The Iraqi parliament has apparently removed election law provisions that set aside a number of seats in provincial governments for minorities prompting last Sunday’s street protest by Christians who declared they were the original citizens of this land.   The reference is to the fact that Islam spread by the sword through this region centuries after the establishment of Christianity.   Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.

From an AP story:

Parliament last week approved a new law mandating elections in most of Iraq’s 18 provinces. But the law removed a system that reserved a few legislative seats for Christians and other religious minorities.

Lawmakers cited a lack of census data to determine what the quotas should be. But many Christians saw the move as an effort to marginalize their community.

“I think that some political groups are pushing the remaining Christians to leave Iraq,” worshipper Afram Razzaq-Allah said after services at a Catholic church in Baghdad. “They want us to feel that we are no longer Iraqis.”

They took to the streets after church in Mosul.

Hundreds of Christians staged street protests after Sunday church services in and around Mosul, a northern city where many of the country’s Christians live. Some said the removal of the quotas is an attempt to force them to leave Iraq.

“This is an unjust decision and it affects our rights as Christians,” Matti Galia, a local politician, said at a rally in Mosul. “We are original citizens in this country. The politicians’ goal was to divide the Iraqi people and create more struggles. Indirectly, they are telling us to leave Iraq.”

We have been taking some Iraqi Christian refugees, but the number of Muslims entering the US far exceeds the Christian numbers.