IRAQ Patriarch to the UN: "Arab Spring" impacted Christians negatively

ASIA/IRAQ - Chaldean Patriarch to the UN: the "Arab Spring" impacted negatively on Christians

New York - The so-called "Arab Spring" impacted negatively on the condition of the Christian communities in the Middle East, causing a mass exodus similar to those caused 100 years ago by the massacres of Christians, which began in 1915 in the Ottoman territory. This is one of the strongest and painful considerations in the speech that the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans Louis Raphael I delivered yesterday in New York, during the session devoted to the plight of Christians in the Middle East that was held yesterday at the UN Security Council. " Frankly", said the Primate of the Chaldean Church, "the so-called Arab Spring impacted negatively on us ". While if we had the opportunity of working in harmony with the mosaic of religions and ethnic groups in our region, there would have been a driving force in the region towards peace, stability and progress".

With regards to his country, Patriarch Louis Raphael calls for "supporting the Central Government and the Regional Government of Kurdistan towards the liberation of all Iraqi cities and for us Christians, Yezidis and Shabaks especially the city of Mosul as well as the towns in the Nineveh plain and villages". According to the Primate of the Chaldean Church "it is necessary to provide an International Protection for his inhabitants, who were forced to be displaced from their homes" and "promulgate a Real Estate and Property Law that ensures their rights in their lands, and enable them to return home and resume their lives in a normal way". Regarding the jihadist phenomenon, the Patriarch repeated firmly that "these terroristic acts are not to be generalized to all Muslims", because the majority of Muslims "reject such politicization of the religion; they are accepting to live a common life with others within the civil state and according to the law". Moreover, according to His Beatitude Raphael Louis I; "Peace and stability cannot be achieved solely by military actions; as they are unable to dismantle this clustered way of thinking that destroys human beings". Among the concrete measures to be taken to stem the conflicts affecting the Middle East, the Patriarch also called for the adoption of international laws that criminalize "all states and individuals who support terrorist groups financially or intellectually or with arms, and consider their acts as a crime against social peace".