Muslim Conference in Africa Calls for Protection of Religious Minorities

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Aida Alami

Yazidis from Sinjar Province in Iraq after their arrival on the Greek island of Lesbos from Turkey in November. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

MOROCCO---At a recent conference held by Muslim scholars to confront violence in the Islamic world, a representative of the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq and Syria said his people desperately needed protection from the Islamic State. The gathering here of about 300 muftis, theologians and scholars last month responded far more broadly by issuing the Marrakesh Declaration, which calls for Muslim countries to tolerate and protect religious minorities living within their borders — among them Christians, Jews, Hindus and Bahais as well as Yazidis and Sabians. [link]

Christmas is a time to reflect on the "God Gulf" on religious oppression

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Nicholas Kristof

As we celebrate the holidays, let’s remember that this is one of those savage epochs when some families must choose between their faith and their lives. It is an echo of when Nero burned Christians alive, or when self-described Christians unleashed pogroms against Jews. Partly because of allergies about religion, the international response has been utterly ineffective. Liberals are sometimes reluctant to champion Christians who are persecuted for their faith. And conservatives are too quick to champion only Christians, neglecting other religious minorities — such as the Yazidis — who suffer even worse fates. One result of this “God gulf” is that the Western response to atrocities against religious oppression is pathetically inadequate. [link]

U.S. Holocaust Museum condemns ISIS for Yazidi genocide in Iraq

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

WASHINGTON, DC---This month, the U.S. Holocaust Museum published a report calling the attacks by ISIS as genocide. Specifically, the report details how the Islamic State militants invaded northern Iraq in 2014 with the goal of wiping out the minority Yazidi population that lived there. They killed more than 1,500 Yazidis, mainly men, were killed, and thousands of women and children were kidnapped and enslaved. Like the Abrahmic religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, the Yazidis believe in one God as the creator of the world.  They also believe he has place this world under the care of seven holy beings or angels, the chief of whom is Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel.

The worst religious ritual in human history: The ISIS theology of rape

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Rukimin Callimachi

A woman, who said she was raped by Islamic State militants, in a refugee camp in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Credit Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

IRAQ---In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted. Claiming the Quran’s support, the Islamic State codifies sex slavery in conquered regions of Iraq and Syria and uses the practice as a recruiting tool. [link]

Houston artist, Jamie Wells' work looks at paintings as prayer

HOUSTON CHRONICLE
By Allan Turner

Jamie Wells paints to bring to the light the atrocities Isis is committing against Yazidi children. 

TEXAS---The power in Jamie Wells' portraits lies in the eyes, the windows to the soul. Whether working in the closet-sized studio in her West Houston home or on the altar of her church, where she conveys the essence of a sermon-in-progress in bold slashes of bright acrylic paint, her goal always is to capture the moment's deepest meanings. Her paintings pack an emotional punch: joy, sorrow or the sublimity of God. Canvases that are part of her "Artworship" series always are intended - through their "sale" through donations - to better the world. "God is the audience we are trying to please," Wells said. "We look at paintings as a prayer." The paintings have benefited charities at Ecclesia Church and Bayou City Fellowship, where Wells and her artist husband, Jeremy Wells, are members.[link]

Raped, beaten and sold: Yazidi women tell of Islamic State abuse

BBC NEWS
By Sue Lloyd-Roberts

‘Won’t even let us kill ourselves': Ordeal of enslaved Yazidi women

UNITED KINGDOM---Three young Yazidi women have escaped from sex slavery in the hands of the Islamic State (IS) group and travelled to London, where they told their horrific stories. The three girls are fragile, beautiful and very scared. "We were raped up to five times a day," says 20-year-old Bushra. The Yazidis are neither Muslim Christian but worship a peacock god which, in the eyes of the Islamic State group, make them devil worshippers and a valid target for extermination. [link]

Gerard Russell's new book compares religion as social bond vs. set of ideas

THE HINDU
By Sudhamahi Regunathan

IRAQ---Musing on Yazidis of West Asia, Gerard Russell says unlike the West where religion is a set of ideas, it is more about community connections in the region. He, Gerard Russell talks mainly of the Yazidis in this conversation while his book, “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms” documents many more of the disappearing religions of the Middle East. They are the Druze, Zoroastrians, Coptic Christians and Samaritans in addition to the Yazidis. He finishes by saying he has come out of it feeling better about religion because, “…is essentially a kind of bond where you can trust someone because of the community to which they belong...." [link]

Book Review: ‘Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms,’ on Middle East Religions, by Gerard Russell

THE WASHINGTON POST
By Janine Zacharia

An Iranian Christian at Saint Mary Chaldean-Assyrian Catholic Church in downtown Tehran in 2012. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

IRAQ---The Islamic State’s summer rampage across northern Iraq sent thousands of Christians and members of other non-Muslim religions fleeing for their lives as members of the self-declared caliphate burned and desecrated Christian sites and ordered conversions to Islam. In his part-travelogue, part-history, former British diplomat Gerard Russell argues that even with the repeated oppression of these minorities through the centuries — the book reminds the reader how unremarkable this painful outburst of violence is historically — Islam is fundamentally a tolerant religion and “perfectly capable of valuing diversity.’’ This is not a book about Islam per se, however. And Russell keeps the persecution histories to a minimum while focusing instead on the minorities themselves. [link]

US Yazidi Activist, NYC Pastor Describe 'Genocidal' Atrocities Committed by ISIS in Iraq

THE CHRISTIAN POST
By Nicola Menzie

A young Yazidi woman, recently married, reportedly committed suicide
after being abducted by Islamic State militants. She appears in these undated photos.

IRAQ---A New York City pastor and Texas-based Yazidi activist who flew to Iraq the week before Christmas to assess the humanitarian needs of displaced Yazidis persecuted by the Islamic State have called the present situation of more than 300,000 refugees "genocidal" and "insane." William Devlin and Murad Ismael connected via phone with a radio show in New York City live from Iraq just days before Christmas to describe the living conditions of distraught Yazidis staying at several refugee camps in Dohak in Kurdistan, in northern Iraq. [link]