#yezidi people

[divinum-pacis]

April 2024: Dohuk, Iraq Iraqi Yazidis light candles outside the Temple of Lalish in a valley near the Kurdish city during a ceremony marking the Yazidi new year Photograph: Safin Hamid/AFP/Getty Images

[vinecine]

Why aren't the left talking about the Yazidi people, women and girls in specific, who are being actively kidnapped, raped and murdered for not converting to islam? Why only eyes on one part of the world which is Palestine? Don't these people matter as much too? Or are you too afraid to speak up about the crimes of Islam?

[dougielombax]

Just leaving this here.

[heretic-child]

Circumcision of boys is a rule in Islam that symbolizes the entrance of the child in the religion. Kirve is the name given to the person who plays a part in the circumcision ritual. During this ritual, the kirve takes the child in his arms, console him to avoid him to be afraid, he closes his eyes with his hands and the operation can take place as well. The role of kirve only start with this ritual. There is a kind of family relationship that is established with the family of kirve and the family of the child. This friendship is reinforced by a fundamental rule: the prohibition of marriage between members of two families.

''When I started doing research on the subject, I thought the kirvelik existed throughout Turkey or in all Muslim countries. As an Alevi, it is a reality that I know since my childhood. This is one of the strongest principles of Alevism after “müsahiplik” ('religious brotherhood', one of the principles of Alevism leading two men to maintain parallel spiritual lives throughout their lives), so I thought it was widespread throughout Turkey. When I began my research in Diyarbakir, the Kurds have always told me they were taking Armenians as kirve. But by continuing my research, I came to realize, contrary to what I thought, that the kirvelik is not as widespread in the regions at the west of Sivas.''

According to Ayşe Kudat, the author of the only research done about this tradition, the western populations have learned the concept of kirve from the Eastern immigrants. For this reason, in the West, the kirve is only the person who plays a role during the circumcision ceremony: he takes the child on his lap, he close his eyes. In the West, it remains there. At the east of Sivas, conversely, the ceremony seals a relationship with the chosen person and his family. And this is not trivial, it is a real family relationship. A strong link is established then between the two families. Why this institution does not it exist in western regions? This is due to the great ethnic and religious diversity which prevails in the East. Not only of Muslims and Christians, there are other ethnic groups: the Yezidis, Alevis, and many others which we have forgotten the name today. A Diyarbakır for example, very different ethnic groups lived together: Jews, Greeks (Rum), Armenians, Syriacs, Alevis, Yezidis, Şemsi. In most other regions, they did not have a such common past. I think the reality of diversity in the East has been the ground of kirvelik. There was of course a diversity in the western regions, but the people are not as mixed and they do not have this common past.

Today, this tradition is perpetuated mostly by Alevis and Yezidis.

Minority and oppressed populations, appropriate more the function of kirvelik. Yezidis and Alevis are in the minority, they occupy a social position makes them more vulnerable to oppression. This mindset drives minority populations in developing a mechanism to better create links with other communities. During our research interviews, some Sunni clerics have even said that they did not give much importance to kirvelik. This is an Islamic ritual while a religious leader himself gives no such importance. That is, conversely, very important for the Alevis and Yezidis. It seems to me that this is beyond the religious, deeply linked to a social position. They are a minority in society and they are more interested than others to protect themselves.

Any marriage bond with the family of kirve is prohibited. From the moment the kirvelik relationship has developed between the two families, the members of these have absolute prohibition to marry. And it is endless, even for the fifth or seventh generation, the rule remains appropriate. This is a ban that applies to all members of the family forever. This means that the forbidden, somehow, has a regulatory function of social ties.

''Yes, endogamy is widespread, but is prohibited within the nuclear family, between siblings. The link established by the kirvelik is not one we have with cousins, but that between a brother or sister. The prohibition of marriage therefore from that which exists in a sibling. Apart from that, yes, inbreeding is common. In my family, for example, it is even a tradition of marrying children's paternal uncle, it is only very recently that it has started to change. With the prohibition, kirvelik seems that so sets limits, when in reality it releases other codes by establishing a fraternal relationship.''

