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IRAQ
Iraq to return religious buildings seized by Saddam
Zenit.org (17.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (19.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.org - Iraq's Governing Council has decided that religious schools and houses of worship confiscated by Saddam Hussein be returned to their legitimate owners, AsiaNews was told by Church officials here.
The council also decided that Christians and Muslims should enjoy the freedom to manage their own educational resources. The decision was made Nov. 5, but was only now made public.
The Governing Council approved Decision 87 decreeing the cancellation "of all decisions, laws and rules leading to the confiscation, closure, incorporation and annulling of the power to run colleges, mosques, institutes and schools."
The decision means the restitution of and freedom to manage colleges and schools. This decision will be incorporated into the Constitution and will guarantee the freedom to teach and run schools autonomously.
Under Saddam's regime everything was nationalized; now freedom in education is guaranteed. Iraq, together with Jordan, are the only countries with an Islamic majority to have freedom in education.
Saddam's government abolished free schools in May 1974. The confiscation of properties occurred in March 1975. At that time there were 80 schools and colleges in existence, including 34 Christian institutions. Following the Governing Council's decision, 15 schools and colleges will be returned to Catholics.
Top cleric faults U.S. blueprint for Iraq
by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post (26.11.2003)/HRWF Int. (01.12.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric believes a new American plan to form a sovereign provisional government in Iraq does not give Iraqis a large enough role in shaping the transition and lacks safeguards for the country's "Islamic identity," a prominent Shiite political leader said Wednesday.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani expressed "deep concern over real loopholes" in the plan "that must be dealt with, otherwise the process will be deficient and will not meet the expectations of the people of Iraq," Abdul Aziz Hakim, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said at a news conference in the holy city of Najaf. Officials with Hakim's political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said he recently met with Sistani.
Sistani's reported displeasure with the U.S. plan for the transfer of power in Iraq could complicate the Bush administration's efforts to create a transitional government that would assume sovereignty by next summer, allowing the United States to end its occupation of the country.
The grand ayatollah has a broad following among Iraq's Shiites, who account for about 60 percent of the population. His earlier demand that drafters of Iraq's constitution be chosen through a general election effectively forced the U.S. occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer, to rework his previous transition blueprint, which called for drafters to be selected by means other than a general election and for the document to be written before a formal end to the occupation.
Under the new plan -- crafted in part to appease Sistani -- Iraqis will be able to elect delegates to write a constitution. The document will be written after power is transferred to a provisional government.
Sistani's reported comments could influence ongoing discussions between Bremer and members of the Governing Council about the process of forming the transitional government. Some members of the U.S.-appointed council, including Hakim, want clear statements about the role of Islam in society to be written into a basic law that will govern the country until a constitution is written. Hakim also wants changes in the way the transitional government will be selected.
Bremer's plan calls for caucuses in the country's 18 provinces to choose representatives to serve on a transitional assembly, which would form a provisional government. Participants in the caucuses must be approved by 11 of 15 people on an organizing committee, which will be selected by the Governing Council and U.S.-appointed councils at the city and province levels.
Hakim and other Shiite leaders, who worry that the organizing committees may exclude religious figures, want assembly members to be directly elected. At the very least, they are demanding that the organizing committees be disbanded and any qualified candidate be allowed to participate in the caucuses.
One of Sistani's main objections, Hakim said, "is the absence of any role for the Iraqi people in the transfer of power to Iraqis." Although U.S. officials have argued that holding elections would be too disruptive, time-consuming and complicated in the absence of an electoral law and accurate voter rolls, Hakim insisted elections for the transitional assembly would be possible in 80 percent of Iraq.
High-ranking Shiite clergy across southern Iraq have become more vocal in their demands for elections sooner rather than later as a way to enfranchise a majority community that had long been marginalized in Iraqi politics. Some Shiite leaders remain suspicious of U.S. intentions and express concern that the transition plan would keep power out of the hands of the influential religious leaders.
Hakim said Sistani supported an explicit articulation of the role of Islam in the interim government. Bremer's plan, which was agreed to by the Governing Council, said only that the basic law would respect "the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people with the guarantee of the right of other religions and sects."
Hakim said Sistani "didn't find anything that assures Islamic identity" in the agreement. "There should have been a stipulation that prevents legislating anything that contradicts Islam in the new Iraq, in either the interim or permanent phase," Hakim said.
Shiite political leaders regard Sistani's reported displeasure as instrumental in persuading Bremer to support changes to his plan. "It's a trump card," one Shiite member of the Governing Council said. "For this process to work, for Shiites to support it, it needs to have Sistani's blessing."
Officials with the U.S.-led occupation authority said the plan was agreed to by the council and that the Bush administration has no intention of revising fundamental elements of the transition arrangement. "The process was agreed upon. It was signed by the Governing Council. As far as we're concerned, those events stand on their own," a senior U.S. official here said.
But American officials said they are willing to discuss the matter with council members, some of whom have complained that the agreement was rushed though by Bremer.
Daniel Senor, a spokesman for Bremer, said the occupation authority looks forward "to reaching consensus on these [issues] through dialogue."
The depth of Sistani's unhappiness with Bremer's plan is not clear. Sistani, who rarely makes public appearances, has not issued any written comments about it. In June, when he sought to influence the constitutional process, he issued a religious edict calling the earlier American plans "fundamentally unacceptable."
He has not answered written questions about the plan submitted to his office in Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad.
Because religious edicts are typically not revised or rescinded, Sistani could be choosing to mold a fluid process without issuing an unchangeable demand. His comments as relayed by Hakim did not suggest that he had rejected the plan outright.
"This is a negotiation," Hakim said. "We're looking for compromise."
Religious strife flares in Baghdad
by Nicholas Blanford
Christian Science Monitor (10.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (19.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.org - The Sunni and Shiite residents of western Baghdad's Hurriyeh neighborhood have lived in harmony for years. Their families intermarry. They attend each other's weddings and funerals and pray in each other's mosques. It is a calm area too, with not a single attack reported against the coalition forces since April.
That coexistence, however, came to an abrupt end early Tuesday morning. An explosion beside a Sunni mosque killed three people and ripped the fabric of communal unity that bound Shiites and Sunnis, exposing the deep-rooted sectarian divisions within Iraqi society.
The Sunnis blame the explosion on militant Shiites belonging to the Al Dawa party and the Badr Brigades, the military wing of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The Shiites accuse Sunnis from the extremist Wahhabi sect of stirring up tensions between the two communities.
As the three victims were buried Wednesday, armed Sunni and Shiite gunmen took to the streets vowing revenge, while clerics pleaded for calm. Grim-faced American troops, backed by Apache helicopter gunships, patrolled the neighborhood.
It is up to the local Muslim clerics, who represent the voice of leadership in the community, to restore calm to the neighborhood. No easy task, however, given the young firebrands whose traditional obedience to and respect for the clerics runs up against an equally traditional desire for revenge.
"It is something tragic that God's house should be attacked," says Sheikh Farouk al-Batawy, the imam of the Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque. "Even nonbelievers condemn something like this."
Claims differ over the circumstances of the deadly explosion at 6:45 a.m. Tuesday in the courtyard of the Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque. The regular Sunni worshipers at the mosque say that two rocket-propelled grenades were fired from the roof of a neighboring school, no more than 20 yards away. The first rocket struck the ground in the courtyard, digging a small crater and punching a hole in one wall of the mosque. The second rocket hit a parked car in the courtyard. The vehicle blew up, igniting several jerrycans of fuel beside a generator, which augmented the force of the blast.
One of the victims was in the car when it was hit. The blast hurled the other two over a wall into the street.
"Two of them had their bodies torn," says Sheikh Batawy, speaking in a dimly lit room beside the mosque filled with somber-looking Sunni clerics and supporters. "I knew all three of them. They prayed regularly at the mosque."
He says that the explosion was the latest in a number of attacks against Sunnis in Baghdad.
"The relations with the Shiites have always been very good here. Only the Shiites who have come from outside Iraq want to cause problems, he says, referring to the Iran-trained Badr Brigades.
But local Shiite residents have a very different take on what happened. "The people that died were Wahhabis, and they were putting a bomb in the car," says Abu Hussein, declining to give his full name. "No one fired RPGs at them. We had nothing to do with what happened."
The Shiites say that there have always been some Wahhabis living in the area, but they have grown more assertive since Saddam Hussein's downfall in April.
The Iraqi police are investigating the causes of the explosion, but the Shiite view that Islamic militants accidentally blew themselves up has some credence, according to Lt. Col. Frank Sherman of Boston, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 13th Armor Brigade.
"The explosion was not caused by a fired RPG," he says. "The school roof is too close; the rockets would not have had time to arm."
Nonetheless, RPG fragments were recovered by the police, he adds, suggesting that it may have been a bomb of jerry-built RPG rounds of the type regularly used by militants against coalition troops.
Yet the truth behind the explosion mattered little Wednesday morning with Sunnis and Shiites content to believe the worst of each other.
As the residents prepared to bury the victims of the blast, dozens of Sunni gunmen entered the neighborhood, clutching AK-47 rifles, their heads swathed in red-and-white scarves and wearing identity badges proclaiming them to belong to the Khaled ibn Walid Forces.
A group of them stormed a Husseiniyeh, a Shiite prayer house and meeting place, forcing several families living on an upper floor out at gunpoint.
A crowd of around 3,000 Sunni mourners surged around the Husseiniyeh as the outdoor funeral service began, with armed guards standing on the roof and surrounding walls.
"Condemn the attack but don't blame people at random and don't suspect the Shiite clerics," Sheikh Ahmed Dabboush, a prominent Sunni cleric, tells the crowd using a loudspeaker. "Some Shiite movements are accused of these acts and they must be stopped. But we must continue living with the Shiites. and we must continue the harmony of Shiites and Sunnis and Arabs and Kurds."
