ICC Note: While Christians are on the brink of elimination in Iraq and Syria, political leaders are unable to decide whether or not the label of genocide should be applied to the situation. The threat from Islamic extremists has already driven more than a 1.5 million Christians out of Iraq and Syria and it is unlikely that they will ever be able to return.
12/07/2015 Middle East (JNS) – While Christians in Iraq and Syria face the threat of extinction at the hands of the Islamic State terror group, the U.S. State Department remains silent on the prospect of publicly designating the atrocities against Christians and other Mideast religious minorities as “genocide.”
According to a recent investigative piece by journalist Michael Isikoff for Yahoo! News, the State Department is in the midst of internal discussions to officially recognize the Yazidi people as genocide victims. But a lingering question remains: Will other religious minorities be included in the Obama administration’s designation?
“Scholars and experts are in consensus regarding the term ‘genocide’ being applied to both Christians and Yazidis alike…We need to ensure that all groups being persecuted by Islamic extremism are being treated equally under Article 2 of the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” Mark Arabo, an American spokesman for the Middle East’s Chaldean Catholic community and a human rights activist, told JNS.org.
…
