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IRAQ'S
Christian parties complain they lack funding and are
living in danger ahead of landmark parliamentary
elections scheduled for January 30.
Already the victims of several church bombings since
August, the country's 700,000 Christians, who make
up just three per cent of Iraq's 26 million people,
are struggling to get their message across.
“Governmental parties are able to reach out to the
public through the media because they have greater
financial resources,” Odeesho Toma, a member of the
Assyrian Patriotic Party, which is running on a
coalition list with Kurdish parties, said.
Because of its lack of financial clout, the party's
Shara (the Truth) radio broadcasts in Kurdistan but
its frequency has trouble making it to Baghdad.
“We have to hold meetings and symposiums for our
people in the north to urge them to vote for the
list we are part of,” Toma said.
Even for parties with deeper pockets, like the
Assyrian Democratic Movement, television advertising
is too costly.
“We are facing financial troubles and huge amounts
of money are required if we want to make use of
satellite TV stations in our campaign,” head of the
culture and information bureau in the Assyrian
Democratic Movement, William Warda, said.
“Considering the fact that members of the next
parliament will only keep their posts for no longer
than 11 months, it's not worth spending all that
money.”
The few posters of Christian parties on display bear
no symbols other than the map of Iraq.
“For a prosperous Iraq for the unity of our
Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian people, vote for list
number 148 of the Democratic Coalition of the Two
Rivers”, one poster reads.
Another poster shows Iraq's map in white and the
ancient symbol of a sun engulfing a star and two
rivers springing near the northern, restive, city of
Mosul in tribute to the Tigris and the Euphrates
rivers.
Unlike big governmental parties, such as Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord and the
two main Kurdish parties, which have ample finance
at their disposal, Christian groups, many of them
newly formed, seem to be saving their pennies.
Except for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the
oldest and most powerful party that owns Ashour TV
station and Ashour radio, Christian parties are
using weekly newspapers and poorly-financed radio
stations with restricted transmission ranges to
reach out to the public.
“Through our TV and radio, we are welcoming secular
respectable figures like Ayad Jamal Addin, a
well-known thinker and a Shiite candidate, or Adnan
Pachachi, a prominent secular Sunni party leader”
Warda, whose bureau runs Ashour TV and radio, said.
Church bombings in August resulted in the departure
of as many as 40,000 Christians, according to
official sources like Pascal Isho, the interim
minister of Migration and Immigrants.
Iraqi Christian expatriates are now estimated to
number more than one million.
Some television stations run by Christian parties
are working from abroad and apparently addressing
Iraqi Christian communities there, like the Surayah
TV of the Bethnarhain Patriotic Union based in
Sweden and Assyrians based in Chicago.
AAP
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au
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