As Sheikh Dabboush speaks, two Apache helicopter gunships arrive and circle slowly overhead a few hundred feet from the ground, the clatter of the rotor blades all but drowning out his words.
The heavy machine guns slung beneath the helicopters swivel in a threatening fashion and the crowd begins to shout angrily "Allah Akhbar!" "God is greatest!"
"Lower your guns. Please don't shoot into the air," Sheikh Dabboush implores.
The hooded gunmen, their eyes flashing with anger, lower their rifles and glare at the circling helicopters. The throng of mourners files back onto the street, carrying aloft the three coffins draped in rugs and secured with ropes.
Once the crowd disappears, the local Shiites return to the Husseinyeh as American troops fan out in the streets.
Colonel Sherman says that his soldiers will remain in the area for the next three or four days until tempers have cooled.
"I have a psy-ops team with me," he says, indicating a Humvee with loudspeakers fitted to the roof. "We will tell the people what's going on. We are talking with the local leaders. I don't think it will develop. No one wants problems here."
But the Shiites inspecting the damage inside the Husseiniyeh are furious, and some call for revenge.
"Look what they have done," says one, pointing at a torn picture of Imam Ali, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed who is revered by Shiites.
The loudspeaker system attached to the minaret lies smashed, a black-painted throne splintered from repeated kicks, and pictures of Shiite imams lie in shreds beside the front door.
Shiite gunmen have taken up positions outside the Al Allawi mosque a few streets away. One of the gunmen argues with a furious Shiite who demands revenge for the damage to the Husseiniyeh.
"Any attack on a Shiite building is an attack on all Shiites," says Yehya Abu Huda. "We don't want trouble. This is a Shiite and Sunni area. But we must have an apology to achieve a peaceful end."
Sheikh Mehdi al-Muhamadawy, a senior Shiite cleric in the area, says he visited the Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque after the explosion to pay condolences.
"They refused to let me in and told me to leave," he says. "I told them that I condemn the incident but they replied with cruel words. I forgive them for their actions because they were emotional."
Sheikh Muhamadawy says he has told his followers to remain calm and not to resort to violence. "I am facing a lot of pressure to let my people fight them," he says. "But I reject this and call instead for a peaceful solution - because otherwise the results will be seen in the graveyards and the hospitals."
He says he hopes to meet soon with his Sunni counterparts and restore peace.
Iraq political plans amended after cleric objects
by Khaled Farhan
Reuters (27.11.2003)/HRWF Int. (01.12.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net The head of Iraq's U.S.-backed Governing Council said on Thursday a plan agreed with Washington to transfer power to Iraqis would be amended after objections from the country's top Shi'ite cleric.
Jalal Talabani, current head of the Governing Council, told reporters after a meeting with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the agreement would be modified to ease the cleric's concerns.
"The agreement remains, but there's to be an appendix, with other texts. The agreement is developing," he said.
The approval of Sistani, who is reported to believe the plan pays insufficient heed to Islam and gives Iraqis too little say, is crucial for winning widespread backing for the U.S. timetable from Iraqi Shi'ites, who make up 60 percent of the population.
Talabani met with Sistani after the cleric voiced his reservations about the plan, which foresees indirect elections for a body that would pick a transitional government and oversee the writing of a constitution.
"His one reservation was that he prefers running elections for the...national transitional councils, and considers this more democratic," Talabani told reporters.
Sistani, who does not endorse the U.S.-led occupation but unlike radical Shi'ite clerics does not openly oppose it, ruled in June that the constitution's architects must be elected. He rarely makes public political pronouncements.
Talabani said the changes would deal with Sistani's concerns about the indirect elections, which he said had been relayed to U.S. officials earlier.
"He requested that the allies make good on the promises they made to Iraqis. He believes, correctly, that this is democracy," Talabani said, adding other changes would deal with the role of Islam in the constitution.
"There's an appendix that says Islam is the religion of the majority and it must be respected and considered a main source for the constitution," he said.
Even Communists get religious in new Islamic Iraq
by Andrew Hammond
Reuters (25.11.2003)/HRWF Int. (26.11.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - In the new Iraq , even the Communist Party has adopted the politics of religion.
Karl Marx may have denounced it as the opiate of the masses, but Iraqi communists are promoting religion as a central part of the national fabric.
"We are a country where the absolute majority are Muslims and we cannot ignore the fact that Islam could be in many ways important for us," said Minister of Culture Mofeed al-Jazaeri.
Jazaeri, a member of the Communist Party's politburo, says the priority for Iraq today is not the secular separation of religion and state, but promoting a culture of democracy that accommodates Iraq's delicate ethnic and religious mix.
"We are trying to create a new democratic Iraq," he told Reuters in an interview.
"There is an organic relationship between culture and democracy. It's impossible to develop one without the other. We can't build a democratic system without developing culture."
Iraq has changed markedly since the heyday of Communist Party power in Iraq of the 1950s and 60s. Three decades of rule by the secular Baath Party crushed the communists as well as various religious groups.
In post-Saddam Iraq religious politics have come to dominate with a vengeance and the country's long-suppressed Shi'ite majority have taken pole position in the political scene.
Washington gave Shi'ites half the seats on its transitional Governing Council, which is already replacing Arabist ideology with Islamic slogans.
This month the council said the new Iraq's nascent political system would "respect the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people."
Jazaeri says secularism in Iraq is contingent upon "full respect for the different religious groups so that they have absolute freedom just like all other political and social groups."
Atheism out of fashion
Many Iraqis say the presence on the Governing Council of a minister from a party seen as atheist is a sign that the U.S.-led administration is out of touch.
Communists in the cabinet are an oddity in the Arab world, where the word "secularism" is regarded with suspicion in public discourse.
"They had a role in the past, but anyone will tell you they are just in it for themselves and they are not religious," said Sadek, a Sunni Muslim, in a typical comment heard on the streets of Baghdad.
"I don't know anything about the Communist Party. The Baath experience has left a bad impression in people's minds about parties in general," he said.
Abdel-Latif al-Saadi, an editor of the communist weekly paper Tariq al-Shaab (The Path of the People), said secularists were on the run because Saddam had exploited religion.
"Our society used to be more secular than other Arab societies and we didn't have religious extremism. Then Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) exploited religion," he said, referring to the "great faith campaign" of mosque-building in the 1990s.
Iraq, like the rest of the Arab world, has been part of a great turning away from the secular Arab national politics of the 1960s to religion, he conceded.
"I used to be able to discuss the existence of God with the Islamists, now I couldn't do that," Saadi said.
Jazaeri said he didn't fear religion, only that authoritarian and charismatic politicians could exploit it.
"Our relationship with the religious parties were and are good. We were struggling together against the dictatorship," he said. "We are not afraid of religious groups because they are religious, we are afraid of extremists."
Christians in Northern Iraq reportedly facing intimidation
www.Zenit.org - (17.11.2003) -- HRWF Int. (19.11.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christian communities in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul are facing serious acts of intimidation, says Fides, the news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
"Last week a bomb was found in front of a Catholic school in Mosul; luckily it was defused before it could explode," Chaldean Catholic priest Father Nizar Semaan told Fides. "The bomb was a cluster of low [powered] hand grenades, but it could have killed or injured the children," he said. "For security reasons the school was closed for a good week."
"Also last week a round from a Kalashnikov was fired against the residence of the Syro-Antiochian bishop in my city," the priest added. "This is probably the work of Wahabi extremists in Mosul." Wahabi Muslims are a puritanical sect from Saudi Arabia. "With these actions of intimidation extremists want to demonstrate their power, and what is more serious, to prevent the civil society from returning to normality," Father Semaan said. "In Mosul, in fact, work is being done to repair roads and public buildings such as schools and hospitals. The extremists want to impose their law of intolerance and violence in cities like Mosul, which have a long tradition of respect among religions and ethnic groups."
Acts of violence against American troops have intensified in northern Iraq in recent weeks.
"I do not know if there is any relation between those who attack the Americans and those who intimidate Christians," Father Semaan said. "All I can say is that Wahabi extremists were present under the regime of Saddam Hussein, although they kept a low profile. "Now they are coming into the open, expanding their activity and recruiting more members. The Wahabi receive solid financial backing from abroad and it is easy for them to find new members among the many unemployed youths." He added: "In this regard I would give an example of how money is used to spread an Islamic vision of society. When I was at Mosul University in the 1980s, girls wearing veils were about one in 40. Today we see the exact opposite: 40 veiled girls and one with a bare head! This is because fundamentalists pay girls to wear a veil."
"Those who have in hand the destiny of Iraq must not allow anyone to put an end to the tradition of tolerance and peaceful coexistence among followers of different religions," Father Semaan said. "We do not want Iraq to become another Lebanon."
The Kurdish vision for the future of the Christian community
An analysis of the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and the (Kurdish) Constitution of Iraq
Willy Fautr
HRWF Int. (17.11.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net -
The Constitution of Iraq and the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region which were authored by the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and adopted by the Kurdish Parliament (1) in October 2002, in the face of imminent US attacks on Iraq and prospects for a regime change, contain a number of provisions on national minorities, on freedom of religion and on the nature of the Iraqi state that reveal the Kurds' intentions regarding the future of the Christian community in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and in Iraq.
National minorities in the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region
Article 4 provides that The people of the Kurdistan Region consists of the Kurds and the national minorities of Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Arabs and this Constitution recognizes the rights of these minorities.
