National Council recognizes genocide against the Yazidis
Published: Tuesday, Dec 17th 2024, 10:50
Back to Live Feed
The National Council has issued a declaration recognizing the massacres committed against the Yazidi ethnic and religious minority in northern Iraq in 2014 as genocide. It asks the Federal Council to advocate internationally for reparations for the crimes committed.
In the declaration, the National Council condemns in the strongest terms the systematic and genocidal expulsion, rape and murder of the Yazidi people and the destruction of Yazidi cultural sites. It instructed its office to disseminate the National Council's declaration to the international community via the diplomatic network of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
The large chamber voted in favor of the declaration by 105 votes to 61 with 27 abstentions. It thus followed its Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC-N), which had narrowly voted in favor of the declaration by 12 votes to 10.
In the opinion of the Commission majority, Parliament is sending a strong political signal against Islamic terrorism and violations of international law with such a declaration. "The UN has classified the crime as genocide," said Sibel Arslan (Greens/BS). Various states had responded to the call. We can now help to ensure that the atrocities do not go unpunished, Arslan continued.
Although the Commission minority did not want to ignore the suffering of the Yazidis, it was of the opinion that it was not the task of Parliament to recognize crimes committed worldwide. This would create a "problematic precedent", said minority spokesperson Pierre-André Page (SVP/FR). The declaration should therefore be rejected. However, this did not go down well in the Council.
On August 3, 2014, the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) launched a major military attack on areas inhabited by Yazidis in northern Iraq. IS killed more than 5,000 people and abducted 7,000 others. Enslavement also took place. 2500 women and children have been missing since then.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic