Thank you Mister chair, Ladies and gentlemen, as you probably all know, the situation in Iraq has recently entered into a very critical stage for the existence of minorities. We have been witnessing hundreds of thousands of people from minority communities fleeing from their territories. Approx. 7,000 Yazidies (girls, women, children and men) have been kidnapped and are still in the hands of ISIS/ISIL and being trafficked between regions. More than 3000 of men, children and women have been killed. Thousands of Christians fled from their areas. Most of minorities in Iraq have become displaced lost hope and lost the sense of belonging to their areas. Having worked on the ground and observed the situation closely, I would like to shed some light on some of the early trends/root causes/ulterior motives that led to the catastrophic situation of minorities in Iraq……. Minorities are miss-understood and there is a wrong picture about their beliefs, ideology and the way they practice their life. This wrong picture and the resulting hatred toward certain minorities combined with speech directed against them has reached a critical level and has been transferred into a tangible violence. For example, one speech by a religious leader attended by a group of youth, in few hours, led to the burning of a whole hotel that belongs to a Yazidi. Some community leaders/religious leaders have said in public and on media that Yazidies are infidels and it’s halal (allowed) to kill them. These leaders are iconic in the society and they have thousands of followers. The idea of Yazidies are being infidels has become a wide spread and a common idea among a large number of people throughout Iraq. This was one of the reasons that even made ISIS act differently against Yazidie; they killed Yazidies and trafficked their families because they thought they were infidels and it was halal. The hatred against Yazidi minority was the reason why many local people (neighbors, those who lived in the area for decades) attacked Yazidies, killed men, kidnapped their women/girls and children, as soon as the ISIS took over the area. Even after the dreadful events happened to Yazidies, there have been religious leaders talking on a famous local TV station commenting that Yazidi children, women and men who have died from dehydration and starvation on the mountain of Sinjar are “going to the hell, and there is no doubt about it”, implying that they do not deserve