Christians Threatened

(ANS) – Barnabas Fund, an organization that supports the persecuted Church, released an urgent appeal on 3 November calling for protection for Iraq ‘s Christian minority. Barnabas Fund reports that Islamic militants have issued threats against three senior bishops in Mosul whom they accuse of being CIA agents. Church leaders in Mosul have reportedly received letters ordering them to permit the marriage of Christian women to Muslim men (a process which involves the woman’s conversion to Islam), and threatening to kill one member of each Christian household as punishment for women not wearing the Islamic veil. Barnabas reports that an estimated 1,500 Christian women have stopped attending classes at Mosul university due to threats and harassment over their non-observance of Islamic dress codes. Christians across the country are facing increasing levels of extortion and terrorism. The Islamists’ aim is to drive Christians out of Iraq and totally subdue the remnant. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraqi Christians have fled the land that has been their homeland for millennia.