In the summer of 2014, Islamic State fighters occupied Sinjar in northern Iraq. Particular objects of their hatred were the Yazidis, an ancient people condemned by the Islamic State as pagans. Yazidi men were slaughtered; Yazidi women and children enslaved. Now, even though the Islamic State has been defeated, the majority of Yazidis remain trapped in camps for the displaced, unable to return to their homes, traumatised by their terrible sufferings, and largely forgotten by the world.
This is despite the fact that both the United Nations and governments in Canada, Australia, the EU, the US, France, and Armenia recognised the atrocities committed against the Yazidis as genocide . On 20 April 2016, in the UK, the House of Commons did the same. Resolutions on their own, though, achieve little. The UK refuses to accept Yazidi refugees into the country, while simultaneously making no effort to help resolve the political crisis currently afflicting the Yazidi heartlands around Sinjar. To refuse to help the Yazidis in their hour of need, or to confront the underlying causes of the genocide, constitutes an unacceptable moral failure on our country’s part.
On the 25th of Jun 2019, at 18.30, a meeting to highlight the crisis afflicting the Yazidis will be held in the Grand Committee Room of the Houses of Parliament. It will feature experts from around the world, including:
- Tom Holland, best-selling author and historian
- Christine Allison, Ph.D., Professor of Kurdish studies at Exeter University
- Matthew Barber, former executive director of Yazda Iraq
- Salwa Khalaf, Yazidi survivor of IS enslavement
- Dr. Gautam Sen, Ph.D., former lecturer at L.S.E., Director of DIPF
- Anne Norona, founder of Yezidi Emergency Support
~ Information on the event is available at this link: http://www.dipf.org.uk/campaigns/yezidi-plight/
~ To register for free, access this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/plight-of-the-yezidi-people-an-unlamented-continuing-genocide-london-hoc-tickets-61797369596
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Well done bringing to our notice, this very important piece of information which all major print and online media ignores. This proves also the stance and arrogance of likes of BBC who hypocitically keep writing about the plight of Rohingyas as their narrative is to project only one kind of Muslims as victims and not the ancient Yezidi’s a community through no fault of their own were murdered and raped by the ISIS.