Yazidi UPDATES genocide has occurred and is ongoing

[Anthea]

Press release:

International Conference of the Êzīdi/Yazi in Berlin

Berlin. In April there could be a historic moment in Berlin. For the first time Êzîdi could come together from almost all countries of origin and social strata to discuss current problems and the future of Êzîdis. Politicians of different parties and currents, journalists, intellectuals, dignitaries, activists as well as lawyers are to formulate not only the demands of the Êzīdi community on the world scene, but also the establishment of a Êzīdi World Congress on 21 April in Berlin.

The list of invited guests is long, ranging from the Ñzîdish UN special envoy Nadia Murad to the director of the Faculty of Criminal Law at Moscow State University Samvel Kochoi. The secular chief of the Êzîden, Mîr Tahsîn Saîd Beg, is also invited. The preparatory committee has published a corresponding press release including a list of invited guests and speakers.

The world's estimated 800,000 Êzîdis are facing an uncertain future against the backdrop of the ongoing genocide of the Êzīdis. All those involved are aware that the minority of Êzîdi are struggling for survival. To make this possible, it is also to be broken with centuries-old traditions. Thus, according to the will of the current head Mîr Tahsîn Saîd Beg, the leadership of the community is no longer to be determined hereditaryly and not without the participation of the Êzīdi society, but by a Êzīdi parliament as part of the Êzīdi World Congress. It could be one of the last attempts to make the community one.

The press release in the wording:

Conference of the Ezidis on their present situation and their future in the German Bundestag in Berlin

The fact that our faith community is still exposed to the danger of genocide and destruction against which discrimination, persecution and oppression are fully protracted led us to act together in the form of this meeting in a prejudice-free manner.

At the conference, academics, representatives and personalities from different contexts, currents and opinions will participate from all countries where the ezids live. There will be an exchange on the same level with the motivation to learn from each other and to deal with each other democratically and tolerantly.

The first objective of the conference is to adopt a final declaration of conformity, in which demands of all Êzīdi are formulated for the world community and the countries concerned.

Secondly, the conference is linked with the hope of forming a dialogue group or a preparatory committee for the establishment of a World Ezidi Congress. In this way, we want to pave the way and take the first step to resolve the harmful division and polarization within the community and to organize and improve systematization, institutionalization, better networking and cooperation, and, above all, democratic legitimacy in representation for all Ezidis worldwide.

The decisive and decisive criterion in the selection process for the invitation and participation in this conference is and will remain the positive participation of all parties involved in the free and secure future of the ecclesiastical community, and in particular the positive contribution to the creation of unity within the disputed and fragmented community.

Date 21.04.2017
Time: 11am - 7pm
Address: Paul-Löbe-Haus, Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 1, 10557 Berlin, room E800.

Program:

Arrival of the guests 11.00 - 12.00

Opening and welcoming by Nadia Murad and Bundestag delegates
Talks Discussions
Deciding on the founding of a World Ezide Congress and setting up a preparatory committee for this
Final Declaration of Declaration and Reading Events

List of some guests and speakers:

Mir Tahsin Beg
Nadya Murad
Lamya Al Bashar
Prof. Dr Jan İlhan Kızılhan
Dr. Sefik Tagay
Dr Pir Mamo Otman
Mirza Dinayi
Hosheng Broka
Kerim Sulaiman
Tarıq Hamo
Hido Babeşex
Dr Narin Bari
Dr. Xelil Jindi
Dr. Samvel Kocoi
Dr Leyla Ferman
Viyan Dexil
Düzen Tekal
Şêx Şamo
Breen Saeet Tahseen
Rostem Makhudyan
Xeyri Bozan
Heyder Şeşo
Amina Sait
Dr Temur Hassanyan
Xalit Nermo
Khdir Hajoyan
Heso Hurmi
Cemal Şamoyan
Dawut Cindi
Feleknas Uca
Hekim Xeyri Khedher Hüseyn
Qasım Osman Rafu
Murad İsmail
Dr. Said Cico
Khalaf Schvan Helo
Dr Saeed Alo
Dr Azhar Khalel Sulaiman
Dr Xebat
Mecit Heso
Hakim Qasım osman
Jameel Sulaiman
Saib Xıdır Naif
Dr Hevdil Heziz Sileman
Halya Beyazid
Naif Casim Qasim
Dr. Khalaf Kheder Merza
Dr Ehmed Xwedêda
Pir Deyan Cahfo
Haliya Beyazid
Nader Dogati-Abdal
Dawut Şingali
Hesun Cehwer
Berkat Hisa
Pir Hiseyn Merxan
Dilşad Şêxani
Prof Dr Celile Celil
Tamas Dasini
Rızgan Gerdenzen
Rafik Azmani
Hamo Şamoyan
Rafik Azmani
Vezir Namozan
Fewzi Çoli
Sewki Shemo
Feremez Xeribo
Dr Xelil Savucu
İrfan Ortaç
Leyla Boran
Nurhan Talay
Ince Bezek
Hamo Tarak
Emin Akbaş
Cahit Tolan
Fikret İgrek
Halat Cahit Kesbir
Shahap Dag
Telim Tolan
Aslan Kızılhan
Hamo Tarak
Ali Atalan

© ÊzîdîPress, 06. April 2017

[Anthea]

Freed from ISIS, Yazidi Women Remain Trapped by Trauma

Some of those working with Yazidi former slaves say they have never before seen such severe psychological trauma. As part of our “Women and Jihad” series, experts tell us there are not enough resources to provide long-term care to all of the survivors, who could take a lifetime to recover.