It is noteworthy that this article does not put the various ethnic communities living on the territory of the Kurdistan Region on the same footing but grants a privileged status to the Kurdish majority and reduces the other communities to minorities, including the Christian community, whose religion and language are the basic components of its identity. Moreover, the content of the rights of these ethnic minorities is not defined anywhere in the Constitution and their practice is not supported by any provision regarding mechanisms of safeguard and implementation. The mere fact that Article 49 states, Within the makeup of the Kurdistan Regions Council of Ministers, representation of the national minorities, Turkmen, Assyrians and Chaldeans shall be taken into consideration, does not guarantee them any concrete right. The Chaldo-Assyrians (2) have been granted five seats in the Assembly and a minister in the Government. However, the dictatorship of the majority will be the rule.
As far as the languages of the national minorities are concerned, Article 7 states: Kurdish shall be the official language of the Kurdistan Region. Official correspondence with the federal and regional authorities shall be both in Arabic and Kurdish. The teaching of Arabic in the Kurdistan Region shall be compulsory. The Turkmen language shall be considered the language of education and culture for the Turkmen in addition to the Kurdish language. Syriac shall be considered the language of education and culture for those who speak it in addition to the Kurdish language. The multi-tiered system of languages in the Kurdistan region speaks for itself. The Kurdish language is dominant. Only the teaching of the Arabic language is compulsory. The Turkmen language is to be used by the Turkmen in the field of education and culture, but only after the Kurdish and the Arabic languages. The Assyrians and Chaldeans are not even mentioned by their names for the use of Syriac, which has the same third rank status as the Turkmen language. The teaching language in all publicly funded schools will be Kurdish; moreover, there are no provisions for using Syriac as the teaching language in publicly funded schools. The only right of the Chaldo-Assyrian community is to set up, run and finance private schools in which the Syriac language is the teaching language (3).
In conclusion, the reduction of the Christian community and of their language to a minor status is the most visible sign of their Kurdification.
National minorities in the (Kurdish) Constitution of Iraq
In this Constitution there are no specific provisions regarding the Chaldo-Assyrian community and the Syriac language.
Article 2 says that the Federal Republic of Iraq consists of two regions: the Arabic Region and the Kurdish Region while Article 4 says that the people of Iraq consists of the Arabic and Kurdish nationalities. The Chaldo-Assyrians and the Turkmen are totally ignored.
Freedom of religion and belief
Article 16 of the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and Article 15 of the (Kurdish) Constitution of Iraq stipulate that Freedom of religion and belief, and the practice of religious duties is guaranteed provided they do not conflict with provisions of this Constitution or the Federal Constitution or with federal laws and provided they do not go against general moral and ethical standards.
These standards must undoubtedly be understood as the Islamic standards.
Article 19 of the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region states that the members of the Assembly must swear by Allah, the Almighty. It is therefore to be expected that the Chaldo-Assyrian members of the Parliament will have to swear by Allah.
Finally, Article 7 of the (Kurdish) Constitution of Iraq says that there is a state religion and it is Islam.
(1) On April 5, 1991, the Security Council voted on Resolution 688 setting up the Safe Haven for the Kurds. The Kurds used this opportunity to elect their first parliament on May 19, 1992 and to establish the Kurdistan Regional Government.
(2) At the close of the conference that the Assyrians and Chaldeans held in Baghdad on 22-24 October, they signed a resolution by which they proclaimed the unity of their nation and agreed to adopt the name Chaldo-Assyrians.
(3) Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. visited such a secondary school in Dohuk attended by more than 600 boys and girls. The classes took place in the premises of a Kurdish school used by the Kurds in the morning and rented to the Chaldo-Assyrian community in the afternoon. In the office of the principal and in the schoolbooks sat enthroned the picture of the Kurdish president Barzani, who had replaced Saddam Hussein.
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Political awakening of Christians
By Willy Fautre
- All the streams claim the recognition of their community in the Constitution
- They claim an administrative region in the North
- A new era after the compromises with Saddam Husseins regime
HRWF Int. (10.11.2003) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - At a conference which was held in Baghdad from 22 to 24 October, all the streams of the Iraqi Christian community proclaimed the unity of their people despite the diversity of their religious denominations, agreed to adopt one and the same name, Chaldo-Assyrians, and chose a common leader, Yonnadam Kanna, to represent them in and outside Iraq.
Among the participants, it is worth mentioning representatives of the Assyrian, Syrian and Chaldean communities in Iraq and from the diaspora (United States, Canada, European Union, USSR, Australia, New Zealand), as well as Ishlemoun Wardouni, who will be chairing the Iraqi Chaldean Church until the designation of the successor to Patriarch Raphael Bidawit I, who recently died.
In the final resolution of the conference, the Chaldo-Assyrians plead for the unity of Iraq and advocate the building up of a federal, pluralist and democratic system of governance which accepts the principle of peaceful political succession and the separation of powers. They claim the recognition of their community under the name Chaldo-Assyrians, along with the other ethnic groups such as the Arabs and the Kurds, in the future constitution which will be drafted by the Provisional Governing Council in the next few months. They want their language to be recognised under the name Syriac and wish to enjoy the same ethnic, political, administrative and cultural rights as the other communities of Iraq.
Shiites are said to represent a little more than 50% of the 22 million Iraqi population and Sunnis about 40% while Chaldo-Assyrians are estimated to be between 700,000 and 1 million, according to various sources, but these statistics are much debated. A new national census is claimed by the only Christian representative in the Provisional Governing Council, Yonnadam Yussef Kanna, who is the leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the main Christian political party. This census will contribute to the refinement of a more accurate representation of the various communities in the Iraqi institutions, he told Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. but when the Governing Council was set up, the Christian community accepted the distribution of the positions on the basis of the existing statistics so as not to create a political obstacle.
In their final resolution, the Chaldo-Assyrians insist on the necessity to create an administrative region in the plains of Niniva in the North of Iraq, where a number of Christian villages are concentrated, and ask for the promulgation of specific legislation for their self-administration in order to guarantee their administrative, political and cultural rights. This dream as such is however less susceptible of being fulfilled as it would entail some territorial reduction of the regions under the Kurdish rule of Barzanis and Talabanis governments and some amputation of the latters power. Self-governance of Chaldo-Assyrian public schools, cultural and media activities in Syriac, though, is possible through the creation of other institutions which would grant each ethnic community or minority the right to run their own educational and cultural activities in their own language. In this regard the institutional engineering of the Belgian model of double federalism (territorial and community-based) can be a useful source of inspiration.
Christian families in Iraq targeted
by Damien McElroy
London Daily Telegraph (04.11.2003)/ HRWF Int. (10.11.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Hostile sounds of a city in revolt drift over the iron gate as one of the last Christian families in Ramadi prepares for lunch.
In post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, Ramadi has become a hotbed of Islamic resistance.
Before the war, the Oro family ran a popular entertainment empire, serving alcohol in their restaurants and shops. Now, an Islamic fatwa declares that no one should trade in alcohol on pain of death. The big casino and dance hall that was once the flagship of the family's 15-strong property portfolio has been taken over by bearded men who plan to turn it into Ramadi's premier mosque.
"Fifty years I was working with drink, and now I have nothing," said Younan Oro, the 70-year-old patriarch, his voice trailing off. "They drink like donkeys here. Business was good. I had a lot of restaurants and shops. Now my family tell me they want to kill me for keeping them here in this place."
Nineteen persons share the Oros' small house and its immaculate garden with rose bushes. The youngest girls, Younan Oro's grandchildren, ages 2 to 5, cannot speak Arabic but giggle in Assyrian, a language that dates back to the ninth century B.C. They still manage to travel to Sunday services, piling into a bus shared with other families, but as the women of the house fried rice in the kitchen last week, the men many of whom have Christian names argued over when to leave Ramadi.
"We had a very good situation until the fundamentalists began to appear, and we were affected," said Roger William, Mr. Oro's son-in-law. "They changed the idea of Christians among the people and from then on we have suffered. Because America and Britain are Christian countries, the [fundamentalists] blame us for the war. We are terrified. We really don't know what the future will hold."
Even as war loomed, Mr. Oro was confident of expanding his business, borrowing 2 million dinars ($1,676) from a tribal chief to open new premises. In the month that followed the collapse of the Saddam regime, his shops were broken into and the stock smashed to pieces. He cannot repay his loan.
"I have nothing," Mr. Oro said. "I do not dare to reopen my shops. Since the war, the people here have to rely on tribes for protection of their businesses. We have no tribe."
Ramadi, 100 miles west of Baghdad, has long been a stronghold of a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam. Nonetheless, thousands of Christians were attracted to the area by the prospect of working as clerks, nurses, cleaners and launderers at the biggest British Royal Air Force base in the Middle East, 15 miles out of town at Harbiniye, when the country was a British territory between the two world wars.
Younan Oro was born in the mountains on the Turkish border but left to seek work at Harbiniye. "At the time, we called this area the 'Second London,' but now it's a joke," he said. "Slowly, our people are going."
Only 10 Christian families are left in Ramadi. Charlemagne Shmool, the parish priest, remembers the English airmen from the base, now taken over by the Americans. Now there is no hope of work for poverty-stricken local people: The perimeter has been sealed with earth-filled barricades and heavily armed sentries.
He said recent clashes between Christians and Muslims had left one of his parishioners dead. "The fundamentalists have put pressure on us as never before," he said. "Within 10 years, there will be no Christians in this area. We will be finished."
Iraq has an estimated 700,000 Chaldean Christians and more than 1 million Assyrian Christians.
Ashlimon Wardouni, the Chaldean bishop of Baghdad, last week warned the Vatican that the Iraqi Christians faced a grave future. "We ask for our interests to be included in the new Iraqi constitution, for our villages to be protected, for our rights to maintain our religious, cultural and linguistic traditions to be recognized," he said.
