Matthew BarberVerified account

@Matthew__Barber

University of Chicago PhD student— Iraq/Syria/Yazidis/Islamic thought— Former ED Yazda Iraq— Co-Editor Syria Comment— Image: Castañeda 'Aquí es el centro'

chicago.academia.edu/barber
Joined April 2013
349 Photos and videos Photos and videos

You may also like

·

Worldwide trends

Tweets

You blocked @Matthew__Barber

Are you sure you want to view these Tweets? Viewing Tweets won't unblock @Matthew__Barber

  1. Pinned Tweet
    2 Apr 2018

    "Sinjar is at risk of becoming a forgotten region if weak coordinated response continues" — Urgent, comprehensive new report from & on humanitarian need and reconstruction in —Full Report here:

    3 replies 76 retweets 88 likes
    Undo
  2. Retweeted
    Feb 21
    Replying to

    We raised this issue in Jan 2018 but no one listened so we went there and created an emergency paediatric unit in a building destroyed by ISIS. When children needed surgery we had to send them to Mosul in a taxi but if they didn’t make it there in time they died.

    3 replies 7 retweets 9 likes
    Undo
  3. Retweeted
    Feb 21

    Visited Sinjar w/French Amb to Iraq. lack of basic services there is unacceptable and shameful. No surgery room is available at the PHC at all, if a woman is in labor at middle of the night & she needs a c-section, she has to drive to a hospital 3-4 hours away.

    8 replies 50 retweets 78 likes
    Undo
  4. Retweeted
    Feb 18

    [1] When we talk about female ISIS members, some euphemistically called "brides", and about our Western values ​​of why we should take them back, remember this 12-year-old girl abducted by ISIS, separated from her family, taken to Raqqa in and being raped there.

    5 replies 143 retweets 116 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  5. Retweeted
    Feb 15

    This is a Yazidi I met in a roasting refugee camp, with his 2 surviving children. He lost 2 daughters (both under the age of 12) to the beds of ISIS rapists, & his 2 elder sons to brainwashers who turned them into killers for the Caliphate.

    179 replies 3,273 retweets 4,674 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  6. Feb 14

    So much for the "promotion of virtue and prevention of vice" — 's government is helping Saudi students charged in the US for rape, manslaughter, and child pornography to escape the US justice system and return to Saudi Arabia:

    5 retweets 2 likes
    Undo
  7. Retweeted
    Jan 28

    4 Black inmates were handcuffed to a table at the S. OH Correctional Facility to be stabbed by a white inmate, Greg Reinke, who said “I just felt like killing someone.” He wasn’t prosecuted because he’s serving a life sentence. The prison denied that the guards set it up.

    4,118 replies 21,165 retweets 21,048 likes
    Undo
  8. Retweeted
    Jan 27

    : the secular leader of the , Mîr Tahsîn Saîd Alî Beg, died today at the age of 85 years in . Mîr Tahsîn Beg was since 1944 the leader of the Ezidis worldwide and also head of the Spiritual Council in .

    5 replies 42 retweets 58 likes
    Undo
  9. Jan 13

    Important report on destruction of farmland in , from & /:

    4 retweets 6 likes
    Undo
  10. Jan 12

    Very important article on how Kurdistan's political parties are eliminating the independent KRG judiciary and are appointing politicized judges in contravention of the law:

    My latest : Judiciary in Region in Peril.
    6 retweets 18 likes
    Undo
  11. Jan 9

    42) There will be costs associated with either approach, but if the international community is serious about responding to the Genocide that it has recognized & ensuring the future survival of Yazidis, it should confront the root causes & pursue the most effective long-term plan.

    1 reply 14 retweets 13 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  12. Jan 9

    41) As the KDP do not administer Sinjar, have no security presence there, are resented by the people, and can only lay claim to co-opted and defunct unelected admin officials, there is ultimately no reason to involve them in Sinjar.

    1 reply 13 retweets 12 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  13. Jan 9

    40) It would be easier to train a new generation of Yazidi leaders with any technocratic skills that they lack than to try to bring parties with armies who mutually loathe each other (none of which are loved or fully trusted by the people) to the table.

    2 replies 12 retweets 11 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  14. Jan 9

    39) < responsibility for Sinjar, and an international community (i.e. one or more powerful Western governments) that sponsor a commission that works directly with Baghdad to motivate this and provide oversight/accountability.

    1 reply 14 retweets 13 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  15. Jan 9

    38) I am also completely confident that 95% or more of Yazidis in Sinjar desire this, the remainder being those who are heavily invested in a major Kurdish party, whether KDP or PKK. Such a plan requires two things: an active Baghdad that finally prioritizes Nineveh and takes >

    1 reply 13 retweets 10 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  16. Jan 9

    37) A Yazidi man recently said to me, "I wish that all political parties would be made illegal in Sinjar." I believe that rather than trying to bring all sides together, a local administration with a mandatory and enforceable requirement of total nonpartisanship is the solution.

    1 reply 16 retweets 12 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  17. Jan 9

    36) In the event where the new administration was announced, a banner was used that misleadingly displayed "Nineveh Governorate Council" to convey legitimacy.

    1 reply 13 retweets 9 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  18. Jan 9

    35) Though this local coalition certainly enjoys more popular support on the ground that the rightfully-defunct KDP administration (and would therefore be at least preferable to it), it is questionable the degree to which it could truly inaugurate a de-politicized Sinjar.

    1 reply 13 retweets 11 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  19. Jan 9

    34) Then on the 27th, PKK-supported factions announced a new administration for Sinjar. This one involved a larger participatory coalition of groups that even included Arabs and Turkmens.

    1 reply 13 retweets 13 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  20. Jan 9

    33) (This is not something unusual; in 2012, people in Sinjar were awakened in the middle of the night by the gunfire of KDP members celebrating that Sinjar had just been declared "the capital of Kurdistan" by KDP authorities in Erbil.)

    1 reply 13 retweets 11 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo
  21. Jan 9

    32) After the ICG's recommendation in December (which was also published in Arabic), competing claims to the mayoral office were quickly asserted. On Christmas day, Mahama Khalil declared that Shingal was officially part of the Kurdistan Region:

    1 reply 12 retweets 14 likes
    Show this thread
    Show this thread
    Undo

@Matthew__Barber hasn't Tweeted yet.

Loading seems to be taking a while.

Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.