. Can we
recognize the rhetorical veils of murderous leaders, thrown up to disguise
the agenda at hand? Have we, the international community, learned that we
must not stand by, paralyzed, as horrors occur, but to work collectively to
prevent and stop genocides from occurring? We owe the victims of the
Armenian genocide this commitment.”

“We are truly fortunate to be represented by Senator Feingold and we
encourage every Wisconsin Armenian American to support the Senator so he may
continue to be our advocate in Washington,” concluded Khaligian.

Russ Feingold began his political career in 1982, when at the age of 29 he
was elected to the Wisconsin State Senate representing the 27th District.
In 1992, after two successful reelection campaigns for State Senate,
Feingold defeated two-term incumbent Senator Robert Kasten to represent
Wisconsin in the United States Senate. Currently he is vying for his third
term in the US Senate.

The Armenian National Committee is the largest Armenian American grassroots
political organization in Wisconsin and nationwide. The ANC actively
advances a broad range of issues of concern to the Armenian American
community.

The Christian Science Monitor
August 03, 2004

Iraqis decry attacks on Christians

By Scott Baldauf and Dan Murphy | Staff writers of The Christian Science
Monitor

BAGHDAD – A rare display of violence against Christians here may signal that
Sunni insurgents are broadening their effort to destabilize Iraq and stir up
differences between Islam and other faiths.

Bombing attacks against churches in Baghdad and Mosul Sunday night killed at
least 11 and injured dozens more. The explosions were a strong show of force
and coordination by jihadi elements that the interim government has called
the biggest threat to Iraq’s stability.

Many Iraqis reject these wedge efforts and express frustration with civilian
attacks. But there are few signs that terrorist cells have been disrupted.
In fact, as the Iraqi government shores up security at police stations and
other high-visibility locations, insurgents are increasingly attacking
vulnerable targets, like churches and truck drivers.

After graphic video of a Turkish hostage being killed by militants was
posted on the Internet, the Turkish truckers’ association announced Monday
that it will no longer transport goods bound for US forces in Iraq,
according to the Associated Press.

The detritus of calamity is evident outside the St. Peter and Paul Chaldean
Catholic Church in Baghdad’s Al Doura district.

The Rev. Faris Toma, pastor of St. Peter and Paul, spent the night
comforting bereaved parishioners. Ten churchgoers were killed Sunday evening
by a remote-control car bomb that went off just as church members headed out
to the parking lot.

“Why do they kill all the Iraqi people?” he asks in exasperation. “Why don’t
they kill the Americans? They are the occupiers. We are innocent.”

Attacks against Iraqi Christians have been rare up until now. While
Christians have been targeted by kidnap-for-ransom gangs, and
Christian-owned liquor stores have been destroyed by Shiite militias, these
attacks were probably not sectarian.

The vast majority of Iraqis are comfortable with the country’s Christian
minority. Representatives of both Moqtada al-Sadr’s militant Shiite group
and Sunni political organizations condemned the attacks. “This is a cowardly
act,” Sadr spokesman Abdul Hadi al-Daraji told Al Jazeera television.

Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also gave
a rare response, calling the church bombings a “hideous crime.”

Analysts say that Sunni militants with an ideology similar to Al Qaeda’s
were almost certainly behind the church bombings. Al Qaeda-linked groups,
intolerant not just of Christians but of Muslim sects that don’t share their
views, have targeted churches in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

While Iraq has armed Shiite groups that have participated in attacks on US
forces and been involved in the assassinations of political opponents, they
haven’t been known to use terrorist attacks on civilian targets.

Iraqi officials say they believe the attack was carried out by a cell
connected to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with Al Qaeda ties
who has taken responsibility for a number of car-bombings inside Iraq.

Since the apparent immediate aim of the Zarqawi group and others that share
its methods is to embarrass the US-installed interim government, the actual
nature of the target is less important to them than simply carrying out
successful attacks.

During the rule of Saddam Hussein, the Christian community largely stayed
out of the major conflicts and divisions in Iraqi politics. Though some
Christians were elevated to senior positions – Tariq Aziz, a Christian, was
a longtime foreign minister and one of Mr. Hussein’s closest allies – most
quietly went about their lives as small businessmen and shopkeepers.

