Yazidi Survivor Nadia Murad Basee Taha and the Ongoing Yazidi Genocide

P: +61 7 3346 645• E: [email protected] FEBRUARY 2017 • ISSUE 37 Associate Professor Richard Devetak, Ms Nadia Murad, Ms Nikki Marczak, Mr Ahmed Khudida Burjus, Professor Alex Bellamy SPOTLIGHT ON R2P Yazidi Survivor Nadia Murad Basee Taha and the Ongoing Yazidi Genocide Public seminar - 2016 A survivor of ISIS enslavement and age of 18, she has since travelled the of the plight of Yazidi people. Mr Nobel Peace Prize nominee Na- world and given testimony in front of Khudida gave a short address that dia Murad Basee Taha gave a con- the United Nations Security Council brought home the severity of the fronting, powerful speech at a pub- to raise international awareness of genocide and urged the govern- lic seminar held at the University of the plight of the Yazidi community. ment to commit to taking in Yazidi Queensland late 2016. The seminar, Her experience was part of the on- refugees. Yazda is an organisation organised by the Asia Pacific Centre going genocide of the Yazidi people dedicated to supporting the Yazidi, for the Responsibility to Protect in by ISIS, as its members are forced documenting those who have been conjunction with the Australian In- to convert to Islam or die. Although lost and advocating for increased stitute for Holocaust and Genocide Nadia was one of the lucky ones protection and awareness from Studies, detailed Ms Murad’s horrif- to escape, more than 3,000 Yazidi the international community. Both ic persecution and enslavement at women are still trapped in slavery. Ms Murad and Yazda are currently the hands of Islamic State forces, as represented by Amal Clooney, who She was accompanied by the deputy well as the ongoing genocide per- is seeking to bring about an inves- executive director of Yazda, Ahmed petrated against the Yazidi people, tigation by the International Crim- Khudida Burjus, who has acted as an ethno-religious minority group in inal Court and prosecution for the Nadia’s translator and companion in the Sinjar region of Iraq. Forced to crimes of genocide and enslave- her worldwide effort to raise aware- witness the execution of her family ment against those responsible. ness in the international community and to become a sexual slave at the AP R2P / Building 39A / School of Political Science and International Studies / The University of Queensland / St Lucia Brisbane QLD 4072 Australia P1 After these presentations, Profes- sor Katharine Gelber, Deputy Head of the School of Political Science and International Studies, moder- ated a panel discussion compris- ing Nadia, Ahmed, Nikki Marczak of the AIHGS and Professor Alex Bellamy, director of the Centre. Proir to her visit to The Univer- sity of Queensland she met The Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Ju- lie Bishop. She also presented at the University of Sydney, co-host- ed by the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Ms Nadia Murad, Mr Ahmed Kudida Burjus, Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Speech: The Ongoing Yazidi Nations Genocide Convention. The women were taken to large halls Genocide by Nikki Marczak, Aus- proof – including survivor testimony, where they were collectively con- tralian Institute for Holocaust and forensic evidence and ISIS’s own verted and married to ISIS fighters. Genocide Studies statements of intent to eradicate One of the women held by an Aus- the Yazidi people - is unequivocal. tralian ISIS fighter was banned from Thank you Professor Devetak, Pro- crying and told by her captor: “For- As Ahmed explained, ISIS separated fessor Gelber and thank you par- get about your home and family…. men and women, and shot the men ticularly to Alex Bellamy and the Forget about your gods, for good, and the elderly into mass graves. In R2P Centre here at the University because we have killed them all.” of Queensland who very gener- fact, along with Yazda’s team on the ously agreed to host this event at ground collecting evidence, Father As Nadia told the United Nations, short notice. Thank you also to ev- Patrick Desbois, who has spent years ISIS did not commit these crimes eryone who has come here in soli- finding evidence of mass shootings randomly, but actually in accordance darity with Nadia, and the Yazidi of Jews during the Holocaust, has with official policy. The abduction community. You’ve heard from Na- now turned his attention to docu- of thousands of Yazidi women and dia her own personal experiences, menting mass graves of Yazidis. The children was planned in advance. and Ahmed has shown you exact- evidence of massacres is extensive. Buses were used to transport ly how these crimes were carried In addition, when they first attacked, them. Warehouses and other facili- out and the systematic nature of ISIS deliberately cut off escape ties had