Sharia, jizya imposed on Baghdadi Christians; Turkish Bible publishers murdered

Iraqi Christians forced to pay 'protection tax'

Christians in a Baghdad neighborhood are being required to pay a "protection tax" because Muslims have begun enforcing an Islamic law demanding either the tribute – or conversion to Islam, according to Christians in Iraq.

The report from the Assyrian International News Agency follows on complaints from Iraqi Christians that they have been caught in a no-man's land between the Coalition forces and Muslim militants in Iraq, watching as their churches have been bombed, and men and women assaulted and killed.

The newest report said Muslims in the Dora neighborhood are forcing Assyrians, who also are known as Chaldeans and Syriacs, but who largely are Christian, to pay the jizya, the poll tax demanded by the Quran.

Christians – and Jews – must pay the tax "in exchange for being allowed to live and practice their faith as well as being entitled to 'Muslim protection' from outside aggression," the agency reported.

Other "Religion of Peace" items in the news...

3 slain at Bible distributor in Turkey
By BENJAMIN HARVEY Associated Press Writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Assailants tied up three people at a publishing house that distributes Bibles in Turkey and then slit their throats Wednesday, adding to a string of attacks apparently targeting the country's tiny Christian minority.

The killings occurred in Malatya, a city in central Turkey known as a hotbed of Turkish nationalism and is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Dasoz said two of the victims at the Zirve publishing house were found already dead and the third died after being taken to the hospital. All had their throats cut and their hands and legs were bound, he said.

...Making up less than 1 percent of Turkey's 70 million people, Christians have increasingly become targets amid what some fear is a rising tide of hostility toward non-Muslims.

Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

Hebrews 13:3 (King James Version)