Last January, Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, arrived at the Dohuk camp for displaced people near the Kurdish region of Iraq. Wheeler was there to interview Yazidi women and girls who had been kidnapped from their homes in Sinjar and held as sex slaves by the terror group known as the Islamic State (ISIS).

Wheeler, who interviewed 22 Yazidi women and girls, has spent her career documenting war crimes against women. Yet she says the accounts of sexual violence she heard from the Yazidi survivors continue to haunt her.

“It is some of the most distressing work I have ever done, and my colleagues who have also interviewed the survivors say that same thing,” she says.

Wheeler says the abuse inflicted on Yazidi women and girls “is on a different level” from other cases she has documented. The women she met had been kidnapped and sold in slave markets to ISIS soldiers who then raped them, often multiple times a day. In some cases, the women would be resold to another fighter who would continue the sexual abuse. Wheeler spoke with four women who were sold at least four times before they managed to escape.

“It’s just horrible, [ISIS] treat people like animals,” she says. “All the women we spoke to were exhibiting some type of symptoms from the trauma they suffered.”

Those symptoms include severe depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, insomnia and, when they finally do sleep, nightmares in which they relive their sexual abuse.

In February 2015, the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg offered to help by agreeing to take in 1,100 refugees, including hundreds of the most traumatized Yazidi women and girls. The program, which runs for three years and will cost the German government a total of $107 million, provides Yazidi survivors with specialized psychological care and German residency for two years.

But the program is now at full capacity, which means hundreds of Yazidi women and girls who didn’t make it into the program and those who have only recently escaped from ISIS remain in the internally displaced peoples (IDP) camps in Iraqi Kurdistan, where treatment for mental health is severely lacking.

We have seen many women who feel that they can’t live with the aftermath of what happened to them, they think the only way to escape is through killing themselves.

Psychotherapist Salah Ahmad has been working with trauma victims in Iraq since 2005, when he established the Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights to provide mental health care to Iraqis who were tortured by the Ba’athist party. Ahmad has spent much of the last two years traveling between IDP camps in Dohuk Kurdistan to help treat Yazidi women and girls.

Ahmad says they display some of the worst cases of post-traumatic stress disorder he has ever seen. “To be sold, to be enslaved, to be raped many times … they can’t accept all this violence,” he says.

Suicidal thoughts are not uncommon.

“We have seen many women who feel that they can’t live with the aftermath of what happened to them; they think the only way to escape is through killing themselves,” says Ahmad.

In November 2015, Ahmad established the Jiyan Clinic, a psychosomatic trauma clinic solely for Yazidi women and children in Iraqi Kurdistan. He found many trauma survivors were hesitant to recount their abuse to other men, especially Muslim men, so he employs an all-female staff.

The patients spend at least three months living in the clinic, where they undergo daily treatment, which includes individual and group therapy, and EMDR – or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy – a technique designed to alter the way the brain stores and recollects traumatic memories. The women can also take part in therapeutic activities like yoga and gardening.

Since its opening, the clinic has treated 80 female Yazidi survivors of ISIS, but Ahmad says he doesn’t have the resources to provide treatment for all the Yazidi women who need help.

Ali Muthanna, regional director in Iraq for the AMAR Foundation, is also struggling to provide support to all the women who need it. He spends the majority of his time at Khanke Camp, an IDP camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he treats the 18,500 Yazidis who have been living there since the ISIS attack in 2014 forced an estimated half a million Yazidis to flee their homes. Among Muthanna’s patients are also around 500 Yazidi women who escaped ISIS.

https://www.newsdeeply.com/womenandgirl ... ped-trauma

[Anthea]

New Yazidi temple is beacon of hope



A gleaming white structure topped with seven domes, set to be the world's biggest Yazidi temple, is currently being built in a tiny village in Armenia.

Long persecuted, most recently by Islamic jihadists in Iraq, the Kurdish-speaking, religious minority hopes the new temple will prove a symbol of strength as it tries to preserve its unique blend of faiths.

Yazidis, adherents of an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, number around 35,000 in Armenia today but currently have just one tiny temple in the Caucasus country. The Yazidis hold unique beliefs that have integrated elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The new edifice, called Quba Mere Diwane, is being constructed in Aknalich, a village 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the capital, Yerevan, thanks to funding by a wealthy Moscow-based Yazidi businessman Mirza Sloyan, who was born nearby.

Aknalich is home to 150 Yazidis, as well as the existing temple, built in 2012 which only holds up to 30 people.

Created from granite and marble, the new 25-metre-high (82-foot) structure will include a large prayer hall, religious school and museum. Its seven domes represent seven angels revered by the Yazidis.

'Glimmer of hope'

Of the world's 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest community is in Iraq where they have long been one of the country's most vulnerable minorities. Persecution by Saddam Hussein forced thousands of families to flee.

In August 2014, Yazidis were brutally targeted by Islamic State jihadists when their bastion Sinjar in northwestern Iraq was seized. They suffered crimes which the United Nations has described as genocide.

