Showing posts sorted by date for query YAZEDI. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query YAZEDI. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, December 18, 2023

Lafarge faces civil suit in US led by Yazidi Nobel laureate

By AFP
Published December 15, 2023

Attorney Amal Clooney (L), co-Founder is part of a legal team representing Nadia Murad (R)and some 430 Yazidi Americans in a suit against French company Lafarge
 - Copyright AFP/File TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Some 430 Americans of Yazidi background and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad accused French conglomerate Lafarge of supporting brutal attacks on the population through a conspiracy with the Islamic State, according to a complaint reviewed Friday by AFP.

The civil suit, filed in a New York court by attorneys that include human rights lawyer Amal Clooney references a $778 million US Department of Justice fine and guilty criminal plea in October 2022 by Lafarge, which was acquired by Swiss company Holcim in 2015.

Yazidi plaintiffs asked the court to find Lafarge liable for violations of the US Anti-Terrorism Act and assess compensatory damages, plus attorneys fees.

Lafarge considers the matter “a legacy issue, which Lafarge SA is managing responsibly, a Lafarge spokesperson said.

The lawsuit recounts horrors inflicted by ISIS in a 2014 siege in which thousands of Yazidis were murdered and kidnapped, causing hundreds and thousands to flee and subjecting remaining Yazidi women to sales as sex slaves — a fate that befell Murad, who won the Nobel Prize in 2018.

The Kurdish-speaking Yazidis are an ethno-religious minority found mainly in Iraq that has over time absorbed elements of Islam and Christianity. Jihadists view the population as heretics.

The Yazidis suit points to $6 million in payments from Lafarge to ISIS in 2013 and 2014 to purchase raw materials from a Lafarge cement plant in Syria that continued to operate during the Syrian Civil War.

The plaintiffs’ complaint also references some $80.5 million that US prosecutors found benefited participants in the conspiracy, including ISIS and Lafarge.

“The money and cement defendants supplied ISIS went directly to ISIS’s operations at precisely the time it was committing acts of international terrorism, including the slaughter of innocent people such as the Yazidis,” the complaint said.

Plaintiffs in the case “are Yazidis who are US citizens,” according to the complaint.

“Many of them were, or had relatives who were, translators for the US. Army and served the United States. They are farmers, schoolteachers, housewives, and small business owners whose lives were upended on that fateful day in August 2014.”

Lafarge also faces a case in France dating to 2018 over charges of complicity in crimes against humanity.


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Wednesday, November 08, 2023

Iraq announces return of 487 Yazidis to Sinjar, nine years on from genocide by Islamic State

Iraq's migration ministry said almost 500 Yazidis had returned to Sinjar, nearly a decade on from genocide and mass displacement of the ethnoreligious group from their heartland.

The New Arab Staff
07 November, 2023

Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis remain displaced
[Abdulhameed Hussein Karam/Anadolu via Getty]

Some 487 Yazidis returned to the Sinjar district of northwestern Iraq, the country's migration ministry said on Monday, more than nine years after hundreds of thousands of people from the ethnoreligious minority fled persecution by the Islamic State (IS).

IS captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014, but exercised particular brutality when it came to the Yazidis, who they considered infidels. IS enslaved thousands and killed thousands more in what has been recognised in several countries as being a genocide.

War to push the extremist group out of the area saw much of the area's infrastructure destroyed, and some 400,000 Yazidis were displaced from their heartland of Sinjar.

A security vacuum has long existed in the area, with various armed groups claiming control of different parts of the district. Turkey frequently strikes Sinjar, where there are local fighters affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).


Some 200,000 Yazidis remain displaced, according to official figures, with many living in camps scattered across Iraqi Kurdistan.

Thousands more are still missing, and the process of exhuming mass graves and identifying the victims of the IS genocide has been painstakingly slow.

The Iraqi government has been widely criticised for its failure to make Sinjar safe, to compensate survivors, and to punish perpetrators of the genocide.

UNITAD, the UN mission established to help get justice and accountability for Yazidis, has also been brought to an abrupt end, further dimming hopes of perpetrators being held to an account.

