Islam - Current Day > Muslim Terror Group former Hindus - capturing Hindu Girls; Fulani Herdsmen Massacre women and girls in two Nigerian villages

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Radical Islamic outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir members were former Hindus, forcibly converted girls to Islam: MP ATS

by Ravish Pal Singh, India Today, May 16, 2023:

The Madhya Pradesh ATS, which arrested radical Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, has made big revelations about the group. During interrogations, the MP ATS found that three of the arrested accused were earlier Hindus, however, they later got converted to Islam. They also married girls belonging to other religions and forcibly converted them to Islam.

Investigations also revealed that one of the arrested accused used to run a coaching center in Bhopal, where people were brainwashed.

Speaking to Aaj Tak, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra confirmed some of the arrested accused earlier belonged to other religions and later got converted to Islam.

Mishra also said one of the arrested accused was identified as Mohammad Saleem, whose real name was Saurab Bharadwaj. One Devi Prasad Pandey had also changed his religion and name to Abdur Rehman, he said.

The home minister confirmed all the accused married Hindu girls and forced them to accept Islam.

According to Narottam Mishra, Mohammad Saleem was employed as a professor at a college owned by Asaduddin Owaisi’s brother, Akbaruddin Owaisi.

Commenting on the arrests, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the arrested accused used to work as gym trainers, auto drivers, tailors, etc.

“The motive of these accused was to brainwash people and to push them into terrorism,” he said….

Ahhh! The Religion of Peace!

India: Hizb-ut-Tahrir jihad group members were converted Hindus, 

now forcibly converting girls to Islam

MAY 18, 2023 8:00 AM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS, Jihad Watch

India’s anti-terror squad has arrested 16 Muslims aligned with the jihad group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Now it has come to light that the group’s members were Hindus who converted to Islam. They then “married girls belonging to other religions and forcibly converted them to Islam.” All this was part of the endeavor to increase the Islamic population and decrease the number of non-Muslims.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has already expanded into the European Union, fooling people in using the language of human rights (much like the Muslim Brotherhood does). But in 2021, the group showed its true colors in Australia when it organized a rally and featured a speaker who prayed: “Oh Allah, give us the necks of the Jews… of those evildoers!” In Turkey,  Hizb ut-Tahrir is openly campaigning for a caliphate.

Despite the obvious threat of Hizb ut-Tahrir (and more broadly, all jihadists) in expanding Islam, victimhood propaganda against India for alleged “Islamophobia” is still employed, as it is everywhere.

Nigeria: Muslims storm Plateau state community while the

villagers were asleep, murder women and children

MAY 18, 2023 3:00 PM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

There is a media blackout on the identities of both the perpetrators and the victims in Nigeria, but my contact inside that country has informed me that these killers were Fulani jihadists, and that their victims were Christians. As a scenario in which Muslims are anything but victims and Christians are anything but white oppressors is unacceptable to the establishment media worldwide, the blackout extends far beyond Nigeria itself.

Terrorists Kill Women, Children In Fresh Attacks On Plateau State Community

Sahara Reporters, May 16, 2023:

Suspected terrorists have attacked and reportedly killed many residents, including women and children at Kubat village in the Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State during an assault on Monday night.

The terrorists invaded the community when the villagers were asleep….

SaharaReporters had recently reported that scores of residents were killed by gunmen who invaded at least four communities in Mangu and Bokkos Local Government Areas of Plateau State.

The suspected bandits stormed the communities two Sundays ago, unleashing a wave of violence.

Bandits!!!! Good grief! They are terrorists, not bandits.

Although the exact number of casualties has yet to be determined, several residents were believed to have died in the attack.

The Plateau State Governor seems to be helpless over the situation as his directive to the security forces has not only been ignored but failed to stop the killings.

It seems obvious that the state and national governments in Nigeria have no real intention to reduce the violence against Christians. Their collusion is nothing more than state-sanctioned genocide. More than 60 Christians have been slaughtered since the Governor came to power in March.

A report from International Christian Concern says that 42 people were massacred in this attack.

Plateau State, Nigeria

Nigeria: Muslims gruesomely murder Christian pastor and 

37 others including women and children

MAY 18, 2023 4:00 PM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

“Bandits” and “herdsmen” are the Nigerian media’s code for Fulani jihadists, just as the British media uses “Asian grooming gangs” for Muslim rape gangs, and the French media refers to “youths” rather than “jihadis.” Everywhere, the media has agreed that its primary job is to cover for Islam and the crimes committed in its name and in accord with its teachings.

