Minorities quota may make Shabak form independent list – MP

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A Shabak parliamentarian said on Friday that Shabaks will compete in the coming elections in an independent list in case of there is a special quota for minorities. “We are waiting for the elections law to determine our final position as the law will change several alliances in the future,” MP Hanin al-Qaddo told Iraqi News. “In case there is a quota for minorities will enter the elections in an independent list under the name ‘the democratic gathering of Shabak’,” he added. The Shabak people is a minority group of Kurdish origin who live mainly in the villages of Ali Rash , Khazna , Yangidja and Tallara in Sinjar district in the province of Ninewa, northern Iraq. Their language, Shabaki, is a Northwestern Iranian language, belonging to Zaza-Gorani group, and similar to Kurdish with many borrowings from Turkish, Persian and Arabic. They are scattered in 35 villages located in the east of Mosul. Their population was estimated at around 15,000 in the 1970s. A large part of the Shabaks follow an independent religion, related to but distinct from Islam. It contains elements of Islam, as well as Christianity and other religions. There is a close affinity between the Shabak and the Yazidis; for example, Shabaks perform pilgrimage to Yazidi shrines. The Shabaks have a sacred book called the Buyruk written in Iraqi Turkmen colloquial. The Shabaks consist of three different ta’ifs or sects: the Bajalan, the Zengana, and the Shabak proper. SH (S) 1