16.03.2026 UPDATE- French ISIS Fighter on Trial
The trial of French citizen Sabri Essid, who joined ISIS and is charged with crimes against humanity and participation in the genocide against the Yazidis in Shengal, began today. It is the first trial related to the genocide in France and against a French citizen and highlights how little responsibility European states are actually taking in the fight against ISIS. The defendant is charged with trafficking and enslaving Yazidi women. To this day, European states in particular refuse to take back foreign ISIS fighters. Today, Shengal is again under the threat of genocide, since not just ISIS is reorganizing itself, but also the regimes of Iraq and Turkey try to attack the Yazidis and their self-organization and self-defence.
PJAK Statement
The co-chair of PJAK, a party part of the Kurdish freedom movement in Iran, spoke out in an interview. Amir Karimi: “We are ready to defend our people.” At the same time, he emphasized that there are no talks between the Kurdish parties and the U.S. The largest Kurdish parties in Iran recently united to form a political alliance that also expressed its “readiness to build a free, democratic, and pluralistic Iran.” None of the parties is participating in military attacks against the regime so as not to become a pawn of the U.S. and Israel.
Commemorating the Genocide in Halabja
Today, in Qamishlo, Tirbespî, and Heseke, the victims of Operation Anfal were commemorated. On March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein’s regime dropped poison gas on the southern Kurdish city. In response to Kurdish militias taking control of the city the day before, the regime murdered many thousands of Kurds. The components of the poison gas were supplied from Germany. German companies and authorities denied responsibility, claiming they had not known that the components would be used for poison gas. The complicity of the German state in the genocide and attacks on the Kurdish people continues until today.