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Monday, July 31, 2023

People of Shengal salute the guerrillas and fighters who saved the Yazidis from genocide

Staging a march at the ‘Humanitarian Corridor’ opened by the guerrillas and fighters during the ISIS onslaught in 2014, the people of Shengal saluted those who saved them from genocide.


ANF News
SHENGAL
Sunday, 30 Jul 2023, 17:48

The people of Shengal are organizing events to mark the anniversary of the 3 August 2014 genocide perpetrated by ISIS in the Yazidi city in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq).

Residents of the city staged a march through the ‘Humanitarian Corridor’ opened by the guerrillas and fighters, through which they had been enabled to cross into Rojava at the time of the genocide.

Kurdish guerrilla forces and fighters from Rojava (North Syria) opened up a humanitarian corridor between the villages of Digue and Duhol and transferred thousands of Yazidis to Rojava through it. The Yazidis call this corridor the 'Freedom Path’.

The crowd chanted slogans and carried banners expressing their reactions to the betrayal of the ruling KDP, the peshmergas of which ran away even before ISIS stormed the city, and saluting the guerrillas of the Kurdistan freedom struggle who ran to their aid and saved them from genocide.

Xelil Heci read out a statement on behalf of the Shengal People’s Assembly and called the ‘Humanitarian Corridor’ as the ‘Path of Humanity’ for the Yazidis. “Children, mothers and families survived firstly thanks to God, then Leader Öcalan. We send our greetings from Mount Shengal to Imrali. We salute HPG, YJA-Star, YPG, and our people in Rojava and South Kurdistan. We, the Yazidi people, will not forget the good and bad done to us.”

Speaking about the KDP’s betrayal against the Yazidis, Xelil Heci said: “ISIS perpetrated a mass slaughter against our people, which was supported by the Turkish state, as well as by Iraq and Syria. Mount Shengal stood against them. The Yazidi youths and the followers of Leader Öcalan stood against the enemy, who couldn’t seize even a single stone from Mount Shengal. August is the month of resistance, vengeance and heroism.”

Speaking after, Hisên Sedo from the Autonomous Administration of Shengal noted that the humanitarian corridor had been opened up thanks to the sacrifice of martyrs and freedom fighters. “We will not forget the martyrs and heroes. Thousands of our people espaced genocide thanks to this corridor. On that black day, nothing was left on the earth in the name of humanity. It was only the followers of Leader Öcalan that opened up that path and showed what humanity is. We thank the fighters who saved the Yazidis from genocide.”



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Wednesday, June 21, 2023

German woman convicted of keeping Yazidi woman as a slave in Iraq


BERLIN (AP) — A German woman was convicted Wednesday of keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave during her time with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and sentenced to nine years and three months in prison.

The state court in the western city of Koblenz convicted the 37-year-old of crimes against humanity, membership in a foreign terrorist organization and being an accessory to genocide, German news agency dpa reported. Authorities have identified her only as Nadine K. in line with German privacy rules.

The court found that the defendant for three years abused a young Yazidi woman “in her own interests as a household slave.” It said that her husband brought the woman to their home and regularly raped her, and that the defendant enabled those assaults and should have intervened.

Prosecutors have said that the defendant traveled to Syria with her husband in 2014 and joined IS. In 2015, the couple moved to the Iraqi town of Mosul, where they allegedly kept the Yazidi woman.

The defendant was arrested in March 2022 after being brought back to Germany from a camp in northeastern Syria where suspected members of IS have been held.

In a statement read out at her trial by a defense lawyer, she denied having coerced the Yazidi woman at any point. She said there had been frequent arguments with her husband over the woman's presence and she was ashamed of not having done more for her.

In February, the Yazidi woman testified at the trial and said she recognized the defendant.

She traveled to Koblenz again for the verdict. “She hopes that others follow her example” and that all who committed similar crimes face trial, said her lawyer, Sonka Mehner.

The trial is the latest of several in Germany involving women who traveled to regions controlled by the IS group in Syria and Iraq.

In one case, a German convert to Islam was convicted in 2021 on charges that she allowed a 5-year-old Yazidi girl she and her husband kept as a slave to die of thirst in the sun. Her husband was subsequently convicted as well.

