In the Field

From March 31st to April 4th 2009, USIP’s Religion and Peacemaking program, working in partnership with the Council of Representatives’ Religious Affairs Committee, brought together twenty-five religious leaders, civil society activists, and academics from throughout Iraq to discuss religious violence in conflict and how to leverage religious resources in peacemaking. The participants were representative of Iraq’s pluralistic society: hailing from all eighteen provinces, they included both Shia and Suni Muslim, Christian, Yazidi, and Sabean Mandean faiths, Kurdish and Arab ethnic identity, male and female.