Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Under Iraq’s 2005 constitution, Islam is the official state religion and a “source of legislation”. According to Article 2, nothing can contradict Islam, the principles of democracy or constitutionally recognised rights and freedoms. Under Article 2, the Islamic identity of most Iraqis and the religious rights of Christians, Yazidis, and Mandean Sabeans enjoy equal protection.
Article 4 states that Iraqis have the right “to educate their children in their mother tongue, such as Turkmen, Assyrian, and Armenian”, which “shall be guaranteed in government educational institutions in accordance with educational guidelines, or in any other language in private educational institutions.”
Racism, terrorism, and takfirism (accusing other Muslims of apostasy) are banned under Article 7. The state has a duty under Article 10 to maintain and protect “holy shrines and religious sites” with the right to use them freely for the “practice of rituals”.
Equality before the law is guaranteed under Article 14, “without discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief or opinion, or economic or social status.” The state is bound by Article 3 to protect individuals “from intellectual, political and religious coercion”.
According to Article 41, the law regulates personal status according to the various “religions, sects, beliefs, or choices”. “[F]reedom of thought, conscience, and belief” are guaranteed under Article 42.
Iraqis are free, under Article 43, to practise their religious rites, manage their religious affairs, institutions and endowments (waqf) as “regulated by law”. Likewise, the state guarantees and protects places of worship in accordance with Article 43 (2).
Muslims cannot convert to other religions due to the personal status laws and regulations. Under Article 372 of the 1969 Penal Code, insulting religious beliefs, practices, symbols, or individuals seen as holy, worshipped or revered can be punished with imprisonment of up to three years or fines.
By law, nine seats out of 329 in the Council of Representatives (lower house of parliament) are reserved for members of minority groups: five seats for Christians from Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Erbil, and Dohuk; a seat each for the Yazidis, Sabean-Mandaeans, and Shabaks, as well as one for Faili Kurds from Wasit. Also, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament, 11 out of 111 seats are reserved for religious and ethnic minorities.
Incidents and developments
Five years after Iraq officially declared victory over ISIS, the ramifications of the jihadist occupation of large parts of the country can still be felt. Assaults by Sunni jihadists continue, and these groups have even stepped-up attacks on Shiites in large cities like Baghdad and Basra.
Over 200,000 Yazidis remain internally displaced in urban areas or displacement camps. Over “2,700 Yazidi women and children are still missing ever since they were abducted by Daesh from Sinjar”, some reportedly held in Syria or Turkey.
Christians are hesitant to return to Mosul, the former “capital” of ISIS. In the Nineveh Plains, still the Christian heartland, the economic and security situation is bad due to sectarian militias. There are also external factors like the continuous Turkish aerial attacks in northern Iraq, affecting the population in general and religious minorities like Yazidis and Christians specifically. The following incidents in the period under review are thus representative.
In March 2021, Pope Francis visited Iraq. He was the first Pope ever to do so and was welcomed by the heads of state and government. He visited Bagdad, Erbil, Najaf, Qaraqosh, Ur, and Mosul. Interreligious highlights were a meeting with Shia leader Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Al-Husayni Al-Sistani and a gathering at the House of Abraham in Ur.
In March, Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi announced that 6 March will become a “National Day of Tolerance and Coexistence” in Iraq. The announcement came after Pope Francis’ meeting with Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani.
In March, the Iraqi parliament passed the “Yazidi Survivor Law”. It provides that members of the Yazidi and other minorities who survived ISIS atrocities are to be compensated by the government. Reparations include “a monthly stipend, providing a plot of land or other accommodation and educational and therapy services to survivors. The move was widely welcomed as a first and necessary step”. A year on, however, according to Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, a Yazidi psychologist and trauma therapist, “the benefits to survivors have not materialized yet,” and the Survivor Law does not account for children who were born to Yazidi women in captivity.
In March, Iraqi parliamentarians from religious and ethnic minorities were able to boycott a change in the law aimed at exclusively appointing Islamic experts as consultants to the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq.
In April, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, asked for the removal of definitions that offend Christians from school texts like “infidels” or “polytheists” (takfir, kafir).
In April, the Kurdistan Regional Government announced the establishment of an ad hoc committee to counter illegal expropriations of property in Iraqi Kurdistan and especially in the Dohuk region. Over the years, Christians and other religious or ethnic minority groups have suffered from land theft. Expropriations of land and real estate belonging to Christians in the Iraqi Kurdistan region by Kurdish fellow citizens were denounced already in 2016.
In May, Turkish bombardment damaged a church in Miska. Ongoing Turkish operations directed against the PKK have forced many Christian villagers to flee their homes.
In June, the largely Christian suburb of Ankawa in Erbil, was designated an official district by Masrour Barzan, Prime Minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan region. The decision means that residents of the district have “administrative control” instead of being under the direct authority of the Mayor of Erbil. According to Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of Erbil, for the Christian residents, most of whom fled persecution from Iraq’s Nineveh plain, the new status means that Ankawa will become “the biggest district of Christians in the Middle East.” During his visit, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani described Ankawa as a haven for “religious and social coexistence and a place for peace”, a site “for many of our Christian brothers and sisters who have not been able to stay in other places and regions of Iraq for whatever reason.”
