An American report shows that Kurdistan Region's status is better for communities than Iraq

Reports 11:04 PM - 2023-05-19

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The US State Department recently released its annual report on the state of religious freedom in the Kurdistan Region, which it deemed to be "better than Iraq" because the report criticized the Iraqi security forces and Popular Mobilization Forces for their poor treatment of minorities and provided examples of prisons filled with people detained for their beliefs.

The Chaldeans Patriarch, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, was reported as saying in the State Department report: "In numerous regions of Nineveh province and other areas of Ikor, including Ankawa, Hazar Jot village (Akre district), and Barda Rash district in Amedi, some political groups continue to seize the property of Christians."

The Kurdistan Region's minorities, meanwhile, claim that their parliamentary representatives are not their favorites.

The Kurdistan Region is better than Iraq

The Kurdistan Region is better than Iraq, according to the US State Department's annual report on the state of religious freedom worldwide for 2022, released on May 15, 2023.

"Restrictions on freedom of religion remained widespread outside the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), and Iraqi security forces (ISF) committed violence against and harassed members of minority groups, according to religious leaders and representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)," said the report.

The report pointed out: "Activities that promote the normalization of relations with Israel have long been illegal, with penalties as severe as life in prison and a law passed in May that reinstated the death penalty as a potential sentence. The legal code also prohibits Jews from joining the military and holding jobs in the public sector."

Kurds and Shiites are stronger

Cardinal Sako stated his hope in the report that Christians, Yezidis, and Mandais be integrated with the formation of the government in a collective national spirit.  Minorities have also complained about being overlooked by the government and institutions.

In the parliamentary elections in October 2021, there have also been complaints regarding the rights of minorities, and the State Department says in its report: "After the October 2021 parliamentary elections, many minority community leaders complained that larger and more powerful parties—predominantly Shia and Kurdish parties—succeeded in bolstering their preferred candidates for parliamentary quota seats reserved for minority communities, so that nonminority parties had significant influence in electing representatives for minority communities."

As "the second monotheistic religion in Iraq," Christians should be accorded equal rights and treatment, according to a statement made by the Chaldean Patriarch on August 6.

The report claims that he warned that "some political parties are still confiscating Christian properties in several areas of Ninewa province and other areas in the IKR, such as the town of Ankawa, the village of Hazar Jot (Akre district), and the village of Bardah Rasch (Amedi district). The necessary procedures to return these usurped properties are yet to take place until today, despite our follow-up."

Cardinal Sako shared his wish that the government formation negotiations "could also include Christians, Yezidis, and Mandaeans in a collective national spirit."

"In 2020, the KRG Council of Ministers established a high-level committee to resolve outstanding land disputes affecting Christian communities. The committee had returned 55 Christian properties confiscated by the old Baathist dictatorship as of November. Of these, courts either adjudicated 38 cases or the original owners dropped the charges. The committee included representatives from the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament, IKR Presidency, IKR Judicial Council, KRG Ministries of Justice, Agriculture, Municipalities, and Finance, and the head of IKR’s Independent Human Rights Commission," the report mentioned.

Almost a thousand refugee families sought passports in one day

It is highlighted in the US State Department report as a drawback in the region that the Yazidi refugees in the camps in Duhok experience bureaucracy in obtaining official documentation.

On June 30, Minister of Interior Othman al-Ghanimi called for the continued issuance of official documents and passports to IDPs from Ninewa Province in the IDP camps in Dohuk Province. Ghanimi said that during a single day, over 1,000 IDP families applied for official documents in camps in Duhok. The lack of official documentation affects many IDPs, the majority of whom are Yezidis. Both Yezidi and Christian leaders reported excessive bureaucratic procedures that delayed their obtaining official documentation.

Christians are fewer now

There are less than 150,000 Christians left in the nation, according to Christian leaders, NGOs, and the media. The number of Christians was less than 1.5 million, according to a pre-2003 estimate. Christians make up roughly 67% of the population who practice the Eastern form of the Roman Catholic Church known as Chaldean Catholicism, while the Eastern Assyrian Church accounts for about 20 % of Christians. The remainder are Anglicans, various Protestant and Evangelical Christians, Syrian Catholics, Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, Armenian Apostolics, and others.

The Yazidis are in Nineveh

According to Yazidi authorities, most of the country's 400,000-500,000 Yazidis live in Nineveh Province and the Kurdistan Region. As of August, there were roughly 170,000 to 200,000 Yazidis who were internally displaced, and as of October 2020, there were 200,000 to 230,000 Yazidis. The Shabak number is between 350,000 and 400,000, three-quarters of whom are Shiites.

The majority of Sunni Shabaks and some Shiite Shabaks reside in Nineveh. According to Kakai activists, their group has 120,000 to 150,000 members who dwell in Diyala, Erbil, the Nineveh Plain, and the territories southeast of Kirkuk. The KRG claims that there are between 110,000 and 200,000 Kakais.

The number of Sabi'i-Mandai followers throughout the country has been estimated to range from 10,000 to 15,000, with 450 to 1,000 of them residing in Ikor and Baghdad, according to Sabi'i-Mandai officials.

More than one million Iraqis were displaced

The report also mentions: "The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the country estimates that as of September 30, there were approximately 1.2 million internally displaced people living in the nation, primarily in the provinces of Nineveh, Dohuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Kirkuk, as opposed to the same number at the end of 2021 and 1.5 million at the end of 2020."

"According to the KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Center, as of November, there are approximately 664,996 IDPs in the IKR, compared with 664,909 in 2021. According to the center, there are 253,960 Syrian, 8,890 Turkish, 9,982 Iranian, and 787 Palestinian refugees, as well as 628 individuals of other nationalities in the IKR. Of the IDPs throughout the IKR, 40 % are Sunni Arabs, 30 % are Yezidis, 13 % are Kurds (of several religious affiliations), and 7 % are Christians. Other minority religious groups comprise the remaining 10 %," the report added.



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