Bandits (Muslim Jihadists) Kill Pastor, 37 Others In Nasarawa

Leadership, May 15, 2023:

The Pastor-in-charge of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Takalafia, Nasarawa State, Rev Daniel Danbeki, and 37 others were gruesomely murdered by the assailants during the attack which lasted from 9 pm on Thursday night till the early hours of Friday.

A mass burial was held on Saturday for no fewer than 38 residents of Takalafia and Gwanja communities in the Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa state who were killed by bandits. The victims of the attack included women and children.

The deputy governor of the state, Emmanuel Akabe, led a government delegation to the mass burial which was conducted amid tears from sympathisers and other members of the communities….

Earlier, the Executive Chairman of Karu LGA, James Thomas, who visited the attacked communities before the mass burial, completely condemned the attack by the herdsmen….

The Teenage Girls Who Flirted with Nazis Before Luring Them into Woods and Shooting Them

Courageous girls of the Dutch Resistance

Maya Oppenheim
The Independent

Red lipstick and shiny eye shadow were unlikely but important weapons deployed by members of the Dutch resistance when taking on Nazi soldiers.

Freddie and Truus Oversteegen, two sisters, and their best friend Hannie Schaft would put on their best clothes and fastidiously apply their make-up before going into bars to seek out unsuspecting targets.

The young girls, who were active in the Dutch resistance during the Second World War, would then strike up conversations with Nazi soldiers or Dutch collaborators. They would giggle and bat their eyelashes as they cajoled them into disclosing classified information.

Then they would lure them into the woods on the pretext of a “romantic walk” – and shoot them dead.

Freddie and Truus survived the war but Hannie, who is far more famous than the Oversteegen sisters, was caught and executed by the Nazis just three weeks before the war came to an end.

The last words she uttered are said to have been “I’m a better shot” after one of her executioners wounded her with the first attempt.

Sophie Poldermans was a close friend of Freddie and Truus, who both recently died at the age of 92, and intimately and regularly spoke to them about their memories of the war throughout their lives.

Ms Poldermans, a lawyer who specialises in women and war crimes, has now written about their harrowing experiences in a book titled Seducing and Killing Nazis – Hannie, Truus, and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII.

Truus Oversteegan with a sten gun

“They were extremely brave women,” she told The Independent. “I would not want to have stood in their shoes. They started out small in the resistance – carrying illegal newspapers printed by the resistance news about Nazi troops. They would ride their bicycles and deliver them to specific addresses. They would also steal false identification papers for Jewish people in hiding.”

Freddie and Truus, who was two years older than her, were born and raised in Haarlem, a Dutch city close to Amsterdam, by a single mother.

The parents had divorced and their mother was a communist. She would get the young girls to make dolls for children who were victims of the Spanish Civil War.

Ms Poldermans, who worked with the siblings for over a decade as a board member of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation but also knew them personally, said Truus and Hannie would help transport Jewish children to safe houses but Freddie, 14 at the beginning of the war, had been too young to help.

“People also could have easily thought she was a Jewish child herself because of her appearance so it would have been too dangerous for her,” Ms Poldermans said. “But Truus and Hannie would take Jewish children from one safe house to another on their bikes if they knew there were traitors around. It was not suspicious for them to be carrying young children because they were women. They would sing songs to distract the children.”

But the three girls’ roles and tactics in the resistance grew increasingly dangerous as they got more heavily involved.

Freddie Oversteegen in 1945 (Sophie Poldermans)

“They would use explosives to blow up railway lines and trains to make sure Germans were not able to transport soldiers or weapons or Jewish people,” Ms Poldermans explains. “This was a heavier type of resistance. They wanted to make sure it was chaos on the railway line.”

It was not long before the teenage girls started seducing and shooting Nazis – with commanders assigning them particular targets.  

“These are the only three women we know of who seduced and killed Nazis in the Netherlands,” Ms Poldermans says. “That is what makes it such a unique story. They were teenagers and they were young and pretty. They would dress up very nicely and wear heavy make-up. They would pretend to be kraut girls who were local women who had relationships with German officers, Dutch traders (traitors?) and general members of the Nazi party. Of course, their main target was the high-ranking officers.”

She adds: “They would go into bars and then they would flirt with these soldiers and giggle and smile and be girly girls. They would say ‘We can go for a romantic walk in the forest’. They would lure these guys into the woods to try to extract all the information they needed and then they would shoot them right there on the spot. Freddie was about 16. Truus was 18 and Hannie was 21. They started in the summer of 1943 and carried on until the end of the war.”

