Top Iraqi court revokes Yazidi parliamentary representation

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi Federal Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a verdict declaring the parliamentary representation of Yazidis and two other ethno-religious groups as “unconstitutional,” with the minorities losing their quota seats and having to compete within other quotas.

The court ruled the system of representation of Yazidis, along with Shabaks and Feyli Kurds, to be unconstitutional, adding that the groups’ representation "should be equalized with the Christian and Mandaean components."

In previous iterations of Iraq’s parliamentary elections, the aforementioned minorities were only permitted to vote for representatives within provinces they hold a sizeable population in. The Yazidi and Shabak communities were each reserved one seat in the province of Nineveh, while Feyli Kurds held a seat in the southern Iraqi province of Wasit.

Tuesday's ruling by the supreme court places the minorities at a further disadvantage, as their representatives now have to campaign within the Christian and Mandaean components, who can cast votes from all parts of Iraq.

The court's decision places the representation of Yazidis, Shabaks, and Feyli Kurds in jeopardy. It also coincides with the latest exhumation of mass graves belonging to Yazidi victims of the Islamic State (ISIS) in a village in Shingal, Nineveh province, on Tuesday.

ISIS seized control of large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Iraq's Yazidis were particularly targeted as the group reigned terror on the religious minority's heartland of Shingal, killing around 5,000 Yazidi men, many of whom were executed and dumped in mass graves, according to the United Nations (UN). Around 7,000 women and girls, some as young as nine, were held in sexual slavery with thousands still missing.

A large number of Feyli Kurds were subjected to a major displacement campaign during Saddam Hussein's former Baathist regime by issuing the dissolved Revolutionary Command Council Resolution 666, which deprived the group of Iraqi nationality.