Middle Middle East and EastMiddle and North NorthEast and Africa AfricaNorth Preti Taneja AfricaPreti Taneja Sarah El Ashmawy, Tom Palmer, Miriam Puttick and Derek Verbakel

LEBANON SYRIA

ISRAEL/OT/ Palestinian Authority

EGYPT JORDAN MiddleIRAQ Middle

KUWAIT East andIRAN East and

SAUDI ARABIA BAHRAIN QATAR

NorthU.A.E . North

OMAN AfricaYEMEN Africa Preti Taneja Preti Taneja

ARABIAN SEA he Middle East and North Africa the beheading of 21 Egyptian in Libya in (MENA) region experienced one February 2015 and an attack by armed gunmen T of its bloodiest years in 2014, with in central Tunis in March 2015. ongoing fighting in Syria between President Though some of these attacks may have been Bashar al-Assad’s army, opposition forces and the intended to exaggerate the actual presence of increasingly powerful presence of the extremist ISIS in these countries, it is also the case that group Da’ash, also known as the Islamic State even religious and ethnic minorities in relatively of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). In neighbouring stable countries in the region routinely experience Iraq, ISIS launched a summer offensive in the discrimination, intimidation and violence. In north of the country which saw their forces many cases these incidents occur in urban areas overrun large swathes of territory. This area has where diverse populations have coexisted for long been home to many minority communities, centuries. However, ongoing violence, particularly including Chaldo-Assyrians, Shabak, Turkmen in Iraq and Syria, is increasingly leading to and Yezidis, who were actively targeted as ISIS segregation and homogenization in cities. ISIS, captured Mosul, Tal Afar and other major cities, besides displacing minority communities in the as well as numerous towns and villages with large areas under its control, has also systematically minority populations. Thousands were killed or destroyed churches, shrines and non-Sunni abducted, while hundreds of thousands of people mosques. As a result, the historical legacy of were displaced. In addition, ISIS has spread fear centuries of coexistence is being erased. Yet across the region with a number of high-profile urban centres such as Cairo, despite significant incidents in other countries, such as the suicide challenges, still offer minorities more opportunities bomb explosion at a Beirut hotel in June 2014, to engage in activism, enjoy personal freedoms

228 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 and interact with members of other communities. worship still refers specifically to the ‘Abrahamic’ Ensuring the security and dignity of minorities in religions – a term that includes , urban areas is therefore essential to achieving long- Islam and Judaism, but potentially excludes term stability across the region. Bahá’í and other faiths that are discriminated against. More generally, there is continued Egypt scepticism about the government’s willingness The year 2014 began with a referendum in and ability to tackle the broader context of January on a new Constitution that prohibits discrimination towards minorities in the country. political parties based on religion, with 98 per Despite some positive signs during the year – cent of participants voting in approval, though culminating in President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s opposition groups complained of intimidation attendance of a Coptic Christmas mass in and partisan media coverage. For the country’s January 2015, an unprecedented gesture by an most vulnerable social groups, however, the Egyptian head of state – many challenges remain. drafting process at least provided an opportunity This is particularly the case for Copts and other to promote a more inclusive environment for religious minorities in a country where Islam Egypt’s diverse religious and ethnic population. is still elevated as the state religion and Sharia In the preceding months, representatives of long- principles form the main source of legislation. marginalized communities such as Amazigh and For example, the fraught issue of regulations Nubians were able to meet with members of on church construction, despite apparently the drafting committee to advocate for various receiving legal approval through the new amendments to the text. Constitution – Article 64 stipulates ‘the freedom The approved version was generally regarded of practising religious rituals and establishing as an improvement on the 2012 Constitution, worship places for the followers of Abrahamic passed under former President Mohamed Morsi religions’ – has not yet been resolved. Though and widely criticized by rights groups for its lack steps were taken later in the year to address of protections for many minorities. Among other the existing restrictions on church building, achievements, the ‘right to return’ of Egyptian with the Coptic Church and other Christian Nubians whose lands were flooded during the organizations drafting a proposed law, at the government-led construction of the Aswan end of the year the restrictions remained in dam in the 1960s, without prior consultation place. The regulations, rooted in Ottoman or consent, was recognized for the first time. law, have for decades been used to obstruct Furthermore, the 2014 Constitution finally the development or renovation of Christian recognized ‘incitement to hatred’ as a crime, places of worship, and have contributed to the tasking the future legislative body with the wave of attacks in recent years against Coptic creation of a special commission to implement buildings. Though authorities have reportedly the provision. This is a significant milestone been more accommodating in approving church for Egypt’s minorities, as in recent years hate construction since Sisi took power, Coptic speech has been linked with outbreaks of violence communities continue to be targeted by militant against Bahá’í, Copts and Shi’a. groups. In January 2015, for example, two However, the Constitution has also been policemen were killed outside a church in Minya, criticized for perpetuating many of the followed by further attacks three months later in shortcomings of its predecessor. While Article Alexandria and Cairo. 64 on religious freedom has been strengthened, Another source of deep concern is the Sisi its provision on religious practice and places of government’s ongoing human rights abuses and repression of civil freedoms. Shortly after Left: A Yezidi girl and her family at a refugee staging a coup against Morsi in June 2013, camp in north eastern Syria. Some of the the military were responsible for the killing 12,000 Yezidis at the camp walked up to 60km of more than 1,000 protesters. This served to in searing heat to flee Iraq. Rachel Unkovic/ deepen divisions within the country which International Rescue Committee Sisi, since securing democratic election in May

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 229 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa Below: Muslim men stand with a Coptic for its failure to ensure their protection. Christian man holding a lit candle in tribute to Whether they are in search of economic the 21 Egyptians beheaded in Libya in February opportunities or displaced due to violence or 2015. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman disruptive development such as the Aswan dam, many members of Egypt’s minorities have 2014, has failed to resolve. In particular, the relocated to towns and cities within Egypt as government’s crackdown on supporters of the well. Urban development is therefore a key area Muslim Brotherhood, involving arbitrary arrests, of concern for these communities, reflected indefinite detention and killings, has alienated in the inclusion of Article 235 in the 2014 a significant portion of the population and, Constitution, which stipulates that ‘the state by extension, may have put Copts and other shall guarantee setting and implementing a plan religious minorities at increasing risk of attack. for the comprehensive economic and urban While minorities have long been targeted by development of border and underprivileged areas, militants, the mass execution of 21 Coptic including Upper Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptians in neighbouring Libya in February Matrouh and Nubia’. It is hoped that this text 2015 by ISIS was a painful reminder of the will lead to support for Nubians who wish to community’s continued vulnerability. Media return to their area of origin. investigations revealed that many of the victims Cairo is not only Egypt’s capital, but also the came from Upper Egypt villages and had left largest megacity in the MENA region. Rapid their homes to financially support their families. and largely unmanaged urban growth has led to The government was criticized by some activists large swathes of informal settlements across the

