|
BARTALLAH, Iraq, Aug 15 (AFP) - 14h22 - Dozens
of members of Iraq's tiny Shabak community
demonstrated in this northern town Monday to demand
separate recognition from other Kurds in a new
constitution due to be finalised later in the day.
Armed guards outside the headquarters of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main
former rebel factions, fired warning shots to
disperse the minority protestors.
"We want to be considered as a separate ethnicity,"
chanted the demonstrators, who gathered in response
to a call by the Shabak Democratic Assembly, which
has one MP in the 275-member Iraqi parliament.
"We are neither Kurds nor Arabs," they shouted.
Concentrated in villages east of Iraq's main
northern cty of Mosul, the Shabak are distinct from
other Kurds in both their language and their
religion.
They speak the Dimila dialect of Kurdish, mainly
spoken in the Tunceli region of east-central
Anatolia, which differs sharply from the Sorani and
Kurmanji dialects spoken by the vast majority of
Iraqi Kurds.
The Shabak are also followers of the Shiite branch
of Islam, unlike most Iraqi Kurds who are Sunnis,
and have been enumerated separately in population
censuses since the days of the British mandate after
World War I.
Their demonstration came as drafting committee
members scambled to complete a final text of a new
post-Saddam Hussein constitution ahead of a 1400 GMT
deadline for the full parliament to convene to
debate the charter.
AFP
Top |
® 