Earlier this year, an appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for the woman, who was given a 10-year sentence. She now risks a longer prison term.

The Associated Press



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Friday, January 20, 2023

German parliament recognises Yazidi 'genocide' in Iraq

Deborah COLE
Thu, 19 January 2023 


Germany's lower house of parliament recognised on Thursday the 2014 massacre of Yazidis by Islamic State group jihadists in Iraq as a "genocide", and called for measures to assist the besieged minority.

In a move hailed by Yazidi community representatives, deputies in the Bundestag unanimously passed the motion by the three parliamentary groups in Germany's ruling centre-left-led coalition and conservative MPs.

Thursday's vote followed similar moves by countries including Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The chamber "recognises the crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide, following the legal evaluations of investigators from the United Nations", the resolution said.

The text condemns "indescribable atrocities" and "tyrannical injustice" carried out by IS fighters "with the intention of completely wiping out the Yazidi community".

It urges the German judicial system to pursue further criminal cases against suspects in Germany. And it calls on the government to increase financial support to collect evidence of crimes in Iraq and boost funding to help rebuild shattered Yazidi communities.

It also calls for Germany to establish a documentation centre for crimes against Yazidis to ensure a historical record, and to press 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."

- 'Prevent future genocides' -

Islamic State jihadists in August 2014 massacred more than 1,200 Yazidis, members of a Kurdish-speaking community in northwest Iraq that follows an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism. IS sees them as "devil worshippers".

The Yazidi minority has been particularly persecuted by the jihadist group, which has also forced its women and girls into sexual slavery and enlisted boys as child soldiers.

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.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock recalled speaking to Yazidi women in Iraq who had been raped and held captive by IS fighters. The motion was being passed for them and "in the name of humanity", she said.

"We must call out these crimes by their name," she told the chamber. "We must ask what we can do to prevent future genocides."

Around two dozen Yazidi community representatives attended the debate at the glass-domed Reichstag parliament building in central Berlin.

Mirza Dinnayi, head of NGO Air Bridge Iraq which assists Yazidis, told AFP the measure was "pioneering" for addressing "the consequences of the genocide".

He welcomed the inclusion of "practical steps the German government can take to support the Yazidi community in Iraq as well as the diaspora".

A Yazidi MP in the Iraqi parliament, Nayef Khalaf Sido, called it a "historic turning point" that would bring "positive effects for Yazidis" on the ground.

Kurdish regional president Nechirvan Barzani thanked Germany for its "continued support" and encouraged other nations to take similar steps.

- 'Silence cost lives' -

Green lawmaker Max Lucks said Germany was home to what is believed to be the world's largest Yazidi diaspora of about 150,000 people, meaning the country had a particular responsibility to the community.

"Their pain will never go away," he told the Bundestag.

"We owe this to the Yazidis because we did not take action (in 2014) when we were needed. Our silence cost lives."

Derya Turk-Nachbaur, a Social Democrat and one of the sponsors of the measure, noted there was "no statute of limitations on genocide.

"It was impossible for us to close our eyes any longer to their suffering," she said of the Yazidis.

"The indescribable atrocities of IS militias must not go unpunished -- not in Iraq and not in Germany."

While the Bundestag motion on genocide has no bearing on criminal trials, human rights advocates say it carries important symbolic and political weight.

Germany is one of the few countries to have taken legal action against IS.

In November 2021, a German court convicted an Iraqi jihadist of genocide against the Yazidi, a first in the world that Murad hailed as a victory in the fight for recognition of the abuses committed by IS.

And last week, a German woman went on trial in the southwestern city of Koblenz accused of aiding and abetting war crimes and genocide with IS in Syria by "enslaving" a Yazidi woman.

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http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/4319/673/1600/236151/taus4.jpg

Yezidism is syncretistic: it combines elements of many faiths. Like Hindus, they believe in reincarnation. Like ancient Mithraists, they sacrifice bulls. They practise baptism, like Christians. When they pray they face the sun, like Zoroastrians. They profess to revile Islam, but there are strong links with Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam.

