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Sunni-Shiite padres work to issue joint fatwa against anti-Christian violence
(AFP) A summit gathering some of Iraq's top religious leaders in Copenhagen this week is hoped to result in a joint decree condemning violence against Christians, organisers 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 (FRRME) and vicar of St. George's Church in Baghdad. "There is a total unity between the Muslims and Christians: we need to do something radical," White told AFP on the sidelines of the three-day closed-door meeting that began Wednesday. The emergency summit at a heavily guarded Copenhagen hotel, organised by FRRME and the Danish foreign ministry, comes on the heels of a string of attacks on Christians in Iraq, as well as in neighbouring countries. FRRME, a British non-governmental group, had previously only revealed that eight of Iraq's Muslim and Christian religious leaders would take part, refusing to divulge their identities for safety reasons. On Wednesday, however, White revealed some of the participants to AFP, pointing out that one of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's top Sunni advisors, Sheikh Abdul Latif Humayem, was at the meeting. Shiite leader Sheik Abduhaleem al-Zubairi, Younadam Kanna, who represents Iraq's Assyrian community, and Archbishop Avak Asadorian, who is head of the country's Christian Council, were also present, White said. Posted by: trailing wife 2011-01-13 |
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