Bishop of Kirkuk: New Iraq Needs Europe's Help
Interview With Chaldean Church's Louis Sako
Zenit.org/MISNA (04.11.2003)/ HRWF Int. (10.11.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Postwar Iraq is hoping that Europe doesn't abandon it. So says new Chaldean Bishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, in an interview in this month's issue of the Italian magazine Mondo e Missione.
Bishop Sako, named at the end of September and interviewed while in Italy as a guest of Pax Christi, is a top figure of the local Chaldean Church. A former rector of the seminary of Baghdad, he served as parish priest in the northern city of Mosul.
In recent months, he was elected by the population as the vice president of the interim Council of Mosul. But, being a priest, he refused the post in favor of another Chaldean representative. Here are some passages of the interview.
Q: How is life today in Iraq?
Bishop Sako: Saddam had transformed Iraq into an enormous military barracks. Two wars and 12 years of embargo resulted in a mass exodus of Iraqis abroad and a million deaths.
Today the people are happy about the change, the renewed possibility of freedom. In a few months, 80 new parties were formed, five of which are Christian. Freedom of press made possible the opening of dozens of new newspapers. Of these, six are Christian. There are also some Christian TV broadcasts originating in Mosul.
All this was not possible under Saddam!
Q: But the price of all this was a war.
Bishop Sako: Yes, but the target was not the civilians.
Q: You defend what the Americans did.
Bishop Sako: I am not trying to say that they are angels! They have their interests; they came to Iraq for that reason, not to free the Iraqis. But the fruit is, in fact, liberation.
Q: It is feared that Saddam's men are still in circulation.
Bishop Sako: There are no longer any people tied to the dictator. There are instead Arab combatants that entered Iraq, paid by the fundamentalist movements of neighboring nations or even by their respective governments.
There are those who do not want an open and free Iraq. The authors of the continuing clashes are random splinters, without any popular support.
Q: Iraq is moving slowly toward democracy. Are you satisfied with the "experiments" under way, for example, in Mosul and Kirkuk?
Bishop Sako: Yes. The people appreciate freedom. At times they criticize the choices of the Americans, but the process under way is efficient. The population personally elected me as vice president of the interim Council of Mosul. I refused the post, but am still part of the council.
We are working with the Americans since last May and I am optimistic. Undoubtedly the U.S. made some mistakes.
Q: Such as?
Bishop Sako: Their reactions are slow and they above all have not understood the Iraqi mentality and habits, the story of the nation. But they have also done some good things. The problem is of not knowing who they can trust. They live in a constant state of mistrust; the soldiers tend to shoot on a slight hint of threat.
Q: Why do you say that the Americans do not understand the Iraqis?
Bishop Sako: We are moderates by nature; the extremisms taking place are fomented from outside. It is very evident that democracy in Iraq would preoccupy the surrounding nations.
Q: Should we hope for a domino effect, i.e. that a democratic solution in Iraq will bring positive consequences to the entire region?
Bishop Sako: I don't know. The Iraqi population is among the most educated of the area. The embargo also largely affected education, but the Iraqi cultural and academic tradition is at a good level, even the Americans recognized this.
There is not the same level of education everywhere. What is certain is that your help is needed: Europe must pressure Iraq's bordering nations. While we need to learn, American democracy is not the only model -- Europe has a precious patrimony. The point today is to create an Iraqi-style democracy.
Q: You are in the process of writing your Constitution.
Bishop Sako: The national committee is at work and among its 200 members there are also five Christians [one of which is Bishop Sako]. But it takes time. The future will unfold with many small steps, the people must be formed to a new mentality.
Q: What role do you see for the Christians in this phase?
Bishop Sako: They have an important duty, despite their being relatively few. But ours is not a strength of numbers, but of culture, values, fraternity, and openness to friendly criticism.
Q: How much weight did the intervention of the Pope have in avoiding the conflict being seen as a religious war?
Bishop Sako: Extensive. The Muslims attempted to depict the war as a crusade against Islam. But they soon realized that the bombings touched everyone, Christians included, and understood that the U.S. was intervening in Iraq for economic and political reasons, not religious.
Q: What do you expect of the international community and churches abroad?
Bishop Sako: To not forget us! There are 700,000 Christians in Iraq. When in a year Iraq is out of the limelight, who will remember us? It already occurred with the Gulf War and embargo.
I launch an appeal to all the religious congregations: Come to Iraq to lend a hand, especially for formation and not only of Christians. We need to rebuild the actual Iraqi man, and we are not able to do it alone. Iraq has enormous economic potential, but spiritual resources are also needed.
Q: What future do you see for Iraq? What role do you see for the U.N.?
Bishop Sako: Europe must have a crucial role. There was extensive support before the war, while today we do not have any political support. A mistake: Europe must not leave the U.S. alone in the reconstruction of the nation.
There is no war between religions in Iraq, archbishop says
Rector of the Pontifical Babel University in Baghdad
ZENIT.org (25.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (28.07.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - "I am confident about the future of the Church in Iraq," says Chaldean Archbishop Emeritus Ishaq Jacques of Arbil of the Chaldeans, presently rector of Babel Pontifical University in Baghdad.
The Babel College for Philosophy and Theology has 280 students and it is an ecumenical institute open to future priests of the various Christian confessions present in Iraq.
In this interview, Archbishop Jacques comments on the situation in the country.
Q: Tell us about interreligious relations in Iraq? Is there a danger of a religious war?
Archbishop Jacques: Many are worried about interreligious relations in Iraq but they do not take into account that our country has a long tradition of peaceful co-existence among its people of different faiths, all under many different regimes, monarchy, republic, the Baath Party. Therefore there is no situation of religious war although there are isolated cases of intolerance towards followers of a different religion.
Those who shout the loudest, invoking extremist positions, do not always represent the majority of Muslims. There are many signs of hope for interreligious dialogue. For example in the Institute of which I am the Rector, the Babel College for Philosophy and Theology, there are 6 Muslim teachers, most of whom are Shiites. They are happy to contribute to the formation of future Christian priests and they are proud to teach in our College.
Q: How has the Catholic community faced the emergency of the war and now the process of rebuilding the country?
Archbishop Jacques: Everyone in Iraq, Christians and Muslims alike, have suffered because of the war. But war did not find us unprepared. The local Church had made preparations a long time before: every parish had supplies of food and water to distribute to the people, Christians and Muslims. We offered help to all who knocked on our door, regardless of their religion. During the war the parish priests and the bishops remained at their posts with the people. As did Archbishop Fernando Filoni the Apostolic Nuncio. Masses were said frequently and never stopped even when bombs and missiles hit out cities. Now we are concentrating on how to help build a new Iraq. As representatives of Christians in Iraq we have met with most of the Iraqi political parties. They all assure us that they consider the Christian presence in Iraq fundamental in order to preserve social and religious balance in the country.
Q: What challenges face the local Church? What do Christians ask of the future Iraqi government?
Archbishop Jacques: The challenges we face are the same faced every day by all Iraqis. These are problems caused by lack of government and essential services like electricity, water, an efficient police force able to guarantee security. To solve at least in part the many difficulties facing the people, in several cities in Iraq, city districts have appointed their own self-management committees. The local parish priest is always asked to join the committee, along with Muslim leaders.
We call on the institutions of the new Iraq to allow us to profess our faith freely, to hold our services, to carry out our ministry and we also ask for the return of Church schools nationalized in the past.
Will the Mandaeans survive post-war Iraq?
By Elizabeth Kendal
WEA (28.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (28.07.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Mandaeans are a small pre-Christian sect that honours John the Baptist. They are believed to have originated in Jordan, but persecution in the first century forced them to emigrate east. There are an estimated 100,000 Mandaeans worldwide, mainly in Iraq and Iran.
The Mandaeans have survived 1400 years of Islamic persecution, which includes many massacres of Mandaeans throughout the centuries. In 1870 an entire Mandaean community was massacred at Shushtar, north of Ahwaz in southwestern Iran, close to the southern Iraqi border.
Other forms of persecution include harassment and abuse, often accompanied with violence, in the streets and at the daily public Mandaean baptisms. Mandaean couples are often forced to divorce so that Muslim marriages can be imposed upon them, thus ensuring the Mandaeans lose their Mandaean identity.
In Islamic communities, Mandaeans are regarded as infidels (kaffir) and unclean (najes), hence they can have great difficulty obtaining employment and education. Islamic persecution has led many Mandaeans to emigrate. Others flee as asylum seekers, many of whom struggle against misinformation and propaganda for the right to be granted refugee status.
As Islamic fervor has risen, persecution has increased. A report by the Sabian Mandaean Association of Australia (SMAA) notes, "While the secular regime of Saddam Hussein had, to some extent, kept Islamic extremism in check, in the period leading up to the outbreak of war the Iraqi regime had sought to appeal to Muslim feeling against the 'infidels' (kaffir). Accordingly, television received in Ahwaz, Iran (both Iraqi and Iranian TV), had been constantly pouring out venomous hatred of the 'infidels', and Muslim feeling has become inflamed."
Persecution has skyrocketed and more than 80 Mandaeans have been murdered since the fall of Baghdad in April. Now there is great concern that Iraq's Mandaean community, having survived 1400 years of struggle, may not survive post-war Iraq.
Murders and rapes
The Sabian Mandaean Association of Australia (SMAA), based in Sydney (home to some 2,000 Mandaeans) reports that more than 80 Mandaeans have been murdered in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad. In the days immediately following the fall of Baghdad, Islamists murdered some 30 Mandaeans in Baghdad alone. In the days after the fall of Baghdad, one Mandaean was attacked in his home and seriously wounded. A Mandaean doctor operated on him, without anaesthetic. The doctor was killed the next day.
