IRAQ: Country's first Christian radio station "The New Testament" starts trial broadcast

Record ID: 777452

  • Title: IRAQ: Country's first Christian radio station "The New Testament" starts trial broadcast
  • Date: 13th April 2010
  • Summary: MAN WORKING AT DESK WITH COMPUTER AND SOUNDBOARD COMPUTER SCREEN SHOWING PLAYLIST STAFF WORKING IN THE STUDIO
  • Embargoed: 28th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Communications,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA49SIXYX3TGVIESTW14RTTBIMF
  • Story Text: Iraq's first Christian radio station, "The New Testament," has started its trial broadcast on FM radio. The programmes are mostly religious hymns and Bible readings, broadcast from the station's office in Basra's National Evangelical Church.
    The first Christian radio station has begun trial broadcasting in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. "The New Testament" airs mostly Christian hymns and Bible readings from the station's office in Basra's National Evangelical Church.
    Saad Matti Butrus, member of Basra City Council and representative of Christians Committee in the predominantly Shi'ite city hailed the new radio station as an historic event.
    "....this is the first time for a radio station to broadcast information about Christianity among Basrian society, a society which is known for its Muslim majority. Thank God, the Basra people accepted this radio in the right spirit," he said.
    Butrus said the FM station hopes to go 'live' in a few weeks time after the completion of a number of broadcast trials to allow the technical and editorial staff to get ready.
    The daily broadcast will run from 0800 until 1400 hours, and the radio station will work on promoting the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence in society.
    "We saw it as a radio station that broadcasts the culture of religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence with other religions," Butrus added.
    Iraq's Christians are believed to number around 750,000, a small minority in a country of around 28 million.
    In Basra, Muslims and Christians lived together in peace for decades leading to an undeclared pact of co-existence.
    Tens of thousands of Christian families lived in Basra before 2003. Today only hundreds remain, the majority have fled sectarian hatred and insecurity that followed in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion. Once a secular city that dealt with people of all religious affiliation with tolerance, years of war and occupation have transformed Basra into a conservative society leavened with Muslim extremists.
    Butrus insisted that the radio does not have any missionary purposes. He said the director of the radio station, priest Maher, has also signed a written pledge that the broadcasts will not offend the followers of other religions.
    "This is not a missionary project at all, we have managed to get the official approvals for broadcasting. The head of the radio station Priest Maher has signed a written pledge to the head of the city council and to the head of culture and information committee not to display or prejudice the sensitivities of other religions. (The radio) has concentrated on the religious book, religious hymns and totally respects other religions and their feelings," he said.
    Butrus added that the city council gave immediate permission for the radio station.
    The new Christian radio station will be heard in most of Basra Province. It has not yet broadcast any news but is expected to do so in the future.
    At least eight Christians have been killed in February this year in the turbulent northern city of Mosul, 390 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad, prompting Pope Benedict to appeal on Sunday for Iraq's Christians to be better protected.
    Some 683 Christian families, or 4,098 people, fled Mosul between February 20 and 27 following the attacks, a United Nations report said.
    The murders came just weeks before Iraq's March 7 parliamentary election, which has the potential to help cement an end to seven years of war or plunge a still-divided country into a new cycle of violence.
    Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda have long targeted Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, and other Iraqi minorities, as well as majority Shi'ites, whom they consider heretics.
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