On August 3, 2014, the Islamic State attacked the Yezidis of Sinjar in Iraq’s Nineveh province. Thousands of Yezidis were massacred and many others abducted, while more than half a million fled for their lives.
Three years later, the conditions that led to ISIS’s rise and the failure to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity against the Yezidis, Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities—including the collapse of local governance and security—have not been addressed. The successful political reconstruction of Iraq and Kurdistan depends on the ability to ensure justice and fair treatment for the region’s most vulnerable populations.
The ideological and political struggle against the Islamic State requires bringing its fighters to justice for their crimes not only of terrorism, but also of genocide. Though this process has just begun, to date, thousands of captured ISIS fighters have been accused of terrorism, but not one of them has been charged or tried for their crimes of genocide.
On August 3, Hudson Institute hosted a panel discussion on this important component of the battle against ISIS. Pari Ibrahim of the Free Yezidi Foundation and Naomi Kikoler of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum joined Hudson Institute’s Eric B. Brown to assess how adherents of the Islamic State movement can be brought to justice for their crimes of genocide, how the safety of vulnerable minority communities can be ensured as Iraq rebuilds, the unique stabilization needs of Nineveh where most minorities live, and what role the U.S. should play in preventing genocide in the future.
Please join Hudson Institute for a fireside chat with Senior Fellow and Keystone Defense Initiative Director Rebeccah Heinrichs and John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and co-director of the Urban Warfare Project.
Join Hudson Institute and the Ben Franklin Fellowship for a two-panel discussion examining US policy as it confronts the crisis of terror in Nigeria.
Join Hudson Institute's Center for the Economics of the Internet for a keynote address given by Tricia Paoletta on the Trump administration's progress in managing and reallocating the electromagnetic radio frequency spectrum from the federal domain.
Join Hudson Institute for a discussion with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Senior Fellow Harold Furchtgott-Roth.
