A REPORT highlighting human rights abuses against Christians around the world is to be launched in Glasgow.
The
Catholic Church agency, Aid to the Church in Need, estimates that 75%
of all religious persecution around the world is directed against
Christians.
That equates to around 100,000 people facing persecution.
The
hard-hitting report will be launched in Scotland at St Rollox Church of
Scotland by Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil
in Iraq.
Speaking ahead of the launch Nather Eisa told how he was forced to flee to Scotland from Iraq with his family.
Mr Eisa, 46, a trained
teacher, told how he was called a “little Christian rag” and received a
death threat. His life was spared when his brother agreed to pay a
bribe.
For the father-of-two it was one
of many abuses that persuaded him to flee to London in 2002.
Shortly
afterwards he and his family were moved to Sighthill in Glasgow.
He
believes he escaped the worst persecution in Iraq that followed the
US-led invasion of the country in 2003, and has caused thousands more
Christians to flee.
The last Iraqi
census in 1987 showed the Christian population at 1.4 million. The
Church in Iraq estimates that figure is now as low as 150,000.
“The
problem started for Christian people in 1991 when sanctions were
imposed by the United Nations,” said Mr Eisa.
“Muslim people hated
Christian people because America and Britain are Christian. They say to
us Christians that we make the problems for them, but we say we are the
same as them, we suffer the same.”
While the family was still able
to attend church at that time, security was heavy with up to 30 armed
guards surrounding the church during worship. As people began to suffer
financially in the early 1990s, Christians began their exodus from the
larger cities.
Mr Eisa’s wife Aseel
explained: “If I was rich and a Christian, they would come to my house
during the night and steal everything. If you say anything you get
killed. That’s happened for a few families.
“Now they kill people simply because they are Christian, they say it to your face.”
She
said today Christians are too afraid to go into the city of Mosul. Her
sister who is a student there has to wear a headscarf to appear Muslim.
In the past she said she was shot at when she entered the college with a
party of Christian students.
In 2004,
another sister was forced from her home in Baghdad.
“They took the house
from her putting her and her family out – she had to stay with other
family members for five years,” said Mrs Eisa.
But
while the Eisa family is relieved to have escaped with their lives,
they have found themselves at the receiving end of prejudice in this
country.
“People here look at us and
presume that we are Muslim. Even when we say that we are Christian, they
think it is some obscure strand of Christianity,” Mrs Eisa said.
Daughter
Lisa, 18, has settled into life here and is studying medicine at a
Scottish university.
She has little memory of Iraq, and was sheltered
from much of the persecution by her parents.
In Glasgow, she attended a Catholic primary school and was struck by the tolerance shown to other religions.
She
said: “Coming here, the way they treat people from other religions just
makes me feel so proud to be Christian. I feel like that is what my
religion teaches me; to love people who are different. That’s why I feel
so attached to here, like I belong here.”
“I
think people here should be aware that there are Christians in the
world that fight to keep their religion – it would make them value their
religion more.”