Susan Korah
Susan Korah is an Ottawa-based journalist. She has a Master of Journalism degree from Carleton University and a special interest in freedom of religion and belief and freedom of expression. She is a Suriani, an Orthodox Christian of the Syriac/Aramaic rite.
Bio last updated February 4th, 2022.
Articles by Susan Korah
Humanitarian Crisis Adds to Burdens of Afghan Religious Minorities
By Susan Korah
February 4, 2022
Media attention may have shifted away from Afghanistan, but suffering families and religious minorities remain in the country. On-the-ground relief efforts are in dire need of support, writes Susan Korah.
Mirzad has some specific suggestions for the Canadian government to help restore a measure of calm and stability to the heart of darkness that Afghanistan has become under Taliban rule El Shafie plans to return to Afghanistan soon to oversee operations, because he expects the humanitarian crisis to continue for another eight to ten years, and is appealing to supporters of OFWI for extra funds Explaining why Quetta is a destination of choice for Hazara refugees, he told Convivium: “There has been a sizeable community of Hazaras in Quetta, ever since they were driven out of Afghanistan by the genocide of the 19th century
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Remembering Cairine Wilson, Canada’s Mother of Refugees on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Susan Korah
January 24, 2022
In time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Susan Korah writes a commemorative piece on Canada’s first female Senator—Cairine Wilson— a “firm but gentle voice” who advocated for refugees entering Canada after WWII.
In 1938, she established a non-sectarian organization the Canadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution (CNCR) and for the next ten years, led a two-pronged campaign— an educational one to combat anti-Semitism— and an epic political battle for the liberalization of Can...
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Christian Women Doubly Vulnerable to Persecution
Susan Korah
December 6, 2021
On a day that will live in infamy to mark violence against Canadian women, Susan Korah reports on a global study of gendered religious persecution.
“There are many Christian women who suffer sexual violence because they are Christian – but we don’t believe the UN quite appreciates this,” Shiner said in the same interview “The research suggests that in the countries under review (Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, Iraq and Syria and others), among minori...
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Climate Change Making Eden a Wasteland
Susan Korah
November 17, 2021
Yesterday, Peter Stockland queried the usefulness of the COP26 conference. Today, Susan Korah reports on the urgency of saving the Garden from climate calamity.
With voices amplified by the world’s focus on COP26, religious leaders have joined activists, scientists and humanitarian organizations in calling on prosperous countries like Canada to address climate change as a global issue that affects populations far beyond their own borders In the run-up to CO...
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Nightmare Lives of Lebanon’s Children
Susan Korah
October 25, 2021
Susan Korah reports on the grim toll the country’s collapse inflicts on its young while Canadian kids return to post-pandemic trick or treating.
Nuri Kino, leader of A Demand for Action (ADFA), a Sweden-based humanitarian aid and advocacy organization, has witnessed firsthand the plight of Lebanon’s orphaned and abandoned children “Homeless and abandoned children in Canada have social services to take care of them, but in Lebanon there are n...
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Canada’s Disconnect on Religious Freedom
Susan Korah
September 21, 2021
Our country of newcomers gives scant political weight to global affairs and forgets that for billions worldwide faith is essential to identity, Susan Korah writes.
The phasing out of his position, and replacement of the Harper-era ambassadorship with an Office of Human Rights, Freedom and Inclusion, has left Canada in the curious position of being one of two G7 countries with no envoy for religious freedom and no focused mandate to advance it as an indispensab...
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Canada Fails Afghan Religious Minorities
Susan Korah
August 24, 2021
Human rights workers tell Susan Korah it’s inexplicable Canada hasn’t prioritized the rescue of Christians and minority Muslims.
At the media conference, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan and Minister for Women and Gender Equality Maryam Monsef (an Iranian-born Afghan Canadian) announced that Afghan refugees that Canada intends to resettle will include women leaders, human rights...
