Suspect arrested for insulting Christian graves

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region police on Sunday arrested a person in connection with a video of people insulting Christian graves in a cemetery in Shaqlawa, Erbil province.

In the video shared on Tiktok, at least two people are seen hitting and kicking Christian graves and making derogatory comments.

The incident was widely condemned. Kurdistan Regional Government’s Transport Minister Ano Abdoka, who is a Christian, wrote on X that he had brought the video to the attention of the governor, security forces, and the public prosecutor.

An individual was arrested and will be “brought to court to receive his just punishment in accordance with the law,” Abdoka said.

“In Kurdistan, there is no tolerance for those who want to disturb coexistence and tolerance. In Kurdistan, religions are not insulted, brotherhood is protected, and human dignity is preserved above all else,” he added.

The Kurdistan Region’s Independent Human Rights Commission on Sunday said in a statement that the individual who recorded the video and was detained is a minor and is being held in a correctional facility for women and children.

A team from the commission met with the individual. “He admitted that he did it because he wanted to become famous on social networks and now regrets it,” it said.

“These behaviors are the result of extremist speeches and seeds of hatred that people constantly sow in society and make such people insult religions and the sanctity of beliefs,” the commission added.

The Kurdistan Region prides itself on its religious tolerance and multiculturalism. However, authorities often face criticism from minority groups who complain about a lack of effort to protect their history that they fear is being erased with sites vulnerable to theft or damage. 

In March last year, a nearly 3000-year-old Assyrian site in Duhok was vandalized and defaced by unknown individuals for the third time in seven years.

Iraq’s Christian community has been devastated in the past two decades. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, sectarian warfare prompted followers of Iraq’s multiple Christian denominations to flee, and attacks by ISIS in 2014 hit minority communities especially hard.

When ISIS took over Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul in 2014, the terror group embarked on a campaign to destroy large amounts of artifacts and antiquities, including the 2015 bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, the destruction of Hatra, and the demolition of the Mosul museum.

Fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Iraq today, according to data obtained by Rudaw English from Erbil's Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda in 2022.