Well, not only some of the other posts here disagree with the above statement,
Father Douglas Al-Bazi a local Chaldean Catholic priest also disagrees :
*…The vast majority of the tens of thousands of victims of Iraq’s violence since 2003 have been Muslim, but the small size of Iraq’s Christian minority and the nature of the attack have sent shock waves throughout the community.
“They kill us not because we are Iraqi but because we are Christian,” says Father Douglas al-Bazi, who has permanent injuries after being kidnapped and tortured four years ago. “It is different if I die by a bomb or in an accident — I will not say that I’m dying because of Christianity but they entered the church and they know inside the church there are only Christians. Our leaders say, 'We ask the Christians to be patient — to have the courage to live together to live hand in hand with the Muslims … Why are we begging? Saying, ‘Please, please,’ for what? To let us survive?”
Father Douglas says his Chaldean Catholic parish in the working class neighborhood of New Baghdad has dwindled from 2,500 families in the 1990s to less than 300. His Muslim neighbors help protect the church, but almost every day, he says, more Christians decide to leave.
“Of course I cannot ask anyone to stay,” he says. "Everyone tells me ‘Father, I am sorry — I will leave.’ I tell them, ‘Don’t be sorry, OK? No one is pushing you to die, what’s the benefit of dying?’ " *
They
were and
are being
martyred.
