UK recognises 'acts of genocide' against Iraq's Yazidis by IS group
The British government on Tuesday officially acknowledged that the Islamic State group
committed "acts of genocide" against the Yazidi people in 2014.
Issued on: 01/08/2023 - 14:28, 2 min
Text by: NEWS WIRES
The Yazidis -- whose pre-Islamic religion made them the target of IS extremists -- were subjected to massacres, forced marriages and sex slavery during the jihadists' 2014-15 rule in the northern Iraq province of Sinjar, the Yazidis' traditional home.
The UK foreign office made the announcement ahead of events to mark "the nine year anniversary of atrocities" committed by the Islamic State against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority in Iraq.
"The UK has today formally acknowledged that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people by Daesh in 2014," the statement said, using another name for IS.
So far, the UK has acknowledged only four other instances where genocide has occurred, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and acts of genocide in Cambodia.
"The Yazidi population suffered immensely at the hands of Daesh nine years ago and the repercussions are still felt to this day," UK's Middle East minister Tariq Ahmad said in the statement.
"Justice and accountability are key for those whose lives have been devastated," he added.
Murad Ismael, co-founder of global Yazidi organisation Yazda, hailed the UK recognition as an "important step".
"Acknowledgement is the heart of justice process and helping victims to heal from the deep wounds of this genocide," he told AFP.
"I am pleased that the UK government has formally recognised the horrors suffered by the Yazidis as genocide", said Nadia Murad, a Yazidi Nobel Peace Prize Laureate campaigning against the use of sexual violence in war, particularly against the Yazidis.
"I hope that the British government will now begin to seek justice for the victims by holding British-born fighters to account," she added.
"The world cannot afford to let ISIS members walk free. It sends a message to the world that you can murder and rape with impunity."
German court ruling
The official UK recognition follows a German court judgement which found a former IS fighter guilty of acts of genocide in Iraq.
"The UK's position has always been that determinations of genocide should be made by competent courts," according to the statement.
In a landmark trial, a Frankfurt court in November 2021 sentenced Taha al-Jumailly to life in jail for crimes including the murder of a five-year-old Yazidi girl in Iraq.
Prosecutors said al-Jumailly in 2015 chained the enslaved child outdoors in extreme heat, leading to her dying of thirst.
Activists hailed the court ruling as a "historic" win.
The verdict was upheld after the German Federal Court of Justice this January rejected the defendant's appeal.
Germany is one of the few countries to have taken legal action against IS.
The UK's lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, had unanimously voted to condemn the IS's treatment of Yazidis and Christians in Iraq as amounting to genocide in 2016, in a rare instance of parliamentary determination of genocide.
The foreign ministry had refused to acknowledge the genocide then, in keeping with a long-standing policy on the determination of genocide by courts rather than governments.
Nearly six years since Iraq declared "victory" over IS, many Yazidis have still not been able to return to Sinjar.
Thousands still live in precarious conditions in camps for displaced people.
Those who have returned face an unstable security situation and inadequate or nonexistent public services.
(AFP)
India: Hindu parents fearful of sending girls to school after
series of love jihad incidents
AUG 2, 2023 1:00 PM BY VIJETA UNIYAL
Parents in the western Indian city of Ahmednagar are fearful of sending their daughters to school amid several cases of grooming of Hindu school girls and their attempted forced conversion to Islam, the New Delhi-based news website OpIndia reported.
The incident came to light after a group of Hindu girls filed a case against their female Muslim tutor who reportedly ran a grooming operation – subjecting them to coercion and blackmail. The tutor made minor girls wear burqa and introduced them to Muslim men, the report suggests. The local police and authorities failed to take adequate action against the Muslim grooming gang, the parents of the victims complain.
The news comes as Indians are increasingly alarmed by the Love Jihad being waged by Muslim grooming gangs targeting vulnerable Hindu and Christian girls across the country, recent Indian media reports show.
Ahmednagar Love Jihad: Villagers from Umbre decide not to send their girls to school
fearing grooming incidents: Here is what happened
by Siddhi Somani, OpIndia, July 31, 2023:
In a terrible update to the conversion case that was reported from the Rahuri region of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, the locals of Umbre village have unanimously decided not to send their girls to school fearing the rising grooming jihad incidents.
The official statement issued by the Umbre Gram Panchayat Karyalaya read that the parents of the victim girls and the others from the Hindu community are scared to send their daughters to school and tuition after the recent case of Love Jihad came to the fore from the village.
“We won’t send our girls to school from now onwards. All the parents in the village have decided that no girl will go to school unless the administration assures the security of our children. We all are terrified by the incident and are concerned about the safety and security of our girls. Our girls will do domestic chores instead and survive for their life if this is what they have to face at the places of education,” the letter read.
The letter also condemned the local police and the administration for allegedly lodging false FIR against Hindus who came forward to help the minor victim girls who were forced to wear burqa and convert their religion to Islam by some Muslims.
“The Police should take back the false cases lodged against Hindus who came forward to help the victim girls and their families. The Hindus were also brutally beaten by the police and the parents of the victim girls were also harassed,” the letter indicated demanding strict action against the police officer who booked Hindus and assaulted them based on the alleged false accusations imposed by the accused Muslims.
This comes days after a dreadful case of Love Jihad came to the fore from the Umbre region of Rahuri in Ahmednagar district. Around 3-4 minor Hindu girls filed a complaint against Avej Nisar Sheikh, Kaif Sheikh, Sohail Sheikh, Heena Sheikh, Alisha Sheikh, Salim Pathan, Altaf Sheikh and Shakir Sayyed for trapping them in a Love Jihad case and forcing them to wear burqa and convert their religion to Islam. (…)
As reported earlier, the girls were students of the accused tuition teacher Heena who groomed the girls to behave like Muslims. The teacher also stopped the girls from wearing kumkum and bangles.
Later, accused Heena also allowed some of the Muslim boys into her tuition who had nothing to do with her studies. She introduced them as her relatives and asked the girls to be friends with the boys.
The boys then trapped the girls into love affairs and forced them to convert their religion, wear a burqa and embrace Islam. The boys also had planned to abduct the girls.
The girls eventually realised the true face of the boys and filed a police complaint against eight persons, including tuition teacher Heena. According to the girls, the teacher helped the boys to attain their photographs which they morphed and used to blackmail the minor girls.
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