Iraq announces Christmas Day as a public holiday

by Public Holiday News

Baghdad, Dec 25th 2018

On Christmas Day, the Iraqi Cabinet approved an amendment to its national holiday law to create a new official holiday 'on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ'.

In Iraq, where 95 percent of the population are Muslim with around 300,000 Christians, Christmas Day had been designated as a religious break only for the Iraqi Christian community. Under the new amendment, the holiday now extends to everyone.

The follows an appeal made before Christmas by His Beatitude Card Louis Raphael Sako, who hoped to see Iraq follow other Muslim majority nations such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon who also recognise the birth of Christ with a public holiday.

Since the 2003 invasion, Christians have seen their numbers decline from around 1.5 million to just over 300,000, mostly Chaldeans and Syriac Catholics.

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National holidays in Iraq in 2018

Weekday	Date	Holiday	Comments
Monday	Jan 01	New Year's Day
Saturday	Jan 06	Army Day	Except Kurdistan
Wednesday	Mar 21	Eid Norooz	Spring Day
Monday	Apr 09	Baghdad Liberation Day	Kurdistan Region
Tuesday	May 01	Labour Day	International Workers' Day
Friday	Jun 15	Eid Al Fitr	End of Ramadan
Saturday	Jun 16	Eid Al Fitr Holiday
Sunday	Jun 17	Eid Al Fitr Holiday
Monday	Jun 18	Eid Al Fitr Holiday
Tuesday	Jun 19	Eid Al Fitr Holiday
Saturday	Jul 14	Republic Day
Wednesday	Aug 22	Eid Al-Adha	Feast of the Sacrifice
Thursday	Aug 23	Eid Al-Adha Holiday
Friday	Aug 24	Eid Al-Adha Holiday
Saturday	Aug 25	Eid Al-Adha Holiday
Tuesday	Sep 11	Islamic New Year	Hijri New Year
Thursday	Sep 20	Ashura	10 Muharram
Wednesday	Oct 03	Independence Day	National Day
Tuesday	Nov 20	Mawlid al-Nabi	Birthday of Prophet Muhammad
Monday	Dec 10	Victory Day
Tuesday	Dec 25	Christmas

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