230 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 city, with many sheltering in makeshift housing As the country’s second largest city, Mosul was and unsanitary living conditions. These issues previously home to a wide array of minority are especially pronounced, however, for the groups. Hundreds of Christian families and other city’s ‘Zabbalin’ – the word for garbage minorities joined the exodus of civilians leaving collectors – a large community whose livelihood Mosul, with the UN estimating that 500,000 is based on the collection and recycling of solid people fled in the first week following the entry waste. Operating in the informal sector, the of ISIS into the city. The remaining Christian majority are Coptic and originally migrated families received an ultimatum to either convert from Upper Egypt with their families in search to Islam, pay jizya (a tribute levied on non- of a source of income. Though their activities Muslims) or be killed. In June ISIS also took provided Cairo with a highly efficient system of control of Tikrit and then Tal Afar, causing waste collection, in 2004 the community was the displacement of approximately 200,000 dealt a blow when authorities contracted their Turkmen. Further massacres of civilians in Shi’a work out to corporations. While in practice Turkmen and Shabak villages took place as ISIS’s they continued to earn a living informally from advance continued, with hundreds also taken this activity, their income was greatly reduced. captive and towns such as the Turkmen-majority However, authorities have now officially town of Amerli besieged. ISIS also took control reinstituted the involvement of the community of many Assyrian areas in the Ninewa plains in in waste collection and, despite continued early August, forcing thousands more to flee for discrimination, the community has developed their lives, leaving behind everything they owned. strong solidarity networks to support each other. Among the worst affected by this advance are Iraq’s Yezidis. In the beginning of August Iraq ISIS reached Sinjar, home to a large portion of The spread of armed conflict during 2014, the community. The Kurdish peshmerga forces, propelled by the rise of ISIS, has taken an who had been protecting the area, withdrew enormous toll on the civilian population. Over without warning, leaving the local population the course of the year, over 17,000 civilians were defenceless. An estimated 200,000 Yezidi civilians killed and more than 2 million displaced, with fled for their lives, with at least 50,000 heading minorities disproportionately affected. After ISIS to Sinjar mountain, where they were trapped took control of the Ninewa plains, traditionally in the scorching summer heat for days without home to many of Iraq’s diverse ethnic and food or water. Those unable to escape or who religious minority groups, militants carried out attempted to defend their villages from ISIS a brutal campaign of executions, abductions fighters were subsequently murdered or abducted, and expulsions. Entire minority communities, with large-scale massacres of Yezidi men and including Armenian Christians, Chaldo-Assyrians, boys in the villages of Qiniyeh, Kocho and Jdali. Sabean Mandaeans, Shabak, Turkmen and Meanwhile, thousands of Yezidi women and girls Yezidis, have been uprooted from areas where they were abducted for the purpose of forced marriage have been living in some cases for thousands of or sexual slavery. Large numbers of women were years. Minority women have been the targets of subsequently transported to Syria to be sold or particularly horrific forms of sexual and gender- forcibly married to ISIS fighters. As of the end of based violence, including kidnapping, rape, forced 2014, only about 300 had managed to escape. marriage, sexual slavery and trafficking. ISIS has imposed a new order in urban areas The spread of the conflict over the course of under its control, marked by the imposition the year assumed increasingly urban dimensions of strict interpretations of religious law, the as ISIS took control of major cities previously silencing of all forms of opposition and the thought to be firmly under the control of destruction of any traces of minority culture and the Iraqi government. In January, ISIS seized heritage. In Mosul, ISIS issued orders mandating Fallujah and Ramadi in Al-Anbar governorate women to wear the veil and instructing them before moving into Mosul in Ninewa governorate not to leave the house unless accompanied by in June as the Iraqi Security Forces collapsed. a man. Residents of the city have been tried in

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 231 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa Below: A Yezidi woman hauls water in a process described by Irina Bokova, Director- containers toward a Yezidi refugee camp in General of UNESCO, as a campaign of ‘cultural the Sinjar mountains, Iraq, March 2015. cleansing’. Panos/Noriko Hayashi. Most Iraqis displaced by the recent wave of violence are currently living in desperate self-styled Sharia courts for violating or opposing conditions. The majority have fled to urban the group’s ideology, with many sentenced to centres in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, where public executions and other punishments. ISIS around 930,000 IDPs, or 47 per cent of also expropriated houses belonging to Christians Iraq’s total IDP population, were based by and other minorities before looting them of their late 2014. While a few have been able to find contents. accommodation with friends and relatives or In addition, militants have destroyed or are using their savings to rent apartments, the defaced sites of enormous religious, cultural majority are living in overcrowded camps, and historical value, including several churches unfinished building structures, churches, malls, and monuments in Mosul, the Assyrian Green schools and other public buildings. The influx of Church in Tikrit, the oldest and largest library IDPs raises difficult dilemmas related to informal in Tel Afar and countless mosques, shrines and illegal housing occupancy in Kurdish cities. and tombs of religious importance to Shabak, It also risks creating future conflicts over lands Turkmen and Yezidis. Evidence of the region’s and properties that IDPs were forced to leave historic diversity, reflected in the wealth of behind, in some cases exacerbating unresolved churches, mosques and other buildings in its land claims dating back to the Ba’athist era. urban areas, has been systematically eradicated Adapting to life in displacement in cities or

