IRAQ
Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Under Iraq’s 2005 constitution,[1] Islam is the official state religion and a “source of legislation”. According to Article 2(1), nothing may contradict Islam, the principles of democracy, or constitutionally recognised rights and freedoms. Article 2(2) provides that the Islamic identity of most Iraqis and the religious rights of Christians, Yazidis, and Sabean-Mandeans are equally protected.
Article 4(1) states: “Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages of Iraq”, while members of other language groups have the right “to educate their children in their mother tongue, such as Turkmen, Assyrian, and Armenian, [. . .] in government educational institutions in accordance with educational guidelines, or in any other language in private educational institutions.”
Racism, terrorism, and takfirism (accusing other Muslims of apostasy) are prohibited under Article 7. Article 10 affirms the State’s duty to maintain and protect “holy shrines and religious sites” and uphold the right to use them freely for the “practice of rituals”.
Equality before the law is guaranteed under Article 14, “without discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, origin, colour, religion, sect, belief or opinion, or economic or social status.” Under Article 37 (2) the State is bound to protect individuals “from intellectual, political and religious coercion.”
According to Article 41, personal status is regulated by law according to the various “religions, sects, beliefs, or choices”. Article 42 guarantees “[f]reedom of thought, conscience, and belief”.
Under Article 43, Iraqis are free to practise their religious rites, manage their religious affairs, institutions and endowments (waqf), as “regulated by law”. Likewise, the State guarantees and protects places of worship under Article 43(2).
According to Article 372 of the 1969 Penal Code of Iraq: “The following persons are punishable by a period of detention not exceeding 3 years or by a fine not exceeding 300 dinars: (1) Any person who attacks the creed of a religious minority or pours scorn on its religious practices. (2) Any person who wilfully disrupts a religious ceremony, festival or meeting of a religious minority or who wilfully prevents or obstructs the performance of such ritual. (3) Any person who wrecks, destroys, defaces or desecrates a building set aside for the ceremonies of a religious minority or symbol or anything that is sacred to it. (4) Any person who prints or publishes a book sacred to a religious minority and deliberately misspells the texts so that the meaning of the text is altered or who makes light of its tenets or teachings. (5) Any person who publicly insults a symbol or a person who constitutes an object of sanctification, worship, or reverence to a religious minority. (6) Any person who publicly imitates a religious ceremony or celebration with intent to deceive.”[2]
Muslims are prohibited from converting to other religions under personal status laws and regulations. Article 1(2) of the Personal Status law implicitly prohibits conversion by placing the act under the jurisdiction of Shari‘a (Islamic law).[3]
According to Article 17 of Iraq’s Personal Status Law No. 188/1959, Muslim men may marry non-Muslim women who belong to a People of the Book (Christian, Jewish, Sabean-Mandaean), while Muslim women are prohibited from marrying non-Muslims.[4] Children with one Muslim parent, including converts, are considered ipso facto Muslim.[5]
By law, nine of the 329 seats in the Council of Representatives (lower house of parliament) are reserved for members of minority groups: five seats for Christians from the governorates of Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Erbil, and Dohuk; and one seat each for Yazidis, Sabean Mandaeans, Shabaks and Feyli Kurds.
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), 11 of the 111 parliamentary seats were previously reserved for religious and ethnic minorities.[6] In February 2024, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq ruled that the article in the KRI’s election law concerning minority quotas was “unconstitutional.”[7] In May 2024, the Court reinstated five quota seats for Christians and Turkmen, resulting in a net loss of seats and the continued exclusion of other groups.[8]
The KRI parliamentary elections in October 2024 prompted objections from Assyrians over the redistribution of quota seats in governorates with smaller Christian populations. Some members of the community also criticised the presence of what they described as token Christian candidates running with Muslim-majority parties.[9]
Some Christians reported that officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) refused to resolve claims over embezzled properties, allowed militias to harass Christians at checkpoints, and prevented Christian farmers from transporting supplies between villages.[10] Some Assyrians also expressed concern over a potential KRG plan to build a dam in the Nahla Valley, which could endanger indigenous sites and monuments and displace Christian residents.
