A Reason to Rally

One piece of hope and change on the campuses that voted overwhelmingly for the party in power is that anti-war rallies centered on the American occupation of Iraq have virtually disappeared. Ironically, there are developments worth protesting in the nascent democracy.

For example, the plight of Iraq’s Christian population should be of concern to anyone who claims to be energized by human rights concerns. By all accounts, Iraqi Christians account for less than 10 percent of the country’s population but a much greater proportion of its refugees and internally displaced citizens.

From destruction of churches to outright killings, the faithful are clearly fleeing persecution. Thus far, press reports on their plight have been scant, and mostly limited to dispatches from Accuracy in Media’s own Cliff Kincaid, EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo and a recent article distributed by the Associated Press.

Meanwhile groups from across the spectrum of ideas, from Human Rights Watch to the Religious Freedom Coalition, have issued reports on the desperate lives of Iraqi Christians. Moreover, neglect of them stretches across party lines, at least at the presidential level.

President Bush expressed concern about them to Arroyo but took no discernible action. Our current chief executive has not even gone that far.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.