Demanding Action at the UN to Defend the Persecuted Church from ISIS Genocide
Today, working with our international affiliate the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), we filed a legal memorandum at the United Nations detailing the genocide of Christians being perpetrated by ISIS in Iraq.
The filing exposing ISIS’s atrocities comes just ahead of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s special session on September 1st.
The submission explains:
ISIS has emerged as so ruthless that other well-known, radical Islamist groups have distanced themselves from ISIS and have publicly condemned ISIS’ actions. ISIS jihadists commit violence against fellow Muslims in violation of Sharia; they routinely commit war crimes and engage in torture in violation of international law; and they also issue threats to Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities. ISIS is especially dangerous because, not only are ISIS leaders and fighters ruthless, but they also have sufficient material assets to support a standing military force and they possess the will to use weapons of mass destruction. . . .
ISIS routinely tortures its enemies in violation of international law. ISIS operates several detention facilities, which it uses to punish those who break Sharia or oppose ISIS. Individuals suspected of violating Sharia or opposing ISIS, including young children, have been abducted and transported to prisons, where they have been flogged, tortured, and executed. Other targets for imprisonment include: members of the media, local councils, rival rebel groups, international organisations, and foreign religious figures. Former detainees describe various modes of torture common in ISIS prisons: beating detainees with “generator belts, thick pieces of cable, sticks or other implements”; forcing detainees to remain in “contorted stress position[s]”; giving electric shocks; solitary confinement; and flogging.
The utter brutality of ISIS’s actions is cruel beyond imagination.
Not only are the atrocities they are committing heinous, but they are essentially bragging about it, using “social media to spread photographs and videos depicting massacres.”
When it comes to Christians, ISIS has escalated its atrocities. As our submission details:
In Mosul, Christians faced death unless they converted or paid a fine, called Jizya, in accordance with Sharia. In Mosul, ISIS militants tagged Christian houses with the letter “N” for Nassarah, a common term used for Christians in the Quran, so that jihadist terrorists could attack them.
Nearly 50,000 Christians have been displaced from Qaraqosh, including those who fled from neighboring Mosul. Yazidis, Shias, and liberal Muslims have also been displaced from the region. ISIS views these groups as “infidels without human rights.”
Our memo concluded, “Torture, intentionally targeting civilians, killing soldiers in custody and unable to defend themselves, desecrating corpses, genocide, and the like are commonplace with ISIS. They all constitute war crimes.”
We’re urging all the nations of the world to unite to defeat this barbaric enemy.