Geneva - The eighth session of the Forum on Minority Issues on "Minorities in the Criminal Justice System," held on 24 and 25 November 2015 in Geneva, recommended member states of the UN General Assembly to issue specific legislation guaranteeing the rights of minorities in the criminal justice system, and avoid targeting any particular group of minorities in the police and security operations, Al-Bawaba News reported. The forum witnessed a severe criticism of the international community for its inaction in the face of the Islamic State's (IS) attacks against minorities in the Middle East, and the lack of necessary measures to stop terrorist attacks against minorities as well as the failure to protect them. Nareen Shammo, Yezidi activist, criticized the international community's silence over the crimes committed against the Yezidis, pointing out that she had participated last year in the forum's seventh session and warned of the tragic situation of the Yezidis, however it has not changed this year, but rather it got worse. Shammo asserted that tens of Yezidi girls committed suicide due to their suffering under slavery after their hopes for liberation had vanished. Aggression and sexual abuse were escalated against old Yezidi women in Iraq and Syria as they served in IS leaders' houses, she added. Shammo warned of the presence of the kidnapped children in IS camps, assuming that those children were target for brain wash as initial step before joining the first lines of the terrorist entity. She affirmed million and half Yezidis in Kurdish, Turkish and Syrian camps suffer different threats by the three governments in addition to inciting against them. Shammo called for the Security Council and International Criminal Court to react towards such crimes against humanity. On the other hand, several Syrian, Canadian and Yezidi NGOs submitted a notification to the Minorities Forum and the UN Human Right Council (UNHRC) confirming that Yezidis, Syrians , Assurians, Christians and Shabaks were subject to deliberated genocides in Singar and Ninawah in Iraq by IS militias. The notification demanded the activation of the European Parliament decree issued in 2015 related to the rights of minorities to international protection in the aforementioned areas in a bid to provide safe territories supervised by UN in cooperation with the Iraqi government, which will guarantee the return of minorities to their territories after being liberated. This session was organized and guided by the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, and chaired by minority rights expert Joshua Castellino. The Forum's recommendations on guaranteeing the rights of minorities in the criminal justice system will also be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2016. Edited by Mohammed Abdel Megid
