Law & Order

Toronto, CANADA – “The tragic irony is that the Chaldean families leave a country of death, persecution and oppression hoping for a better life for them and their children.   Sadly, so many Chaldeans are being killed in their place of work or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time as in this situation,” says Alvin Sako.

Sako is referring to the death of Mark Shaba, 19, of Rexdale, runned over on Oct. 21, 2007, in a dispute in the parking lot of Arizona Bar and Grill on Carlingview Dr. The court preceding concluded with the electrician apprentice Gagan Deep Singh, 26, pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing the death. 

Singh ran over the only Son of the Shaba family, a teenage kitchen cabinet painter, with a Ford Explorer after a dispute outside the bar. 

Mosul, IRAQ – “We have to go vote.  Our love for our country makes us go and vote,” says Ibtissam Bazzi, an Iraqi Christian woman eager to cast her vote.  Christians in Iraq remain an oppressed minority and a group still under constant threat.  With the provincial elections underway, Iraq’s Christian minority find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

The Iraqi natives have faced centuries of violence.  From conquering Arab armies, the first world war genocide of the Ottoman empire (present day Turkey), to mass killings from al-Qaida in Iraq and other Islamic extremists.  Including the Kurds who have been slowly and systematically attempting to take and control land once owned by Christians.  

In the northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas the Kurds have been using their own militia to sieze more of Iraq into their semiautonomous region.  The issue came to the fore in Saturday's vote for members of ruling councils in most of Iraq's 18 provinces.

London, UK – Lord Alton called for the government in the north of Iraq to return land that had been seized from minority groups.  "The Kurdish Regional Government needs to ensure a swift and complete return of Christian homes, land and property that has been misappropriated ­ which includes 58 Christian villages taken by Kurds.

"How The Kurdish and Iraqi authorities treat their minorities ­ including Christians, Yezidis, and Mandaeans ­ will be a test of their determination to create a tolerant society respectful of difference."

Around 90 people packed into a House of Lords' committee room to attend a hearing about the crisis currently facing minorities in Iraq.

A statement from the Syriac and Chaldean Churches read out at the meeting similarly sounded a note of caution about the direction the country was taking: "It seems that Iraq is one step closer to becoming an Islamic state intolerant to non-Muslims".

New York, USA – Chaldeans and Assyrians in American are appalled at Christie’s Auction House of New York.  “They are war profiteers moving the spoils of war,” says Chaldean art collector Enas Namoo from his downtown Chicago office.  The Chaldean art collector, well known for his Mediterranean art collection, was furious for what he saw in the catalog of the ancient art and antiquities auction at Christie's next week.  Among the collection was a pair of neo-Assyrian earrings established as artifacts of Mesopotamia.  “This belongs in the museum, not on an auction block,” said a angered Namoo. 

Along with Namoo, Iraqi authorities have also appealed to have the pair of neo-Assyrian earrings returned.  The 9,000–10,000-year-old earrings are expected to bring in up to $65,000, but Iraqi officials say they are part of the treasures of Nimrud and thus rightfully the property of Iraq.

Chaldean archeologist, art curator, antiquity expert, and former director of the Iraq Museum Donny George says, “I am 100 percent sure they are from the same tombs from Nimrud. I witnessed the excavation."

Illinois, USA - Mariam Shamoon, a longtime Chicagoan, active in her church and surrounded by family, who admired her for her vibrant lifestyle despite advanced years.  Sunday night, Shamoon, 78, met a tragic fate, cut down by a car.  

Around 5 p.m., Mariam Shamoon was returning from a day of Christmas shopping near her apartment building in the 6300 block of North Kedzie Avenue. As she crossed West Devon Avenue only half a block from her front door, a car turning right on a green light from Kedzie onto Devon struck and killed her.

California, USA –   One Chaldean family hopes to find closure after murder suspect is arrested for killing their son.  Jeremy Allen Wessels, 32, is charged with the shooting death of David Binno, 24, in Binno's Spring Valley apartment in September 1994.  The apartment theft of gold jewelry and murder may lead to the death penalty. 