Since the fall of Hussein, and amid a rise in militant Islamic movements,
Christian leaders have worried that they would be targeted.

At St. Peter and Paul church, witnesses are busy putting their house of God
back in order.

But while church members are clinging to one another, and to sympathetic
Muslims and others in the surrounding community, they recognize that their
fears may take a long time to overcome.

Bashar Badri, a guard and a church member, knew some of the church members
who died in the blast. One of his friends, Firas Benjamin, and his fiancée,
were planning to get married at this church on Thursday. Both were burned to
death in their car.

But while this attack has shaken many church members, he says Iraqi
Christians will not be intimidated.

“I think the people of this community will not leave Iraq, they will not
leave the church,” says Mr. Shamon. “We have been through many wars, so I
think we can carry on our lives.”

At the Armenian Catholic Church in the prosperous Tahrir Square
neighborhood, witnesses heard a smaller series of blasts, which brought them
outside for a larger explosion. It’s a common tactic, police say, to
maximize the number of casualties.

The tactic failed. A massive concrete wall, forming a grotto, served as a
bunker to protect the curious parishioners.

Across the street, a brick wall has collapsed into a pile of rubble. But it
was strong enough to protect Samir Matti’s sister and her two children, who
had been sitting in the front room of their home, watching television, when
the car bomb exploded just 15 feet away.

Mr. Matti says he has no confidence that either the Iraqi government or the
US can stop insurgents who use car bombs. “The enemy, he’s a hidden person,”
says Matti. “He could be in that car, or in this car. I don’t know how you
can find him.”

“Islamic fundamentalists did this, probably,” says Adel Mansour, a neighbor
who attends a Syrian Catholic church elsewhere. “They have support, money,
they are organized, and they did this for political reasons. They want
people to turn against the local government.”

Taipei Times
Mon, August 2, 2004

Iraqi chaos starting to breed sectarian strife

`PROMOTION OF VIRTUE’: The radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his army of
devotees have been blamed for a campaign of intimidation and violence
against Iraqi Christians

THE OBSERVER , LONDON
Monday, Aug 02, 2004,Page 7

“The al-Sadr tide is the only active tide in the country.”

Sheikh Raed al-Kadhimi, one of Moqtada al-Sadr’s aides

First came the warning: a sheet of paper stuck to the door of Na’aman
Khalil’s shop ordering him to close his off-license.

“You are corrupting the people of the Earth and you should stop,” said the
message, signed by a group calling itself the Monotheistic Movement of
Jihad.

Five days later, a parcel of and gutting the shop. Four other alcohol stores
along the same street in Baghdad’s largely Christian al-Ghadir district were
bombed that same night.

No one was injured, but the message was clear. After the bombings and a
spate of other attacks across Baghdad, most of the city’s alcohol shops
closed.

“They have achieved their aim. Whatever they wanted, they have got it,” said
Khalil, 24, who says the bombing cost him 7 million dinars in destroyed
stock. “If I open the shop again I don’t know what action they would take.
Probably they would kill me.”

There have been no arrests, but police and many Iraqis blame the attacks and
explosions on supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric.

A few days before the warning letter arrived, several of al-Sadr’s followers
met around 30 Shiite tribal leaders in the al-Hekma mosque in Sadr City, the
slum area in eastern Baghdad which forms the cleric’s powerbase.

They produced an edict in which they listed nine crimes punishable by death.
These included theft, kidnapping, robbery, spying “for the Wahabis, al-Qaeda
and Saddamists,” trafficking in women, and selling alcohol, pornographic CDs
and drugs.

The edict, it states, was drawn up because of the “critical and sorrowful
situation and lack of security and to serve the common good.” Most of the
tribal leaders who signed were from Amara, Kut and Nasiriyah, towns in
southern Iraq where a Shiite uprising in April was strongest.

“After the end of the dispute between our army and the Americans, our army
is working on stability and controlling the looters and other violent
groups,” said Sheikh Raed al-Kadhimi, one of al-Sadr’s aides in Baghdad. He
boasted of a number of checkpoints and patrols in Sadr City, and said one
had captured several hundred tonnes of stolen sugar, which he said were
returned to the government.

The movement, made up largely of young, unemployed urban men, has easily
moved into the power vacuum left by the absence of properly trained and
equipped Iraqi police and security forces.