232 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 camps in the Kurdish region has been particularly country’s history and culture, many minority difficult for minorities. In addition to lacking leaders emphasize the importance of establishing all the basic necessities of life, including food, safe areas allowing minorities to return to their drinking water, clothing, medicines and hygienic lands, with reconciliation measures to enable products, many are suffering from the effects of reintegration with other faiths and ethnic severe trauma and have little access to support backgrounds. services such as psychosocial counselling to help them to deal with experiences such as sexual Israel/Palestine violence. The prospect of accessing employment For the marginalized and besieged communities and public services is bleak for many IDPs, of Israel and the State of Palestine, 2014 was the due to high competition, language barriers and most deadly year in recent history. Over a seven- discrimination by Kurdish authorities against week period in July and August, Israel’s aerial minorities. IDP women are also especially and ground assault against militant groups in the vulnerable to sexual harassment, assault and other occupied and blockaded Gaza Strip, known as forms of exploitation. Operation Protective Edge, resulted in the deaths Although the latest crisis has greatly of at least 1,486 Palestinian civilians, including compounded the suffering of Iraq’s minorities, 513 children, and the displacement during the the struggle for recognition and access to basic hostilities of around 500,000 people. This was rights in the urban context is not new. In the the latest episode in a series of violent escalations context of spiralling sectarian violence in the in recent years, set against a backdrop defined years following the US-led invasion, Iraq’s urban by unstable progress towards the reconciliation centres have long been unsafe for minorities. of the two main Palestinian factions, another Formerly mixed neighbourhoods in major cities failed round of US-convened peace talks and such as Baghdad have become segregated along unprecedented Israeli settlement expansion in the sectarian lines, leaving minorities especially occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. vulnerable to targeted violence. Faced with the The unstable political situation led to rising government’s unwillingness to protect minorities tensions in the West Bank at the start of the or prosecute those responsible for attacks against summer, triggered in part by the abduction of them, many minorities have left and resettled three Israeli teenagers who, it later transpired, had elsewhere, especially in the Ninewa plains. been murdered by two members of Hamas. In However, living in minority areas has meant the wake of their disappearance, Israeli military facing the reality of neglect in public service shot and killed five Palestinians, and detained provision from the Iraqi government. In the at least 150 more during raids on Palestinian past, the government has allocated the Ninewa towns and villages in search of the missing boys governorate less than its legally required share – actions condemned by Human Rights Watch of the federal budget, and many towns lack (HRW) as amounting to ‘collective punishment’ basic public services. In the southern and central of the Palestinian population. regions of Iraq, areas inhabited by black and Incitement to violence and racist language on Roma minorities are marked by deplorable living social media directed at the Arab minority in conditions, including lack of suitable housing and Israel also rose dramatically during Operation inadequate access to drinking water or sanitation. Protective Edge, as did incidents of abusive The long-term process of marginalization of graffiti and attacks on private property. Arabs Iraq’s minorities, compounded by recent events, were also harassed and physically attacked by has opened up the possibility that the existence ultra-nationalist gangs during demonstrations of these historical communities in Iraq could against Operation Protective Edge. The hostile be coming to an end. The latest crisis has led atmosphere was aggravated by provocative many to abandon hope of a safe return to their statements from public figures and by attempts homes and focus instead on restarting their to pass legislation undermining the rights of lives elsewhere. However, given the deep roots the Arab minority. This was exemplified by of minorities in Iraq and their centrality to the the endorsement of the so-called ‘nation-state

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 233 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa bill’ by a majority vote in the Israeli cabinet in Right: children play on a rooftop in November. If enacted, the bill will limit collective the ‘unrecognized’ village of Um Al-Hiram in rights to Jewish citizens of the country and could southern Israel’s Negev desert, October 2014. pave the way for other discriminatory policies REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly against non-Jewish populations. Israeli civilians were also attacked by militants on 1,200 people displaced in the West Bank, the a number of occasions during the year. Besides the highest figure recorded by the UN since it began abduction of the three Israeli teenagers, there were tracking incidents in 2008. A large number of several other incidents, including two in which these concern buildings and shelters erected by Palestinian drivers targeted Israeli pedestrians at Palestinian communities in land assigned under Jerusalem light rail stations located in Palestinian the 1993 Oslo Accords as Area C, where Israel neighbourhoods. The series of attacks against has control over law enforcement, planning and Israeli civilians culminated in an armed assault construction. Area C makes up over 60 per cent in November by two Palestinians on a West of the West Bank, with the remainder divided Jerusalem synagogue, killing five civilians and and designated either as Area A or Area B, which injuring six others. Israeli authorities responded nominally fall under full and partial Palestinian by conducting large-scale arrests, including administration respectively. The 300,000 hundreds of children, and reinstating their policy Palestinian residents of Area C are especially of demolishing the homes of the families of the vulnerable to displacement due to discriminatory Palestinians involved. This was again condemned planning policies and the threat of violence from by HRW as tantamount to collective punishment groups of religious and nationalist extremists and a policy liable to stoke the cycle of violence. living in neighbouring Israeli settlements. Large The Israeli army was also criticized for swathes of Area C have been designated as its excessive use of force in response to nature reserves or closed military areas, and are demonstrations by Palestinians throughout the therefore off-limits for Palestinian construction. year. This included, in December, the death of Additionally, over 6,000 Palestinians live in 38 Ziad Abu Ein, a senior minister in the Palestinian communities located within Israeli-designated Authority, following an assault by an Israeli ‘firing zones’ allocated for military training. soldier during a peaceful protest against illegal While only 1 per cent of Area C is slated for Israeli settlements. On the same day, during Palestinian development, Israeli settlements protests against Abu Ein’s killing, a 14-year- continue to expand in violation of international old Palestinian boy was seriously wounded in law. There are currently 340,000 Israelis living Jalazone Refugee Camp by a gunshot to the in these illegal settlements in Area C and head fired by Israeli security personnel. The that number is set to rise. The Israeli NGO UN reported that a total of 56 Palestinians had PeaceNow has reported that during the peace been killed during incidents with Israel’s security talks that spanned August 2013 to March forces in the West Bank during 2014, double 2014 the Israeli government promoted plans the number for 2013, and 5,868 injured – the and tenders for at least 13,851 housing units highest annual figure since records began in in the settlements in the West Bank, including 2005. Almost half of these injuries were recorded East Jerusalem – a significant increase on the in Jerusalem, where tensions were stoked by same period from the previous year. Settlement the murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian by growth comes at the expense of living standards Israeli settlers in retaliation for the murder of for Palestinians throughout the West Bank, the three Israeli teenagers. Israel’s suppression and communities in Area C are particularly of Palestinian protests and decision to limit vulnerable to the neglectful provision of public access for Muslims to the city’s holy sites led to services and infrastructure, specifically electricity, an increased number of violent clashes between water and sewerage. According to the UN, more Palestinian youth and the Israeli military. than 70 per cent of these communities are not House demolitions in general also increased to connected to the water network and depend on unprecedented levels in 2014, with more than tankered water, at significantly greater expense.

234 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 Daily water consumption in some areas is as little structures. The designated ‘relocation’ sites as 20 litres per capita, just a fifth of the World include three new townships to be developed Health Organization’s recommended minimum. in Area C. As there is limited grazing land at At even greater risk of displacement due to the proposed sites, the resettlement will likely Israel’s settlement expansion policies are the threaten the traditional livelihoods and culture. Bedouin communities of the West Bank. There These communities have been specifically are around 7,000 Palestinian and targeted as they are in an area designated for the herders, some 60 per cent of them children, expansion of Israeli settlements as part of the living in 46 small residential areas in Area C. so-called E1 Plan. This controversial proposal, Over 3,600 have been displaced since 2008. which has been widely condemned by the UN In September, Israel published plans to move and rights groups for violating international six communities from the vicinities of Jericho, humanitarian law, would see the construction of Ramallah and Jerusalem. Over a dozen others thousands of residential and commercial units are also under threat of displacement and have linking settlements in East Jerusalem to the endured months of eviction orders, as well as large Ma’ale Adumim settlement, creating a bloc the destruction of their homes and livelihood spanning much of the central West Bank.