Truus was a real tomboy who had never worn make-up before, whereas Hannie always powdered her face right before an assignment in order to “die beautifully” in case she was captured by the Nazis.

Ms Poldermans, who notes the girls never slept with the Nazis, said they would have to relocate if their profile started to become known in the area to ensure they were not recognised. The girls kept their actions a secret from everyone – even friends and family – for security purposes.

The sisters always refused to reveal how many Nazis they had killed when asked about it after the war – with Freddie telling Ms Poldermans: “One should not ask a soldier any of that.”

“They did what they did because it had to be done,” Ms Poldermans says. “They believed in justice. They did not believe there was another way. At the same time, they tried to remain human. They suffered from depression and had nightmares and what we would now call PTSD.”

The lecturer says it took a long time after the end of the war before the sisters got the recognition they deserved – explaining many people wanted to look forwards rather than backwards, and stories of the resistance were dominated by men.

Ms Poldermans adds: “They had to fight for recognition. Truus was very outspoken. She would always tell her story but Freddie was very traumatised. She couldn’t talk about the war and it was only in the last few years of her life that she could. Freddie got all the recognition for her work after she died. It is too bad she doesn’t know. 

“War affected everything in their lives. Truus became a well-known sculptor but the war was present in all of her artwork. The trauma never went away for them. Every day around liberation day in May, they would wake up screaming, having nightmares about the war. All the memories came back to them. It was so bad that Freddie would have to leave the country for a couple of months during that time of year.”

4 Years Later - Nobody is Looking for Thousands of Missing Yazidi Sex Slaves

Activists on social media hope to raise awareness for thousands of missing people kidnapped by ISIS in 2014, hold events around the world and online

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN 

Tal Afar

A displaced woman from the minority Yazidi sect, who was kidnapped by Islamic State militants of Tal Afar but managed to flee, reacts in Duhok province, northern Iraq, November 24, 2016. . (photo credit: ARI JALAL / REUTERS)

A large online campaign to remind people about the ISIS genocide of the Yazidi minority in Iraq kicked off this week. It includes personal testimony from people raped and kidnapped, as well as photos from August 2014 and descriptions of people who are still missing.

“The Islamic State started its attack on Shingal (Yazidi area) on the 3rd of August 2014. Thousands of people lost their lives and many women were kidnapped. These women were brutally raped and sold on streets as sex slaves,” tweeted an account for Kurdish students in the UK on August 1. It included the hashtag #NeverforgetShengal. It is part of a large campaign around the world by Yazidi and other activists raising awareness for the fourth anniversary of attacks by ISIS the UN and other groups have labeled genocidal.

Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor, was recently in the United States where she met US Vice-President Mike Pence, Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and also visited the Holocaust Museum. She wrote that the images of the Shoah reminded her of the suffering of Yazidis. She has been seeking to encourage religious freedom and help for minorities as well as pushing for investigations of ISIS crimes.

Nadia Murad ✔

@NadiaMuradBasee

 Listening to a Holocaust survivor speak at the fist day of #IRFMinisterial. Many of the horrific images we saw @HolocaustMuseum looked similar to what Yazidis witnessed in 2014. We r only days away from Aug 3rd, thousands of Yazidis remain in captivity, around 350,000 r displace.

350,000 Yazidis still displaced

ISIS conquered a swath of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, capturing Mosul in June and other major, mostly Sunni Arab, cities. It expelled Shi’ites from Tel Afar and massacred thousands of other Shi’ites near Mosul and at Camp Speicher. It also expelled all the Christians of Nineveh plains around Mosul, an area Christians had lived in for almost 2,000 years. On August 3 it attacked the Yazidi areas near Mount Sinjar and attacked the Kurdish region. On August 7 US President Barack Obama ordered airstrikes to stop the ongoing genocide. By then around 10,000 Yazidis had been systematically kidnapped and murdered. Many were buried in around 30 mass graves.

Since 2014 Yazidis and their supporters have tried to raise awareness for their suffering, often with their pleas falling on deaf ears. Although media reported widely on the salacious details of “sex slavery” no resources were invested by the International Coalition to find the victims. In addition around 350,000 Yazidis remain displaced, unable to return to their homes which were blown up and their villages which were laced by tunnels and IEDs by ISIS. Sinjar city lacks basic resources. While the international community and Iraq have invested in rebuilding Mosul, sources say almost nothing has gone to Yazidi areas. The March Inspector General report at the US Department of Defense says only $55 million has been invested in areas where there are religious and ethnic minorities, “including Christians, Yazidis and Sunnis in northern Iraq.”

