 Can I ask everyone please, from the public galleries who are leaving, to now do so very quickly and quietly? The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 4.1.3.0 in the name of Ben MacPherson on justice for Yazidi people. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Would those members who wish to speak in the debate please press the I want to speak buttons now, and I call on Ben Macpherson to open a debate around seven minutes please Mr Macpherson. Presiding Officer, today we stand united against terrorism and in solidarity with all of those affected by such extremism and crimes against humanity. I would like to thank the Presiding Officer for securing debate time on the genocide of the i blau f tivera i gael i ni, i amddor i, i'r ffordd o unrhyw bryd i gael, i'r ffordd o unrhyw bryd i gael, i'r ffordd o unrhyw bryd i gael. R�oeddiol gydag i gael i'r gw码au gwlad cyngorau unendod trwy gynnod mewn blyg. Mae gydag i gael i'r gydag i'r gredigau i ddweud y feyeid i gael iawn i'r cyfrifwyr gweithioedd sydd wedi'u gael yn gyfain yn edrych eich cyfwyr iddynt gyrwynt. communities. A schoeswch ysgolio gyda'r unrhyw tyddio gyda'r kin, rwyfod raddorol i'r vaen yn awr, yn rhaid i'r c lyrics ddefnyddio i fynd i'r ddechrau i fynd i'r ddechrau i fynd i'r ddefnyddio i'r ddechrau i fynd i'r ddechrau a'n ffordd i fynd i'r ddimnid. Rwyfod ei bacon yw bod ni wedi'i gyda cyfgledd gan edrych i fynd i'r ddigwyddol i'r ddefnyddio i'r ddïgwladd a'r ddysgu'r ddigwyddol i'r ddimnid ac yn official o gael nhw yn dwy Friendshire, ac yn ffordd rwy'n gwyffodus a gwyffodus yw'r genesydd gyda'n bwysigol i'w cyflwyddur â'rendsiwg yma oherwydd mae oedd mae'r gweithdoedd oedd eu genesydd yn gyflym. Pryddoedd yn gweithio o'r genesydd hynny, ac mae'n gweithio bod cyflwyddor ar y gweithredu ac mae'n cy oppose mân o'r cyflwxunkr dyna ac mae'n ddigonol iechydol yn ddefnyddio perthasol and the law of civilised nations. I will make no mistake the issue before us today is one of genocide as defined when under the 1948 Genocide convention, a genocide committed against the Eerysadi community by the fascists in the form of Diasc. This atrocious violence began in August 2014 when Diasc overran the town of Sinjar Gymicion, mor ddoedd ddym ni'n cael 10,000 tiynau ffinodau a'r tiynau ddweudrach y hollodol, sydd mewn adreithio gyd Statesfodior Gwblyniadau. ysbytiau chi'n gwlad i'r tiynau cymunodi hefyd yn arwarau mawr, o ffwrdd, o'r hollodol i'r amser gafodd hyfforddiad. A yw dweud hynny'n trwy pwgiaeth am gygodai? A dydych chi'n ei tych yn cael eu tynnu cymaint gwheidio'r teimlo'r tiynau that follow a unique and ancient faith that is detested by Daesh. As well as active murder in pursuing their barbaric and horrific determination to ethnically cleanse the region of Yazidis. Daesh are forcibly running a conversion campaign, with Yazidi males being forced to change their religion and Yazidi females being treated as sex slaves. Mae'r caelдуch oedd ynTychion ar y twmllog iawn maen nhw i ddechrau seiclafonol a'r cyfarid ac yn gweithio i gyr gummytau fawr o happenedeol. Mae'r cael y nidol yn iawn hon i gwasanaeth y beryddiant i likio maen nhw ibeithio iawn maen nhw i ddechrau iawn. Mae'r twmllog iawn maen nhw i ddechrau a'r roi caeldu rhai, dros 21 ddaeth, Nadia Murad.ollegd o cyntaf ni'n allu'n cael ei alu'r campau, gallwn i'n cael ei drafod o'r ystod o'r fferfynch a'r defnyddio i fynd i'r l interviewau a'r gyllidiau i fynd i'r bry Emmanuel i'r cynyddoeth, yn y teimlo Golg Llywodraeth, yn Fybr, i Llywodraeth i'r newid yn gydu i fyny i'r eu hyfford. Nadia Murad yn gychydig i'r refleic73 i'r defnyddio i ymddiriau i'r gymhau yn casfodol, ac a o'i diwethaf i'r cosiotafol hefyd. Nadi Amarad i'r fathau nadi yn gweithio i ddweud o'r ddeuysgau ymwneud yn ddweud i'r fathau oesbydd yn y gallu caliphate, ac mae'n gwybod i'r pethau ymddiadau sylwgr yn cymryd i'r rhan o'r gweithio sylwgr yn sechul yn ddeuysgau yn nid o'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r rhan o'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r As mentioned earlier, Yazidi children have also suffered at the hands of Daesh. Yazada are an NGO in the US and here in the UK who are responding to the needs of the Yazidi community. They have reported that Yazidi male children, aged between 5 and 15 years old, are separated from their families by Daesh and transferred forcibly to locations in Iraq and Syria to receive religious and military indoctrination and become so-called cubs of the caliphate. Not only are those boys taught how to use guns and rockets, they are forcibly and twistedly shown violent graphics to manipulate them to be violent and hateful towards their own community. In response to all of this brutality, here in Scotland and as a people that are strongly committed to human dignity, human rights and equality, as a country that celebrates cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic diversity, here in Scotland we must condemn those atrocious acts of extreme human suffering towards the Yazidi men, women and children and call upon those with power to confront the bigotry, brutality and religious intolerance of Daesh. I welcome the efforts of Iraq, Greece, Turkey, Canada, Germany and Britain to provide refuge to Yazidis. However, it should be noted that there are still thousands of Yazidis in Daesh captivity who are suffering