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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAl-Qaida Seizes Syrian Village That Still Speaks Language Of Christ
A band of al-Qaida fighters has seized one of the few remaining Syrian villages where the original language of Christ is still spoken, residents told the London Daily Telegraph. Rebels were said to have swept into the mountain village of Maaloula, near Damascus, on Wednesday from their base in the hills.
"They entered the main square and smashed a statue of the Virgin Mary," said one resident, speaking by phone and too frightened to give his name. "They shelled us from the mountain. Two shells hit the St. Thecla convent."
On Thursday, the Syrian regime launched a counter-attack and fighting raged as the two sides struggled for control of the village.
Maaloula, tucked into the honey-coloured cliffs of a mountain range north of Damascus and on a "tentative" list of applicants for UNESCO world heritage status, is associated with the earliest days of Christianity. St. Thecla, who was a follower of St. Paul and is supposedly buried in the convent, fled to the village to avoid marriage, having taken an oath of chastity. It is said the cleft of rock in which the convent is built opened to allow her to escape her pursuers.
The inhabitants are mostly Melkite Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christians, who have historically lived peacefully alongside Sunni Muslims. It is one of only three places in the world where Western Aramaic, a dialect of the language spoken by Christ, is still used.
Read more:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Qaida+seizes+Syrian+village+that+still+speaks+language+Christ/8876611/story.html#ixzz2e8Fagwav
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)leftstreet
(36,109 posts)According to Kerry
City Lights
(25,171 posts)Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)See: Libya
Libyans Say Sharia Will Be Law of the Land
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/11/libyans-say-sharia-will-be-law-of-the-land.html
Christians in Libya being rounded up and beaten
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9927447/Christians-in-Libya-being-rounded-up-and-beaten.html
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)Time after time on DU we hear that Christians whine too much, have it coming because of their past, and it is not possible for them to be victims of discrimination and targeted.
Bring up the topic and it is RW drivel - oh....wait. In this case it helps further along a cause so bringing it up now is not an attempt to use their deaths to further an agenda. Now it is genuine concern.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4661452
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1079906
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022912735
Just a small sampling.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)Alawites to the grave." - But when any minority that has been long under the umbrella of the protection of a totalitarian regime and has become associated with that regime in the minds of the majority - whether it's the majority Shiites in Iraq or the majority Sunnis in Syria - when that regime collapses - retribution becomes inevitable
bvar22
(39,909 posts)The Pope saying that Christians are "the religious group that suffers most from persecution"
.....is FAR different from what is happening inside Libya and Syria.
The Pope's statement is absurd.
While Christians inside Libya ARE being persecuted,
what percentage of Christians do they represent world wide?
I didn't bother with your other two links because the first was so laughable.
Love to Play the Victim much?
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)"There it is then. Thousands of Iraqis have been killed and the pointy hat guy says to the insane monkey decider that he is worried that his precious christian religion will not be tolerated by people who are being killed off by predominately christian nations."
Now, replace Christian with say Jew and it would be hidden, poster banned. Replace such things I linked to with Muslim and keep the replies the same "rw bigot!" and folks would be asking why all the hate and bias.
Now, all of the sudden, Christians being killed might be useful to some and their views on an issue and it is treated in a different manner.
At least some people on those threads got it thankfully. Been around DU long enough to see my fair share of it - if christians somewhere say they are being persecuted for their religion it is met with a sigh and ridiculed. Other groups not so much.
Being progressive I tend to listen to those being persecuted and why and not let my personal feelings about those people here in the US get in the way of compassion and concern. Not saying that I am perfect in that regard, have my moments, but on the whole when I see people being persecuted for their faith my first reaction is not one of scorn or derision.
eissa
(4,238 posts)Middle East exemplifies perfectly why I have such little patience with western Christians whining about "persecution." You're not being "persecuted" because a couple of guys want to get married, or because you can't display the 10 commandments in public schools, or because you can't have your way all the time. Being rounded up and slaughtered, being told to convert or die, having your places of worship blown up -- that's persecution.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Anyone remember the destruction of Buddhist relics under the mujahideen?