In June, the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) praised the US State Department’s announcement of an additional US$155 million in humanitarian assistance for Iraq, contributing to US$200 million for the fiscal year 2021. The aid was intended to support Iraqis displaced by Daesh, including religious minorities.
In July, the jihadist extremist group ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicidal attack in Baghdad that left more than 30 people dead and 50 injured. The attacker detonated the bomb in Sadr City which is a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of the capital, before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
On 24 September, 300 prominent tribal leaders and dignitaries met in Erbil for a conference of peace and reclamation sponsored by the US Center for Peace Communications. The leaders, hailing from six Iraqi provinces – Baghdad, Anbar, Mosul, Salahedin, Babil and Diyala – expressed their support for normalizing relations with Israel by entering “into the framework of the Abrahamic accords (between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco)”. On 25 September, Iraqi government officials rejected calls by attendees to “normalize ties with Israel” with the office of Prime Minister Mustafa Khadhimi calling the meeting “illegal”.
In September it was announced that the bells of the “Church of the Hour”, administered by Dominican Fathers, would toll again. The bells were silenced due to damage inflicted on the church during the jihadist occupation of the city between 2014 to 2017. Earlier, in August 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron visited the church.
In September, the Iraqi Postal Service honoured the Pope's visit and his meeting with Ayatollah Al-Sistani by the release of a series of commemorative postage stamps.
In September, Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of Erbil told ACN that the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan had emboldened Muslim extremists like ISIS in Iraq.
In October, as a result of parliamentary elections, four of the five seats reserved for Christian candidates by the national electoral system were assigned to members of the so-called Babylon Movement. The fifth seat went to an independent candidate. This followed an announcement in May 2021 where at least 34 Christians would run as candidates either on party lists or as individuals. Some Christians objected because non-Christian formations like the Babylon Movement used the quota-system by nominating Christian candidates, but those who did not necessarily represent the country’s Christians or their interests. Also, Christians objected that the vote for quota seats was not restricted to minority voters only. The Chaldean Patriarch, Louis Cardinal Sako, feared that Christians might boycott the elections for that reason. The primate referred in particular to the “tiredness” of Christian voters, due to the widespread belief that the Christian quota would “be hijacked again” by hegemonic parties and political forces. In July 2021, the Christian party of The Sons of Two Rivers (Beth Nahrain) had announced its intention to boycott the elections.
In October, the Christian suburb of Erbil, Ankawa, was designated as an autonomous district by the Prime Minister of the Kurdish Regional Government thus granting the area more self-government; for example “Christians will directly elect their own mayor and be in charge of security”.
In October, ISIS carried out a deadly attack against members of a prominent Shiite-majority tribe in Diyalah region with at least 11 victims. Retaliatory violence against local Sunnis followed, killing civilians, and burning and destroying homes and farms.
In November, the main church of the Chaldean Monastery of Mar Korkis in Mosul reopened after years of restoration. The church was seriously damaged during the time of the jihadist occupation.
In November, Reber Ahmed, Minister of the Interior within the government of the Autonomous Kurdistan Region, confirmed the resolute intention of the regional government to proceed with a full legal restoration of property rights violated in recent decades to the detriment of Christian citizens and belonging to other minority groups.
In November, in Al-Amarah, the home of a Christian shop keeper who had an official licence to sell alcohol, was targeted by homemade explosives.
In December 2021, a bomb in Basra killed four people in the predominantly Shia city. The authorities blamed ISIS for the attack.
In February 2022, Chaldean Patriarch Sako – the only religious leader invited to address the Iraqi politicians – was invited to speak at a conference of over two thousand representatives of Iraq's political parties. According to observers the invitation to the annual meeting was of particular significance since it came from Shi’a leader Ammar Al-Akim, former head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq.
In February, the first stone of the future cathedral of the Assyrian Church of the East was laid in Erbil. The church will become the religious and administrative centre of the Patriarchal See of the Assyrian Church of the East, marking its return to Iraq.
On 19 April, Iraqis paraded through the streets of Basra’s Zubair district on the occasion of the Garga’een festival. Significant to Shia Muslims, the traditional is celebrated each year during Ramadan.
The April Easter week witnessed the reopening of the St Kyriakos’s Chaldean Catholic Church, Batnaya. The church had been damaged and desecrated by Daesh (ISIS) militants nearly eight years prior with extremists decapitating statues, demolishing the altar, and writing anti-Christian graffiti on the walls of the nearby Chapel of the Immaculate Conception.
In April, the first Holy Mass was held in the Syriac Catholic Church of Mar Thoma (Saint Thomas) in Mosul after the defeat of the Islamic State. The jihadists had inflicted severe damage to the building.
In May, more than 40 Iraqi religious leaders renewed their commitment to support accountability for ISIS crimes in collaboration with the UN.
