Iraqi Christians living in fear
Posted: Saturday, May 09, 2009 2:00 PM
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On Assignment
By Tom Aspell, NBC News Correspondent
AMMAN, Jordan -- Rita Aziz, a 24-year-old Christian Iraqi woman, fled her country for Amman a few months ago after her two brothers were kidnapped on a highway leading north from Baghdad.
Shortly afterward, she received a telephone call from neighbors in Baghdad telling her that two bodies had been found and that they could be those of her missing brothers. They suggested she return to Baghdad to identify them. She took the next available flight from Amman.
Just as she arrived at her house, four men appeared and bundled her into a car and drove her to an unknown destination.
For the next five days they raped and tortured her, telling her they were punishing her for being a Christian.
"Four of them without souls or morals or anything treated me brutally," she said. "They did acts, they showed no mercy. They told me you are a Christian and we are going to do things to you."
Aziz said she endured her horrific ordeal by praying to God.
"They told me to become a Muslim, and when they tortured me I used to pray to God... just let me die a Christian," she said.
Eventually, relatives in the United States paid a $15,000 ransom for her and she was released.
Rita made her way back to Amman, where today she lives alone in a one-room apartment. Her husband is in Sweden applying for asylum, but the chances of that working out don't look good, because Sweden has decided not to grant any more visas to Iraqis following assurances from the Iraqi government that the security situation at home has improved enough for all refugees to return.
Rita's story is not uncommon in Jordan.
The United Nations says there are 7,000 Iraqi Christians registered as refugees in Amman, but the real number is probably more than 10,000. Hardly any of them plan to return home despite Iraqi government claims that it's safe for them to go back.
This weekend, while Pope Benedict was being greeted by Jordanian notables at the start of his week-long visit to the Holy Land, many were hoping that he would pay particular attention to their plight. Rumors persist that he might even make a lightning-quick visit to Iraq to highlight violence directed at Christians in Basra, Mosul and Baghdad.
Christian women in Iraq live in fear and rarely venture out from their homes unless accompanied by male relatives. Many are too afraid even to attend church. Kidnappers see them as an unprotected minority affluent enough to afford a ransom.
Father Butros Haddad celebrates mass in Baghdad every evening, but only a few worshippers attend his services.
"Many Christian churches in Iraq have been attacked," he said. "We never had anything like that in our history. Priests were killed, and even the Cardinal of Mosul Paul Faraj Riho was brutally killed. The killers had no respect for his age and his religious position."
In Saddam Hussein's time, there were nearly a million Christians living in Iraq, descendants of the first converts to Christianity in Mesopotamia 2,000 years ago. Legend has it that Saint Thomas, one of Jesus Christ's original disciples, brought their faith here from the Holy Land.
Today there are only about 400,000. The rest have fled abroad.
In Amman, Father Raymond Moussalli says mass in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, to a small congregation of Iraqi Christians. Most are waiting for visas to the United States.
"We have big Christian communities there in Detroit and in San Diego. We have communities in Canada and France and Australia. Most Iraqi Christians want to go there," he says.
Most are too afraid to return to their home country.
During Easter, the Iraqi government posted armed guards around Christian churches so parishioners could attend services, but a few days later they were withdrawn.
And a few days after that, five Christians were murdered in Baghdad and Mosul.
