Iraq: Equality of rights for the Kurd language is progress - religious minorities still disadvantaged

While Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq are still arguing on the draft of the future constitution, the passages on the rights of minorities have already been finalized. The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) welcomes this as an exemplary and unique settlement in the Arab world, that beside Arabic a second official language, Kurdish, has been officially recognized. Kurdish is spoken by about five million Iraqi citizens. After decades of war crimes and genocide against some 500.000 Kurds (1961-2002) a partially autonomous republic now gives them security, so that crimes like those of the past are as good as ruled out.

The GfbV regrets however that the rights of non-Muslim minorities are not expressly anchored in the constitution and thus protected. The draft of the constitution identifies Islam as the source of justice, and ensures that its principles are not violated. Islamic rights and customs are explicitly guaranteed. Christians, Mandaeans and Yezidi are at a disadvantage:

1.There are in Iraq some 650.000 Christians, who up until today speak the mother language of Jesus, Aramaic in a modern version. They are mentioned in the constitution under the term Chaldeans and Assyrians, but they are not protected as members of the Christian religion. Since the end of the "hot" phase of the war they have been victims of murder, abduction, the destruction of churches and deportations for the reason that they are Christians. The Iraqi Christians belong today to five confessions. Tens of thousands of them have had to flee to Syria, Jordan and North Iraq.

2. The Mandaeans, who likewise speak Aramaic, hark back in their tradition to John the Baptist and are one of the oldest religious communities in the Mesopotamian area. Many of them have also been victimized. Hundreds of Mandaeans have been abducted and shops destroyed. Being a very small religious community they have no protective network and are prey to the arbitrary acts of Islamistic groups. Hundreds of Mandaean families have already fled to Syria or Jordan, often only just managing to save their lives. However they are not recognized as refugees, they have no right to work, their children cannot go to school and they often live in great poverty.

3. The kurdish-speaking Yezidi, of whom there are some 600.000, belong to an old independent religion, which is passed down orally. Like the Muslim Kurds they were the victims of the destruction policies under Saddam Hussein. Their position is particularly difficult in the constitution because the general freedom of religion anchored there provides no protection. Yezidi is in the eyes of many Iraqis not a religion at all because it is not a book religion. Fanatical Moslems put forward passages of the Koran as a legitimation of their persecution of the Yezidi. The Yezidi were persecuted to such an extent in Turkey that nearly all of them had to flee in the 80s. Some 40.000 of them are living in Germany alone.