unthinkable grief and torture as we speak today. While I would like to commend the actions of the United States Congress, the European Parliament, the French Senate, the UN and the UK Parliament in formally recognising the Yazidi genocide, I also call on the UK Government and others to take immediate and resolute action to support international efforts to prevent further atrocities against the Yazidi people and to meet international obligations to provide greater refuge to those at risk of persecution. I also call on the UK Government to request that the UN Security Council refer the genocide committed against the Yazidi people to the international criminal court, which Nadia Murad and her lawyer Amal Cluney have been courageously pressuring for in recent weeks and months. I call on the international community to order an investigation into the genocide and begin to gather evidence to document Daesh's crimes against humanity. Refer the matter to the international criminal court and seek legal justice for the Yazidi people. Genocide is a word that should be consigned to the history books, but until it is, we must not turn a blind eye when we see it in a world. The crimes that Daesh has committed against the Yazidis must be confronted and the pain and suffering that innocent Yazidis have endured and are still enduring today must be addressed. Let us do our part and send a strong and united message from this Parliament to the international community that Scotland stands firmly in solidarity with and in support of the Yazidi community. Let us send another important message to Daesh that their crimes will not go unpunished and that it is the will of this Parliament that their terrorist, fascist organisation will be brought to justice at the international criminal court. Let us do what we can to stand up for the Yazidi people and protect and support our fellow human beings. We now move to the open speeches and speeches of no more than four minutes, please. I call Alexander Anderson to be followed. I seem to really want to change your name to Anderson, do not I, Mr Stewart? You must remind me of someone in my past or something. I call on Alexander Stewart to be followed by Kenneth Gibson. As I have said before, I answer to many things, but I will try to give you some thing in the future that reminds you that I am a Stewart. Thank you very much for the opportunity, Deputy Prime Minister. I congratulate Ben Macpherson on highlighting the issue today on the crimes committed against the Yazidi people and congratulate him on securing this debate here today. It is important that we give an opportunity to have it here. The plight of the Yazidi people is, without question, very difficult for some of us to comprehend. It is as if we are going back to a darker time in our history. We are living in 2017, and the atrocities that we are hearing about are so hideous that it is, as I say, incomprehensible for individuals living today. The so-called Islamic State has enslaved and killed thousands of Yazidi people and forced them to take on board the horrific situations that they find themselves in. More than 400,000 Yazidi people have fled and become refugees, and they have taken up in camps in Iraq, Greece, Syria and Turkey. The crimes perpetrated by the Yazidi people go beyond the atrocities of rape and murder. They have set out to destroy an ancient culture. In doing that, they want to raise that culture from every part of the globe. Ministers in the United Kingdom Government, including the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Tobias Elwood, have been clear that they believe that genocide has taken place, and that has to be taken to the authorities and used. I commend what the member is trying to achieve. The United Kingdom is committed to supporting efforts to gather and ensure that evidence can be put in front of courts that show that the law has been persecuted and that individuals have been subject to these horrific situations. The UN has to design a system for us to collect that evidence and to ensure that evidence can be put in a court of law. The forced sexual enslavement of Yazidi women and the so-called Islamic State of another horrific situation that these women find themselves in is modern slavery. We are well aware that there is a significant problem in other parts of the globe as well with reference to slavery. We have even got indications of what is happening here in the United Kingdom. That is a situation that all Governments have to embrace and take on board. The UK Government is committed to combating modern slavery and human trafficking. The Prime Minister has committed £33.5 million to a fund to aid the programme to ensure that it is tackled at the root cause. The vast majority of international communities are opposed to Daesh and every part of their ethos and what they are trying to achieve. While they have failed to create a state, they have continued to terrorise people throughout the Middle East and to attack innocent civilians across the globe. In September last year, in collaboration with the counterparts in Belgium and Iraq, the foreign secretary Boris Johnson launched a global campaign to hold Daesh to account for their crimes. That has to take place. The Governments across the world have to unite. The UK Government is working closely with partner