Persecution of Yazidis
[1][2][3][4] Yazidis are an endogamous and mostly Kurmanji-speaking[5] minority, indigenous to Kurdistan,[6] who had also been persecuted when they followed Adawiyya, the predecessor of the Yazidi religion, which has historically been regarded as "devil-worship" among the followers of Abrahamic religions, primarily among Muslims and is still described as such by some, especially by Islamic extremists.
After some Kurdish tribes became Islamized in the 10th century, they joined in the persecution of Yazidis in the Hakkari mountains.
[14][15][12] Almost the whole Yazidi population were nearly wiped out by massacres carried out by Muslim Kurds and Turks in the 19th century.
‘Adī together with 200 of his supporters were executed by Badr al-Din Lu'Lu, who was an Armenian convert to Islam and Zangid governor of Mosul, Sheikh Adi's tomb at Lalish was then desecrated.
In 1415, a Shāfi‘ī theologian, ‘Izz al-Dīn al Hulwānī, with the military support of the Sunni Kurds of the Sindi tribe and the lord of Ḥiṣn Kayfā, attacked Lalish and burnt down the temple.
[22] In the year 1832, about 70,000 Yazidis were killed by the Sunni Kurdish princes Bedir Khan Beg and Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz.
[23] During his research trips in 1843, the Russian traveller and orientalist Ilya Berezin mentioned that 7,000 Yazidis were killed by Kurds of Rawandiz on the hills of Nineveh near Mosul, shortly before his arrival.
[34] In 1844, Bedir Khan Beg and his men committed a massacre against the Yazidis in the Tur Abdin region.
The Ottoman rulers mobilized the Hamidiye cavalry, later founded in 1891, to take action against the Yazidis.
[42] According to Arbella Bet-Shlimon, in 1935 the Iraqi Army attacked eleven Yazidi villages, placed Sinjar under martial law, and then sentenced many Yazidi prisoners to death or to long sentences because they had resisted mandatory conscription; some of the prisoners were even paraded in front of a jeering crowd in Mosul that killed one of the captives.
[45] Five thousand Yazidi civilians were killed[46] during what has been called a "forced conversion campaign"[47][48] being carried out by ISIL in Northern Iraq.
The genocide began after the withdrawal of the KRG's Peshmerga militia, which left the Yazidis defenseless.
[49][50] Among the reasons for the Peshmerga's retreat was the unwillingness of the Sunnis in the ranks to fight fellow Muslims in the defence of Yazidis.
Kurdistan Workers' Party, People's Protection Units, and Syriac Military Council fighters then opened a humanitarian corridor to the Sinjar Mountains.
In the Sheikhan area, which is considered a historic Yazidi stronghold, the Kurdish authorities have allegedly settled Sunni Kurds to strengthen their claim that it should be included within the Kurdistan Region.
[60] In modern times, Kurdistan Region is accused of taking over traditional Yazidi settlements.
[citation needed]During their history, the Yazidis have mostly been under the pressure of their Muslim neighbors, which led to violence and massacres at times.
