Speech at the demonstration of the Yezidi-Kurds in Berlin the 28th August 2007

Tilman Zülch, President of Society for Threatened Peoples International, held this speech at the demonstration of the Yezidi-Kurds in Berlin on August 28, 2007.

Today we gathered here and mourn about the 500, maybe even 600 children, women and men – Yezidi from the Sinjar area at the border to Syria. So far we do not know for sure who the murderers were. But we have the impression that there are forces all around this area that try to destroy and drive away the thousands of years old community of the Yezidi, and thus have the goal to erase a very old culture and religion. Many of the victims are still hospitalized in Kurdistan, struggling to survive. Our thoughts are now with them.

The Sinjar area is an obstacle for terrorist, fundamentalist or chauvinist movements which have been active ever since the invasion of US troops in southern and middle Iraq. Some of them are Al-Qaeda, forces of the former Baath regime, Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists, and probably also terrorist groups that are supported from Syria, Turkey or Iran.

The Yezidi religious community experienced many persecutions – during the Ottoman times, during the Saddam regime. So far no one knows the exact number of how many Yezidi were killed under Hussein. Tens of thousands of them were deported and forcibly settled in camp-like ghettos.

Society for Threatened Peoples still remembers the expulsion of the Yezidi from Turkey in the 1980s very vividly. Thousands of them fled to Central Europe, especially to former West Germany. Here these refugees were supposed to be deported. Together with the evangelical churches and the support by Prof. Gernot Wiesner and his wife Irina – both long standing members of our human rights organization – we managed to achieve the recognition of the Yezidi as collectively persecuted religious refugees. Regarding this achievement, we will never forget the support of the Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Dr. Herbert Schoor. Back then we published a whole series of documentations, articles, appeals, flyers and special editions of our journal "Pogrom".

Together with the Organization of the Yezidi in Germany we organized a rally at the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, which initially had been prohibited. This rally, the demonstration in front of the Ministry of the Interior of NRW, our Yezidi-Congress in Hannover on the very day of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and the book "The Kurdish Yezidi – A People on the Way to Ruin", had led to the final breakthrough. Today, there are about 60,000 Yezidi living in Germany. Here they have found a new home.

„The Way to Ruin" is now threatening the Yezidi of the Sinjar area. What can we do about this in Germany? Our possibilities are very limited. Even the German government, would it be willing to help, would have only little influence in Iraq. We have already asked the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the one for Economic Co-operation and Development for urgent help for the people in Sinjar. But protection for the people in the Sinjar area can probably only come from within Iraq.

The Yezidi speak Kurdish, and the majority considers itself being part of the Kurdish people. Already in 2003, before the beginning of the American-Iraqi War, representatives of Yezidi organizations gathered at Society for Threatened Peoples in Göttingen, after an initiative by Malah Izdian in Oldenburg. Their resolution demanded for a self-governed Sinjar territory as part of the Iraqi state of Kurdistan. Two Yezidi ministers belonged to this government. From this government, help was sent to the injured. From there police forces were delegated to protect the inhabitants of Sinjar. The Yezidi in Sinjar have a right to self-government. This right is guaranteed by Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. Let us hope that the mostly peaceful situation in the Iraqi state of Kurdistan will have a positive impact on the region of Sinjar, as well. Let us hope that that was the last terrorist attack. The Sinjar region has a right to unite with the Iraqi state of Kurdistan – as an autonomous, self-governed region. This will provide protection for the Yezidi religious community.