international agencies and will bring those to fruition. I look forward to seeing what plans are being proposed by Governments and Parliaments across the world. In conclusion, the crimes that are perpetrated by IS against those individuals are abhorrent and that everyone in the chamber utterly condemns them. The United Kingdom is working constructively with international partners to fulfil a moral obligation to ensure that the suffering that is presently taking place is combated. I would do all that we can to secure that that happens. I thank my colleague Ben Macpherson for lodging this motion and securing debating time on this matter, the importance and poignancy of which should strike a note with anyone who holds justice dear, particularly given the appalling events in London out of less than 24 hours ago. Genocide, as universally acknowledged, is one of the most abhorrent acts, rightly considered the crime above all crimes. As history has taught us, it must never be ignored. Is that for vital importance that the genocide that is perpetrated against the defenceless Yazidi people by Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant or ISIL by recognising and condemning as such on an international level? The peaceful Yazidis have suffered in previous times persecution but have never had an outright policy of extermination and assimilation being launched against them with such violence. The abhorrent and unprovoked display of violence, which began on August 2014, with the rise of occupation of the predominantly Yazidian Habitaton of Sinjar, resulted in the necessary deaths of thousands. What has been described by the UN is the largest mass kidnapping seen this century. By the end of August 2014, 1,600 to 1,800 or more Yazidis had been murdered, executed or died from starvation while fleeing. That number has risen steadily with every new report published, and by August last year at least 72 mass graves had been discovered containing up to 15,000 victims of slaughter, exposed as ISIL's caliphate retreats before advancing Iraqi forces. Along with the forced conversion of Yazidi males, ISIL detained 5,000 to 7,000 Yazidi women as slaves of forced brides. The sexual slavery that is taking place since the unprovoked attack is appalling and many slave markets still exist in the diminishing territory still controlled by ISIL, generating millions of dollars for its illegitimate terrorist state. Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war in the most barbaric way. Decisions made by the US Congress, European Parliament, French Senate and the UN, among other organisations to formally recognise these horrors of genocide have shown that we are making some progress towards justice for the Yazidi people. The House of Commons also defyde the UK Government to vote 278 to 0 in favour of declaring attacks on active genocide, calling on ministers to refer their atrocities to the UN. Despite its progress, the United Nations estimates that, in its third-year following events, 3,200 women and children are still held captive in horrific circumstances. Therefore, the international community should continue to work collaboratively to offer what protection and aid it can to the Yazidi people. In the display of solidarity that I hope will be mirrored in many societies, including our own, last year, Germany opened its doors to more than 1,000 Yazidi women and children who had managed to escape ISIL. Many witnesses and victims have also called for the UK Government's current resettlement programme that aims to admit 20,000 vulnerable people fleeing conflict in Syria to be extended to Yazidis. In October 2016, two Yazidi women who survived and escaped sexual enslavement by ISIL were awarded the Ews prestigious Sakharov human rights prize, as Ben Macpherson has pointed out. Nadia Murad and Lamia Ali Bashar have inspirationally spoke out about the horrors that they faced at the hands of the militant group, therefore raising awareness and giving a voice to the voiceless. Yazda, an NGO that supports the Yazidi community in Iraq, recognised this as a cause for celebration but respectfully added, and I quote, "...whence I safely hope that the international community will turn more attention to the thousands of Yazidi women and children still in captivity, the thousands of Yazidi men whose whereabouts remain unknown to their families and the hundreds of thousands of Yazidis who remain displaced in Iraq and elsewhere and are unable to return to their homelands and begin rebuilding their lives." Scotland is undoubtedly committed to upholding human dignity, human rights and fundamental equality. Our country welcomes and celebrates diversity in all its forms. In the face of despicable brutality, promoting tolerance and acknowledging the unimaginable human suffering and loss that can be inflicted by bigotry, brutality and religious intolerance has never been more significant. Presiding Officer, ISIL has made clear that it intends to destroy the Yazidis completely through killings, forced conversions and rapes. Organisations and governments across the globe increasingly recognise that genocide has been committed against Yazidis. Victims in Ladiya and Llamia want a chance to face their abusers in court and deserve nothing less. As such, there is no doubt that the UK Government should request that UN Security