I edited and translated a most heartbreaking testimony by sister Hatune,  of the syrian-orthodox monastery in Warburg, Germany. She makes an amazing effort to help and  protect the ruthlessly persecuted Christians in Iraq.

In recent years a horrifying number of kidnappings rapes and mutilations of iraqi Christian girls has been perpetrated by groups of savage Muslims. Some 700.000 Christians are fleeing this terror, but often find themselves exposed to similar dangers when they arrive in neighboring Muslim countries. With no rights and no help from authorities, they are surely in the most desperate of situations.

Please take the time to contemplate, why this is not being reported more often.

And visit Sister Hatunes foundation for more information about her great work to help fellow christians.

Crossposted at Frontpage Magazine

"Critically acclaimed director Esteban Uyarra has been in Baghdad since September 2005 following the trial of Saddam Hussein behind-the-scenes. As the only ones Team Productions daily follows the trial against the former Iraqi ex-dictator in the courtroom and behind-the-scenes. It is history as it unfolds and the film gives an unique insight to the Judges, prosecutors and defenders extensive work More..; their thoughts, strategies, victories and defeats during the trial.

Among others Esteban Uyarra follows the Chief Prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi and his crew, the Iraqi tribunal and the US-team assisting the court. A compelling and unique film based on the characters hopes and fears."

Link:

Thanks to Jdamn from Force of Reason for posting this gem
Filmed and directed by the Iraqis themselves -- thousands of them, from all walks of life, all over their country. The producers, who distributed more than 150 digital video cameras across the country, condensed more than 400 hours of footage into an unprecedented, and startling, look at life in a war zone.

Link:

Jdamn from the great new blog The Force of Reason joined the first 1-10 parts of Pat Dollards ongoing documentary project Young Americans.


A rough-cut direct and honest portrait of what the brave US marines are going through in Iraq, fighting the good fight.
Highly recommended!

BLOG: http://occidentalsoapbox.blogspot.com...

These are three brief examples, but this story has been repeated wherever Islam has asserted itself. When Islam comes to a new nation, its purpose is not to adapt to the fabric of the host society, or to become just one religion among many equals. Its goal is to become the dominant religion. The Muslim belief is that once a territory has been under Muslim rule, it can never be relinquished again. And so former Muslim colonies such as Spain, Israel and the Balkans, are high on the list for reconquest. But make no mistake, any territory is fair game.


Further reading on Dar-al-Islam, Dar-al-Harb, and Dhimmitude:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division...
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi
http://www.dhimmitude.org/


Further reading on Egypt and the native Copts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor...
http://freecopts.net/english/index.ph...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_O...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copt
http://www.copts.net/history.asp


Further reading on Iraq and the native Assyrians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian...
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/wor...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2...


Further reading on Iran and the native Zoroastrians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastr...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastr...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi...
http://plateauofiran.wordpress.com/20...

Watch operiraqfre in Lifestyle  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/lifestyle_lifestyle/watch/v16766724yJG2GJP2

Straight from the front lines in Iraq, THE WAR TAPES is the first war movie filmed by soldiers themselves. These soldiers bypassed Pentagon supervised media to share their experience like never before. Funnier, spicier, and more gut wrenching than news reports, this is Operation Iraqi Freedom as filmed by Sergeant Steve Pink, Sergeant Zack Bazzi and Specialist Mike Moriarty. Steve is a wisecracking carpenter who aspires to be a writer. Zack is a Lebanese-American university student who loves to travel and is fluent in Arabic. Mike is a father who seeks honor and redemption. Each leaves a woman behind - a girlfriend, a mother and a wife. Through their candid footage, these men open their hearts and take us on an unforgettable journey, capturing camaraderie and humor along with the brutal and terrifying experiences they face. These soldiers got the story that 2,700 embedded reporters never could. Written by TheWarTapes

http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/2181982/6906907

"A time is coming when anyone who kills you
will think he is offering a service to God"
- John 16:2

Produced by the Chaldean Church in Beirut, Lebanon
USA distribution by:
Religious Freedom Coalition

www.rfcnet.org

The following interview with canon andrew white concerns the same topic. Go here to read the original

If you are a Christian, and your son or daughter was killed because of your faith, what would you do? If your Muslim neighbor came to you and said, "Your daughters must convert to Islam and marry our sons, or we will kill your entire family," how would you respond? "Convert or die" is the message of choice for Islamic jihadists in Baghdad and Iraq who are working overtime to rid Iraq of "infidel" Christians.

