Sunday’s gathering, attended by hundreds of guests, was originally about the persecution of the Yezidis and other Kurds under the Ottomans from 1915-18.
But organizers modified the theme to include events last month in Shingal, where Islamic State (IS) forces attacked the Yezidi town in Iraq, killing hundreds of men, taking women as war booty and forcing tens of thousands to leave their homes.
The opening ceremony of the exhibition, at the National Library of Parliament of Georgia, began with a minute of silence and prayers by Yezidi cleric Sheikh Mame Shamsani for victims of both tragedies.
Kurdish musicians, singers and poets entertained guests, and community leaders and businessmen took the floor with pleas of international help for the refugees from Shingal, most of them now in the Kurdistan Region.
“We call on all around the world to pray with us for peace in Iraq” said Malkhaz Songhulashvili, bishop of the Evangelisto-Baptist Church of Georgia and a human rights defender.
About 60 Yezidis from Shingal have been granted refuge in Georgia, where community leaders say more are expected to arrive.
Shophia Shamanidi, advisor of minority issues to the Georgian president, explained that the theme of the current exhibition was the persecution of Yezidis under the Ottomans, and their resettlement in the southern Caucasus.
“But the Shingal events happened before the Days of Kurdish Culture exhibition. It was very important to show what is genocide, and prevent it in any form,” Shamanidi said, pointing to photographs from Shingal on display alongside the main theme.
The Days of Kurdish Culture, organized by the Union of Kurdish Youth in Georgia, was first held in 2011.
“Genocide against the Kurds is happening even now,” said Elene Khudoian, the youth group’s chairperson.
“It is happening in Kobane (in Syrian Kurdistan), and the whole of Kurdistan is choking in blood,” Khudoian said. “We plead with the world to react.”
On Tuesday, the US and allied countries launched the first air strikes against IS positions in Syria, amid warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe in the making as tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds flee their homes.
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