Yazidis: Germany to vote on declaring IS crimes as genocide

Parliamentarians in Germany are planning to declare that the atrocities committed by the "Islamic State" (IS) against Yazidis amounted to genocide, with a vote in the Bundestag expected next week.

The agreement was reported by public broadcaster "Tagesschau" and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper on Friday.

Both Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party governing coalition and the largest opposition party have agreed to back the vote, which could lead to a judicial reappraisal and financial help for displaced Yazidis to return home.

Why is the vote being taken?

The extremist militant group conquered the Sinjar Mountains in northern Iraq in 2014, where the Yazidis had lived for centuries.

They forced women and girls into slavery, recruited boys as child soldiers and killed many of the community's men. Since that time, thousands of Yazidis have fled the region.

It is believed that some 5,000 people were killed and another 7,000 were abducted — with many taken to areas of Syria where IS seized control at the time. The Yazidis follow an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, viewed by IS as heresy.

It is expected that any motion will carry a reference to the persecution of other minorities, such as Christians and other groups of Muslims, by IS.

"The German Bundestag bows to the victims of the crimes of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria," said a draft of the motions, according to reports in German media.

However, the text is expected to particularly highlight the militant group's pursuit of the "complete extermination" of the Yazidi community.

What is the impact of the designation?

Derya Türk-Nachbaur, a lawmaker with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) — the major party in Germany's ruling coalition — emphasized the practical importance of the designation.

"By recognizing these Islamist crimes as genocide, we are giving the survivors a voice and supporting them in their fight for historical justice," she told the FAZ newspaper.

Türk-Nauchbaur added that justice could only be spoken of "when the victims are buried and the murderers punished, and when there is clarity about the whereabouts of the missing people."

It is hoped that the financial aid that would be part of the 20-point motion would help with the return of some 300,000 displaced people to the Sinjar region.

The motion is supported by the SPD, the Green Party and the neoliberal Free Democrats — which make up Germany's "traffic light" coalition government — as well as the conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) opposition.

"It is important that Germany not only recognizes the genocide as such, but at the same time will advance the historical reappraisal as well as the legal prosecution of the crimes and the protection for the culture and religion of the Yazidis on a national and international level," CDU member of parliament Michael Brand told the FAZ.

rc/rs (KNA, dpa)