Moving inside Baghdad

Hi there,

I´m most curious about checkpoints in Baghdad. Given that the city is clearly divided between Shia and Sunni districts, I understand that there´s a checkpoint in the border between them. Can anybody here confirm this fact?

If so, who controls them(US soldiers, Iraqui troops, local militia..)?

Is religion stated in Iraqui people´s IDs? do they state wether they are Shia, Sunni etc?

Is ethnicity also stated (Kurd, Turkmen..)?

Many thanks in advance

Many countries' IDs sate the religion and /or ethnicity of the bearer. I always wondered why anybody would do such a thing? If a conflict arises it makes butchering other people so much easier. As I understand this (religion/ethnicity A go to the right and be spared - religion/ethnicity B go to the left and be maimed/killed) already happened in Rwanda (mid 90s Hutu/Tutsi), Lebanon (75-90 Sunni/Shia/Christian), Germany (33-45 Jew/Non-Jew). More examples anybody?

So why risk all this potentially lethal fallout?

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Although I do have a (partial) answer: Many countries' laws allow members of different faiths different privileges and/or let family matters such as marriage/divorce be governed by that group's (religious) laws.

Example: if you are Israeli and want to marry there is no civil marriage (as there is in Germany: you go to a government official and marry before him and whatever or even if you do marry after your religious rite doesn't affect your marital status one bit [from the government's point of view]).

In Israel you have to be married by your religious community and they give you a piece of paper and with that you'll go to the government to enjoy the (tax) benefits. If you are not religious enough for your religious community or of differing faiths or atheist you apparently marry abroad and that will do for the government too.

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I guess the religious denomination is stated in Iraqi IDs just because it is the way things are usually done around there and if it was not it would make killing people based on their denomination so much more difficult. However, even if it was not stated on the ID, many names are a dead give away too (no pun intended).

Thanks a lot!

I also guess religion is stated in their IDs but I´d need somebody to confirm this point.
About more examples, it also reminds me of the old Soviet passport where some people had three lines on "ethnicity" (eg. 1 Soviet Citizen 2 Armenian 3 Kurd)

As far as I know, religion is not stated on Iraqi ID cards, but can often be guessed from the name. Alis and Fatimas tend to be Shii, Khadija's are quite unlikely to be...

I don't know about Lebanon, whether religion is stated on the ID card or not (I should know this as I've seen plenty of Lebanese ID cards crossing the border, and I really don't think it is, but I'm not sure), but there the names would make it even more obvious. While some surnames such as Salameh and Nasrallah are well known for being both Christian and Muslim, plenty of others are strongly identified with a particular religious community. And of course, there aren't very many Muslim George's or Alfred's, nor many Christian Hussein's or Fatima's. Samir Kassir, in his excellent History of Beirut, remarks that in times of inter-denominational tranquillity, there was a tendency among both Muslims and Christians to give children names that weren't obviously identified with either main religious grouping, such as Ghassan and Rim and other old Arabic names.

The same goes, by the way, for Northern Ireland, where a similar problem of occasional faux barrages occurred in the 1970s. There was no official document that stated anyone's religion, but both surnames and Christian names would in many, perhaps most cases tell whether someone was Catholic or Protestant. Though a lot of the time the killers would simply ask what religion the victim was - he would have no way of knowing what the right answer was.

I<blockquote>Quote
<hr>Though a lot of the time the killers would simply ask what religion the victim was - he would have no way of knowing what the right answer was.<hr></blockquote>

Which kind of highlights the insanity of this 'practice' if the (possible) victim doesn't even know the 'correct' answer...

A local friend of mine has just told me that religion IS stated in their IDs.

Thanks again