Bahá’ísm, Zoroastrianism, and the Kaka’i (Yarsanism) religions are banned at the federal level. However, all three religions are legal in the KRI,[11] even though federal law prohibits their practice and imposes prison sentences of up to ten years.[12] According to the US Department of State, the ban is not enforced.[13]
When applying for an identity card, Iraqis must declare their religion, even though the information is not included in the document. As a result, members of unrecognised faiths cannot obtain civil documentation under their religion. Without an identity card, they cannot access many basic services.[14] Since marriage, divorce and inheritance are governed by personal status law — and none exists for unrecognised religions — Bahá’ís, Zoroastrians and Kaka’is cannot register their marriage, and their children are effectively non-citizens.[15]
Incidents and developments
In January 2023, Sunni Sheikh Abdulrazaq al-Saadi from the Anbar governorate stated that the construction of a Christian Chaldean church in the ancient city of Ur in Dhi Qar was “catastrophic and against the teachings of the Qur’an”. Instead, he proposed converting the church into a cultural centre under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities.[16]
In February 2023, Bishop Bahzad Mziri of the Anabaptist Church in the city of Duhok faced a legal complaint over a Facebook post about Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, which was deemed insulting and derogatory. Bishop Mziri apologised, claiming that his account had been hacked.[17] He was later put on trial but was acquitted.[18]
In March 2023, protests erupted in the town of Baghdeda (also known as Qaraqosh) in the al-Hamdaniya District of the Nineveh Plains, where the local Christian population resisted an attempted takeover by the Kataib Babiliyoun (KB) militia, the 50th Brigade of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). The apparent cause of the clash was an effort by KB Commander Osama al-Kildani to take control of a base belonging to the Emergency Response Unit of the Nineveh Plains Protection Units (NPU), a Christian regiment of around 500 local men.[19] In January 2024, Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako called for the withdrawal of militias — including those belonging to the Babililyoun movement — from the Nineveh Plains and their replacement by regular army troops and federal police.[20]
In March 2023, the Sunni Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars accused the General Authority of the Shi‘a Al-Askari Shrine of seizing the ninth-century Sunni Great Mosque in the city of Samarra and the associated school, renaming the mosque to “Saheb Al-Amr” under the pretext of restoring its dome. The association described this as “another dangerous step in the project of systematic seizure of Islamic endowments in Iraq, and the imposition of sectarian tutelage with the power of military force”.[21]
That same month, representatives of religious and ethnic minorities, together with representatives of Iraq’s government and parliament, met at a conference in Baghdad organised by the World Council of Churches (WCC), to discuss challenges to inclusive citizenship. Speakers from the Kaka’i and Zoroastrian community stated that they remain unrecognised legally in a country where they are Indigenous.[22]
In December 2023, Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), met with a Kaka’i delegation led by religious leader Sayed Rahim Sayed Azim. Both sides stressed the need for unity and peaceful coexistence among Iraq’s various communities, both in KRI and across the country.[23]
In April 2023, the Iraqi government launched the al-Syriania television channel to help preserve the Syriac language spoken by Christians. The channel employs around 40 staff and offers a variety of programming, including films, art and history.[24]
In May 2023, the Christian Affairs Department at the Minority Faith Communities Endowment Office began collecting data to create a digital database of Christian communities. The data includes geographic distribution, education levels, professional skills, marital status, family size, occupations, and housing conditions.[25]
In June 2023, Christian groups raised the alarm over illegal land acquisitions in the Nineveh Plains allegedly intended to alter the area’s demographic composition. In an appeal to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani and the Minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works, Bangen Rekani, the Christians called for urgent action to: “halt any measures aimed at sorting and distributing lands in the areas of historic settlement of the indigenous Christian communities in Iraq”.[26]
On 3 July 2023, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid revoked Presidential Decree No. 147, arguing that it lacked constitutional legitimacy, as the Iraqi Constitution does not empower the president to appoint or formally recognise religious leaders. Originally issued in 2013 by then-President Jalal Talabani, the decree had formally recognised Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and worldwide, conferring legal authority over Church properties. The decree followed a long-standing tradition of granting civil recognition to minority religious leaders for administrative purposes. President Rashid clarified that the revocation did not affect Cardinal Sako’s ecclesiastical authority, which derives from the Vatican.[27] In protest, Patriarch Sako left his patriarchal seat in Baghdad and relocated to the city of Erbil.
