Associated Press
BEIRUTExtremist groups are waging a genocide against Christians in the Middle East, a former Lebanese president said Monday after a New Years suicide bombing of a church in Egypt killed 21 people.
Amin Gemayel, a Christian who served a six-year term as president in the 1980s, cited the attack in Egypt and recent violence in Iraq as he urged leaders to give Christian communities a larger political role.
Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians, said Gemayel, who leads Lebanons right-wing Christian Phalange party.
What is happening to Christians is a genocide, he said.
Lebanon, which experienced a ruinous 15-year civil war, in part between Muslims and Christians, that left about 150,000 dead, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. Christians make up about 40 per cent of Lebanons four million people and the country is the only Arab nation with a Christian head of state.
Christians subjected to genocide in Iraq, Egypt: official - thestar.com
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcSbNJjZBr0&feature=player_embedded[/ame]
BEIRUTExtremist groups are waging a genocide against Christians in the Middle East, a former Lebanese president said Monday after a New Years suicide bombing of a church in Egypt killed 21 people.
Amin Gemayel, a Christian who served a six-year term as president in the 1980s, cited the attack in Egypt and recent violence in Iraq as he urged leaders to give Christian communities a larger political role.
Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians, said Gemayel, who leads Lebanons right-wing Christian Phalange party.
What is happening to Christians is a genocide, he said.
Lebanon, which experienced a ruinous 15-year civil war, in part between Muslims and Christians, that left about 150,000 dead, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. Christians make up about 40 per cent of Lebanons four million people and the country is the only Arab nation with a Christian head of state.
Christians subjected to genocide in Iraq, Egypt: official - thestar.com
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcSbNJjZBr0&feature=player_embedded[/ame]