Duhok, KURDISTAN (10thof December 2017) – The Community Social Center of the Rwanga Community organized a seminar on Genocide, given to Ezidi IDPs of the Kocho Village in Duhok, who are now based in the Rwanga Community. It was also, as one of the aims of the seminar, to highlight the ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’ (25 November – 10 December), since a big focus was put on Ezidi woman who were in captivity.
After an official welcoming and a minute of silence in honor to the victims of the Daesh raid, Mr. Hussain Qasim Hasoun, Prime Minister Consultant of Genocide Affairs, opened the seminar on genocide.
The aim was to define and explain the meaning of the term ‘Genocide’, as well as the different legal ways in interacting with governments and NGOs, concerning each individual’s human rights and legal rights in acting against genocide and its inflicts on minorities.
The seminar was giving a platform to an audience of around 165 people and was well used by the IDPs to receive information and ask questions regarding genocide.
Mahmood Shamo, one of the participants, stated:” It was very important to receive all these information and we wish to have more activities like that. We need awareness and we need to understand what we can do against genocide!”
“We are constantly working on the genocide files and are in permanent process of explanation of the definition and legal terms. I hope we can always serve our people by conducting more of these activities, so effected people can have a serious benefit out of such seminars and conferences.” said Mr. Hussain Qasim Hasoun, Prime Minister Consultant of Genocide Affairs.
Genocide, according to the ‘Office of the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG)’ and Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), is legally defined and regards to as:
"Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 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; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
