Sunday, August 28, 2005


Basra, Iraq -- For the Christians in Basra, the downfall of Saddam Hussein has meant a terrible loss of religious freedom.

The social club where Yousef Lyon and his friends would gather in the evening to play dominoes, where families danced or listened to live music on holidays, is closed. Wedding celebrations are held quietly at home.

"Of course, during the Saddam regime, it was better," said Lyon, 40, a member of the city's small Armenian community. "Now we are afraid from the religious parties that maybe they will throw a bomb at us."

Not just the Christians, but many of the city's minorities -- from obscure sects like the ancient Sabeans to the sizable Sunni Muslim community - - live in fear of the hard-line Shiite religious parties and their militias that now rule Iraq's second-largest city.

Freedom has been curtailed for women, regardless of their religion. Several decades ago, almost no woman in Basra covered her head. Now, they all do, under fear of harassment or worse.

Women working for foreign companies or governments, and those considered to have loose morals, have been marked for death by the militants -- two Iraqi sisters who worked in the laundry at the U.S. compound in Basra were assassinated last year.

Basra is an ancient port city with a proud cosmopolitan history, where Christians, Jews, Sunnis, Shiites and many other groups lived in relative peace for hundreds of years, according to local historians. The Jews left en masse in the years following the founding of Israel in 1948. Now, although no one keeps records or statistics, other minorities are leaving as well.

"Saddam Hussein was a criminal and an oppressor. Everybody knew that," said Majid, 45, a Sunni taxi driver who said he was afraid to be identified further. "These new parties cry for society, but try to drink the blood of the people."

Hussein murdered tens of thousands of Iraqis, most of them Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. But he did not see other minorities as a threat because of their smaller numbers and because his regime was secular and not hostile to other religions or the rights of women, unlike some of Iraq's current officials.

"You can't say no to those people; they will kill you," Majid said of the current leaders here. "Even just if you have a different viewpoint, you will have a problem."

Basra is a city of 2 million people, predominantly Shiite. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Sunnis, and perhaps 5,000 or 6,000 Christians, live in the area.

On a recent Friday evening, about two dozen Presbyterians gathered for a service designed for those who must work on the Christian Sabbath. Their pastor recently fled Basra in fear, so a young, recent graduate in theology presided.

"At the beginning, we were very happy when the British army came to Basra. Everything was totally beautiful," said Zuhair Fathallah, a plastic surgeon who is an elder of the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

While most of Fathallah's fellow parishioners disliked Hussein, they were free to practice their faith. But a year after he was overthrown, things began to change in Basra. In April 2004, one of the Shiite militias revolted against the British army. Christians who had been licensed to sell alcohol under Hussein were attacked and sometimes killed by the militants. The church started to receive threatening letters intended to extort money, Fathallah said.

"The fanatic people think that if you don't obey (their) law, they will move against you," he added.

Social activities have been curtailed. The nursery school is closed. There is no more Sunday school because of fear the school bus will be attacked. The church had 300 mostly large families during its heyday 30 or more years ago. Now just 35 families belong -- a total of 150 people.

"If we can survive, we will be a good church," Fathallah said. "Basra is the best city, and we are good survivors."