On 23 June 2026, the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality held a public hearing in Brussels on gender oppression and violations of women’s rights, focusing on Iranian women and gender apartheid. Jino Victoria Doabi attended as an invited speaker in her role as Head of International Relations at Hiwa. She was not there as an elected Member of the European Parliament, a representative of a European state or a representative of the Ezidi people.
However, in his video clip reviewed by Ezidi Times, Doabi says:
“And the Kurdish community and Kurdish people are diverse. We have, as I said, Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, non-religious people, as we have lived side by side for thousands of years. What united us as a people was resistance against power, terrorist groups, invaders, colonizers.”
Her statement is politically loaded and historically careless. Jewish and Christian people are not Kurdish. Ezidis are not Kurdish. None of the groups listed are “Kurdish” simply because a Kurdish activist places us in a list and announces that we all form one people. Ezidis are a distinct ethnic and religious people, and Doabi has no authority to erase that distinction.
If she thinks that kidnapping and raping Ezidi, Armenian, Greek and Assyrian women makes the aforementioned people’s “Kurdish”, then we really have to remind her about her ancestors’ disgusting and shameful history and give her a beginner’s lesson in basic history.
The setting makes her remarks even worse. She had been invited to speak at a hearing on women’s rights. Instead of staying focused on that subject, she used the platform to insert a Kurdish nationalist claim over the identities of other peoples. Hiwa openly defines itself as a Kurdish organisation whose work is rooted in Kurdish identity and whose international advocacy seeks to keep Kurdish rights on the global agenda. That explains her political position, but it does not give her permission to claim Ezidis.
Who appointed her to define us? Which Ezidi institution gave her a mandate? Which Ezidis voted for her? The answer is none.
Doabi may speak for Hiwa. She may speak for her own political movement. She may speak for Kurds who accept her representation. However, she does not speak for Ezidis!
There is also a glaring contradiction in condemning “invaders” and “colonizers” while politically absorbing another people into your own national identity. You cannot demand respect for Kurdish identity while denying Ezidis the same right. You cannot speak about liberation while ignoring the self-identification of another people. That is not solidarity. It is appropriation.
Her decision to bring this claim into a women’s-rights hearing shows where her priorities lie. Even on a platform dedicated to women facing oppression, she chose to promote a wider Kurdish political narrative and use Ezidis as part of it. That was unnecessary, disrespectful and deeply irresponsible.
A microphone inside the European Parliament does not create legitimacy. An invitation to a hearing does not make someone the representative of every people she chooses to mention.
Jino Victoria Doabi keep your political dreams in check and mind your words. Who are you to speak on behalf of Ezidis and call them Kurdish? Why can’t you build your Kurdish propaganda-identity on those “40 million Kurds” you all claim exist? Why so desperate to include the less than 2 million Ezidis? Is it because your Kurdish identity is so shallow that you are forced to loot, borrow and copy from Ezidis, Assyrians, Jews and others?
Ezidis never asked you to include them in your disgusting political agenda and “kurdish-dream”.