Council referless genocide to international criminal court in order to ensure adequate punishment for those who have committed such barbarities. Resolute and immediate action to prevent these events, repeating themselves, must be taken, as there is no valid excuse for ignorance or for failing to act. Lewis MacDonald, followed by Ross Greer Thank you very much. I too thank Ben Macpherson for bringing this debate today. The day after, Daesh-inspired murder came to Westminster bridge and new palace yards. Our thoughts go to all the victims of those murders and their families around the world. Daesh is an organisation dedicated to killing all who stand in their way. The objective is to create a state built on violence, falsely claiming a connection with Islam and Sharia law, but in reality representing only the rule of brutal and angry men who are at war with us all. They have made or inspired attacks in more than 30 countries around the world, murdering over 2,000 people in the last three years alone. Many thousands more have died where Daesh has deployed military force in Syria and in Iraq. The Yazidi population of Sinjar in Iraq has been assailed by a campaign of annihilation that has rightly been designated as genocide and a crime against humanity. The murder of men and boys by the thousands, the enslavement and rape of like numbers of women and girls, the stealing of children and the destruction of villages have all been intended to eliminate the Yazidis as a people. This attempted genocide, like the atrocities against Christians, Shia Muslims and ethnic minorities across the region, shows that self-styled Islamic State do not represent the true Islamic faith in any way. Far from a caliphate of the faithful, they would create a hell on earth. We should commend the courage and determination of the Yazidi people wherever they have taken refuge and help them to reclaim their homes. He tells us that genocide does not just happen out of the blue, that Daesh is only the latest vehicle for murderous hatred in Iraq. It was the regime of Saddam Hussein that turned an ancient cradle of civilisation into a prison state run by men who killed with impunity, sent out their agents to murder opponents around the world and brought genocidal violence to a land of many faiths and many cultures. Saddam Hussein's war on Iran cost a million Muslim lives. As that war ended, his regime visited genocidal violence on the Kurdish population of northern Iraq. At Halabja on 16 March 1988, he used mustard gas, cyanide and sarin to kill 5,000 defence with civilians and to injure 10,000 more. The chief culprit that day was Ali Hassan Abdul-Majid, cousin to Saddam Hussein, better known as Chemical Ali. Like his cousin, he was tried and eventually executed for his crimes, but many of the culprits of Halabja and the wider Anfal campaign against the Kurds remain unpunished. At least 100 former officers in Saddam's army are now to be found in the ranks of Daesh, doing to send her today what they did to Halabja 29 years ago. It was because such men were not brought to justice then that they are free to commit their crimes again. This time, they must be pursued with vigor and punished for what they have done. Those whose actions or reckless inaction have allowed those crimes to happen must also be held to account. Right now, the current elected Government of Iraq has to give a lead in securing justice for all its citizens. Human rights lawyer Amal Cluney referred to by Ben Macpherson spoke on behalf of Yazidi women at the United Nations in New York two weeks ago. She called on Prime Minister Haid al-Abadi to send the letter to the Security Council, which it needs, in order to trigger an investigation of the crimes of Daesh in Iraq. We should give our support to that call today. I hope that the minister can say so in closing this debate, so that justice can begin to be done for the Yazidis and for all those who have suffered murderous violence in that country in the last 50 years. I call Ross Greer to be followed by Ruth Maguire. I thank Ben Macpherson for bringing the atrocities that are inflicted on the Yazidi people to the attention of this Parliament and allowing us to raise them here today. As colleagues might be aware, I convene the Parliament's cross-party group on Kurdistan, and the Yazidis are unethnically Kurdish people, and until the genocide largely resided in Iraqi Kurdistan, they have endured a long history of oppression due to their ethnicity and their unique faith, as Mr Macpherson has already mentioned. However, the events of 2014 and the on-going atrocities have marked what is perhaps the darkest period in the recent history of the Yazidi people. In August of 2014, when Daesh made sweeping advances across Iraq and Syria, they came quickly to Sinjar, the home of many Yazidi people. Hundreds of thousands fled the city, many of whom were already refugees from the fighting elsewhere, including the most Yazidi population. Like Kurds have done so many times in their history, they fled to the mountains for safety. Those who stayed in fought could not hold back the barbarians who swept through the city and began massacring the residents. Forty-thousand of those who fled were cut off and surrounded on Mount Sinjar, largely children and the elderly who could not escape quickly enough. Those stuck on the mountain