“Neither the government nor the police are controlling the situation,” said
al-Kadhimi. “The al-Sadr tide is the only active tide in the country.”

Much of the movement’s strength is in its organization. The group has its
own religious police, the al-Amur bil Ma’arouf, or Promotion of Virtue.

They have divided Baghdad into three areas: east, west and the central
Kadhimiya area, home to the biggest Shiite shrine in the city. Each area has
its own unit. In Kadhimiya it numbers around 40; in the eastern sector,
around Sadr City, it is at least 100 according to Sayed Adnan al-Safi, an
al-Sadr official and editor of one of the movement’s newspapers.

“In Kadhimiya we have minimized and controlled places where alcohol is sold.
We have controlled the sale of immoral CDs and we have stopped fraud,” said
al-Safi. “People have begun to understand and are co-operating with us to
control the general violence. We are not issuing any punishments ourselves,
otherwise we would be considered a state within a state. We pass cases on to
the police for punishment.”

There is little doubt that the movement is about more than controlling
crime. In the past week al-Sadr’s followers have proselytized among Iraq’s
minority faiths. A group of them delivered a video of speeches by al-Sadr to
the Armenian Orthodox church in Baghdad. A priest, who asked not to be
named, said the speeches criticized the Christian faith.

“We have been living in Iraq for 100 years and have never had a problem
between Muslim and Christian,” he said.

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief

=================================================

Tuesday 3 August 2004
ARMENIA: IMPRISONMENT, NO REGISTRATION, AND NO IDENTITY DOCUMENTS FOR JW’S

Armenia continues to jail Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objectors, in
clear breach of its Council of Europe and OSCE commitments, although human
rights ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan has denied to Forum 18 News Service that
the commitments have been broken. The head of the state religious affairs
department, Hranush Kharatyan, has rejected the right upheld in
international human rights agreements of religious believers to spread
their beliefs by peaceful means. An alternative service law is
theoretically in force, but in practice cannot yet be applied. Jehovah’s
Witnesses see the alternative service terms as excessive punishment for
their refusal to do military service, and are also being denied identity
documents – necessary eg. for employment or marriage – on completing
jail terms. Also, for the twelfth time since 1995, Jehovah’s Witneses have
been denied state registration. Stefan Buchmayer, the OSCE’s Yerevan human
rights officer, told Forum 18 that “one cannot find real legal
justification for the refusal.”

ARMENIA: IMPRISONMENT, NO REGISTRATION, AND NO IDENTITY DOCUMENTS FOR JW’S

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

Armenia’s Jehovah’s Witness community has just received its twelfth
registration denial since 1995, with fourteen members in prison for
refusing military service on religious grounds and a further eleven
expecting to be tried for refusing the lengthy and harsh alternative
service, the terms of which they see as a punishment for refusing military
service. Problems for those completing prison terms also seem to be
mounting. Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service that seventeen
recently freed young men are being refused identity documents (internal
passports) because they are not registered with the military commissariat,
while a further seven who have identity documents are being refused
residency registration, a requirement in Armenia.

Officials blame the Jehovah’s Witnesses for allegedly failing to try to
resolve these problems with the government. “If those being released
are not getting passports they have put themselves in that situation,”
the human rights ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan told Forum 18 from the capital
Yerevan on 2 August. Hranush Kharatyan, head of the government’s religious
affairs department, told Forum 18 the same day that the Jehovah’s Witnesses
had failed to respond to her invitations to discuss how to amend their
statute to get registration.

Fifteen Jehovah’s Witnesses from various parts of Armenia, who did not
possess an internal passport before they were called up by the army, found
that after their release the local military commissariat refused to issue a
certificate to them until they are registered with the military
commissariat, saying they will not issues the certificates until the
Jehovah’s Witnesses have served their time. The passport office will not
issue an internal passport without this certificate. In two further cases,
both in central Yerevan, two young men who had passports before their
prison terms were refused them when they asked for their return. Both have
made official complaints to the military commissariat and the general
prosecutor.

