Belgian Parliament recognizes Êzidî Genocide 

2021-07-16 14:21:35


	 

	 

	NEWS CENTER - The Belgian Parliament officially recognized the Êzidî Genocide.

	 

	The Belgian Parliament recognized the attack of ISIS against Êzidîs that started on August 3, 2014, and the massacres that followed it as genocide. The draft resolution came to the agenda of the Belgian House of Representatives on July 14. One day after the discussions, voting was held on the evening of July 15.

	 

	The proposal was presented by Koen Metsu, François De Smet, Malik Ben Achour, Michel De Maegd et Samuel Cogolati, Mmes Els Van Hoof, Goedele Liekens et Vicky Reynaert and Wouter De Vriendt, under the leading of Member of Parliament Georges Dallemagne. With the support of all groups, the proposal recognizing the genocide was accepted as a result of voting.

	 

	Crimes against Êzidîs

	 

	The ten-page draft resolution prepared in French and Flemish listed crimes against Êzidîs. The draft also included the following statements: ‘’The massacres of ISIS since 2014; It targeted different groups of people, especially Êzidîs, Assyrians, Syriacs, Chaldeans, Shabaks, Turkmens, Kurds, Alevis, homosexuals, and Sunni Muslims with behaviors considered contrary to Islamic State law. Among all these persecutions, those specifically targeting Êzidîs took on a systematic and extreme character: pogroms, systematic murders of men, sexual slavery of women sold to chiefs or soldiers and then held hostage for large ransoms against their own families, beheading or torture of other women, burial of children, woman and man alive, drugging to children, forcibly Islamizing and turning them into fighters. The orchards of this population were burned, animal farms stolen, and plantations mined.’’

	 

	Considered a crime of genocide

	 

	In the draft resolution, the crime of genocide committed by ISIS against Êzidîs in Iraq and Syria since 2014 was accepted and convicted.

	 

	The federal government also made the following demands:

	 

	‘’*Using all the means of national and international law so that the crime of genocide committed against Êzidîs in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State (ISIS) does not go unpunished;

	 

	* Encourage and support the Belgian justice's efforts to identify and prosecute potential Belgian perpetrators of crimes against the Êzidî community;

	 

	* Contributing to the return of Êzidîs to their towns and villages, especially by demanding the implementation of the agreement between the Iraqi Kurdistan government and the central government of Baghdad and proposing international control of this agreement;

	 

	* Contributing to the rebuilding of devastated towns and villages;

	 

	* Providing specific humanitarian assistance to groups who have been subjected to sexual violence, slavery or other inhuman or degrading treatment.’’

	 

	UN investigative team defined it as genocide

	 

	The Êzidî Genocide has not yet been recognized by the United Nations (UN) Security Council or an international court. But the UN's investigative team concluded that it was genocide.

	 

	The European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the US House of Representatives described ISIS's brutality against the Êzidîs as genocide.

	 

	On July 6, the Dutch Parliament approved the resolution of Anne Kuik, MP of the Union of Christian Democrats of the Netherlands (CDA), to recognize the massacres carried out by ISIS gangs as genocide.

	 

	With the acceptance of the genocide proposal by the Belgian House of Representatives, it is aimed to increase international pressure.