Bishops' conference welcomes European Parliament decision to call killing of Christians in Iraq and Syria genocide

COMECE, the commission of European Bishops’ Conferences, has hailed a European Parliament resolution branding the systematic killing of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria by the violent Islamic State movement as genocide, writes Tom Heneghan.

The resolution also urged the United Nations Security Council to recognise this as a war crime and called on the EU to establish a permanent Special Representative for Freedom of Religion and Belief.

A Comece statement called the resolution “a move which is as remarkable as it is welcome.”

The resolution said Islamic State atrocities fit the definition of the crime in the UN’s 1948 convention against genocide.

Earlier this month Lord Alton of Liverpool, with Baroness Nicholson and Baroness Cox, moved an amendment to the Immigration Bill in the House of Lords, that victims of genocide should be given priority in asylum applications. He urged the Government to present the evidence of genocide to the UN.