''There are also a series of stories, traditional songs and legends about it: you can not marry the daughter or son of the family of kirve. We can fall in love, but a love that will lead nowhere.''

In a context of cultural diversity, the risks of religious conflicts, tensions and other problems are a reality, and kirvelik helps to soothe and strengthen the relations. Prohibit marriage is also creating a bond of brotherhood. It is no longer possible to kidnap a girl to marry. It is very important that the kirve could be placed in the family and attends smoothly each of its members. Even today, there are many barriers between different ethnic and religious groups. In Turkish society, the various ethnic and religious groups are wary of each other. The kirvelik is a societal institution that has a very important religious function as it allows to overcome this distrust. Although initially a role of being a religious ritual, one must also consider the kirvelik as the product of a norm, of a wisdom of society to develop social ties.

The custom of Kirve in the memory of Kurds and Armenians

[weepingfireflies]

People & countries mentioned in the thread:

DR Congo - M23, Cobalt

Darfur, Sudan - International Criminal Court, CNN, BBC (Overview); Twitter Explanation on Sudan

Tigray - Human Rights Watch (Ethnic Cleansing Report)

the Sámi people - IWGIA, Euronews

Hawai'i - IWGIA

Syria - Amnesty International

Kashmir- Amnesty Summary (PDF), Wikipedia (Jammu and Kashmir), Human Rights Watch (2022)

Iran - Human Rights Watch, Morality Police (Mahsa/Jina Amini - Al Jazeera, Wikipedia)

Uyghurs - Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) Q&A, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, UN Report

Tibetans - SaveTibet.org, United Nations

Yazidi people - Wikipedia, United Nations

West Papua - Free West Papua, Genocide Watch

Yemen - Human Rights Watch (Saudi border guards kill migrants), Carrd

Sri Lanka (Tamils) - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch

Afghans in Pakistan - Al Jazeera, NPR

Ongoing Edits: more from the notes / me

Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh/Azerbaijan (Artsakh) - Global Conflict Tracker ("Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict"), Council on Foreign Relations, Human Rights Watch (Azerbaijan overview), Armenian Food Bank

Baháʼís in Iran - Bahá'í International Community, Amnesty, Wikipedia, Minority Rights Group International

Kafala System in the Middle East - Council on Foreign Relations, Migrant Rights

Rohingya - Human Rights Watch, UNHCR, Al Jazeera, UNICEF

Montagnards (Vietnam Highlands) - World Without Genocide, Montagnard Human Rights Organization (MHRO), VOA News

Ukraine - Human Rights Watch (April 2022), Support Ukraine Now (SUN), Ukraine Website, Schools & Education (HRW), Dnieper River advancement (Nov. 15, 2023 - Ap News)

Reblogs with Links / From Others

Indigenous Ppl of Canada, Cambodia, Mexico, Colombia

Libya

Armenia Reblog 1, Armenia Reblog 2

Armenia, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Indigenous Americans, Black ppl (US)

Rohingya (Myanmar)

More Hawai'i Links from @sageisnazty - Ka Lahui Hawaii, Nation of Hawai'i on Soverignty, Rejected Apology Resolution

From @rodeodeparis: Assyrian Policy Institute, Free Yezidi

From @is-this-a-cool-url: North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA)

From @dougielombax & compiled by @azhdakha: Assyrians & Yazidis

West Sahara conflict

Last Updated: Feb. 19th, 2024 (If I missed smth before this, feel free to @ me to add it)

[ponfarrtimeatthevulcannightclub]

I'm gonna try to compile a list of resources for the genocides and humanitarian crisis going on so people will at least have a place to start so they can stay informed

Each place will have a link and then just click on the link to go to the resources. If yall have any you wanna recommend say it under the post of that place

Pls reblog the original posts so more people can see what’s been added

Hope this helps someone

Syria

Lebanon

Palestine

Sudan

Congo

Yemen

Iran

Morocco

Western Sahara

Armenia

Afghanistan

West Papua

Haiti

Tigray

Ukraine

Yezidi People

[hero-israel]

I mean, sandy hook wasn’t perpetrated by indigenous Americans

I see your point but it’s not necessarily an accurate comparison

Nothing prevents Native Americans from buying AR-15s. Native Americans absolutely physically could have committed Sandy Hook, along with every other school shooting you've heard of.

