***** Iraqis slam US presence Protests reflect Baghdad tension By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff, 4/19/2003
...''The US should vanish because they're the biggest devil of all, more tyrannical than the tyrant Saddam Hussein himself,'' said Mouayed Chaker Hamadallah Al-Chouwayli, a Shia praying at the Al-Khadom Mosque, a central point for Shias in the city. ''Saddam was bad; the United States are worse.''
The sentiment spans the major religious groups in Baghdad - Shias, Sunni Muslims, and Christians.
''No one likes colonization,'' said Alaa Tawbiah, a Christian attending Good Friday services in Karada yesterday. Unlike Shias, Christians did not face discrimination under Hussein's leadership.
''The Americans and Saddam Hussein are two sides of the same coin,'' Tawbiah said. ''We drove the British out with sticks in 1920. If the Americans try to stay, they'll get their due.''...
[The full text is available at <http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/109/nation/Iraqis_slam_US_presence+.shtml>.] *****
***** Christians Cancel Easter Celebrations Over Iraq
CAIRO, April 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Christians in Egypt and across the Arab world will not celebrate Easter this and next week to show their heartfelt solidarity and sympathy with the Iraqi people, a spokesman for the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) said Saturday, April 19.
"In the name of the Egyptian church and other Eastern and Arab churches; and in solidarity with the current distress of Arabs after the U.S. occupation of Iraq; and in view of the deplorable conditions of the Iraqi people, churches will not celebrate this Easter," MECC Secretary General Rev. Dr. Riad Jarjour said in a statement carried by the Egyptian Middle East News Agency (MENA).
"How can we celebrate Easter while the Iraqi people are still burying their dead and binding up their wounds due to the war waged by the western coalition?" Jarjour asked. "They (Iraqis), in addition, have every right to worry for their future amid the widespread anarchy caused by this unfair war."
"And how can we enjoy ourselves while the Israeli military go non-stop in killing the Palestinian people at the time the world attention is riveted on the war on Iraq," he continued....
U.S. President George Bush, his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, British Premier Tony Blair, his Foreign Minister Jack Straw have all been deprived [Cf. "Bush, Blair Excommunicated: Church Of The Nativity," <http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-03/31/article11.shtml>] from visiting the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.
This decision was taken to express the refusal of the Palestinian Christians of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
In a special interview with IslamOnline.net on March 31, Spokesman for the Orthodox Church in the Holy Land Archimandrite Attallah Hanna described both Bush and Blair as excommunicates, because they had turned a deaf ear to several calls by the Orthodox Church and other churches to spare the lives of innocent Iraqis and prevent the flare-up of war.
Coming under diatribe from the four corners of the world, wartime Bush was censured Tuesday, March 18, by the Vatican for his bellicose policy and defiance of the international legitimacy.
In a terse statement, the Holy See said Bush assumed a "grave responsibility before God" in deciding that diplomacy to avoid conflict with Iraq had been exhausted.
"Whoever decides that all peaceful means under international law have been exhausted is assuming a grave responsibility before God [Cf. "War Decision "Grave Responsibility Before God": Vatican," <http://www.islamonline.net/english/News/2003-03/18/article16.shtml>], his conscience and before history," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.
<http://www.islamonline.org/English/News/2003-04/19/article08.shtml> ***** -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>