Violation of the rights of Yazidis in Syria
Members of the community had earlier applied to form a Yazidi religious court to oversee family disputes and other issues of personal status.
That right is afforded to members of the Christian, Jewish and Druze religious minorities under Syrian law. Yazidis who hold Syrian citizenship will be forced to resolve issues of personal status in Islamic Sharia courts, according to the circular.
Members of the minority who do not hold Syrian citizenship will be referred to civil courts and treated as foreigners, the Justice Ministry said.
The application of Islamic religious law has sparked outrage among members of the Yazidi community in Syria.
The Yazidi Council of Syria slammed the move as a "flagration violation of the most basic principles of human rights".
Not only was the circular discriminatory to Yazidis in general by refusing to recognize them as a religion, the council said, it was also discriminatory against Yazidis who were stripped of their Syrian citizenship in the past. A 1962 census stripped some 120,000 Syrian Kurds, among them Yazidis, of their citizenship over claims they were "foreign infiltrators". Thousands of Iraqi Yazidis also fled to northeastern Syria over the course of the Iraq war.
Up to 40,000 Yazidis live in Syria today, mostly in the northern provinces of Hasakah and Aleppo.
Tags: #yazidisinfo #newsyazidi #aboutyazidi #ezidi
Violation of the rights of Yazidis in Syria
Members of the community had earlier applied to form a Yazidi religious court to oversee family disputes and other issues of personal status.
That right is afforded to members of the Christian, Jewish and Druze religious minorities under Syrian law. Yazidis who hold Syrian citizenship will be forced to resolve issues of personal status in Islamic Sharia courts, according to the circular.
Members of the minority who do not hold Syrian citizenship will be referred to civil courts and treated as foreigners, the Justice Ministry said.
The application of Islamic religious law has sparked outrage among members of the Yazidi community in Syria.
The Yazidi Council of Syria slammed the move as a "flagration violation of the most basic principles of human rights".
Not only was the circular discriminatory to Yazidis in general by refusing to recognize them as a religion, the council said, it was also discriminatory against Yazidis who were stripped of their Syrian citizenship in the past. A 1962 census stripped some 120,000 Syrian Kurds, among them Yazidis, of their citizenship over claims they were "foreign infiltrators". Thousands of Iraqi Yazidis also fled to northeastern Syria over the course of the Iraq war.
Up to 40,000 Yazidis live in Syria today, mostly in the northern provinces of Hasakah and Aleppo.
Tags: #yazidisinfo #newsyazidi #aboutyazidi #ezidi