"We suffered terrible losses in Sinjar and are extremely depressed, but this temple gives us a glimmer of hope for revival," said Sheikh Hasan Hasanyan, the spiritual leader of the Armenian Yazidis.

"If we can build such a splendid temple, that means Yazidis withstood, they didn't give up," he told AFP by telephone.

An old prayer

The ex-Soviet country's largest minority group, Yazidis are well integrated into Armenian society, enjoy freedom of religious belief, and publish Yazidi-language newspapers and textbooks.

But widespread poverty and unemployment have sent a wave of migrants to Europe, Russia and the United States in search of work.

"I hope that the new temple will motivate my children -- who are living in Europe -- to come back to Aknalich, remind them that they are Yazidis," said local resident Misha Davrshyan.

Yazidis worship one God, who, they believe, created the world and entrusted it to seven Holy Beings, the most important of which is Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.

Their unique beliefs -- which over time integrated elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- have often been misconstrued as satanic.

Orthodox Muslims consider the peacock a demon figure and refer to Yazidis as devil-worshippers.

Fearing assimilation, Yazidis discourage marriage outside the community and even across their caste system, and strictly follow traditional customs -- some refrain from eating lettuce or wearing the colour blue.

"We have no state and, as a vulnerable minority, we risk imminent assimilation if we stop protecting our traditions," said Hasanyan.

He said he hoped that the new temple, expected to open this year, "will become a major spiritual centre for Yazidi pilgrims from all over the world."

"There is an old Yazidi prayer asking God to give peace and happiness first to the world's other nations and then to our tormented people," he said.



"That's what we will be praying for in the new temple."

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/ne ... eacon-hope

[Anthea]

New Yazidi mass grave found in Nineveh, with more than 1000 relics

Sinjar (IraqiNews.com) A new mass grave of Yazidi victims of Islamic State massacres was found in the Sinjar region west of Nineveh, according to a local official.

Sinjar mayor Mahma Khalil said the grave contained relics of 1646 people, raising the total of Yazidi mass graves discovered in the region since November 2015 until January 2016 to 31.

Khalil predicted the number of graves to increase further to 50.

Kurdish Peshmerga troops took over Sinjar from the Islamic State in August 2014, two months after IS declared an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.

Thousands of Yazidi Kurds fled Sanjar, a Mosul region on the borders with Syria, to nearby mountain areas following its fall to Islamic State militants in August 2014. The extremist group massacred, enslaved and tortured thousands of that ethno-religious minority.

Data from March revealed that 2915 Yazidis were rescued from Islamic State captivity, including nearly 1500 children, while more than 3500 were still in the extremist group’s hold, including more than 1700 women.

The Kurdish-speaking community came to the spotlight when Islamic State militants, taking over large parts of Iraq, victimized its members, committing massacres and subjecting them to forced conversions, sexual slavery and other reported atrocities. Their dilemma prompted international calls for intervention for their protection.

http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/new-y ... 00-relics/

[Anthea]

Yazidi boy, 7, reveals horrors of being held captive by ISIS for 30 months

Boy spent 30 months undergoing combat training as he was held captive by ISIS

ISIS taught children to carry out terror attacks and behead victims with a knife

Fears the children trained to be deployed around world are 'ticking time bombs'

A child held captive for 30 months has relived the horrors he was forced to endure at the hands of ISIS extremists.

Harrowing video footage has emerged which shows the Yazidi boy describe how the group made him undergo combat training, learn to behead victims and handle weapons.

And the seven-year-old's devastated relatives say he has struggled to reintegrate back into family life after having radical religious ideologies instilled in him.

Child trained by ISIS talks about what they made him do

The Yazidi boy describes how the group made him undergo combat training, learn to behead victims and handle weapons

The boy spend some two and a half years in captivity, forced to undergo brutal training teaching him how to sever heads with a knife, fire guns and assemble weapons.

The visibly distressed boy, who has not been named, tells the camera: 'We would carry arms and fire. We would disassemble and assemble the rifles.

'They then taught us how to behead, catch heads and then chop it off with a knife.'

According to the footage, thought to have been filmed in Kurdistan, more than 1,000 Yazidi children have been captured and received training at ISIS combat bases.

But officials now fear the children are 'ticking time bombs' - ready to be deployed around the world and carry out appalling acts of terror at the behest of ISIS.

The seven year old in the footage was captured alongside his mother, before being separated from her

The visibly distressed boy, who has not been named, tells the camera: 'We would carry arms and fire. We would disassemble and assemble the rifles'

He has since forgotten his native language and his family claims they are desperately trying to 'remove' ISIS' influence.

The video claims children taken by ISIS undergo an 'organised education' in a bid to instill the group's radical religious ideology in them - even going so far as changing their names and converting their religion.

The youngster is understood to have been kidnapped during the horrific assault on Sinjar, Iraq, in 2014.

During the siege, ISIS killed thousands of Yazidi men and forced many Yazidi women to marry Islamic fighters.

More than 40,000 Yazidis were left stranded atop the Sinjar mountains, without food, water or medical supplies - resulting in a refugee crisis.

Full Article - Photos - Videos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -ISIS.html

[Anthea]

Bodies of 1,500 Yazidis found in northern Iraq since 2015

The bodies of between 1,300 and 1,500 members of the Yazidi minority have been discovered near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar since it was retaken from ISIS in 2015, a Kurdish official told CNN Tuesday.

