Brutal attack against historical Yazidi cemetery

The author of the article touched upon the Turkish state's neglect of the violations against the Yazidi community, and said in this context:

The historical Yazidis cemetery in Turkey has been attacked and extensively destroyed. Kurdish Yazidis communities condemn the ruthlessness vandalism act and they ask to the Turkish state to bring the perpetrators to justice. The Kurdish Yazidis community has been targeted by Islamic states in the Middle East in centuries, the latest attack was organized by the Islamic states ISIS/Daesh in 2014 where many thousands of Kurdish Yazidis women-girls-children has been kidnapped, sold and raped. 

The 300 years' historical cemetery, called Hesen Beg, is located in near the village of Mezrê (Çilesiz) in the Nusaybin district of Mardin province on the Turkish-Syrian border. The graves in the purely Yazidi cemetery were devastated, gravestones were smashed and reliefs and sculptures with Yazidi symbolism were destroyed. The brutal acts against Kurdish Yazidis graves happened on 26 march 2020.

The Kurdish Yazidi community has been once again shocked by a such ruthlessness vandalism act and they condemn the crime in the strongest terms. I a press release, 34 Kurdish Yazidi associations, organizations and institutions reacted strongly against the criminal act and called the Turkish state to find out perpetrators who is responsible of destroying the grave.

“It is a heinous act in the spirit of inhumanity and malice. The large-scale systematic destruction of the cemetery, which is some 300 years old, shows that Yazidi in the Middle East can neither live entirely in peace and security nor are their dead or their ancestors granted the self-evident right of "last rest". The wanton destruction was a deliberate attack against the Yazidi community, against their identity and against their humanistic compass of values. For the cemetery not only symbolizes - as for every religious community - a place of sacred peace, but with its long history it also has a high symbolic and historical value for the Yazidi".

“It shows that the Yazidis still regard their villages in Turkey as their original homeland. Already in the past decades there have been repeated systematic and deliberate devastations of Yazidi cemeteries in Turkey. It is therefore not just a one-time or accidental destruction by any vandals. Rather, the devastation has a system and pursues the goal of erasing the memory of the Yazidi, their culture and religion from the surface of the picture forever”.

“We therefore appeal first and foremost to the Turkish state and its criminal and regulatory authorities to investigate and bring the perpetrator or perpetrators to justice. The Yazidis have been at home in the region for thousands of years. They are a part of Turkey. It is the responsibility of the state to protect and enforce the law against all its citizens. The Yazidis have initiated appropriate criminal charges within the framework of Turkish law”

T/S

ANHA