had little to no water, were surrounded by monsters and tent on their slaughter and had no means of escape. Some who had previously been captured and raped by Daesh were so traumatised by the thought of it happening again that they threw themselves from the cliffs rather than be taken. At this point, the now prevailing narrative is that the international community woke up and led by the US, the UK and Iraqi forces began dropping emergency aids onto the mountain and evacuating as many as they could by helicopter, all under fire from the Daesh positions below. That's true, but it ignores the very reason that Daesh never made it to the top of the mountain and continued their massacre. That was the Kurds who rescued their Yazidi cousins. The Kurdistan Workers Party or the PKK have been walked in a conflict with the Turkish state for some decades, but that debate and their history is for another time. Despite having nothing more than an infantry force equipped with light weapons, the PKK raced across northern Iraq and did what others were not doing. They put themselves between Daesh and 40,000 people on that mountain. PKK fighters, men and women joined by the YPJ Kurdish forces from northern Syria, moved in tractors and other vehicles and evacuated between 20,000 and 30,000 people from Mount Sinjar and into Kurdish-controlled northern Syria before repatriating them back into Iraq once it was safe. I do not say this to detract from the efforts of the Iraqi Peshmerga or the US or UK helicopter crews who risked their lives flying emergency aid in and refugees out, but their story has already been well told. The striking footage of helicopter crews dragging refugees on board while firing back at Daesh positions played out in media outlets across the globe, but the stories of those volunteers on the ground did not. Not only did Kurdish forces, the PKK and the YPJ, later joined by Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga, rescue those stranded in the mountain. They took back Sinjar, drove Daesh out at great cost, and they continue to fight to regain their homes. In northern Syria, where the Kurds have built a democratic, feminist, multi-ethnic and multicultural society, many Yazidis have joined the self-defence forces set up for them, received training and to this day take part in the struggle to rid their region of the scourge of Daesh. I say this not to glorify war, it's horrific, it's tragic and this conflict in particular has shocked us all with its brutality, but rather to highlight the defiance of the Yazidi people. Victims of genocide who have joined with other Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen, Muslims, Christians and others, not just to defeat the hatred, but to build in its place a society built on values of equality, tolerance and democracy, and I'm sure that we all have nothing but admiration for that. Before I call Ms Maguire, we do have another three speakers, which will take us over a lot of time, so I'm minded to accept a motion under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. Can I invite Ben Macpherson, please, to make such a motion? Formally moved. Thank you very much. So the question is, are members agreed that we extend this debate? That's agreed. Good, that's agreed. I call Ruth Maguire, please, to be followed by Annie Wells. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm deeply grateful to my colleague Ben Macpherson for bringing this hugely important and urgent topic to the chamber of our Scottish Parliament. The horrifying, systematic murder and torture of the Yazidi people at the hands of ISIS has been recognised as genocide by institutions and countries across the world, from the United Nations and the European Union to the USA, the UK and France. I'm proud that today Scotland will add its voice to the international cry of condemnation of the genocide being perpetrated by ISIS against the Yazidi people and join the ranks of those nations and institutions standing up for their justice and human rights. Just a few weeks ago, we marked international women's day with a debate in this chamber. We reflected on how far we've come and how far we still have to go. Reading about the plight of Yazidi women and girls in particular, I was forcefully reminded of the scale of the battle that still faces us when it comes to protecting the rights and safety of women across the world. In pursuit of its abhorrent and deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing, ISIS has separated hundreds of young women and girls, some as young as 12 from their families. They have been sold, given as gifts, or forced to marry ISIS fighters and supporters. Many have been subject to torture, rape, sexual violence and forced into sexual slavery. An ISIS pamphlet produced for its supporters has the following to say about unbelieving women, such as Yazidi women and girls who have been captured. If she is a virgin, he or her master can have intercourse with her immediately after taking possession of her. However, if she isn't, her uterus must be purified first. It is permissible to buy, sell or give as a gift female captives and slaves for their merely property, which can be disposed of. It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn't reached puberty if she's fit for intercourse. However, if she's not fit for intercourse, then