Personal appeal to Iraq ’s Prime Minister: Minorities need especial protection!

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) will hand the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in a personal meeting during his visit to Berlin an appeal to give especial protection to the smaller communities in Mesopotamia . „Irak does certainly find itself in a very difficult position and is always being shaken by the attacks of international terrorists which are supported from neighbouring countries. But because they suffer particularly from persecution it is precisely the ethnic and religious minorities — like the Assyro-Chaldaean Christians, the Mandaeans, the Shabak, the Armenians, the Yezidi and the Feilis — which need protection. So we appeal to you to take the example of the minorities policy of the autonomous federal state of Kurdistan in North Iraq and to give these groups nationality rights“, says the letter from the GfbV, which t he two Assyro-Chaldaean Christians, Pater Emanuel Youkhana and Kamel Zomaya, who are living in exile in Germany, will bring to the head of state. Al-Maliki arrives in the German capital today, Tuesday.

After the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 the situation of the smaller ethnic groups in Iraq has not improved, but deteriorated, writes the GfbV, which has for several years been represented in the autonomous North Iraqi federal state of Kurdistan with an independent section. Members of these groups are subject to constant danger in central and southern Iraq . Hundreds of thousands have had to take to flight in the face of deliberate attacks, abductions, rape and constant oppression. For this reason the Mandaeans, for example, who number only a few thousand members, are threatened in their complete existence. The Christian ethnic group stands in central and southern Iraq before the Exodus.

It lies in the responsibility of the Iraqi government and all Iraqis to conserve the variety of cultures in their country and to combat threats. The three largest groups in Iraq — the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds — must find a solution for all Iraqis so that they can find new confidence in the future and feel safe in their own country. Fair co-existence calls for fundamental changes in the Iraqi constitution. Religious freedom must be guaranteed and therefore the separation of state and religion must be secured. The central government must also put into practice political, cultural and administrative rights for minorities.

The GfbV also draws attention in its letter to the fact that Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution has still not been implemented. As a consequence the people of the areas where the administration is controversial can freely decide in a referendum whether their areas shall belong to federal=2 0state of Iraqi Kurdistan or to the central government in Baghdad . This is the only way of overcoming the consequences of the policy of forcible Arabicization of the Baath regime. Iraq can only continue to exist in its present boundaries if the peaceful co-existence of all ethnic and religious minorities is secured. In Iraq there are still about 400,000 Assyro-Chaldaean Christians, 400,000 Turkmens, 550,000 70,000 Shabaks, 500,000 Feili Kurds, 18,000 Armenians and less than 5,000 Mandaeans.