Source: Assyrian International News Agency, August 8, 2014
Assyrian people in Fairfield [Australia] and across the globe have changed their profile picture on social media to the Arabic letter “N” in a show of support for people being persecuted by Islamic State terrorists in northern Iraq.
On July 19, Christians in the city of Mosul and on the surrounding Nineveh Plains were issued with an ultimatum to leave, pay a tax, or face death by the sword. The next day IS fighters drew the Arabic letter “N” on all property owned by Assyrian Christians.
Nasrani is the Arabic word for Christian and the letter was being used in a way that harkened back to the Nazis’ use of the Jewish star before World War II.
Within days Assyrian Christians were changing their profile picture and over the course of the week T-shirts proclaiming #WeAreN were being sold. An effort to send aid to those displaced by the conflict also got underway. Twenty-three-year-old Steven Barkho of Cecil Hills was one of the thousands of people [and many more worldwide] who changed his profile picture. “We didn’t think it would go viral as quickly as it has,” he said. “It isn’t just Assyrians changing their profile picture, it’s Christians and other people everywhere. For me it is just a way of saying to ISIS, ‘If you want to go for these people you have to come for us.’”
» Read full story, and see Assyrians Demonstrate Worldwide against ISIS Persecution.
» See also In Pictures: Iraq United vs Islamic State (Al Jazeera). Also note that today (August 6), a Global Day of Prayer for Iraqi Christians has been called.