After airing three episodes of Laylat al-Suqut (The Night of the Fall), a series depicting the fall of Mosul at the hands of ISIS, the show sparked controversy, outrage and insult in the Yazidi community. Some believe it is just a TV series, a feature film, and far from the truth and facts. Representatives of the Yazidi community saw in the film an insulting image of Yazidis because they suffered the most from ISIS terrorists and the capture of the city of Mosul.

The series starred quite famous actors such as the Iraqi Jawad al-Shakarji, the Syrian Bassem Yahour and many others. The series is shown on a number of Iraqi satellite channels and was filmed in Erbil and Sinjar.

The picture is sort of dedicated to the problems of the kidnapped Yazidis, the way ISIS treats them and their crimes against the Yazidi people. What concerns the Yazidi community is the ambiguity of Yazidi-related scenes in the series and the fears of the upcoming explicit episodes of the series.

Yazidi journalist and activist Saman Daoud wrote on his social media pages that people are waiting for subsequent episodes to see if the scenes and facts in the show are true.

According to the activist, there are scenes in the series that insult and shame Yazidi people and there are scenes of violence against Yazidi girls who have been kidnapped by ISIS, how they were forced to change their faith by violence, how crimes were committed against Yazidi children.

Activist Khairy Ali, who also commented on the film, believes that from the published episodes it seems that the series does not show the pain and sorrow of Yazidis, but a soft melodrama with famous artists. The film shows as if the ISIS terrorists weren't so violent either and the people didn't put up much of a fight.

It is mentioned that Yazidi girls kidnapped by ISIS were welcomed by the supreme religious authority. This does not mean that raped Yazidi girls are normal and socially accepted for Yazidi society. After all, many of the girls were never accepted and to this day live in captivity and slavery in the families of ISIS because of their illegally born children.

But there are also those who try to distort the image of Yazidis, like some Arab writers who used to insult Yazidis in their books. To this day, Yazidis are considered second-class citizens, and discrimination has reached its peak.

Dengê Êzdiya