Why didn't they?

And if they did it, would you have less of a problem with it?

If "colonizers" "deserve it," then why was Brett Kavanaugh wrong for what he did to Christine Blasey Ford? Or are his actions only wrong based on whether or not he said "This is for the RESISTANCE!", and we have to stand patiently and watch him finish and listen to hear whether he says the magic words before we can judge?

Gonna blow your mind with this - maybe the entire frame of "liberating struggle" as mutated through a strongly culturally normalized lens of antisemitic violence and exterminationism is not a good basis of moral principle. The only thing "not the same" about any of these crimes is that some involve Jews, making those crimes understandable, and some don't, making them obviously pure evil.

To quote myself from exactly one year ago:

You never see Tibetans or Uighurs massacring hundreds of teenagers at a rock concert in China then packing the women onto rape trucks. Yezidis do not send suicide bombers into Arab old age homes on major holidays to kill off 3 generations of families. There is no way to view this topic without confronting the specifically anti-Jewish chauvinism, supremacism, and genocidalism that has been the norm in Arab and Muslim societies for a millennium or more. The entire "well, what do you EXPECT Palestinians to do??!" frame is pure colonialism. It says only Palestinians know how to have problems, only their tactics count, and anyone who doesn't bomb school buses either doesn't have problems or is doing it wrong.

You shouldn't feel like you have to rush to respond to this. Really, really think about it first. How normalized has society made it for you to listen to the excuses of people who torture and slaughter us? How are those excuses any better than those of anyone else who commits other crimes? Really think it through.

[jewish-sideblog]

I lost any sympathy for the Palestinians when I learnt they were using US and EU aid to give money to those who stabbed or shot innocent civilians. If I wanted any group in the middle east to get its own state, I'd prefer civilized people like the assyrians, the druze, or the yezidis.

Conflating people with their governments is the primary reason that anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism, and you've fallen into the same trap. The Palestinian people do not deserve to suffer or die because their governments misappropriate funds. "Civilized people"? Seriously? You sound like a white supremacist with that Rudyard Kipling ass language. It's cruel and gross and essentialist.

I hope you find your sympathy again, but in the meantime, fuck off my blog.

[al-kol-eleh]

Azat Alsalem

This is something I've been angry about for a while now. The Yezidis (Yazidis) underwent a genocide. When ISIS forces took over their reigon, their avenues of escape were blocked, their men were killed,the girls and young women were sold into sexual slavery and the young boys were kidnapped and indoctrinated into becoming ISIS canon fodder. And at every step of the way, people qualified their statements so as not to be accused of "Islamophobia". The Yazidis still live in refugee camps. But every idiot and their nanny is protesting a non-existent genocide in Gaza!

[gnothi-seayton]

Some traditions are completely off-limits to outsiders, like Yezidi, Druze, or Sun Dance. Some traditions seek converts like Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism. But the majority of traditions are somewhere else on that spectrum.

Speaking of traditions being purely “open” or “closed” is incredibly reductive. A great many traditions don’t actively seek members but may occasionally bring newcomers into the fold who prove themselves to be respectful and dedicated. Some traditions, despite their relative obscurity are enthusiastic to receive interested parties. Others will test potential recruits, some of whom will pass, some of whom will not. Still others are loose affinity groups with little in the way of formal membership, where people come and go. And overall, within any given tradition, different lineages or sects may not only take different approaches, but distinguish themselves from one another on this point.

Tumblr, I’m begging you, stop treating this like a black or white issue. It would be so much more productive to talk about attitudes of entitlement or humility and the present day effects of historical injustices than simply slapping a “no entry” sign on traditions you may not even belong to.

