WASHINGTON -- A former Iraqi minister and other rights activists have requested a province for Iraq's Assyrian Christian population as efforts to drive them out of the country intensifies.

"In today's Iraq, all we have is hope," said former Iraqi minister and Assyrian Christian Pascale Warda in a press conference on Wednesday. "For the Assyrian Christians, this hope is rapidly dying. The targeting of our people is something the world cannot ignore and the governments of the world cannot deny."

Warda pointed to the recent beheading of a Syrian Orthodox priest, the abduction and murder of 13 Christian Assyrian women just over a week ago as examples of violence targeted against Christian that is forcing many Iraqi believers from the country.

"The consequence of this situation is clear," said Warda. "The Christian Assyrian population, in all its denominations, is fleeing the country."

Michael Youash, project director of the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project, a Washington-based think tank focused on the plight of Iraq's most vulnerable minorities, is a supporter of the idea of a province for minorities. He believes the province will help maintain minority voices in Iraq that will be able to provide a voice of compromise in debates about federalism, the constitution and other contentious issues.

Youash noted that the liberation of Iraq did not intend to drive out the Assyrian Christian population, but unfortunately this has occurring.

She cited that the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees is reporting that 36 percent of refugees are Christians.

"If this continues, Iraq will more and more look like other Middle Eastern countries which lost their Assyrian population decades ago," Warda concluded. "Iraq needs it minorities for democracy.

Warda said she is part of a group of Iraqi trying to create an "administrative unit" for minorities in the Nineveh Plain and specific minority lands in the western part of Dohuk governate. Discussion on the province is still underway but supporters believe it possibly might be the only solution to retaining Iraq's Assyrian population.

The Rev. Dr. Keith Roderick, the Washington representative of Christian Solidarity International, cited from his recent article about the month of Ramadan and persecution against non-Muslims in Iraq.

"Hope in Iraq's future cannot be found in the destruction of minority faith and ethnic communities," concluded Roderick in his article. "It must be discovered in the actions of those right-hearted and --minded persons who have courageously dedicated themselves to the creation of a truly pluralistic multi-ethnic/religious society in Iraq."

Michelle Vu
Christian Post