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Lebanese cleric: High-level 'agreement' limits judge's power in port investigation
Author: William Christou
Publication Date: 27/10/2021
Source: The New Arab
A deal announced by a Christian cleric, would limit Judge Tarek Bitar's ability to summon and question high-ranking officials.
Iranians are happy about the Pope-Sistani meeting, not the fundamentalists
Author: Khosrow Ebrahimi
Publication Date: 3/10/2021
Source: Asia News
The meeting between the pontiff and the Shia cleric confirms Sistani’s role as world leader of Shiism. Since the founding of the Islamic Republic, Qom has tried to undermine Najaf's place. Kayhan, a newspaper close to religious extremists, mocked the meeting. Others, including some in Qom, see it as a new effort to bring peace to the Middle East.
Pope Francis's visit to Iraq on March 5-8 has had several repercussions in Iran, especially the meeting between Francis, the leader of world Catholicism, and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the most important Shia religious leaders.
Museum in Erbil will preserve Christian manuscripts that escaped jihadist devastation
Publication Date: 26/10/2021
Source: Agenzia Fides
The old manuscripts and books, Christian and Islamic, saved in recent years from a possible destruction by the jihadists of the Islamic State (Daesh) will be collected and kept in a museum-study center created ad hoc by the will of the Bishops of the Chaldean Church. The decision to create this new conservation and exhibition center was taken by the Chaldean Bishops themselves during the meeting held on Saturday 23 October in Erbil, capital of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, under the presidency of Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. The museum will be built in Ankawa, a district of Erbil inhabited mostly by Christians, in a building adjacent to the institute which accommodates Chaldean priests and seminarians. The initiative will see the direct participation of the local community of Dominican Fathers, who have always been committed to the preservation and study of ancient books and manuscripts, which also represent a valuable testimony to the roots of indigenous Christian communities of apostolic origin in the lands of present-day Iraq.
Christian and Muslim leaders: Pope Francis' Iraq trip still bearing good fruit, but more dialogue needed
Author: Jonah McKeown
Publication Date: 28/9/2021
Source: Catholic News Agency
Pope Francis’ March visit with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric, has already helped to foster some peace in Iraq, but religious and political leaders must continue to “invest” in dialogue if the meeting is to produce long-term positive effects, panelists said in a livestreamed discussion this week.
Post-election controversy over the distribution of seats reserved for Christian candidates
Publication Date: 21/10/2021
Source: Agenzia Fides
A few days after the Iraqi parliamentary elections, which took place on Sunday, October 10, the foreseeable post-electoral controversies over the distribution of the 5 parliamentary seats reserved by the electoral system for Christian candidates returns. The most explicit objections to the results relating to the quota of seats guaranteed to politicians belonging to the local Christian communities, were expressed by former Christian Mp Yussef Juseph Sliwa, who went so far as to state in an interview broadcast by the Kurdish network Rudaw that the five new MPs who won the seats in this quota do not really represent Iraqi Christians, given that 90% of the votes in their favor did not come from Christian voters, according to him. The accusation, which also emerged on the occasion of the Iraqi political elections of 2018, calls into question major political groups, of Shiite and Kurdish origin, who allegedly diverted part of their votes to candidates running for Christian seats, in order to place MPs there, fully aligned with their political strategies. In his interview, Sliwa reiterated that politicians belonging to local Christian communities - Syrians, Chaldeans and Assyrians - should not get involved in conflicts between the Shiite and Shiite parties and Kurdish groups against other Kurdish political groups.
The shattered dreams of Iraqi Christians displaced by IS
Author: Carles Grau Sivera
Publication Date: 14/10/2021
Source: La Prensa Latina
Thousands of Christian families who fled towns in northern Iraq when the Islamic State terror organization seized control of swathes of the region in 2014 continue to live in camps with little prospect of returning home three years after the extremist group was defeated in the country.
Ainkawa’s Christians welcome move to elevate town’s status
Author: Dilan Sirwan
Publication Date: 7/10/2021
Source: Rudaw
In the predominantly Christian neighbourhood of Ainkawa, young people said a recent decision to elevate the town’s status to a district is an “excellent step towards the right path,” hoping it will give Christians the right to elect their own leaders and convince people not to emigrate.
Elections, the "Babylon Movement" obtains 4 of the 5 seats reserved for Christian candidates
Publication Date: 12/10/2021
Source: Agenzia Fides
The Iraqi parliamentary elections held on Sunday, October 10 have assigned representatives of the "Babylon Movement" up to 4 of the five seats reserved for Christian candidates by the national electoral system. This is reported by local sources consulted by Agenzia Fides, on the basis of the first data provided by the High Electoral Commission. According to the same sources, the fifth seat, assigned in the Erbil district, has been assigned to the independent candidate Farouk Hanna Atto. The electoral result regarding the number of seats reserved for Christian candidates, somewhat surprising, will not cease to reignite the controversy about the possible political manipulation to which the allocation of seats in Parliament reserved for local Christians or belonging to other ethnic and religious minorities members of the communities seems to be exposed.