It's the first time an official has estimated the total number of Yazidis found in grave sites littered around Sinjar since Iraqi forces pushed the terror group out more than two years ago.

Thirty-five mass graves along with 100 individual graves have been unearthed, according to Hussein Hassoun, the spokesman of the Higher Committee to Introduce Yazidi Kurds.

"The mass graves are about 5 to 10 kilometers apart," Hassoun told CNN. Between 300 and 500 bodies were found in the past few months.

A new mass grave was recently found in the Hardan area of Sinjar, the town's mayor told Rudaw news agency.

Most of the bodies have been left in their graves, so officials can only give an estimate of the total number of dead discovered thus far. Due to limited resources, only 65 bodies have been exhumed, Fouad Othman, the spokesman of the Martyrs Ministry in Kurdistan, told CNN.

ISIS swept into the Sinjar area in August 2014, displacing, killing and enslaving thousands of Yazidis -- an ancient ethnic and religious minority who are descendants of Kurds and call modern-day Iraq home.

A 2016 United Nations report found that ISIS committed "genocide" against Yazidis.

ISIS was driven out of Sinjar in 2015, and Kurdish officials believe more mass graves will be found as more territory is seized from the terror group.

A US-led coalition has mounted an aggressive campaign to recapture ISIS-held territory in recent months. ISIS currently controls less than 7% of Iraqi territory, Iraq's military says -- down from nearly 40% of the country in 2014.

Hassoun said intelligence reports indicate that there could be up to 12 mass graves in the village of Kocho, which remains under ISIS control.

The village is among two identified by the UN report as sites of large mass killings, which the report defines as more than 20 men and boys killed at the same time.

Hassoun told CNN that his committee lacked the funds to conduct DNA tests needed to match the dead with family members looking for their loved ones' remains.

He said more international support would be needed to determine the true scale of ISIS' atrocities against Yazidis.

Link to Article - Photo - Video:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/12/middl ... aves-isis/

[Anthea]

Yazidi Activist: ISIS ‘Opened Up’ Pregnant Friend, Raped Her and Baby

While the feminist media swooned over speakers like comedian Samantha Bee and politician Hillary Clinton at a recent conference, they paid little attention to others addressing the horrors committed against women abroad – or, more specifically, the plight of women enslaved by ISIS.

On Friday, Women for Women International founder Zainab Salbi interviewed two women on ISIS’ abuse of those who identify as Yazidi, a minority religion primarily located in northern Iraq. Both Shireen Ibrahim, a Yazidi once enslaved by ISIS, and Feryal Pirali, a Yazidi activist, spoke at the Women in the World Summit held in New York City.

In the middle of their discussion, Pirali revealed her inspiration to become an activist for her people: the cruelty her friend endured at the hand of ISIS.

“She was my friend, we were basically in high school together,” stressed Pirali, who hails from Sinjar, Iraq. But, unlike her friend, Pirali left Iraq in 2010.

Staying behind, the friend married and became pregnant with a baby girl. But things took a savage twist in 2014 when ISIS captured their hometown.

“When they were trying to run away,” Pirali said of the Yazidis, her friend “couldn’t run a lot” because “she was heavy, she was pregnant.”

To ensure they escaped ISIS, her friend urged her relatives to go ahead without her. “Just save yourself. Go,” the friend told her family.

“And she was going to walk slowly until she gets to where they are,” Pirali added. “But unfortunately, she didn’t make it.”

Because she lagged behind, ISIS found her and tortured her in unimaginable ways.

“And what they did to her, opened up her stomach,” Pirali gestured with her hands, from one side of her stomach to the other. “Like from here to here, they opened her up, and they got her baby girl out, they raped the baby, and they also raped her.”

While her baby perished, the friend survived.

“They thought she was dead,” Pirali said of ISIS. “They left her behind … but her family came back, saw her. Just like that. In that situation.”

Afterwards, in 2015, Pirali launched a Change.org petition calling on former President Barack Obama to aid the thousands of Yazidi women and children still held by ISIS.

The other interviewee, Shireen Ibrahim, recalled her own capture by ISIS in 2014, when the terrorist group overtook Sinjar.

Ibrahim pretended she was married to her cousin, with her nephew as their child, in order to escape slavery and rape by ISIS. But they didn’t believe her, and, after three months, the terrorist group transported her to Syria.

“That’s when they wrapped her with a blanket, and they were shooting guns around her, and telling her that ‘we’re going to kill you,’” Pirali said, acting as Ibrahim’s translator.

While they didn’t kill or rape her, they electrocuted her after she tried to escape. “They did everything to me – every bad thing you can think of to me because I ran away,” she remembered.

During her captivity, she was sold five times until one man, a doctor, freed her. “I don’t know” why, she said. Her price, she added, was one dollar.

But, even though she is now free, Ibrahim doesn’t plan to return to Sinjar, where she would have to “relive everything.”

“[I]t’s hard for us,” she said of herself and other girls who have escaped from ISIS captivity. “Every minute is a year. Every year is basically a minute.”

She ended with a message for ISIS: “We are Yazidis and we’re going to be Yazidis, we’re not going to change our religion, no matter what.” Then, tearing up, she also plead with her audience.