[divinum-pacis]

April 2023: At sunset, the year 6773 began for these Yazidis celebrating the New Year near Dohuk in northern Iraq.

The flames of lamps and candles signify the coming of light into the world during Yazidi New Year's celebrations at Lalish Temple in the Kurdish region of Iraq. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]

[dougielombax]

More countries need to recognise this.

Alongside all the other victims of Isis in their putrid genocidal crusade.

[maaarine]

Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Caroline Criado-Perez, 2019)

"For women who try to escape from war and disaster, the gender-neutral nightmare often continues in the refugee camps of the world.

‘We have learned from so many mistakes in the past that women are at a greater risk for sexual assault and violence if they don’t have separate bathrooms,’ says Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia.

In fact international guidelines state that toilets in refugee camps should be sex-segregated, marked and lockable.

But these requirements are often not enforced. (…)

Female refugees regularly complain that the remote location of many toilets is worsened by a lack of adequate lighting both on the routes to the latrines and in the facilities themselves.

Large areas of the infamous Idomeni camp in Greece were described as ‘pitch-black’ at night.

And although two studies have found that installing solar lighting or handing out individual solar lights to women in camps has had a dramatic impact on their sense of safety, it’s a solution that has not been widely adopted.

So most women find their own solutions.

A year after the 2004 tsunami women and girls in Indian displacement camps were still walking in pairs to and from the community toilet and bathing facilities to ward off harassment from men.

A group of Yezidi women who ended up in Nea Kavala camp in northern Greece after fleeing sexual slavery under ISIS formed protection circles so they could accompany each other to the toilet.

Others (69% in one 2016 study), including pregnant women who need frequent toilet trips, simply don’t go at night.

Some women in reception centres in Germany have resorted to not eating and drinking, a solution also reported by female refugees in Idomeni, at the time Greece’s largest informal refugee camp.

According to a 2018 Guardian report, some women have taken to wearing adult nappies." (…)

The irony of ignoring the potential for male violence when it comes to designing systems for female refugees is that male violence is often the reason women are refugees in the first place.

We tend to think of people being displaced because of war and disaster: this is usually why men flee.

But this perception is another example of male-default thinking: while women do seek refuge on this basis, female homelessness is more usually driven by the violence women face from men.

Women flee from ‘corrective’ rape (where men rape a lesbian to ‘turn her straight’), from institutionalised rape (as happened in Bosnia), from forced marriage, child marriage and domestic violence.

Male violence is often why women flee their homes in low-income countries, and it’s why women flee their homes in the affluent West."

[mariacallous]

The Islamic State has created fake videos mimicking the look and feel of mainstream news outlets CNN and Al Jazeera, according to a new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shared exclusively with WIRED.

Launched in early March, the campaign was orchestrated by War and Media, a pro–Islamic State media outlet that typically creates long-form videos pushing the group’s ideology and history. The Islamic State, or ISIS, is a UN-designated terror group that perpetrated a genocide of the Yezidi population in Iraq and conducted multiple terrorist attacks, including the 2015 attacks in Paris that left 131 people dead; it has also promoted videos of its members beheading journalists and soldiers.

Central to the campaign were two YouTube channels. One was falsely branded as CNN and pushed English-language videos, and the other was branded with the Al Jazeera logo and pushed Arabic-language videos. The videos featured the logos of the real news outlets, and in the case of CNN, the videos also featured a real-time ticker along the bottom of the screen which changed to match the content being shown. The campaign also deployed a network of social media accounts branded to look like they were affiliated with news outlets, in what appears to be an effort to push ideology to new audiences.

In total, the campaign created eight original videos, four in each language, that discussed topics like the Islamic State’s expansion in Africa and the war in Syria.

One video also focused on the deadly attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow in March. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and the video attempted to combat a disinformation narrative promoted by the Kremlin that Ukraine, not the Islamic State, was accountable.

