‘Today our mouths are being shut’: Nineveh’s Christians protest

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Christians in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh protested on Friday against what they called demographic changes and lack of respect for religious leaders amid a rift with Baghdad.

“Our youth are being disrespected. The region has been divided in terms of security, administration and politically. Today our mouths are being shut,” Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Benedict Younan said in a protest in Qaraqosh, southeast of Mosul.

He said the Christians of Nineveh are facing a veiled call to emigrate and leave their lands, and called on the Iraqi government to step in. 

“Today the existing checkpoints are preventing journalists from entering this region and seeing our struggles,” the bishop said, accusing security forces of trying to “mislead public opinion and shut their mouths” by barring media from covering the protest. 

“We are not demonstrating to break, burn or destroy. We are demonstrating to declare that we want to live in peace and stability,” he added. 

Two weeks earlier, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, moved to the Kurdistan Region from Baghdad after Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, citing constitutional grounds, revoked a presidential decree formally recognizing the cardinal and granting him powers over Christian endowment funds. 

Rashid is accused of acting under pressure from Rayan al-Kildani, leader of the Christian Babylon Movement, a party and militia affiliated with the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) that is accused of illegally seizing historically Christian lands in Nineveh. 

Khalid Albert, director of Christian affairs at the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told Rudaw that “the demonstration of Christians in Qaraqosh today was a protest against violations by Iraqi government officials of all the promises they made to the people of the region.” 

Albert said the Iraqi government made many promises to Christians and did not keep any of them, especially with respect to elections. 

Kildani’s party won four of the five Iraqi parliamentary seats reserved for Christians in the last election. His candidates were backed by Shiite political forces.

On Thursday the Nineveh bishops’ council in a statement called for a protest in Qaraqosh to stop the “attempts of changing the demography of the region” and demand a “fair electoral law that sees everyone as equal.” The council also called for the government to employ more Christian youth without the involvement of political parties. 

The Hamurabi Coalition of five different Christian parties announced its “complete support” of the protest.