“My message to the people sitting and to the world is to save our people that in [sic] ISIS captivity,” she said.

The moderator, Salbi, wrapped up the interview with faith in the future. “May God bless you, thank you for your courage,” she told Ibrahim. “And may these tears change to a triumph of hope one day.”

<<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>

The media hesitate to report on stories like these – the real war on women. With all their talk of women’s bodies, the feminist media appear to prioritize abortion and birth control over the grave human rights violations committed by terrorist groups.

In 2014, an ISIS document surfaced, reportedly listing prices at which to sell Yazidi and Christian women and children abducted by the terrorist group. Citing economic reasons, ISIS placed dollar signs on their human worth. It’s a story only a handful of media outlets covered.

Since then, the plight of the Yazidis gained some media momentum after human rights attorney Amal Clooney, married to actor George Clooney, championed the cause by representing Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman abused by ISIS as a sex slave.

“She made me make the decision,” Clooney said in 2016, “because I met her and I just thought, ‘I can't walk away from this.’”

If only the liberal feminist media felt the same.

Last year, former Secretary of State John Kerry declared that, “in my judgment, Daesh [ISIS] is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.”

But even today, the broadcast networks are hesitant to use the term “genocide.” In August, the MRC found that, in the past two-and-half years, the evening news shows reported on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia only 60 times. And of those 60 reports, just six used the word “genocide.”

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/cultu ... r-and-baby

[Anthea]

New Yazidi Temple in Yerevan to Open This Year

A gleaming white structure topped with seven domes, set to be the world’s biggest Yazidi temple, is being built in a tiny village in Armenia.

Long persecuted, most recently by Islamic jihadists in Iraq, the Kurdish-speaking, religious minority hopes the new temple will prove a symbol of strength as it tries to preserve its unique blend of faiths.

Yazidis, adherents of an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, number around 35,000 in Armenia today but currently have just one tiny temple in the Caucasus country.

The new edifice, called Quba Mere Diwane, is being constructed in Aknalich, a village 35 kilometers (22 miles) from, thanks to funding by a wealthy Moscow-based Yazidi businessman Mirza Sloyan, who was born nearby.

Aknalich is home to 150 Yazidis, as well as the existing temple, built in 2012 which only holds up to 30 people.

Created from granite and marble, the new 25-metre-high (82-foot) structure will include a large prayer hall, religious school and museum. Its seven domes represent seven angels revered by the Yazidis.

Of the world’s 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest community is in Iraq where they have long been one of the country’s most vulnerable minorities. Persecution by Saddam Hussein forced thousands of families to flee.

In August 2014, Yazidis were brutally targeted by Islamic State jihadists when their bastion Sinjar in northwestern Iraq was seized. They suffered crimes which the United Nations has described as genocide.

“We suffered terrible losses in Sinjar and are extremely depressed, but this temple gives us a glimmer of hope for revival,” said Sheikh Hasan Hasanya, the spiritual leader of the Armenian Yazidis.

“If we can build such a splendid temple, that means Yazidis withstood, they didn’t give up,” he told AFP by telephone.

The country’s largest minority group, Yazidis are well integrated into Armenian society, enjoy freedom of religious belief, and publish Yazidi-language newspapers and textbooks.

But widespread poverty and unemployment have sent a wave of migrants to Europe, Russia and the United States in search of work.

“I hope that the new temple will motivate my children — who are living in Europe — to come back to Aknalich, remind them that they are Yazidis,” said local resident Misha Davrshyan.

Yazidis worship one God, who, they believe, created the world and entrusted it to seven Holy Beings, the most important of which is Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.

Their unique beliefs — which over time integrated elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have often been misconstrued as satanic.

Orthodox Muslims consider the peacock a demon figure and refer to Yazidis as devil-worshippers.

Fearing assimilation, Yazidis discourage marriage outside the community and even across their caste system, and strictly follow traditional customs — some refrain from eating lettuce or wearing the color blue.

“We have no state and, as a vulnerable minority, we risk imminent assimilation if we stop protecting our traditions,” said Hasanyan.

He said he hoped that the new temple, expected to open this year, “will become a major spiritual center for Yazidi pilgrims from all over the world.”

“There is an old Yazidi prayer asking God to give peace and happiness first to the world’s other nations and then to our tormented people,” he said.

“That’s what we will be praying for in the new temple.”

http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2017/04/ ... this-year/

[Anthea]

Coalition airstrikes kill 10 ISIS,
2 of them senior leaders in South Sinjar:
Kurdistan24

The US-led coalition airstrikes on western Mosul killed 12 Islamic State (ISIS) militants 2 of whom were senior leaders, Kurdish security stated on Saturday.

The Counter-Terrorism (CT) General Directorate of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) announced on its official Facebook account that the coalition warplanes targeted a jihadist base in the village of Markab al-Ter located in the town of Baaj.

The air strikes allegedly killed 12 ISIS members, including 2 senior IS security leaders, according to Kurdistan CT statement.

Kurdish security also revealed the identity of the 2 leaders: Ali Khalaf, a Syrian citizen from Albu Kamal and Ismael Younis al-Afari, an Iraqi citizen from Talafar town, west of Mosul.

Baaj is located in south of the Ezidi-populated city of Sinjar (Shingal) and west of Mosul. ISIS occupied Baaj in June 2014 and the town remains under the control of the extremist group.