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Saturday, February 29, 2020

The Kalash People: The Lost Blonde Hair and Blue Eye Tribe of Alexander the Great in Pakistan

by  |  LOST ARYAN TRIBE LIKE THE YAZEDI
In the back country of Pakistan, you will find a unique ancient tribe of people who reside in the Chitral District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. What makes them unique to most Pakistanis is the fact that many people in the tribe have blonde hair and blue eyes. Let me also add that they claim to descend from Greece in the time of Alexander the Great.
Kalash tribe girl
It is no secret that Alexander the Great had conquered these lands over 2,000 year ago and had occupied the mountains of northern Pakistan in which he would sow the seeds of a tribe that lives on to this very day. Many experts, scientists and authors agree that the Kalash Tribes shows all the signs, rites, history and possibly the DNA of the ancient Greeks.
For example, in 2014, the New York Times reported that “The Kalash people of Pakistan were found to have chunks of DNA from an ancient European population. Statistical analysis suggests a mixing event before 210 B.C., possibly from the army of Alexander the Great.” Here is a DNA map from the NY Times article showing the possible influx of DNA into the Pakistani region.
Kalash Tribe DNA
A recent study prepared by Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University English Language Department assistant professor Elisavet Mela-Athanasopoulou shows the common elements shared by the language of the Kalash ethnic group in the Himalayas and Ancient Greek. The study proved common elements shared by Kalash language and Ancient Greek.
Who are the Kalash?
kalash_girls
The Kalasha (Kalasha: Kaĺaśa, Nuristani: Kasivo) or Kalash, are a Dardic indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. They speak the Kalasha language, from the Dardic family of the Indo-Iranian branch, and are considered a unique tribe among the Indo-Iranian peoples of Pakistan.
There are an estimated 3,000 Kalasha left in this beautiful tribe, and they have maintained their ancient culture and tribal rites for well over 2,000 years. Part of these rites include the making of distilled spirits and smoking marijuana. Rites that would be a death sentence in the religion of Islam. These rites are protected by a fierce tribal leader who enforces strict policies and keeps a watchful eye over his tribe. For example,  a leader of the Kalash, Saifulla Jan, has recently stated, “If any Kalash converts to Islam, they cannot live among us anymore. We keep our identity strong.”
A Kalashi tribal man, Kazi Khushnawaz was recently quoted saying;
“Long, long ago, before the days of Islam, Sikander e Aazem came to India. The Two Horned one whom you British people call Alexander the Great. He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers. When he left to go back to Greece, some of his men did not wish to go back with him but preferred to stay here. Their leader was a general called Shalakash (i.e.: Seleucus). With some of his officers and men, he came to these valleys and they settled here and took local women, and here they stayed.
We, the Kalash, the Black Kafir of the Hindu Kush, are the descendants of their children. Still some of our words are the same as theirs, our music and our dances, too; we worship the same gods. This is why we believe the Greeks are our first ancestors.”
The Kalash Tribe Connection With the Religion of the Ancient Jews (Phoenicians/HebrewsGreeks)
The tribe dresses in what can be called traditional old orthodox Jewish-style. Kalasha women usually wear long black robes,


