KRI Minority Law still partly unenforced, adviser says

Shafaq News- Erbil

Parts of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region’s (KRI) minority-rights law remain unenforced more than a decade after its adoption, Khider Domli, adviser to the Project for the Protection of Component Rights, told Shafaq News on Monday.

Despite those concerns, Domli described the KRI’s framework for protecting ethnic and religious communities as a successful model and called for similar protections in central and southern Iraq to safeguard communities’ rights, lives and property.

The Kurdistan Parliament adopted Law No. 5 in 2015 to protect the rights of ethnic, religious and sectarian communities in the Kurdistan Region.

According to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the law covers ethnic communities including Turkmen, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Assyrians and Armenians, as well as religious communities and sects including Christians, Yazidis, Sabian Mandaeans, Kaka’is, Shabaks, Feylis, Zoroastrians and others.

Pressure for fuller implementation has continued. In July 2026, Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian groups demonstrating in Duhok called for enforcement of Law No. 5 alongside final court rulings concerning community land and property disputes.