Genocide At The Hands Of Isis & The 74 Firmans: The Plight Of The Yazidis
On 3rd August 2014, the world woke up to the harrowing news of the siege of Mount Sinjar. Thousands of Yazidis who fled their homes were trapped at the peak, with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) regiments at the foot. Over the nearly fifteen-day siege, hundreds perished due to starvation and thirst. The siege only ended when Kurdish Militias from Syria were able to punch a corridor through ISIS lines and enable the escape of the stranded Yazidis. When the dust finally settled on this tragic incident, appalling stories of a wide range of crimes, including systematic killing, rape and other forms of sexual violence, aimed at the complete and deliberate destruction of Yazidi identity emerged.
Investigation by the United Nations’ Investigative Team for the Accountability of Da’esh (UNITAD) concluded that the targeting of the Yazidi community by ISIS amounted to genocide. Still, the plight of the Yazidis has not garnered much international attention and little is known about the tumultuous history of the community. In this regard, this article aims to shed light on the long history of violence and discrimination faced by the Yazidis with a detailed description of the events that took place in Sinjar and its surrounding areas in August 2014.
THE 74 FIRMANS
While the attack of 2014 was one of the first incidents of genocide of the 21st century, it is sadly not the first attempted genocide against the Yazidi Community. Historians believe that there were at least 74 different genocidal acts that were committed by various actors through the centuries. These acts have come to be known by the Yazidi as the 74 firmans. The term firman literally means (religious) decree or order and has become synonymous within the Yazidi community to genocide, as most of the genocidal episodes were committed in furtherance of Fatwas (Arabic for firman) calling for violence against the Yazidis. Although the Yazidis were persecuted even by the Romans and Mongols for military or strategic gains, it was the Islamic Fatwas that called for violence against the Yazidis solely on account of their religious beliefs which are wrongly associated with devil worship.
The saga of firmansor fatwas against the Yazidis starts from the 1500s with Al-Shiekh Ahmed ben Mustafa Abu Al-Suud,an Islamic jurist who decreed that the Yazidis were the “original infidel” and that killing them was a religious obligation. Similar fatwas were issued by various Islamic scholars, ultimately justifying heinous acts such as forced conversions, enslavement of women and children, using women as sex slaves, confiscation of property and killings. The horrific episode of 1832 where hundreds of Yazidis were chased out of the Sinjar region by the Kurdish Prince Soran and massacred on the banks of River Tigris outside Mosul, was also committed in pursuance of a fatwa issued by the prince’s religious advisor.
As this discrimination is entrenched in history and religious doctrine, it is unsurprising that such discrimination has become institutionalised during modern times. The Arabisation of the Kurdish region during Iraq’s Baathist regime also brought about various conditions that contributed towards the destruction of Yazidi identity and could be called a ‘cultural’ genocide. The Yazidis were deprived of their separate religious identity and were considered by the Iraqi Government as a sect of Islam. In addition, as part of the Arabisation campaign, the Yazidis were forced to register as Arab and only then were any civic documents issued. Several hectares of land and villages belonging to the Yazidis were confiscated and given to Arabs over the years.Furthermore, no representation is given to the Yazidis in the Kurdish parliament and only one seat out of 329 is allotted to the community in the Iraqi Parliament. After the fall of Saddam Hussain, the Yazidis were also heavily persecuted by Al-Qaeda and several bomb blasts were carried out in southern Sinjar in 2007 for no apparent military or political motive.Just seven years later, after capturing Mosul in June 2014, ISIS trained its guns at Sinjar. The events that followed sparked massive international outrage and are described below.
ONSLAUGHT BY ISIS
In the early hours of August 3rd 2014 hundreds of ISIS fighters executed a pincer on Sinjar from their strongholds of Tel-afar in Iraq and Tel Hamees in Syria. The defence of Sinjar had consisted mainly of Peshmerga militia loyal to the Kurshish Democratic Party (KDP), which had been a very successful force against ISIS in Iraq. However, hours before the ISIS attack, a large portion of the militia withdrew from its defences without much warning. To make matters worse, no evacuation orders were given for civilians to flee. In this wake, the actual defence of the city was left to the hands of lightly armed Yazidi men who had no prospect of reinforcements.
