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A video apparently showing evangelical Christians praying at what they brand a "Satanic" Yazidi temple in northern Iraq has sparked outrage.

Light A Candle, an organisation that professes to "shine the light and love of Jesus by preaching the Gospel", on Thursday posted a story on its Instagram page showing a number of its missionaries praying outside the temple overlayed with a caption reading "We see chains broken and the enemy's power defeated.

"So right now we just break the power of this temple, we break the power of the Satanic curse that it places on people who enter Jesus... and we curse all of the enemy that is attached to this, we say it will come to nothing," one of the activists can be heard saying in the video.

Social media users identified the temple as being near the Yazidi-majority town of Ba'adre, which is located in a region disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), though the latter is currently in control of the town.

Middle East Eye could not independently verify the location, however.

Yazidis have for centuries faced persecution from other Abrahamic religions which claim that Melek Taus, the central figure in the Yazidi religion, is analogous to Satan.

Accusations of Satanism have been used to justify numerous attacks on the group, including the massacre of thousands of Yazidi men, and the enslavement of thousands more Yazidi women, by the Islamic State group in 2014.

The video sparked outrage online with many questioning why the local authorities had allowed the visit to take place.

MEE contacted Light a Candle to ask if they stood by the implication of the Yazidi religion as akin to Satanism, but had received no response at time of publication.

Narin Briar, a Kurdish human right activist, said that the act was particularly offensive considering the "centuries of genocide and erasure" that Yazidis had faced.

'American Christian missionaries are hunting Yazidis , falsely labelling them as "Satanic" in their social media posts, in hopes of forcefully converting them and erasing their ancient culture even further'

- Narin Briar, activist

"Just recently, the Yazidis fled the Ezidi Genocide at the hands of [the Islamic State]" she told MEE.

"Now, through an organisation called Light a Candle, American Christian missionaries are hunting Yazidis , falsely labelling them as 'Satanic' in their social media posts, in hopes of forcefully converting them and erasing their ancient culture even further."

Light a Candle was founded by Sean Feucht, a singer-songwriter and activist who claims to have had four number one albums in the Christian Worship section of iTunes.

The group has been involved in distributing aid to displaced people in northern Iraq, including Yazidis, but has also been accused of attempting to recruit Christian converts during their visits.

In the pinned tweet of his Twitter account, Feucht claims leftists have "hijacked" the minds of the younger generation and calls for "REVIVAL" as the solution, while lambasting such policies as student loan forgiveness, "open borders", abortion and LGBTQ rights and the "mutilation of childrens bodies".

A profile in Rolling Stone characterised Feucht as having a "far-right Christian nationalist agenda" and being a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. It also suggested he had made considerable sums of money out of his work, owning homes in the US valued at over $2m.

MEE also contacted the KRG for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.

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Evangicals spark outrage by praying 'to break power' of Yazidi temple in Iraq - Middle East Eye

Dohuk, Iraq Members of the Yazidi community have rung in the year 6773 surrounded by stunning scenery in a mountain valley in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

At sunset, when Yazidis believe a new day begins, thousands of worshippers on Tuesday lit candles at Lalish Temple, the holiest of all Yazidi temples. Supreme spiritual leader Baba Sheikh Ali Alyas presided over the ceremony commemorating the coming of light into the world.

The Yazidi New Year falls on the first Wednesday of April according to the Eastern Julian, or Selucid, calendar, which is 13 days later than the Gregorian calendar.

Children boil and colour 12 eggs each for the months of the year. The egg symbolises the Earth. Boiling it epitomises the time it lies frozen, and colouring it stands for the end of the cold, frozen months.

For Hilda Dakhil, a 17-year-old who has come to the temple every New Years for as long as she can remember, the colouring of the eggs is one of the essential rituals.

At the temple outside Dohuk, young people play an egg-tapping game that symbolises one of the four divine events the Yazidis commemorate on New Years: the bursting of the White Pearl, which brought about all life.

April has a special sanctity for Yazidis, said Luqman Suleiman, 40. We dont cut down trees or plough the land in the first 15 days because this distorts the beauty of nature. We also dont marry in April because we believe this brings misfortune. For us, April is the years bride in which there are no other marriages.

