AssyriaTimes Forum

A controversial speech by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2006....

Posted By: Albert (c220-237-26-65.farfl2.nsw.optusnet.com.au)
Date: Saturday, 1 November 2008, at 10:26 p.m.

Community leaders in Nineveh province have faced increased threats in the wake of the furore created by a Danish newspaper's publication last year of caricatures making fun of the Prophet Mohammed and linking Islam with terrorism. A controversial speech by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2006, which many Muslims perceived as anti-Islamic, also made Christians a target.

By mid-October, a bomb had killed nine people in an Assyrian neighbourhood of Mosul, and Syriac priest Paulos Iskandar was beheaded after being kidnapped by a militant group. His abductors demanded at least 250,000 US dollars in ransom and also that he post signs on his church apologising for the Pope's remarks, according to the Assyrian International News Agency. They killed him two days after his abduction.

News