German MPs recognized Thursday, January 19 the "
genocide
" committed in 2014 against the Yazidis in Iraq by the jihadist group Islamic State and promised a series of aid measures to this Kurdish-speaking minority.
All the deputies present voted in favor of this text, presented by the ruling coalition and the conservative opposition CDU.
“
ISIS had as its objective the total eradication of the Yazidi community
,” the motion stresses.
"
More than 5,000 Yazidis have been tortured and brutally murdered by the Islamic State, particularly in 2014.
"
Rape, slavery and violence
Yazidi men were thus, recall the parliamentary groups, "
forced to convert and, in case of refusal, they were immediately executed or deported and reduced to slavery as forced laborers
".
Girls and women have been "
enslaved, raped and sold
", they further denounce, believing that "
sexualized violence (...) aims to dehumanize societies, to humiliate them and to break them up
".
Accordingly, “
the Bundestag recognizes the crimes committed against the Yazidi community as genocide
”.
German model
Yazidie Nadia Murad, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, immediately hailed the fact that Germany "
shows the example
" and called on "
all governments that have not yet done so to officially recognize the genocide
".
"
Unfortunately, most countries in the world are still not committed to recognizing this genocide, let alone trying and convicting the IS criminals who committed
it," she said.
Read alsoThe appalling odyssey of Yazidi children prisoners of Daesh
“
Why didn't we act?
to prevent these abuses, the head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, was moved in the Bundestag, stressing, in front of many members of Yazidi NGOs present in the gallery, "
that no parliamentary decision in the world can repair the suffering
".
“
We are indebted to the Yazidis because we did not act.
Our silence has cost lives
,” added Green MP Max Lucks.
Turn of the story
Belgium and Australia have already carried out such recognition, according to a German parliamentary source.
Same thing for the Netherlands, according to an association defending the rights of Yazidis.
"
But the importance of German recognition lies in the fact that it includes measures aimed at eliminating the consequences of the genocide
," said activist Mirza Dinnayi, an ardent defender of the Yazidi cause.
Read alsoShiite militias and pechmergas are also fighting over the Yazidi country
"
This recognition is a historic turning point
", rejoiced Nayef Khalaf Sido, leader of the Yazidi bloc in the unicameral Iraqi Parliament, convinced that it will have "
positive effects
", in particular on the "
reconstruction of Yazidi areas and the return of displaced
”.
The text of the Bundestag indeed formulates a series of requests to the German government, from legal proceedings against the suspects in Germany to financial support for the collection of evidence in Iraq through support for the reconstruction of destroyed Yazidi settlements.
“There must not be a single place on the planet where these criminals are safe”
Germany, where one of the largest Yazidi communities lives, is one of the rare countries to have taken legal action against the abuses committed by the IS group against this minority.
“
There must not be a single place on the planet where these criminals are safe
,” claimed Conservative MP Michael Brand from the podium.
“
We hope that other countries will follow suit and that the victims will thus obtain justice
”, reacted Nechirvan Barzani, president of the autonomous region of Kurdistan of Iraq where thousands of Yazidis live, in particular in camps for the displaced.
Read alsoIraq: when the Kurds let go of the Yazidis
In November, the German justice sentenced an Iraqi jihadist for "
genocide
" of the Yazidi minority, a judicial first.
A German woman, suspected member of the IS group, is currently on trial in Koblenz, in the west of the country, for persecutions against a Yazidi enslaved in Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2019. A UN special investigation team announced in May 2021 that it had collected “
clear and convincing proof
” that genocide had been committed by the jihadists against the Yazidis.
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