German Bundestag takes an official first step for the recognition of the Yazidi Genocide

Germany’s legislative branch Bundestag’s Petitions Committee has accepted a bill requesting the recognition of Islamic State’s (ISIS) 2014 attacks against Yazidi people in northern Iraq, as an act of genocide.

The bill signed by almost 60,000 people, accepted unanimously by all political party members of the committee, Artı Gercek news website said on Friday. 

As of the next step, a new draft law will be prepared and presented to the German Parliament. If the required majority would be secured in a vote in Bundestag, Germany will officially recognize the massacre of Yazidis by ISIS as genocide.

Thousands of Yazidi people have been killed or kidnapped and sold as sex workers during the ISIS attacks that started in August 2014 in northern Iraq’s Sinjar province. According to verified data, ISIS killed at least 5,000 people and kidnapped 7,000.

According to a July report released by a group of prominent human rights lawyers, in addition to Iraqi administration, Turkey and Syria also have failed to take “reasonable steps” to prevent the killings in their territories.

Turkey should face trial before the International Court of Justice for “being complicit in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people,” according to the report which the Guardian newspaper cited on Wednesday.

Yazidis are a religious and ethnic minority, mainly living in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, some of whom consider themselves Kurdish.