The jihadist group emerged in mid-2014, took control of Mosul and later expanded to other parts of Iraq, including Nineveh, Salahaddin, Anbar, Diyala and Kirkuk provinces.

Iraqi forces with the support of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the coalition jets have liberated the east, and a large proportion of west Mosul as the military operation is still ongoing to clear the city from the ISIS.

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/97b7 ... rdistan-CT

[Anthea]

Helping traumatized Yazidi refugees requires a different kind of care

Psychotherapy is a foreign concept to Yazidis. Providing it to the 1,200 refugees coming to Canada this year poses serious challenges

Omar Khoudeida has never been this busy. The 37-year-old works as a volunteer interpreter at the Cross Cultural Learner Centre in London and is preparing for a new group of Yazidi refugees to arrive. It’s a familiar scenario to Khoudeida, a Yazidi who fled Iraq in 1991 during the Gulf War. When he came to Canada in 2000 with his family, after nine years in a Syrian refugee camp, few people knew about the Yazidis. Now, London has one of the largest Yazidi communities in Canada, with about 50 families. So far, Khoudeida has helped seven government-sponsored Yazidi families settle in the city. “They need special help — as much as they can get, as soon as they can,” he says.

And that won't be easy. Yazidis, who lived in isolation in northern Iraq, are frequently illiterate and have suffered considerable trauma. The violence stretches back centuries. Yazidi faith is influenced by ancient Islamic and Assyrian teachings; they worship a peacock angel known as Melek Taus, who they believe was cast from the heavens by God. This peacock has often been compared to Satan — a fallen angel in Abrahamic traditions — leading the group to be accused of devil worship.

Those accusations have made Yazidis vulnerable to religious persecution. Since the late 16th century, they have faced 74 genocides. In 2014, ISIS militants, who follow a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam, began to target Yazidis, forcing them to flee to Mount Sinjar. Extremists continue to massacre the population and sell women and girls in slave markets, where the going rate is $1,500. More than 2,000 Yazidis may have escaped to refugee camps in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, but according to Human Rights Watch, at least 5,000 remain in ISIS captivity.

Last fall, Canada announced a $28 million plan to take in 1,200 Yazidis by the end of 2017. The federal government is also providing mental health support and, according to the immigration department, will initially approve up to 10 one-hour counselling sessions, with the possibility for more treatment. It’s essential care, but it’s not without its challenges.

Sharry Aiken, an expert in refugee law at Queen's University, says what sets Yazidis apart from many other refugees is the extent of violence the women and girls have faced at the hands of ISIS. “Many of these individuals will not feel comfortable disclosing the nature of their experiences to third parties,” Aiken says. “That’s going to be a big hurdle.”

In fact, the concept of psychotherapy is new to Yazidis, says Jan Kizilhan, a psychologist who has assessed Yazidi women and girls in Germany since 2015. “Most of the Yazidi girls and women come from villages, so they don’t have any idea of psychotherapy,” he says. Kizilhan, a German-Kurd, ran a program at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University that treated more than 1,000 women and girls who escaped ISIS captivity. “We don’t have words in Kurdish that can express depression or trauma,” he says. “So you need very special, trained translators to explain them what is happening in the therapy.”

Kizilhan says therapists must keep in mind that Yazidis suffer from a collective trauma, which has been passed on from one generation to another. When he addressed the Canadian Parliament last November, he pointed out that apart from language barriers, cultural norms might pose significant challenges to therapists and physicians.

A key feature of Yazidi culture is a strict observance of patriarchal beliefs: women focus on raising children and household duties, while men work to support their families. Sexual contact before and outside marriage is forbidden, so women who have been raped are reluctant to speak about sexual violence and fear its deep-rooted stigma. “For Yazidi women, it is hard to abandon principles,” says Haider Ali, president of Yazda, a non-profit that advocates for Yazidi rights. “Usually translators and therapists don’t understand the culture.”

Ali and Kizilhan both agree that without showing sensitivity and building trust early on, therapy for Yazidis could fail. “It is the job of the translator to break these taboos,” Kizilhan suggests. He says that translators will have to be trained to ensure that individuals, especially women, feel empowered to talk about issues that affect them. He adds that Yazidi human rights icons like Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, who have survived violence and speak openly about it, are good role models to help women talk openly.

In treating former ISIS captives in Germany, Kizilhan recognized a connection between the group’s deep cultural roots and its response to healing. Since Yazidis have a strong tradition of storytelling, he says it’s important to focus on a narrative form of therapy, which confronts problems by considering the broader contexts of people’s lives — rather than cognitive behavioural therapy, which treats emotional conditions by focusing on the here and now.

Nafiya Naso, a Yazidi human rights advocate with Operation Ezra in Winnipeg, fled to Canada with her family in the early 2000s. Since then, she has been intimately involved in the process of securing psychological and social support for arriving Yazidis who have arrived, as well as advising vetting agencies about what questions are appropriate to ask. Naso notes that for centuries, Yazidis have dealt with trauma by turning to one another. “It is a small community, and these kinds of things are dealt with within the community,” she says. “Not by professionals, just by Yazidis who they can go and talk to.”

