Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Tina Ramirez
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000212A
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:24 This is the program that brings you discussion, 00:27 news, views and information on many different 00:30 religious liberty issues in the United States 00:33 and around the world. 00:34 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:37 And my guest on the program is Tina Ramirez 00:40 from the Becket Foundation. 00:42 And, Tina, you wrote an article for Liberty some time ago, 00:47 concerning refugees from Iraq. 00:50 Now, our viewers may or may not be aware 00:55 that religious liberty has become a serious issue in Iraq. 00:58 It wasn't just an invasion and desperate-- 01:01 and all that sort of stuff. 01:02 The group of people at least a million 01:05 and I've read figures as high as 2 million Christians 01:08 were living in Iraq. 01:09 They were protected ironically by the despot 01:12 but since that invasion, Islamic factions 01:18 has predominantly have pretty much turned on the Christians 01:22 and over about 200,000 of them have either left their refugees 01:26 and of course many have died. 01:27 Where have they gone and how do they find the situation 01:31 when they flee to other countries. 01:32 Do they come to the United States? 01:34 I haven't met too many Iraqi's. 01:36 Really, no they do, they do, 01:37 you have to go to California I guess, 01:39 California, Tennessee and some other places. 01:41 In Atlanta I remember going and renting a car in Atlanta 01:43 and the manager of the car rental agency 01:45 was an Iraqi colonel. 01:47 Yeah. And he told me all about 01:48 what had happened there but not very often. 01:50 No. Is it, are these Christians, 01:54 Iraqi Christians leaving the country, 01:55 are they're finding that they're finding, 01:57 are they finding safe heaven here? 01:59 Yeah, I mean the problem as you've said is much bigger 02:02 and I wrote about it in the Seeking Refuge article 02:04 that you published. Thank you. 02:05 Yes. And I really enjoyed writing 02:07 that and being able to share it with people 02:09 because the problem isn't just what's happening over there. 02:13 It's their inability to find refuge here 02:16 and in other western countries-- when they're facing 02:19 such egregious persecution at home that really 02:21 there's no other way they can, they can survive. 02:24 So as you had mentioned, there's about 02:25 1.6 million Christians that were in Iraq. 02:28 Yeah. Prior to the war. 02:30 You've probably--I'm sure you've got more accurate figure. 02:32 Yeah. But I have usually 02:33 told people a million but I read recently 2 million. 02:35 So I'm now little unsure. 02:37 I mean it's hard to number them accurately 02:39 because of the lack of census there. 02:41 But there are about 1.6 million that's the estimated number 02:44 most people go off. 02:45 But since the war two-thirds of them have left or being killed. 02:49 And so you have a community where there's one-third left. 02:53 And where for instance pastor that I know, 02:56 pastor in Baghdad who is pastoring 02:59 in Armenian Protestant church. 03:01 He has so few people left in his church 03:03 because they've fled because of the persecution 03:05 that he can barely afford to keep his own church. 03:08 And so all of the services, the social services 03:11 and everything that they did for the community 03:13 are in jeopardy now. 03:14 And not only that but then they're also facing 03:16 the added fear of people in the community attacking them 03:19 or terrorists coming in and threatening them. 03:22 People still as they're on the buses or they're going 03:25 to work get letters from somebody that will say, 03:29 you know leave now or die. 03:31 People are still kidnapped. 03:32 People are still attacked physically. 03:35 Many of the Christians in Iraq proper have fled to Kurdistan. 03:40 To Syria I understand. 03:42 And that's the great irony, now they're refugees again. 03:44 Yeah, no a number of them had fled to Syria 03:47 that was basically part of the Kurdish area, 03:49 it was just an entryway for them to get out of the country. 03:53 And so they fled to Syria, Lebanon, 03:55 Jordan and try to go to many other countries. 03:58 In Syria they're now because of the war there, 04:00 so many of them are stuck again and need to get out. 04:04 And I'm sure you saw the recent the two bishops 04:07 that were recently kidnapped in Syria. 04:09 So it's really a horrific situation for them. 04:11 And we'll talk about 04:12 it if we get a chance on another program. 04:15 That I like to characterize what's happening 04:18 in the Middle East where the Arab Spring 04:20 which followed on from the invasion of Iraq. 04:22 In some ways this is a final expulsion 04:25 of Christians from the Middle East. 04:26 Yeah. It's not just an isolated case 04:28 bit in this country or bit in that. 04:30 It's pretty much across the whole region, isn't it? 04:33 Yeah, and it's not just Christians, 04:34 its all religious minorities. 04:35 I think it's interesting you have this major access 04:38 of the Jewish communities throughout 04:40 the Middle East in 1947-48. 