I must strongly caution anyone that the following story and contents are extremely graphic, and may be disturbing to anyone reading or sharing them.

On 1 March in Baghdad, I met a man who refuses to give up hope for the future of Iraq's Christians. This is in spite of repeated threats to his life; the kidnappings, extortion, torture, and murder of hundreds of his congregation; and the abductions and subsequent mutilations and murders of his friends who are the few remaining religious leaders in Iraq. On top of all these challenges, the church he pastors has little money to continue to feed and provide medical care and medicine to the 1500+ members of the church he pastors for the most despised, yet often poorest of Baghdad's citizens - Baghdad's Iraqi Christians.

His name is Andrew White, and his official Anglican Church title is Canon White, but almost everyone he knows just calls him "Baba" ("Father" in Arabic.) He is a thoughtful, intelligent man who is a gentle giant, yet is terribly afflicted with the awful disease of multiple sclerosis.

Prior to my first military embed assignment in Iraq in January 2007, I was unaware that Christians even existed in Iraq. However, during that embed, I met a young Iraqi Christian woman, who had served as an interpreter for the U.S. for over three years, despite death threats to both she and her family. After she explained that there were over one million native Iraqi Christians, and that most were in great danger because of their faith, I was horrified and had to know more. After our meeting, I spent three months researching the story of the ongoing religious genocide of Iraqi's native Christians. Wait, did he say Iraq's native Christians? Yes, Iraq's Christian population pre-dated the Muslims in Iraq by almost seven hundred years!

Most of Iraq's native Christians call Nineveh (or the Nineveh Plains) their ancestral homeland. Those of you who have read the Old Testament will recall the story of Jonah and the whale in the Book of Jonah. Jonah was a reluctant prophet, who finally went to Nineveh where his testimony inspired the entire city of Nineveh to convert and repent. After Christ was crucified and was resurrected, Thomas the Apostle traveled to Nineveh, and his preaching facilitated many of the Ninehvites to convert to Christianity.

The Christian majority in Iraq gradually became a minority by the immigration of Muslims from the Ottoman Empire into Mesopotamia after 682 A.D. (Does this scenario sound somewhat vaguely familiar to my fellow Americans and our European allies?) The Christians and the Muslims had many differences, and much blood was spilled during the 1300+ years between then and now. The two religious groups generally settled into a tenuous co-existence throughout history, even through Saddam's reign. In fact, Saddam's right hand man, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian (and an "enforced" acquaintance of Canon White's during the First Gulf War.) I have learned that many of Saddam's household staff and servants were Christians because he felt that he could trust them not to assassinate him!

After Saddam was deposed during the U.S. invasion in 2003, some Islamic jihadists took the opportunity to begin a program of discrimination, extortion (jizyah), and coercion to rid their country of the (infidel) Christians. This program eventually changed into more violent tactics such as kidnappings, torture, and murder. My friend's brother was kidnapped, and a ransom was paid, but he was shot in the leg before he was returned to his family. Unfortunately, this is one of the success stories.

Truth be known, much of Iraq's Christian population has either been forced into exile or has been murdered as a message to the remaining Christians. Of the estimated 1.4 million Iraqi Christians in Iraq in 2003, only an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 remain there. Many families are simply told, "Convert or die! Your daughters must convert to Islam and marry our sons or we will kill your entire family." There are eyewitness accounts of the kidnappings of priests who were subsequently decapitated, and had their bodies deposited at the door of their church with their heads placed upon their chests. Those young Christian men unwilling to convert or carry out suicide attacks are kidnapped and murdered. I heard accounts of both the crucifixion of a teenage boy, and of a boy who was roasted atop a pile of rice as a message to his parents and fellow Christians. Canon White related how he officiates many funerals of the murdered, but seldom gets the bodies back to bury them after they are kidnapped.

I know these stories are both shocking and horrifying. However, there are both recorded interviews and/or photographs to substantiate what I am telling you. As fellow Christians here in the U.S. and abroad, we must do something to help our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who live in Iraqi, or are refugees before they are all driven out or killed.