Muslims have also raped at least 20 Mandaean women and young girls since the "end of the war", although this figure is likely to be much, much higher as most rape cases go unreported due to fear, shame and humiliation. As committed pacifists, the Mandaeans are extremely vulnerable as they are not only despised, but they are unarmed and defenceless.
The threat of sexual assault is particularly serious, as Islamic judges in Iran have set the precedent that the rape of a Mandaean woman can be regarded as an act of "purification", and as such, violators receive impunity. In Iran this defence has been used to acquit men of rapes on Mandaean girls as young as 8 years old.
Some 30 Mandaeans have been murdered in Basra in recent months. The remaining Mandaeans are fleeing and the SMAA has lost all contact with them. Allegedly, coalition forces are advising the Mandaeans to flee, as they cannot offer them protection. There is concern that Mandaeans may also have been murdered in the north, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Dr. Edward Crangle is the Post-Graduate Research Co-coordinator in the Department of Studies in Religion with the University of Sydney. In a letter dated 21 April 2003, he wrote, "Since the demise of the recent Iraqi regime, many Sabian Mandaeans have been murdered by various extremist Muslim groups and tribes, including the extremely fundamentalist religious Sunni and Sheaat groups and parties such as Al-Wahabin, Al-Daawa Al-Islamiah and Ikhwan Al-Moslemin."
Genocidal intentions?
Above and beyond the human rights violations and threat to life, the Mandaean community actually fears that some Iraqi Islamists have genocidal intentions and would be willing to effect a 'Final Solution'. According to mail received by SMAA from Iraq, amongst the abuse being meted out to Mandaeans are phrases such as, "You are kaffirs (infidels)! We will treat you like the Jews! Get out of Iraq! This is an Islamic country! This is a clean country!"
Very recently, the President of the SMAA was able to speak by phone to a Mandaean clergyman in Baghdad who said that Mandaeans are living in a state of terror. He said they fear that one night the Muslims will just kill all of them. He also said that many Iraqis who formerly supported the Hussein regime are now supporting the Islamists in their campaign against invaders and infidels.
Mandaeans in Ahwaz (in Iran) have reported to the SMAA that they also are receiving news of murders of Mandaeans in Iraq. The Mandaean Archbishop in Australia visited Iran from 5 March to 10 May. He testifies that the situation for Mandaeans in Iran has also deteriorated considerably since the fall of Baghdad, and there is much fear. (In Iran, Mandaeans are an illegal sect without religious or legal recognition.)
One Mandaean in Ahwaz reports that he was traveling in a taxi with is an Islamic country! This is a clean country!"
Very recently, the President of the SMAA was able to speak by phone to a Mandaean clergyman in Baghdad who said that Mandaeans are living in a state of terror. He said they fear that one night the Muslims will just kill all of them. He also said that many Iraqis who formerly supported the Hussein regime are now supporting the Islamists in their campaign against invaders and infidels.
Mandaeans in Ahwaz (in Iran) have reported to the SMAA that they also are receiving news of murders of Mandaeans in Iraq. The Mandaean Archbishop in Australia visited Iran from 5 March to 10 May. He testifies that the situation for Mandaeans in Iran has also deteriorated considerably since the fall of Baghdad, and there is much fear. (In Iran, Mandaeans are an illegal sect without religious or legal recognition.)
One Mandaean in Ahwaz reports that he was traveling in a taxi with Muslims who were unaware that he was Mandaean. One of the Muslim men remarked that he was hopeful the time would soon come when the Muslims would be given permission to attack the areas where the infidels live.
House and church confiscations
There are reports that many Mandaeans are sharing accommodation and living together out of fear for their lives. However, as soon as their homes are unoccupied, Muslims acquire them. One Mandaean woman lost her home to a Shi'a cleric this way. One family was forced out of their home by Islamists who then immediately fixed green flags to the roof and converted the home into a headquarters for their movement.
One Mandaean who corresponds with the SMAA through a brother in Australia reports that Muslims are threatening to take over the Mandaean's mandi (church) and convert it into a mosque. This builds on another precedent established in Iran where, in 1989, the Mandaean mandi in Awhaz was confiscated and converted into headquarters for the Islamic Religious Police.
In fear of Sharia
The Mandaeans, like the Christians, are also living in fear of an Islamic state under Sharia law. The new 25-member Iraqi Governing Council is made up of thirteen Shi'a Arabs, five Sunni Arabs, five Sunni Kurds, one Assyrian Christian Arab and one Turkman.
The Shia group includes the secretary-general of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, a Shi'a cleric named Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, who is the brother of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim - the leader of Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI),. (The Ayatollah returned from exile in Iran in May and set up the SCIRI headquarters in Al-Najaf.) Also on the council are two representatives from the Shia Islamist al-Daawa Party and two from the Sunni Iraqi Hezbollah. Stratfor Intelligence (http://www.stratfor.com) confirms that in all, seven members are staunch Islamists.
U.S. President G.W. Bush said on 24 April, that he was determined to see an "Islamic democracy" built in Iraq. However, as Stratfor Intelligence notes, "The problem is that neither the United States nor the Iraqi people have a model of Islamic democracy to emulate." Also: "The Iraqi Governing Council is bound to face a crisis of legitimacy, since it is a U.S.-appointed, not elected, body." (Stratfor, Global Intelligence Report, 16 July 2003).
SCIRI, the best organised Shi'a political party in Iraq, initially rejected the Iraqi Governing Council because it is U.S.-appointed, not elected. However, the U.S. desire to have SCIRI represented on the council gave SCIRI leverage such that it was able to effect changes to the Iraq Governing Council membership in the last moments before it was unveiled, in exchange for SCIRI participation.
For further information on this issue see: "Iraq's New Governing Council: A Profile" (the first half of this article is an analysis, the second half is a profile of each member) http://www.theestimate.com/public/071103.html
Mandaeans, along with other religious minorities in Iraq are at great risk at this time of instability and lawlessness, and the future is not looking much brighter.
An Iraqi pastor speaks
By Elizabeth Kendal
WEA (04.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - (...) An Iraqi pastor recently spoke to the World Evangelical Alliance about the situation in Iraq and the threat to religious liberty.
"After the terrible regime of Saddam Hussein there is now a power vacuum in Iraq that many groups are trying to fill. Unfortunately, many of these groups would like to have an Iraq without any Christian presence at all. We feel the pressure growing every day and we are really afraid. Many Christians have left the country but most of us want to stay. This is our country and we love it.
"Nobody knows what the future will look like, but I see it as very important that those who have the power would guarantee religious freedoms from the very start. There is a tremendous power struggle going on behind the scene.
"A powerful Shi'a political group in Iraq plans to establish its own radio station and start broadcasting. This is a big step towards promoting the influence of that group. Mr Grebawy, head of the Centre for Public Islam has said that he has permission, "to start the broadcasts", which will be financed by Hawza, a grouping of Shi'a schools in the city of Najaf. It worries us Christians very much that the broadcast will be from the al-Hikmah mosque in the suburb of Baghdad. I understand that they have plans to extend the broadcast all over the country.
"Considering the fact that the Shi'as are about 55 % of the population, this will have a very strong impact on people's attitude towards Christians. Asked what political messages they would be broadcasting on their TV channel, Mr Grebawy said that the political content of the broadcasts would be, 'that religion is politics and politics is religion'. That sounds to me like Iran!
"Practically all Shi'a leaders are calling for the establishment of Islamic law (Shari'ah). Two key religious leaders Mr Moqtada Sadr in Kufa in the south and Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartousi in Baghdad have called for Islamic law to be applied to both Christians and Muslims.
"Another disturbing sign is that Christian women who go out without head-coverings have been threatened. Shops owned by Christians that sell alcohol have been burned down and some Christian shop owners have been killed."
These killings also have been reported by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty in an article entitled "Liquor Store Attacks May Underscore Rising Islamic Concerns".
A window of opportunity
The Iraqi pastor interviewed, concluded with this appeal, "Many Christians in Iraq think that the door now is open to work for a multi-political, multi-ethnic and multi-religious Iraq, but that the door of opportunity will be closed in less than four months from now. If the American and British troops leave the country without a new government based on democratic principles in place, we are afraid that we will have a country that will either split into several parts or that will head straight into religious turmoil where minorities like Christians will be under attack from all sides. Both Europe and the U.S. have a great responsibility to see to it that this will not be the future of a people that has already suffered so much during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein."
The mother of all liberties
Full religious freedom for Iraq is not negotiable
Christianity Today (02.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Religious freedom and democracy hang in the balance for Iraq's 22 million people. According to some estimates, since the 1970s the nation's Christian population has dropped to 600,000a precipitous decline. Saddam Hussein donated pipe organs to Baghdad churches, but he deprived Iraqi Christians of a more important gift: spiritual freedom.
Full religious freedom for Iraq is not negotiable. If the Bush administration is unable to follow through with the necessary influence to protect these emerging freedoms, our costly military victory will be incomplete.
We are worried about religious freedom in Iraq on several fronts. The Bush administration's track record on religious freedom has been weak, especially in Afghanistan and Sudan. About 18 months after the U.S.-led coalition liberated Afghanistan, Christians and other religious minorities are facing new threats.
For example, the new Afghan government is writing a constitution. But reliable sources believe the current draft does not include strong protections for non-Muslims' religious expression. International relief groups are retreating to the relative safety of Kabul, the capital, because militant Muslims are targeting relief workers. Since last November, militants have killed an Afghan worker for Mercy Corps and assassinated a staff member of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Civilian monitors in Sudan have testified that the Muslim-dominated Khartoum government is violating the American-negotiated ceasefire that was designed to protect Sudanese Christians and others in the south. The Bush administration should stiffen its spineby imposing tough sanctions before the end of 2003 in accordance with the Sudan Peace Actif Sudan's government won't stop killing and terrorizing non-Muslim civilians.
