Women for Justice e. V., the Interkulturelle Werkstatt e. V. and the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Hamburg have been organising a series of events in Hamburg since August 2024 under the title “Ten years after the genocide against the Ezidis | Remembering – Coming to terms – Consequences”. The event formats were diverse: Exhibitions, lectures, film screenings and discussion events.

The Hamburg series will be concluded on 30 June 2025 with the placing of commemorative plaques on the trees at 4.30 pm and a public event on the topic of “Culture of remembrance and diversity” at 6 pm. The final event will take place at 1. FC St. Pauli, Ballsaal Millerntorstadion in Hamburg. Preparations for this event are ongoing.

All dates and the idea behind the series of events can be viewed here.

The Azadî fan club of 1. FC St. Pauli raised banners with the inscriptions “Ji bîr nabe Şingal” (Don’t forget Sinjar), “Enlightenment and Justice!” and “Fight Islamism” in the stadium at the club’s match on 3 May in solidarity with the Yazidis (Ezidis). The fans were also enthusiastic about the poppy gift campaign and helped distribute them.

On 3 May, as part of the cooperation with 1 FC St. Pauli regarding the “1 Tree 4 Sinjar” campaign, poppy seeds were given away at the home game to draw attention to the genocide of Yazidis (Ezidis). April is the Yazidi (Ezidi) New Year festival Çarşema Sor (“Red Wednesday”) or Çarşema Serê Nîsanê. Poppies bloom exactly at this time, also in Sinjar, and they bloom in red. This is why these highly symbolic flowers were chosen.

The gift campaign was part of the Harmburg series, all of whose dates are listed here.

As part of the “1 Tree 4 Sinjar” campaign, further actions are planned by Women for Justice e.V. and FC St. Pauli in spring 2025.

Among other things, the two trees that were planted at the Millerntor Stadium in November 2024 will be supplemented by a memorial stone.

In addition, seedlings and flower seeds are to be given away to fans at a St. Pauli match day in and around the stadium to commemorate those missing from the genocide in Sinjar in 2024 and to honour the memory of those murdered.

Further information and exact dates will follow.

Our cooperation partners from Flamingo e.V. have been selected by the jury of the Stadtmuseum Berlin to curate an exhibition space in the Humboldt Forum (duration: Nov. 2025 – May 2027) as part of a public tender.

The core project of her work is a transcultural community garden: the medicinal herb garden “Hevrin Xelef” in Berlin Neukölln, located right next to the Prinzessinnengärten on a former cemetery. A black mulberry was planted in the centre of the garden in memory of Jina Amini on International Day against Violence against Women* 2022. Jina Amini was murdered shortly beforehand by the Iranian regime because she was not wearing her headscarf properly.

For the exhibition with the working title “Transcultural community gardens connect”, a black mulberry will be sculpted together with the Berlin-based Iranian artist, set designer and tattoo artist Ela Pour.
The tree will tell stories – from the “Hevrîn Xelef” garden, from JINWAR, from Sinjar and from Iran.
The stories are also set to music, as many well-known female singers from Iran and Kurdistan sing in front of the black mulberry in the medicinal herb garden, thus ensuring the visibility of the resistance.
Yalda Yazdani is responsible for the soundtrack and musical direction. Documentary photographs of the women* from the garden will be displayed on the walls by Philip Leutert.

As Women for Justice e.V., we will contribute the voices of the Yazidi (Ezidi) women to the tree so that they can also be heard. We have already met with our friends from Flamingo e.V. for discussions and preparations.

Flamingo e.V. is happy to accept donations towards the cost of producing the sculpture.

Together with our cooperation partners from Flamingo e.V., we planted a tree in the “Hevrîn Xelef” medicinal herb garden in Berlin in April as part of the “1 tree 4 Sinjar” campaign. The tree commemorates the murdered and still missing Yazidis (Ezidis) in the course of the 2014 genocide.

The medicinal herb garden is a partner project with the women’s village of Jinwar in northern Syria (Rojava). The “Sîfa Jin” project was set up there with the aim of establishing a health centre for refugee women and children.

Hevrîn Xelef was Secretary General of the Syrian Future Party (Hizbul Suri Mustakbel), which is guided by a grassroots democratic principle of initiative, and a beacon of hope for a diverse, democratic Syria. In the course of the Turkish military offensive in northern Syria in 2019, she was brutally executed on the M4 highway on 12 October 2019 by Turkish-led militias from the Ahrar al-Sharqiya group.

On 4 April, as part of the “1 Tree 4 Sinjar” campaign, tree seedlings will be handed over to four different institutions in Hamburg, which will plant them in their outdoor areas in memory of the murdered but also the still missing Yazidis (Ezidis). Among the participants were fux eG and the B-You Aktivplatz.

On 3 May, as part of the cooperation with 1. FC St. Pauli regarding the “1 Tree 4 Sinjar” campaign, poppy seeds will be given away at the home game to draw attention to the genocide of the Yazidis (Ezidis).

The beginning of the New Year in Yazidi (Ezidi) culture is in April and this is also the time of the poppy blossom in the Sinjar region. Preparations are currently underway for this fantastic gift campaign.

All dates and the idea behind the series of events can be viewed here.

As Women for Justice e.V., we are continuing to work on the digitalisation of our travelling exhibition “ÜBERLeben”. So far, all interviews have already been recorded as audio recordings by a large number of different women.

In co-operation with a Yezidi folklore artist, the selection and recording of an appropriate musical accompaniment was carried out. To this end, a project entitled “Culture connects – musical stories” took place, in which participants had the opportunity to deal with the genocide-feminicide in an artistic and cultural way and to express their feelings.

The post-production and editing of all recordings has also been completed. We now want to combine sound and image by April and complete the digitisation of the exhibition.

In recent weeks and months, Women for Justice e.V. has held various discussions with political actors and embassies on the current situation of the Yazidis (Ezidis) in Syria and Iraq. We have also jointly analysed the significance of current events for the Sinjar region. Among other things, an exchange took place with the Syrian Ezidi Association.

The active members of Women for Justice e. V. meet regularly to discuss plans and preparations for the current year. In a concentrated atmosphere, creative new ideas are always spun and plans that have already been started are continued.

We are full of enthusiasm and motivation for our plans for 2025 and are very much looking forward to working with our diverse project partners and all the people we meet through our activities.

We understand meetings with female survivors as the basis of all our work. We have been meeting female survivors from Sinjar (Şengal) both as inviduals and in groups. Besides social care and legal advice, we try to find out methods to enable Yazidi (Ezidi) survivors to make their own decisions in life here in Germany.