In spite of their sufferings, there is hope. The U.S. Congress passed legislature in December of 2007 which acknowledged the plight of Iraq's Christians, and allotted $10 million to conduct a study to see what could be done to resolve the issue (too little and too late, but a good start.) My friend, Michael Youash, of www.democracyforiraq.com co-sponsored this bill, and I encourage everyone to view their website for updates. Canon White encouraged us to research this issue, but also to take action by writing our Congress and Senators, spreading the word to fellow Christians, and most importantly, to donate money for the direct support of these fellow Christians in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and internally displaced persons within Iraq to those organizations listed below that will make sure the aid is distributed properly.

Please contact your fellow Christians within your congregation and have them write their Representatives and Senators within Congress, and pray for our fellow Christians in Iraq and elsewhere. You can find additional information by visiting www.rfcnet.org, www. csi-usa.org, and www.iraqdemocracyproject.org or by doing a Google search for Iraqi Christians, or by contacting me via a comment or email.

Permalink:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyhTI7ZpnlE

Playing time 1h. 38min.

Already witnessed by thousands, this highly, critically acclaimed film takes you where others were afraid to tread. This incredible documentary is the secret weapon to unfolding the truth about those who suffered under a dictator's merciless rule. More than mere facts and figures, the work brings to life faces, names, and stories that encompass the unimaginable 1.3 million lives exterminated by Saddam's reign of terror. This is a film that will shock and stun you. This is a movie every American must see. If the United States had not removed Saddam Hussein from power, we would owe Hitler an apology. This is a true story about the Iraq war and its human and economic toll. Warning

Permalink:http://www.viddler.com/explore/yummi/videos/1/


Broadcast: 13/11/2007
Reporter: Mark Corcoran

LEAD STORY
SERIES 17
EPISODE 20
Synopsis

Alleged Iraqi terrorist Mullah Krekar faces almost certain execution if deported to Iraq from his safe haven in Oslo, but he’s beaten all attempts by Norway to imprison or deport him and also foiled a CIA kidnap attempt.

Mullah Krekar, created the radical islamic guerrilla force, Ansar al Islam, now known as Ansar Al Sunna. It’s affiliated to Al Qaeda.

Now confident of his position in Norway, Krekar makes extraordinary admissions. He admits training a unit of suicide bombers who have since slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children.
“There’s no different between suicide bombs and using Kalashnikov – what’s the difference when you send the fighters to death”, Krekar tells Foreign Correspondent’s Mark Corcoran.

He explains how, through the internet, he calls on supporters to kill Australian and American troops in Iraq:

“It is allowed for me in Islam to kill him, to kill his translator, to kill the people which give him food and water, give him medicine – all of them”.
Krekar claims to have relinquished control of Ansar al Islam in 2002, months before the suicide bombing in which the Australian cameraman Paul Moran and five Kurdish soldiers were killed.

Even so, he knows intimate details of the attack, including what the Saudi suicide bomber did in his last minutes alive.

Krekar is entirely unrepentant about the killing . Asked what he would say to the widow of Mr Moran and his family Krekar said, “ I say to all the western women don’t send your sons to kill us.”

Corcoran: “ He wasn’t killing anybody, he was a cameraman!’
Krekar: “Yes. He was also with our enemy. “


Krekar says Moran and correspondent Eric Campbell, who was injured in the attack, were in the “wrong work at the wrong time.”
After arriving in Norway as a refugee in 1991, Krekar began commuting back to Iraq to create the feared terrorist group Ansar al Islam. His goal was the establishment of a Taliban-style Islamic state in northern Iraq.

The Norwegian Government says Krekar has breached asylum conditions, is a threat to national security and want him out of the country. But after six years of court cases, Krekar isn’t going anywhere. Norwegian law prohibits deportation to countries that have the death penalty or engage in torture.
The United States Treasury department maintains that Krekar, despite his denials, stills commands fighters in Iraq. It describes him as an Al Qaeda facilitator who covertly funds Ansar operations through a European network.

The torture and slaughter of Iraqi civilians is reaching unprecedented heights with estimates of up to 655,000 dead. Night after night death squads rampage through Iraq's main cities. In Baghdad, up to a hundred bodies a day are dumped on the streets. Often they've been tortured with electric drills. Yet those doing the killing have little to do with al Qaeda or Sunni insurgents. The majority of the killings are carried out by Shia death squads who want to turn Iraq into a Shia state aligned to Iran. This shocking film investigates the links between the death squads and high-ranking Shia politicians. It reveals how the Shia militia that these politicians control have systematically infiltrated and taken over police units and even entire government ministeries. It investigates how these units are closely linked to the death squads, indeed they often are the death squads. And the killers act with impunity -- there's little investigation into their activities.