“This is a clear violation of their human dignity – they can’t
do anything without a passport,” Jehovah’s Witness lawyer Rustam
Khachatryan told Forum 18 from Yerevan on 2 August. “They can’t get a
job or even marry. But our clever state does allow people to pay taxes
without a passport.” He said the military commissariats are obliged to
give out these certificates, but said they deliberately refuse to give them
to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Human rights ombudsman Alaverdyan agreed that the lack of a passport would
create “an awful lot of problems” in Armenia. “People can’t
leave the country, can’t vote, can’t engage in any legal transactions, for
example.” But she said the Jehovah’s Witnesses have not reported the
problem to her and unless they do she can take no action. Yet she insisted
they have to comply with the law and get the required certificates from the
military commissariat like any other young men.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been applying for registration as a religious
community since the early 1990s, but their opposition to military service
and what many regard as their aggressive style of proselytism have offended
state officials and the leadership of the dominant Armenian Apostolic
Church.

Their latest application was submitted for the required “expert
assessment” to the government religious affairs department on 16
March, three months after a meeting between state officials and the
Jehovah’s Witnesses organised by the Yerevan office of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) tried to break the registration
deadlock. The religious affairs department concluded on 24 March that the
Jehovah’s Witness statute was in accordance with the law. “We didn’t
refuse the application – we gave a positive view about
registration,” its head, Hranush Kharatyan, told Forum 18.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses then submitted the application to the State
Registry of Legal Entities at the Ministry of Justice on 18 May, but it
ruled at the end of June that the statute contradicted the religion law and
other laws. Gyurgen Sarkisyan, who maintains the State Registry, had
previously told Forum 18 that “with an expert conclusion signed by the
minister and all documents, they will be registered” (see F18News 4
February 2004 ).
Sarkisyan’s phone was not being answered when Forum 18 tried to speak to
him on 2 August.

Despite having signed the expert assessment approving the application,
Kharatyan of the religious affairs department insisted to Forum 18 that a
provision in the statute describing the Jehovah’s Witness practice of
door-to-door preaching violates the law. “This amounts to proselytism
and the religion law forbids this,” she declared. “They don’t
have the right to do this.”

She flatly rejected suggestions that in a democratic country, believers of
any faith have the right to spread their beliefs by peaceful means.
“We keep getting a mass of complaints that Jehovah’s Witnesses come to
people’s homes every day and bombard them with visits,” she claimed.
Kharatyan also argued that other provisions of their statute violated the
law, although she maintained that the Jehovah’s Witness rejection of
military service was not an issue.

Stefan Buchmayer, human rights officer at the OSCE office in Yerevan,
reported that the denial of registration was for “technical
reasons” which the Justice Ministry did not fully explain. “The
Jehovah’s Witnesses cleared the expert assessment, so registration with the
justice ministry should have been only a formality,” told Forum 18 on
2 August. “One cannot find real legal justification for the
refusal.” He said his office has been closely following this issue.
“Unfortunately it has dragged on for many years.”

Despite its 2001 commitment to the Council of Europe to free all imprisoned
conscientious objectors and introduce civilian alternative service by
January 2004 (see F18News 19 April 2004
), the courts have
continued to jail young male Jehovah’s Witnesses. As late as 26 May 2004,
Ruslan Avetisyan was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and is now being
held in Nubarashen labour camp, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. Also
held in the same camp is Mikael Lazarian, sentenced to two years’
imprisonment the same month. The other twelve prisoners are being held in
labour camp in Kosh. Other Jehovah’s Witnesses freed early from prison for
good conduct are required to report regularly to the local police station.
On 1 April 2003, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told Forum 18 that a
“full stop” would be put to the imprisonment of conscientious
objectors by the end of 2003 (see F18News 1 April 2003
).

Parliament’s deputy speaker Tigran Torosyan, who heads the Armenian
delegation to the Council of Europe, told Jehovah’s Witness representatives
at the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg on 22 June
that all conscientious objector prisoners would be freed once the new law
on alternative service came into force on 1 July.

Alaverdyan, who said she has visited 21 imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses
since taking up the post of ombudsman, claimed there is a “new
situation” now that the alternative service law has taken effect.
“The situation has changed completely,” she told Forum 18.
However, the fourteen Jehovah’s Witnesses remain in labour camp.

Moreover, Buchmayer of the OSCE pointed out that, although the alternative
service law theoretically came into force on 1 July, in practice it cannot
be applied until promised amendments are approved by parliament. “This
will not now be until parliament’s autumn session at the earliest,” he
told Forum 18, “unless a special session is called, which is unlikely
for such an issue.”

