BAGHDAD, Iraq — The upcoming referendum on Iraq's draft constitution could have a profound effect on Iraqi Christians — especially if it allows Islamic law to flourish.

Iraqi expatriates — most of whom are indigenous Christians — will be closely watching as events unfold. But they will not be voting.

The head of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Policy, Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., said the United States must encourage Iraqi leaders to constitutionally guarantee religious freedom to minority religions, Bishop Ricard said the leaders should avoid the establishment of Islam as the state religion.

The bishop made the comments in separate, but identical, letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush. The letters were dated Aug. 8 as Iraq's National Assembly was working on a draft constitution scheduled for an Oct. 15 national referendum.

The original deadline to finish the draft was Aug. 15, but that day the assembly extended the deadline to Aug. 22. Officials finally finished the new constitution Aug. 28, but the Sunni Arab negotiators rejected it.

The Iraqi Electoral Commission announced Aug. 2 that those living abroad will not be allowed to participate in the Oct. 15 referendum.

Many Iraqis and foreign observers are concerned both about the possibility of Iraq's adoption of a constitution that could allow for Shari'a (Islamic law), and the effects of the exclusion of the mainly Christian expatriate community from voting on the draft document.

Shari'a “means future fuel for fanaticism and fundamentalism,” explained Bishop Bawai Soro of the Diocese of Western California of the Assyrian Church of the East from his home in San Jose, Calif. The Assyrian Church of the East is a long-established Church in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.

“It would affect [not only] the human rights of the Christian community but also the very fabric of society. Without separation of church and state, democracy has no chance,” Bishop Soro said.

Christians make up approximately 3% of Iraq's population.

Leaders and bishops of nine Christian denominations in Iraq — including the Catholic Chaldeans — wrote to the framers of the Constitution on July 14 asking them to grant “equality, freedom and equal opportunities, and the prevention of racial, religious and denominational discrimination.”

While the Transitional Administrative Law currently in place in Iraq allows for Islam to be a source of Iraqi law, the draft constitution's Article 2 adds that it will be “the official state religion” and “a basic source” of legislation and prohibits any laws which contradict Islam. But it adds that no laws may contradict democracy or the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the constitution. It also claims to guarantee religious freedom.

Depending on the interpretation of those potentially contradictory guarantees, there is some fear that the new Iraq may resemble Iran — not a Western-style democracy.

“The draft constitution is just trying to please everyone, and there are many conflicting things in it,” said David Leidan, a researcher for Barnabas Fund, a London-based watchdog group that seeks to protect the human rights of Christians. “It spells trouble eventually.”

Trouble in the form of Shari'a would be a disaster for Iraq, said Iraq-born Peter BetBasoo, director of the Chicago-based Assyrian International News Agency. The news agency opposes the current draft constitution because it says it lacks transparency.

“Under Shari'a law, non-Muslims face institutionalized discrimination and automatically become second class citizens. The constitution must be purely secular,” BetBasoo said.

But even a secular constitution might not be a real guarantee.

“They could start with more secular laws and then Islamicize,” Leidan said. “It depends entirely on whether the secular opposition is able to mount serious opposition. So far they haven't.”

The Iraqi Electoral Commission wouldn't answer the Register's questions about the constitution and the vote. But an official with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — who spoke on condition of anonymity — told the Register that if Shari'a becomes law “judges will be able to bring in Shari'a and impose punishments not actually in the law, and the government will be able to restrict women and other religions by a simple majority in parliament.”

Patrick Sookhdeo is international director of Barnabas Fund. Sookhdeo believes expatriates are being excluded from the vote because of the overwhelming influence of Iraqis living abroad that occurred immediately after Saddam fell. That, he said, alienated many in Iraq.

But whatever the reason expatriates are excluded, the effect is the same.

“The consequence is harmful,” Bishop Soro explained. “One third of Iraqi Christians will now be deprived of voting.”

And expatriates would be a moderating voice.

“Definitely, the expatriates would want a constitution that is more open to human rights,” according to the official at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

By most estimates 40,000 Christians have fled the violence and a piecemeal persecution in Iraq that has included church bombings and acid attacks on women not wearing the hajib (veil).

Sookhdeo recently returned from Iraq.

Pointing out that Christian minorities were slaughtered wholesale in the 1920s and 1930s, Sookhdeo said that should Shari'a become the law of the land, “we must realize that another genocide of ethnic Christians would be a distinct possibility.”

Andrew Walther is based in Hamden, Connecticut. CNS and RNS contributed to this story.