WASHINGTON – Religious freedom has sharply deteriorated in Iraq over the past year because of both the insurgency and violence targeting people of specific faiths, despite the U.S. military buildup intended to improve security, says a State Department report to be released Friday.
The Annual Report on International Religious Freedom finds that all worshipers are targeted for attacks and the violence is not confined to the well-known rivalry between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
“The ongoing insurgency significantly harmed the ability of all religious believers to practice their faith,” says the 22-page executive summary of the report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its official release by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“While the presence of varying levels of lawlessness in certain areas permitted criminal gangs, terrorists, and insurgents to victimize citizens, and while this affected persons of all ethnicities and religious groups in such areas, many individuals from various religious groups were targeted because of their religious identity or their secular leanings,” the report says.
It finds that members of all religions in Iraq are “victims of harassment, intimidation, kidnapping, and killings” and that “frequent sectarian violence included attacks on places of worship.”
Muslims who practice less-strict versions of their faith suffer because “conservative and extremist Islamic elements exert tremendous pressure on society to conform to their interpretations of Islam’s precepts,” the report says.
At the same time, it says, “non-Muslims (are) especially vulnerable to pressure and violence, because of their minority status and, often, because of the lack of a protective tribal structure.”
The summary does not mention specific incidents of violence other than the February 22, 2006, bombing of a Shia mosque in the town of Samarra. The report does not cover the month of August 2007, when 520 mainly members of the Yazidi community, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority, were killed in quadruple suicide bombings blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq.
Outside of Iraq, the report also notes severe problems with religious freedom in a number of other Islamic or majority-Muslim nations, among them Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which are U.S. allies in the war on terrorism.
- Afghanistan: “Decades of war, years of Taliban rule, and weak democratic institutions, including a developing judiciary, have contributed to intolerance manifested in acts of harassment and violence against reform-minded Muslims and religious minorities,” it says. “Despite reform efforts, condemnations of conversions from Islam and censorship increased concerns about citizens’ ability to freely practice minority religions.”
- Pakistan: “The government took some steps to improve the treatment of religious minorities during the period covered by this report, but serious problems remained,” it says. “Discriminatory legislation and the Government’s failure to take action against societal forces hostile to those who practice minority faiths fostered religious intolerance, acts of violence, and intimidation against followers of certain religious groups.”
In Saudi Arabia, a country where faiths other than Islam are illegal and that usually comes in for harsh criticism on lack of religious freedom, the report notes some positive progress.
“While overall government policies continue to place severe restrictions on religious freedom, there were some improvements in specific areas during the period covered by this report,” it says, noting nascent moves that “could lead to important improvements in the future.”
Still, it says “non-Muslims and Muslims who do not adhere to the government’s interpretation of Islam continued to face significant political, economic, legal, social, and religious discrimination.”
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted September 14, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Well, Islam comes off looking pretty bad here, as it should. How is Islam to get respect from others, or even probably many Muslims, if so many of its adherents can be (I’m resisting the temptation to say “so easily” because it wasn’t) brought to acting this way?
Islam’s tendency to treat non-co-religionists badly and Bush’s faith-based invasion plans share the blame for this with, of course, the bad guys who took advantage of those obvious weaknesses.
And we’ve paid $451 billion and counting and about 3,800 US service-people and been responsible for the deaths of perhaps 655,000 plus Iraqis. Not to mention the immeasurable damage due to injuries and the costs of ameliorating them.
posted September 14, 2007 at 9:33 pm
This is why we do not need a Talibaesque rule of government in this country. I am sure all the people doing the oppressing beleive with all their hearts that they are acting righteously and for the eternal benefit of the people they are oppressing. I have heart more flowery versions of the same thing here. No matter who says it, the flowers or the weeds grow best in that kind of – unrefined fertilizer.
posted September 17, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Islam is approximately 600 years younger than Christianity is (the Prophet Muhammad lived ca. 570 – 632 CE, per Wikipedia).
This story describes the way things are in nations of western Asia, the populations of which are primarily Muslim and which have theocratic or semi-theocratic systems of government: “state churches,” so to speak.
It describes situations which are strikingly similar to the way things were in nations of western Europe roughly 600 years ago (ca. 1400 CE, give or take – actually, a little more recently than that): the populations of which were primarily Christian and had theocratic or semi-theocratic systems of government: “state churches.”
Sunni against Shia now, Catholic against Protestant then; Muslim against everybody else now, Christian against everybody else then.
I wonder if religions grow up?
I wonder why theocracy remains an attractive system of government, given its track record.
posted September 18, 2007 at 10:18 am
Deacon,
I often ponder the same question you have posed, do religions ever grow up? Then I look again at religious stalwarts like Copernicus and Mendel and so many others, and feel hopeful. For a peaceful oriented bunch of people we certainly do seem to find ways and (lousy) reasons to beat mercilessly on each other.
posted September 19, 2007 at 11:52 pm
jest -
People fight like cats to protect things which are precious to them – even when that precious thing is love for God, self, and neighbor.
Really, really ironic, but people are like that and you have to love them for it, even while you want to beat the crap out of them.
There! I just did it! Yeesh!
8^]
posted September 23, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Religious freedom, what a gift we have in America! I am so happy to have been born here!
The religious problems in the East, and in Ireland or anywhere else, remind me of the persecution of the Christians in history. Religious intolerance is a sin, of course, because it is a violation of our gift of free choice, or “free agency,” given to us by God, beginning in the Garden of Eden. Don’t bother arguing about this, this is my comment. People will be held accountable for the way they treat their “fellowman,” no matter what religion they are, even if they have no religion. I feel sorry for the people who hurt, kill, or otherwise persecute others, for any reason, because they will pay for their sin, unless they repent.
Of course, I feel sorry for the victims and their families, but I am comforted (and I hope they are, too) in the knowledge that victims have a better place in Heaven than do the killers. In wartime, the soldiers must remember that they are under the direction of their governments, and have no choice; and therefore, are not held responsible for the death of their “enemies”.
I also feel sorry for the people of this world who don’t have a knowledge of the true God. He does not condone the type of violence that we have on this earth. He wants us to live in peace, but many of us don’t. He knew we all wouldn’t, so we are responsible for our own decisions, and we will be rewarded or punished, accordingly. There has always been violence and intolerance, and there always will be, until the Millenium. We are in the “last days”; we know this by what the Bible teaches us in the New Testament. Things will get worse before they get better. You and I cannot control everything in the world, but we can repent of our sins, and be ready.