France Offers Asylum To Persecuted Iraqi Christians
The French government announced this week that it would be offering asylum to persecution Christians being forced out of Iraq by the Islamic State, a jihadist group.
Laurent Fabius and Bernard Cazeneuve, the European country's respective foreign and interior ministers released a joint statement Monday saying: "We are providing aid to displaced people fleeing from the threats."
"We are ready, if they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil."
Christians in Iraq's second largest city of Mosul recently fled their hometown by the thousands after the Islamic State, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS], demanded that non-Muslims either pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die. Such demands, coupled with a strict mandate for obeying Shariah law, caused many Christians and other religious minorities to flee to the more welcoming northern territories occupied by Kurdish forces, or flee the country altogether.
The Islamic State has also ordered all shopkeepers in Mosul to cover their mannequins, both male and female, with full-face veils to respect the Islamic law forbidding the human form, as well as order all female residents to wear full veils or face punishment. Additionally, the jihadist group has put a tax on all cars and trucks carrying goods as they enter Mosul.
Patriarch Louis Sako, a Christian cleric in Iraq, recently told BBC News that he estimates the Christian population has diminished from 35,000 before the ISIS occupation to now a mere 20 families from the ancient Assyrian Christian minority. The city of Mosul is known for its rich 6,000-year-old Assyrian history, but critics fear such a history may be vulnerable to extinction as Christians flee the country.
