In September 2023, news circulated about the plans to close down the U.N. mechanism to collect and preserve evidence of the atrocities perpetrated by Daesh, the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL (UNITAD). If this was not bad enough, subsequently, the media reported on the Iraqi Government proceeding with amnesty legislation that may also include Daesh fighters. The Yazidi community, the community most affected by the atrocities of Daesh, or other religious minorities targeted, have not been contacted in relation to these decisions. Many questions remain. What will happen to the evidence of the Daesh atrocities? What is being done to ensure that Daesh members are not freed from prisons? What will be done to ensure justice and accountability for the Daesh atrocities in the changing climate?
UNITAD was established by the U.N. Security Council in 2017. It was mandated with “collecting, preserving, and storing evidence in Iraq of acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by [Daesh] in Iraq.” On August 3, 2014, Daesh, a non-state actor with unprecedented support from foreign fighters, attacked Sinjar and unleashed prohibited acts against the Yazidis, an ethno-religious minority group in Iraq. Daesh perpetrated a litany of atrocities, including murder, enslavement, deportation and forcible transfer of populations, imprisonment, torture, abduction of women and children, exploitation, abuse, rape, and sexual violence. Daesh fighters killed hundreds if not thousands of people. As part of the same campaign, Daesh fighters abducted boys to turn them into child soldiers and women and girls for sex slavery. More than 2,700 women and children are still missing and their fate is unknown. The atrocities have been recognized as meeting the legal definition of genocide by the governments of the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, several parliaments, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and bodies of the United Nations.
UNITAD was established at Iraq’s sovereign request. Now that Iraq does not want UNITAD to continue beyond 2024, the international community appears to just go with the decision rather than consider what else can be done to ensure that the evidence collected to date, and the trust built with the community, is not gone to waste.
It is yet unclear why the Iraqi Government wishes to end the work of UNITAD. In recent days several concerns have been raised by the Government of Iraq, particularly around the issue of evidence sharing. However, this is not something new. Indeed, it was known from the beginning that UNITAD, as a U.N. body, would not be able to share evidence with a country that still has the death penalty. Despite knowing this, over the last five years of UNITAD collecting evidence of the atrocities, Iraq has not done anything to abolish the death penalty and to establish stronger cooperation with UNITAD and other UN bodies.
Furthermore, recent days have seen reports on a new proposed law in Iraq that would provide amnesty to many detainees. While the proposed law is advertised as freeing innocent people from prison, there is serious concern among communities that Daesh members will be freed among others. This is an issue that requires further attention.
While some steps have been taken towards justice and accountability for the atrocities perpetrated by Daesh, it is still far from leaving the community with a true sense of justice.
Commenting on the developments, Pari Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, said: “In the last two months we have witnessed unprecedented threats to the Yezidi pursuit of justice and accountability. (…) Shockingly, in September, Iraq called for the termination of UNITAD and for it to hand over evidence to the Iraqi judicial system. This month, the groundwork is being laid by various political actors to consider a general amnesty law for Daesh members charged and imprisoned by Iraq in the domestic criminal system. These two steps, which appear to be coordinated, have alarmed the Yezidi community and others who have been victimized by Daesh’s actions. An amnesty for perpetrators of genocide is unthinkable and absolutely unacceptable to our community.” Pari Ibrahim further added: “The government has failed to protect Yezidis, and these two next steps in Baghdad compound this failure by abrogating governmental responsibility to hold to account perpetrators of the crime of crimes: genocide. Most of all, we urge the international community, which allocated both resources and political will to the establishment and success of UNITAD, to not accept ill-designed proposals from the Iraqi state to both shutter the U.N. justice mechanism and lay the groundwork for amnesty for Daesh perpetrators. Meanwhile funding for Yezidi civil society justice efforts is dwindling. We fear that this genocide will be forgotten, data left to libraries and history books, and our community will never see any semblance of justice and accountability.”
Once UNITAD is gone, the progress achieved over recent years will disappear. It is crucial that the international community recognizes UNITAD’s significant contribution in collecting and preserving evidence, and to the judicial proceedings globally. As such, the international community cannot accept the closure of UNITAD as the end of the story. If UNITAD cannot exist without the consent of Iraq, it needs to evolve to a different mechanism that can continue its work with the main priority consideration being victims and survivors.
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