Pressure on Kerry to name IS atrocities as genocide

A resolution passed last week by the US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee has put the State Department under severe pressure to recognise the atrocities against Christians committed by Islamic State (IS) as genocide.

“Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities” were victims of atrocities that should be classified as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, the resolution said. It was passed unanimously through the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and will be put to a vote in Congress. The State Department, under Secretary of State John Kerry, has until next Thursday to say whether it regards the IS campaign as one of genocide.

Last autumn the State Department indicated it was prepared to include Yazidis in a genocide declaration but not Christians. If the US declared that genocide was taking place, 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.

Additionally, a genocide designation is important because it creates a legal – and moral – requirement for further action, according to Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute. “Serious bodily harm,” she told Catholic News Agency, “was inflicted on Christians with the intent of eradicating them,” and this was a standard for genocide under the UN convention.

The further action that can be taken does not necessarily have to be military, but can involve granting refugee status to genocide victims and increasing their humanitarian aid.
Members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars signed an appeal to the US Congress last autumn saying that IS has committed genocide against Christians, Shia Muslims, Sunni Kurds, Yazidis, “and other religious groups”.

Both the European Union and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom – a bipartisan federal commission that advises the State Department – have declared that genocide is taking place against these minorities. Pope Francis said in July that “a form of genocide is taking place” in the Middle East against Christians. Presidential candidates including Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and Republicans Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have said that genocide is occurring.

However, Mr Kerry is more guarded. In a 24 February exchange with Nebraska Republican representative Jeff Fortenberry at a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing he was pressed by Mr Fortenberry to call the atrocities against Christians “genocide”. He stopped short of doing so, instead saying, “I share just a huge sense of revulsion over these acts ... we are  doing what I have to do, which is review very carefully the legal standards and precedents for whatever judgment is made.”

 Meanwhile, a new Motion has now been put down in the House of Commons by a cross-party group of MPs led by Rob Flello, the  Catholic Legislators’ Network convenor. It warns that the failure of the British Government to uphold the provisions of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide risks bringing shame and international disrepute on the United Kingdom.