“He refused to keep silent about the violence agaist Mosul’s Christians who are forced to choose between converting to the Muslim faith, paying the jizyah (the Islamic tax for non-Muslims) or fleeing”
Professor Mahmoud Al ‘Asali, a law professor who lectured on pedagogy at the University of Mosul, had the courage to make a stand against this brutal duress which he believed went against Muslim commandments. Like many aid workers and others in Syria (renamed the Islamic State by it’s occupiers) he tried to offer solidarity with the persecuted Christians but he paid for this gesture with his life and was killed by ISIS militants in Mosul on the 4th August 2014.
For an account of this story by GIORGIO BERNARDELLI published in the Vatican Insider on the 5/8/2014 see:
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/iraq-irak-irak-35380
For an account of the situation Christians were facing and Professor ‘Asali was protesting against see this article in the Orthodox Church News by Abdul Hamid Zebari (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 24/7/14)
.