it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse. Presiding Officer, as difficult as it is to say or hear those words, the horror of the reality of them is even more unthinkable. Many of us will have seen the video of Iraqi EZDMP via Dackhill, who broke down into heart-wrenching tears in her own Parliament. She pleaded with her Parliament and the international community. Save us, save us from ISIS. Now, all colleagues across the chamber will daily hear upsetting and difficult stories from our constituents about challenges and hardship they have in their lives. Presiding Officer, I can't even begin to comprehend having to come to this chamber and beg my colleagues to help me protect the people that I represent in Ayrshire from rape, torture and slaughter. ISIS is committing war crimes, it's committing crimes against humanity and it's perpetrating genocide. Not only that, but it's boasting about doing so. We can't stand by and allow this to continue. It must stop. The UK Government can request that the UN Security Council refer the genocide committed against the EZDP people to the international criminal court. I hope that it listens to both the calls of this Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament and acts. The genocide must stop and justice must be achieved. I call Annie Wells, who is followed by Johann Lamont. I thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I thank Ben, can I just say Ruth Maguire's speech there was very moving, very thought provoking and I just wanted to say thank you very much for sharing that information, some of which I didn't know. I would also like to thank Ben Macpherson for bringing the debate to the chamber today. The EZDP people have been made the unfortunate subjects of sentries of oppression in the modern day, although many have now fled to Australia, Canada and Germany. Iraq is now the one place where a sizable community still exists. Against the odds and the EZDP people remain under constant threat from the Islamic State campaign of murder, repression and violence. I am in absolute agreement that we need to do our utmost to prevent the constant threat EZDP people now face from Daish fighters. I agree, as did my UK party colleagues last May, that the actions of Daish equate to genocide and that is why I shall be supporting the motion today. The international community is united in defeating Daish and, as a result, we have seen thousands of people freed from their rule. Despite those small successes, however, the threat very much remains. Although Daish has failed to create a state that has not yet been defeated as a terrorist organisation, as we have already heard today, over 3,200 EZD women and children are still held by ISIS. Females are being sexually enslaved and EZD boys indoctrinated, trained and used in hostilities. That occurs while thousands of EZD men and boys remain missing. We owe it to those people to take action. It was a Conservative member, Fiona Bruce MP, who brought forward a motion on this issue last April. She said, I quote, that the proposers of this motion are here to insist that the overwhelming evidence of the atrocities of Daish and Syria and Iraq is recognised for the genocide it is and is considered as such by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court. This will support similar resolutions of other leading international legislative bodies. That is why I was pleased to see Alexander also highlighted that the Foreign Minister alongside counterparts from Belgium and Iraq launched a global campaign last year to hold Daish to account for these horrendous crimes. The British Government is working with its international partners, in particular the Government of Iraq, to bring forward a proposal at the UN to put the campaign into action and good progress is being made across the United Nations on designing a system whereby evidence can be collected to bring Daish to justice. As a backdrop to this, the UK Government is also providing our country's largest-ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. It has now pledged a total of over £2.3 billion to alleviate immediate humanitarian suffering through the provision of food, medical care and relief items to over a million people affected. Presiding Officer, once again, I'd like to thank Ben MacPherson for bringing this very important issue to the chamber today and I wish to reiterate my support for ensuring that we do our utmost to prevent them. Thank you. The last of the open speeches is Johann Lamont. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I say that I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and I thank everyone who has made such powerful speeches, both showing a degree of knowledge and passion about a subject that I think is worthy of this place. I hope that people outside of the chamber will take the opportunity to read these speeches and to learn about what is happening to the ZD people. I particularly want to congratulate Ben MacPherson both on securing his debate and on his powerful speech. I particularly appreciate that he has brought into the public domain the suffering of the ZD people, the suffering of which many of us have all too hazy a knowledge. We can recall incidents, we can remember something on the television but, as the cameras moved on, so have we. We do live in a world with 