MECHRIC WARNS FROM ESCALATION OF
OPPRESSION
AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT, LEBANON, IRAQ, OTHERS
Washington, D.C. June 28, 2001. Mideast Newswire.
The Middle East Christian Committee MECHRIC, a coalition of several ethnic organizations
and associations representing the American communities from Mideast Christian descent
launched a year ago in Washington DC, expressed its concern "towards the recent
escalation of oppression against the region's minorities"; In a press-release issued
in the capital as a result of an evaluation of its members reports on abuse and
suppressions striking its communities in the region, MECHRIC addressed the situation of
the latter in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan as well as other countries including Iran
and Algeria. Based on the reports by its member organizations, MECHRIC underlined the
following main crisis:
1) Egypt: According to reports by the US Coptic Associations and the various international
human rights organizations, the mistreatment of the Coptic Christian community has
increased over the past year. The Christians of Egypt, estimated at around 12
millions, were submitted to a systematic political and social discrimination over the past
few decades. Recently, Coptic demonstrations initiated as a result of Church symbols
bashing, were met with excessive Police and security forces violence. Anti-Copts violence
in Egypt is not only generated by Radical Islamist forces, but also by Government
agencies. MECHRIC expresses its serious concerns with regards the persecution of the Copts
in Egypt, the largest Christian community in the Middle East.
2) Lebanon: Lebanese Christian opposition and Human Rights groups have reported an
intensification of political and security repression of the Christian community at large
(about 1.6 million) and of its youth in particular. This broadening of oppression, which
started in the early 1990s, has reached an apex this past year with the resuming of
abduction, torture and jailing of hundred Lebanese Christians and non-Christians, accused
of being either anti-Syrians or pro-Israeli. In his historical journey to North America
and his subsequent expressions inside Lebanon, Maronite Patriarch N. Peter Sfeir has
clearly underlined the necessity for the international community to intervene to force
Syria out of Lebanon. The Maronite Council of Bishops and many Lebanese Christian groups
in exile have also called for the withdrawal of the occupiers.
3) Syria and Iraq: The Christian Assyro-Chaldeans, Syriac and others communities (about
two million) are still submitted to forced Arabization and assimilation. The Baath regimes
in both countries are pursuing a policy of
cultural and eventually ethnic cleansing, by abolishing the native languages and
dispersing the population across the land. In the "safe haven" in northern Iraq,
Kurdish military groups have similarly targeted Assyrians with
expropriation of lands, persecution, and assassination of Assyrian political leaders.
Human rights abuses are systematic against the ethnic nationalist movements.
4) Sudan: As reported by world media and international monitoring associations, the
"genocidal" policy of Khartoum against the mostly Christian seven
million Southern Sudanese is increasing in violence and scope. Slavery, ethnic cleansing
and forced Islamization are destroying the ethnic fabric of the African Nubian communities
of the South and the Central West.
5) Iran and Saudi Arabia: In Iran, the Mullah regime and despite the leadership of
pragmatic President Khatemi, still maintains a religious apartheid system against the
non-Muslims, particularly the Christians and the Bahais. In Saudi Arabia, the legal system
systematically discriminate against Christians. By Law, Saudis cannot be Christians, by
law, Christian foreigners cannot worship in freedom.
6) Muslim Minorites: MECHRIC also deplores the continuous oppression of Muslim minorities
as well as Christians. Particular concerns is towards the renewed threats by Saddam
against the Kurdish free enclave in Iraqi
Kurdistan. The Baghdad regime is mustering forces to invade the no fly zone and commit a
genocide against the Kurdish population, similar to the Halabja massacre in the 1980s.
Also, MECHRIC expresses its concerns towards the suppression of cultural and historical
rights to the Berber people in Algeria, and the assassination of Berber
intellectuals,artists and families.
The Middle East Christian Committee (MECHRIC) calls on the international community and on
the US Government in particular to raise the issue of survival, freedom and human rights
of the Christians and other Minorities in the Middle East as an international question,
and take the appropriate action. MECHRIC demands from Washington to apply the same
parameters it has devised in the Balkans and towards the Palestinians, in all other parts
of the region. For we, as representatives of three million Americans from Middle East
Christian descent, will not accept to see American values and support not available to our
mother communities in the Middle East just because they are Christians.
THE MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN COMMITTEE (MECHRIC)
MECHRIC was formed in June 2000 with the aim of raising the profile of the concerns of the
various Christian communities in the Middle East. Participating organizations include:
The American Coptic Association
U.S. Copts Association
Arabic Baptist Church (Washington, DC)
Assyrian Academic Society
International Coptic Federation
Christian League of Pakistan,
American Maronite Union
Assyrian Universal Alliance
Beth Nahrain National Organization
Southern Sudanese Voice for Freedom
World Lebanese Organization (America)
Iranian Christian International
Chaldean National Federation
Syrian Christian Organization
MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN COMMITTEE
Washington DC
PRESS-RELEASE
Mechricusa@aol.com