Mn Kh S 🇮🇶

@MnKhS

1000s of Yazidis are still lost and no any effort to search for them.

The criminals responsible for the #YazidiGenocide are still breathing! #YazidiGenocideCommemoration pic.twitter.com/P0QD7s23di

Another account puts photos of Yazidis fleeing the ISIS attacks in ISIS, when hundreds of thousands made their way in the hot summer towards the protection of Mount Sinjar and eventual safety in Syria. “Thousands of Yazidis remain missing to this day or in ISIS captivity,” writes one activist, calling on the US Vice-President to raise awareness for “#YazidiGenocide.” An account tweeting on behalf of “Yazidis in France,” writes “no, the Yazidis are not doomed to disappear.”

The activists encourage ask to participate. “Change your profile picture until August 3,” one writes, with an image showing women fleeing ISIS in 2014. Supporters have been tweeting in Arabic as well. One man writes that the perpetrators of the genocide are still in Iraq, they say the perpetrators returned to their homes while the victims are in IDP camps.  Others have followed up the campaign in German, Kurdish and other languages.

The campaign effectively uses images and quotes, many of them shocking. One account with 24,000 followers shares an image of a young woman crying. “He (ISIS terrorist) tied me up and put me at the end of his prayer rug. When he was finished praying he would untie me and rape me,” the account of a 12 year old victim. 

>3000 Yazidis still missing

Those tweeting are often angry that nothing has been done to bring the perpetrators to justice. Even though 40,000 ISIS members have died in battle and Iraq has sentenced hundreds to death, there has been no specific attempt to track down those who carried out the genocide. “Four years later we have not made good on any of these promises [to bring people to justice].” 

Another man writes “1000s of yazidis are still lost and no any effort to search for them.” According to Murad Yazidi, one of the activists, 3,201 people are still missing. A trickle of survivors are still being found. Several children were found in Syria and a man was found in Turkey who was apparently kidnapped when he was in his teens. 

Images posted don’t only show victims and photos of people fleeing, some of them also show Yazidi religious sites, such as the cone-shaped temples of the faithful. ISIS blew up any Yazidi sites they captured, including cemeteries. Some of them have been rebuilt in areas that were liberated since 2015. A man who goes by the handle Billy Biketruck posted a photo with Yazidi youth in the holy site of Lalish in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The area never fell to ISIS and many sought shelter there in 2014. “Lovely kids, just like my kids except their stories would keep you awake at night. We remember what ISIS did in 2014, slaughter, kidnap, enslave, rape, torture,” he writes.

ISIS still active in Iraq

As the activists seek to raise awareness, Iraq is still under major threats from ISIS. The government has launched a three phased campaign called “revenge of martyrs” to track down ISIS cells in three governorates north of Baghdad. But attacks appear to come everyday, with assassinations of local police, ISIS setting up fake checkpoints and carrying out hit and run raids. With each victory that Iraq declares, it appears ISIS pops up somewhere else. Tensions are also running high with local Sunni tribal members clashing with Shi’ite militias and widespread protests months after the elections with Baghdad unable to form a government.

Commemorations of the genocide will take place online as well as in different places around the world. In Sweden Yazda, an organization supporting Yazidis, will host an event on August 3. There will also be ceremonies in Germany, Australia, New York City and Baghdad.

Yazidi Genocide by ISIS ‘on-going’, Captives in Danger in Raqqa – UN

A yazidi boy holds his sister in a playground in Sinjar region, Iraq August 2, 2017. Picture taken August 2, 2017 © Suhaib Salem / Reuters

On the third anniversary of the start of Islamic State attacks against the Yazidis in Iraq, the UN commission on Syria has warned that captive Yazidi women are in particular danger as the noose around Raqqa tightens and has urged the coalition to rescue them.

“The genocide is ongoing and remains largely unaddressed,” said a statement from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, the body established six years ago to investigate human rights abuses in the conflict which has claimed over 300,000 lives.

“Thousands of Yazidi men and boys remain missing and the terrorist group continues to subject some 3,000 women and girls in Syria to horrific violence including brutal daily rapes and beatings. Some women and girls are being held in Raqqa city. As the Syrian Democratic Forces and international coalition offensive on Raqqa intensifies, reports have emerged of ISIL fighters trying to sell enslaved Yazidi women and girls before attempting to flee Syria,” the statement says further.

