Mideast Christians victims of ‘cleansing’: Sarkozy

PARIS: French president Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday that Christian minorities in the Middle East are victims of “religious cleansing”, following deadly attacks on churches in the region. 

A series of attacks against Christians “looks more and more… like a particularly wicked programme of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing,” Sarkozy said in an annual New Year’s address to religious leaders.

A deadly attack on a Coptic church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on January 1 killed 21 people.

An al-Qaida-linked website had published threats against that church and other Coptic communities in various countries.

Forty-four worshippers and two priests died in an attack on a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad in October, the worst of a series of attacks against Christians in Iraq.

Read more: Mideast Christians victims of ‘cleansing’: Sarkozy – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Mideast-Christians-victims-of-cleansing-Sarkozy/articleshow/7235858.cms#ixzz1ALuDxXcy