Lynn Zovighian is a philanthropist, humanitarian diplomat, entrepreneur, author, and opera singer. She is the founder of the Zovighian Public Office, which serves communities facing crises and genocide by amplifying their voices through research, cultural development, international diplomacy, and advocacy. In 2022, Zovighian was awarded the International Religious Freedom Business Leader Award by U.S. government bipartisan leaders. Since 2015, she has been dedicated to serving the Yezidi people and survivors, co-designing and funding needs-based projects and amplifying Yezidi advocacy efforts. Diwan interviewed Zovighian in early August, around the ten-year anniversary of the Yezidi genocide.
Armenak Tokmajyan: August 3 is a day for commemorating the Yezidi genocide, which began in 2014. It is surely difficult to describe the immense suffering that has befallen the Yezidis, but could you put the tragedy in perspective and provide some numbers?
Lynn Zovighian: The immensity of the Yezidi genocide is present not only in its numbers but in its multiple dimensions. The crimes of genocide against the Yezidi people are many, and the magnitude of each is significant. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, as approved and ratified by the United Nations General Assembly, makes clear that any of five acts directed against a national, racial, ethnical, or religious group as such constitutes genocide, such as intentionally destroying the group in whole or in part, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. In the case of the Yezidis, all five have been documented and presented as evidence of genocide. This documentation effort continues to this day.
In terms of numbers, prior to the Yezidi genocide the community numbered around 550,000 members, primarily living in Sinjar in Iraq. The community and local nongovernmental organizations estimated the total number of deaths at over 5,000. No less than 200,000 are still displaced in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps; 120,000 Yezidis, almost 25 percent of the total historic population, have also permanently left to countries such as Australia, the United States, Canada, and the European Union; and 1,268 Yezidis were killed just on the first day of the assault on Sinjar by the Islamic State militants on August 3, 2014. There is no final count for the number of deaths during the time Sinjar fell to the Islamic State. We continue to discover mass graves, and many have yet to be opened and exhumed.
The Islamic State inflicted serious bodily harm on 3,548 Yezidi women and girls, who were kidnapped and forced into very violent sexual enslavement and placed under severe forced labor conditions. Sexual violence and torture continue for the 2,600 Yezidi women and children who are still in captivity with Islamic State militants and their wives. Births were also controlled by Islamic State fighters and captors. In addition, 2,869 Yezidi males, of whom an estimated 2,500 are boys, were also captured and forcibly transferred away from the community and put into Islamic State ideological camps. Many of those who have been rescued were returned to their families unaware of their Yezidi identity. The Islamic State also destroyed 68 temples and sacred places of worship.
Importantly, conditions to harm this group in whole or in part remain. With no efforts to encourage reintegration and coexistence, many Yezidis have been subjected to a rise in hate crimes and violence. The Yezidi population remains paralyzed, with families displaced and dispersed among different countries. With no plans and budget for the reconstruction of Sinjar, there has been little rebuilding of the community’s religious and communal infrastructure to recreate a sense of community and rebuild social safety and resilience.
AT: Only a dozen states recognize what happened to the Yezidis as genocide, including only one Arab-majority country, Iraq. Why is that? And how has such recognition—by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, as well as Iraq, among others—served the Yezidi cause?
LZ: Thirteen countries and parliaments have recognized the Yezidi genocide until now, most recently the United Kingdom in 2023. The United Nations Security Council has also recognized what happened to the Yezidis as genocide following the conclusive evidence of the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD), a mechanism established to document these crimes. The Council of Europe and European Union as well have recognized the Yezidi genocide and other crimes against humanity. Iraq recognized the Yezidi genocide in 2021 with the ratification of the Yezidi Survivors Law by parliament. However, its implementation has been limited and requires significantly more political will for the impact of recognition to be truly felt and trusted by the Yezidi community and other communities that suffered under the Islamic State.
Recognition activates an important moral responsibility by states and governments internationally toward a cause that would otherwise feel so far away from home. It helps open up opportunities for prosecutions against Islamic State members, funding and aid, permanent residency and citizenship tracks for those Yezidis who feel they can no longer remain in Iraq, and diplomatic support to lobby for community rights in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
AT: In cases of genocide, accountability is crucial. What legal avenues are available for the Yezidi community to pursue accountability? Additionally, who is responsible for compensation?
LZ: At an international level, states such as the Netherlands and Sweden are beginning their first trials against Islamic State members this year. France will follow in 2025. These tribunals will give Yezidi survivors the chance to have their day in court and present their testimonies on life under Islamic State captivity. To date, nine convictions against Islamic State members and their wives have taken place in Germany, and three members were convicted of crimes of genocide against the Yezidi people.
Iraq holds immense responsibility, as does the Kurdistan Regional Government, in enabling legal avenues for justice. But Iraq still does not have a legal framework to prosecute Islamic State members for crimes of genocide. A draft law by the Office of the Prime Minister proposing to criminalize genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity has not materialized into national legislation. Until now, the few cases that have made it to court are for crimes of terrorism, in which Yezidi survivors have not participated or given testimony. The Yezidi Survivors Law has acknowledged the suffering of survivors and created legal mechanisms for reparations and compensation, but these have yet to be implemented.
Given that Iraq has not ratified the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes of genocide and war crimes, among others, the ICC would only have jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on Iraqi territory by nationals of States Parties, and thus it has not been possible to bring Yezidi genocide cases to the ICC.
UNITAD, with Yezidi nongovernmental organizations such as Yazda, have led evidence-building efforts in the last seven years to document the testimonies of survivors and witnesses. The available evidence is enormous, with tremendous opportunities to identify, arrest, and prosecute Islamic State militants who participated in the killing, kidnapping, and enslavement of Yezidis. However, painfully, UNITAD will prematurely end its efforts in September of this year, with no funding available for an administratively-accessible archive for prosecutors and governments. This will slow the quest for justice, so it is essential that the international community support the advocacy efforts of Yezidi nongovernmental organizations and survivors to maintain an independent and accessible repository of high-quality and verified evidence.
AT: What are the main dynamics affecting the Yezidi community today, insofar as the genocide was superseded by events in Iraq and neighboring Syria, including Turkish military operations in Syria and to a lesser extent in Iraq?
LZ: Sinjar remains very unstable and unsafe for the Yezidis and all historical Sinjari communities. Rebuilding a viable and prosperous Sinjar for its people when they do not have political representation and decisionmaking power will be an almost impossible task, making calls for free and representative local elections an urgent requirement. The Sinjar Agreement, which was meant to enable effective governance of this disputed region between the central government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government, has failed in both design and implementation, especially because local communities were not part of the decisionmaking and consultative process. This has helped create a power vacuum and incentivized a dozen armed groups to assert control in Sinjar, both in terms of security and administration. Turkey continues to bombard the community’s villages under the pretext of targeting outposts of the Kurdistan Workers Party, while Iran is strengthening its grip on Sinjar by backing certain armed groups. With no meaningful budget approved by the Iraqi government for the reconstruction of Sinjar, there is still no infrastructure and basic needs are far from being met. With the closure of the IDP camps, which had been set for July 31 of this year but has just been postponed, displaced populations are being forced back to their homeland, but with neither homes nor safety awaiting them. These dynamics, decisions, and inactions are increasing the risk that the Yezidi people will be forced to leave Sinjar and the Middle East forever.