Two men accused of murdering their Chaldean friend in 1994 joked beforehand of killing him “for the heck of it,” a former girlfriend testified yesterday.

El Cajon Superior Court Judge Herbert J. Exarhos ruled there was sufficient evidence to try Wessels with the special-circumstance allegation that Binno was gunned down during a burglary.

Baghdad, IRAQ - The Christians of Iraq were shocked when Muslims started trying to drive the Christians of Mosul out of their homes in early October, an Iraqi bishop told Vatican Radio after meeting Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pope told the bishop: "Iraq is in our hearts. We constantly remember the Christians, praying for them and for peace in the country."

Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad met the Pope on November 26 at the end of the Pope's weekly general audience.

California, USA – The news on California defense of marriage proposal passing is causing a ruckus.  So www.CHALDEAN.org returned for reactions from three friends, Gina Ateek, Jonathan Shayota, and Ira Davidson were interviewed on the proposal.  The three were still at odds over the issue.  The three friends are not the only ones arguing over the passage of the proposal.  Many of the arguments have reached violent levels. 

The nation was shocked when images of an old lady being surrounding, intimidated, threatened, shoved, pushed, and spat upon, while other protestors try to cover the abuse instead of helping the old lady.  Another woman is assaulted and beaten with her own bible as police witness the crime, but fail to arrest the gay assailants.  Envelopes are sent to churches in Utah with white anthrax-like power.  In Colorado bibles are burnt and thrown at churches.  In Michigan, gay activist storm a church cursing, throwing papers, and screaming “it’s okay to be gay,” eyewitnesses tell reporters.  Video surveillance of the crime shows parishioners stunned and worried with fear as the perpetrators attack the house of worship. 

“These are communist and Gestapo type tactics,” says Jonathan Shayota, a leading Chaldean supporter of the proposal.  “Gay activist are trying to ruin people by creating a black-list of individuals who supported defending marriage between one man and one woman.”  Gay activist defend the list and ignore claims their online lists are being used to violently target those who defend marriage.  “What they say is that they have a responsibility to let the world know who the people are and if they get harassed, intimidated, or attacked they can’t stop that or police every gay supporter,” says Shayota.  “I am on some of the lists and have already received harassing phone calls.” 

“Why should it bother you if gays are allowed to marry,” says Ira Davidson, frustrated over the ballot measure passing and the uncontrollable violence of gay protestors.  Gina Ateek is more than happy to refute that gay marriage is harmless and gives her reasons why most Americans are against gay marriage.

Baghdad, IRAQ – After ongoing threats, attacks, and kidnappings Chaldean seminarians, students, and staff fled the centuries old Pontifical Babel College in Baghdad.  Abandoning the building to safer territory in northern Iraq, the staff had no choice says the dean of the college. 

A short while after, U.S. military occupied the building as a “combat outpost” and fortified base of operations for the 4th Cavalry Squadron of the First Mechanized Infantry Division, and then by the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment.

The controversial move by the U.S. military fueled Iraqi Christian conspiracies of collaboration between Chaldeans and the United States.  Radical Islamic leaders used the building as evidence to further persecute Christians as conspirators.  Although Iraqi Christians were innocent in the taking of the building, the appearance was enough to recruit hundreds of terrorists and cause animosity between Iraqi Christians and fanatical foreign Muslims. 

California, USA – Jean Pierre Rices on Monday admitted special circumstances allegations of murder two Chaldeans during a robbery, which makes him eligible for the death penalty.

The Chaldean community mourned the heinous killings of Heather Mattia, 22, and Firas Eiso, 23, of El Cajon, California.  The owner and young clerk, Firas Eiso who recently arrived in America after fleeing for his safety from Christian persecutors, were each shot once in the back of the head March 1, 2006 in cold-blooded murder. 

Both Chaldean victims were well known by customers of Granada, the East County El Cajon convenience store as faithful and compassionate workers who went out of their way to help neighbors.