Iraqi minorities being harassed, killed and driven from the country

IRAQ: Half the members of Iraq's minority groups have been driven from the country by persecution, kidnappings, murder and the widespread violence which has gripped the country since the 2003 war. The London-based Minority Rights Group has revealed in a report that "the very existence of some of these groups in their ancient homeland is now under threat."

The report, Assimilation, Exodus, Eradication: Iraq's Minority Communities since 2003, written by Preti Taneja, says that the country's minorities, 10 per cent of the total population before the war, now make up 30 per cent of the 1.8 million refugees living outside the country.

The minorities include Chaldean, Syriac and Armenian Christians; Turkomen, ethnic Turks who are both Sunnis and Shias; Bahais; Mandaeans, a pacifist faith whose prophet is John the Baptist; Yazidis whose religion is an offshoot of Zoroastrianism; and Faili or Shia Kurds; and Shabaks, a Farsi-speaking mainly Shia ethnic group. The small Jewish community, which had a few hundred members before the war, has dwindled to 15 indivi- duals in Baghdad.

Christians, most of whom are ethnic Assyrians, are being targeted because fundamentalist Shias and Sunnis accuse them of co-operating with the occupation.

This allegation is made because many Christians have close ties to family members who live in the West and some Christians served as interpreters for the foreign occupation forces.

The remnants of the small Jewish community, which arrived in Iraq during the time of the Babylonian capitivity, are seen as US collaborators and Israeli agents.

Places of worship are being bombed, clerics attacked, individuals siezed and held for ransom, women abused and forced to don conservative Muslim dress.

Christian shops selling alcohol are set alight and their owners killed. Yazidis and Faili Kurds, who live in the north, are being pressed by Kurdish parties to follow their agendas or claim Kurdish identity.

Turkomen living in Kirkuk are being driven from their homes by Kurds seeking to transform the city into a Kurdish domain and annex it to the Kurdish region. Bahais, seen by Sunnis and Shias as heretics, are denied citizenship.

The 2005 constitution was drafted without input from minorities who are deprived of rights they enjoyed under earlier constitutions. Minority groups were protected under Saddam Hussein in exchange for backing for his regime.

Palestinian residents, who received privileged treatment under the old regime, are also being harrassed, killed and driven from Iraq. Hundreds have been trapped in squalid camps in no man's land on the Iraqi-Jordanian border.

The plight of Iraq's minorities is "ignored and unaddressed inside Iraq and in the international arena," the report says.

It calls upon the Iraqi government to protect minorities, create an independent body to investigate human rights abuses, and promote minority participation in public life.

Neighbouring states are asked to halt financial and other aid to militias that persecute minorities and the international community, particularly countries in North America and Europe, are called upon to provide sanctuary for Iraqis, including entire communities.

The report says, Iraqis in danger of persecution and attack should not be returned to their homeland.