Sectarian slurs on the rise in Baghdad

[ECH1969]

Shiite doctor Aqeel Abdul Hussein has lived in a Sunni neighborhood for 15 years. Now he‘s feeling like an outcast after someone left a poster on his door a month ago calling him a "rafida" — a rejectionist.

But with sectarian tensions rising, such terms appear more frequently in flyers, anonymous phone calls and graffiti. They are helping drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shiites as the government seeks to stop the slide toward civil war.

The term "rejectionist" to describe Shiites was popularized by al-Qaida in Iraq in postings on Islamist Web sites. It refers to the Shiites rejecting the leadership of Abu Bakr after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

For their part, Sunnis are sometimes branded as "Zarqawis" in reference to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida in Iraq leader who was killed in a U.S. airstrike June 7.

http://www.localnewswatch.com/benton/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=210252

[uppityperson]

1. 8 stages of genocide

http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages2006.htm
classification
symbolization
dehumanization
organize
polarize
preparation
extermination
denial