The situation for Iraqi Christians has been mixed since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam Hussein did not persecute Christians as brutally as he did Shi'ite Muslims. But Christians were forbidden to give their children Christian names and conversion to Christianity was punishable by death. Now Christians are worried that a new Shi'ite-dominated regime could eliminate even the limited freedoms they have had in the past.
Kurds have secured greater freedom for Christians in the north, but Christians have still suffered and died for their faith throughout Iraq. One of the worst instances is the murder of Sister Cecilia Musha Hanna, a Chaldean Catholic nun. Last August, according to media reports, militant Muslims abducted 70-year-old Sister Hanna, stripped her, tortured her, cut her throat, and beheaded her. Her fellow nuns said that harassment began in 1998 after Wahhabi Muslims constructed a mosque across the street from their convent.
In the short term, the U.S. government is in a highly influential position to help establish religious freedom in Iraq. The 1968 Iraqi constitution established Islam as the state religion, but it also secured for Christians and other religious minorities equality before the law and free expression of religion. Americans helping Iraqis form their new government should emphasize the importance of recognizing more than just Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims. Iraq's Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians, as well as Jews and other religious groups, all have a role in rebuilding their nation. That's not unreasonable for a Muslim-majority nation. Jordan and Kuwait, though not free of human-rights abuses, allow a wide spectrum of religious groups to operate within their borders.
The Bush administration is keen to prove that it is not an occupying force in Iraq. If the U.S. military in Iraq treats all religious groups with equality, it will be a tangible example to Iraq. Iraqis have tasted greater religious freedom since war's end. The next step should be for Iraq's new government to reaffirm a commitment that Christians and others may operate openly and without fear that radicals or officials will harass or attack them.
Copyright ? 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information. June 2003, Vol. 47, No. 6, Page 30
Christians in north Iraq ask for voice
A proud enclave wants to take a role in country's democracy
By Sabrina Tavernise, from Arbil (Iraq)
IHT (24-25.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Tucked in the corner of this ancient, somber Muslim city is a neighborhood where people wear skimpy clothing, eat cheeseburgers and drink beer.
It is called Ankawa, and it is home to a small but lively community of Assyro-Chaldeans, or Assyrian Christians, one of Iraq's smallest - and proudest - ethnic groups. They number 1.3 million in Iraq and are descendants of the indigenous people of Mesopotamia, with a language that dates from 3000 B.C.
An equal number of Assyrian Christians have settled in the United States, mostly in Chicago and Detroit.
"We are the remains of the original Iraqis," said Yonan Hozaya, a senior official in the Assrian Democratic Movement, a political party. "You must take care not to lose us."
The neighborhood here is in no danger of disappearing. It is a main meeting spot for many in this city. A steady stream of slowly cruising cars flow past on the main thoroughfare, referred to by locals asthe Champs-Elyses for its lively shops. Young men sit low behind the steering wheels of their cars. Women walk arm in arm. Liquor stores abound.
Ankawa stands in contrast to the rest of Arbil, a Kurdish Muslim city where alcohol is not for sale and most women wear a hijab head covering. Young people are not allowed inside the city park at night without being accompanied by a family member.
In Ankawa, even young women stroll through the local amusement park alone. On a recent night, two women, Rajuna Yelda and Sabina Gilyana, both 22, were strolling through the grounds of the small amusement park together. Yelda, a basketball player in jeans and sandals, walked arm in arm with Gilyana, a smiling young woman wearing a tight-fitting, leopard-print T-shirt.
"In Arbil, families can't just walk around like this," said Yelda, gesturing with her hand and polished fingernails. "Our parents trust us." (...)
Why, one might ask, is Ankawa so free? Hozaya said it was because Assyrian Christians throughout the centuries had always been ruled by foreigners, like Persians and Romans. That, he said, made them more flexible and tolerant to those around them.
In Ankawa, the Assyrian Christians are Catholics. There are five religious groups in the ethnic group, three of them Eastern Orthodox. The Assyrian Christians splintered time and again throughout history, most recently in 1963, when one group split into two over a dispute about which calendar the church should follow.
Hozaya and others in the Assyrian Democratic Party are demanding their fair share in representation in the interim governments being established in the north of Iraq. Making up fewer than 5 percent of the Iraqui population, they will never play a large part.
But as the government becomes more democratic, their role as a swing vote will be key.
The two main Kurdish political parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party, "have been ruling this area by themselves," Hozay said. "That's not fair." (The New York Times)
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Activists tout Kurdish women's rights
by Ali Akbar Dareini
AP (21.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (26.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Iraqi women are studying the Kurdish-controlled north to see how women there have improved their status in the male-dominated Muslim society.
Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed virtual independence from the rest of Iraq since 1991, when the U.S., French and British governments set up a no-fly zone over the region.
Although the mountainous enclave has a long patriarchal tradition, during the past decade women here have pushed through legislation granting them unprecedented rights and protecting them from the honor killings that are commonplace elsewhere in the Middle East.
A newly formed Iraqi women's group has sent an eight-member delegation to meet with Kurdish women.
"Now that Iraq is free, we are demanding freedom and equal rights that Iraqi women have always been deprived of," Eman Ahmed, head of team for the Rising Iraqi Women's Organization, said Tuesday.
"To begin our struggle, we first decided to learn from the freedoms Kurdish women have enjoyed since 1991 and the changes they have introduced," she said.
In contrast, stringent curbs were imposed on women's rights in the past decade in the rest of Iraq as dictator Saddam Hussein sought to curry political support from conservative Muslim clerics.
Nowadays, many Iraqis visiting Sulaymaniyah and other Kurdish areas are shocked to see women in senior government positions, not covered by head-to-toe garments or simply walking in the streets unaccompanied by a male relative.
Ahmed said once a new interim government is formed in Baghdad, women's groups will start lobbying it to copy the laws already in force in the Kurdish north.
Last month in Madrid, Spain, a gathering of Iraqi opposition groups issued a statement calling for a newly formed government to respect women's rights.
Sayvan Rostam of the Women's Union of Kurdistan, who hosted the delegation from Baghdad, said before the new laws, honor killings routinely went unpunished in Kurdistan as they do elsewhere in Iraq.
"We have succeeded in getting at least two laws approved in the Kurdish parliament that treat a man killing a women relative on the pretext of honor as murder, and make it illegal for (Muslim) men to simultaneously take more than one wife," she said.
"Before 1991 ... we had no rights," she added. "We didn't even the right to demand justice for women, let alone taking steps to change male-dominated laws."
Shokhan Mahmoud, another Women's Union member, cautioned that much still remained to be done to change attitudes in the traditional, male-oriented society.
"Patterns of life are changing in Kurdistan," she said. "Men's monopoly has begun to melt and women have begun to seek equal rights."
Shiite leader in Baghdad warns women, alcohol sellers, cinemas
AP (16.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (21.05.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Shiite religious leader Mohammed al-Fartussi threatened "sinful women," alcohol sellers and cinemas of grave consequences if they did not stop their practices within a week.
"The cinemas in Al-Saadun Street show indecent films. I warn them: if in a week they do not change, we will act differently with them," he said in a sermon at Muslim weekly prayers at Al-Mohsen mosque in Baghdad's Shiite surburb of Sadr City.
"We warn women and the go-betweens who take them to the Americans: If in a week from now they do not change their attitude, the murder of these women is sanctioned (by Islam)," Fartussi added.
"This warning also goes out to sellers of alcohol, radios and televisions," the imam, or prayer leader, told a crowd of several thousand faithful.
"The torching of cinemas would be permitted" by Islam unless they changed their behavior, Fartussi said.
The Shiite cleric was detained for three days last month by US forces controlling Baghdad, and thousands of Shiites demonstrated in the Iraqi capital to demand his release.
"We will not brook any government that does not represent public opinion," he added, saying Iraq should be governed by religious leaders, not "secular parties."
The faithful at both Al-Mohsen and Kazimiya mosques in Baghdad were also urged to take part in peaceful marches planned for Monday.
"We urge all residents of Baghdad to demonstrate peacefully on Monday, to go to mosques, churches and other religious sites," Imam Khaled al-Kadami told thousands of faithful at the main mosque of the predominantly Shiite district of Kazimiya.
Kadami too said religious leaders were well placed to govern Iraq.
"All Iraqis are devout. Iraq is by nature a religious country, and we reject secular parties," he said.
Fartussi, meanwhile, announced that a special religious committee had been set up to collect items stolen during the wave of looting that swept Baghdad after it fell to US forces on April 9 and Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed.
He warned that looters who did not return their booty would be publicly named during Friday prayers and prosecuted.
Christians 'murdered for selling alcohol'
By Kate Connolly
The Daily Telegraph (09.05.2003)/ / HRWF Int. (10.05.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Two Christians fell victim to the upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism sweeping Iraq when they were shot dead in Basra yesterday by suspected militants attempting to stamp out the sale of alcohol.
The men, who were alcohol vendors in a district of the southern Iraqi city that is home to Armenian and Syrian Catholics, were shot within 10 minutes of each other in their shops by two men, witnesses said.
Shia clerics - whose influence was suppressed under Saddam Hussein - have been warning shopkeepers for weeks to stop selling alcohol or risk severe punishment.
The clerics have become increasingly vocal on a variety of issues, including the status of women, since Saddam's fall.
Under Saddam, Iraqi Christians were the only citizens permitted to sell alcohol. The trade would attract day trippers from neighbouring Kuwait, about two hours' drive away, which has a complete ban on alcohol.
