|
A.C.N - Aid to the Church in Need Italian Office |
Religious Freedom in
the Majority Islamic Countries |
|
Iraq Population:
22,219,000
Islam is the state religion. Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees the religious liberty of the minorities. Modern Iraq has inherited a territory of ancient civilisations and great empires where different faiths, cultures and races have always lived together side by side. The recent history of the country, following the decadence that came with the end of the Ottoman domination, has been a succession of coups, insurrections and ethnic tensions, added to in no small measure by the developed countries, in the context of the struggle between the West and the Soviet bloc. The current President of the Republic, Saddam Hussein (who has ruled the country since 1979), is the leader of the Baath party, a political force with its roots in a Pan Arabism of a secular and national socialist character. However, with the passage of time, Saddam Hussein has increasingly emphasised his appeals and references to Islam, presenting himself in the new guise of defender of the "true faith". Iraq is made up of a mosaic of peoples and races, whose relationships have not always been easy. The most obvious division is that between the Arabs living in the South and the Kurds, whose homelands are in the North. Among the latter there is a Christian minority, known as the Assyro-Chaldeans, who represent one of the most ancient Christian communities in the East and who have preserved the use of the Syriac language, a variety of Aramaic, which is generally recognised as having been the language spoken by Christ. The presence of ancient Christian communities - borne out by the convents and monasteries which date back to the 5th or 6th century - itself goes right back to the 2nd century, when Christianity first appeared in the regions of Edessa, Ctesiphone and Nsibe. Currently in Iraq Christians enjoy a real tolerance. There are even Christian ministers in the government, such as the Chaldean, Tariq Aziz, the vice prime minister. However, there are difficulties nonetheless. According to the evidence of Father Timothy Radcliffe, Superior General of the Dominicans, who was interviewed by Fides on April 24 1998 on his return from a recent trip to Iraq, "the Christians - especially the young - are experiencing a period of great difficulty in the country, which has prompted a worrying phenomenon of emigration. Those who do not emigrate," Father Radcliffe continues, "are subjected to strong pressure to marry Muslims." Figures dating from the period after the Gulf war indicate a flow of Christians out of Iraq of around 150,000 persons. A similar picture emerges from the description of Cyrille Emmanuel Benni of Mosul, who has described with much concern the situation of the Karakosh region, where there are 22,000 Christians living. Government control over public education is extremely strict, so that it is not easy to introduce religious texts other than Islamic ones. The Church-run schools have been closed for some time. According to the law the Christian religion should also be taught where Christians represent more than 25% of the population, but in the towns this law is not respected, unlike the situation in the villages. These tensions sometimes even take the form of real acts of violence against Christians, above all against the Assyro- Chaldean minority. On the evening of May 12 1996, in the town of Ankaoua, in Iraqui Kurdistan, a number of Assyro-Chaldeans of the Union of Assyro-Chaldean Students and Young People were killed or injured by a group of Kurds, who opened fire on them without any provocation. Samir Mouché and Peres Mirza Sliwo were killed, while two other young people were wounded. These two murders were the latest of around 30 committed since April 1991 against the Assyro- Chaldean Christian community in northern Iraq. On February 10 1997, Lazar Matta and his son Aval were savagely murdered on the streets of Chaklawa in the north of the country, by a crowd of hundreds of Kurds. These acts of persecution against Christians of the Assyro-Chaldean community are also mentioned in the Report on Religious Freedom of the American State Department, and in an official report of the United Nations. The latter report stresses that there was "continuing discrimination and persecution against the Assyro-Chaldean Christians throughout the whole of 1996". It is not possible to express opinions publicly; anything that the Church might say, if stated in public before two witnesses, can become grounds for the death penalty. Christians are subjected to numerous forms of discrimination. The religious education institutes have been nationalised, but Saddam Hussein has succeeded in maintaining good relations, partly through financial support. To the outside observer, the Church might seem too close to the regime, but for Christians living in the country even this regime of terror is seen as a lesser evil. Nothing better can be expected either from the collapse of the regime, or from an Islamic revolution. It is hard to imagine a post-Saddam phase. The President has supported the construction of Christian buildings. At Karakosh there is a vast parish centre built with the support of the international Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need. Twenty thousand souls populate this rare example of a Christian town. In the north, meanwhile, where the Kurds are still fighting, the situation remains desperate. Hundreds of villages where Christians also live have been put to fire and the sword, 150 churches and religious houses have been destroyed, and the number of Christians is decreasing further every day. |
|