The Chaldean Patriarchate of Iraq announced the cancellation of Easter festivities this year to draw attention to the dire condition of Christians in the country. In July, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid revoked a presidential decree that gave Cardinal Louis Sako legal right as head of the church. With the additional threats from Iranian-backed militias and their growing influence throughout the country, Cardinal Sako left Baghdad for Erbil, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Last Sunday, tens of thousands of Syriac-Assyrian-Chaldean Christians did celebrate their annual Palm Sunday procession in the pouring rain through the streets of Ankawa, a Christian-run village outside of Erbil. It was humbling seeing their joyous celebration, especially with Palm Sunday hardly being noticeable in my own community outside of Philadelphia. Perhaps because we are able to celebrate religious holidays without persecution, we too easily take them for granted.
Christians in Iraq have endured centuries of persecution, including being targeted for genocide by ISIS from 2014 to 2017, along with Yazidis and other religious and ethnic minorities. Indigenous to the region and among the oldest Christian communities in the world, 1.5 million Christians were there before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that removed dictator Saddam Hussein. By the time ISIS claimed a caliphate, only 700,000 Christians were left. Currently, perhaps fewer than 200,000 remain. It is disheartening to acknowledge U.S. policies in Iraq led to increased sectarianism, resulting in hostility toward Christians and other religious minorities, or components, as they prefer to be called.
While the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a beautiful history of pluralism and opened its borders to over 1 million Iraqis and Syrians seeking refuge from ISIS and the Syrian Civil War, the federal government of Iraq has recently taken actions seeking to weaken its autonomy. The U.S. and international community must stand with the Kurdistan Regional Government to preserve this refuge for freedom, providing protection to the many religious and ethnic minorities residing there, including Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Zoroastrians, Baha’is, Sabean Mandaeans, Kaka’is, and others. Iranian-aligned militias have overtaken much of the historical Christian homeland in the Nineveh Plains just outside of the KRI and now throughout the rest of the country.
It is not just Iraq that has worsening religious freedom conditions. Unfortunately, this is a global trend I saw for myself as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2018 until 2022, serving the last year as chairwoman. Since then, I have been the president of the IRF Secretariat. We are building infrastructure to serve the religious freedom movement globally.
Open Doors World Watch List 2024 reports persecution of Christians globally is worsening. Currently, 1 in 7 Christians (more than 365 million) faces high levels of persecution, up from 1 in 9 just five years ago. In addition, 15,000 churches or public Christian properties were attacked or closed in 2023, seven times more than in 2022.
The State Department has designated two countries with genocide against religious communities. In China, the government is seeking to eradicate the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, with perhaps up to 3 million in concentration camps. Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong adherents, and others are subjected to persecution and imprisonment.
In Myanmar, the military government targeted Rohingya Muslims for genocide, forcing over 700,000 to flee in August 2017 with systematic killings and rape. The government continues to target the remaining Rohingyas and has increased attacks against Christians in the Karreni State and throughout the country.
Reports claim that Nigeria had the largest number of Christians killed in the past year, over 8,000 murdered by local militants, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State-West Africa. In Somalia and Libya, countries often overlooked, we see Christian converts subjected to imprisonment or death. In India, growing Hindu nationalism has turned violent against Muslims and Christians.
Turkey continues to attack the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, an autonomous region with among the best religious freedom conditions in the region, as ISIS attacks increase. Iran continues to imprison those who don’t support its harsh interpretation of Islam. Religious minority women and girls are often targeted with sexual violence, subjected to kidnapping and forced marriages. In Iraq, 2,700 women and children who were kidnapped by ISIS are still missing.
How can we fight such evil?
We can learn from a giant in the Christian faith, Corrie Ten Boom, who survived several concentration camps during the Holocaust, watching her own sister die. She was not arrested for protecting her own religious community but for standing up for another faith being targeted for genocide, her Jewish neighbors.
While we continue to stand against the persecution of Christians or others in our own faith community, we can also follow Corrie Ten Boom’s example and stand against the genocide or persecution of others, such as the Uyghurs in China, the Rohingyas in Burma, Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan, and all those facing religious persecution.
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In order to work with partners of all faiths, we don’t need to compromise our religious beliefs. Instead, we bring our whole selves, including our strongly held beliefs, while accepting the human dignity of those with different beliefs. We stand for each other while working together to build religious freedom for all. This is the only way to interrupt the years of worsening religious freedom conditions and create long-term peace and stability.
This Easter, let’s remember those who are persecuted and work together to ease their suffering and improve conditions so all can practice their faith and follow their conscience.
Nadine Maenza is president of IRF Secretariat, global fellow at the Wilson Center, and former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She is chairwoman of the Institute for Global Engagement.