The hastily constructed resistance was easily overrun by ISIS, causing a massive exodus of the population. Several thousand Yazidi families fled to Mount Sinjar, while hundreds more were captured by ISIS at the foothills. All other villages that lay in between and in the vicinity of Sinjar City and Mount Sinjar were quickly encircled and appropriated into ISIS-controlled territory. Their manner of dealing with their prisoners revealed ISIS’ deliberate and premeditated policy targeted at the categorical destruction of Yazidi society.
First, the men and older boys were separated from the women, and in most instances summarily executed. Some were given the opportunity to convert to Islam and were executed if they refused. Conversion to Islam did not bring with it any equal status for the Yazidis. Those who converted were still subjected to discriminatory treatment in ISIS-occupied areas. From the age of seven,young boys were shifted to military camps for indoctrination and training and eventually inducted into the ISIS war machinery. Women and girls were first grouped together and then shipped off to other ISIS strongholds. There,the women were sorted by “beauty” and “usefulness” and sold off into (sex) slavery to ISIS fighters and other buyers.Older women who were considered to have no value according to ISIS needs were executed. Almost all manifestations of Yazidi religion and culture in Sinjar were destroyed. Additionally, through its policy of divide and rule, ISIS deepened and used communal fault lines to its advantage by pitting the majority Sunni Arab population against the minorities. Stories told by Yazidi survivors narrate how Arab friends and even godfathers of Yazidis children were the ones who led ISIS to their houses.
Meanwhile, Sinjar was desecrated and the siege of Mount Sinjar continued. Nearly 40,000 Yazidis trapped at the peak were not only fighting to stay alive from ISIS, but also suffering from the unforgiving heat. Reports of this sparked international outrage and resulted in a coalition air operation involving the USA and other states, not only targeting ISIS ground forces at the foot of Mount Sinjar but also air dropping thousands of gallons of drinking water and ration for the stranded population on top. After a nearly 15 day struggle, the siege of Mount Sinjar was finally broken by Kurshish Militias from Syria, who, with the aid of coalition airstrikes managed to break through ISIS lines and create a corridor for the stranded Yazidis to escape to Kurdish territory. Thousands still reside there in refuge and barely any have returned to Sinjar.
CONCLUSION
It has been nearly 4 years since ISIS was defeated on the battlefield. However, wounds still remain fresh. Apart from the physical loss of life and property, the unique social fabric of the city of Sinjar has been destroyed. Sinjar and the surrounding areas stand in ruins. Especially, the brutality and sexual violence committed by ISIS upon Yazidi women is a wound that needs much healing. The issue of the missing or dead whose whereabouts are not known also needs to be addressed to provide respite to families who have lost their brethren.
Despite such carnage and the near destruction of the community as a whole, justice measures have fallen short. Identifying and prosecuting ISIS operatives is only half the struggle. The Yazidi community needs truth and reconciliation with its neighbours to bridge the ethno/religious divide that forms the crux of the conflict. The institutionalised discrimination needs to be targeted with legal restructuring that recognises the rights of the Yazidi community and provides guarantees of non-repetition. As such, the international community and the Kurdish and Iraqi Governments have to think well beyond mere criminal prosecutions to coherently address the issues of the Yazidis. Until then, the risk of a 75th firman looms large.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
The author is a lawyer from India and has a Public International Law (Advance LLM) , from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Nazeer also volunteers for YLN to aid the organisation’s operations.
In our mission to spread awareness about the atrocities against the Yazidi community, the Yazidi Legal Network (YLN) will continue to write a series of blogs on the aftermath of the genocide.
To add more perspective to our mission we invite persons in our network, our partners, professionals and students to share their ideas on the issue. Contact info@yazidilegalnetwork.org for queries on submission and follow our website for updates on more written work.
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