[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13079]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                CHRISTIANITY IN IRAQ IS BEING WIPED OUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, ``Imagine if a fundamentalist Christian sect 
captured the French city of Lyon and began a systematic purge of 
Muslims. Their mosques were destroyed, their crescents defaced, the 
Koran burned, and then all Muslims forced to flee or face execution. 
Such an event would be unthinkable today, and if it did occur, Pope 
Francis and all other Christian leaders would denounce it and support 
efforts by governments to stop it.
  Yet that is essentially what is happening in reverse now in Mosul, as 
the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham drives all signs of Christianity 
from the ancient city. Christians have lived in Mosul for nearly 2,000 
years, and today they are reliving the Muslim religious wars of the 
Middle Ages.''
  These are not my words. These are the words of the first two 
paragraphs of an editorial from The Wall Street Journal earlier this 
week.
  Now, I want to read parts of an email I received yesterday from 
someone on the ground in Iraq:

       All Mosul churches and monasteries are being seized by 
     ISIS. There are around 30. The cross is being removed from 
     all of them. Many of them are burned or destroyed and looted. 
     Many of them are used as ISIS centers.
       The religious Sunni, Shiite, and Christian tombs are being 
     destroyed in Mosul. This destruction is endangering the very 
     ancient sites, including Jonah's tomb.

  It has been widely reported that the ISIS soldiers have painted ``N'' 
on the doors of Christians to signify that they are ``Nasara,'' the 
word for Christians.
  Shiite homes were painted with the letter ``R'' for ``Rawafidh,'' 
meaning rejecters or protestants.
  Christianity, as we now know it, is being wiped out. With the 
exception of Israel, the Bible contains more references to the cities 
and regions and nations of ancient Iraq than any other country.
  I believe what is happening to the Christian community in Iraq is 
genocide. I also believe it is a crime against humanity.
  Where is the West?
  Where is the Obama administration?
  Where is this Congress?
  The silence is deafening. The West, particularly the church, needs to 
speak out.
  The Obama administration needs to make protecting this ancient 
community a priority. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry need 
to have the same courage that President Bush and former Secretary of 
State Colin Powell had when they said genocide was taking place in 
Darfur.
  The United Nations has a role. It should immediately initiate 
proceedings in the International Criminal Court against ISIS for crimes 
against humanity.
  The Congress needs to hold the administration accountable for the 
failure to act.
  I will close today by reading the final two paragraphs of The Wall 
Street Journal editorial. It said:

       Today's religious extremism is almost entirely Islamic. 
     While ISIS' purge may be the most brutal, Islamists in Egypt 
     have driven thousands of Coptic Christians from homes they 
     have occupied for centuries. The same is true across Muslim 
     parts of Africa. This does not mean that all Muslims are 
     extremists, but it does mean that all Muslims have an 
     obligation to denounce and resist the extremists who murder 
     or subjugate in the name of Allah. Too few imams living in 
     the tolerant West will speak up.

  The Wall Street Journal went on to say: ``As for the post-Christian 
West, most elites may now be nonbelievers. But a culture that fails to 
protect believers may eventually find that it lacks the self-belief to 
protect itself.''
  William Wilberforce, the British parliamentarian and abolitionist who 
abolished slavery, famously told his colleagues, as I tell this House 
and this administration: ``Having heard all of this, you may choose to 
look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.''

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