The Assyrian Democratic Organization
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan, independent federal agency, has written to Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky to express concern about the dire situation of members of Iraqi religious minority groups that have fled their country, particularly ChaldoAssyrians and Sabean Mandaeans.
“The Commission urges Under Secretary Dobriansky to create new or expand existing options for allowing members of Iraq’s ChaldoAssyrian and Sabean Mandaean religious minority communities to access the US refugee programme, and to urge UNHCR to resume full refugee status determinations for all Iraqi asylum seekers and assess all claims without delay,” said USCIRF Chair Felice D. Gaer.
“The United States has not made direct access to the US Refugee Programme available to Iraqi religious minorities, taking the position that ChaldoAssyrians and Sabean Mandaeans are subject to generalized violence in Iraq. This position is not supported by the facts.”
Iraqi ChaldoAssyrians and Sabean Mandaeans represent approximately 40% of the refugees who have fled Iraq over the past three years, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), although they constitute less than 3% of the Iraqi population. Numbering approximately 500,000, these refugees are dispersed through Jordan, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
USCIRF noted in its 2006 Annual Report that “minority communities, including Christian Iraqis, are forced to fend for themselves in an atmosphere of impunity, and lack any tribal or militia structure to provide for their security.
The result is that members of these communities continue to flee the country in the face of violence, in an exodus that may mean the end of the presence in Iraq of ancient Christian and other religious minority communities that have lived on those same lands for 2,000 years.”
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