CORRECTED: German lawmakers recommend Yazidi ‘genocide’ recognition

Germany’s lower house of parliament on Thursday recommended that German lawmakers recognise as a “genocide” the 2014 massacre of Kurdish-speaking Yazidis by Islamic State group jihadists in Iraq, following the lead of UN investigators.

“The recognition of the genocide is an essential step to overcome the traumas for the Yazidi community,” said Greens MP Max Lucks, highlighting the precarious situation faced by survivors still living in Iraq.

“A safe life, peace… must be our ambition for the Yazidi community,” he said.

The Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, on Thursday approved a petition asking for this recognition, but still needs to hold a final vote in a plenary session in order to complete the process of recognition.

Germany, home to a large Yazidi diaspora, is one of the few countries to have taken legal action against IS.

Last November, a German court convicted an Iraqi jihadist of genocide against the Yazidi minority, a first in the world that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad hailed as a “victory” in the fight for recognition of the abuses committed by IS.

The Yazidi minority has been particularly persecuted by the jihadist organisation, which forces its women into sexual slavery and killed men in their hundreds.

A special UN investigation team announced in May 2021 that it had collected “clear and convincing evidence” that jihadists had committed genocide against the Yazidis.