China Will Regret Playing Politics with the U.S. Racial Protests

by Con Coughlin • June 11, 2020 at 5:00 am

The more Beijing tries to cover its tracks regarding the outbreak, however, and instead continues to indulge in conducting blatant propaganda campaigns against its geopolitical rivals, the more isolated Beijing will become.
Already there are signs in Europe of a hardening attitude towards Beijing. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who angered Washington earlier in the year by pressing ahead with a trade deal with China's Huawei telecoms giant, has now said he will review the decision, and is planning to introduce legislation that will limit China's ability to invest in British companies.
The European Union, too, has suddenly found the resolve to stand up to Beijing, voicing its opposition to Chinese plans to rewrite the rules overseeing the administration of the internet which would far better suit Beijing's totalitarian outlook.

The deeply offensive propaganda war China has launched against the U.S. over the killing of George Floyd is nothing more than a clumsy attempt by Beijing to seek revenge against Washington for supporting pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Pictured: Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, on June 9, 2020, mark the one-year anniversary since pro-democracy protests erupted. (Photo by Anothony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

At the height of Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrations last year, a number of prominent American politicians from both sides of the political divide voiced their support for the campaigners.

In November American President Donald Trump, defying calls from China to block the legislation, signed two bills supporting Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters.

The activists also received support from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who described the protests as a "beautiful sight to behold."

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Iran's Expanding Influence into Iraq's Christian Areas

by Uzay Bulut • June 11, 2020 at 4:00 am

"In 2017, after the Nineveh Plains were liberated from ISIS, Iran's influence started its increase. They now have allied support from Shiite groups in Baghdad... The presence of the Shia Shabak is expanding, particularly in the town of Bartella. They are taking over houses and properties that Christians who fled from ISIS terror left behind." — Athra Kado, an Assyrian rights advocate, to Gatestone Institute.
"The US, for its national security, should consider Assyrians as its partners, arm and train them effectively as a strong force which will stand in the face of infiltrators." — Juliana Taimoorazy, the founding president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, to Gatestone Institute.

Pictured: An soldier from the Assyrian Christian Nineveh Plain Protection Units talks with a man herding sheep near Qaraqosh, Iraq on November 15, 2016. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

In historically Christian areas post-Islamic State (ISIS) in northern Iraq, the growing influence of Iran, as well as demographic changes, are raising concerns in the local Christian community.

"Iranian pressure exists in the Nineveh Plains either in the areas that are inhabited by the Shia Shabak community or controlled by their militias," Athra Kado, an Assyrian rights advocate and resident of the town of Alqosh in Iraq, told Gatestone.

Assyrians, the indigenous people of Iraq, make up a distinct ethnic community in the region. The Nineveh Plain is considered the ancient Assyrian heartland and is the only region in Iraq where the largest demographic group is Christian. Assyrians there even have their own security force, the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU). The Nineveh plain currently, however, is mostly divided between the Shia militia and the Sunni Kurdish Peshmerga.

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