UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

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