MESOP FOCUS : New Armenian draft constitution to include quota for Yazidi Kurds

Ezidipress – 21 July 2015 – YEREVAN,— Two Yazidis may become future members of the Armenian National Assembly. In addition to the change of the country´s political structure, Armenia´s new draft constitution which is supposed to lead the country to a parliamentary system also provides for a quota for ethnic minorities. On July 15, 2015 the commission which is in charge of the draft published parts of the new constitution.

Article 89, Section 2 of the draft regulates the representation of ethnic minorities in the parliament. The proposed quota is supposed to reflect the percentage of an ethnic minority in Armenia. The Yazidis who comprise Armenia´s largest ethnic minority with around 1.3 per cent of the population could be therefore given two allocated seats. The currently valid constitution lacks such as provision.

According to the latest census over 40,000 Yazidis live in Armenia, many of whom have already emigrated for economic reasons, especially to Georgia and Russia. In Armenia, Yazidis are officially recognized as an ethno-religious group since 2012. The Yazidi religion is officialy recognized too and can be freely practiced.Due to the persecution by Kurdish rulers and the Ottomans, Yazidis fled to the region of present-day Armenia over 100 years ago. Starting in 1915, the Ottomans conducted a genocide against the Christian peoples and the Yazidis. The common history of suffering brought both peoples, Armenians and Yazidis, closer together, resulting in the emergence of a long bond of friendship.In the end of 2015 the National Assembly of Armenia will then have to decide whether to pass the draft constitution or not.The Yazidis are a Kurdish religious group linked to Zoroastrianism and Sufism.Some 350,000 Yazidis live in villages in Iraqi Kurdistan region and in Kurdish areas outside Kurdistan region in around Mosul in Nineveh province, with additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Syria. There are almost 1.5 million Yazidis worldwide.