ZAKHO, Iraq — Attacks against Christian Assyrian businesses in northern Iraq in early December, which local sources said were organized by a pro-Islamic political party, marked the first such destruction of Christian establishments in the Kurdish region. The rampage threatens the frail security of Iraq’s dwindling Christian population, sources said.
After Mullah Mala Ismail Osman Sindi’s Dec. 2 sermon claiming there was moral corruption in massage parlors in the northern town of Zakho, a group of young men attacked and burned shops in the town, most of them Christian-owned.
The businesses included liquor stores, hotels, a beauty salon and a massage parlor. “The interesting thing with this incident is the place where it happened,” Archdeacon Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East said. “The Kurdish regional government is, for the most part, safe and secure, and all inhabitants enjoy prosperity and security, until now at least. The future is, by all means, bleak for the Christians and other minorities living there.” Sindi denied accusations that he provoked the violence against northern Iraq’s Christian community.
After Sindi’s sermon, a man reportedly stood up in the mosque and said that since there were un-Islamic massage parlors in Zakho, Muslims should go destroy them.
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