24-hour news but, sadly, we do not live in a world of 24-hours attention. Too often atrocities across the world are picked up, we pay attention and then we move on. We know that it is important that we shine a light on such atrocities if justice is to be secured. At this time, when we have seen the horror of a terror attack in London, we are particularly mindful of the consequences of terror and hatred across our communities. It is important when we discuss genocide that we look at the pattern of behaviour and the bigger picture that brings genocide upon a people. Such horrendous atrocities are hard to fathom, the scale of the suffering that people have suffered or, indeed, of the motives of those who commit genocide. What is it that takes people to create such suffering as a step beyond their own humanity? We see in Daesh people who have left their humanity behind. They destroy the physical evidence of civilisation as they seek to destroy peoples and faiths and those of whom they have decided they have no place within their society. Of course, the big lesson of genocide is that it is not a single event. It does not start with massacre. It does not start with mass graves. It starts with simple steps of othering people, of talking about the differences of laboring people, dehumanising people, preparing for genocide and then conducting it and then critically denying that it is happening. I am privileged to be a member of the board of Remembrings Rebonita Scotland. That is a campaign that has been created to insist that genocide is understood, that the steps to genocide are understood and the scale to which those committing genocide will go in order to deny their own crimes. In Bosnia, the mass graves do not just simply represent slaughter. They also represented the desire of those committing genocide to hide their crimes. Those forensic scientists, some of them, wonderful people from within our own communities in Scotland, have piece by piece established that that genocide took place. Later this year, there will be an opportunity to mark again the evidence and experience of the people of Srebrenica and beyond in Bosnia. Their desire is to speak of genocide so that we understand it, wherever it is experienced and wherever it is expressed. This year, the theme, and I think that it is an important theme that they have for their memorials this year, is breaking the silence on gender and genocide. Because we know in Bosnia, as indeed with the Yazidi people, there was a terrible slot to have visited upon the men and boys. But the women of Srebrenica, as in so many genocides, have seen themselves as victims of war, where rape and sexual violence of women have become a weapon of war and so tellingly and so powerfully described by my colleague on the other benches. That is the way in which genocide operates, the steps towards it and then the utter dehumanising of men and women and women sexual violence becoming a norm, a horrific norm in their lives. I want to conclude on just simply making two final points if I may, Deputy Presiding Officer. We live in a very fragile world and I think of the things that the new President Trump has said. The one that has scared me most is his comments that he would want to reduce the amount of funding that they would give as a nation to the United Nations. At this time, more than any, we need our international institutions to be strong, to take on those who would commit violence, atrocities, genocide against vulnerable people like the Yazidis that we have heard today. The second point that I would make is the need for our vigilans to understand where the small steps can take you and a message from a Bosnian refugee who said that we should welcome refugees who bring not only with them their suffering but an understanding of how violence and hatred can destroy communities and how states can collapse in the face of genocide, who know where hatred can take you and we need their wisdom now. I thank again Ben Macpherson for this very important debate. We stand in solidarity with the Yazidi people but also in our determination to do what we can to call out the violence and hatred that leads to the genocide that has too often damaged and destroyed people in our communities across this world. I now call Alasdair Allan to close this debate. Around seven minutes, please, minister. Let me begin, as others have done, by thanking Ben Macpherson for lodging the motion and securing this very important debate on justice for the Yazidi people. Of course, we debate it on a day when we remember all victims of terror and seek to build the understanding that we need to overcome that terror. I want to put on record the Scottish Government's own condemnation of the crimes perpetrated against the Yazidi people, a condemnation voiced by members today, and which, clearly, I would suggest is the view of this Parliament. Ours is a Government and a Parliament that stands in solidarity with the Yazidi people. Indeed, Ours is a nation that recognises its duty to stand in defence of human rights and equality and human dignity and minority communities around the world. Let me go further, as members have so eloquently reminded us in this debate that the Yazidi people have been victims of the most appalling crimes against humanity. Daesh is a monstrous criminal enterprise. It has perpetrated