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Yazidi women who escaped from Isis win EU human rights prize Yazidi women who escaped from Isis win EU human rights prize
(35 minutes later)
Two Yazidi women who survived sexual enslavement by Islamic State before escaping and becoming advocates for their people have won the EU’s Sakharov prize for human rights. Two Yazidi women who survived sexual enslavement by Islamic State before escaping and becoming advocates for their people in Iraq have won the EU’s Sakharov human rights prize.
Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Ashar were described as “inspirational women who have shown incredible bravery and humanity in the face of despicable brutality”. Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the liberal grouping in the European parliament, added: “I am proud that they have been awarded the 2016 Sakharov prize.” Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar were abducted along with other Yazidi women in August 2014 when their home village of Kocho in northern Iraq was attacked by Isis jihadis.
Among the finalists were the Crimean Tatars and a former Turkish newspaper editor. The annual Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, established in 1988, is named after the Soviet physicist and outspoken dissident Andrei Sakharov and is awarded to “individuals who have made an exceptional contribution to the fight for human rights across the globe”.
The award, named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honour individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Last year’s winner was the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. Last year the prize was awarded to Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger and activist sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. In 2012 the award was shared by two Iranians, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and celebrated film-maker Jafar Panahi, leading to Sotoudeh’s release from prison.
Among the 2016 finalists were the Turkish journalist Can Dündar and the Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzemilev.
The EU described Murad and Aji Bashar as “public advocates for the Yazidi community in Iraq, a religious minority that has been the subject of a genocidal campaign by IS militants.”
Murad won the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel human rights prize earlier this month.
In 2014 she was captured alongside her sisters and lost six brothers and her mother, as Isis jihadis killed the village’s men and any women considered too old to be sexually exploited.
A family helped her to escape from her captors and she went to Germany. A year later she later addressed the UN security council and became the goodwill ambassador for the UN office on drugs and crime.
Aji Bashar, whose brother and father were killed by Isis, was used as a sex slave by the militants and forced to make bombs and suicide vests.
“Aji Bashar tried to flee several times before finally escaping in April with the help of her family, who paid local smugglers,” an EU statement said. She eventually went to Germany, where she received medical care and joined her surviving siblings.
“Since her recovery Aji Bashar has been active in raising awareness of the plight of the Yazidi community and continues to help women and children who were victims of IS enslavement and atrocities.”
Yazda, an NGO that supports the Yazidi community in Iraq, congratulated Murad and Aji Bashar on their award and urged the west not to ignore the plight of Yazidis still in captivity.
“This occasion is a meaningful moment for the Yazidi community worldwide to celebrate,” it said. “However, Yazda sincerely hopes that in addition to this substantial acknowledgment of Nadia and Lamiya’s work, the international community will turn more attention to the thousands of Yazidi women and children still in captivity, the thousands of Yazidi men whose whereabouts remain unknown to their families, and to the hundreds of thousands of Yazidis who remain displaced in Iraq and elsewhere and are unable to return to their homelands and begin rebuilding their lives.”