By Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism.
An earlier article reviewed the comments of a panel at the International Religious Freedom Summit on Feb. 3 concerning the impact on religious minorities in Syria of American and Western policy, now that an Islamist government (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS) has come to power there, and is establishing full control of the country. A second panel included voices (speaking for themselves alone) from the various religious minority communities in Syria. Charmaine Hedding, President of the Shai Fund moderated the panel. She said that we need to consider the experiences of the people who have suffered “and paid the highest price” from Syria’s civil war. Ancient communities face the reality that their “survival now hangs in the balance.” Panelists included Pari Ibrahim of Free Yazidi Foundation, Metin Rhawi of the European Syriac Union, Mahmud Zamlut of the Alawites Association of the United States, and Richard Assed of the American International Druze Public Affairs Council (AIDPAC).
Minority Perspectives
Hedding asked if there is a prospect for equal citizenship in Syria, or only a prospect of “survival … and permanent insecurity.” She asked Ibrahim “what fears and concerns are the most pressing” for the Yazidi community. Referring to the past experience of the Yazidis with ISIS, Ibrahim said that ISIS’s ideology was “to eradicate the Yazidis” because they were “infidels,” “non-believers,” and “devil worshippers.” She expressed appreciation to the YPG (a primarily Kurdish force) and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS that opened a corridor at the time of the 2014 effort to commit genocide against the Yazidis to bring Yazidi refugees from the mountains to “a safer place.”