Published by: Yazda
Date of publication: December 5, 2016

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Keywords: Identity | Ethno-religious | Culture | Protection

Citation: "Yazda Statement on the Identity of Yazidis." Yazda. December 5, 2016.

Power sharing in Iraq and Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) after the fallout of Iraqi totalitarian regime in April 2003 have diminished Yazidi representation in both political and administrative aspects in Iraq and KRI. Yazidis have not been treated equally as other Iraqi and KRI citizens.


With respect to Iraq and federal authorities, Yazidi rights have been repudiated from on allegory basis that Yazidis have a shared identity with the Kurds, and in the KRI, Yazidis have been treated on the basis of their religious affiliation as a second-class citizen, they have been granted no rights on the ethnicity claims, Yazidis have been deprived with respect to voting rights, budget and have been treated as “citizens under demand” different from general public of Kurdistan. Yazidi representation in both Iraq and KRI have been nominal under influence of special interests distant from high interests of Yazidi People.


Yazda, as a Global Yazidi Organization, recognizes and affirms that the determination of the Identity is a personal choice for every Yazidi, and Yazidis have the right as a human society with inherited values and characters to determine their peculiarity under which they have been subjected to persecution and genocide and their rights have been deprived. No one shall have the right to impose a specific identity on the Yazidis, themselves alone, the Yazidis, and as individuals, have the rights to determine their identity, and that Yazidis as an ethno-religious group with inherited culture have the rights to determine their own identity. Yazidis have been subject throughout their history to persecution and genocide,

including the last Genocide in 2014 only because their identity were Yazidis.


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