Nuri Kino: Tax Money for Massacres in Syria?

Nuri Kino (AINA)

(Morning Star News) – Remarks today by award-winning Swedish-Assyrian journalist Nuri Kino at a conference on persecution of Christians in the Middle East in Brussels, sponsored by the Middle East Christian Committee, as reported by the Assyrian International News Agency:

My name is Nuri Kino; I’m a researcher, an author, a filmmaker, a human rights advocate. I have been trusted to be the voice of many as I stand here before you today, and I take that responsibility very seriously. I speak for the surviving relatives and friends that a week ago uncovered two separate mass graves in Sadad, an ancient Syrian Christian town; and for the 30 Christian civilians that were found in those graves, including women and children; for the family, six persons, that were found in a well, shot in their head; and for those missing who still are to be found.

We, the Assyrian delegation, are here today to give you the truth about what is happening to Assyrians and other Christians in parts of the Middle East. A truth that is gathered on thousands of interviews; actually the last ones were done last night.

Syria. We are dying over there. We are being raped, persecuted and tortured. And our homes and land are being occupied.

We are followers of Jesus. When he lived among us, he refused to accept injustice, lies and persecution. That made a lot of people hate him. But it’s not as followers of one prophet, one God or a religion the Christians of Syria should be looked at; they should be considered as what they are: A persecuted native minority.

The last days, while preparing our reports and speeches, we realized that in the final analysis it is about one question. Are you alright with the fact that your tax money might be used for massacres in Syria?

And are you alright with whatever comes next? A brutal Jihadist regime that in the best case will force all Syrians that do not want a fundamentalist leadership out of the country for good?

If you think the world is out of ideas when it comes to Syria, we’re here to tell you that we’re not. If you think you’re powerless, we’re here to prove you wrong. Force the founders of terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to protect non-Muslims in Syria. Withdraw European tax money that goes to al-Nusra and other extremists. I’m Swedish, and I have the right to know where my money goes to.

And if any of you have just given up on the mess that is the Middle East and think that there’s nothing you can do, that’s fine. But then you cannot call yourselves leaders of the free world.

Because we will not stop speaking out for Mary, who was dragged out of her house for being an Assyrian activist. She was pushed to the ground in the middle of the street and shot in the head. Then the killers shouted that whoever would touch the corpse would also be killed. The same night dogs started to eat her body. We will not stop to talk about the Assyrian girls that are kidnapped and forcibly converted and married to Jihadists.

We know for sure that in some places, the rebels do not want to openly show that they are against non-Muslims or even moderate Muslims. They don’t want their sponsors to stop arming them and sending them aid. Therefore, they let some “kaffirs” or infidels, as they call us, to remain in areas that they take over. Then they kill us one by one, causing the rest of us to flee voluntarily, so it doesn’t appear as if they are committing massacres.

City after city is being emptied of Christians. On the eve of Syria’s civil war, more than 200 Assyrian families, 1,000 individuals, lived in Tabqa. Nearly all of them have left the country; some of them are stranded all over the world, even in Chad in Africa, abandoned by cynical smugglers who failed to get them to Europe.

Ninar Odisho, killed for his faith in Syria. (AINA)

Three Assyrian families had remained in Tabqa. The rebels told them that they would not be harmed. The remaining Assyrians were poor, and were trying to maintain what little they had. One of them was 26-year-old Ninar Odisho, a handsome young man.

Ninar was killed, brutally murdered by the terrorists. The reason he was killed we could find on his body. They burned a cross into his face. That cross is a symbol of the ongoing persecution in Syria. Every day we get reports of atrocities. Our clergymen have been kidnapped and killed, our sisters and brothers have been raped and beheaded. Our nation and our religion are bleeding.

Why? Because we don’t want to convert to Islam.

One hundred years after 1915, when we lost three-fourths of our people to the sword of Jihad, we are on the brink of another genocide. Yesterday I spoke to a priest who cried in fear, “What is it that you can’t see? Please, please, I beg you, be our voice, be the voice of the slaughtered women and children before it’s too late. They are here from more than 30 other countries to establish an Islamic state. That leaves no room for us.” The priest was one of the people that just found six Christians, all from the same family, in a well, shot in their heads. A family that the villagers thought had fled. Now they fear more mass graves will be found.

You are saying that you don’t have any information; we are going to provide you with whatever evidence you need – reports, video clips – whatever you need to prove the ethno-religious cleansing we are experiencing. Now you can’t say you didn’t know.

The question is, what are you going to do? We are asking you to help us before it’s too late.

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