Christianity in Iraq
They primarily adhere to the Syriac Christian tradition and rites and speak Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects, although Turoyo is also present on a smaller scale.
[14][15][12] The post-2003 war have displaced much of the remaining Christian community from their homeland as a result of ethnic and religious persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists.
According to Hirmis Aboona in the period prior to the establishment of Abbasid rule in AD 750, pastoral Kurds moved into upper Mesopotamia from Persian Azerbaijan, taking advantage of an unstable situation.
The chronicler Ibn Hawqal spoke about the state to which the region of Shahrazoor had been reduced, describing it as a “town, which was overpowered by the Kurds, and whose environs as far as Iraq had been enjoying prosperity”.
According to Aboona, "many regions with numerous Assyrian and Armenian monuments and monasteries became completely populated by the Kurds after Chaldiran," and Kurdish historians wrote that "the land was cleared at this time, its indigenous inhabitants driven out by force".
The Kurdish historian Ali al Qurani affirmed that Sarsing had "been an Assyrian town and that the Kurds who settled there were immigrants from Persian Azerbaijan."
British traveler James Rich observed in northern Iraq the "rapid influx of Kurds from Persia... and that their advance never ceased".
[27] Dr. Grant gave an eyewitness account, he stated: "Beth Garrnae (the region of Arbil-Kirkuk) once contained a large population of Nestorian Christians, they are now reduced to a few scattered villages...
Within the last six years the Koords of Ravandoos and Amadia have successively swept over it.."[28] A new epoch began in the 17th century when Emir Afrasiyab of Basra allowed the Portuguese to build a church outside of the city.
[36] In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded and mutilated despite payment of a ransom, and in 2008, the Assyrian clergyman Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul was killed after being abducted.
Ragheed Aziz Ganni and subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed were killed in the ancient city of Mosul.
[37] Ganni was the pastor of the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and a graduate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome in 2003 with a licentiate in ecumenical theology.
[38] In 2010, reports emerged in Mosul of people being stopped in the streets, asked for their identity cards, and shot if they had a first or last name indicating Assyrian or Christian origin.
[39] On 31 October 2010, 58 people, including 41 hostages and priests, were killed after an attack on an Assyrian Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad.
[39] 10,000 mainly Assyrian Iraqi Christians live in the United Kingdom, led by Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, who has called on the government to accept more refugees.
[47] From the late 13th century through to the present time, Christian Assyrians have suffered both religious and ethnic persecution, including a number of massacres and genocides.
[50][51] Iraqi Christians have been victim of executions, forced displacement campaigns, torture, violence and target of Sunni Islamist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.
On August 1, 2004, a series of car bomb attacks took place during the Sunday evening Mass in churches of two Iraqi cities, Baghdad and Mosul, killing and wounding a large number of Christians.
[56] In 2010, Sunni Islamist groups attacked a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass, on 31 October 2010 killing more than 60 and wounding 78 Iraqi Christians.
On 25 December, 2013, in Baghdad, Sunni extremists detonated two bombs targeting Christians observing Christmas in the Al-Dora area of the Al-Rashid district.
[66] Additionally, several reports have been written about those Christians who do not get "political" representation and therefore do not succeed in expanding their schools, and are shut out from all but the most basic funding.
The Constitution notes that any region or province can adopt an additional language as a "local official language" if the majority of the region or province's residents agree to this in a general referendum.Some have also complained that adults have to join the KDP party in the KDP-majority areas of Iraqi Kurdistan in order to be granted employment and that KDP representatives are allowed to settle in Assyrian villages.
[65] Some interviewed Christian IDPs had told that the Arabs, Kurds and Islamists are fully aware that Assyrians have no means of protection in the face of attacks.
It was reported that Kurdish security forces also prevented ballot boxes to pass to some Christian villages fearing that they will support the central Iraqi government.
[68] Michael Youash, an Assyrian expert, had stated in his report that the Iraqi Kurdistan government was unable to provide safe haven for all Christians.
Kurdish authorities have tried to win favor with the minority communities by spending millions of Iraqi dinars to build a pro-Kurdish system of patronage in minority communities, making them wealthier, financing alternative civil society organizations to compete with, undermine, and challenge the authority of established groups, many of which oppose Kurdish rule.
The KRG also funds private militias created ostensibly to protect minority communities from outside violence, in which Iraqi authorities have failed, but which mainly serve to entrench Kurdish influence.
In 2009, during the Iraq War, HRW stated that "KRG authorities have relied on intimidation, threats, and arbitrary arrests and detentions, more than actual violence, in their efforts to secure support of minority communities for their agenda regarding the disputed territories.
A Chaldo-Assyrian leader described the Kurdish campaign to Human Rights Watch as “the overarching, omnipresent reach of a highly effective and authoritarian regime that has much of the population under control through fear.” [71] During the 2011 Dohuk riots, a group of Kurdish radical Islamists attacked properties of Christian Assyrians, Yazidis and non-Muslim Kurds.
[83] Other Christians live primarily in Basra, Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk, as well as in the Assyrian homeland regions such as the Nineveh Plains, Duhok, and Zakho in the north.
