12/08/2018 Iraq (International Christian Concern) – The United Nations has finally announced that their team sent to investigate the genocidal crimes of ISIS against religious minorities is scheduled to being their probe early next year. According to the team leader, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, part of the delay was that they have met some resistance from the Iraqi government regarding the probe.
ISIS swept across the Nineveh Plains and Sinjar in 2014, displacing both Yazidis and Christians. The UN did not officially authorize a team to investigate ISIS’s genocide until September 2017. Iraq declared total victory from ISIS a few months later, in December 2017. It is expected that the UN investigate team will begin their probe in early 2019.
The long delay by the UN both to authorize the probe and in commencing investigative activities has come under heavy criticism. The potential corruption of evidence and the chain of evidence over this period of time is a concern voiced by many human rights groups. How this would impact any criminal prosecution of ISIS militants remains another concern. Many victims of ISIS’s genocide have pointed to an absence of law as having contributed not only to the rise of ISIS but also to the lack of security in the region.
For interviews with Claire Evans, ICC’s Regional Manager, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: press@persecution.org.
