Press release
Press release

Lalish – In a press release issued by the Religious Council of the Ezidis, the Ezidi religious leader Bave Sheikh Keto denied having had an interview with the Kurdish news agency BasNews quoting him as saying that the Religious Council of the Ezidis opposed an autonomy or a canton in Shingal.  He had been deliberately misquoted, his alleged statements had even been fabricated, the statement reads. 

BasNews, which is financed by members of the KDP, quoted the religious leader as saying: “We as the Religious Council of the Ezidis have never approved a canton and clarified in the past that no other actions than those of the Kurdish authority will be accepted by us.”

The Ezidis´ religious leader equated, according to BasNews, those who advocated autonomy in Shingal with extremists of the Islamic State. Both the quote and BasNews´s claims were at odds with the truth, the Religious Council announced.

Especially KDP-affiliated media such as Rudaw and BasNews have been aggressively trying to exploit Ezidi leaders in the current smoldering media war between the PKK and KDP over the political future of Shingal. In its recent broadcast, Rudaw compared the rule of the Kurdish YPG / PYD over northern Syria (kurd. Rojava) with the north Korean dictatorship of Kim Jong-un. Its Turkish website went the extra mile and published a cartoon portraying the PKK and YPG policy in Shingal as `the work of the devil´.

Ezidi commanders have been repeatedly criticizing the party oriented coverage of Rudaw and BasNews. The Religious Council of the Ezidis and Baba Sheikh Keto announced not to intervene in political affairs and focus on the Ezidi people´s will regarding the future of Shingal.

© ÊzîdîPress