04:43 And so for instance in Baghdad 04:46 you had I think 37 Jewish members 04:49 of the Jewish community remaining 04:51 at the beginning of the Iraqi War. 04:53 And then now you have I think seven left. 04:55 Yeah. And they were exposed with WikiLeaks. 04:57 Yeah, and so it's-- I mean that's I think 04:59 a 90% decrease with the Mandaean population 05:03 you had 50,000 Mandaeans which were followers 05:06 of John the Baptist. 05:07 And they are passivists, 05:10 so they don't believe in fighting. 05:12 They were also a lot jewelry merchants 05:14 and so they were specifically targeted after the war. 05:17 They had 50,000 members and now they are down 05:19 to 5,000 left in Iraq. 05:21 So that's a huge, huge, decrease. 05:23 I mean it's yeah and it's total dislocation 05:25 of entire communities, entire religious community. 05:27 And then you look at the Yazidis which are somewhat 05:30 of a Zoroastrians community, a mixture of Zoroastrianism 05:32 and Islam but they are based 05:36 in Kurdistan in the Kurdish region. 05:37 Well, I thought they originate from Iran. 05:39 They were Zoroastrians and the Yazidis 05:42 I believe that there are communities in Iran 05:43 either but their temple Lalish is in Kurdistan. 05:47 And they had-- I believe it was like 05:49 1.3 million people prior to the war, 05:51 they've been reduced by a third, 05:53 either by attacks or by being forced out of the country. 05:57 This is slightly off but I need to know and our viewers 06:00 I'm sure would be curious. 06:01 Is there any accurate tally of how many people 06:04 really died during the invasion 06:06 and the years of the occupation? 06:09 Well, I don't-- that's not something I could, 06:11 I don't have a rough answer but I'm sure that-- 06:13 I've read such diversion views, 06:17 US military give out tiny figures, 06:19 few hundred thousand. Well, I think that, yeah. 06:21 That it's some, I suppose 06:23 it's the British Lancet Magazine which is a curious source 06:25 but that I think they were 500,000. 06:28 But anyway you cut it, there was a huge cost 06:31 in human life in this dislocation. 06:33 Right and I think the important thing to remember 06:35 is that of all the people that fled Iraq 17% 06:39 of all the refugees were religious minorities. 06:42 But religious minorities only made it up to 3% 06:45 of the total Iraqi population prior to the war. 06:48 So for them to make up such a disproportionate 06:51 amount of the refugees, just goes to show you 06:53 how much they were affected. 06:55 And of course, there's Sunni and Shia violence throughout 06:57 Iraq as well that shouldn't be discounted. 06:59 But the fact is that minorities throughout Iraq 07:02 and then the rest of the Middle East 07:03 are really being just strangled in a position 07:07 where they really can't survive any longer there. 07:10 You'd mentioned Syria when I actually 07:13 two and a half years ago prior to the Arab Spring 07:15 I was traveling through Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, 07:18 Iraq the whole that whole region. 07:20 And when I was Syria, a prominent religious leader 07:24 told me that they've survived there for aver 2,000 years 07:27 or nearly 2,000 years but they really felt like 07:30 they were at a point where the remnant 07:32 that had survived and had gone through 07:34 so much oppression from different regimes. 07:39 This was the apocalypse. 07:41 That they really they didn't see that they could survive 07:43 again another major catastrophe and really 07:47 what they were most concerned about was they knew 07:50 that Iraq--that the Christians there had been protected 07:53 in the Baghdad's regime as bad as the regime was. 07:56 And they said that if something like what happens in Iraq 07:59 where you take out Saddam, you take out a dictator 08:02 whether it's Assad or Mubarak or somebody else at the time. 08:05 If you take out another dictator, 08:07 another one falls, what's going to happen 08:10 to the Christians and the religious minorities 08:12 then because they haven't been able to survive. 08:15 They've been so disproportionately effected 08:17 in the aftermath of the conflict in Iraq and in Syria 08:21 it was this foreshadowing really it was a fascinating 08:25 conversation of what is going to happen 08:27 to us and now you're going to help us 08:28 or you're going to treat us like you 08:30 treated the Iraqis and just forget us. 08:32 And that was really the question and I think 08:33 it's a good question for Christians and people 08:35 in our country to be thinking about like right now 08:38 with what's happening in Syria 08:40 and the rest of the Middle East. 08:41 It was-- I mean this guy predicted it, 08:44 are we going to help them finally or we going to just-- 08:47 Well, it's always complicated for a nation 08:49 to meddle in another nation's affairs. 08:51 And I don't I think you or I can say that-- 08:53 I don't--the evidence I have that I can pick up 08:56 the US government is very unclear 08:58 about how to interject in Syria. 09:00 But it's a little clearer I think 09:03 how the community of nations can deal with people fleeing 09:06 those areas in this case for religious problems. 