Demonstration in Dohuk against Yezidis - the demonstrators are calling for the stop of "Yezidi violence against innocent, Kurdish Muslims in Shingal"
Demonstration in Dohuk against Yezidis – demonstrators call for the stop of “Yezidi violence against innocent, Kurdish Muslims in Shingal”

 

Duhok – A demonstration was held yesterday against Yezidis in the Kurdish city of Dohuk located in Iraqi Kurdistan. Dozens of Muslim Kurds gathered at the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK – Liqa 1)  on Monday afternoon with banners and Kurdish flags, accusing Yezidis in Shingal of “using violence against Kurdish Muslims”. The Yezidis had killed “innocent, Kurdish Muslims and “were a threat to national security,” according to the demonstrators´ tenor. In addition, Yezidis were said to have set mosques on fire.

The demonstrators called on the government to stop “Yezidi violence against Muslims in Shingal”, as listed on one of the posters. As the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) invaded the main settlement area of the Yezidis Shingal in northern Iraq, Kurdish Muslims resident there participated in the mass murders and kidnappings.

The majority of the Kurdish population in Dohuk received the Yezidi refugees with open arms over the past year, as they had to flee from the terrorist militia IS in Shingal. The Kurdish population in the major cities is also considered to be open-minded. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been provided by the Kurdish population with food, clothing and shelter.

Nevertheless – especially in the conservative coined Dohuk – there are strong resentments against the Yezidi minority which are not least supported by Kurdish Salafists and their hate speeches. In the city, Yezidi traders are partly not able to sell their products because they are considered as “unclean”among conservative Muslims, as the secular leader Mir Tahsin Said Beg pointed out in an interview.

Dr. Abdul Wahid, a lecturer at the Islamic Faculty in Sulaymaniyah, labelled Yezidis already in 2013 as “devil-worshipers” who were “not Kurds but Arabs”, calling them  “unclean” and “kafir” (infidels). Abdul Wahid was later brought to court. Another Kurdish Salafist preacher openly urged Muslims “to kill” Yezidis. Dr. Abdul Latif, also a lecturer, provoked Yezidis in an interview after the genocide in Shingal, saying that Yezidi children killed by IS would go to hell because they “were not Muslims“.

ezidiPress