Copenhagen summit aims to lead to Iraq fatwa on sectarian violence

By Slim Allagui

Agence France Presse

COPENHAGEN: A summit gathering some of Iraqs top religious leaders in Copenhagen this week is hoped to result in a joint decree condemning violence against Christians, organizers said Wednesday.

I hope that we will be able to produce a joint Shiite-Sunni fatwa [religious decree] against violence towards Christians, said Canon Andrew White, head of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East and vicar of St. Georges Church in Baghdad.

There is a total unity between the Muslims and Christians: we need to do something radical, White told A.F.P. on the sidelines of the three-day closed-door meeting that began Wednesday.

The emergency summit at a heavily guarded Copenhagen hotel, organized by the relief foundation and the Danish Foreign Ministry, comes on the heels of a string of attacks on Christians in Iraq, as well as in neighbouring countries.

It is time to think seriously about steps that need to be taken to protect all the minority communities, White said.

Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen agreed. Ending this spiral of violence requires Iraqs religious communities to come together and decide that they want to reject violent extremism in all its forms, she wrote to A.F.P. in an email from Doha Wednesday.

We have today in Copenhagen a gathering of religious leaders representing Shiite, Sunni and Christians, she pointed out.

This group of leaders has the power and influence to negotiate on behalf of the people they represent, to deny legitimacy to the use of violence and to call authoritatively for reconciliation and peaceful solutions, Espersen said.

They have done so successfully before, and if they decide to, they can do it again.

The foundation, a British non-governmental group, had previously only revealed that eight of Iraqs Muslim and Christian religious leaders would take part, refusing to divulge their identities for safety reasons.

Ho! wever, W hite revealed some of the participants to A.F.P., pointing out that one of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Malikis top Sunni advisers, Sheikh Abdel Latif Humayem, was at the meeting.

Shiite leader Sheikh Abduhaleem al-Zubairi, Younadam Kanna, who represents Iraqs Assyrian community, and Archbishop Avak Asadorian, head of the countrys Armenian Church, were also present, White said. We have some influential leaders here.

Hard work is needed to stem the recent wave of violence against Christians in Iraq. In the worst such attack, militants stormed a church in central Baghdad on October 31, leaving 44 worshippers, two priests and seven security force personnel dead. Al-Qaedas local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the assault.

I hope this gathering will send a clear message to the Iraqi people: that religious communities must be protected and sectarian violence in all its forms is condemned and must be brought to a halt, Espersen said in her email.

In Iraq every single religious community has suffered religiously motivated violence. This is not about Muslims attacking Christians, these are extremists attacking humanity, she said.

White agreed. The majority of Muslims in Iraq are not against Christians, he insisted, claiming that so much of the violence, particularly from Al-Qaeda links, has come from outside Iraq.

We are not against each other.