Please sign the petition on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people during Saddam Hussein¹s regime

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Please join us to support British MP Nadhim Zahawi’s petition on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Sign it here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31014

Background

Article 2 of United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) defines genocide 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."

The Kurds have been subjected to“ the deliberate and systematic destruction” in the 20th century due to their ethnic and but also religious (Kurdish Alevis and Ezidis) backgrounds. The genocide perpetrated over decades against the Kurdish people in Iraq and 24 years ago, the people of Halabja were subjected to a barbaric crime when the Dictator Saddam Hussein’s aircraft bombed the city of Halabja with chemical gas. Leo Casey descried the chemical gas attack on Halabja in his article “Questioning Halabja” with following words:

Heavy, dark yellow clouds formed close to the ground, and overwhelming smells, a mixture of sweet apples and garlic, followed by an odor of rotten eggs, pervaded the air. Birds and animals began to expire, and as the clouds gradually permeated the shelters, people became ill, some vomiting, some finding it hard to breathe, others experiencing skin burns and sharp, stabbing pains as their eyes and noses began to bleed. In panic, with many already dying and others blinded or paralyzed, the people of Halabja fled their city. Behind them lay thousands of dead. Many who escaped bear grim physical injuries from that day: blindness and major respiratory and skin diseases, cancers, and, in the next generation, congenitally malformed infants.

As a result of the chemical gas attack more than 5,000 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. 68 per cent of them were children and women. Thousands of people of Halabja are still suffering and looking for justice. The international communities e.g. UN, EU and the League of Arab States and national states have not paid attention to the voice of Kurdish families and survivors yet. The situation of statelessness of Kurds, the “national interests” of some nation states and their political hypocrisy are some key reasons that the genocide against Kurdish people has not been internationally recognized yet. However British MP Nadhim Zahawi has launched an electronic petition calling for a debate at British parliament for the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people. Several British MPs and peers from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have publicly pledged their support to this initiative as well.

We believe that “acknowledging genocide itself is a fundamental means of struggling against genocide. The acknowledgement is itself an affirmation of the right of a people under international law to a safeguarded existence" ( The preamble of the Verdict of the prestigious Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, April 16th, 1984). The recognition of the genocide against the Kurdish people is very important for the families of victims and the survivors. Recognition is a crucial acknowledgement of what Kurdish people in South Kurdistan (Kurdistan region in Iraq) suffered and continue to suffer. The international recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people will also make possible to prosecute those individuals and companies inside and outside Iraq who were responsible for the genocide or who supplied Saddam’s regime with weapons and chemicals. Therefore, we call upon everyone to sign the petition.

We believe that this petition will be one of the important steps to break the silence over one of humanity's greatest tragedies, also known as “Kurdish Hiroshima". 100,000 signatures are requested to trigger a debate in the British parliament on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people. In order to get the 100,000 signatures, your active participation and help is needed. We ask you to join us and encourage your friends and family members to sign the petition and to use your networks, connections and mailing lists to motivate your friends, networks, organizations and communities to do the same.

If you would like to participate actively in promoting the petition and collecting signatures, please contact us at
ksso.network@googlemail.com or info@londonKurdishinstitute.org

London Kurdish Institute
Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation
Kurdish GCSE Campaign Group
Kurdish Supplementary School in Islington