Buchmeyer categorically stated that the continued imprisonment of
conscientious objectors violates Armenia’s commitments to the Council of
Europe and OSCE commitments, a point rejected by Alaverdyan.

In a new development, eleven Jehovah’s Witnesses called up in recent months
have refused the alternative service offered to them, regarding unspecified
work – perhaps cleaning sewerage systems or working in psychiatric
homes for three and a half years under military supervision – as
excessive punishment for their refusal to do military service. “This
does not meet European norms,” Khachatryan told Forum 18. The length
of the proposed alternative service has been criticised by the Council of
Europe (see F18News 4 February 2004
).

Khachatryan noted that Aram Manukyan, a Jehovah’s Witness from Yerevan
called up in May, is expected to face trial in the next ten days. He said a
further four are awaiting the opening of criminal cases against them, while
six more are likely to face similar cases in the near future.

Both ombudsman Alaverdyan and Kharatyan of the religious affairs department
seemed annoyed at Forum 18’s questions about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’
difficulties. “Why don’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses work with us to
resolve their problems, instead to complaining to people like you?”
Alaverdyan asked Forum 18. “Organisations like yours seem only
interested in having continuing cases to take up rather than resolving them
properly.” Kharatyan echoed these sentiments. “Why don’t the
Jehovah’s Witnesses come to us if they want to resolve these issues?”
she exclaimed. “I absolutely don’t understand why they go running to
others to complain and don’t come to us.” She said her office had
helped other religious communities bring their registration applications
into line with the law.

A printer-friendly map of Armenia is available at
;Rootmap=armeni
(END)

© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.

You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News

Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 1) 517 163
Fax: (374 1) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
August 4, 2004

His Holiness Karekin II Extends Sympathies to Pope John Paul II

His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians,
has sent a letter of sympathy and support to Pope John Paul II, related to
the terrorist events directed against Catholic churches in Iraq on August 1,
2004.

The letter of His Holiness states in part, “We are saddened that some
extreme elements are attempting to endanger the centuries of friendship and
peaceful co-existence among the Christian and Muslim peoples of the East,
and offer our prayers to the Almighty that the love of our Lord Jesus Christ
will enter into the hearts of men, reconcile them one to another, and that
violence and war will be eliminated from the region and all of humanity.”

The Catholicos of All Armenians has sent a similar letter to the Patriarch
of the Armenian Catholics, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX.

The Jordan Times
Tuesday, August 3, 2004

The need for reconciliation

The recent attacks on churches in Iraq belonging to Chaldean, Assyrian,
Armenian and Catholic denominations represents an ominous turn of events in
Iraq, sending the message that no one is being spared in the spiralling
chaos that is Iraq today.

The five car bombs detonated outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul
define a new target for those fanning the flames of instability in Iraq.
This deliberate attempt to spark yet another sectarian conflict comes at the
worst possible time, when religious rivalry and tensions between the Shiite
and Sunni Iraqis have reached new heights.

There is no doubt that those behind the attacks seek to sow distrust among
all ethnic and religious groups in Iraq for the ultimate purpose of further
weakening the country and having it fall prey to their distorted aims.

The Christian community in Iraq has long been active in the society and
contributed a great deal to the country’s development on all fronts. There
are still around 800,000 Christians living in this Arab country. Many others
emigrated, seeking better living conditions. It would be a tragedy if more
Christian Iraqis were forced to flee their homeland to secure sanctuary in
Western countries.

Although Roman Catholic Chaldean Patriarch Rev. Emmanuel Delly, spoke
steadfastly about the unity of Christians and Muslims in Iraq following
Sunday’s attacks, more effort must be exerted to prevent any further attacks
on Christians and their centres of worship.

Arab governments, including the Iraqi interim government, must condemn the
recent wave of violence in the strongest possible terms. All religious
communities, especially the Muslims within and outside Iraq, should issue an
immediate warning to the attackers to stop the carnage.

It must be remembered that Iraq has been a model of tolerance and peaceful
coexistence for its Muslim and Christian communities. The worst thing that
could happen now in the Middle East is to spark religious strife between the
followers of these faiths. This would shatter all hopes for a Middle East
that is free of religious and ethnic hatred.