Families hang bouquets of anemones on their doors and dress in pastel-coloured, festive clothes that are pressed and made ready well in advance.

Ewes are also not milked ahead of the New Year so they can fully satisfy their young.

Amir al-Hajj Hassan Zainal, 63, a Yazidi cleric, says, This holiday is considered the creation of the universe because Lalish is the leaven of the earth, and this is the most important holiday we have because it is the feast of the King Peacock because God honoured him on this holy Wednesday.

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Photos: Yazidis ring in the year 6773 at temple in Iraq - Al Jazeera English

Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, told reporters on 20 April during a conference in Baghdad that Kurdish armed groups in Iraq most notably the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) exploited the countrys lack of security following the 2003 US invasion in order to establish bases and launch attacks from the border.

The situation that Iraq faced since 2003 our fight against terror led us to lose focus and control of our borders and armed groups exploited this situation and began to threaten the security of neighboring countries, especially Turkiye, Sudani said.

Sudani condemned the PKK, but also denounced Turkish strikes against Kurdish positions in Iraq, which the prime minister deemed a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

These events that happen are definitely a violation of sovereignty, and we cannot give it any excuse, he added.

The Turkish state and the PKK have been sworn foes for decades. Conceived as a political organization in Turkiye in the late 1970s, the groups armed wing was formed not long after and has been engaged in guerilla warfare against Ankara since. In the 1980s, the PKK launched an armed insurrection in southwest Turkiye.

Outlawed in Turkiye, the PKK operates illegally southwest of the country, as well as in northern Iraq and Syria, through its Syrian branch, the YPG, which is military aligned with the US-backed Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Ankara regularly targets the SDF in Syria, and its troops are currently occupying the country under the pretext of securing the Turkish border.

For years, Kurdish militias have also threatened the security of Iran from Iraqi territory, most notably the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), which has been active for decades and operates in exile in areas of northern Iraq. KDPI was the driving force behind the 1979 Kurdish rebellion in Iran and was supported by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. It also played a role in anti-government riots in Iran last year.

As a result of this Kurdish presence near the Iranian border, Iran has launched operations and strikes against KDPI positions in Iraq which Baghdad has also condemned.

In Iraq, Turkish strikes against the PKK have regularly resulted in civilian deaths.

When asked by a reporter if Iraq would officially designate the PKK as a terrorist organization, Sudani said that it depends on legal contexts.

The Kurdistan Workers Party has existed since the [19]80s in bases, and they have [Iraqi] identity cards in the interior ministry. We are supposed to maintain our borders, not have them turned into bases and used for armed activities. This falls in line with terrorist activities that threaten the security of citizens and neighboring countries, the prime minister said.

The PKK recently vowed to refrain from military action against Turkiye until after the Turkish election.

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PKK exploited US invasion of Iraq to target Turkiye: Sudani - The Cradle

Twenty years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq started and six years after Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State, whose attacks started in 2014, the country's religious minorities are still trying to surmount challenges.

According to the U.N. International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 200,000 Yazidis who survived the Islamic State's brutality are still displaced, living in and outside camps across Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. The Islamic State abducted thousands of women and girls as sex slaves and massacred thousands of men.

Christians in the Kurdistan region say that while they appreciate its relative stability and security, they feel apprehensive about the future because of the recent history of violence in Iraq that forced them to pull up roots.

"My family once lived in the capital, Baghdad, but with the church bombings and sectarian attacks on Christians and other minorities after the 2003 war, we had to move up north to Dohuk," an Iraqi Armenian man named Arsen told OSV News.

This Kurdish region also hosts Assyrians and other Christians, some of whom escaped IS, which attacked Mosul and the Nineveh Plains towns. In addition, camps for internally displaced Yazidis, who were targeted by IS militants for death, sexual slavery and forced labor, dot the area.

It is said that such camps are to be closed by the year's end, but many wonder where this will leave the Yazidis, who feel that their own government betrayed them by failing to protect them from Islamic State atrocities.

"How can camps be closed when thousands of families have been living there for a long time? It's like taking them to the streets. There needs to be a viable alternative," Father Emanuel Youkhana, a priest of the Assyrian Church of the East, told OSV News.