In August 2023, in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the Patriarch stated that reversing the decree was: “…a humiliation for the Church. Those behind this move want to put their hands on the properties of the Church and administer them separately from the ecclesiastical authorities. We cannot accept that.”[28] The management of Church assets appeared the crux of the matter. According to Patriarch Sako, President Rashid acted under pressure from the Babiliyoun Brigades and their leader, Rayan al-Kildani with the he pro-Iranian Christian militia and political party seeking to seize the assets of the Chaldean Church.[29] In July 2023, Ano Jawhar, KRG Minister of Transport and Communications, defended the patriarch on TV: “For the first time in the history of the so-called new Iraq after 2003, Christians are being subjected to ‘state persecution’ by the head of the executive authority in the Iraqi state.”[30]
Cardinal Sako challenged the president’s decision in court. In November 2023, the Supreme Federal Court of Iraq dismissed his lawsuit, finding no irregularities in the decree’s revocation. The cardinal described it as “an unfair decision.”[31]
In July 2023, Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador only hours after Iraqi protesters — angered by the burning of copies of the Qur‘an in Sweden — stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad, scaled its walls, and set the compound on fire.[32]
That same month, a new Catholic pastoral centre was inaugurated in the city of Dohuk in the Kurdish region.[33]
In November 2023, the Iraqi Minister of Immigration and Displacement, Ivan Faiq Jabro, announced the voluntary return of 487 displaced Yazidis from the Sharia camp in Dohuk Governorate to their original areas of residence in Shingal, Nineveh Governorate.[34]
In November 2023, Pope Francis received Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid in the Vatican. According to a statement by the Holy See Press Office, during the meeting “the need was reiterated for the Catholic Church in Iraq to be able to continue to carry out its valued mission and for all Iraqi Christians to be a vibrant and active part of society and the territory, particularly in the Nineveh Plains.”[35]
In December 2023, the Chaldean Patriarchate cancelled all Christmas activities —including concerts in clubs or Church halls and media coverage — in protest against the revocation of the Presidential Decree No. 147, out of respect for the victims of the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land, and the tragedy in the predominantly Syriac town of Qaraqosh[36] where 133 people died following a fire in a wedding hall in September 2023.[37] That same month, the Sunni Endowment Office cancelled all celebrations of the Prophet’s birthday for the same reason.[38] Shi‘a Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Al-Sistani also expressed sorrow and regret over the same incident.[39]
In late 2023, 63 of 121 Christian families were evicted[40] from homes built on the state-owned Mariam al-Adra (Virgin Mary) Compound in Baghdad. They had taken refuge there after fleeing the Islamic State group (also known as Da‘esh or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS) in 2014. In 2022, the Iraqi government had decided to repurpose the area, despite protests from the Church.[41]
In December 2023, candidates running for minority seats in 15 provincial council elections received more than 42,000 votes, securing all ten reserved seats: four Christian seats (Nineveh, Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Basrah), two Faili Kurd seats (Baghdad and Wasit), two Sabean-Mandean seats (Baghdad and Maysan), one Shabak seat (Nineveh), and one Yazidi seat (Nineveh). Minority candidates also succeeded in winning additional seats by running on other party lists.[42]
In February 2024, the Iraqi Ministry of Justice established a new committee to examine real estate claims of religious minorities.[43]
In March 2024, Iraq’s Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could monitor and block websites deemed “anti-religious” for publishing derogatory content about, for example, holy scriptures or prophets.[44]
In March 2024, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid met Christian leaders and affirmed the importance of Iraq’s indigenous Christian communities as “an integral part of the interdependent diversity of the country’s multicultural identity”.[45]
In June 2024, Chaldean Bishop Paul Thabit Mekko of Alqosh told Agenzia Fides that ten years after the Islamic State occupation, fewer than 50 Christian families had returned to the city of Mosul, once home to at least 1,200 Christian families.[46]
In June 2024, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani issued a decree “to name Cardinal Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako as the Patriarch of the Chaldeans in Iraq and in the world”, thereby restoring the institutional recognition that had been revoked in July 2023 by Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid.[47]
