Chaldean Patriarch calls for 'civil and democratic' Iraq to discourage emigration (AsiaNews)

Cardinal Louis Raphaël I Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (CNEWA profile), called for a democratic Iraq in all citizens are truly equal, whatever their “religious affiliation, ethnicity or gender” may be.

Islam is Iraq’s official religion, though the Iraqi constitution provides for religious freedom. Cardinal Sako said that Christians are “the original people” of Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, with Christians present there “before the advent of Islam.”