Iraq’s Christians Nervous as Constitution Goes To Vote

As the polls opened on time in Baghdad on Saturday for the more than 15 million Iraqis registered to vote in the landmark referendum on the draft constitution, Iraq’s Christian community waits in trepidation for the result.

|TOP|While the constitution does offer hope for freedom for believers, Open Doors' Carl Moeller fears this might amount to nothing if the wrong interpretation is used.

Moeller voiced particular concern over Article Two of the Constitution, where it says the government of Iraq shall guarantee the full religious rights of all individuals in the freedom of belief and religious practice to the followers of Christianity and several of the other smaller religions.

According to Moeller, this is where the big problem lies: “The freedom of belief and religious practice is a private affair. But, Christianity, as we know it, is not a private affair. It is a belief system that is meant to be lived out in the public sphere.”

The draft constitution has made a number of concessions in order to appease religious and ethnic communities, but still fails to provide any concrete guarantees against persecution.

Mr Moeller said: “Too many totalitarian governments permit the freedom of belief, but not freedom of Christian cultural practice. This is one thing that we’re very about.”

|QUOTE|Other groups have also voiced their concern over the possible risk to human rights posed by the constitution and its reference to Shariah law as the basis of law in Iraq.

“Subjugating all constitutionally guaranteed rights to a particular interpretation of Islam would undoubtedly lead to severe restrictions on human rights,” read a letter by Freedom House to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Nina Shea, director of Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House, said in an interview with the Religion & Ethics Weekly television program, "We don't know who interprets Islamic law, and that's why it is a real threat to democracy and freedom."