MESOP WATCH KURDISTAN/IRAQ: VIDEO | PKK Prevents Yezidi Voters from Entering Sinjar
ERBIL 10.10.2021- The armed men affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Sunday prevented Yezidi voters from entering Sinjar on the Iraqi parliamentary election day.Sources from the scene said the voters possessed biometric voting cards and other personal documents, but they were not allowed through a checkpoint at the entrance of Sinjar.
“Even though we have voting ID card, this checkpoint does not allow us to go and cast our votes for the [Kurdistan Democratic] Party,” one of the citizens said in a footage obtained by BasNews.
Previously during the election campaigns, the PKK and Iran-backed Shia militias of Hashd al-Shaabi, prevented KDP’s electoral rallies and they blocked the KDP candidates from entering Sinjar.
The UN mission and Kurdistan Region officials back then denounced the move by the PKK and called on all the sides to abide by the guidelines issued by the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission.
PKK and Hashd al-Shaabi are now in full control of Sinjar, the predominantly Yezidi areas in north of Mosul. Despite a 2020 agreement between the Kurdistan Region and Iraqi Federal Government to replace these armed men with government forces, the groups remain in the region to tighten their grips on the strategic border areas.
On October 10, the long-awaited parliamentary elections are taking place in Iraq, in which over 24 million Iraqis are eligible to cast their votes.
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