09:10 Can they come to the US? 09:12 Right yeah. Is this is a welcoming heaven? 09:14 Has it been? Yeah, and that's the question 09:16 in hand, I mean historically America has been this- 09:19 I mean the Statue of Liberty is really 09:21 the great example of it. Have those message 09:22 longing to be filled Yeah. Right. 09:24 That we have been a refuge for people 09:25 and not just anyone but for persecuted people. 09:28 I mean if you look at the-- even the founding of America 09:31 prior to the, prior to becoming a country just the Puritans 09:35 and the Pilgrims and the Catholics and Huguenots 09:38 just about everybody came here for religious freedom. 09:41 We didn't always get it right. 09:42 But they came here for that and we have created a country 09:45 and a constitution that prioritize this. 09:48 And right now unfortunately and you can speak 09:51 to many other western countries as well that are beginning 09:53 to restrict their immigration of refugees 09:55 but in the United States since that's where we are at, 09:58 we will just speak to that. 09:59 Our immigration policies are so troubling that people 10:03 that have been severely persecuted. 10:04 They were traditionally be able to come and find refuge 10:07 here are unable to. 10:09 And it's-- our policies have created 10:12 a class of status for these persecuted refugees 10:17 that is basically treating them as terrorists 10:20 because they've been persecuted by terrorists. 10:22 And that's what so frightening I think. 10:24 I think the backdrop of it is the US entered Iraq. 10:29 And you know there's a wartime situation 10:31 and they're afraid if people coming from there 10:34 that they might be continuing the war. 10:36 They automatically suspect. 10:38 Well, it was an unfortunate consequence of-- 10:40 He's a terrorist but I think this is just-- 10:41 Yeah. You know the whole thing 10:44 might spillover to this country 10:45 if they bring them in and so it's been 10:47 reticence to really let anyone in. 10:50 You know the numbers better than me. 10:51 But until a couple of years ago the US had admitted 10:55 very close to nobody, just I think 10:58 a few hundred maximum 10:59 Oh, I mean we do bring in quite a few refugees every year. 11:03 But from Iraq. 11:04 From all over the world. 11:05 No, but from Iraq, it had been minuscule in that. 11:08 Yeah, the numbers have changed over the years. 11:11 But they were definitely, I mean 11:12 they were still processing refugees from the Gulf War. 11:18 At the time of this war 11:19 and so it's definitely complicated things. 11:21 They were, I mean it's been 11:24 very complicated but I think that the important thing 11:26 for people to understand is that, 11:27 right now what's happening is that the PATRIOT Act 11:31 that was really this post 9/11 legislation. Yeah. 11:36 What it included was a new category for refugees 11:41 and so for classifying how they're admitted. 11:44 And what it did is that it said that there is a Tier 1 11:47 which is you're clearly a terrorist, 11:48 you're designated, you're on a terrorist list. 11:50 There is a Tier 2 II which are people associated 11:52 with terrorists and there's this Tier 3 that they created 11:54 in the PATRIOT Act which was supposed to include 11:57 anyone giving material support to terrorists. 11:59 Yeah. But the problem 12:00 is that it was such a-- it was such a poorly 12:03 defined category that the way it was interpreted 12:05 is that anybody that was persecuted. 12:08 Let say somebody that was kidnapped, 12:10 a Mandaean that was kidnapped by a terrorist in Iraq 12:13 and then the family paid ransom and got the person back. 12:16 Yeah. They were then denied refugee status 12:18 to the US under this Tier 3 category because 12:21 they provided material support. Financial support. 12:24 For getting somebody out that was kidnapped. 12:27 The sad thing though is that this Tier 3 category 12:30 has even impacted Iraqi civilians 12:34 that were translators for the US military 12:38 as that there's a number of cases not just in Iraq 12:39 but also in Afghanistan, a translators that had been 12:43 that have had their refugee status held up because 12:47 they're now being deemed as having provided 12:50 material support to terrorists simply for some-- 12:53 It's a bureaucratic nightmare because I don't, 12:56 I think it goes against 12:58 the welcoming nature of the US society. 13:03 It's ironic that the US Government 13:05 went to war in Iraq but even in this late day, 13:07 I don't believe the American society 13:09 has deep negativity toward Iraq. 13:12 I think you're absolutely right, Lincoln, 13:14 that the American public isn't afraid 13:17 of having Iraqi refugees come here. 13:19 The problem especially Christians of course. 13:21 The problem is that our policies are not enabling 13:25 the people that are really suffering 13:26 to come and seek refuge 13:28 in the United States which is really-- 13:29 Absolutely, we need to make that happen 13:32 and help these people. 13:33 We'll be back after a short break, stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17