On August 3, 2014, Islamic State took control of the city of Sinjar in northern Iraq, a major population center for the Yazidis who number fewer than one million. After slaughtering thousands of predominantly fighting-age men, the Islamists – who view the Yazidis, who follow their own religion as “devil-worshippers” – enslaved between 4,000-10,000 mostly women and children.

“Yazidi boys were separated from their families, forced to convert to Islam and recruited as child soldiers. Many men and elderly women were also coerced into converting to Islam and used as forced labourers. Sites of religious and cultural significance to Yazidis were deliberately destroyed,”read a statement from four leading human rights groups dedicated to the Yazidis. It was released to commemorate the anniversary.

While the plight of the Kurdish-speaking minority received media coverage, little was done to specifically help the Yazidis. Over the last three years, some have escaped, others have died, with many found in mass graves. However, no specific rescue plan has been formulated to aid the Yazidis who had suffered severe discrimination even before the latest brutalities.

“The Commission recommends to all parties fighting ISIL to consider plans aimed at rescuing Yazidi captives and use all means available to ensure they are set free during on-going military operations,” stated the UN.

With Islamic State territory shrinking and a battle raging for their proclaimed capital of Raqqa, focus is shifting to punishing the perpetrators of the systematic atrocities.

“The international community must also recognize ISIL is committing the crime of genocide against the Yazidis and undertake steps to refer the situation to justice, including to the International Criminal Court or an ad hoc tribunal,” said the UN commission.

Twitter

Amal Clooney: “it is shameful that 3 years after the genocide began, no IS member has been held to account for it...https://www.yazda.org/?p=8643 

“The UN Security Council should immediately establish an international investigative commission to collect, preserve and analyse evidence of ISIS' atrocities in Iraq,” said the human rights groups.

Raqqa, Syria

Germany's Secret Program to Rescue Hundreds of Yazidi ISIS Survivors

'They raped us; they killed our men': Psychologist helps Yazidi women recover from trauma of ISIS captivity

Yazidi women and families are finding security and therapy in Germany

By Nahlah Ayed, CBC News 

Farida Khalaf, 20, lost her father, older brother, friends and the quiet life she knew in village in northern Iraq to ISIS. She was enslaved by the Islamist militants along with hundreds of other women and girls. Her four-month odyssey in the hands of several ISIS operatives took her to the heart of their territory: Raqqa, Syria. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

Lodged in the memory of psychologist Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan are the stories of 1,400 girls and women who were once enslaved by ISIS.

The German trauma expert personally interviewed each of them, hearing countless stories of torture and rape. It was, by any measure, a grim and daunting undertaking.

All were Yazidis, a long-persecuted minority. One of the youngest was just eight years old.

"She was, for 10 months, in the hands of the [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] and was raped hundreds of times," said Kizilhan, 51, a German psychologist and professor with Kurdish roots.

But he couldn't help all the women.

His agonizing task was to assist German officials who travelled with him to northern Iraq to choose which of the women would have the life-altering opportunity to move to Germany for treatment.

'Psychotherapy means to give the feeling "yes, we have some cruel, evil persons, but the world is not all evil."'

- Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan

Even as the rest of Germany grappled with accommodating a million asylum seekers in 2015, the government of Baden-Wurttemberg state had unilaterally committed to bringing traumatized Yazidi women and providing them with therapy and housing.

Under a special program, several hundred women and their families — 1,100 people in all — were ultimately airlifted over a year for a rare chance at recovery from hellish post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

They live in more than 20 secret shelters across the state.

German psychologist Jan Ilhan Kizilhan travelled to camps in northern Iraq to choose which victims of torture and rape would have the life-altering opportunity to move to Germany for treatment. 'In Germany, they have security. We can give them orientation and stabilization,' he says. (Nahlah Ayed/CBC)

As therapist to many of them now, Kizilhan's task has only grown in enormity: not just helping them overcome deep trauma, but also restoring the women's faith in humanity.

"In this case," he explained, "people lost their trust in humanity, and psychotherapy means to give the feeling 'yes, we have some cruel, evil persons, but the world is not all evil.'"

Unsurprisingly, that is a hard sell among the women.

Ask Farida Khalaf. She was a schoolgirl when ISIS fighters descended on her village on Aug. 15, 2013. They killed the men and took the women away, the younger among them to be bought and sold and appallingly abused.

In the process Khalaf lost her father, older brother, friends, and the quiet life she knew. Her four-month odyssey in the hands of several ISIS operatives took her to the heart of their territory: Raqqa, Syria. Where, despite repeatedly resisting, she was raped.

