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Resilience & Recovery after Genocide: The Yezidi Community between War & Self-Organisation

  • Armenian Institute (map)
  • Meeting ID: 898 0059 8489

  • Passcode: 893203

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The Yezidi Genocide of 2014 came almost exactly a century after the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The systematic and brutal killing recalled many aspects of that earlier tragedy, especially the extreme gendered violence. Since then the Yezidi community of Sinjar/Shengal has sought to rebuild and develop its own institutions for self-government and self-defence, to avoid ever facing this kind of violence again. At the same time, in Armenia, the Yezidi community has become more and more prominent. From 2016 the community began building the largest Yezidi temple in the world and formed two volunteer units for the Karabakh war of 2020. In this event, part of a series around the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24th, we explore this recent history and its resonances with those events 100 years before and hear the voices of Yezidis in Shengal and Armenia on how their communities have responded with resilience and self-organisation.

Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A where we'll explore these issues, with voices from the Yezidi communities of Armenia and Iraq as well as the diaspora.

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SPEAKERS & BIOS:

Dr. Rebecca Jinks, Historian of Comparative Genocide & Humanitarianism (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Armenian Institute, London.

A message from the Democratic Shengal Autonomous Administration, the Yezidi self-government system established in Shengal/Sinjar following the ISIS invasion and its defeat.

Pari Ibrahim, Founder and Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation. Pari studied law at the University of Amsterdam and works to promote the rights of the Yezidi minority community in Iraq, with a particular focus on women’s rights and gender issues. She established the Free Yezidi Foundation in the Netherlands in 2014 as a response to the Yezidi genocide committed by ISIS.

Khdr Hajoyan, President of the Yezidi National Union of Armenia, Director of Ezdikhana Newspaper & Co-Founder of Ezidxan TV and Head of its Armenian Branch. Khdr studied Law and Oriental Studies at Yerevan State University, and has long been akey figure in Armenian-Yezidi civil society. He has authored and co-authored a number of works, and has been very active in seeking support and recognition for the Yezidi Genocide of 2014.

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Join us on Zoom here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89800598489?pwd=YjJ5TWo5TjJpelM2TmJpeVJseisrQT09

Meeting ID: 898 0059 8489

Passcode: 893203

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This event is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund

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