The faction or factions who are bent on striking Christian targets must be
stopped. This urgent objective is linked to the larger imperative of
restoring law and order in the country.

There is legitimate fear that the expanding violence in Iraq will drive the
country to madness and bloodshed. That is precisely why it is important for
clerics of all faiths and denominations to condemn such acts and urge the
perpetrators and their supporters to follow the path of reconciliation if
Iraq and the entire Middle East are to be saved from the abyss.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Globe and Mail, Canada
Aug 3 2004

Iraq’s Christians shaken after attacks

By ORLY HALPERN
>From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Baghdad – As they removed body parts from still-smouldering cars at
the parking lot of the St. Peter and Paul church yesterday in
Baghdad, Christian Iraqis wondered when and where they would be
attacked next.

A series of co-ordinated car bombings that hit five Catholic churches
in Baghdad and Mosul during Sunday-evening prayers, killing at least
12 and injuring dozens, raised many questions and fears about the
future of the small Christian community in Iraq.

“I am now scared to go to church,” said Louis Climis, a leader in the
Syriac Catholic community who was injured Sunday. He was helping the
priest during the mass when a car bomb exploded outside his church in
the heavily Christian Karada district of Baghdad.

“I feel I am a target,” he said.

There were other Christian targets. Coalition forces reported that
the Iraqi National Guard found another bomb outside a second Mosul
church. Baher Butti, a Syriac Orthodox Church leader from Baghdad,
said there were reports of bombing attempts outside three other
churches in the capital.

“I called the Metropolit [Syriac Orthodox religious leader],” Dr.
Butti said. “He was very worried. They think that every church might
be hit now.”

Dr. Butti also fears that Christian religious leaders may be
assassinated. “We can’t anticipate what the terrorists will do next.
I’m so confused. What are they thinking?”

Christians, who make up about 3 per cent of Iraq’s population of 25
million people, have traditionally kept a relatively low profile. A
spate of attacks on alcohol sellers fuelled fears that Christians
might be singled out for attack, but unlike the mosques targeted by
extremists for bombings in the past year, their places of worship had
seemed safe until Sunday.

Most Christians interviewed were sure the bombers were not Iraqi. The
driver of the explosive-laden car who stopped near Our Lady of
Salvation church spoke in an Egyptian dialect, witnesses said.

Church leaders said they were unsure what should be done to prevent
future attacks.

At the St. Peter and Paul church, a single guard armed with an AK-47
was at the site to defend the building and an adjacent convent.

Father Firas Toma, of St. Peter and Paul, was stunned as he surveyed
the parking lot where 12 people from his church were burned alive in
their cars after a suicide bomber detonated a car outside the church
gate. Six churchgoers were still missing yesterday.

“We were already attacked,” he said, when asked about security
measures. “What worse can happen than this?”

At Our Lady of Salvation church, Armenian Catholic leaders closed off
the street with barbed wire and were considering what more to do.

“I don’t think we’ll have mass next Sunday,” said Nubar Antoine, a
member of the Armenian Catholic leadership council. “We Catholic
churches must have a meeting and talk to the Patriarch in Beirut and
the papal embassy in Baghdad and take a joint decision.”

Iraqi Muslim religious leaders have condemned the church bombings,
calling them terrorist attacks intended to create havoc.

Rev. Andrew White, the director of the International Centre for
Reconciliation, was more specific. “They want to identify the
Christians as part of the West and say that the Christians are not
real Iraqis,” Canon White said. “They want to try to move them out.”

But some Iraqi Christians were defiant. “This is my home,” said an
Armenian nun, Fidel Rahbe. “I was born here and will die here.”

Mother Jones, CA
Aug 3 2004

Christians Leaving Iraq

The religious leaders of Iraq’s small Christian community have
long-downplayed the fact that many Iraqi-Christians are leaving Iraq.
But Sunday’s coordinated attacks in Baghdad and Mosul on five
churches — which, unlike mosques, have not previously been targeted
— will no doubt strengthen the resolve of Iraqi-Christians thinking
of leaving Iraq and convince others of the necessity of doing so.