Khalaf has the name of her village, Kocho, tattooed on her hand. The village no longer exists. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

"We used to wash their clothes and do everything for them. We were slaves for them," she said.

She often refused their demands and suffered for it — once beaten so badly she lost sight in one eye and couldn't walk for two months. After several attempts to escape, she made it back to northern Iraq where most of her village's survivors — including, it turned out, her little brother — were then living in refugee camps.

Khalaf, now 20, was among the women chosen to settle in Baden-Wurttemburg, with her mother and brother. They live in a secret shelter on a quiet street, embedded among other nondescript German homes.

No longer exists

When we visited (on condition its location be kept secret), the home was buzzing with the sounds of lunch preparations and children playing.

Khalaf's clinical retelling of a story that involved several attempts at suicide is devoid of emotion — until she speaks of home, a village that no longer exists.

Its name, Kocho, is tattooed on her hand.

"Even now when I try, I can't smile with my whole heart," she said in an interview.

"They raped us, they killed our men, and did all that only because we are Yazidis."

Demanded conversion

Yazidis are ethnic Kurds living mostly in northern Iraq. Their religion borrows elements of Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism.

ISIS extremists saw Yazidis as devil worshippers, and when they invaded, they demanded the Yazidis convert. The Yazidis refused. Thousands were killed and displaced, prompting an international bombing campaign that has yet to entirely stamp out ISIS.

In acts of symbolic support, the UN and recently Canada, declared the events acts of genocide. Canada committed to taking in some of the traumatized women, but Ottawa has yet to announce details.

Khalaf' keeps photos of family and friends, many of whom she has lost. 'Even now when I try, I can't smile with my whole heart,' she says. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

There are estimates that as many as 3,400 Yazidi women remain in ISIS captivity. Hundreds more languish in refugee camps with the stigma of having been enslaved — and without psychological treatment.

"I myself documented about 60 cases of women who committed suicide," said Kizilhan, who spent 20 years researching in Northern Iraq.

"We shouldn't forget they belong to a patriarchal society: cases of honour and dishonour, and they will not have the feeling [of being] accepted by this society."

Despite that, several survivors now in Germany, including Khalaf, are telling their stories publicly in an effort to help save some of those left behind.

Nadia Murad has called on Canada to take in as many women and families possible. (Nahlah Ayed/CBC)

Nadia Murad, one of the most outspoken, called on Canada to take in as many women and families possible, to help build a sustainable community.

"It is unacceptable for a woman to be rescued from captivity from ISIS to come and not have a place to live, to be put in refugee camps," she said in an interview.

Those refugee camps are where Kizilhan's original, agonizing interviews took place.

The women had to meet three criteria:

They had once been held by ISIS.

They suffered psychological and medical consequences.

The state had the know-how to treat them.

Part of the state's plan included training psychologists and interpreters. But how can anyone overcome such deep trauma? Are the women treatable?

Kizilhan says yes — but only if they can leave the camps of northern Iraq behind.

Kizilhan interviews a Yazidi refugee. 'They should know that they are not alone,' he says. (Courtesy Sonderkontingent Baden-Württemberg)

"In Germany they have security. We can give them orientation and stabilization … and if you don't have that, you can't start treatment.

"The main idea of treatment is not to [teach] them how to forget it. It's a part of their lives."

But they can be taught to overcome their trauma, he says, perhaps in as little as two to three years.

Kizilhan says they are making progress.

Khalaf is recovering and has written a book. She has learned to tell her story in German.

There hasn't been a single case of suicide among the women.

"They are motivated to survive," says Kizilhan, because they've been rescued.

"This for me, also as a psychotherapist, is very important. They should know that they are not alone … we will stand behind them."

It is long past time for Canada and the US and other western countries to help these women and girls recover from this most horrific of evils.

Former Islamic State Sex Slaves Awarded Europe's Top Human Rights Prize

Congratulations to these courageous young women. You are my heroes!

By Andrew V. Pestano  UPI

The European Parliament on Thursday announced Nadia Murad Basee Taha and Lamiya Aji Bashar, seen from left to right in this image made by political cartoonist Ali Farzat, are the 2016 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought laureates. The women were former Islamic State sex slaves. Image courtesy of European Parliament

STRASBOURG, France, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The European Parliament has awarded the 2016 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Nadia Murad Basee Taha and Lamiya Aji Bashar, Yazidi survivors of sexual slavery by the Islamic State.

