Time is running out

Richard A. Sokerka

March 17 is the deadline for the U.S. State Depart­ment to declare Christians as victims of genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) under an omnibus bill passed in December.

Both the European Union and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — a bipartisan federal commission that advises the State Department — have already declared that genocide is taking place against Christians, but the State Department continues to remain silent on the issue.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a genocide resolution, becoming the latest body to call for a formal recognition of ISIS’ actions as genocide. “ISIS commits mass murder, beheadings, crucifixions, rape, torture, enslavement, and the kidnapping of children, among other atrocities,” said Congressman Ed Royce (R-Calif.). “So as ISIS destroys churches and other holy sites, they move closer towards eliminating certain communities,” he added. “ISIS is guilty of genocide and it is time we speak the truth about their atrocities. I hope the administration and the world will do the same, before it’s too late.”

The United Nations’ definition of genocide, as detailed in the 1948 convention on genocide, is actions taken with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The actions include murder, torture, birth prevention, and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

In addition to the many Christian clergy killed and taken hostage by ISIS, there have been many atrocities documented including the ISIS crucifixion of 12 Christian missionaries in Syria, the kidnapping of 180 Assyrian Christians and the execution of three of them, and the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians last year.

Archbishop Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria has testified that more than 1,000 Christians there have been murdered or abducted by ISIS. There have been mass graves of Christians reported in Sadad by Aid to the Church in Need. YouTube videos show supposed ISIS fighters desecrating churches. Three Orthodox churches near Mount Sinjar in Iraq were demolished by ISIS and the whereabouts of their congregations are unknown.

If the U.S. declared that genocide was taking place against Christians, it would put further pressure on the United Nations Security Council to issue a similar declaration. That could bring the next step of trying the perpetrators in the International Criminal Court.

We urge the State Department to act without hesitation and call the atrocities of ISIS what they are — genocide.