“It was essentially fake news to debunk fake news,” Moustafa Ayad, the executive director for Africa, the Middle East, and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, tells WIRED.

Ayad also believes the campaign was a test run to ascertain how successful it would be in circumventing censorship efforts on mainstream Western platforms.

“It's the first time we've really seen a concerted effort by an Islamic State outlet to create this fake ecosystem of news that isn't branded as something that's affiliated with the Islamic State,” says Ayad. “It was very much a test of the system and now they know where there are weaknesses in their strategy.”

The videos remained on YouTube for a month and a half before they were removed by the company, but during that time, the videos were also downloaded and republished by Islamic State supporters on their own accounts. Some of those videos are still circulating online today, because they have not been added to the hash-sharing database that platforms use to coordinate the takedown of terrorist content.

“What they did was essentially build this entire little fake ecosystem of social media channels that are doppelgängers of news outlets,” Ayad says.

Each of the videos on YouTube racked up thousands of views, and while none of them went viral, it was “enough for the group to get some traction in circles outside where they would normally get [traction] and saw real people commenting under the videos,” says Ayad.

YouTube did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

In the past, some ISIS supporters have sought to circumvent tech platforms’ moderation by placing the logo of services like Netflix or Amazon Studios on their videos. This attempt appeared to be more sophisticated.

“Those were just simply taking a logo and plugging it on top of the existing Islamic State logo,” says Ayad. “[The new campaign] was actually creating channels as those media outlets and then creating an entire newscast around a specific issue, using footage from a range of different sources—not just the Islamic State, but footage that you could find online or other news channel footage. We really saw it take off right after the Moscow attacks.”

The campaign is just the latest sign of the Islamic State’s growing sophistication in circumventing content moderation efforts. This report comes just a week after the Washington Post revealed that the group has been deploying an AI-generated news anchor in weekly news dispatches that are designed to reach English-language audiences.

“I have no doubt in my mind we will see more of this in the future,” says Ayad. “AI allows them to create more realistic graphics for news that mimic a lot of the new channels. We're gonna see more of that and it's going to get more and more difficult to identify this content.”

[lakeerieplesiosaur]

Why Israel's Right to Self-Defense is Non-Negotiable

The narrative around Israel's actions, especially in contexts like Gaza/West Bank, often gets muddled with political rhetoric and explicit antisemitism, but let's clarify a fundamental truth: Israel is not commiting genocide, is engaging in decolonization, and is acting in justified self-defense. Here's why this stance is objectively correct:

Historical Context: Since its inception, Israel has faced existential threats. From the 1948 War of Independence to the ongoing threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other entities, Israel's history is marked by survival against odds. This context isn't just history; it's a daily reality for Israeli citizens. Even before the establishment of Israel, Jews living in the land of Israel faced frequent massacres and were the victims of attempted genocide. In general, religious minorities in the middle east, both historically and currently, face violent persecution, sexual violence and slavery, and genocide. Unsurprisingly, many Druze, Yezidis, and Zoroastrians live in Israel as well as it is one of the only safe places for them in the middle east.

Moral Imperative: The moral duty of any government is to protect its citizens. When faced with threats like tunnels designed for attacks, or rockets aimed at civilian centers, the moral choice is clear: defend your populace. Placing the lives of another country above the lives of your own citizens is suicidal empathy at its finest - instead of ensuring your citizens are safe, you ensure no one is safe. The safety of another populations citizens is in the hands of their government, and if their government cannot ensure this for them (as is the case with Hamas,) it is a sad reality for them but Israel cannot be held responsible for a neighboring country's attempt to put their citizens in harm's way to advance their genocidal agenda. The terroristic leadership of Palestine is responsible for all deaths that have resulted from their government's abdication of their duty to protect their citizens in their genocidal quest to erase Israel.