Both women were captured on Aug. 3, 2014, when the Islamic State killed all the men in the village of Kocho in Iraq's Sinjar District -- Murad and Aji Bashar's hometown. The village's women and children were enslaved. The women were bought and sold several times to be exploited as sex slaves.

"During the Kocho massacre, Murad lost six of her brothers and her mother, who was killed along with 80 older women deemed to have no sexual value," the European Parliament said in a statement. "Aji Bashar was also exploited as a sex slave along with her six sisters. She was sold five times among the militants and was forced to make bombs and suicide vests in Mosul after IS militants executed her brothers and father."

In November 2014, Murad was able to escape with the help of a family who smuggled her out of IS-controlled territory. She settled in a refugee camp in northern Iraq and then traveled to Germany.

In December 2015, Murad -- who was recently awarded the Council of Europe's Václav Havel Human Rights Prize -- addressed the United Nations Security Council's first-ever session on human trafficking about her experience as an Islamic State sex slave.

In September, she became the first U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, a role in which she will attempt to raise awareness about the horrors of human trafficking.

Aji Bashar tried to escape the Islamic State several times before succeeding in April after her family helped pay local smugglers. As she fled the pursuing Islamic State on her way to Iraqi government-controlled territory a landmine exploded, which killed two people she was with and left her injured and nearly blind.

Though injured, she successfully escaped and was sent for medical treatment to Germany, where she reunited with her surviving siblings.

"Since her recovery Aji Bashar has been active in raising awareness about the plight of the Yazidi community and continues to help women and children who were victims of IS enslavement and atrocities," the European Parliament added.

The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought recognizes individuals who fight intolerance, fanaticism and oppression to defend human rights and freedom of expression. It is named in honor of Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, and has been awarded annually since 1988.

In 2011, the prize went to five representatives of the Arab Spring in recognition and support of their drive for freedom and human rights.

In 2015, the award was given to Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian blogger who was imprisoned and flogged publicly for criticizing the country's religious establishment. And is still imprisoned!

Oktoberfest, Munich - Security Up, Numbers Down, Sex Crimes Up Anyway

Oktoberfest sees rise in reported sex crimes despite lowest attendance in 15yrs

This year's Oktoberfest saw the least amount of people turning up at the Munich event in 15 years, but still experienced an increase in sex crimes reported to police, the Local writes.


© Michaela Rehle / Reuters
Curious! The man on the left with the beard and wearing a green shirt and hat is not holding up a mug of beer like all the other men, he's busy checking out the girls right in front of him. Wonder what he does next?

Around 5.6 million visited the festival this year, a drop of 300,000 compared to the previous year. The number represents the lowest number of people since 2001, when 5.5 million attended the event, which took place soon after the 9/11 terror attacks.

As the numbers dropped, so did the amount of crime – with one type a notable exception. Thirty-one sex crimes were reported to police this year, compared to 21 in 2015, the Local reported.

Other incidents occurred which didn't always involve official police reports, according to the support group Safer Wiesn for Girls and Women, which counted 215 women who came to a security checkpoint for help. Eighteen of those had experienced violence. That number also represents an increase from last year, when 197 women came to the checkpoint for help.

The crimes occurred despite increased security at the event, which saw organizers arrange entrance checks for everyone attending the festival grounds for the first time in the event's 200-year history.

The increased security came amid ongoing terrorism concerns throughout Germany, following recent attacks. In July, a shooting spree in Munich left 10 people dead. That same week, a teenager in Würzburg attacked train passengers with an ax and a man blew himself up outside a music festival in Ansbach.

Oktoberfest is no stranger to terrorism. One of the worst terrorist attacks in post-war history occurred at the festival in 1980, when a right-wing extremist set off a bomb that killed him and 11 others at the main entrance to the event.

Boko Haram's Focus on Destroying Schools Threatens a Generation

Extremist group has kidnapped hundreds of children

and forced nearly 1 million out of school

By Lucas Powers, CBC News 


In November 2014, 400 women and children were abducted in the remote Nigerian border town of Damasak. The kidnapping garnered far less attention than the 276 school girls taken from Chilbok seven months earlier. This young girl managed to avoid the Damasak kidnapping. 

In the early morning of Nov. 24, 2014, hundreds of militants from the brutal extremist group Boko Haram poured into the remote Nigerian border town of Damasak.

First, they blocked all four main roads in. 

Fighters then went straight to the Zanna Mobarti Primary School and took captive 300 children and teens, ages seven to 17. The gates were locked, and the boys were separated from the girls. It would be their prison for the next four months.

