Ten years have passed since the Islamic State (IS) genocide against the Yazidis in Iraq, but neither the international community nor the government in Baghdad seem to be too interested in justice.
Yes, the Yazidis knew that in Islam they were considered "servants of the wicked", but even in the era of the Islamic State, they tried to be somewhat loyal subjects of the regime.
That is why the horror came unexpectedly: in the early hours of August 2014rd, XNUMX, IS fighters attacked several Yazidi religious communities in the north of Iraq. As a rule, men were liquidated immediately, women and children were taken into captivity, were abused and thousands of them were sold as slaves.
Three years later, that Islamist creation was also defeated on the territory of Iraq. Today, most of the leaders of that time are either already dead, arrested or their whereabouts are unknown. But many Yazidis are still waiting for justice.
"They want to forget their ID"
In the past ten years, there have been positive things, Murad Ismail from the Sinjar Academy, an institute for the education of Yazidis in northern Iraq, told Deutsche Welle (DW).
Thus, many surviving Yezidis were accepted in third countries, and international criminal proceedings were initiated against former members of the IS. Likewise, the genocide against the Yezidis is internationally recognized. The government in Baghdad passed a law allowing abused Yazidi women compensation, including a monthly support of around US$500.
But more must be done, Ismail believes. Of the approximately 7.000 members of the Yezidi community who were abducted by ID criminals, the fate of approximately 2.600 of them is still unknown. It is unlikely that many of them survived because mass graves of terror victims can still be found throughout Iraq.
The prospects for justice to be served are not great, Ismail believes: "I have the impression that the whole world, including Iraq, wants the chapter of the 'Islamic State' to be left behind."
On top of that, the Yazidis received an unpleasant surprise from the government in Iraq: Baghdad unexpectedly announced that it would end cooperation with the United Nations commission of inquiry that investigates IS crimes as of September.
UNITAD began its work in 2018 and has since been investigating the crimes of that regime, including the massacre of the Yezidis.
"UNITAD is no longer needed"
As with all such bodies of the world organization, UNITAD operates at the invitation and with the permission of the government of Iraq. But at the end of last year, it was announced that the international experts "are no longer needed" and that the cooperation is ending this September.
But Kristijan Ričer, head of the UNITAD mission, says that it is impossible to finish the work they have been working on for almost six years in this remaining time. On the other hand, he warns that "many survivors in UNITAD see the only hope for some kind of justice to be achieved in Iraq", he writes in an open letter signed by 33 different groups.
"Such a sudden stoppage of work would be a disaster for the survivors, for Iraq and for the international community. It would send a message that justice is not really a priority," the text states.
A number of reasons are cited for this unexpected shutdown of UNITAD. Many of them are political, according to Ismail, because the new government in Iraq no longer wants to support international activities in the country. Thus, this May, the suspension of the work of the UN humanitarian mission, which has been operating in Iraq since 2003, was requested.
According to the Iraqi media, problems also exist between the UNITAD mission and the Iraqi leadership and because there is still no law in Iraq that would regulate the procedure in cases of so-called universal crimes, that is, grave crimes against humanity, genocide, torture and disappearance of people .
The death penalty is also a problem
For this reason alone, not a single leader of the Islamic State has been brought before a court in Iraq, warns Kurdish lawyer Briar Baban from the Paris-based Iraq Research Center. "Unfortunately, UNITAD was unable to persuade the Iraqi authorities to adopt such a law."
Of course, this does not mean that IS leaders were not brought to court in Iraq as well, but they were tried according to fairly widely understood anti-terrorist laws.
The Iraqi judiciary can hardly be understood in the way that the judiciary is understood in democratic countries, warns Baban: "There are no fair court procedures in the Iraqi judiciary, some of the hearings last barely ten minutes. And the crimes against the Yazidis are hardly paid attention to in the Iraqi judiciary."
Another cause of dispute between the Iraqi judiciary and international legal experts is that Iraq still insists on the death penalty, which the UN does not accept.
Iraqi media claim that this is the reason UNITAD did not regularly forward evidence and testimony to Iraqi judicial bodies.
But with the end of UNITAD's work, there will be a void that must somehow be filled, believes Pari Ibrahi from the "Freedom for Yezidis" foundation. "We really trusted the work of UNITAD."
There is no trust in the Iraqi judiciary
Legal experts are most excited by the question of what will happen to the evidence of crimes collected by UNITAD. Some of it was passed on to the Iraqi government, but UNITAD also conducted an independent investigation.
"Many survivors preferred to testify before UNITAD because they still had confidence in the instruments of the United Nations," says Ibrahim. Many did not even want to testify before the Iraqi judicial authorities.
According to reports, Iraqi officials intend to preserve the evidence and proceed with the proceedings in Iraq. It was also announced from Baghdad that they are ready to allow state prosecutors to use evidence collected in Iraq. But what if this is not done, asks Baban.
"At the end of the day, we want justice to reign in Iraq," says Natija Navruzov from the Yazidi organization Yazda. "Iraq is the homeland of the Yezidis who became victims of IS, just like other minorities. That's why most of the survivors are there, almost all the evidence, just like the perpetrators and crime scenes. But there is no trust."
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