Press Statement of the Society for Threatened Peoples about the pogroms of radical Islamists against Christians and Yazidis in Iraqi Kurdistan

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) noticed with great concern, that a radical Islamist mob attacked 28 shops and facilities of Christian-Assyrians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians and Kurdish Yazidis on 2 December 2011 in two cities of northern Iraq. The shops, where also alcohol was sold, several massage parlors and a ladies' hairdresser-shop in the towns of Zakho and Dohuk in the province of Sumel were demolished or set on fire after the Muslim Friday prayers. 37 people - mostly policemen - were injured. The damage caused ranges in the millions.

After these pogroms, outraged Kurdish citizens attacked and destroyed six offices of the Islamist extremists in the cities of Dohuk, Zakho and Sumel destroyed. They also demolished six Islamist press offices.

Since 2003, at least 40,000 Christian Assyrian-Aramean-Chaldean, Kurdish Yazidis, Armenians, Mandaeans and Turkmens from the southern and central Iraq found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan. Until now, the minority policy of the largely autonomous state could be seen as an exemplary model for the Middle East. The long-established nationalities of the Assyrian-Aramean-Chaldean, Armenian and Turkmens were granted their own school system, their radio and TV stations and newspapers are subsidized.

The president of the Society for Threatened Peoples International, Tilman Zülch, is trying to arrange a long distance call to the Kurdish President Masoud Barzani. The offenders must be punished and any further discrimination against ethnic and religious communities must be prevented. Zülch favoured, that Barzani immediately visited the location of the incident and clearly condemned the anti-Christian and anti-Yezidi pogroms.

On behalf of the Society for Threatened Peoples, Zülch appeals to President Barzani, to close the 18 Islamic private schools - in which students are set up against Christians and Yazidis - as soon as possible. According to information from Iraqi Kurdistan, the Islamist regime of Iran and radical Islamist groups from Turkey are trying to increase their influence on the autonomous region.

The STP has been working for the human rights of Kurds, the Christian nationalities and the Yezidis of Iraqi Kurdistan for 42 years (see annex).

Annex: Data on the human rights work of the Society for Threatened Peoples for the Kurds, Assyrians / Syrians / Chaldeans, Armenians, Yezidis, Turkmen and Mandaeans

1969 - 2011: Numerous initiatives for the liberation of Kurdish political prisoners from all four parts of Kurdistan and support for Kurdish refugees

1969 - 2011: lectures, events, vigils and demonstrations about the problematic situation of the Kurds and the nationalities and religious communities of the Assyrians / Syrians / Chaldeans, Armenians, Yazidis, Turkomans and Mandaeans, who live with them.

1969 - 2011: Documentation of human rights violations, war crimes, genocide (including the "Anfal" genocide) and expulsion of Kurds and also the world's first publications on the massacres of Sorya and Dakan (Iraqi Kurdistan).

1970 - 2011: Support for Kurdish and Assyrian intellectuals, politicians and exiled people.

1974/75: Nationwide campaigns against the defamation of Mustafa Barzani's resistance movement by large parts of the doctrinaire lef-wing movement in West Germany.

1975: A successful campaign against the President of the World Council of Churches, Potter, who denied the mass murder of Kurds, after a British general had visited the place where the genocide took place.

1975: Enforcement of the admission of a group of 86 Kurdish resistance-personalities to Germany after the collapse of the Kurdish movement in Iraq.

1978, 1989: Documentation of the Turkish genocide against the Christian Assyrians / Syrians / Chaldeans by publishing two books.

1980, 1984, 1987: documentation of the Turkish genocide against the Armenians by the publication of three books.

1984, 1986, 1988: Publication of a three-volume file on the history, politics and the freedom movement of the Kurds - with 1500 pages - and other books and brochures about the situation of the Kurds.

1988-1994: Enforcement of the recognition of all Yezidi refugees in Germany after a demonstration at the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen and after the publication of two books about the history, tradition and the prosecution of the Yezidi

1989-1991: Supplies for the Iraqi-Kurdish and Assyrian victims of poisonous gas in Turkish refugees camps.

1990: Successful entry into a warehouse of the company MBB (Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm) to uncover a delivery of spare parts for combat helicopters of Saddam Hussein's Air Force - despite an embargo.

1991 - 2003: Initiative to have over 100 villages in Barzan valley rebuilt by German federal states and church-related agencies.

1991: Supplies for the 50,000 starving Kurdish and Christian refugees from Iraqi Kurdistan in the relief camp Üzlümü - at 3,000 meters height on Turkish territory.

1991: Press conference in Jerusalem after the US-invasion of Kuwait about the genocide of Kurds and Assyrians / Chaldeans / Arameans in Iraq.

1992: Confrontation before the land court in Bonn and the higher regional court in Cologne against the two German companies Pilot-Plant and Karl Kolb because of their participation in building Saddam Hussein's poison gas industry in Samara.