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 235 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa off on three sides and with little land zoned for Case study by Tom Palmer construction, there is a severe housing shortage and residents have no choice but to build without permits. Many have been issued with demolition Life in a divided city orders and some have lost their homes already. In this regard, conditions in Al-Isawiyyah are – one Palestinian typical of many Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and their struggle with Israel’s community under draconian planning restrictions. However, the village also faces the threat of another form of threat in East Israeli planning that has been used repeatedly to limit the development of Palestinian Jerusalem neighbourhoods and even expel Palestinians from their land – the zoning of supposedly ‘vacant’ areas in East Jerusalem as parks and protected While 35 per cent of land in East Jerusalem green spaces. has been expropriated for the establishment of In September 2014, the Israeli National a dozen Jewish settlements, housing around Planning Committee announced controversial 200,000 Israeli citizens, under the current Israeli plans to build a new ‘national park’ on the slopes master plan only 13 per cent of East Jerusalem is of Mount Scopus, where Al-Isawiyyah is based. zoned for Palestinian construction, even though The plans as they currently stand would lead to 300,000 Palestinians reside in the area. Decisions the confiscation of 700,000 square metres of land regarding planning policy are unofficially based belonging to Al-Isawiyyah and another Palestinian on the Jerusalem 2000 Outline Plan, despite the neighbourhood, At-Tur. News of the proposal fact that it has not been submitted for public provoked widespread condemnation from rights review. While it does allocate areas for expansion, groups and community residents. these tend to be places that are already built up Though the committee has so far refused due to unpermitted construction. In combination to cancel the park, it has conceded that its with the deliberately labyrinthine application boundaries should be re-examined due to procedures, this has led to a third of Palestinian insufficient consideration of the needs of the homes being built without the mandatory Israeli- two adjacent Palestinian neighbourhoods. issued building permit, placing over 90,000 residents at risk of eviction. As well as causing practical problems, this has a considerable psychological impact. The practical effects of these policies can perhaps be best appreciated at a local level. A typical example of a once thriving village, dating back centuries, is the Palestinian village of Al-Isawiyyah. A large part of the district, including the built-up area, fell under Israeli control from 1967 and much of this area has since been expropriated from residents. Today, cut off from other areas of East Jerusalem by a web of Israeli-built development that includes military camps, the Hebrew University campus and the Eastern Ring Road, it is a crowded enclave with a population density 2.5 times higher than neighbouring Israeli settlements. Blocked

236 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 The decision regarding these boundaries Israel’s barrier has intensified the separation of has been referred back to a lower-level East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, planning committee. The Israeli non- incorporating 13 checkpoints through which profit organization, BIMKOM – Planners Palestinian residents in the remainder of the for Planning Rights, which provides Palestine require special permits to cross. The legal representation for an association of barrier’s circuitous route has been planned as Al-Isawiyyah residents – is now hopeful that such in order to include the large majority of the plans for the park will be curtailed. Israeli settlements. As a result, some Palestinian If this is the case, it will be a rare positive communities such as Kafr ’Aqab and Shu’fat development in a history of long-running refugee camp are now situated within the disputes with Israeli authorities, whose Jerusalem municipal boundary, on the West planning policies have been a recurring source Bank side of the barrier, and therefore required of tension for the community. In 2008 the to pass through checkpoints to access health Jerusalem Municipality began to advance care and other services. On the other hand, an plans for a solid waste dump to the north estimated 1,400 West Bank residents are now which would leave the community completely caught on the Jerusalem side of the barrier, but surrounded. And should the E1 Plan be still denied residency rights, employment or implemented, the result will be even more services in East Jerusalem. exclusionary development – leaving it more The barrier is not the only example of divisive isolated and overcrowded than ever. Israeli infrastructure. The light rail has also been Though the story of Al-Isawiyyah would be a target of Palestinian anger and resentment since be tragic even if it was unique, the problems its completion in 2011, reflected in multiple facing the community are shared by many attacks against rail commuters during the year. other Palestinian neighbourhoods – problems Running from West Jerusalem to the Israeli that, without a significant shift in Israel’s urban settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev on the eastern edge policy, will only become worse in future. ■ of the municipality, the light rail was initially portrayed by Israel’s leadership as a symbol of Below: A Palestinian boy walks on the rubble coexistence and unity. However, its importance of his demolished house in an East Jerusalem to the projection of Israeli sovereignty over the neighbourhood, November 2014. REUTERS/ entirety of Jerusalem has since been explicitly Ammar Awad stated by public figures such as the city’s mayor Nir Barkat. For Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, the light rail has been seen as another expression of the occupation, and a 2010 resolution from the UN Human Rights Council declared its route to be in clear violation of international law. The lack of government investment in East Jerusalem has resulted in significant discrimination and overcrowding for Palestinian residents. Besides neglected municipal services such as rubbish collection and lighting, there is a severe shortage of public buildings and facilities like schools or playgrounds. The June announcement of a five-year plan for East Jerusalem was only a partial step forward: NIS200 million will be invested in infrastructure, education, welfare and employment, while NIS95.4 million will go towards security. And commentators noted