When a coalition army made up of troops from neighbouring Niger and Chad finally retook Damasak in March 2015, all 300 children, as well 100 others — mostly adult women — were kidnapped by retreating Boko Haram forces. 

"No one really knows for certain what happened to them after that," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch. The non-profit organization has closely documented Boko Haram's atrocities in the region.

Van Woudenberg said that by now, some of the young boys have likely taken up arms as Boko Haram foot soldiers and the girls have been married off to adult men, forced into sexual slavery or possibly put into a torturous indoctrination program for would-be suicide bombers. 


When forces from Chad and Niger entered Damasak, they discovered that 470 people had been killed during the four-month occupation. Some were found, throats slit, in a mass grave. (Joe Penney/Reuters)

The 2014 mass kidnapping was the biggest ever by the extremist group and came only seven months after the abduction of 276 school girls in Chibok, a tragedy that captured the world's attention, if only briefly.

Boko Haram has increasingly put youth at the centre of its seven-year campaign of terror, which has spread into five countries, killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 2.8 million more. 

An entire generation is at risk in a region of Nigeria — a country that boasts the continent's biggest economy — already suffering from severe levels of poverty and unemployment.


'Then they started killing students, too'

At the core of the problem is Boko Haram's obsessive focus on destroying schools, according to Van Woudenberg.

"It's dire, there's no question," she said. "What we've progressively seen over the years is that Boko Haram has become much more vicious and much more brutal in its attacks on education. It has really become the fault line of the conflict."

The focus on education is not entirely surprising. In Hausa, the dominant language of northern Nigeria, Boko Haram roughly translates into "Western education is forbidden."


It's estimated that up to one million children in northeastern Nigeria are currently out of school. (Emmanuel Braun/Reuters)

But early on, when Boko Haram started to ramp up attacks on civilians in 2009, fighters usually destroyed schools at night when they were empty, according to research from Human Rights Watch.

"That evolved, though. It all became far more targeted," Van Woudenberg said. "They started going after teachers of 'un-Islamic' subjects. There were instances of militants hunting certain teachers by name and gunning them down in front of students. Then they started killing students, too."


'Ultimate tactic of intimidation'

To date, Boko Haram has killed at least 611 teachers. More than 910 schools have been destroyed, another 1,500 closed by communities fearing an attack. And in its war against the extremist group, the Nigerian military has also taken over schools, converting them to barracks and command centres.

Estimates by UN agencies and non-profit groups suggest nearly one million school-age children in northeastern Nigeria have been forced from their places of learning. Most of them have been out of school for at least a year, some for much longer.

"Attacks on schools and students are the ultimate tactic of intimidation, practically and symbolically," said Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Washington, D.C.-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

"And the carnage is exacerbating problems in a region already facing many social and economic challenges."


Child suicide bombers

There are some signs of hope. Boko Haram has lost much of the territory it captured in recent years. A coalition of troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon continues to drive the group deeper into the most remote reaches of the northeast.

In some areas, schools are reopening or children are regaining access to a "rudimentary education" provided by international aid groups, says Van Woudenberg.


The kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok sparked a global campaign to pressure the Nigerian government to rescue them. There's no still sign of what happened to them or the 400 women and children taken by Boko Haram from Damasak. (Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)

But those gains seem to be pushing Boko Haram to adopt an even more disturbing strategy. According to a new UNICEF report, Boko Haram used 44 children as suicide bombers in the last year, a tenfold increase from the year before. Three quarters of them were girls. 

"To some extent, the use of kids represents desperation on their part," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"But the unfortunate reality is that using kids as suicide bombers works. They attract less scrutiny from security forces. They can be manipulated and threatened. And there's a psychological factor: we have a connection to our children that is deeper than any other."


The Nigerian military has occupied schools, transforming them into barracks or command centres. Aid groups have called for an end to this practice. (Joe Penney/Reuters)

There's still no sign of the 300 kids abducted in Damasak. Nor is there word of the 219 school girls still unaccounted for from the Chibok kidnapping. 

Van Woudenberg says the Nigerian government must follow through on its promise to rescue as many children as possible and protect those still vulnerable to Boko Haram's reach. 

"If they don't, we're going to be facing a much longer term problem — one that will span generations," she said.

It is also, I believe, one that will hurt the already suffering economy of Nigeria. A lack of education contributes to poverty and Nigeria already has lots of poverty, mostly because of the phenomenal levels of corruption that occurs in the government and business sectors. 

Is anyone still praying for the hundreds of children kidnapped by those Muslim lunatics?