Iraqi Kidnapped Christian Cameraman Killed in Mosul

station who was kidnapped two weeks ago, has been shot and killed in Iraq’s restive northern city of Mosul Monday, March 14, hospital and television officials said.

26-year old Husam Hilal Sarsam of the satellite station of the Kurdistan Democratic Party was gunned down on "the northern side of the city", the French News Agency (AFP) quoted Mohammed Fathi, the head of security at Mosul’s Medical City hospital, as saying.    

AFP said it had learned from a family member that cameraman Sarsam was kidnapped two weeks ago, apparently by militants opposing the journalistic message of the television network.  

In late February, the body of Raeda Wazzan, a female producer with the local affiliate of state-owned television Al-Iraqiyah, was reportedly found after she had been abducted with her 10-year-old son. Both Al-Iraqiyah and Kurdish television have recently aired confessions of alleged insurgents in the Mosul area, AFP reported.

"PROPAGANDA"

Sunni Arabs in this ethnically diverse city have reportedly charged that Al-Iraqiyah was spearheading a propaganda campaign to tarnish the image of the resistance against what they see as "occupation." An Iraqi press photographer working for a European agency was killed in Mosul in October, AFP noted. Dozens of journalists and other media workers also died in Iraq since the US-led invasion began two years ago.

The killing of Saram has added to anxiety among minority Christians in Mosul, located near the site of the ancient city of Nineveh where the Bible says Prophet Jonah first brought the message of repentance. Scores of Christians have been injured or killed in violence directed against them, while many were kidnapped by insurgents, human rights groups claim.

Mosul, the third most populous city in Iraq with nearly 2 million people, is currently the site of near daily insurgent attacks and US-led coalition raids, news reports said. A suicide bombing Thursday killed at least 50 Iraqi civilians and wounded nearly 80 others there near a Shiite Muslim mosque, according to military officials. There was more fighting Monday, March 14, when two Iraqi civilians died after being wounded in crossfire involving a US helicopter in Mosul, the Cable News Network (CNN) quoted the American military as saying.

PUNISHMENTS

Church leaders in the Mosul area have also received letters announcing the militants’ intention of killing one person in every Christian family, "as a punishment for the women not covering their heads and not going to university," said Christian human rights watchdog Barnabas Fund. In recent months at least one Christian woman was killed for having her head uncovered while two other Christian women seen bareheaded in a market had nitric acid squirted in their faces, added Barnabas Fund, which investigates the plight of persecuted Christians. 

In another letter Islamic militants ordered church officials to allow Christian women to marry Muslim men, the group said. Islamic fighters allegedly also knocked on doors of Christian homes in Mosul demanding money because the "Christians do not contribute weapons and do not fight," Barnabas Fund claimed.

"This follows exactly the model of classical Islam, whereby Christians and Jews were excluded from fighting for the Islamic state but instead required to pay a special tax – jizya – to cover the costs of their ‘protection’," added Barnabas Fund.

LEAFLETS

"Leaflets are being distributed with the message: "Christians go; leave Iraq" [and] word is being passed around in the mosques, telling Muslims not to buy anything from the Christians," the group said.

Yet Iraqi pastor Ghassan Thomas told BosNewsLife earlier that violence is not necessarily bad news for what he sees as "spiritual growth" in the country. "This is the best time. People are hungry for Christ, they need Christ now," he said in his Evangelical Alliance Church where hundreds of people were attending meetings in a rented church building in Baghdad.
(With: Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife, and reports from Iraq)