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 237 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa that the government’s express intention is to and social unrest. This has been exacerbated strengthen its control over East Jerusalem, rather by Israel’s policy towards African migrants than to secure the rights of Palestinians living and asylum seekers, who are assigned to social there. housing in neglected neighbourhoods that lack In densely populated Gaza, on the other hand, the necessary welfare services, infrastructure or restrictions on the importing of construction personal safety measures to cater for the increased materials imposed by blockade, enforced by both population. Israel and Egypt, make any systematic planning More broadly, Arab minorities in Israel have very difficult. To make matters worse, 118,000 been subjected to policies resulting in significant housing units were destroyed or damaged during housing inequality. The most recent statistics Operation Protective Edge in addition to schools, show that in 2013, the Israel Land Authority hospitals and the enclave’s sole power plant. issued tenders for the construction of more Their repair will depend on all parties upholding housing units in the illegal settlements in the the terms of the ceasefire and implementing the Palestine than it did in the Arab communities temporary Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism in Israel, despite there being more than double which has since been set in place. Ultimately, the number of inhabitants in these villages than Israel will have the final say about what materials Jewish residents living in the occupied West will be allowed into Gaza and who will supply Bank. Arab communities make up just 2.5 per them. However, as HRW has reported, Israel’s cent of the territory of Israel and this has barely policy in the past has been to impose blanket increased since 1948. Annually, 12,000 new restrictions ‘unconnected or disproportionate housing units are required to close the housing to security considerations [which] unnecessarily gap; in 2013, however, only 3,547 housing units harm people’s access to food, water, education, in Arab communities were marketed out of a and other fundamental rights in Gaza’. total of 27,840. As a result, in contrast to the Israel has also employed discriminatory extensive planning and development of Jewish planning policies to marginalize minorities localities, Arab neighbourhoods in Israel have within its own borders. Despite the welcome urbanized without any overarching strategy in freezing towards the end of 2013 of the legislative place to meet the needs of the population. process behind the Prawer plan to forcibly remove 70,000 Bedouin living in unrecognized Saudi Arabia villages in the Negev (Naqab in Arabic), civil Sunni Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia is home to rights groups fear that they are still in danger of a large Shi’a minority, comprising an estimated displacement due to the appropriation of large 10–15 per cent of the population. Most belong parts of their land. Amnesty International reports to the Twelver sect and are concentrated in the that the enactment of the Regional Master Plan country’s oil-rich Eastern province, although for the Be’er Sheva Metropolitan Area, approved there are also an estimated 700,000 Isma’ilis in August 2012 despite outstanding objections and smaller numbers of Zaydis living primarily by the Bedouin community, would result in in Najran and other areas along the Yemeni the eviction and destruction of most of the 35 border. In a country where Sunni Islam is the unrecognized villages. In the meantime, the official religion and other forms of religious Bedouin and herding communities are prone to expression are strictly prohibited, Shi’a Muslims house demolitions because of the obstacles to are subject to restrictions on their religious obtaining building permits. practice and widespread discrimination. Shi’a Other discriminated communities include are also officially discriminated against in Ethiopian Israelis and Mizrahim, who are Jews public sector employment – a key component from Arab countries. A lack of investment or of social status in Saudi Arabia – including in policies directed at improving social cohesion in the judiciary, military and education. For Shi’a urban areas, such as south Tel Aviv, where large women, religious discrimination compounds the numbers from these groups reside, has resulted problem of finding a job in a country in which in poor living conditions, high levels of crime employment opportunities for women are already

238 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 severely limited by strict gender segregation prison term. policies, restricted mobility and cultural mores. There are fears that the atmosphere of The Saudi government has a zero-tolerance increased polarization of sectarian identities policy for dissent and has cracked down harshly that has taken hold of the wider region over the on Shi’a activists and others calling for reform. last year could have negative repercussions for In a troubling development, authorities passed Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a minority. On 3 November, a sweeping anti-terrorism law in January 2014 a bloody attack carried out against Shi’a that made a host of vague and undefined charges, worshippers observing the religious occasion such as ‘insulting the reputation of the state’, of Ashura in Al-Ahsa governorate confirmed prosecutable offences. Throughout the year, the some of these fears. Masked gunmen attacked Saudi authorities imposed harsh prison sentences the worshippers as they were leaving their place on a number of minority rights activists. In of worship in al-Dalwa village, killing at least April, Fadhil al-Manasif, who documented seven, including children, and leaving dozens abuses against protesters in the Eastern province injured. The Saudi authorities arrested a number in 2011, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, a of people in connection with the incident and lengthy travel ban and a fine. In August, Shi’a have indicated that the attackers were led by cleric Tawfiq Al-Amer was sentenced to eight a Saudi national who had recently returned years in prison, as well as a travel ban and a from fighting in Iraq and Syria. However, in a prohibition on giving sermons. Al-Amer had positive development, the Saudi public, as well called for political reforms in his speeches, as leading government and religious figures, including moving towards a constitutional were unanimous in condemning the attack and monarchy, and better treatment of Shi’a citizens. presenting a united front of solidarity with the In November, Mikhlif al-Shammari, a Sunni victims. Interior Minister Prince Mohammed activist who advocated for equality between bin Nayef visited the wounded in the hospital Sunni and Shi’a citizens, was sentenced to and paid his condolences to the families of those two years in prison and 200 lashes following killed. accusations which included meeting with Shi’a While sectarian violence in Iraq and Syria activists in the Eastern province. has added a new dimension of fear, the Several activists were also sentenced to death marginalization of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a citizens during the year for their activities, including Rida is much more deep-seated in nature and has Al-Rubh, the son of a Shi’a cleric, in May, for his long-term roots. Driven by the discovery involvement in protests in 2011 and for allegedly of oil, Saudi Arabia has undergone massive shooting at security officers. The same week, Ali social and economic changes over the last few Mohammed Baqir Al-Nimr also received the decades, including a rapid transformation over death sentence in connection with the protests, several decades into a largely urban population. despite the fact that he was 17 years old at However, this development process has been the time. HRW asserts that the trials of these uneven, with Saudi Shi’a claiming that the activists were rife with due process violations, government has favoured Sunni-majority areas including forced confessions. On 15 October, for development projects while neglecting prominent Shi’a cleric and activist Sheikh Nimr cities such as Qatif, which has a large Shi’a Baqir Al-Nimr was sentenced to death. Al-Nimr population. Residents claim that there is only had a wide following and often criticized the one government hospital to serve the population, government’s treatment of the Shi’a minority in exceeding half a million, whereas Sunni towns of his sermons. He called on Shi’a citizens to resist a similar size typically have many more hospitals discrimination through peaceful means and was and specialized health centres. Shi’a-majority involved in organizing protests in 2011. News of cities also lack universities, whereas even small his sentencing sparked street riots in the Eastern Sunni towns boast new university campuses. province. The following week, two more activists Moreover, Shi’a face difficulties in obtaining were sentenced to death in connection to the permits to build mosques, constraining their 2011 protests and a third was given a 12-year religious practices in many areas.

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 239 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa Migrant workers represent another excluded all civilians, majority and minority communities sector of the population. Despite forming alike. At times, however, minorities including the backbone of the private sector workforce Alawis, Christians, Druze, Ismailis, Kurds, and playing a vital role in construction, Turkmen, Twelver Shi’a and Yezidis have been they are often the last to benefit from urban targeted by opposition militias on the assumption, development. In Saudi cities, migrants are often whether accurate or not, that they support the segregated from other residents and confined regime. Alawis are among the groups most in to overcrowded, low-cost living arrangements. danger of violent persecution by armed opposition In Mecca, for instance, multi-billion-dollar groups due to their perceived association with projects to expand and modernize the Holy the Assad regime, although in general minority Mosque, the Masjid al-Haram, and surrounding areas have transformed the city centre into a haven for wealthy pilgrims, replete with luxury hotels, restaurants and shopping malls, while marginalizing the city’s poorer inhabitants and destroying much ancient heritage in the process, including numerous Sufi shrines. Rents in the city have skyrocketed and the government has not invested in affordable housing, leading to the growth of slums populated largely by migrants. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia already live a precarious existence due to the sponsorship system, which leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, violence and sexual abuse by their Saudi employers, as they do not benefit from minimum wage regulations and other protections afforded to Saudi nationals.

