The Right of Religious Minorities in Constitution of Iran, Egypt and Iraq

Subject Areas :

Hojatolah Ebrahimian ¹ ( دکتری حقوق عمومی دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد علوم و تحقیقات تهران [e-mail] )

Received: 2010-11-25 Accepted : 2012-01-24 Published : 2011-12-01

Keywords: Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Right, religious minorities,

Abstract :

The presence of religious minorities and the kind of interaction of governments with them who are considered as one kind of the minorities is a point of attention for the governments from the old times. Iran, Egypt and Iraq have important place due to their long history of existence. The presence of religious minorities in these three countries and study of their rights have attracted the attention of observers in the past and present. In Iran Zoroastrian, Jews and Christians are considered as religious minorities (article 13 of the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran). In Egypt despite the presence of religious minorities like Shiites, Coptic Christians and Jews there is no mentioning of the name of any specific minorities in the constitution but article 40 of the constitution emphasizes that all Egyptian citizens without consideration of religion enjoy the general rights. In article two of the Iraqi constitution the religious minorities like Christians, Yezidis and Mandaeans Saebies are recognized. It is possible that the religious minorities in these three countries might enjoy special rights in their own political community but the present article focuses only on general rights of the religious minorities in these three countries with emphasis on civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The comparative study of the constitution of these three countries in respect of general rights of religious minorities one can come to know about the commonalities and the distinctions of the rights of minorities in these three countries.