In June, Chaldean Patriarch Sako criticised the fact that the Iraqi constitution only cites Islam as the source of legislation. According to the cardinal, the fact that Islam is the legal basis for political and social practices inevitably ends up discriminating against Christians and members of other faith communities as “second-class citizens”. In his statement, the cardinal stressed that Iraqi Christians are true patriots and not a “minority" of “infidels”.
In June, Shi’a politician and militia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr announced that the mandate of the Committee on the Restitution of Illegally Expropriated Property would be extended. The body is tasked with returning property illegally expropriated from Christian or Mandaean communities. In February 2022, it was announced that 120 homes had been returned to their rightful owners.
In July, the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Najeeb Moussa Michaeel, stated that the ghost of the racist ideology of Islamic State remains anchored in the minds of a part of society, especially among the less cultured. The return of Christians to Mosul is still minimal and timid.
In August, Chaldean Patriarch Sako criticized the political stalemate in Iraq. In his assessment the sectarian quota system had failed. The cardinal referred to the confrontation between different Shia political factions over the election of a new president and the formation of a new government. To prevent former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s election as Prime Minister, followers of Shia Leader Muqtada Al-Sadr occupied parliament in July. According to the Iraqi constitution, the Head of State must be chosen among Kurdish political representatives, while the President of Parliament must be a Sunni and the Prime Minister must be a Shiite.
In August, Patriarch Sako warned that Christians could disappear from the country unless governmental, social, and economic policies change. Speaking on the first day of a Church Synod in Baghdad, he said: “Iraqi Christians, and perhaps also Christians of other nations, will soon disappear if there is no change in thinking and of the state system.” He said Islamic heritage in Iraq “makes Christians second-class citizens and allows the usurpation of their property”, and repeated calls for the constitution to be changed.
In August, Chaldean Patriarch Sako warned that the world crisis and the war in Ukraine aggravate the “alarming” exodus of Christians from the Middle East. The cardinal explained that “this situation has a negative impact on the economic state of the Church in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon”. Due to limited resources of the Church and dwindling donations from charities, the Church is struggling to support local Christians through its organisations.
In August, numbers were published according to which 70 percent of the once 100,000 Sabean-Mandaeans have left Iraq since 2003. The monotheistic religious minority pre-dates Christianity.
On 1 September, over 1,700 young Christians converged for three-day Ankawa Youth Meeting, the largest youth festival in the country. Event organiser Fr Dankha Joola stated that the event is critical to the Church’s recovery following the Daesh (ISIS) occupation in Iraq (2014-16), during which Christians, Yazidis and other minorities suffered genocidal violence. “By gathering in such large numbers, we will be able to say: ‘We are here, we exist, we have a role to play in this country’ – and that is so important when you think about how much we have suffered over the past few years”.
In September, the Syriac Catholic church of St. Behnam and Sarah in Baghdeda was reopened having been burned and gutted by Daesh (ISIS) eight years prior. Parish priest Fr Boutros Sheeto confirmed “that the restoration of the church had become a visible sign of the larger struggle to keep the Christian faith alive in Iraq”. He stated: “Having the church restored gives the community psychological and moral strength. Without this reconstruction many families today would be thinking about emigrating.”
In September, a missile hit the Husseiniya Mosque of Amir Ali bin Abi Talib, east of Baghdad, resulting in material damage though without any casualties.
In September, the new headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East was inaugurated in Erbil. The leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Masoud Barzani attended the ceremony.
In October, government agencies issued eviction notices to ISIS-displaced Christians – including Chaldean and Syriac Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, and Assyrians – from the Virgin Mary displacement settlement compound in Baghdad. Patriarch Sakoappealed to the government to postpone the evictions. Auxiliary Bishop Basilio Yaldo of Baghdad stated: “The Church is doing its best to stop the deportation of the families who were displaced from several areas in the Nineveh Plain. The complex also contains non-displaced Christian families who do not have the financial means to rent houses to live in.”
On 27 October, after more than a year of political infighting and stalemate, Iraq’s parliament confirmed the new government of Prime Minister al-Sudani. The Prime Minister previously served as Iraq’s human rights minister as well as minister of labour and social affairs.
Prospects for freedom of religion
Iraq remains politically unstable. The year-long stalemate following the elections in October 2021, and the ongoing political rivalries and violence, keep pushing the country to the verge of collapse. Despite deep divisions, the recent election of Prime Minister al-Sudani gives cautious reason for hope.
Notwithstanding this, there were positive developments during the period under review: the passing of the “Yazidi Survivor Law” was an important step to overcome the injustices inflicted on minorities by ISIS, and the Apostolic Visit of Pope Francis gave Iraqi Christians hope that the historic Christian presence and contribution in Iraq would be recognised and further interreligious understanding.
Iraq lingers at a crossroads and religious minorities remain vulnerable. With equal citizenship for all Iraqis yet to be implemented, full religious freedom is not guaranteed. The prospects for the enjoyment of religious freedom and many other human rights remain dependent on the political and security stability of the country, both of which appear dubious, and should remain under observation.
Iraq