Knights: Recognize the genocide

Richard A. Sokerka

While the U.S. government continues to ignore calling the Islamic State’s killing of Christians as genocide, the Knights of Columbus are standing up for those being persecuted for their faith. They have started a petition drive and television campaign seeking to persuade Secretary of State John Kerry to call this barbaric terrorism what it is — genocide.

“Christians in Iraq and Syria have suffered injustice after injustice by being kidnapped, killed, having their homes and churches confiscated or destroyed, and being forced to flee for their lives,” said Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus. He said that these Christians “deserve to have the U.S. State Department call what has happened to them by its rightful name: genocide.”

By law, the State Department must choose how to designate the atrocities by March 17, according to the Knights of Columbus. Official recognition of genocide would have consequences for U.S. foreign policy, including refugee resettlement policy.

The petition states in part: “America must end its silence about the ongoing genocide against Christians and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria.” It asks Kerry “to declare that Christians, along with Yazidis and other minorities, are targets of ongoing genocide.” The petition cites the United Nations anti-genocide convention. This defines genocide as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

The petition also cites the joint statement between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow that said, “Whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated.” The militant Islamist group’s actions have included assassinations of Church leaders, mass murders and deportation, torture, kidnapping for ransom, forced conversion, sexual enslavement, and systematic rape in addition to the destruction of Christian churches and monasteries.

As of press time, more than 26,000 people had already signed the petition online, which was launched Feb. 25.

Join them by going to ww.stopthechristiangenocide.org and adding your signature to the Knights’ efforts to assist our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted for their faith.