In July 2024, the United States Central Command (US CENTCOM) reported that the Islamic State was “on pace to more than double the number of attacks they claimed in 2023”. The increase suggested that the group “is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability”. Some 137 operations resulted in the death of 30 Islamic State operatives and the detention of another 74.[48]
In August 2024, Yazidi NGO Yazda issued a statement expressing grave concern over a “campaign of hate speech and online violence” against Yazidis—especially worrying as it coincided with the 10th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide. According to Yazda, many Yazidis contacted the organisation in fear of imminent attacks. The statement urged the Iraqi government and the KRG to “tackle the root causes of the Yazidi genocide, and ensure clear guarantees of non-repetition for the crimes committed against Yazidis and other groups.”[49]
In November 2024, the Iraqi parliament extended the ban on alcohol to hotels and social clubs, moving the country closer to full prohibition. Violators face fines ranging from US$7,700 to US$19,000.[50] A law passed in 2016 had already banned the production, import and sale of alcoholic beverages, but was only enforced as of March 2023. Christian lawmakers criticised the legislation and filed a lawsuit with the Federal Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Municipal Imports Law.[51] In August 2023, the Court dismissed the case.[52] Selling alcohol is a significant source of income for non-Muslim minorities such as Christians and Yazidis.
In November 2024, Mohamed Al Hassan, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq and head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), called for action to help displaced Yazidis. Ten years after the genocide and seven years after the Islamic State’s military defeat, more than 200,000 Yazidis remain displaced in the KRI and over 2,600 are still missing.[53] In October 2024, a Yazidi woman who had been kidnapped at the age of 11 by the Islamic State in Iraq and later taken to Gaza, was rescued after more than a decade in captivity.[54]
In February 2025, another mass grave was excavated in the district of Sinjar (Shingal), containing the remains of 15 to 20 individuals. Since the liberation of the predominantly Yazidi area from Islamic State control, 93 mass graves have been identified, though only 53 have been excavated.[55]
In February 2025, a significant increase in Islamic State movements was reported between Kirkuk and Salahaddin governates, with armed operatives wearing military uniforms.[56]
In March 2025, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced that Iraqi security forces, with US support, had killed Islamic State leader Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’i, also known as Abu Khadija.[57] Despite its military defeat in 2017, the group continues to operate sleeper cells and mount occasional attacks.
In March 2025, Patriarch Cardinal Louis Sako received Mohammed Al-Mayah, Director of the Government Coordination Affairs Office at the National Security Council, and Ali Al-Saadi, Advisor to the Security and Defence Committee of the Council of Representatives, at his residence in Baghdad. They discussed the situation of Christians and ways to support them.[58]
That same month, Cardinal Sako called for reform of the Christian quota system ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2025. In a statement, he argued that the current process failed to ensure genuine representation of Iraq’s Christian minority in parliament.[59] In the previous election, four of the five seats allocated to Christians were won by candidates from the Babiliyoun Movement.
Prospects for freedom of religion
During the period under review, religious freedom in Iraq remained fragile. The relationship between Christians and various levels of government was strained by several political and legal decisions. The abolition of Christian quota seats in the KRI and the revocation of official recognition of the Chaldean patriarch's authority over Church assets further undermined trust. Both actions could have been averted.
The Iraqi government’s inability — or unwillingness — to curb the influence of State-funded, Iran-linked militias, particularly factions of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), continued to pose a threat to religious minorities. Displaced Christians were reluctant to return to the Nineveh Plains, mainly because of the PMF’s 50th (Babiliyoun) Brigade and its leader, Rayan al-Kildani. Christian emigration continues.
The Yazidi community remains particularly vulnerable, with more than 200,000 still displaced and more than 2,600 still missing. The constant hate speech has further deepened the community’s sense of insecurity.
The increase in attacks by the Islamic State group is another worrying trend.
In the absence of any meaningful political, economic and security reforms, prospects for major improvements in the situation of religious freedom, remain bleak. Equal citizenship and comprehensive religious freedom are not yet in sight.
Sources
Iraq