Yazidi MP urges government to release bodyguards

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Yazidi MP Amin Farhan Jijo on Wednesday urged the Iraqi government, the presidential council and the parliament to intervene to free his bodyguards. “I urge the government, prime minister, the presidential council, Kurdish officials and the parliament to intervene to free my bodyguards who were arrested by Peshmerga fighters at a checkpoint in Fieshkhabour region on October 20,.” Jijo told IraqiNews.com. “They were heading from Sinjar to Duhuk then to Baghdad but they were arrested by the Peshmerga forces who took them to unknown place,” he added. The Yazidi faith is not a missionary religion. Its followers are concentrated in northern Iraq. According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), there are about 800,000 Yazidis all over the world. 550,000 of them live in Iraq and concentrated in the district of Sinjar, where the temple Lalesh is considered the holiest shrine for Yazidis, the district of al-Shaykhan (50 km north of Mosul), the district of Bueshiqa (15 km east of Mosul) and some other areas and villages in the provinces of Ninewa and Duhuk. Yazidis are primarily ethnic Kurds and most live near Mosul, with smaller communities in Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Syria, and Turkey. The estimates of their population size vary, partially due to the Yazidi tradition of secrecy about their religious beliefs. Yazidis worship seven angels, in the form of peacocks, who are subordinate to the supreme god who created the universe. SH (S) 1