Hasna Aarab, who had joined the Islamic State organization in early 2015, will respond to facts of slavery towards the Yezidie minority and belonging to IS.
By Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Brussels, European office)
Dutch justice intends, for the first time, to judge for crimes against humanity a woman rallied to the Organization of Islamic State (IS) and repatriated from Syria. Hasna Aarab, a resident of Hengelo (northeast), who left in early 2015 with her 4 -year -old son for combat zones, will have to answer soon – the date is not fixed – of facts of slavery at the ‘regard for the Yézidie minority and belonging to IS. Indictment, she will appear in the company of eleven other women.
The Dutch authorities have long refused the repatriation of adult women who had joined the ranks of Daesh and were therefore judged by default. This choice was revised when a Rotterdam court indicated, in May 2022, that the prosecution would lose its right of prosecution if, from now on, women were not brought back to the country to appear.
Sixteen of them – and thirty -nine children – were able to return to the country in 2022. And justice now intends to imitate Germany where, among thirty -two women repatriated and brought to justice, six were, In early February, convinced of crimes against humanity for treatments inflicted on Yezidies women.
“It is important that we plan to judge women” returned “[repatriated], not only for belonging to IS but for crimes against the Yezidis”, comments Sofia Koller, of the American NGO Counter Extremism Project. In the Sinjar province, north of Iraq, at least 6,000 women and children were captured by IS, according to the United Nations. And forcibly converted to Islam. Women were slavery, young boys enlisted as soldiers. Between 2,000 and 5,500 men would have been killed.
In 2014, the UN estimated that the abuses committed by Daesh could constitute an “attempted genocide”. In A 2018 report , the International Human Rights Federation believed that they could be qualified as genocide and crimes against humanity.
previous trial
If they have not, so far, launched trials on the basis of this incrimination, the Netherlands have judged men and women members of IS. In April 2021, the Rotterdam court sentenced a Dutch-Moroccan national to four years in prison for its belonging to the Islamic State, propaganda and attempted combat. Deprived of her Dutch nationality, she will no longer be allowed to live in the country once her sentence was purged.
In September 2021, two Syrians, two brothers who had held positions of responsibility within the Al-Nosra Front and IS before asking for asylum in the Netherlands, were sentenced to fifteen and eleven years detention. In January 2023, another asylum seeker, which was also a framework of terrorist groups, was understood.
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