often embroidered with cowrie shells. The children wear their hair in orthodox Jewish-style ringlets and sport bright coloured topi hats. The women sometimes have tattooed faces, wear long black robes with colored embroidery.
The Kalash have no telephone, cars or modern amenities. They make their own bread, clothing, and live from agriculture. They celebrate a week-long Chamos festival with lots of singing, dancing, ritual, feasting and even the sacrifice of a goat.
During this time, the God Balomain (Baal) passes through the valley collecting prayers. Giant bonfire are lit on hills and torches carried by tribal members in honor of this God. They then dance in circles as they sing and chant around the fire just like can be found with the lost tribes of the American Phoenician Hebrew Indians and with the Irish Phoenician Hebrew in Ireland.
The Guardian reported in 2005 that they were a lost tribe who struggles for survival. Here is a quote from the article;
“Turquoise streams rush through leafy glades of giant walnut trees and swaying crops. Clusters of simple houses cling to steep forested slopes. Compared with many compatriots beyond their valleys, the Kalasha are charmingly liberal: drinking wine, holding dancing festivals and worshipping a variety of gods. Women wear intricately beaded headdresses, not burkas, and may choose their husband.”
“For me, the Kalasha are heroes, because they have reached the 21st century still living like their fathers,” said Athanasius Lerounis, a 50-year-old schoolteacher from Athens supervising construction of the centre, which is due to open next month. “We want to help them preserve that.”
In my many other articles on the Lost Tribes such as the Lost Tribe of Judah Found: The Scattered Children of Bab-El, Lost Tribe of Judah Found: The Bedas, and The American Indians and Phoenician Hebrews: 10 Commandments Found in Arizona I detail that many of these same traits such as the dress, food customs, religious rites and tattoos that is common in almost every single tribe that I have researched.
These tribes can be found all over the world from Egypt to India and all the way to Ireland and England in places such as Kent that was once known as the Old Kingdom of Jute which was originally Juteland or the land of the Jutes. Jutland, is regarded as Judah’s land.  An adjective for Jute is “Jutish,” pronounced jootish. Kent is an early medieval kingdom said to be founded in the 5th century, in what is now South East England. Julius Caesar invaded the area in 55 and 54 BC, and he referred to the kings here as kings of Cantium.
How did the Kalash maintain their tribal rites and religious customs for over 2,000 years?
Even though the Kalash have kept their culture and maintained their tribal rites, many tribal members have been forcibly converted to Islam by the sword under penalty of death. The remaining tribal members are only the result of being isolated in the Pakistan mountains where they could escape and hide from Islamic crusaders. Professor of Islamic studies, U. Mass Dartmouth; and author,  had recently written and article in the Huffington Post titled, The Lost Children of Alexander the Great: A Journey to the Pagan Kalash People of Pakistan. In it he writes;
“High in the snow-capped Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistani border lived an ancient people who claimed to be the direct descendants of Alexander the Great’s troops. While the neighboring Pakistanis were dark-skinned Muslims, this isolated mountain people had light skin and blue eyes. Although the Pakistanis proper converted to Islam over the centuries, the Kalash people retained their pagan traditions and worshiped their ancient gods in outdoor temples. Most importantly, they produced wine much like the Greeks of antiquity did. This in a Muslim country that forbade alcohol.
Tragically, in the 19th century the Kalash were brutally conquered by the Muslim Afghans. Their ancient temples and wooden idols were destroyed, their women were forced to burn their beautiful folk costumes and wear the burqa or veil, and the entire people were converted at swordpoint to Islam. Only a small pocket of this vanishing pagan race survived in three isolated valleys in the mountains of what would later become Pakistan.”
A 2009 article in the Telegraph explains how this tribe was also recently the targets of the conservative Islamic militant group known as the Taliban. The Telegraph had written:
“The group, believed to be descendants of Alexander the Great’s invading army, were shielded from conservative Islam by the steep slopes of their remote valleys.
While Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians were slowly driven out of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province by Muslim militants, the Kalash were free to drink their own distilled spirits and smoke cannabis.
But the militant maulanas of the Taliban have finally caught up with them and declared war on their culture and heritage by kidnapping their most devoted supporter.
Taliban commanders have taken Professor Athanasion Larounis, a Greek aid worker who has generated £2.5 million in donations to build schools, clinics, clean water projects and a museum.
They are now demanding £1.25 million and the release of three militant leaders in exchange for his safe return.
According to local police, it was Professor Larounis’s dedication to preserving Kalasha culture that Taliban commanders in Nuristan, on the Afghan side of the border that made him a target.
Confirmation of the Taliban’s role in his kidnapping came as their leader Mullah Omar urged American and Nato leaders to learn from the history of Alexander the Great’s invasion of Afghanistan and his defeat by Pushtun tribesmen in the 4BC.”
More research and videos of the Kalash

Kalash Religion –

Harvard University
by M Witzel
Kalash Religion. (Extract from: The Ṛgvedic Religious System and its Central Asian and. Hindukush Antecedents. A. Griffiths & J.E.M. Houben (eds.). The Vedas:.
Pakistan’s polytheistic Kalash tribe threatened with death by Taliban
The Guardian
Feb 13, 2014 – Video released by Taliban calls on Sunnis to join fight against Kalashpeople and moderate Ismaili Muslims in Chitral valley.
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