UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
of Kurdistan (PUK), and ordered him to leave the city of Mosul as otherwise he would face<br />
death. 379<br />
Yazidis have also been targeted for “un-Islamic” behaviour and activities such as smoking<br />
in public during Ramadan or selling alcohol. 380 Yazidi women, who traditionally go<br />
without veils and circulate in public much as men do, are now hardly leaving the home or<br />
only when wearing a veil. 381 It has been reported that in Friday prayers and on leaflets and<br />
posters, the population, including members of other religious groups, is being ordered to<br />
comply with Islamic dress codes and abide by religious rules during Ramadan. In the past,<br />
many Yazidis ran restaurants called gazinos particularly in urban areas such as Baghdad,<br />
Basrah, Hilla, Nassriyah and Fallujah. As of 2003, they were forced to close them down<br />
due to threats by Muslim extremists. 382 In May 2004, posters in several areas of Mosul<br />
announced that it was religiously permitted, halal, to kill Yazidis, Jews, Christians and<br />
Americans. 383 Other Yazidis have been victims of criminal activity, although even in those<br />
cases their religion may be a factor given that their minority status makes them a soft target.<br />
Yazidi religious feasts have not been held or only with restrictions since 2004 due to fear of<br />
attacks. 384 In 2004 and 2005, Mir Tahsin Saied Beg decided to postpone the Cejna<br />
Cemayya, the yearly Feast of Assembly carried out in the Lalish Valley, for safety reasons.<br />
The participation in certain religious rites which take place during the feast nonetheless<br />
remains obligatory to date and the celebrations were resumed in 2006. 385<br />
As a consequence of the above treatment, many Yazidis have been displaced since 2003,<br />
most of them to the Region of Kurdistan. Medya, a weekly paper issued in Erbil, reported<br />
in late November 2006 that:<br />
“(A)n informed Ezidi source advised that only 10 to 15 Ezidi families have remained in<br />
Mosul and the rest have moved to other Kurdistan cities after receiving terrorist threats to<br />
leave. The danger of the Ezidi Kurds is double for being Kurds ethnically and non-Muslims<br />
in terms of religion, the source elaborated adding that he was aware of the immigration of<br />
more than 200 families out of Mosul.” 386<br />
379<br />
Translation to German by Dulz, Hajo and Savelsberg, p. 5, see above footnote 359.<br />
380<br />
Savelsberg and Hajo, p. 3, see above footnote 354.<br />
381<br />
This applies in particular to those women living in cities where they would be in contact with members of<br />
the Muslim society. Women living in collective settlements, which were built by the former regime as part of<br />
the Arabization campaigns, face less pressure to comply with Islamic dress codes as they live among their<br />
own community.<br />
382<br />
Dulz, Hajo and Savelsberg, p. 1, see above footnote 359.<br />
383<br />
Savelsberg and Hajo, p. 5, see above footnote 354. See also “Persons Accused of “Un-Islamic”<br />
Behaviour”.<br />
384<br />
Savelsberg and Hajo, p. 4, see above footnote 354.<br />
385<br />
Information received from Irene Dulz, through e-correspondence in February 2007. Irene Dulz studied<br />
Islamic Science at the University of Hamburg and her thesis dealt with the situation of the Yazidis in Iraq.<br />
She worked for the refugee council in North Rhine-Westphalia / Germany and is currently employed at the<br />
Goethe Institute in Amman, Jordan. Her special field is Iraq and she is regularly traveling to the Kurdish parts<br />
of Iraq. German courts have requested her opinion when dealing with asylum cases of Iraqi Yazidis.<br />
386<br />
Translation from Kurdish language by UNAMI.<br />
80