Yesterday shopkeepers closed their doors and warned that such killings were to be expected while the country had no rule of law.
The new Iraq will enjoy freedom...'no matter what your faith
by Richard N. Ostling
AP (08.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (21.05.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - President Bush told a gathering of Iraqi-Americans last week that everyone in the new Iraq will enjoy freedom, "whether you're Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Chaldean or Assyrian or Turkoman or Christian or Jew or Muslim, no matter what your faith."
Given that complex makeup, however, creating effective government is a daunting challenge.
Few places on earth draw upon a richer religious heritage, and a sense of this mosaic underscores the enormity of America's task.
In the Bible, Iraq was the homeland of Abraham, the forefather of Jews, Christians and Muslims, and it is the country where rabbis compiled the Babylonian Talmud that defines traditional Judaism though few Jews remain.
Islam's golden age under the Abbasid caliphs was centered in Baghdad from the eighth to 13th centuries, and Iraq is the holy land of major shrines for Muslim Shiites.
The division between the Shiites and rival Sunnis is fundamental both to Islam, and to Iraq's current political situation.
The split originated when Islam's founding Prophet Muhammad died and Sunnis said he wanted his successors chosen by consensus. Shiites argued the prophet intended leaders to come only from his family line.
Today, Sunnism claims 85 percent of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. Iraq, however, has a Shiite majority (often put at 60 percent, though there are no standard statistics).
But Iraq's Shiites are not a single bloc. Most are Arabs, including culturally separate "marsh Arabs," and there are some Shiites among nomadic Bedouins. Other Shiites can be found among ethnic Kurds, and among the Turkomen who make up perhaps 5 percent of all Iraqis.
Iraq's Sunni minority, meanwhile, is divided into two major groups, the Kurds and Arabs. The Arab Sunnis dominated in Saddam Hussein's regime and repressed both Kurds and Shiites.
The Kurds (estimated at 15 percent to 23 percent of all Iraqis) are divided among themselves by politics, tribe and dialect, yet united by ethnic pride and desire for regional autonomy or their own state.
For the Kurds, "ethnicity matters more than their religion," says Shiite political scientist Vali Nasr of California's Naval Postgraduate School.
Christians in Iraq represent only about 3 percent of the population, but they are well-educated and wielded some influence under Saddam. They belong largely to Iraq's distinctive Chaldean Catholic and Assyrian churches, and are calling for protection of minority rights under the new regime.
Iraq's smaller minority religions include the unique Mandeans, who regard Jesus as an apostate and revere John the Baptist. There also are Yazidis, who believe the devil rules the world.
But ultimately Iraq is a Muslim nation.
And when Saddam's regime fell, Iraq "went from a Sunni to Shiite country overnight," Nasr says.
That fact was dramatized in pilgrimages to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala over the past two weeks, with more than 1 million worshippers in the streets.
Given that groundswell and simple math, it seems that if the United States sets up elections in Iraq, Shiite candidates will likely dominate in many places. Nasr doubts that even secularized or mildly religious Shiites would vote for Sunnis.
And Shiite religious leaders will want a major say in the educational system, says Shama Inati, a professor at Villanova University.
Abdulazia Sachedina of the University of Virginia, who trained in both Shiite and Sunni schools, says the Shiite religious system enhances the importance of clerics.
"Sunni religious leaders don't have power or credibility with the people. They're government appointees," he says. By contrast, the Shiite leaders, called ayatollahs, are supported by people who freely choose to give them donations. Says Sachedina: "The layman is really connected closely with the ayatollah."
What sort of regime might Shiism produce?
Scholars think a truly representative regime would have some sort of Islamic cast: It wouldn't be a secular democracy with American-style separation of church and state.
The majority of Iraqis, and 90 percent or more in neighboring Iran, follow Shiism's Ithna Ashari ("Twelver") branch, so some wonder whether Iraq will imitate Iran's 1979 revolution and install rule by clerics.
Despite the clerics' importance, Nasr and Sachedina say no.
Iraq and Iran have different languages and cultures, for one thing. More importantly, clerical rule actually violates Shiite tradition so the Iranian revolution was a break from the past. Teachers like Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani, generally considered Iraq's highest religious authority, have opposed Iran's theocratic system.
Still, though the ayatollahs now maneuvering in Iraq will not hold political office, Sachedina predicts, their devoted followers something like 40 percent of the Shiite population will obey their endorsements of candidates and fatwas (religious edicts) they issue on political policy.
As for the Sunnis, they are now organizing through mosques, Nasr says. Uniting as a political force was something they didn't need to be concerned about while Saddam was in power.
Sachedina is worried about inroads being made among Sunnis by Saudi Arabia's puritanical Wahhabi movement, which has been connected with the rise of extremism and despises Shiism.
But Inati, an Orthodox Christian from Lebanon, believes that Iraq's complex and pluralistic nature will help the country in the end.
Iraq is so diverse that even those calling for an Islamist state "will try to be tolerant because they know it will not work out otherwise."
She also is optimistic about postwar relations between Islam's two main branches. Shiites, she says, "felt poorly treated the last 30 years not by the Sunni population" but by Saddam.
Iraq's Assyrians struggle for power
Matthew Gutman
Jerusalem Post (08.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (10.05.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website: http://www.hrwf.net -Last week, Yonadam Y. Kanna, secretary-general of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), did something unusual for one of the leaders of Iraq's 60 or so emerging political parties: He cleaned the bathroom sink at ADM's headquarters.
While other leaders enjoy the princely luxury allotted for the first time to leaders other than Saddam Hussein, Kanna seems to work hard at practicing the democracy he preaches.
Considered a medium-sized movement, ADM has all the trappings of what is considered a serious Iraqi party these daysimpressive offices, a charismatic leader, a clear vision, and lots of men with AK-47s standing guard outside.
ADM is not one of the six parties, including Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and the Kurdish groups, on the steering committee that is set to establish an interim government later this month. However, the fate of Iraq one day might hinge upon parties like ADM, which might swing the country away from Islamization or authoritarianism.
A grassroots leader, who ate standing with the rest of his men Tuesday, Kanna fears the return of "fossil ideology," the type of arcane and impracticable policies that guided many Arab states, including Iraq, toward civil and financial ruin.
Kanna, who derides the "Pan-Arabic media" as "extremist and bribed by Saddam," paints himself as a true moderate. He believes in a secular, democratic, and constitutional Iraq, which would accept the cultures and traditions of its minorities.
Unabashedly, he envisions a peace agreement with Israel, once the issue of "Palestinian statehood is solved." Many Arab countries, he says, "continue to invest heavily in the conflict, using it as a tool to persuade their own people. They have been too busy lining their own pockets and looking after their own interests."
Nobody wants an American presence on Iraqi soil, adds Kanna, but he remains a steadfast supporter of an international presence in the country, "because we need the tools, the technology, and the experts to rebuild."
It is ironic, or perhaps a symbol of what could happen in the new Iraq, that ADM has ensconced itself, and its many armed guards, in the former headquarters the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary group, the regime's main tool of repression.
Midway through the interview, Kanna notes offhandedly the two death sentences the regime meted out against him.
Isaak Ishak, the movement's deputy secretary-general, reasons that for years Iraq sought the patronage of the communist bloc, "and the country is now much worse off than it was before Saddam. So now we will try to follow the lead of Europe and the US."
The cooperation has already begun in earnest. Saddam's regime often considered the Assyrians its most faithful servants. Nevertheless, it was an Assyrian employee of the regime who on April 10 alerted American intelligence officers that Saddam and his sons had entered a Mansur district restaurant.
While the bombing missed its mark, American officials nonetheless hailed it as the closest it had come to decapitating the regime. ADM, its officials make pains to note, also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the North.
Long before Arabic dominated the Middle East, the Assyrian language and Aramaic served as the region's lingua franca. But the centuries have not treated this shrinking Christian sect kindly.
ADM began fighting Saddam in 1979. Suffering continuous losses, it moved north toward Iraqi Kurdistan in 1988 and joined the Kurdish forces fighting there to carve out a semi-autonomous safe haven.
The Assyrians claim to hail from the biblical-era nation that conquered much of what is today Israel. They claim a 7,000-year-old history in present-day Iraq. A few churches dating back to the fifth century still dot the northern countryside.
In modern times, the group, which today numbers about 1.25 million, was doubly mistreated; first by the regime and then by their Kurdish landlords.
Few locals have heard of ADM, and it appears doubtful that it will be able to garner enough votes to influence Iraq's future when the country goes to a referendum later this month. The balance of power is heavily tilted toward Shi'ite groups, many of them radical.
While they cling to a semblance of tolerance, proffering a future democracy and multi-party system, there could be cause for suspicion among the burgeoning Shi'ite groups.
During a visit to the Diyala Governorate, a stronghold of the Iran-backed and funded Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, its local leader, Abu Muslim al-Jaffari, offered Iran as a model for a "democratic state," arguing intensely for over an hour that minorities enjoyed rights and even some power there.
Responding to reports that as many as 700 of the party's Badr Brigades militia flooded Diyala, he vowed that none had entered any part of Iraq. "No one here is armed. We are politicians and civil servants only," he said.
But merchants hawking vegetables, AK-47s, and pistols lined Diyala's capital of Ba'aquba. When Jaffari's interview with The Jerusalem Post ended, he accompanied me to the large lobby of the former governor's office, now commandeered by SCIRI. Several of his men were fiddling with an AK-47. They were dressed in fatigues, and like mischievous schoolboys self-consciously tried to hide the gun behind their backs.
