Bashiqa

Bashiqa (Kurdish: Başîk, Arabic: بعشيقة, Ba'shiqah‎‎, Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܥܫܝܩܐ‎) is a town in the Mosul District of the Ninawa Governorate in northern Iraq. Bashiqa's residents are mostly Yazidis and Shabaks, with a minority of Assyrians, and Arab Muslims. Bashiqa is famous for its olive trees, olive oil, and soap. It is also famous for its onion, pickles and arak. It used to be a tourist destination for the locals in Mosul and Iraqis in general. Bashiqa is surrounded by farms of olives all around the town and there is a small mountain to the north. The Yazidis in Bashiqa and its twin village Bahzani speak Arabic as their mother language.

Bashiqa is officialy Iraqi territory but is controlled and claimed by the Kurdistan Regional Government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. According to Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, a referendum should decide whether it should continue to be managed by the central government or the KRG. The status of the city is still not fully understood. According to reports by Human Rights Watch (2011), UNHCR (2007) and other human rights organizations the townspeople are forced and threatened with violence if they should not vote for inclusion of the city in the Kurdistan Region.

In the town square of Bashiqa, Du'a Khalil Aswad, a young woman from the Yazidi community, was stoned to death in 2007 by a large crowd of men in an "honor killing".

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