Sunday, January 22, 2006
Report RhetIraq: Minority Rights Group International
Who: Minority Rights Group International (MRGI)
Source: Inter Press Service
Quotes: From article titled, "Iraq Tops Nations With Minorities at Grave Risk"
Iraq tops a list of countries whose minorities find themselves most at risk of persecution and even mass killing at the start of 2006, according to a new threat index released Thursday by the London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG).
The index, the centrepiece of MRG's 2006 edition of the "State of the World Minorities" report, lists minorities in Sudan, including African tribes in Darfur that the U.S. government has said have been subject to "genocide", and Somalia as the next most threatened, followed by Afghanistan and Burma/Myanmar.
"We now have a situation where, when the election results come out, we'll be looking at a government with a political composition that is totally divided by sect or by ethnicity," he [Mark Lattimer, MRG's executive director] said, noting that all the leading political parties got support from their own sect or ethnic group in the December elections.
"At the same time, we've got a country which is sliding further and further into civil war. Clearly, we have very grave violence both on the part of the Sunni insurgents, but also on behalf of government forces against Sunni civilians. At the same time, the smaller minorities in the country, including the Turkmen and Christians and others, have almost no effective political representation."
In some cases, according to the report, governments used the U.S.-led "war on terror" as a justification for repressing their minorities. Such a strategy, however, was likely to backfire in the long run by creating new divisions and fuelling instability.
Source: Inter Press Service
Quotes: From article titled, "Iraq Tops Nations With Minorities at Grave Risk"
Iraq tops a list of countries whose minorities find themselves most at risk of persecution and even mass killing at the start of 2006, according to a new threat index released Thursday by the London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG).
The index, the centrepiece of MRG's 2006 edition of the "State of the World Minorities" report, lists minorities in Sudan, including African tribes in Darfur that the U.S. government has said have been subject to "genocide", and Somalia as the next most threatened, followed by Afghanistan and Burma/Myanmar.
"We now have a situation where, when the election results come out, we'll be looking at a government with a political composition that is totally divided by sect or by ethnicity," he [Mark Lattimer, MRG's executive director] said, noting that all the leading political parties got support from their own sect or ethnic group in the December elections.
"At the same time, we've got a country which is sliding further and further into civil war. Clearly, we have very grave violence both on the part of the Sunni insurgents, but also on behalf of government forces against Sunni civilians. At the same time, the smaller minorities in the country, including the Turkmen and Christians and others, have almost no effective political representation."
In some cases, according to the report, governments used the U.S.-led "war on terror" as a justification for repressing their minorities. Such a strategy, however, was likely to backfire in the long run by creating new divisions and fuelling instability.
