In 2014, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group ruled much of Iraq and Syria and carried out a wave of oppression toward various minority groups, committing acts of genocide against the Yazidis (a Kurdish-speaking ethnoreligious group), a fact now finally being acknowledged by the British government.
This week, the UK Foreign Office announced it would recognize that the Islamic State carried out acts of genocide against the Yazidis in 2014, with the group being largely targetted by the Islamic extremist group because of their non-Islamic beliefs.
“The UK has today formally acknowledged that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people by Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State) in 2014,” the Foreign Office said in a statement on Tuesday, August 1st.
Lord Ahmad, Minister of State for the Middle East stated:
The Yazidi population suffered immensely at the hands of Daesh nine years ago and the repercussions are still felt to this day. Justice and accountability are key for those whose lives have been devastated. Today we have made the historic acknowledgement that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people. This determination only strengthens our commitment to ensuring that they receive the compensation owed to them and are able to access meaningful justice.
The UK had held off labelling the Islamic State’s actions as genocide, waiting for a court to recognize it as such, noting that the German Federal Court of Justice had found a former Islamic State member guilty of acts of genocide earlier this year.
Islamic State member Taha A.-J. was originally found guilty in November 2021 of enslaving a five-year-old Yazidi girl named Reda along with her mother and forcing them to practice Islam and act as slaves for him and his wife at their home in the city of Fallujah.
The Islamist radical also violently beat and abused the two Yazidis, later killing five-year-old Reda when he tied her to the bars of a window in 51-degree Celsius heat. According to prosecutors, he had tried to punish the young girl for wetting her bed.
He was sentenced to life in prison, which the German Federal Court of Justice confirmed this year in January after appeals.
German lawmakers also recognized the genocide of Yazidis in January, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stating, “three years ago, I met Yazidi women in northern Iraq: they were abducted, enslaved, raped. I cannot let go of their pain,” adding, “the Bundestag has decided to name the [Islamic State] crimes against the Yazidis for what they are: genocide.”
“We know that no parliamentary resolution in this world can undo their suffering, but I am deeply convinced that this decision makes a difference: a decisive step towards recognition of the suffering and towards justice for the survivors,” she said.
This week’s UK government’s announcement is just the fifth time the country has formally recognized a genocide. It recognized the Holocaust, the genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Srebrenica, and acts against the Yazidis. However, unlike Germany and other nations, the UK has not recognised the genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks.
According to the Foreign Office, a formal event will take place in the near future in Baghdad to formally announce the recognition of the acts of genocide against the Yazidis and will be attended by Steve Hitchem, the UK Ambassador to Iraq, along with several representatives of Yazidi groups.
