A report released on Thursday has been increasing the pressure on the Obama administration to officially declare that the violence against Christians, along with other minority groups such as Yazidis, in Syria and Iraq is 'genocide.'
Called "Genocide against Christians in the Middle East," the 278-page report was submitted by two groups called the Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians. It argues that there is enough evidence for the acts committed against Christians and other minority groups to fit the standards of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The report also provides 24 pages of witness statements given between February and March, as well as specific attacks perpetrated by ISIS.
1,131 Iraqi Christians have been killed between 2003 and June 9, 2014, the report states, and adds that over 1,500 Yazidi and Christian girls and women have been captured, bought, and sold as sex slaves.
"ISIS readily admits that it intends to destroy Christianity – and all other non-Wahhabi-Salafi faiths – in the lands it controls and attacks," the report states. "Nobody doubts that ISIS will kill more Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, Jews, and other religious minorities if it has the resources and opportunities. And all observers of the situation in Syria note the risks to the Christian, Alawite, and other minority religions should the country descend further into chaos."
"The bottom line is that the genocide continues, and the United States Government has 'undertake[n a legal and moral obligation] to prevent and punish' it," it continues.
"Should the State Department not provide the equivalent of an indictment of ISIS' genocide, we fear that it will be the State Department itself that will face the indictment of history," said Carl Anderson, the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic organization, at a press conference on Thursday.
Late last year, Congress called on Secretary of State John Kerry to decide by March 17 whether "the situation constitutes mass atrocities or genocide ... and a detailed description of any proposed atrocities prevention response recommended." Another resolution has also been introduced in the House of Representatives (House Concurrent Resolution 75) urging the Obama administration to declare that "those who commit or support atrocities against Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities, including Yezidis, Turkmen, Sabea-Mandeans, Kaka'e, and Kurds, and who target them specifically for ethnic or religious reasons, are committing ... 'war crimes,' 'crimes against humanity,' and 'genocide.'"
The pressure from religious groups as well as lawmakers comes as both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have avoided using the term 'genocide' when describing the violence that has been occurring in the Middle East. Though recently, the Obama administration has been considering using the term to describe the violence against the Yazidis, it also considered using it only for the violence against that minority group, according to reports.
Kerry, however, did say, “None of us have ever seen anything like it in our lifetimes. Obviously if you go back to the Holocaust, the world has seen it,” during a foreign affairs committee meeting. He added that he is studying the "legal standards and precedents" of the term in order to make the call.
Similarly, when asked by a reporter in early February whether he is prepared to use the term 'genocide' to describe the violence by the Islamic State against Christians, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, "My understanding is, the use of that word involves a very specific legal determination that has at this point not been reached."
"But we have been quite candid and direct exactly about how ISIL's tactics are worthy of the kind of international, robust response that the international community is leading. And those tactics include a willingness to target religious minorities, including Christians," Earnest added.
According to Bob McKenzie, who studies Islamic world issues at the Brookings Institution and previously worked as a senior adviser in the State Department, making the declaration that the circumstances in the Middle East are "genocide," would force the administration "to advance in ways ... they are [not] prepared to do now," as he told the Washington Post.
Genocide experts say that the term may have policy implications in regards to sanctions, refugee camps, and other issues.
Cameron Hudson, the director of the center for genocide prevention at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, told the Washington Post that an additional complexity with this situation is that while 'genocide' was used to hold certain nations accountable in the United Nations' International Criminal Court, the Islamic State is not a recognized country to hold accountable or to have sanctions against.
Meanwhile, multiple Christian groups have been continuously calling on the government to address the violence against Christians as genocide. A petition created by the American Center for Law and Justice in January urged Obama to recognize that Christians are victims of genocide, and was signed by over 226,000 people. 30 signatories signed a letter sent to Kerry in early December of 2015, and a letter sent to President Obama on February 17 was signed by more than 110 individuals including Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; and Nina Shea, the director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and a former member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
"Thousands of our brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering targeted persecution at the hands of ISIS," Russell Moore told the Baptist Press. "This isn't just political unrest or a humanitarian catastrophe -- it is the systematic destruction of an entire people."
