ICRC and AMO Joint Press Release_December 112012_Kurdish Conference

For Immediate Release: American Mesopotamian Organization and Iraqi Christian Relief Council attend ‘The Status of the Christian communities in Iraqi Kurdistan’ Conference in Washington D.C.
On December 5, 2012, the American Mesopotamian Organization (AMO) and Iraqi Christian Relief Council (ICR Council) traveled to Washington D.C. to attend a conference organized by Catholic University of America under the title of ‘The Status of the Christian Communities in Iraqi Kurdistan; Challenges and Opportunities’. The speakers at the conference were Eastern Christian scholars, Law professors, Middle East experts, and Christian leaders from the United States. The Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, His Excellency Bashar Matti Warda delivered a message via a pre-recorded video.
As expected, the conference was meant to portray the Iraqi Kurdistan as a region where the Christians are welcomed and speakers including the moderators worked tirelessly to defend the notion that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) works diligently to ensure the safety of those who flee the southern parts of Iraq for religious persecution to its northern region. When faced by conflicting facts presented by the Assyrians at the conference, exhibiting the inaccuracies of the several statements made at the podium, one moderator privately called Assyrians as “hateful people” in defense of the KRG.
Members of the Assyrian (also known as Chaldean and Syriac) community along with most American activists present at the conference were greatly disappointed in the lack of critical information which would exhibit numerous human rights abuses, namely encroachment on Assyrian lands, kidnapping and torturing of men and raping and murdering of women which are inflicted on our Nation by members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the KRG.
This Press Release is not in any manner placing the blame on a fine institution such as Catholic University of America which trains the finest scholars. However, we believe the organizers and speakers at this conference must perform a more in-depth study of the Assyrian nation in the so called Kurdistan region before submitting completely to the rose-colored images shown to them while in Iraq.
David William Lazar Juliana Taimoorazy

American Mesopotamian Organization Iraqi Christian Relief Council 25379 Wayne Mills Place – Suite 345 P.O. Box 3021 Santa Clarita, CA USA 91355 Glenview, IL 60025 www.americanmesopotamian.org www.iraqichristianrelief.org Phone – 323-454-2237