[ April 23, 2024 ]
Photo: Yezidi’s Nadia Murad was tortured and raped by Islamic State jihadists for three months until she managed to escape and flee to Germany in 2014
Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who helps victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
Nadia drew strong parallels between the suffering of the Yazidi people and that of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.
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No mention of remark’s on Israel was part of the press release or news coverage.
The decision to jointly-award the prestigious prize, has the potential to help end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, the UN said – a cause which is central to the Organization’s work.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking at UN Headquarters in New York, said that “in defending the victims of sexual violence in conflict, they have defended our shared values.”
He praised Dr. Mukwege’s “fearless” championing of women raped and abused in conflict, repairing “shattered bodies” as a skilled surgeon but also restoring “dignity and hope”.
By honouring these defenders of human dignity, this prize also recognizes countless victims around the world who have too often been stigmatized, hidden and forgotten – UN chief António Guterres
Ms. Murad, he said, had given voice to “unspeakable abuse” in northern Iraq, when Dae’sh terrorists brutally targetted the Yazidi ethnic minority in 2014. “She has pursued support for victims of human trafficking and sexual slavery, and justice for perpetrators.”
Congratulations to @DenisMukwege and #UNODC Goodwill Ambassador @NadiaMuradBasee, who won the #NobelPeacePrize for their tireless fight against sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict @NobelPrize ▶️ https://t.co/5H92XCOgjG pic.twitter.com/t1dRoQt0e0
— UN Office on Drugs & Crime (@UNODC) October 5, 2018
It’s why Israel is hated. Hatred of the good for being the good.
Former Islamic State captive says Israel a beacon of hope for Yazidis
ITV, 07/25/2017 Updated on 10/05/2018
UN Goodwill Ambassador Nadia Murad urges Israeli lawmakers to pass bill formally recognizing Yazidi genocideLess than five years ago, Nadia Murad Basee Taha was a normal teenager living in the village of Kocho, in the Sinjar region of Iraq. But her life changed forever when in August 2014 she was taken captive by the Islamic State terrorist group and sold into sex slavery along with thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.
After a daring escape from the clutches of the jihadist group, Nadia emerged as the voice of the Yazidi people’s suffering when she testified before the United Nations Security Council on the atrocities committed by ISIS.
On Tuesday, Nadia wrapped up a five-day visit to Israel organized by the IsraAID humanitarian organization; the Combat Genocide Association; and the Israel office of the Society for International Development (SID), which comes as part of two years of global advocacy on Nadia’s part to see the crimes perpetrated by ISIS against the Yazidis formally recognized as a genocide.
Addressing a packed lecture hall at the Museum of the Jewish People at Tel Aviv University on her last day in Israel, Nadia drew strong parallels between the suffering of the Yazidi people and that of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.
“[The Jewish people’s story] is a unique story, and yet so much of it echoes my own community’s experiences. Like the Jews, the Yazidis have an ancient history thousands of years old. Despite recurring persecution, both our people have survived,” Nadia said, in remarks delivered through a translator.
“For three years, ISIS has stolen the authorship of the Yazidi story. But we will not let them write our future. My time in Israel has shown me that in the wake of oppression and genocide, a community can emerge stronger,” she said.
The Yazidis are an ancient ethnoreligious minority whose beliefs incorporate elements of Christianity, Islam, and other traditions. In 2014, there were approximately one million Yazidis living around the world, with a 700,000 majority concentrated in the Mount Sinjar region of northwestern Iraq, close to the border with Syria.
As the Islamic State swept through Iraq and Syria, declaring swathes of the two countries as part of their so-called ‘Islamic caliphate’, the jihadists launched a targeted offensive on Sinjar on August 4, 2014 with the openly-stated goal of eliminating the Yazidis, whom they considered ‘kfir’ or ‘non-believers’, through killing, enslavement, and forced conversions.
“I remember hearing the rumors about cruel terrorists who hated my people and believed us to be devil worshipers,” Nadia recalls. “That day [August 4, 2014], and for several days after, ISIS killed our men and elderly women including six of my nine brothers and my mother.”
“[ISIS] trapped thousands who fled on Mount Sinjar without food or water. ISIS had planned in advance to enslave Yazidi women and children as part of strategy to destroy the Yazidi community. And so thousands of us were kidnapped and transported to warehouses and prisons,” she testifies. “But I escaped.”
Nadia was re-settled in Germany under a special government project for vulnerable women and children. She testified before the UN Security Council in December 2015, and soon after, represented by prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, began advocating to see ISIS militants brought to justice for crimes against the Yazidis.
In 2016, Nadia was appointed UNDOC Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. That same year, an independent commission officially declared that ISIS’s crimes against the Yazidis constituted genocide.