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Catherina
(35,568 posts)But our MSM cleverly left out that part so the Houla massacre could be blamed on Assad's forces despite the eyewitness testimony.
On April 1 the Mother Superior Agnès-Maryam, from the monastery of Jacob ("Deir Mar Yakub" which lies south of Homs in the village of Qara, described the climate of violence and fear in the region in a long open letter. She concludes that the Sunni insurgents operate a systematic liquidation of all minorities. She describes the expulsion of Christians and Alawites from their homes, which are then occupied by the rebels, and the rape of young girls, who the rebels pass off as "war booty"; she was an eye witness when the rebels killed a businessman in the street of Wadi Sajjeh with a car bomb after he refused to close his shop and then they said in front of the Al Jazeera cameras that the regime had committed the crime. Finally she describes how Sunni insurgents in the Khalidijah district of Homs locked Alawite and Christian hostages in a house and blew it up only to then explain that this was an atrocity committed by the regime.
Why, in this context, are the Syrian witnesses (in my report) regarded as credible? Because they do not belong to any party involved in the conflict, but are caught in the middle and have no other interest than to stop a further escalation of violence. ...
What other facts support this version? The FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) was not the first to reported a different version of the massacre of Houla. Other reports just couldn't compete with the larger media outlets. The Russian journalist Marat Musin, who works for the small news agency Anna, was in Houla on May 25 and 26, was an eyewitness and also published the statements of other eyewitnesses. Additionally the Dutch Arabist and freelance journalist Martin Janssen, who lives in Damascus, contacted the Jacob Monastery in Qara, which has taken in many victims of the conflict with the nuns performing devoted humanitarian work, after the massacre.
Sunni rebels perpetrate "liquidation" of all minorities
The nuns told him how on that May 25th more than 700 armed rebels, coming from Rastan, overran a roadside army checkpoint near Taldou, how these rebels, after the massacre, piled up the corpses of the killed soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and how, on next day, they told their version of the alleged massacre by the Syrian army in front of the cameras of rebel-friendly channels and to the UN observers. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on May 26 at the UN Security Council that the exact circumstances are unclear. The UN could confirm, however, "that there has been artillery and mortar attack. There were also other forms of violence, including close-range shots and serious abuses."
The following sequence of events can be reconstructed: After the Friday prayers on May 25th more than 700 gunmen under the leadership of Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf came from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba in 3 groups and attacked 3 army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, extinguished the the families of Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq. They had refused to join the opposition.
...
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/neue-erkenntnisse-zu-getoeteten-von-hula-abermals-massaker-in-syrien-11776496.html
Rec'd. It's such a dirty, dirty game. The lives of little people don't mean shit when billions are at stake.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)now in Syria who were protected under the current Government? Same thing happened in Iraq.
The Kurds are also under attack by our 'allies' the Rebels, they are being driven from Syria by the thousands. They too are wondering 'where is the World?'
This will be the third time the US has so tragically betrayed the Kurds, if we go in to help these terrorists.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Just like in Libya?
Libyans Say Sharia Will Be Law of the Land
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/11/libyans-say-sharia-will-be-law-of-the-land.html
Christians in Libya being rounded up and beaten
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9927447/Christians-in-Libya-being-rounded-up-and-beaten.html
pampango
(24,692 posts)Syrian opposition forces have withdrawn from Maaloula, the ancient Christian village they first entered on Wednesday, the BBC reports based on a Syrian National Coalition account:
"For months the rebels have been around Maaloula but there has been a sort of an understanding with the residents that they would not enter," Samia Elias, a resident who stayed in Maaloula during the fighting, told the Reuters news agency.
"To be fair, they do not seem to have touched churches or homes." [...]
Overnight, the National Coalition issued a statement confirming that FSA units had withdrawn after destroying army posts at Maaloula.
The opposition alliance also stressed its "commitment to protect all Syrians, no matter what their religion, race, confession or political belief, and its constant concern to preserve Syria's human and religious heritage by every means possible".
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/syria-crisis-splits-g20-live
KeepItReal
(7,769 posts)They refused US military support because they didn't want to be associated with the invading army.
A no-win situation all around.