Chaldean Patriarch: a Law Against Preachers Who Incite Violence is Needed

Fides News Agency – 18/3/15

Baghdad — In Iraq, bloodied by sectarian strife and in the hands of jihadists, a law to prosecute religious preachers who incite violence and therefore threaten the peaceful coexistence of citizens belonging to religions and different denominations needs to be enacted. This is the request addressed to the Iraqi Parliament by the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Louis Raphael I Sako.

The Primate of the Chaldean Church added his petition in the speech he held on Sunday, March 15 to the Iraqi Parliament, as part of a conference organized by the Parliamentary Committee for Religious Affairs, in the presence of the President of the Iraqi Parliament – the Sunni Salim al-Jabouri – and several deputies. In his speech, the text of which was sent to Agenzia Fides, Patriarch Louis Raphael outlined the peaceful coexistence among different religious communities as a shared heritage of Iraqi society, that everyone – from religious leaders – must commit to preserve and defend, favoring even with preaching and contribution to education and school programs the spread of the culture of pluralism and citizenship rights.

The leader of the Chaldean Church also recalled the potential utility to initiate a reflection on a design of civil status that recognizes as beneficial to all the principle of distinction between religions and political institutions.

© 2015 Assyrian International News Agency.

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