Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Hundreds of Christians are fleeing Mosul in the wake of a string of killings that appear to be singling out Christians in the northern Iraqi city, where many had taken refuge from persecution in other parts of the country.
At least 11 and perhaps as many as 14 Christians have been killed in Mosul since the end of August, according to government officials and humanitarian groups. The victims have included a doctor, an engineer, two builders, two businessmen and a 15-year-old boy, who was shot dead in front of his house. In the last week alone, seven Christians were killed.
On Friday, a pharmacist was shot to death by a man who pretended to be an undercover police officer and asked for the man’s identification card, said Khisroo Koran, deputy governor of Nineveh Province, which is in northern Iraq. Mosul is the province’s capital.
Louis Sako, the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Kirkuk, said Friday that the killings were an example of “a campaign of cleansing, killing and threatening” that Christians faced in Iraq.
The shootings in Mosul come on the heels of an angry dispute over the Iraqi Parliament’s decision to drop a provision in an earlier version of the provincial elections law that ensured political representation for Christians and other minorities. Lawmakers approved the legislation, without the provision, on Sept. 24.