Iraqi Group Fears Revival of 'Devil-Worship' Tag--KurdishMedia

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From the new World Media Watch now up at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


1//KurdishMedia.com, UK 18/08/2005

http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=7531



IRAQI GROUP FEARS REVIVAL OF ‘DEVIL-WORSHIP TAG

By Andrew Hammond



BAGHDAD, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Fresh accusations that an ancient Iraqi sect worships the devil raises concerns about the future of religious minorities in the new Islamist-dominated Iraq, a presidential adviser said on Thursday.

Mirza Dinnayi, President Jalal Talabani’s adviser for Yazidi affairs, said that despite efforts to ensure that minorities are protected in a new constitution being drafted in Baghdad, whisperings about the nature of the Yazidi faith had raised fears of violence against the community.

"As a liberal I find the future of Iraq miserable and for minorities like the Yazidis it will be even more difficult," said Dinnayi.

"I don’t know if this new constitution will even be put into practice. Minorities have a great problem now," he added, speaking from Sulaimaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has almost entirely been spared the sectarian violence tearing at Iraq.

Politicians in Baghdad are putting together a permanent constitution they hope will create a political system that allows Iraq’s main ethnic and religious groups to live together after decades of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party rule.

But minorities such as the esoteric pre-Islamic Kurdish sect fear they will be victims of the zealotry gripping the country.

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