“When ISIS took over, the women were the first to suffer. Girls as young as nine years old were sold on slave markets and raped brutally,” Nadia says. “Now there are many girls in the refugee camps who are survivors of the genocide that are ready to give their evidence…To talk about what happened to them.”
But so far, little has been accomplished to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“For two years, I have been talking to politicians, religious leaders, and committees, calling for recognition and justice. But the international community has still not acted to protect Yazidis or to hold the perpetrators accountable under international law,” she said.
Some 3,000 Yazidis remain in ISIS captivity while thousands more live in squalorous refugee camps on the shores of Greece, reliant on organizations like IsraAID to provide their basic needs and psychosocial support to deal with their traumas.
– Israeli mentorship –
It was through IsraAID’s work with Yazidi refugees in the now-evacuated Petra camp in Greece that the organization’s Co-Chief Executive Officer Yotam Polizer came to realize that Israel could play an important role in the Yazidi cause.
“Unlike the Syrian refugees, who saw our logo with the Star of David and were maybe confused, the Yazidis greeted us with huge smiles. They said for them it was a natural connection,” Polizer says.
In the camps, he adds, it became clear the Yazidis wanted “not our financial support, but our mentorship.”
While in Israel, Nadia has visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum and the Museum of the History of the Jewish People, held meetings with Israeli lawmakers, and met with the President of Tel Aviv University together with Polizer in an effort to see Yazidi students brought to study in Israel.
“Like the Jews, the Yazidis have shown resilience in the face of oppression. Holding onto your identity can be a force of resistance. Every time we practice a traditional custom or stand up for one another we refuse to let our perpetrators be stronger than us,” Nadia says.
During a gathering at Israel’s Knesset on Monday evening, Nadia urged Israeli lawmakers to formally recognize the Yazidi genocide and pass a bill put forth by Zionist Union MK Ksenia Svetlova who heads the Knesset Lobby for Strengthening Relations between the State of Israel and the Kurdish people.
“If the bill were passed, Israel would join a number of other countries that have now officially acknowledged that what we have endured is a crime. Indeed, the most heinous crime,” Nadia told the gathering of academics and activists in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Speaking at the same event, Svetlova said that she believes Israel can do a lot to further the Yazidi cause. “But the first thing we should start with is commemoration and recognition,” she said.
“Never again. This is the motto of our country that was built from the ashes of the Holocaust. For myself…It’s quite clear that ‘never again’ stands not only for Jews. It stands also for other nations and for other people,” Svetlova added.
With the Iraqi army slowly encroaching on ISIS’s last remaining strongholds in the country, Nadia hopes that she will one day be able to return to her village in Sinjar and pursue her lifelong dream of studying makeup artistry and opening her own salon.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not remember my family, our house, what happened to me. My whole life has become a memory. It follows me all the time,” she says.
And her parting message for Israel: “Thank you for giving the Yazidis an example for how we can remain linked to our history and heritage while shaping our future.”
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21 Comments
5 years ago
Shhhhh! Don’t tell Linda Sarsewer and all those Islam-loving “feminists.”
5 years ago
God bless the Yazidi people, I hope they manage to purge Islam from their ancient lands once and for all!
5 years ago
Gratitude and appreciation to the Nobel people for awarding the Prize to brave honest survivor Nadia Murad. And for ignoring the millions of Muslim men who will either try to justify what was done to her or scream that she is making it up.
5 years ago
Reply to
oceanfloor1
Crooks and pro-jihadi criminals all around.
CNN and MSM canonises Mc Cain while Egyptian media expose him for being Leading supporter of Muslim Brotherhood in America and Middle east https://tinyurl.com/y9hk3dpk
Its absurd and farcical how MSM Lies and brainwashes American citizens
5 years ago
to hell with the so called prize, let her cut off the private parts of her rapist with a dull, rusty razor blade
5 years ago
Tell the UN : To promote civilian safety and proficiency training , and to arm civilians , not criminals .
To stop China and Iran from selling arms to terrorists .
#StopVictimhoodCold
yup
Validate your 2nd Amendment Rights…. Carry !
5 years ago
Oh yeah, so now Nobel is going to acknowledge Islamic State as vile?
5 years ago
Ms. Nadia Murad Basee Taha is a very brave woman.
It takes courage and inner strength to speak of such evil that will always haunt her.
She has restored honor back to the Nobel Peace Prize. Much love to her.
I hope she heals and finds someone who will put her on a pedestal and cherish her.
5 years ago
Actually, in addition to NOT mentioning Israel’s key role in supporting this brave woman, the world’s press – and, it must be said, the UN!! – have only mentioned “trafficking” and “sexual slavery” as “weapons of war” – NOT the damn muzzies who perpetrate this horror!! At least, in the context of the Yazidi and their communal “rape” by ISIS – that’s the only part of Islam that is identified in this horror!! NOTHING, it seems to me, about the political cult aka “religion” that not only condones, but encourages this outrage!! WHERE is the outrage against Islam itself and its extremely UNHOLY book, the Q’ran?!?
