Senator PAYNE (9:58 PM) —I want to raise an issue this evening that has been canvassed before in this chamber and in the other place, and to make some brief observations in relation to the current situation besetting Christians in Iraq. Let me start with a few statistics to give us a historical picture of the journey that some of these communities have travelled. Estimates vary but in 2003 it was estimated that there were approximately 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. They comprised roughly five per cent of the population of 28 million compared to 20 per cent just a century ago. The largest groups are the Assyrians, the Chaldeans and the Syriacs. Christian groups in Iraq can trace their proud history in the area back for many hundreds of years, and in some cases more than 1,000 years. Despite making up just five per cent of the pre-war population of Iraq, 40 per cent of refugees from Iraq are Christians.

It is estimated that since 2003 some half a million Iraqi Christians have fled or migrated to neighbouring countries and to the West. Those estimates vary. The actual number might be as high as one million. It is a staggering number. It is brought about in a large part by a sustained campaign of threats, intimidation and violence from quite extreme elements within Iraq that have flourished particularly since the changes in 2003.

The Iraqi Christian population was relatively stable under the dictate of Saddam Hussein, ironically, and reports of actual persecution were rare although, of course, we all recall the brutal persecution that Saddam Hussein perpetrated upon the people of Iraq with estimates of more than half a million tortured and executed. Some Christians, notably former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, rose to the higher echelons of power. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime has provided an opportunity for, in some cases, Islamic extremists to enforce their very radical interpretation of Quranic teachings. The bigotry and discrimination that Iraqi Christians are facing while going about their daily lives does not often make the news, but it is no less pervasive or distressing for those who are its victims.

There have long been reports, for example, that some Islamic groups are attempting to force Christians in places like Mosul and Baghdad to pay the jizya, which is an archaic form of poll tax perpetrated on non-believers that dates back to the days of the Ottoman Empire. Whether they are riding the bus or shopping at the markets Christians find themselves being met with threats and abuse. They report lengthy delays and frustrations in dealing with bureaucracy today as they did before. The impediments do not, in fact, appear to be shared by the wider Iraqi population.

So, despite the overthrow of the despotic Hussein regime and the formation of a democratic government, Christians in Iraq have been caught up in what are rising levels of sectarian violence in the country. Threats to Christians have escalated in recent years. In 2007 it was reported by the US State Department that Christians in Baghdad’s Dora district were being ordered to either convert or leave, or they would be killed. In Mosul that same year Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic priest, was stopped by gunmen on the way home from Sunday mass. Those gunmen demanded that the father and the three deacons with whom he was travelling convert immediately to Islam. When they refused they were shot dead. Father Ganni worked under Archbishop Faraj Rahho who little more than six months later was found dead outside Mosul. He had been kidnapped two weeks earlier.

In a sense the attacks on Christians in Iraq are a reflection of the wider, more difficult, security situation in the country. There is certainly also some evidence that, in some cases, attacks have been orchestrated by criminal gangs, who think they can find a soft ransom target, rather than by extremists. It is a matter of perspective, I suppose, but some Christians are perceived to be wealthier than other communities, and they do not possess the same tribal or militia links as other minority groups. But it does not matter about the motivations. Regardless of the motivations the outcome is the same and the community is understandably distressed.

Chaldean Christian community leaders have spoken of a concerted attempt to drive Christians out of Iraq through a campaign of threats, kidnapping, discrimination and, in some cases, bombing attacks. In May 2009 Jean Benjamin Slieman, the Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, said he:

One of the more recent horrific and tragic acts of violence occurred in Baghdad in October last year. On the 31st of that month gunmen from an organisation which calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq stormed a church known as Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad during Sunday mass. They laid a four-hour siege, they killed 50 innocent parishioners and clergy and they wounded 78 others. They were not people who were proselytising. They were not people who were attempting to influence or coerce, even if that were a reason for any sort of such horrific behaviour. They were guilty of nothing but having the temerity to practise their own religion in their own place of worship and they were slaughtered indiscriminately. It was a truly horrific act. It was appalling. It was an act that was greeted with horror by the Iraqi Christian diaspora.

Britain’s Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Dawood urged Iraqi Christians to flee the country and described the massacre as ‘premeditated ethnic cleansing’. Pope Benedict said he would, ‘Pray for the victims of this senseless violence, made even more ferocious because it struck defenceless people who were gathered in the house of God.’ The worst part is that it was not just an isolated incident but rather part of a pattern of systematic attacks on the Iraqi Christian population. It is a pattern that continued on 31 December last year when two elderly Christians were killed by a bomb left on their doorstep.

The tragedy of those attacks is that they not only are characterised by brutality and violence but are deliberately targeted to induce fear within an already vulnerable minority community. And they are attacks that nascent Iraqi law enforcement agencies, despite their best efforts, appear unable to stop.

One might say, with an effort at some positive aspect of this, that there is some hope for the future of Christians in Iraq with leaders of the Sunni and Shia Islamic communities meeting in January of this year to discuss measures to improve security for Christian Iraqis. All sides agreed to a resolution that condemns the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. The United States has also begun to address the issue. In January they held a congressional hearing on Christian minorities in Egypt and Iraq. It is a start but more needs to be done to put those words into action.

Despite the end of the war and the withdrawal of Western forces the attacks continue. While we in the West take religious freedom and freedom to believe or not to believe for granted, Christians in Iraq continue to be denied that most basic of rights. The Iraqi government, in its infancy and beset with a myriad of other problems, can only do so much. We in the Western World have a responsibility and we cannot be said to have completed the task we set out on unless the human rights of Iraqis continue to be upheld and defended.

Australia has a responsibility in that regard. We have a responsibility to remain vigilant and we have a responsibility to stand up for the rights of individuals, of humans and of members of religious minorities in Iraq. For Iraqi Christian families who are in Australia and elsewhere in the diaspora, for those who are trying to leave to protect themselves from this environment, it is an incredibly difficult situation. In parts of Western Sydney where I work there are many Iraqi Christians, whose families still remain in Iraq, who experience this distress all too regularly.

In making these brief remarks tonight I really wanted to remind myself in large part and the chamber in small part of the importance of maintaining that vigil. It is not one that we can forget.