And so volunteers in cities across Canada are working hard to bring Yazidis back together. “Families are very close: Yazidi homes are the drop-in centre for the whole community,” says Debbie Rose, a coordinator at Project Abraham, a Mozzud Foundation–led initiative in Toronto for Yazidi family reunification. Group activities such as dinners help Yazidi refugees feel welcome and connect with each other, as well as giving them a safe space. The non-profit organization helped settle the Mados, a family of seven, and is now looking to support another five families that have arrived in Toronto. Rose expects an additional 26 Yazidis to arrive this month.

In London, Khoudeida is confident that the community will adjust to their new lives in Canada. “When we came here, we knew how much help we needed,” he says. “So, we know what these people go through. We want to give them what we wanted so much for ourselves.”

http://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/ ... nd-of-care

[Anthea]

It is heart-breaking that so many Yazidi families are being torn from their homeland and sent to the four corners of the world

The best help the Yazidis could have is to have secure new villages built on their homeland

The innocent Yazidi will find it a great deal more difficult to settle in a strange new country than most other refugee groups

Female refugees always find it far more difficult to adjust to new surroundings and socialise with the host community

More so for the Yazidi who have always lived within a close, almost closed community

The entire world is finishing what ISIS started

THE WORLD IS DESTROYING THE YAZIDIS

[Anthea]

Wednesday 19 April is New Year’s Day for the Yazidi community
one of the oldest cultures in the world.

Yazidis are an ethnoreligious group based mainly in Iraq but with emigrant populations in Europe, North America and Australia. Yazidi beliefs, which predate Christianity and Islam, have over the centuries been continually misunderstood, leading to the persecution of followers, most recently in the attempted genocide by Islamic State.

God, or Huda, is for Yazidis a force that demands neither adoration nor subservience and exists in every part of the universe. Yazidi culture is tolerant of other faiths and traditionally provides women with greater equality. It has no specific requirements about what women can wear, and they are free to choose a partner. Although dowries are traditional – the custom seems to have been adopted from surrounding cultures – unique protections for women include the rule that a husband who abandons his wife may be automatically divorced and even banned from remarrying in the Yazidi faith.

Because Yazidism rejects the concept of hell, graveyards are places to honour family ancestors. For New Year’s Day Yazidi women gather in cemeteries to celebrate and share food offerings, with dance and music for the spirits of the dead, the living and those yet to be born. Protecting the environment and the fertility of the earth is a primary focus. Symbolic gifts are prepared, especially around the New Year, to draw the attention of Tawûsê Melek, the equivalent of an archangel in Christianity, to ensure that the earth remains fertile for the year ahead.

For Yazidis, Tawûsê Melek, also known as Peacock Angel, is symbolised by vivid colours, such as those of the rainbow, and through the multicoloured painting of eggs and the wearing of colourful clothing.

Yazidi emphasis on personal freedom and tolerance, and on Tawûsê Melek, has led to great misunderstandings, including allegations of devil worship. Unfortunately these have been accompanied by many atrocities. The latest assaults began in August 2014, when Islamic State, or Isis, slaughtered more than 5,000 Yazidi men, including teens and the elderly, and enslaved a larger number of women and girls. The youngest boys were abducted to be indoctrinated in hatred; girls were used as sex slaves.

These were not random acts of war. Isis declared that it wanted to wipe out our religion. Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes, initially to Mount Sinjar, without food or water in scorching heat. They subsequently became refugees, in the nearby region of Kurdistan, in Europe and in North America.

In August 2015, a year after the assault on Mount Sinjar, Zainab Hawa Bangura, the United Nations’ special representative for sexual violence in conflict, reported that “first-hand accounts . . . confirm systematic sexual violence, particularly against Yazidi women and children aged between eight and 35 years”.

In June last year the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, established by the UN’s human rights council, reported that “genocide has occurred and is ongoing” against the Yazidi community.

There is an urgent need for the world to defend the rights of minorities in the Middle East. All minority groups, religious or secular, including Christians, Kakians and Sabians, are at risk of persecution. It also includes any Muslim who rejects the Isis interpretation of Islam.

The Yazidi experience of ongoing and systematic persecution provides us with an acute understanding of the forces of intolerance, hatred, atrocity and genocide that threaten civilisation worldwide.

Part of the solution requires international initiatives. Last October the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said that she may support a protection zone in norther Iraq. Ireland is one of the countries best placed to provide effective support for such an initiative, through a UN force or related international agreement, particularly for any post-Isis settlement.

More generally, people of all faiths and none must show their rejection of bigotry and intolerance and of those masquerading behind the veil of religion while seeking to promote hatred and division.

Let’s remember the words of the great pacifist leader Mahatma Gandhi: people who exploit weaker nations, or weaker men, drag down not only themselves but mankind also.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/we-ya ... -1.3051587

We wish to thank Murad Ismael for this, his article in the Irish Times
Murad Ismael is executive director of Yazda, a global organisation supporting the Yazidi people; Murad.Ismael@yazda.org

[Anthea]

Aleppo Yazidis are celebrating Red Wednesday



Aleppo Yazidis are celebrating in Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood are celebrating the Red Wednesday or the Yazidi New Year for the first time.

Yazidis in Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood have been deprived of celebrating this day since the regime controlled the neighborhood and then when it was attacked by the Turkey-backed mercenaries.