Iraq’s Christians — Chaldean Catholics; Assyrians; Roman and Syriac
Catholics; Greek, Syriac and Armenian Orthodox; Angicans and others
— make up 3 percent of the population, and are concentrated in the
cities. Of course, the lack of security has been a problem for all
Iraqis, whatever their religion, but the country’s Christians feel
particularly vulnerable to attack. For one, many within the
insurgency view the American-led coalition as a Christian crusade and
Iraq’s Christian community as its supporters and collaborators. Shops
selling alcohol, many of them owned by Christians, have been
attacked, their merchandise destroyed, and their owners beaten and
even murdered. As the BBC reported last month, the Iraqi police
blamed the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army for the
attacks: “His men are no longer fighting American and interim Iraqi
government troops, and some suspect they are now channelling their
energies into a moral battle instead.”

Iraq’s national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie held Egyptian
militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi responsible for Sunday’s attacks on the
churches, which occurred during mass, killing 11 people and injuring
47: “Zarqawi and his extremists are basically trying to drive a wedge
between Muslims and Christians in Iraq. It’s clear they want to drive
Christians out of the country.” But as the Christian Science Monitor
reported last month:

“Not all Christians are killed by Islamic militants. Issaq [director
of international relations for the Assyrian Democratic Movement] has
compiled a list of 102 Christians killed since April 9, 2003. Some
were killed for selling alcohol; others for working with Americans as
translators or laundresses. (About 10 percent were killed by
coalition troops, casualties of postwar violence.) Many were
kidnapped and killed for money, a fate that befalls Muslims, too.

But sometimes it’s hard to separate kidnappings from religious
murders. Among Iraqis, there’s a widespread belief that Christians
are wealthy. This stereotype, too, can kill.”

Iraq’s Christians had their churches destroyed and themselves
forcibly relocated under Saddam Hussein, but they didn’t experience
the sort of persecution that the majority Shia, not to say the Kurds,
have been subjected to. Considered less politically threatening by
the Baath Party than Islamic minorities and the Shia majority,
Christians were granted a greater degree of religious freedom in
return for their political obedience. Relations between Muslims and
Christians have generally been placid.

Today, Iraqi Christians are upset about what they say is inadequate
representation in the current government (a claim echoed by every
group) and they fear the creation of an Islamist state. Some
Christian leaders say that a separate Christian province is necessary
to protect the country’s minority. Aside from the obvious failure of
coalition troops to provide security, the United States is blamed by
some Christians for promoting Islamic rule in Iraq, where Christians
date their presence to the first century. As one Assyrian-Iraqi told
UPI in early June:

“The American-funded TV station, Al Iraqia, broadcasts Muslim
programs four times every day and for two hours each Friday but
nothing for the other religions. The recent inauguration of the new
government was opened by a Muslim mullah reciting a long passage and
a prayer from the Koran, but none of our priests were invited. Why do
they do this? Why do the Americans promote Muslims? They need to
promote equality and democracy and freedom, not Muslim dictatorship.”

Among the Iraqi-Christians who have emigrated, some have settled in
neighboring countries like Syria, while others have received asylum
in Australia, North America, and Europe. Australia’s Iraqi-born
population, which includes the various Christian dominations as well
as Kurds and Jews, has grown dramatically since Gulf War. In 1991,
there were 5,186 Iraqi-born persons in Australia, but in 2001, the
last year for which census figures are available there were 24,819.
Among Iraqi-Armenians, who make up one of the smaller Christian
communities, some have emigrated to the Republic of Armenia.

The number of Christians seeking to emigrate is unknown, but the
estimated 800,000 that live in Iraq today represent a marked decline
from the 1987 census that registered 1.4 million Iraqi-Christians.
Shmael Benjamin a member of the political bureau of the Assyrian
Democratic Movement told Reuters: “We’re the Red Indians of Iraq. We
were the majority, today we’re the minority, our percentage is
reducing day by day in this country.” Perhaps, as Slate puts it,
“with Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds having earlier been targeted by
bombings, it was probably only a matter of time before the country’s
Christians would get their turn.” But given the previous attacks on
Christians, the continuing lack of security for everyone, and fears
of a future Islamist state, Iraqi’s Christians are more likely to
draw the conclusion that it is time to pack their bags.

— Nonna Gorilovskaya

Press-Enterprise , CA
Aug 3 2004

Blessing of grapes set for Inland church

TRADITION: The event at the Armenian Apostolic Church of Riverside
observes the Virgin Mary.

