German lawmakers recognize Yazidi genocide in Iraq
Germany's lower house of parliament on Thursday, January 19, recognized the 2014 massacre of Yazidis by the Islamic State group in Iraq as a genocide and called for measures to assist the besieged minority.
In a move hailed by Yazidi community representatives, Bundestag elected officials unanimously passed the motion submitted by three parliamentary groups. Thursday's vote followed similar moves by countries including Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The Bundestag "recognizes the crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide following the legal evaluations of investigators from the United Nations," the resolution read.
The text condemned "indescribable atrocities" and "tyrannical injustice" carried out by IS fighters "with the intention of completely wiping out the Yazidi community."
It also urged the German judicial system to pursue further criminal cases against suspects in Germany. And it called on the government to increase financial support to collect evidence of crimes in Iraq and boost funding to help rebuild shattered Yazidi communities.
The resolution pressed Berlin to establish a documentation center for crimes against Yazidis to ensure a historical record and to call on Baghdad to protect the minority group's rights.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi rights activist, said she hoped the resolution would inspire other countries to follow suit. "Survivors deserve no less," she said.
IS jihadists massacred more than 1,200 Yazidis, members of a Kurdish-speaking community in northwest Iraq that follows an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, in August 2014. IS sees them as "devil worshippers."
The Yazidi minority was particularly persecuted by the jihadist group which has also forced its women and girls into sexual slavery and enlisted boys as child soldiers.
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A special UN investigation team said in May 2021 that it had collected "clear and convincing evidence" that IS had committed genocide against the Yazidis.