Economic and Social Impact: The constant state of alert, the need for bomb shelters, and the economic strain of defense spending highlight the cost of living under threat. Israel's proactive defense isn't just about military strategy but about ensuring a semblance of normalcy for its citizens. Israel has lost many people over the decades to these terrorist groups. So many children have grown up in bomb shelters. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been displaced by the fighting just recently, even more have lost their homes over the decades. The terrorist regimes have destroyed so many natural and historical wonders in the land of Israel; the north is currently burning due to the actions of the enemies of Israel who have no regard for the environmental impact of their near daily bombing of Israel.

Global Perspective: While critics might focus on Israel's actions by mischaracterizing them in the most antisemitic way possible to push their propagandazied delusions, they often ignore the broader geopolitical context where Israel stands alone in a region controlled by genocidal terrorist regimes, all of which are engaging in a multifront war on Iran's behalf to commit genocide against Israel, the Jews, and any who support them. Let us be clear: the goal of Israel's enemies is genocide. It is a joke to frame Israel's actions as genocidal when they are currently the victim of an ongoing genocide attempt. This isolation and their position as a target of genocide by several different coordinated terrorist groups necessitates a robust defensive and offensive response. There is no reason for Israel to have to play the games of these genocidal regimes that are not shy about their desire to erase Israel. They will not live in peace and will respect Israel's territory, so Israel is justified to enter the territory of these genocidal entities, eliminate the threat to its people, and impose order. These terrorist regimes need to be demilitarized. Israel is not the only benefactor from this: civilians in these areas benefit from the dissolution of their terroristic governments that enforce a low standard of living, sacrifice their citizens' lives in political stunts, and impose barbaric conditions such as Sharia law-based apartheid against women.

Humanitarian Efforts: The IDF takes humanitarian efforts beyond any other military. They warn civilians in advance of strikes and establish safe zones; they have clearly defined military targets and take as much care as possible to keep civilians away from them; they distribute food, water, medical care, and temporary housing at a rate far beyond what any military has ever done foe a civilian population in a modern or historical conflict. Palestinians who aid the IDF are granted Israeli citizenship. Israel aleeady supplied over half of Palestine's water and electricity free of charge prior to the war. This isn't widely publicized due to antisemitic misreporting in main stream media but reflects a nuanced approach to security and humanity, and shows that the IDF is in fact the most moral army. The casualty numbers from the Hamas ministry of health are notoriously inaccurate and have been caught falsifying numbers in numerous ways, but even using their numbers to civilian to combatant death ratio is one of the lowest EVER observed in modern warfare - it is around 1 combatant killed per 1.5 civilians (and is likely even lower than this due to inflated casualty numbers.) The UN puts the average civilian to combatant death ratio in modern wars at 1 combatant for 9 civilians.

In essence, Israel's right to defend itself isn't up for debate. It's a necessity born from reality, not rhetoric. Israel's stance isn't about aggression but survival, a principle that should resonate universally. Israel is not the aggressor in any of the regional conflicts it finds itself in and thus the burden of casualties is the sole fault of the aggressor (the Iranian axis of terror.)

[hero-israel]

While I agree that Israel has made it nearly impossible for any Palestinian political movement to actually engage with them in good faith to find a peaceful solution (or even a peaceful pathway to a solution) a lot of people seem to have run with that to “Hamas had no choice but to attack with such savagery!!!!” And 1) if you actually look at Hamas’ track record over the past 20 years or so it’s a whole lot of “well I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas” (tbh Hamas has tried one or two violent, terrible ideas that didn’t work out, but same diff) and 2) “well they hurt me so I’ll hurt them” is the morality of a five year old

You never see Tibetans or Uighurs massacring hundreds of teenagers at a rock concert in China then packing the women onto rape trucks. Yezidis do not send suicide bombers into Arab old age homes on major holidays to kill off 3 generations of families. There is no way to view this topic without confronting the specifically anti-Jewish chauvinism, supremacism, and genocidalism that has been the norm in Arab and Muslim societies for a millennium or more. The entire "well, what do you EXPECT Palestinians to do??!" frame is pure colonialism. It says only Palestinians know how to have problems, only their tactics count, and anyone who doesn't bomb school buses either doesn't have problems or is doing it wrong.