In Syria, Yazidis have been subjected to many oppressive practices on basis of their religion, they were prohibited from performing their customs and traditions, Yazidis say that the Syrian regimes acts were ones of the many they experienced.

The Yazidi religion was not recognized in the Syrian constitution, that is to say the Baathist, it was not also given in syllabuses, the Red Wednesday rituals were performed in the houses secretly.

Amid these despotic policies, Yazidis were encouraged to immigrate to European countries

Around 300 Yazidi families reside in Shiekh Maksoud, Ashrafiyah and Suryan neighborhoods.

Yazidis representative in Sheikh Maksoud Roshin Khalil Musa said” July 19 Revolution was a salvation to us, without it, we could have lost our religion, a Yazidi association will be opened in the near future”.

Preparations for the Red Wednesday include coloring 12 boiled eggs, every three are colored with a season’s color, the egg indicates the earth is oval, boiling it indicates that the earth is frozen, and the crust indicates ice melting, the coloring tradition is an indication of the flowers that opened with the coming of “ King Peacock” .

http://en.hawarnews.com/aleppo-yazidis- ... wednesday/

[Anthea]

KNK congratulates Yazidis on Red Wednesday



The Kurdish National Congress (KNK) congratulated the Yazidis on the occasion of the Red Wednesday Day.

The congratulation was by a statement on the occasion of Red Wednesday or the Yazidi New Year, and that is on Wednesday 19 April

The statement contains the following:

“Today is Wednesday, Red Wednesday, Kurdistan Eid, Red Wednesday Eid, the Yazidi Society Eid…… the Yazidi religion is one of the ancient religion in Kurdistan……”.

KNK congratulated the Yazidi society, the Kurdish people, and the people of Kurdistan and the area on Red Wednesday Eid

[Anthea]

Red Wednesday a Sign for Peaceful Spirit

Charshama Sor (Red Wednesday) is the celebration of Yezidi New Year which occurs in April every year on the Wednesday after the 20th of the month.

Charshama Sor falls on Wednesday 19 April 2017

The Yezidis have one of the oldest religions in the world and their evidence for this is their calendar.

This year - April 2017 - the Yezidi calendar is in the year 6767

This renders the Yezidi Calendar older than any other religious calendars such as the Christian or Gregorian calendar, the Jewish Calendar, and the Islamic Calendar

Before the Islamic State (ISIS) attacked their area, Yazidis were celebrating the Red Wednesday by gathering at their holy sites, making food and going on picnics; but they have been, for the last three years, only performing prayers in the Lalish Temple and at Shikh Sharafaddn Tomb.

Marking the Yazidi’s New Year in the Spring, Yazidi women traditionally paint eggs a day before the Red Wednesday and hang flowers at their doorstep to welcome the new year, Yazidi Scholar Pir Khidir Sulayman says

They also halt every wedding during the first month of Yazidi calendar, believing that “nature is a beautiful bride which needs respect and no other brides are needed in this period,” Sulayman explained.

Baba Chawish, the senior servant of the Lalish Temple told BasNews that they are praying on this new year for their people abducted by ISIS, wishing the atrocities finally come to an end and the Yazidi captives will be set free by the new year.

One of the most important elements of the Yezidi faith is their belief in oneness with nature. Yezidis pay homage to the Sun three to five times each day. When Yezidis pray, they face the sun. The Sun represents the source of energy or ultimate truth. It is sacred and seen as the emanation of God

Another important facet of Yazidi faith is the Peacock Angel which is a Holy entity to Yazidis. They worship the Peacock Angel because to them, it is the chief angel which keeps the secrets of the great God of all creations, which is related to the ordering of the major gods or angels in the Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity; as Yazidis have beliefs that are unique to them and which are different from other religious beliefs.

The Yezidis live mainly in Kurdistan Region, northern Iraq. There are over one million Yezidis in the world. Historically, the Yezidis lived primarily in communities in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They also had existed in Armenia and Georgia.

Sadly, events in the 20th and 21st centuries and mass migrations led to a notably demographic change in those areas. As a result, population estimates of Yazidis are accurately unclear in many regions and estimates of the size of the total population vary.

The estimated Yezidi population in Iraq in early 2015 was approximately 500,000. They are particularly concentrated in northern Iraq in the Nineveh Province where there is their holiest site which is called Lalish to which the Yazidis perform pilgrimage. The two largest communities in Kurdistan are in the Shekhan district, northeast of Mosul, and the Sinjar district at the Syrian border 80 km west of Mosul.

Yezidis in Syria live primarily in two communities, one in the al-Jazira area and the other in the Kurd-dagh. The Population of the Syrian Yazidis however is not precisely known.

The Turkish Yezidi community drastically declined during the 20th century. There were over 30,000 by 1980s, but in 2009 there were fewer than 500 since most of them migrated to Europe

After the Islamic State (ISIS) militants took control of the Iraqi city of Mosul in mid-2014, they attacked the Yazidi-majority town of Sinjar in August 2014, and captured the city of Sinjar as well as the Sinjar area. ISIS militants then began to execute the Yazidi residents and abducted thousands of Yazidi girls and women to be sex slaves and sold them on slave markets later in Mosul and other areas in Syria. Some of those abductees have so far been freed but there are still many others held captives in the ISIS-held territories

http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/reports/271278