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We Cannot Abandon Lebanon
Susan Korah
August 4, 2021
Susan Korah reports on the desperate state of the former Mediterranean oasis one year after the blast that decimated Beirut.
“According to the World Bank’s June report, Lebanon is going through the worst economic crisis of any country since the 19th century,” Carl Hétu, Canadian Director of Catholic Near East Welfare Agency (CNEWA) told Convivium in an interview The port explosion impacted Lebanon’s food supply because Le...
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A COVID Cold Shoulder for Refugees
Susan Korah
July 8, 2021
Susan Korah reports on the plight of global millions fleeing persecution unnoticed while our attention is fixed on the pandemic.
Whether internally displaced in their own countries or seeking refugee status from temporary homes elsewhere, these diverse groups of people are clinging to the fragile threads of their lives in tents, cramped, airless apartments or even in the streets and alleyways of countries such as Lebanon, Syr...
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Enduring Patience for Lasting Peace
Susan Korah
June 11, 2021
Despite the intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Susan Korah reports, undaunted groups seek just solutions that benefit both sides.
A just and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine seems as illusory as a mirage in the desert, particularly since the recent outbreak of violence following expulsion of 40 Palestinian families from Sheik Jarrah in East Jerusalem to make room for Israeli settlements ...
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Talking Turkey About Tulips
Susan Korah
May 11, 2021
Ottawa’s annual Tulip Festival owes its origins to a Turkish refugee and Canada going Dutch during the Second World War, Susan Korah discovers.
Apart from tulips and the talents of refugees like the Karsh brothers, the region of south-eastern Turkey where they were born has given many other treasures to the world, including an array of ancient Christian churches and monasteries of stunning architectural beauty The brainchild of Syriac Chris...
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Calling Genocide By Its Name
Susan Korah
April 23, 2021
On April 24, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden will acknowledge the 1915 genocide of Armenians. Canadian descendants now want Turkey to own its historic crime, Susan Korah reports.
For Cavoukian and other Armenians around the world, the memories of the genocide are not the stuff of myths or legends but are deeply rooted in the reality of their parents’ and grandparents’ lives Designated Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, it brings back tortured memories of a painful past mingled ...
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Heeding Shahbaz Bhatti’s Call
Susan Korah
March 26, 2021
A decade after the religious freedom fighter’s murder, Pakistani Canadians call on Ottawa to renew his work, Susan Korah reports.
Andrew Bennett, Canada’s Ambassador for Religious Freedom from 2013 until the Liberal government phased out the position in 2016, highlighted the importance of bringing freedom of religion or belief to the forefront of foreign policy priorities; also, of taking action to support the human rights of ...
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When A Pope Comes Home
Susan Korah
March 10, 2021
The welcome for Pope Francis on his visit to Iraq was a memorable first step. Now hope must become reality, Susan Korah reports.
A calculated risk in the face of pandemic fears and potential security threats, the visit of Pope Francis to Iraq brought incalculable benefits, say members of the country’s indigenous Christian community “When the media lights are turned off and the Pope’s visit becomes yesterday’s news, it is impo...
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How Sanctions Cheat Children
Susan Korah
February 12, 2021
Leading voices are urging Canada to rethink Middle East sanctions that make daily life a struggle just to get daily bread, Susan Korah reports.
If Canada’s goal is to enhance international peace and stability rather than the country’s status on the world stage as a benevolent, refugee-welcoming country, it is time for the government to lift sanctions that are exacerbating the misery of vulnerable people in countries already devastated by wa...
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Silent Witness of a Holocaust Suitcase
Susan Korah
January 26, 2021
Susan Korah reports on a Canadian family that helped solve the mystery of a teenage girl’s life and death at Auschwitz.
A children’s book called Hana’s Suitcase by Canadian writer Karen Levine published in 2002 deftly weaves together the threads of the multi-stranded story— the finding of the suitcase, Ishioka’s search for information that took her across the world, and the Holocaust experiences of Hana and George Br...