Al-Dawa, the most veteran of the Shi'ite political groups, which struggled against and suffered bitterly at the hands of the regime, also promises democracy. But Iraq must be Islamic, argues an eloquent Abdul Karim al-Anzi, the group's Baghdad leader. He refused to say that he desires a state with "constitutional Islamic laws."
When probed on what action he would take to limit the hundreds of vendors selling alcohol in Baghdad's streets, he replied, "We would have to persuade them against it."
Back at the partially destroyed Fedayeen headquarters, Kanna concluded: "There is still some of the virus that was Saddam in this region, still extremism and frankly, we need some help to save us from that fate."
Obscure sect hopes for greater freedom in new Iraq
by Mike Williams
Cox News Service (04.05.2003 )/ HRWF Int. (06.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Their holiest shrine is hidden in a mountain valley paradise, tucked among olive and rosewood trees by a babbling stream, the clean white spires of their temples nestled among the greenery and steep valley walls.
The bearded monks wear all white and go barefoot, lighting wicks dipped in olive oil and leaving small offerings of eggshells daubed with brightly-colored mud on round white rocks in a sunlit courtyard.
The Yezidis are an ancient sect with beliefs so old they claim they have no sacred book because their roots stretch back to the time before writing was invented.
But to the villagers living just outside the Yezidi enclave at the base of northern Iraq's towering mountains, they are known as devil-worshippers, followers of God's fallen angel, Lucifer. People whisper fearful things about them.
"They say we have tails," said Dildar Ahmed, 30, an economics student at a nearby university who was born into the sect. "You wouldn't believe the rumors about our religion."
While the group does have a few seemingly strange practices, such as never wearing blue and never eating lettuce, their most holy shrine is far from a sinister place.
Other than a black snake carved in relief by the temple's main door, the retreat is a stunning oasis of peace and tranquility in war-torn Iraq.
Swallows dart about the courtyard, which has a small fountain fed by the babbling stream where acolytes wash their hands and faces. A trellis supporting spindly grape vines covers the whitewashed tomb of a holy man set in the courtyard.
The heavy wooden doors to the main shrine open silently, and the swallows immediately flit inside, chirping in the cool darkness as if it were a special home for them, too.
The bodies of several ancient holy men lay entombed within, their marble coffins draped in colorful banners. The tall white conical spire that is the centerpiece sweeps dramatically overhead, the walls carved in intricate patterns.
"We began worshipping the sun in the days before there were Christians or Muslims," claims Babashir Kharto Ishmail, a gray-bearded elder priest dressed in immaculate white who welcomes visitors with tea. "We still pray to the sun at dawn and dusk each day, but we know the sun is not our God. He is alone and the source of all, the same God of the Christians, Muslims and Jews."
Ishmail said the sect believes not in Lucifer the devil, but that God's fallen angel returned to power as the Almighty's chief angel. The Yezidis call him "Malak," and he is represented by a peacock, a pair of which are carved into the rock lintel over the shrine's doors.
The exact story is lost in the mists of history, although some scholars trace the Yezidis to a Zoroastrian sect that emerged from Iran. There are Yezidis scattered around the world, with a large population in India, although this area of Iraq seems to be their spiritual homeland.
The believers here are mostly ethnic Kurds, and while there was no discrimination against their religion under Saddam Hussein's secular regime dominated by Sunni Muslims, many Yezidis were forcibly displaced from their homes along with other Kurds.
Now the sect's leaders hope that a new, free Iraq will give them the opportunity to modernize, building a more prosperous life, but one in which they can hold onto their ancient beliefs.
"We don't want a religious government," Ishmail said. "All are free to worship as they believe, but the government should be separate from those beliefs."
A Christian Assyrian killed by Kurdish Muslims in Kirkuk
Willy Fautr
HRWF Int. (06.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - During and in the aftermath of the liberation of Iraq by the U.S. forces, Kurdish Peshmerga have threatened, forcibly driven non-Kurds out of their homes and even killed some of them in Kirkuk and at other places in northern Iraq.
This was the fate of Hazim Petrus Damman, an Assyrian-Chaldean, born in 1949 in northern Iraq. On April 10, 2003, the day after "the liberation", he was driving home in a company car from the Kirkuk oil company he was working for when he fell into an ambush laid by Peshmergas who were obviously waiting for him on his usual way back home. After shooting him down, they simply dragged his corpse out of the car and drove off in his vehicle, leaving him excruciatingly bleeding.
An ambulance later arrived only to discover that Hazim was dead. Due to the massive anarchy and chaos in the streets of Kirkuk in the following days, it took his traumatized family ten days to know his whereabouts. His brother Ghanim, a doctor, finally managed to find the hospital he had been taken to and discovered his body in the hospital freezer.
Hazim Petrus Damman had completed his college degree as a chemical engineer and had worked for an oil company in Kirkuk. He was married but had no children.
Some eye-witnesses think the Peshmerga intelligence had successfully targeted Hazim as a Chaldean-Assyrian, someone who would soon be an obstacle in their way towards reclaiming their "hometown", and had therefore been tracing his daily route from work to home in the previous days.
For additional background information, see Human Rights Watch Report "Iraq: Forcible expulsion of ethnic minorities:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0303/
Iraqi women facing uncertainty in status
by Sabrina Tavernise
The New York Times (05.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (07.05.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - It was Friday afternoon and the women in the Nimo Beauty Salon were talking politics. While thousands of people flocked to mosques for prayer services, the women debated the difficulties of democracy while getting cuts and colors.
What, for instance, if the people elect a religious leader? Would the Americans allow this to happen even if the Iraqi people wanted it? And where would that leave Iraqi women?
As enormous change sweeps Iraqi society, some women are viewing newfound religious freedoms nervously. Iraq does not have a history of religious fundamentalism. Its women enjoyed near-parity with men for several decades until the 1970s.
The current situation is something new. Exhausted Iraqis are looking for answers in the chaos and power vacuum that have followed the war. One customer at Nimo's heard a conservative Muslim religious leader on local radio calling for all women to wear the hijab, a head covering. Religious services have been attended as never before.
"I want to move freely, live a joyful life out in the open," said Nimo Din'Kha Skander, the owner of the salon, which was lined with women waiting for haircuts and facials. Nimo's is small but well known; Din'Kha Skander likes to recall that Saddam Hussein's second wife had her hair done there.
"I don't want a government of religion," Din'Kha Skander continued. Religion, she said, is "a private thing."
Over the past decade, younger women have grown more literal with their adherence to Islam. A decade ago, only two or three women out of a college class of 30 were covering their heads, said Tara al-Chalabi, 31, a member of the U.N. staff in Baghdad. Now the ratio is reversed. She attributes that to the constraints and privations that have shaped young people's lives.
Suha Turaihi, a retired diplomat who served in India, said: "For 20 years they didn't travel -- they were not exposed to Western values as we were. They are children of wars and embargo."
At the same time, women's rights were being curtailed by Hussein's edicts. For instance, women younger than 45 can no longer travel alone, but must be accompanied by brothers, fathers or sons. The restrictions and the recent social conservatism have come as a blow to older, educated women, who fought against head scarves, arranged marriages and other constraints.
"I can't bear it, I can't accept it," said Amel al-Khoudairy, owner of an art gallery that was destroyed in the looting. "It was our pride that we didn't wear hijab. I was one of the first in my family not to."
Beginning in the 1920s, women began getting university educations, first to become teachers and later to enter medicine, diplomacy and other professions. By the 1950s, women were traveling abroad alone to study. Turaihi left for college in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1956 at age 18. She said she was so focused on her career as a diplomat that she never married.
The question in the beauty parlor -- a one-room shop in Baghdad's bustling Karrada neighborhood -- was what would happen next. A U.S.-led team is running the country, a force that most said they rarely saw or heard.
In the opinion of some Iraqi women, Americans are the preferred leaders. A U.S.-led government could be more amenable to women in politics, they said.
"When an Iraqi comes to rule, after two years he turns on us -- he becomes a dragon," said Hanah Radhi, wearing a hijab as she waited for a facial.
Of the 12 women interviewed for this story -- mostly middle- and upper-class women in Baghdad, Iraq's most cosmopolitan city -- only Turaihi saw a serious prospect of a religious leader being voted into power. Suad al-Radhi, 85, said Iraqi society was too diverse, with many different religious groupings -- Sunni, Shiite, Christian -- for any one to take over.
"In Iraq, religion did not play the central role," said Radhi, the former head in Baghdad of the Red Crescent, the Muslim counterpart of the Red Cross. "The country is made of several religions. That created tolerance."
Even if one group became strong enough and was supported by a majority of the people, the United States would not allow a religious leader to run the government, predicted Balkis Mj-ali, a political scientist at Baghdad University.
"America will not give the freedom to the Iraqi government to do what it wants," said Mj-ali at her home in central Baghdad. "Elections are a well-known game. Leaders will come and go, but America will still be in control of Iraq, its oil and its future."
Iraqi Christian leaders want a constitution that respects human rights
Especially "Religious, Cultural, Social and Political Rights"
(Zenit.org) (30.04.2003)/ HRWF Int. (06.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christian patriarchs and bishops of Iraq have asked that their country's future Constitution recognize fundamental human rights, particularly religious liberty.
In a signed statement published today by the Vatican press office, the religious leaders also called for dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
When Christianity and Islam met, their respective 'holy ones' began the two religions in respectful and reciprocal coexistence," the statement affirms.
"By virtue of our original right of belonging to the most ancient peoples of this land, we claim for ourselves and for all those who live in it today, whether a majority or minority, united by a long history of coexistence, the full right to live in a state of law, in peace, freedom, justice and equality, according to the Human Rights Charter," the document continues.
Iraqi Christians -- Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrians, Armenians, Greeks, and La | 