"We often cry, but we cannot give up"

The doorbell rings at the home of Finnish Merit Wager, a columnist and expert debater on immigration asylum, in Stockholm. I know that Nuri Kino is coming, and I am getting a little nervous. He comes storming into the living room, we greet, and he throws himself down on the chair and immediately starts to type on his laptop. – I have a few texts I just have to get out, he explains. Well, you know how it is. After a while he finishes a column and reads it out loud. The text is about a poignant meeting with refugees during his stay in Serbia about a week prior. A young woman, with swollen feet fleeing in flip-flops, along with her relatives across the border to Hungary through a barbed wire fence. Before we part ways, we arrange to meet in Södertälje the following Sunday. Members of the organization Nuri Kino started about a year ago, A Demand For Action, will distribute leaflets and raise money at a match between the football teams Assyriska and Syrianska. – The money will go towards housing accommodations for refugees – a group of people who help Assyrian/Syriac/Chaldean refugees in Istanbul have rented fifteen apartments, and we promise to help, he says. Donation collections are difficult in a time like this, but the campaign is also an opportunity to remind people of the ongoing genocide in Syria and Iraq. A Demand for Action began as a cry for help through Facebook and Twitter. In one year, it has spread to fifteen countries. It lobbies in Washington DC and Brussels, where it has also pushed through bills and resolutions. Their statements have been quoted in newspapers like the New York Times, Newsweek and the IBTimes. Nuri Kino himself has his own column/blog in the Huffington Post and writes frequently in newspapers such as Svenska Dagbladet and Dagen. – I have worked many years with the developments in the Middle East and the consequences of the war in Iraq, not least for minorities, which have been under-reported, he says. – When the war in Syria started, I noticed that the reporting was heavily biased. I felt it lacked knowledge of Syria. I have many relatives there, and in 2012 I wrote a report on the persecution of Christians. In the report, Kino revealed what was hidden, and what no one had reported: the persecution of non-Muslims in Syria that started with the so-called Arab Spring. The report, Between the Barbed Wire, immediately received great attention, even in the U.S. Congress, and was published in several countries. – That is when I realized that this is what I am supposed to do, he says. Kino received a phone call over a year ago, when he had come home from a trip to Syria. It was from a man who had been deported from Sweden. – He called from Mosul, and I heard cursing, gunshots and bombs in the background. I felt my knees buckle when it then dawned on me that ISIS had invaded Mosul. This is the end. I knew there was money, large sums of money in the bank in Mosul, and that the Americans had left weapons behind making it easy for ISIS to seize. When Mosul fell and ISIS a few days later started painting the Arabic letter "N" for "Nasrani" (Christian) on the doors of Christians, Nuri Kino wrote on Facebook: "I need 10 minutes of your time each day. Help me!" The message spread like wildfire and soon a large social media army had formed. – We are trying to remind people of the Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans and other minorities’ vulnerable situation in Syria and Iraq. Among minorities, there are also Muslims, who belong to a different branch than the majority of the population. The wars are only growing. They have committed such brutal atrocities that I can’t even describe them. Many in Södertälje have relatives and family members who remain in the areas of conflict. A girl sitting in the ticket office is one of them. 230 people from her village were kidnapped, of whom 25 were her close relatives. Three of the elderly have been released. The terrorist groups have problems with the elderly. In the beginning, A Demand For Action received large quantities of reports, including in the form of images and videos-in some cases by those who witnessed atrocities. – We have started to sift through them, but when we looked at the materials we received initially, some of our members had nervous breakdowns. They crashed. It's heavy. We cry. I lay down on the kitchen floor sometimes and just let it all out. – Girls are being sold in markets as sex slaves. We know of one case, who is nine years old, but I have read about one that is only six. Children are drowning, children are being kidnapped and brainwashed. They are used as soldiers or suicide bombers. It is a war being waged against children in many different ways. How do you take it without going mad? – You have to keep fighting. You cannot give up. The girl who was sold as a sex slave needs a voice in the West. Kino says that, over time, they have become tougher and gained more structure. – In the beginning, we were in a panic after every message we received, but we can not let our emotions take control. The work must be done professionally in order to gain credibility, but it is not easy all the time. Ashur Minas, who is the organization's Iraq advocate, tells of a visit to a refugee camp in Iraq, where the misery was great. – When a member of our Iraq team drove me to the airport, he said: "Ashur. It's now or never. Tell our people outside of Iraq that this is our last chance. If we fail, either we all come to you in the diaspora and blend into the new countries, or your brothers and sisters disappear here in the homeland.’" We have big problems in the refugee camps, Kino says. In some cases, non-Muslims have been harassed by Islamists and cannot stay. – They are the most defenseless. Who is coming to Europe now? – Anyone that can escape. It is mostly men, because you do not want to expose women and children to the dangerous escape routes. There are men who deserted, for example, from the Syrian army, and it is men who escaped from the rebels. And there are refugees generally escaping from the bombs and misery. But it would be naive to think that there aren’t also people who sympathize with the terrorists. How do you know that? – Some of them express their sympathy, others are revealed by, for example, old pictures on Facebook. Kino says he is obviously glad that the refugees' situation has now been recognized, but finds that the cause of people fleeing could be addressed more than it is. – Politicians and world leaders must put an end to these wars in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Otherwise everyone will be on the run soon. It is so incredibly tragic that they could not predict what would happen. When Saddam Hussein's regime, a Baathi group of mainly Sunni Muslims, fell the power was directed to the Shias, who began to oppress Sunnis. During Saddam's regime, Shia Muslims were oppressed. Christians were protected, and at least did not need to worry about religious persecution-they were, however, ethnically persecuted. But after Saddam's fall, they began to be regarded as enemies, because the United States is considered a Christian country and Christians in Iraq were identified with George Bush. Kino is concerned about the reporting of conflicts, which he believes contains some ignorance. – Sometimes, a 15-year-old in Södertälje from the Middle East can master better, he says. He believes that the deficiencies in reporting are about both the ignorance and fear of being labeled as Islamophobic. – I cannot be Islamophobic, it is impossible. I have way too many Muslim friends, and I move around a lot in those areas. It would be crazy to call me Islamophobic. But I know that there were many who were afraid of the stamp, at least in the beginning. Now, one is not as afraid to report violent Islamism. Why be afraid of the stamp? – Because it is a kind of perception in the West that Muslims must be victims. Obviously, there are Muslims who are victims, but not all. And among non-Muslims, there are also both victims and perpetrators. What do you think when you hear "Close the borders to the Muslims" versus "Welcome! We are a multicultural society"? – I am a human rights activist. I think that those who need protection and help should get it. I myself have helped refugees together with my family since I was a child. But I think, obviously, we need to have better track on who is coming to our countries. I'm against closing the border, and I am against not having better control over who is coming. Some have left their conflicts, but others take them with them. There are members of various groups who fight among themselves. – It is the politicians' responsibility to ensure that those who come here and those who already live here should feel safe. Our freedom of speech and our values ??should be accepted. It not necessary that everyone must live by them, but they should be accepted. Otherwise it will be difficult for all of us. Is there hope for the persecuted minorities in Syria and Iraq? – Yes. Otherwise, we would not be doing this.