Syria Fighting in Syria intensified throughout 2014, with at least 7.6 million Syrians internally displaced and another 3.7 million refugees by the end of the year. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that more than 76,000 people had died during the year, bringing the death toll of the conflict so far to over 200,000. The conflict has been strongly urban in nature, focused particularly on cities such as Aleppo and Damascus, with civilians especially vulnerable as regime forces deliberately target schools, hospitals, mosques and other non- military targets. Both the government and armed opposition groups have also denied civilians in besieged areas access to food, water, electricity, medical care and other essential services. Women are at particular risk due to the increasing use of gender-based violence as a weapon of war in the conflict. The brutal and destructive nature of the conflict in Syria has caused untold suffering for

240 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 Below: Women mourn near graves of Kurdish executed in Zanuba, Hama province, while a fighters who died in Kobane, Syria. REUTERS/ series of car bombings in Alawi areas of Homs Kai Pfaffenbach/Files between March and June led to high civilian casualties. Many Alawis worry for their future in political allegiances are divided between support Syria, fearing they will be reduced to second-class and opposition. Alawis and other Shi’a Muslims citizens if a Sunni-dominated regime takes power were exposed to several brutal attacks during or forced to negotiate their minority status along the year. In February, rebel fighters attacked with the rest of Syria’s religious minorities. The the village of Maan in Hama province, killing Assad regime has been accused of attempting to 40 Alawis. In May, an entire Alawi family was manipulate minorities by encouraging fears of

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 241 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa sectarian division. Ma’aloula in December 2013, were released in Furthermore, as extremist groups such March following negotiations between Jabhat as Jabhat an-Nusrah and ISIS have risen in an-Nusra, which was holding them captive, and influence over the year, minorities have been Syrian, Lebanese and Qatari officials. targeted because of their faith. Since some of The Druze community, whose adherents these communities are already small in number, follow a monotheistic religion with roots in there are fears that continued attacks could lead Islam, has largely attempted to stay removed to their exodus from the country. Members from the conflict but were nonetheless drawn of Syria’s Yezidi minority, for instance, are at into the fighting this year. In August, Druze risk following ISIS’s brutal campaign against fighters clashed with Bedouin Arabs backed by community members in Iraq. ISIS has smuggled Jabhat an-Nusrah, leading to at least a dozen unknown numbers of abducted Yezidi women deaths, including those of three spiritual leaders. and girls from Sinjar into Syria, where they have As for Syria’s ethnic Kurdish minority, long been sold as commodities, enslaved, raped and disenfranchised by Baa’thist rule, the conflict has forcibly married to ISIS fighters. provided an opportunity to carve out a sphere of Among the many areas subjected to intense autonomy. In January, Syrian Kurds established fighting over the year were several Christian- an Interim Transitional Administration in the majority towns, where attacks led to the cantons of Jazira, Kobane and Afrin. However, as displacement of the civilian population and fighting with Sunni Arab factions for control of irreparable damage to historic archaeological and territory is ongoing, Kurdish civilians continue to religious sites. In May, the Armenian Christian pay a high price. When ISIS entered the village town of Kesseb was attacked and taken over by of Tel Akhader in March, the group issued an opposition fighters, causing approximately 2,500 ultimatum to the Kurdish residents to leave or be Armenians to flee for their lives. The Assyrian killed. In May, the group kidnapped nearly 200 Christian town of Ma’aloula, one of the few Kurdish civilians from the village of Qabasin. places in Syria where the Aramaic language is The same month, they kidnapped 153 Kurdish still spoken, switched hands between government schoolboys, held nearly all of them captive in and opposition forces four times between the Minbij for five months, and showed them violent end of 2013 and April 2014, when it was retaken videos while imbuing them with the group’s by the government. According to the regime, ideology. Beginning in September 2014, ISIS many of the town’s churches and monasteries besieged the Kurdish city of Kobane, cutting off were vandalized, destroyed or looted: some of food supplies, water and electricity from the city the churches were found with extremist slogans and causing over 200,000 people to flee. scrawled on their walls and icons removed The sharpening of sectarian identities, which or defaced, although it is unclear who was continues to increase as the conflict progresses, responsible for these actions. represents a significant shift in Syria’s social Armed groups have continued to target dynamics. For much of its recent history, Syria’s Christian religious leaders for abduction and various religious and ethnic minorities have assassination. Father Frans van der Lugt, a to some extent been concentrated in different 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit priest, was shot and parts of the country. However, cities such as killed in his monastery in Homs in April by an Damascus were places where people from all sects unknown assailant. Van der Lugt had been living congregated. In this sense, cities often played a in Syria for several decades and was the founder positive role in reducing barriers and enabling of a community centre to help people with some interaction between different groups. disabilities from all religions. Meanwhile, the However, urbanization also contributed to whereabouts of the kidnapped Syriac Orthodox increasing social discontent. The years preceding Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim, Greek Orthodox the outbreak of protests were marked by large- Archbishop Paul Yazigi and Jesuit priest Father scale population movements from the countryside Paolo Dall-Oglio are still unknown. Thirteen into the cities, following some of the worst nuns and three maids, who were kidnapped from droughts and crop failures in recent history. The

242 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 to come by, as workers have been accused of Case study by Derek Verbakel harassing tourists and arrested just for resting on public beaches, while shopping malls have frequently turned away migrant workers. Everywhere Making possible these conditions is the kafala system. Introduced by the United but invisible – Arab Emirates (UAE) government in 1971, this sponsorship scheme exposes migrant the continued construction workers to systemic abuse in many forms. Under kafala, a migrant’s marginalization of residence and work visas are tied to their sole sponsoring employer. Despite slight reforms in Dubai’s migrant 2010, the ability to switch employers remains severely restricted. Migrant construction construction workers are often recruited largely in poor, rural areas in their home countries and then workers obliged to make sizeable down-payments to their prospective employer to cover the cost of their flights and visa. On arrival in Dubai Dubai’s construction boom has tranformed the terms of agreement frequently change, this desert city into a dense urban landscape however, with many employers confiscating of skyscrapers, shopping malls, roads migrant passports and forcing them to accept and swimming pools. This extraordinary lower wages, longer hours and worse work development has been made possible by the conditions than promised. This can leave many labour of many hundreds of thousands of workers without documents and in a limbo of migrant construction workers, who first began unpaid debt. arriving in the city in the 1960s and now Workers are also prohibited from number around a quarter of its population. undertaking strikes, collective bargaining or Hailing mostly from Bangladesh, India, Nepal forming associations to advocate for their and Pakistan, they typically work six days a rights. Strikes are very rare, but in May week and 11 or 12 hours each day to earn the 2013, striking workers from Dubai’s largest equivalent of just US$100–300 every month. construction firm, Arabtec, mobilized in Though a ubiquitous presence on its their thousands, resulting in nearly 500 construction sites, Dubai’s migrant workers deportations. Reports also emerged in May are largely invisible in the city centre. Largely 2014 of a similar incident that had occurred sequestered in labour camps guarded by in October 2013, when more than 3,000 private security on the outskirts of the city, employees of a major UK-based construction migrant construction workers have little choice company working on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat but to suffer sub-standard living conditions. Island went on strike to protest over low pay. Settlements such as Sonapur, with some Some, having stayed in their accommodations 300,000 inhabitants – the world’s largest at Camp 42 in Dubai’s Jebel Ali industrial labour camp – are populated almost exclusively zone, were handed over to police by company by men, who live in overcrowded rooms in management and subsequently deported. In cramped and unsanitary conditions. Each day, this context, many migrants have turned to workers are bussed from their living quarters to work in the informal economy, rather than construction sites, then back again. Workplace reporting abuse and taking their chances with accidents are not uncommon and deaths tend the biased judicial system. to go unreported, as safety oversight is lax and The UAE government has largely failed conditions are harsh. Relaxation can also be hard to address any of these issues and continues

