{"id":123149,"date":"2015-10-18T09:23:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-18T09:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=123149"},"modified":"2015-10-21T05:48:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T05:48:30","slug":"syrian-archbishop-pleads-for-uk-to-stop-backing-anti-assad-islamist-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=123149","title":{"rendered":"Syrian archbishop pleads for UK to stop backing anti-Assad Islamist groups"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Gallagher — The Independent Oct 16, 2015<\/h1>\n
\"Archbishop<\/a>

Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo<\/p><\/div>\n

A Syrian archbishop has pleaded for the British Government to stop backing Islamist rebel groups who he said were in fact \u201cfundamentalist jihadis who want to kill everyone who is not similar to them\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jean-Cl\u00e9ment Jeanbart, the Archbishop of Aleppo, said the UK was inadvertently helping to bring about the destruction of Syria by funding such anti-President Assad groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also said Britain is \u201cinvesting in jihadis and mercenaries who are killing anyone who is saying anything about freedom, citizenship, religious liberty and democracy\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a \u201cbig lie\u201d that moderate rebel forces in support of freedom and democracy were at war with the Assad regime, the Archbishop told MPs at a House of Lords meeting this week organised by Aid to the Church in Need, a charity set up to help persecuted Christians.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said the four-year civil war was a contest between a modern secular state and jihadis who were destroying its culture and massacring religious minorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Archbishop Jeanbart accused the Western media of presenting an inaccurate depiction of the conflict. \u201cPlease, I ask you, I beseech you to have another look at our situation to see what is underneath what is happening,\u201d he told a meeting organised by Aid to the Church in Need, a charity set up to help persecuted Christians.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is terrible for us to see all the marvellous things we had, destroyed for pretend democracy and freedom,\u201d the Melkite Archbishop said. \u201cOur country was fighting for 50 to 60 years to become a secularist regime, a pluralistic country, to give citizens their rights of religion and freedom of choice . . . and you are destroying this work and pushing on us fundamental jihadis who want to kill everyone who is not similar to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t accept anyone who is different. Anyone who is not a fundamentalist Muslim has no rights: no right to live, no right to be in society, no right to be a citizen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are suffering because they [the jihadi rebel groups] have destroyed everything \u2014 our economy, our industry, our churches, everything. The most important thing we are suffering from is that they are destroying man. They are taking away our right to choose what we want to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Archbishop said the Syrian representative to the UN had written 258 letters to the UN presidency protesting about the plight of his country without receiving a single reply.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Cameron is expected to again put his case to Parliament for British military intervention in the Syrian civil war within the next few weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n

Also see: Syrian archbishop criticises US for \u2018siding with al-Qaeda\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Syrian archbishop says the West is in fact aiding \u201cjihadis who want to kill everyone who is not similar to them\u201d. Will the British government even acknowledge his plea?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123149"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123154,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123149\/revisions\/123154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}