been set up to hold them. routes, and denied civilians access what the Yazidi community endured A system of categorising the women to food, water and shelter, leading to and indeed, continues to endure. was applied in every case, separat- significant numbers of deaths. This ing married from unmarried, those In June, an independent commis- calculated creation of conditions that with children from those without, and sion of inquiry on Syria found the led to civilian deaths is clearly cov- then as if this is not dehumanising genocide against Yazidis is ongoing, ered under the genocide convention. although Nadia didn’t need a report enough, the women were assigned to tell her that. Eighteen members But genocide is not just about mur- numbers, sometimes even price tags, of her family are either murdered der. It is fundamentally about de- displayed naked in marketplaces or or missing. Over the last few days, stroying the continuity of a com- photographed for potential buyers. she has shown me a picture of a munity. From our own history in Dehumanisation is a central element toddler, her niece - missing. She Australia, we are well aware that the of genocide, and the trafficking of has shown me her nephew, who is genocide convention refers to the Yazidi women has turned human be- now being indoctrinated as an ISIS forcible transfer of children of the ings into a commodity. One man told fighter. She has shown me a photo group as an act of genocide. This a woman he had purchased, “You of her mother before she was killed, has clearly occurred in the Yazidi are like a sheep. I have bought you.” case. Yazidi girls and women are baking flatbread in the outdoor In 1998 the International Criminal being targeted systematically, with oven - and this was her life in the Tribunal for Rwanda recognised that rape, sexual trafficking, forced mar- village, destroyed. This is genocide. rape can be an act of genocide. In riage and pregnancy, all of which addition, it stated that forced preg- The crimes ISIS has committed and are accompanied by forced con- nancy within the context of geno- continues to commit to this day, align version. Groups of girls and young with every element of the United cide constitutes a measure to pre- AP R2P / Building 39A / School of Political Science and International Studies / The University of Queensland / St Lucia Brisbane QLD 4072 Australia P2 vent births within the group. This is Although Yazidi leader Baba Sheikh ganisations on the ground found that also covered under the Convention. has welcomed survivors back to those crimes, particularly against The UN has even found that some the community, perpetrators know Yazidis, may constitute genocide. Yazidi women who were abducted that their crimes will have a perma- Yet today, as we have heard, there while already pregnant, have been nent impact on their victims, both are more than 3,000 women and subjected to forced abortion, with physical and psychological, there- children still in ISIS captivity. And perpetrators telling them they do not by contributing to the destruction thousands are displaced, waiting for want any more Yazidis to be born. of the community. ISIS members countries like Australia to offer them are very conscious of the damage These are crimes against women, a safe haven. So with all of this in they are doing to Yazidi girls and and crimes against Yazidis. In this mind, I’d like to hand over to Profes- women. One supporter wrote on so- intersection of genocide and vio- sor Bellamy now to talk more about cial media: “Yes they are idolaters, lence against women, perpetrators the obligation of the global communi- so it’s normal that they are slaves, believe they are permitted, even ty to prevent genocide and to protect in Mosul they are closed in a room obligated to commit these acts, be- civilians from the sort of horror that and cry, and one of them commit- cause the victims are Yazidi. ISIS’s Nadia has been through. Thank you. ted suicide LOL [laugh out loud].” online magazine, Dabiq, explicitly di- rects its followers to kill, rape and en- This is just one of the numerous slave Yazidis and even gives them examples of utter brutality that I’ve detailed instructions about how to do read in my research, but sometimes so in accordance with their ideology. the reality hits when you least ex- The enslavement of Yazidi women pect it. Last week, while booking ac- Nikki Marczak is a director of the is genocidal partly because of the commodation for Nadia and Ahmed, Australian Institute for Holocaust sexual violence it entails, but also Nadia asked me to book only one and Genocide Studies and Lemkin because it deprives them of their room, because she is afraid to Scholar 2016 with the Armenian own identity, culture and communi- sleep on her own.

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