UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

KRG. Mr. Falak Al-Deen Kakai, senior member of the KDP, is the current Minister of
Culture. 416
Since the fall of the former regime, the Kaka’i living in the areas under central government
administration have come under pressure by religious extremists who consider them
“infidels”. UNHCR has received information of threats, kidnappings and assassinations of
Kaka’i, mainly in Kirkuk. UNHCR was informed that Muslim religious leaders in Kirkuk
asked people not to purchase anything from “infidel” Kaka’i shop owners. In addition,
Kaka’i might be targeted on the basis of their Kurdish ethnicity. 417 UNHCR received
information that in Mosul, the Kaka’i no longer dare to reveal their identity as Kaka’i.
It is believed that most Kaka’i have been displaced since the fall of the former regime. 418
For example, in the end of November 2006, Hewler Post, a bi-weekly paper issued in Erbil,
reported that 100 Kaka’i Kurds fled from the Urouba quarter in downtown Kirkuk after
having received threats from “terrorists”. 419 UNHCR has received information that some
250-300 Kaka’i families from Baghdad were displaced to Khanaqin.
f) Jews 420
Iraqi Jews constituted one of the world’s oldest and historically significant Jewish
communities. In the first half of the 20 th century, they were relatively prosperous and well
integrated into Iraqi society, held positions in the Iraqi parliament and bureaucracy, were
prominent in trade and contributed to local arts and literature. However, Nazi anti-Jewish
propaganda as of the 1930s and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 resulted in public
attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions and harsh laws discriminating against the
Jewish population, which was estimated at 150,000 in 1948. Initially, they were prohibited
from leaving the country, but in the early 1950s, the then Iraqi Government issued Law
No. 1 (1950) (Denationalization Act), which allowed them to emigrate under the condition
that they relinquish their Iraqi citizenship. In March 1951, nearly 120,000 Jews were
evacuated in the airlift operation called “Ezra and Nehemiah” from Baghdad to Jerusalem.
Law No. 5 (1951), known as Law for the Control and Administration of Property of Jews
Who Have Forfeited Nationality, seized all the assets of Jews who had been denationalized
by Law No. 1 (1950). Law No. 12 (1951), which was attached to Law No. 5 (1951), froze
held responsible for attacks in Northern Iraq, mainly directed against senior PUK/KDP political and military
officials. See UNHCR, 2005 Country of Origin Information Iraq, p. 66-67, see above footnote 53.
416 KRG, Ministers of the new unified cabinet, 7 May 2006, http://www.krg.org/articles/article_detail.asp?
LangNr=12&RubricNr=93&ArticleNr=10938&LangNr=12&LNNr=28&RNNr=97&TopicText=Cabinet&Sit
eID=50.
417 See also “Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen428F, Ethnic-Based Christian Groups (Assyrians, Chaldeans,
Armenians)429F, Yazidis430F and Shabak431F in Ethnically Mixed Areas” and “Kurds and Other Segments
of Iraqi Society”.
418 IRIN, Iraq: Minorities living tormented days under sectarian violence, 4 January 2007,
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=62981.
419 Hewler Post, November 2006 (in Kurdish, unofficial translation from UNAMI).
420 Jews consider themselves as an ethno-religious group.
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