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Christians in Iraq

That is right, and we bear a responsibility. The Christians are a very small part of the total population of Iraq, and there is absolutely no danger to the Sunni, Kurd or Shi'a populations of Iraq. The Christians have a large stake in the political process, but at the moment the Assyrian Democratic Movement, which gets 80 per cent. of their vote, has only one MP to represent them because of a bit of fiddling around with the voting system. That is a worrying denial of democracy, and we have a responsibility. Funnily enough, Christians in Iraq are persecuted because they are quite wrongly considered the agents of the west. They are simply ordinary business people who want to get on with their own way of life in a settled, secure environment. They are a very small part of the population and no threat to anybody. It was emotional and moving to go into the ancient villages in the Nineveh plains and visit ancient monasteries that have been there for the best part of 2,000 years. I saw the tomb of the Old Testament prophet Nahum and read what he wrote thousands of years ago:"““Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.””" How extraordinary that those words are still true today and that those people are being scattered and persecuted. When I went to the Nineveh plains, what struck me was that there was a sense of security in those ancient, entirely Christian villages. I met many displaced people who had come up from Basra and Baghdad to settle in the Nineveh plains, and I heard some absolutely heart-rending stories. I met a young girl who had lost her parents and her sister—they were murdered. I met a widow who had lost her husband and was now caring for a disabled son. Her husband was murdered in what can only be described as an anti-Christian pogrom. A quiet, cool and collected lady was sitting there listening to the appalling stories, and she finally came and told us her story. Her husband was a deacon. On the way back from church, he was killed—he was blown up by a bomb—and then her daughter disappeared. At that stage, she broke down and burst into tears, and we could not carry on the interview. We subsequently heard that she had never seen her daughter again. Imagine the anguish of that lady: she lost her husband, who was killed in a roadside bomb, and then her 18-year-old daughter, who disappeared and was probably murdered. Those are just three of the many terrible stories told by ordinary people who have no interest, and have never showed an interest, in politics. They just wanted to get on with their lives in the suburbs of Baghdad but have had to flee to what they consider to be a kind of safe haven in the Nineveh plains.