ACLJ Takes Fight Against ISIS Genocide to Key World Leaders

While Syria and Iraq remain the main areas in which ISIS fighters are focusing their genocidal attacks against Christians and other religious minorities, these attacks are spreading. Yesterday, in our ongoing effort to combat ISIS, we sent letters to 12 key world leaders who understand first-hand the danger of ISIS’s spreading jihadist genocide and terrorism.

Our letters are addressed to the leaders of Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, England, Spain, the Philippines, Egypt, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Lebanon. With the exception of possibly Spain and Austria, all of these countries have recently experienced ISIS attacks within their borders. Austria recently condemned ISIS’s acts as acts of genocide and called on the United Nations Security Council to also recognize the genocide against Christians.

This genocide is expanding globally. As we stated in our letters:

The Islamic State (commonly referred to as ISIS . . . ) and its affiliates are spreading. Increasingly, we are witnessing Islamic State attacks in regions of the world beyond Iraq and Syria. There have been recent attacks in the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium. The Islamic State has carried out attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt. Even Southeast Asia is affected, as the Islamic State attempts to gain a foothold in the Philippines. It is imperative that the international community join together to stop this growing threat.

Our letters also addressed the U.N.’s continued failure to take any action to prevent genocide, stop ISIS, and protect the victims.

Shockingly, the United Nations has yet to formally recognise that the ongoing atrocities committed by the Islamic State against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere in the region constitute genocide for purposes of implicating the obligations of the international community pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the well-established responsibility to protect. The United Nations must do so with haste.

Because of the U.N.’s failure to declare ISIS’s acts as acts of genocide, we urged each country to use their influence and

call for all United Nations bodies to recognise and declare that the ongoing atrocities committed by the Islamic State and associated groups constitute genocide and that Christians are among those victimised thereby, and vocalise your support for a referral by the Security Council to the International Criminal Court or the establishment of a competent tribunal in order to investigate violations by the Islamic State committed in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region against Christians, Yazidis and other religious and ethnic minorities.

As we’ve stated before, ISIS is not only intent on expanding its genocide against Christians, but it is fully capable of doing so. Increasing attacks around the world, such as those experienced by the countries to whom we addressed our letters, demonstrate the need for the international community to come together to stop ISIS in its tracks.

We will continue to put pressure in any way we can on the United Nations to remember its obligation to “stand against the evils of the ongoing genocide and use all available options to stop the genocide and protect the victims.”

Join with us. Add your name to our petition to stop the genocide and protect our fellow Christians.