The Yazidis with whom OSV News spoke added that they cannot return to Sinjar, their ancestral land where many of them lived at the time of the IS attacks because their homes and businesses were destroyed.

"There is no security, or livelihood possibilities there. Instead, there are a variety of military forces in Sinjar: whether it's the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party), Yazidi unit fighters, the Iran-backed Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi militia, Iraqi army. There are also Turkish airstrikes and an open border to Syria. I share their fear with them for Sinjar," Father Youkhana said.

In March, the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani allocated $38.5 million to rebuild Sinjar and villages in the Nineveh Plains.

Father Youkhana runs the Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq (CAPNI) for displaced Iraqis around the city of Dohuk. This Catholic organization also rebuilds homes and helps to restore livelihoods in several towns in the Nineveh Plains following its destruction.

"We are motivated by our Christian values because we are a Christian faith-based organization and the basis of our work is love. In the case of Iraq, to share love means that you have to take care of people in need. And so, we address the needs of these vulnerable communities," he said.

CAPNI aids the displaced in more than 25 remote villages in the Duhok area by providing basic health checks and treating chronic diseases. It is also helping to repair damaged homes.Over the past five years, CAPNI also has rehabilitated more than 1,450 houses, 32 schools, nine churches, and 200 shops in the Nineveh Plains towns. Now, it is focused in the next three years on encouraging sustainable development by providing livelihood opportunities to unemployed youth and vocational training for others.

"We are trying to help people have a stable and sustainable income," Father Youkhana said. The projects require funding of $3.3 million annually, but one challenge is funds as the war in Ukraine persists.

Microloans are available for those with business skills and a business plan either in agriculture, or in towns where there is a need for mobile phone maintenance, air-conditioning installation, car mechanics, to name a few enterprises. Grants also are available to female-headed households to start businesses often at home.

Father Youkhana pointed to a project where Yazidis are working in eight greenhouses provided by CAPNI where a variety of vegetables can be produced even out of season, including, for the first time, broccoli. "They are able to receive a better income as a result of the project," he said.

CAPNI also is engaged in peace-building and advocacy work for minorities in Iraq. "What happened from the Islamic State invasion cannot be forgotten. It should be addressed openly to learn from it, to avoid it ever happening," Father Youkhana said of the Dutch government funded project aiding those on the Nineveh Plains.

Iraqi Chaldean Catholic Church leaders, such as Cardinal Louis Sako, patriarch of Chaldean Catholics, and Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil have repeatedly urged authorities to protect and respect all of the Iraqi citizens.

On the recent Iraqi National Day for Tolerance March 6, adopted by the government to commemorate the historic visit of Pope Francis in 2021 to the country, Father Youkhana made high-level presentations, including to the Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, where he warned of the worrying trend of Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities leaving the country.

"Once Iraq loses its minorities, the majority is no more the majority," Father Youkhana said. "We will continue to advocate for as long as it takes."

Revising Iraq's schools curricula to remove prejudice and encourage respect for all of Iraq's rich ethnic and religious minorities, too, is part of CAPNI's work.

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Iraq minorities, including Christians, still struggle 20 years after U.S.-led invasion - Angelus News

By HADI MIZBAN

https://apnews.com/article/iraq-war-legacy-photo-gallery-95a63b154deea0951935919bcd77763c

BAGHDAD (AP) There are places around Baghdad where Ill sometimes say a silent prayer for the dead when I pass on certain residential streets, at a particular restaurant, in a square where minibuses gather.

Today, people go about their daily business in these places, perhaps no longer thinking of the horror that took place years ago right where they are walking. For me, each site has become indelibly linked to the carnage I saw and the pain people suffered there.

As an Associated Press photographer, I covered 20 years of turmoil since the U.S.-led invasion of my country. At the height of the sectarian butchery following the invasion, I and other photographers rushed to the scenes of suicide bombings, rocket strikes and shootings around Baghdad nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day.

Iraqis today remember the pervasive fear of that era, but with so many bombings, the specifics of individual attacks may have faded. This series of composites joins some of my photos from the years of the U.S. occupation and new ones from today, aiming to bring together past and present. Here are the stories behind a few of them.