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 243 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa to obstruct rights organizations working on These organizations have also aided migrant behalf of migrant workers from monitoring construction workers in navigating the complex or documenting these abuses. Nevertheless, legal issues surrounding visas and supported a small number of informal civil society those accused of ‘absconding’ or attempting groups have had some success in pushing for to reclaim withheld wages from employers. positive developments and providing social They also raise funds to provide transport to services to those migrants most in need. hospitals in case of emergencies and plane

244 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 tickets to return home for those trapped Below: Arabtec workers on strike in without means. One example is the Indian Dubai, in protest of low wages. Workers Resource Centre, a welfare centre for Getty Images/Brent Stirton Indians connected to the Embassy of India, which has targeted construction workers with information campaigns on rights, financial issues and health care. ■

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 245 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa largely Sunni rural migrants settled down in respectively. Towards the end of 2014, news also sprawling, overcrowded neighbourhoods which emerged of plans by the Canadian government grew out of the suburbs of Syria’s major cities, to prioritize Syrian refugees from minorities increasing the strain on urban infrastructure for resettlement, on the basis that these groups and public resources such as water. Meanwhile, experienced higher levels of persecution. The government-led, modified neoliberal policies proposal was strongly criticized by rights groups, created enormous wealth for the ruling elite, in who argued that preferential selection would be stark contrast to the neglected countryside. After discriminatory and could further inflame sectarian protests against the regime began in rural Dera’a tensions within Syria. in 2011, these resentments fed into the uprising. The rising influence of extremist groups over the Yemen course of 2014, especially ISIS, has dramatically The year 2014 began with the completion of changed the urban landscape in cities under their Yemen’s ten-month-long National Dialogue control. The town of Al-Raqqa has become the Conference (NDC) in January. With 565 informal capital of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate. In representatives invited to attend and the final February, ISIS released an edict giving the small outcomes of the process agreed for inclusion in number of Christians living in the town one of the country’s new Constitution, scheduled for three choices: conversion to Islam, the payment a referendum by 25 January 2015, the NDC’s of a tribute or the risk of death. Those under ISIS conclusion was welcomed by many observers as rule are subject to a host of restrictions on their an important milestone in the country’s transition religious practice, with prohibitions on church to democracy. However, the process was renovation, the display of crosses and other acts undermined by the failure to fully represent the of public worship. ISIS also subjects the Muslim country’s various minorities, including Yemen’s population of the town to a brutal regime of tiny Jewish minority, which was left out despite control, regularly carrying out public beheadings, previous promises that they would be included. stonings, crucifixions and amputations for Also sidelined were Yemen’s Muhamasheen, transgressing the group’s authority. In addition, literally ‘marginalized ones’, a visible and much militants have destroyed cultural and religious discriminated minority known commonly as sites belonging to minorities, including the Shi’a Akhdam or ‘servants’. Despite accounting for mosque of Uwais Al-Qarni and tombs dating around 10 per cent of the population, they back to the 7th century in Al-Raqqa in May. The were represented by just a single delegate in control of extremist groups over urban centres and the NDC proceedings. Nonetheless, one of the districts has had particularly severe consequences NDC outcomes stipulated the establishment of for women, with restrictions on their dress and ‘fair national policies and procedures to ensure movement in areas under their control. marginalized persons’ access to decent housing, With continued waves of displacement, many basic public services, free health care, and job Syrians face the challenge of adapting to new opportunities’, including placement in 10 per cent urban environments, both inside and outside of public jobs. The NDC Final Communiqué of Syria. Outside the country, an estimated 70 also affirmed the need to preserve elements of per cent of Syrian refugees are based in urban national heritage and cultural rights, such as the areas. Only a small proportion of minorities Mahari and Socotri languages. have registered with UNHCR, with more than However, the NDC received a fatal blow 90 per cent of refugees identifying as Sunni with the withdrawal of the Houthi movement Muslims. However, fear of attacks from other from the process and the subsequent spread groups or reprisals by the government on their of its armed insurgency across Yemen. The return may be discouraging minority refugees Houthis, based in the north, are comprised from registering. Some receiving countries have overwhelmingly of Zaydis, a branch of Shi’a made special arrangements to protect minorities, Islam that represents the country’s largest with Jordan and Turkey establishing separate minority group and accounts for a quarter to a procedures for Alawi and Turkmen refugees third of the country’s population. Houthis have

246 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 Below: An abandoned Jewish village on the to Aden, where they battled forces loyal to the southern outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sana’a, president, whose government they had effectively April 2014. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah deposed. With mounting air strikes on Houthi targets by a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states, by presented their rebellion as an effort to challenge the beginning of April, Yemen – already the Arab years of marginalization by the government world’s poorest country – was in the throes of a in Sana’a, as well as an attempt to counter the major humanitarian crisis. As of January 2015, growing influence of ultraconservative Sunni an estimated 334,100 people were internally Salafism in the north. The uprising has tipped displaced, with numbers rising further in the the country into a state of profound upheaval months that followed. and led to the effective withdrawal of government Following their initial successes, Houthis were control over large parts of the country. also targeted by suicide bombings and clashed The advance of the armed group in the with al-Qaeda-affiliated Sunni extremists towards months following their departure from the NDC the end of 2014. One of the deadliest attacks, saw Houthi forces overtake a number of key however, took place on 20 March 2015, when strategic positions in the centre and south of the two suicide bombings targeted Shi’a mosques in country. By September, they had taken control Sana’a frequented by Houthi supporters, killing of a number of cities including Sana’a, seizing 137 people in the first major attacks in Yemen ministries and other government buildings, and claimed by ISIS. Incidents such as these have severely weakened the leadership of Yemen’s raised concerns about the threat of the country president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Their sliding into sectarian violence. progress continued into 2015, with Houthi forces However, largely excluded from this picture advancing through southern Yemen all the way are Yemen’s other minorities, including its Jewish

