I was first notified of a circulating video of terrorists slitting a man’s throat in 2004. The call came from one of my sources in Södertälje, a small Swedish city, where 40 percent of inhabitants have Middle Eastern Christian roots. I wanted to see the video, but my source didn’t have it. I drove to Södertälje and in a couple of hours I had a DVD. The activist that gave it to me told me to be careful, that the clip could traumatize me. I put it on my laptop.
In January 2005 I interviewed a grieving Farouk Chamoun. It was his son I saw being beheaded in the video. According to Al-Qaeda, Raymond Chamoun and two other Christian men were infidels and traitors. They were brutally murdered for allegations of working with U.S. troops. The terrorists spread copies of the video among Christians in Iraq. It was also sold in markets as a sign that “infidels” had no place in their ancient homeland, that Christians should pack their bags and leave. The murders of the three young men was never picked up by mainstream media.
A decade later, on Aug. 20, 2014, ISIS, a new quickly growing terrorist group started by former Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq, released a video that showed the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley. The brutal murder of Foley shocked the world. The video was posted and published in most traditional media outlets and spread by millions on social media. That was the moment when beheadings became common knowledge. Then-President Barack Obama, when speaking about Foley’s violent killing, highlighted that Christians and other religious minorities were under attack by ISIS.
“They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion. They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people,” Obama said.
By “ancient people,” the former president was referring to the Assyrians of Iraq, also called Chaldeans and Syriacs. Weeks before the murder of James Foley, ISIS gave Christians in Iraq and Syria an ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay taxes, run, or be killed.
Eight years later, on Aug. 5 of this year, families of Americans that were killed, injured or held hostage by terrorist groups in the Middle East sued Swedish telecom giant Ericsson. James Foley’s family are among the hundreds of plaintiffs.
The allegations against Ericsson are based on reporting by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) as well as “information from witnesses, along with declassified intelligence, congressional testimony and reports, and other press accounts.” ICIJ obtained leaked documents showing that Ericsson allegedly helped finance suicide attacks, beheadings and other terror acts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since 2004, there has been a silent ethno-religious cleansing of Christians and other Indigenous peoples of Iraq, including the Yazidis and Mandaeans, from their native lands. Hundreds of churches have been bombed in the Middle East, clergy members killed, and hundreds, if not thousands, of Christians kidnapped for ransom. Oftentimes, families were forced to pay ransom only to later find their abducted loved ones in bags, slaughtered.
Before the fall of Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein, an estimated 1.2 million Christians lived in Iraq. The numbers now differ as there is only approximately 120,000-250,000 Christians left in the country. In Syria, before the war in 2011, more than 1.5 million Christians lived there. Now, 600,000 Christians have fled the country.
I have lived with this knowledge of persecution happening in Iraq (and later in Syria) for 18 years. The first 10 years as a journalist and author, and since 2014, as an advocate for Middle Eastern minorities. I have met thousands of Christian, Yazidi and Mandaean survivors. In the summer 2010, there were many signs that the atrocities against them could escalate to a full-scale genocide. Many of us journalists and activists begged the world, on deaf ears, to help stop the violence before it was too late.
I recently spoke to Riyad, one of the survivors of the Syriac Catholic Church massacre in Baghdad on October 2010. Six suicide jihadists attacked the church during mass. Almost 50 parishioners were killed and 80 others were wounded. I witnessed the horrific massacre via telephone. A man who had been forcibly deported from Sweden called me from the church’s bathroom during the violence. I heard two young priests plead with the terrorists not to kill anyone. When they were found afterwards, the clergymen’s bodies had been sprayed with bullets.
Riyad, who lost family members in the attack, now lives in California. We talked about the lawsuit against Ericsson and if Iraqis and Syrians whose families were destroyed forever could also sue the Swedish telecom company. According to several lawyers we both spoke with, now that many of these victims are American citizens, it may be a possibility.
Families who survived ISIS’ genocide—Christians and other minorities—who fled to the United States, should also be able to fight for justice. Members of my organization, A Demand For Action, are in daily contact with survivors of terrorist war crimes. It is time for them to also sue Ericsson.
Nuri Kino is an independent investigative multi-award-winning reporter and minority rights expert.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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