Living On

Mourning is carried out by the Yazidis individually and collectively. Since the beginning of the on-going genocide on 3 August 2014, lamentations have been sung by men and women and mostly distributed via digital channels. Numerous songs, poems, pictures and drawings have been created dealing with what is happening, suffering and grief, as well as wishes for the future. Sinjar has become a symbol for Yazidis worldwide.

On the 3rd August, events to commemorate the genocide on-site or in the digital space are held worldwide. Associations, groups, village communities and even individuals organise commemorative events alone or in cooperation. Over the years, demands to address the legal reappraisal and the reconstruction of and security situation in Sinjar have become louder. A couple of memorial sites have been created by Yazidis in Sinjar.

Thousands of (suspected) supporters of the Islamic State (IS) are in SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) prisons in Rojava (northern Syria). In May 2021, UNITAD (UN investigative team for the prosecution of the crimes of IS) in Iraq described the violence by IS against the Yazidis as genocide. In Iraq itself, there is no criminal offence of genocide. Instead, IS supporters are sentenced under Kurdistan and Iraq’s anti-terrorist laws. Human rights organizations have criticized the trials in Iraq. Among other things, the rapid trials against the accused mean the opportunity to investigate the crimes fully is lost. The courts in Kurdistan and Iraq cooperate little or not at all. Meanwhile, European and other states are discussing the possible repatriation of their nationals who had joined IS and are being held in Syria and Iraq. Yazidi organizations have repeatedly called for an international tribunal to process the genocide in its entirety legally.

The first court case to include the crime of genocide against the Yazidis in the indictment was the case against Iraqi and former IS supporter Taha Al-J. at the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court. This trial began in April 2021 and ended on November 30, 2021, with a verdict confirming charges of genocide and war crimes. The accused was sentenced to life imprisonment. His ex-wife Jennifer W. was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Munich Higher Regional Court in October 2021. Taha Al-J. is said to have enslaved a Yazidi woman and her five-year-old daughter with his then-wife Jennifer W. The Yazidi child died after being chained and exposed to intense heat.

Amnesty International deemed this process historic. On the one hand, it was the first trial worldwide that took up and dealt with the criminal offence of the genocide against the Yazidis. On the other hand, universal jurisdiction was used for the first time without any direct link to Germany. Taha Al-.J. was arrested in Greece and transferred to Germany. Nevertheless, observers criticized that neither the gender-specific nor religious references to the genocide were discussed during the trial. Nevertheless, the process attracted particular attention, not least because the injured Yazidi was represented by star lawyer Amal Clooney, who had also represented Yazidis in other cases, such as in the lawsuit against the French cement company Lafarge, which was co-financing ISIS and thus stood accused of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity.

German courts have convicted several IS members of crimes against humanity and war crimes in relation to their actions against Yazidis. Next to Taha al-J. and Jennifer W. these are Sarah O., Nurten J., Omaima A., Jalda A., Leonora M. and Romeina S. The trials against Leonora M. at the Higher Regional Court Naumburg and against Sarah O. took place behind closed doors because they were minors at the time of their membership in IS.

The Yazidi witness in the trial against Jalda A.The proceedings at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court against Jalda A. ended in July 2022 with a guilty verdict and a prison sentence of 5 years and six months. One of the IS men, Jalda A. had married held a Yazidi woman prisoner for several weeks in 2017. The court argued that Jalda A. knew that IS was persecuting Yazidis. She internalised the IS ideology and defamed Yazidis as 'dirty infidels'. She contributed to her husband's enslavement of the Yazidis by supervising the Yazidi woman and preventing her from escaping. She sat on the balcony and watched the Yazidi woman being raped. She also physically abused the woman herself, such as by pulling her hair. She banged the Yazidi women's head against the bathroom wall and hit her in the face with a flashlight. In addition to complicity in genocide, the court established that Jalda A. committed crimes against humanity through persecution, enslavement and deprivation of liberty, and complicity in war crimes. In the verdict, the judges explained that the Yazidi woman was sold 15 times and raped by 14 ISIS men. The presiding judge emphasized that without the Yazidi women's testimony, the accused would not have been legally convicted. also testified in the trials against Sarah O.The Yazidi witness commented after the verdict was pronounced: 'I am very grateful to the German judiciary for being so committed to clarifying the crimes that have befallen the Yazidi people and myself, and for putting the members of ISIS on trial. I am concerned with justice for my people and myself, not with the imposition of a particular punishment. There is no punishment for the accused that could undo the suffering. At the end of her sentence, the defendant will be free to live with her family. That has been taken away from me forever.' https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/news/german-court-hands-down-second-genocide-conviction-against-isis-member-following-enslavement, last accessed on 13.10.22, Nurten J and Omaima A. as the main witness and joint plaintiff. Before Jalda A., she had already been enslaved and mistreated by Sara O., who had enslaved six Yazidi women. She was ‘borrowed’ by Sara O.’s German friends Nurten J. and Omaima A. Jalda A. was in the SDF prison called Camp Hol before being transferred to Germany in October 2021. There, she was arrested, and her criminal proceedings began in April 2022.

According to a report published by the Yazidi Justice Committee in July 2022, at least three states have violated international law concerning the Yazidi genocide: Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It remains uncertain whether charges will be brought against one of these states at the International Court of Justice. In 2019, the umbrella organisation of the Yazidi Women’s Council filed criminal charges against the German government, Minister of Justice Katarina Barley (SPD) and Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer (CSU), accusing them of not taking action against German ISIS supporters who were imprisoned in Syria. No proceedings were initiated.

As part of the Ferman (genocide) against the Yazidis, all those who were in Shingal (Iraq) on 3 August 2014 and who survived the attacks and the subsequent violence (e.g. abduction and enslavement) of the Islamic State are referred to as survivors. Special media, political and social attention is given to those who were held captive by the Islamic State. Of the original 6,000 enslaved Yazidi people, almost half are still in captivity. Others were able to escape the violence through liberation through their own escape attempts or by buying their freedom. Four young Yazidi survivors who have been committed to education and justice for years and who now live in Germany will be briefly portrayed here.