ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Minority religious groups in Iraq say the presence of armed groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish airstrikes endanger locals, according to a US State Department report on religious freedom published Thursday.
In its annual report on international religious freedom in 2021, the US stated that “restrictions on freedom of religion remained widespread” in Iraq, with the exception of the Kurdistan Region, adding that Iraqi security forces “committed violence against and harassed members of minority groups.”
The report stated that religious groups including Christians and Yazidis had decried the presence of PKK-affiliated armed groups, as well as Turkish airstrikes, adding that they posed a danger to locals and hindered the possibility of the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to the affected areas.
Targeting alleged PKK bases in Duhok province, Turkey has continuously hit local villages housing civilians, including several Christian villages in the area.
Dozens of locals and Christian families have fled their homes. Nine out of 20 Christian villages in Zakho have been evacuated, local authorities said.
Turkish airstrikes have also hit Shingal several times, causing casualties.
“Yazidis continued to be afraid to return to Sinjar [Shingal] because of continuing Turkish airstrikes targeting the PKK that occurred in August, September, and December,” read the report.
Ankara launched an aerial operation in Shingal in February.
Yazidis in Shingal reported in January and May that hundreds of Yazidi children had been kidnapped by the PKK to “recruit and subject to ideological brainwashing,” but it remains unclear how many such kidnapping incidents occurred.
Ankara frequently carries out cross-border ground and air offensives against alleged locations of the PKK, which it considers a terrorist organization. The Kurdish armed group is stationed in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.
Sectarian armed groups in Iraq
According to the media and human rights organizations used for the report, the main threat to religious freedom continues to be posed by sectarian armed groups, predominantly Iran-backed Shiite militia groups. The report highlighted that no incidents of violence were documented in the Kurdistan Region.
“Human rights activists also said PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces] forces operated secret prisons in which they held Sunni individuals on false accusations of ISIS affiliation,” the report read.
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) is a mostly-Shia militia network formed in 2014 in response to a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani calling for action against the Islamic State (ISIS) group. It is made up of around 60 units.
Although it has been brought under the umbrella of the Iraqi security forces and measures have been taken to fully integrate the units into Iraq’s official military apparatus, many of its units continue to act independently.
The bloody sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites sowed the seeds for ISIS in 2014, when the Sunni jihadist group seized control of Mosul, Shingal, and the Nineveh Plains where a rainbow of religious sects have coexisted for millennia.
Christians in northern Iraq said they continued to face economic discrimination due to “PMF taxation on goods transported” from the Kurdistan Region or Mosul into the Nineveh plains. In addition, Christians and Yazidis, particularly alcohol shop owners, accused the PMF of blackmail and attacks.
The Iraqi constitution labels Islam as the official religion of the country but also provides the rights to religious belief to Christians, Yazidis, and Sabean-Mandeans, without mentioning other religious groups present.
Iraq is a Muslim-majority country, with a predominantly Shiite population in the center and south and a smaller Sunni population in the north and west.
It is also home to some of the oldest Christian communities in the world and several smaller sects, including Yazidis.
Iraq’s ancient Jewish population has all but vanished since the creation of Israel in 1948.
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