5 years ago
Reply to
Joy Daniels Brower
Exactly ban and condemn Islam itself for enslaving brainwashing and committing every crime including its perpetrators whom Hitler welcomed and had Turkmen units of death ! Islam is persecuting us all in some way like uk gov bowing to every absurd demand , running a parallel law system and letting Muslim rape gangs freely access to our children then illegally in schools getting our kids to convert using the shahada prayer of conversion , practising Islamic ways , forcing kids to go on trips to dress and pray in a mosque , totally against parents wishes , threatening our kids with punishments if they refused, making non Muslim places supply prayer rooms unnecessary as they don’t pray at work in Muslim countries , they attend mosque and homes but places to wash their feet at airports the list is endless for Islam itself to be a war criminal and it’s time our governments brave up and say no to this barbaric satanistic creed , it’s a man made curse which even most Muslims would be grateful to be freed from as all are slaves to this pre Islamic moon god AL-LAH and his goddess daughters as the moon god was known before that stupid catholic khadijah created with that sick dwarf ( everyone else are petite and neat ok so I am not being offensive to anyone except this monster ok) after a demon attacked him in a cave but she insisted it was an angel ! We all know that angels do not hurt you as God does not allow them to, only demons like poltergeists dwell in the darkest of places and harm you or why else did Mohamed himself wanted to throw himself off a cliff but now homosexuals get hurled off tops of buildings, as we are now seeing ! recognise how he became that demon the very one who was prophesied would come claiming to be a final prophet and who would lead people away from god hence Islam is the opposite to the Ten Commandments in every way ! Time to disband the Arab 57 states controlled UN who has not protected the yazidis or anyone else under attack that aren’t Muslims but demands we all suffer their Muslim spawn of hell that are raping and attacking and killing our people . Down with the EU who is against the truth and also demands we do not insult or criticise Islam ! Time for us all to do what Poland and Hungary do and refuse these Muslim economic benefit scroungers , most of which are the excess spawn of criminals and escaped prisoners . Time to stop labelling a Muslim attack as a mentally disturbed person as that’s a slap in the face of people who are sufferers who don’t commit 98% of these attacks ! If it was a Christian , an atheist a Hindu a Sikh a Buddhist etc we would be headline news but because of the fear of violent protest from Muslims they’re afraid to say the truth !it’s time to start rounding them up ( extremists who want our deaths not innocent peaceful Muslims)and shoot them if they threaten us with riots . Has anyone yet made the connection as to these VIOLENT PALLESTINIAN PROTESTERS and the ones in Europe , USA Africa Netherlands etc that we see ? Yet these same Europeans deny the fact that Israel is the same as us, suffering the same acts against a democratic country as is happening wherever the curse of Islam and its Trojan horse hordes take up residence in all capital cities and slowly overtaking major cities one by one YET only less than 20 % of populations ? Why don’t we vote with our feet and do a mass NO VOTE AND MAKE A STAND ! Show our governments that in civilised twenty first century there is no place and no compatability with this ideology that wants to dominate and is dictating to us without shooting a single bullet while we lay down as lambs to the slaughter or fear being labelled right wing for wanting to live our lives freely and say the truth for what it is !
5 years ago
Any comment from Islamic extremist Sarsour and her gullible ‘useful idiots’?
5 years ago
Reply to
jkarna
Never! They are leftist frauds, not the least bit interested in enslaved women.
5 years ago
I hope the much vaunted and previous winner of this award, Malala Yousafzai, is gracious enough to congratulate this brave woman and to acknowledge the harm done to her people in the name of Islam.
5 years ago
This behaviour isis are exhibiting, is the same behaviour mohamed exhibited and as the most perfect man who has walked the earth, how could their behaviour towards the Yusidi be seen as anything other than, condoned in the koran.
There cannot be a problem as the UK government has let in 4.6 million of the same people who pray to the same rules of conduct as laid down by mohamed. Am I the only one who can see the lunacy of peoples acceptance of this repugnant ideology and the brain dead morons who follow it.
Caution when promoting the UN, this organisation was pivitol in the murders of many in the Rewandan genocide, they just walked away.
5 years ago
They complain about slavery In America long ago and we have slavery In the world today mostly done By Muslim and blacks are still converting to Islam and taking Arab names. Shame on them
5 years ago
Finally a deserving person gets this award!
5 years ago
Most news media, especially BBC and CNN will skip on this one.
5 years ago
A truly courageous survivor of horrific sexual violence perpetrated by the hateful cult no feminist b*tch dares speak.
I certainly hope Israel passed this declaration, anyone know?
5 years ago
The Yazidis are the new holocaust victims. By nature i would never hurt anyone, but I would kill the Islamic terrorist group if i had the opportunity!
