Catholic Report Decries the Fate of Iraqi Christians

For many Iraqi Christians, the Persian Gulf War never ended.

So says a new report by U.S. Catholic refugee officials. The report cites a “pervasive pattern” of discrimination against Christians in Iraq and in Turkish refugee camps.

“For Christians, it’s a lose-lose situation,” says the report by Migration and Refugee Services, an arm of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The church agency wants the United States and international agencies to recognize Christians as political refugees, which would make them eligible for asylum. U.S. and United Nations officials, however, have expressed doubts about whether the treatment of Iraqi Christians amounts to political persecution.

The report looks at an estimated 50,000 Christians who fled northern Iraq a year ago as the Gulf War drew to a close and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attacked Kurdish towns in the north. Most of the Christians have returned to Iraq; several thousand of them remain in Turkish refugee camps, according to the report.

In Iraq, church officials report, Christians face discrimination not only from Hussein’s regime but from his enemies, the Kurds, who have carved out a self-declared zone of autonomy in the northern part of the country.

“Most Iraqi Christian refugees describe a situation in which they are caught between the Kurds and the government,” the report says.

“Even a Christian who compromises with the government now finds himself out of favor since the Gulf War and, because of his religion, is now viewed as pro-Western and anti-Saddam. ‘Go get your bread from George Bush,’ he is told.”

In the north, Kurdish rebels have looted the homes of Christians and accused them of collaborating with the Iraqi regime, according to the report. In Turkey, Christian refugees reportedly have to pay for medicine offered at no cost to other refugees.

“There is often a significant level of open contempt and even verbal abuse exhibited by the Muslim majority towards the Christians,” says the church agency, which operates the largest refugee resettlement program in the United States.