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Santa Serves the War-Torn, Too
Susan Korah
December 21, 2020
Saint Nicholas lives in the spirit of all who give gifts and life to those in the darkness of violence and poverty, Susan Korah writes.
So, if little Mariam—who fled from Syria to Lebanon in the wake of the ISIS genocide of Christians and other minorities, or little Anahit, now facing a bleak, lonely Christmas in Yerevan after her home in Artsakh was bombed to rubble — asked me the question today, what would my answer be? And he was...
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Religious Persecution’s Red Letter Day
Susan Korah
December 2, 2020
Canadian churches turned red recently hoping to open Canada’s eyes to violence against believers, Susan Korah reports.
“In the year of the pandemic we need to be reminded that anti-religious persecution is increasing significantly,” said Marie-Claude Lalonde, National Director of Aid to Christians in Need (ACN) Canada, the Canadian chapter of the charity “Red Wednesday is an event aimed at highlighting the persecuti...
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Canada's Complicity in Nagorno-Karabakh Bloodshed
Susan Korah
October 19, 2020
Most Canadians would struggle to find the remote Caucasus region on a map but that doesn’t mean our hands are clean, Susan Korah writes.
“We (Middle Eastern Christians) stand in solidarity with Armenians, because Armenia welcomed and sheltered many of our people when we were driven out of our homelands by ISIS and other extremists” Nuri Kino, a Syriac Christian journalist with roots in Turkey told Convivium in an interview from his h...
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Lest We Forget Lebanon
Susan Korah
September 25, 2020
Despite historic pacts between Israel and its Arab neighbours, Middle East peace remains a chimera if Lebanon is left behind, Susan Korah writes.
In a region that is notorious for authoritarian theocracies that violate the human rights of their minorities with impunity, Lebanon, despite its many faults, is the lone flag bearer of democratic values and freedoms including the right of freedom of religion and belief in the Arab world “The weake...
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Finding the Right Helping Hands for Beirut
Susan Korah
August 10, 2020
Canadian NGOs are meeting the challenge of keeping aid dollars from disappearing into corrupt pockets after the explosion that shredded the Lebanese capital, Susan Korah reports.
The Beirut explosion seems like the denouement to the unfolding tragedy of Lebanon, a country where high unemployment, an economic meltdown, burdensome taxes, staggering inflation that left its currency virtually useless, and covid-19 were already taking their toll Catholic Near East Welfare Agency ...
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Yazidis Refuse to Become Yesterday’s News
Susan Korah
August 4, 2020
Northern Iraqi religious refugees who fled ISIS-generated genocide six years ago fear Ottawa is turning the page on its promise to help them heal, Susan Korah writes.
The Canadian director of the international advocacy organization Yazda said intense media focus on 2018 Nobel Prize winner Nadia Murad failed to produce long-term support for Yazidis They are slowly learning that Canada is actually part of the coalition fighting in Syria and Iraq but they are astoun...
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Canada Must Help Reclaim Christendom's Cathedral
Susan Korah
July 15, 2020
Turkey’s decree turning Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque was as predictable as an earthquake. Canada’s silence about potential aftershocks is eerily baffling, Susan Korah writes.
In 2014, Pope Francis, in a gesture of goodwill to the Islamic world, prayed along with the Grand Mufti (leader of the Muslim community) of Istanbul at the Blue Mosque, which is a short walk from the Hagia Sophia In a joint press conference with Nicos Anastidades, President of Cyprus, Greek Prime Mi...
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Memories of Mosul Must Spark Action
Susan Korah
June 17, 2020
Six years after the fall of Iraq’s second largest city to ISIS terrorists, religious persecution goes on while the world has moved on, Susan Korah writes.
A motion introduced by Rona Ambrose, then leader of the Opposition, in June 2016 to declare ISIS atrocities against Christians and other Middle Eastern minorities a genocide was defeated by the Liberal government The world was slow to wake up to this unfolding genocide, says Nuri Kino, a Syriac Chr...