a long list of atrocities and war crimes and human rights abuses. No one has been safe. Kurds and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, civilians, young and old. Of course, David Haines and Alan Henning were murdered because they sought to bring humanitarian aid to those in need. In its campaign of hatred against the Yazidi people, Daesh has gone even further. It has exceeded even its own record of brutality. It has committed the ultimate and unforgivable crime. In its fanatical desire to impose a corrupt and twisted interpretation of one of the world's great religious traditions, it has sought to destroy an entire minority culture, an entire faith and an entire people. What the Yazidi people have suffered merits condemnation in the strongest possible terms. And today's debate has demonstrated that the Scottish Parliament is in no doubt about the matter. Daesh has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against the Yazidi people and against other religious and ethnic minorities. As we have heard, there is robust and unequivocal evidence that Yazidi men, women and children have been the victims of a campaign of murder, rape, abduction, sexual slavery, brutality and terror at the hands of Daesh in Iraq and Syria. The UN has confirmed that 5,000 Yazidi men have been executed and thousands of men and boys are still missing. Over 3,500 Yazidi women have been kidnapped by Daesh with multiple reports, as we have heard mentioned today, of sexual violence against women in detention and women living in Daesh-controlled areas. According to UN reports, the attacks on the Yazidis, which continue until the present day, are committed pursuant to an explicit ideological policy of the terrorist group whose radical religious interpretation does not permit the existence of Yazidism within the territory that it controls. According to some estimates, 70,000 people, or about 15 per cent of the Yazidi population in Iraq, have fled the country with many seeking asylum in Europe. The Yazidis themselves are in no doubt that their entire religion is being wiped off the face of the earth. This is a matter that needs urgently to be taken before the UN Security Council, before one of Iraq's oldest religious and cultural communities is exterminated. That, I believe, is the overwhelming view of members around this chamber. It is also, as Annie Wells alluded to, the view that was expressed in the House of Commons in April last year. I have to say that, like Mr McPherson, I am disappointed that the UK Government remains so reluctant to promote action at UN level to ensure that the genocide committed against the Yazidi people is referred to the international criminal court. That reluctance does not sit comfortably with the responsibility that we all have to lead and act in defence of human rights and human dignity. Presiding Officer, in Scotland, we are, I hope, and as we regularly and rightly say, an outward-looking and welcoming nation. The Scottish Parliament has spoken out against actions here today that amount to and are genocide. We speak out lest we forget the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. We speak out because the world must act to prevent the repetition of the horrors that we have seen visited upon Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Alabdia and Darfur. We speak out because we know that such crimes continue to be committed, not just in Iraq and Syria but in South Sudan, where personal greed, the thirst of power and a poisonous cocktail of political rivalry and ethnic violence have created a new humanitarian disaster. Lewis MacDonald. He wants to address wider issues. Before moving on from the issue of the Yazidis in Iraq, does he accept that the critical next step in terms of enforcement action by the United Nations is for the Iraqi Government to take? Will he join the call that I made earlier that the Iraqi Government should now take that step and send that letter to the Security Council? Alison Allen. Yes, I believe that the Iraqi Government bears responsibility in that area as well. I think that all of us should seek to ensure that these are crimes that come before the UN and indeed come before international courts. We speak out, as I say, about humanitarian disasters that are in many cases caused directly because of genocide. We cannot afford to pay mere lip service to the idea of human rights, of equality, of human dignity. We must live by the principles of tolerance, dignity and respect and why we must never be complacent about prejudice, discrimination and hatred. That debate has been an opportunity to make a public statement of solidarity with the Yazidi people and with other oppressed peoples and communities around the world. As a nation, we have a responsibility to be a good global citizen and to protect the world's most vulnerable people. In conclusion, I can say that today's debate has made clear that the Scottish Parliament recognises and condemns the genocide perpetrated against the Yazidi people. We have united across party political lines to do so and in doing so we also join with the United Nations and with other parliaments, Westminster, the US Congress, the French Senate and the European Parliament in expressing our condemnation and our solidarity. The meeting is suspended until 2.30 p.m. The debate has been concluded.