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 247 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa population. Long-established as a historical Muhamasheen and other minorities they have presence in the country, and reaching a peak often deepened existing forms of discrimination population of more than 50,000 in the early-to- while also creating new patterns of exclusion. mid 20th century, Yemen’s Jewish community has Urbanization in Yemen has been fuelled by the dwindled severely in recent years to less than 100 country’s population growth, one of the highest people, due in part to harassment and persecution. rates worldwide, as well as rising investment, This situation has not improved in the wake of construction and labour migration in recent Houthi political gains due to the conflation among years. This has led to acute pressure on basic Houthi sympathizers, as well as Yemenis more services and housing in major urban centres such generally, of the Jewish faith with Zionism. In a as Sana’a, one of the world’s fastest growing rare show of official support, however, Yemen’s cities, with some projections suggesting it could Minister of Culture, Arwa Othman, dedicated be the first national capital to run out of a viable a major human rights award she received in water supply. September to Yemen’s Jewish population and In this context, minorities, migrants and other called for greater tolerance in the country. marginalized groups have been disproportionately Other religious minorities also continued to affected. Yemen’s Muhamasheen have been face discrimination during the year. A Yemeni forced to make their homes overwhelmingly in Bahá’í named Hamed Kamal bin Haydara slums, within or on the outskirts of the country’s remained in prison throughout 2014, where expanding urban centres, often in settlements he faced various forms of torture and abuse. In housing many inhabitants in a single room and not the first case of its kind, he was accused of lacking basic amenities such as plumbing and committing the crimes of proselytizing the Bahá’í electricity. Squalid living conditions, including faith and collaborating with Israel. It was not unsafe drinking water, with only nine per cent until January 2015 that he was finally indicted. of Muhamasheen homes having a piped supply, Muhamasheen continued to struggle during have contributed to widespread health problems. the year for greater political inclusion, access While there have been instances of to justice and an end to discrimination. In integration into the Yemeni working and April 2014, dozens of Muhamasheen staged middle classes, Muhamasheen have largely a demonstration near Jabal Habshi, Ta’izz, faced protracted urban poverty and limited to protest government inaction regarding the livelihood opportunities, with many engaged in demolition and torching of 16 Muhamasheen menial labour such as street sweeping and trash homes eight months prior. According to the collection. Yet as rural poor, other migrants National Organization for Defending Rights and those uprooted by conflict have in recent and Freedoms (HOOD), the attacks were a years rushed to Yemen’s urban centres in greater response to the intended marriage of a young numbers, competition for even these low-level Muhamasheen man with a young woman from jobs is growing. a nearby tribe, and were believed to be carried Yemen’s Jewish community has also been out as a gesture of disapproval by members of the forced to migrate to urban areas due to girl’s tribe. Following the demonstration, some insecurity, with the majority having moved from Muhamasheen families fled the area due to fears the north to Sana’a in 2007 after being driven of further attacks. from their homes in the wake of the Houthi One factor in their ongoing exclusion is the takeover of Sa’dah. Those in Sana’a are now lack of national identification cards and birth living in a guarded compound, and at the end certificates issued to Muhamasheen who, when of 2014 the only other Jewish community in located at both the social and geographical Yemen, numbering no more than a dozen or margins of Yemen’s urban centres, have so families, remained in the town of Raida in faced difficulties accessing state institutions. ‘Amran governorate. ■ While urban centres can offer opportunities for upward mobility and improved access to services such as education and health care, for

248 Middle East and State of the World’s Minorities North Africa and Indigenous Peoples 2015 result of migration from neighbouring Arab Case study by Rania El Rajji countries where they were declared personae non gratae following the 1948 creation of the state of Israel. In Beirut, the city’s Jewish population The disappearance was centred in the neighbourhood of Wadi Abu Jmil, west of the city centre. The eruption of Wadi Abu Jmil, of the war in 1975 led the last of the city’s Jewish population into exile, while an unknown Beirut’s Jewish number – estimated by some to be between 200 and 500 individuals – remained, but disguised district their religious identity, or in some cases converted, to avoid being targeted during the years of civil war. Wadi Abu Jmil was emptied Lebanon’s wars have had a lasting impact on the of its population and the beautiful synagogue country’s urban fabric. The infamous ‘green line’ of Maguen Abraham, once the centre of the which divided Beirut into East and West between community, was closed down and subsequently 1975 and 1990 forced various religious groups – damaged by Israeli bombardment during the primarily Muslims and Christians, but also other war. smaller minorities who found themselves drawn In 1994, the privately owned Lebanese into the conflict – to resettle on either side of the Company for the Development and city for their own safety. With a few exceptions, Reconstruction of Beirut Central District, many of the city’s once diverse neighbourhoods otherwise known as Solidere, took on the task were left homogenized by the increasingly of reconstructing and developing the city centre. sectarian nature of the conflict – a legacy that Since then, the controversial organization sadly persists to this day. has been strongly criticized for its role in Beirut as a city has always been a haven for exacerbating social divides in Beirut as well as refugees, dating back to the arrival of persecuted displacing yet again the original inhabitants and Armenians in 1915, the subsequent wave of shop owners in the city’s downtown. Although Palestinians from 1948 and more recently, an it is impossible to know the exact number influx of Syrians displaced since 2011. The of Lebanese Jews who still live around Wadi Lebanese war also caused a large wave of internal Abu Jmil or own property within the area, displacement, accompanied by an exodus from Solidere’s reconstruction of Wadi Abu Jmil has rural areas. All of these movements led to the transformed it, like other parts of central Beirut, multiplication of informal settlements and the into an upmarket ‘urban village’ with clubs and occupation of land within or on the fringes of other facilities that are unattainable for anyone Beirut. Due to Lebanon’s religious diversity, but the city’s most affluent population. Despite these migrations contributed to the remapping numerous efforts to complete its restoration, of the city into increasingly segregated districts. the area’s synagogue has yet to be opened to the The confinement of particular religious groups public. in different parts of Beirut, such as the largely The city centre, as a result of Solidere’s Shi’a southern suburbs of Dahieh or the policies, has therefore become a ghost town, predominantly Sunni Palestinian camps of deprived of its original religious diversity Shatila, Bouj Al Barajneh and Mar Elias, has and the many inhabitants who once gave it reinforced their separation. life. Redevelopment, like the conflict before Meanwhile the smaller religious minorities, it, continues to erase the rich history of particularly the Jewish population of Beirut, Beirut’s Jewish community – a process that, became undocumented casualties of the war. if it continues, could make its disappearance During the 1960s, Lebanon’s Jewish population complete. ■ numbered a few thousand and even grew as a

State of the World’s Minorities Middle East and 249 and Indigenous Peoples 2015 North Africa