Country: Iraq 

Group: Twelver Shi’a

Date Finalized: September 25, 2021

Team: Amanda Nelson (lead), Ann Thomas, Lacey Hurst, and Lauren Poklar

            Twelver Shi’a have experienced forced displacement in Iraq and we rated data quality as 3/3.

            Twelver Shi’a have been in conflict with the Sunni sect of Islam for centuries (Rosen, 2007).  The Ba’ath regime escalated the conflict throughout the 1970s (Minority Rights Group, 2021). The regime reviewed a 1918 census and approximately 200,000 descendants of those who stated “Iranian” as opposed to “Ottoman” origin were forcibly exiled.  These included many Shi’a Arabs (Minority Rights Group, 2021). The regime executed eight Shi’a leaders and arrested hundreds of Shi’a citizens during the Islamic Festival of Ashura in 1977 to prevent the the Shi’a religion from entering state politics (Minority Rights Group, 2021).

            The fall of Saddam Hussein’s rule in 2003 led to increasing sectarian violence between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims (Rosen, 2007). The bombing of a sacred Shi’a religious site in February 2006 increasingly fueled this violence, and led to massive displacement of over 2.7 million Iraqies, of whom nearly 2/3 were Shi’a(Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC], 2019; UNHCR 2008).  The Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) intensified their religious persecution in 2014 in Ninewa, Iraq (Higel, 2016). They instigated the forced displacement, kidnappings, hundreds of executions, and the destruction of property (including homes and religious sites) of almost 500,000 people, including Twelver Shi’as (Higel, 2016; IDMC, 2019; Minority Rights Group, 2021). The Islamic State did this to help the Sunnis regain political power within Iraq, and used systematic violence as a means to an end in Northern Iraq throughout 2014 (Minority Rights Group, 2021).

            Iraq proclaimed defeat against the Islamic State in 2017, however, thousands of Twelver Shi’a remain displaced today (IDMC, 2019).

Sources

  1. Higel, L. (2016). Iraq’s displacement crisis: Security and protection. Minority Rights Group International.
  2. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. (2019). A decade of displacement. https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/IDMC_MenaReport_final.pdf
  3. International Organization for Migration. (2006). Iraq displacement 2006 year in review. https://www.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl486/files/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/shared/mainsite/media/docs/news/2006_iraq_idp.pdf
  4. Minority Rights Group. (2021, February 6). Twelver (Ithna’ashari) shi’as. Minority Rights Group. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/twelver-ithnaashari-shias/
  5. Rosen, N. (2007, May 13). The Flight From Iraq. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13refugees-t.html
  6. UNHCR. 2008. Iraq: Latest return survey shows few intending to go home soon.https://web.archive.org/web/20080905005407/http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=briefing&id=4816ef534