Failed Kidnapping Results in Death of Iraqi Christian
An Iraqi Christian was knifed last Thursday in Kirkuk in what church authorities believe to be a failed kidnapping for ransom
An Iraqi Christian was knifed last Thursday in Kirkuk in what church authorities believe to be a failed kidnapping for ransom, according to a ministry to the persecuted church.
After leaving home at around 9 a.m. on Thursday, Saad Adib Hindy, 29, was forced from his car into a waiting vehicle by four armed men in front of the Kharnata Cinema on Kirkuk’s Adnan Kheirallah Street, reported Santa Ana, Calif.-based Open Doors on yesterday. Half an hour later, his unconscious body was dumped onto a main street.
According to an Open Doors co-worker in the region, no group has claimed responsibility for the murder, which local Christians did not believe to be religiously motivated.
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Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk Louis Sako, who first identified Hindy’s body and contacted his family, said he believed the murder was a failed kidnapping motivated by money.
When Hindy resisted his captors, they apparently stabbed him, Sako said, as reported by Open Doors. But realizing his wounds were fatal and that he could no longer be held hostage for ransom, they dumped him on the street and fled.
"Saad’s death underscores the precarious situation of Kirkuk’s Christians as they await a new Iraqi constitution which was hammered out late today," Open Doors stated Monday.
Since the end of the Iraq war, sectarian violence has prompted many Christians to flee the country. A wave of church bombings in August 2004 sent 30,000 or more Christians to neighboring Syria and Jordan in search of refuge. According to most estimates, the Christian community in Iraq numbered between 550,000 and 600,000 at the time of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Now, as Shiite members of the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution push for a greater role for Islam in civil law, some Iraqi Christians say a pro-Shari’a constitution could lead to discrimination and result in such a massive exodus of Christians from Iraq that the Christian presence could all but disappear.
According to the UK-based Barnabas Fund, church leaders are fearful that if Shari’a is given a position in the constitution, Christians and other non-Muslims will face the same kind of discrimination and second-class status which they experience in other countries where the law is based on Shari’a.
“It is so crucial that the Christian community have freedom to worship and a voice under the new Constitution," stated Open Doors USA President Dr. Carl A. Moeller says. "If Christians are marginalized even more, there could be another mass exodus from the country."
"As the murder of Mr. Hindy shows, Iraq is a dangerous place, especially for Christians,” Moeller added.
