Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, aided by UN programs, still face daunting challenges, whether in or outside a refugee camp.

            

Give thanks and pray for steadfastness, courage and strength for religious leaders, activists and others of all ages who promote social justice through nonviolent means in Iraqi Kurdistan. Remember those threatened, persecuted, imprisoned or assassinated since the Kurdish Spring (2011) nonviolent demonstrations. 

We walk to our corner and buy bread from the friendly bakers themselves. They are always gentle and helpful. We stop to buy our fruit and vegetables from a kindly man next door who, after a warm greeting, immediately introduces us to his family and friends who have gathered inside. 

So, how is it that all over the world, we read of Islamophobia?

Learning about nonviolent initiatives from an Iraqi Mullah and interviewing a Kurdish social worker in Turkey facing eighteen years in prison were among activities of a five-nation Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation visiting Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq.

A government security officer who reported corrupt practices is detained and charged with endangering national security. CPT Iraqi Kurdistan requests messages to Kurdish Regional Government officials asking them to to honor citizens' attempts to end corruption, not punish them.

A Syrian Kurd family that evaded sniper fire and survived desert heat arrives in exile looking west. Will their dreams and the cup of cold water they offer find refuge there?

  

Visits to a Syrian refugee camp, a prison and embattled border villages, advocacy for persecuted Kurdish dissidents and refugees, and Kurdish language study are among CPT Iraqi Kurdistan's activities during June and July.
  
  

It was a Sunday, a visitors’ day, in late July. Men and women sat under trees in a courtyard; children played. If you could ignore the high, barbed wire-topped fences and the guards roaming the perimeter, it looked more like a schoolyard than a prison.

A dogged determination to speak up for villagers in Iraq's border regions, and to call for an end to attacks that had killed, maimed and displaced them year after year, has borne fruit in 2012.
  
  

Iraqi Kurds lives' were severely disrupted by cross-border military operations last year. CPT accompanied journalists on a trip make their stories known.