SADRIYAH INTERSECTION

In this large intersection jammed with minibuses loading up passengers, a car bomb ripped through the crowds on April 18, 2007, killing at least 140 in what was then one of the deadliest single bombings since the U.S. invasion.

When it went off, I was at the site of that mornings first bombing, which had killed dozens, and as the firefighters rushed to the second blast, I hitched a ride with them. We were among the first on the scene at Sadriyah. The stench of burned flesh filled my nostrils. Blackened bodies were strewn among twisted, smoldering minibuses. Survivors loaded pieces of human beings onto wooden vegetable pushcarts to take away.

The next day when I went back, I saw the girl. She was with her mother, searching among the remaining debris and body parts. The mothers feet were bare, covered in ash. She smeared ashes on her face as she screamed for her missing husband: Ahmed, where did you go? I cant do it without you. Your daughters need you.

I saw the look of silent terror in the eyes of the girl as she trailed her mother, holding her little sister and absorbing the scene. I took her picture.

I went back to Sadriyah several weeks ago. The minibuses blared their horns, and people thronged a nearby street market. I relived that day 16 years ago like I was watching it in a cinema. Those closest to a bomb seem to evaporate without a trace, I thought. This intersection was their last resting place.

CAMP SARA

This Baghdad district got its name from a wealthy Armenian Christian woman who once owned the area when it was farmland. As Armenians fled oppression in Turkey and elsewhere in the early 20th century, she let refugees settle on her land, and by the 1950s, it was built up as an almost entirely Christian neighborhood.

On Oct. 4, 2006, two car bombs went off within minutes of each a few dozen meters apart on a main commercial street of the district. All along a block of the avenue, buildings were shattered, blackened, a few collapsed almost completely. At least 16 people were killed and dozens wounded. Some young men carried a frail elderly woman on a chair to safety. Others used tarps to carry pieces of bodies. Everyone was running either away from danger or toward loved ones to see if they were alive.

You have no God, a resident named Dureid shouted in his shock as if the militants behind the blast were there to listen. You are not Muslims. Arent these Iraqis? What is their crime?

The explosion was only one of many by Sunni Muslim extremists that hit Christian areas over the years. Camp Sara was once one of the nicest parts of Baghdad, with good restaurants and a different vibe from the rest of the city. Today, the buildings are cleaned up, but the street looks the same, down to the electricity poles that havent moved.

Still, everything has changed. Most of Camp Saras Christians have been driven away by violence. Dureid has moved to another part of Baghdad; a man in a striped shirt who stood next to him in my photo is in the United States. Camp Sara has become like any other part of Baghdad, its distinctiveness another victim of that bloody time.

KARRADAH

It was Army Day, Jan 6, 2008, marking the founding of the Iraqi army, and a little celebration was being held on a street in Karradah, a middle-class area of Baghdad. I was one of several media cameramen there as residents came out to cheer for soldiers. The doorman from one of the houses, Abu Adel, put a flower into the barrel of one soldiers rifle and kissed him on the cheeks. The next instant, a suicide bomber unleashed his blast.

Only a few yards away, I was thrown to the ground, wrenching my back, but kept taking pictures. The celebration had been transformed into mayhem, with scorched cars and buildings and the torn bodies of 11 dead. Among the dead was Abu Adel.

I went back to the site a few weeks ago. Its once again a quiet street with its villas and houses. As I took pictures, a doorman from one of the houses approached me. His name was Ali Ahmed. I asked him if he had been here that day and showed him my old photos of the explosion.

Ahmed started to weep. I should have died that day, he said. He had been about to go with Abu Adel to put a flower in the soldiers rifle, but first had to deal with a broken generator. There were only seconds between me and death, he said. We found him in the background of one of my photos, behind some bloodied soldiers. I took a new picture of him in the same spot: his older self stepping back into his younger self.

I too nearly died that day. At other times, I felt I was only inches from death, seeing those who by chance were on the wrong side of that thin line. I tell myself God kept me here for my children and my wife. Every day I have with them is a gift.

A place can be bonded to an emotion, like when a couple revisits all the sites where they first fell in love.

Sometimes, that emotion is horror.

___

Follow Associated Press photographers and photo editors on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Images and on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/apnews.

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Iraq's years of carnage still engrained in Baghdad streets - The Associated Press