The Armenian Apostolic Church of Riverside will hold its annual
church picnic and traditional blessing of the grape service beginning
at 11:30 a.m. Aug. 15 at La Sierra Park, 5215 La Sierra, Riverside.

The blessing of grapes is part of the Orthodox Christian Feast of the
Assumption of St. Mary, an observance of the death, burial,
resurrection and transfer to heaven of the Virgin Mary, the mother of
Jesus.

“Grapes are blessed during the Feast of the Assumption of St. Mary to
symbolize a number of values that are important to life and living,”
the Rev. Dr. Stepanos Dingilian, pastor of the church, said in an
e-mail.

Wine comes from grapes and symbolizes the blood shed by Christ, he
said.

“This ‘blood’ in turn signifies that no achievement that raises the
standard of human civilization is possible without wholehearted
dedication, total commitment and unselfish perseverance,” he said.

Grapes grow in clusters, illustrating that people need family and
community to grow spiritually and mentally and to live a meaningful
life, he said.

The blessing of the grapes is observed on the Feast of St. Mary,
Dingilian said.

For information, call (951) 684-1722, (951) 522-5172 or (909)
883-1066.

Messenger.ge, Georgia
Aug 3 2004

Measured potential for peacebuilding
Azeris and Armenians in Tbilisi feel removed from their homelands’
distant conflict

By Keti Sikharulidze

Armenians and Azerbaijanis share many cultural similarities – in
music, education and cuisine. Moreover, significant segments of both
populations believe that their religious differences do not matter –
says the results of a recent sociological survey conducted by
Armenian and Azerbaijani researchers.

Another notable result of the survey is that the majority of
Azerbaijani refugees from Nagorno-Karabagh believe they can live in
peace and friendship with their Armenian neighbors.

While announcing the results last Wednesday at the Caucuses
International Center of Journalists in Tbilisi, Professor Jeffrey
Halley from the University of Texas Department of Sociology, said
that both sides are eager to support this project. “People think that
a closer social and economic relationship will help to resolve the
conflict,” he said.

“The Azerbaijani population declared that a closer economic and
military relationship would help resolve the problems. But while
Armenians think the problems will be solved only if Azerbaijan agrees
that Nagorno-Karabagh belongs to Armenia, they also declared that
Azerbaijan refugees must return to their homes,” said Professor
Halley.

As implied in its title – On the potential of the Azerbaijani and
Armenian Peoples for Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Cooperation –
the survey aimed to measure the possibility of building a closer
relationship between the people of the two countries.

Approximately 1,000 people from Azerbaijan and 1,000 from Armenia
were surveyed in 2003, as well as 200 Azeri refugees (IDPs) from
Nagorno-Karabagh and 200 Armenians currently living in that region,
which they claim as their own. Participants came from all age groups,
with the majority aged between 26 and 60.

According to the survey, both sides stressed that this conflict can
be resolved only through working together. But as Halley told
journalists, the Armenian and Azeri people blame their governments
for this conflict, although many people in both countries felt
strongly that forces beyond their government play a role in
prolonging the conflict.

Asked if the situation would change if the survey was held now in
2004 instead of 2003, the president of the Armenian Sociological
Association Roubina Ter-Martirosyan said: “We live in a dynamic
world, and if we held this survey this year the situation would
change for the better.”

Dr Sevil Asadova from Azerbaijan said that the results would not be
markedly different, and added: “We have determined how to establish
closer relations and have found the key to this problem. Our main aim
was to learn what these people thought about this problem.”

Many Azerbaijanis and Armenian’s living in Tbilisi, however, told The
Messenger that these problems are distant for them, especially since
they consider Georgia is now their homeland.

“I do not know what is happening there, we are in a vacuum and know
nothing. As it is far from me I do not feel their troubles and need,”
said market clerk Valia Avakian, whose ancestors are Armenian.

Saying that she personally could not imagine why Azerbaijan and
Armenia should have a conflict, she added her family “is more
concerned with the problems in Georgia rather than in Armenia and
Azerbaijan. I am ashamed to say so, but it is true”

An ethnic Azeri Ilgar Mamedov told The Messenger that he enjoys “very
good relations with Armenians in Georgia.”

“When we meet each other, we try not to speak about that conflict at
all to avoid embarrassment,” he said.