ISIS Genocide against Middle East Christians Intensifies
Veronica Neffinger | iBelieve Contributor | Thursday, May 26, 2016
As genocide against Christians and other minorities intensifies in the Middle East, advocacy groups are putting pressure on the United Nations to do more to intervene.
In March of this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry officially declared that Christians and other minorities in the Middle East were facing genocide. However, groups such as the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) are pushing for more to be done to help those who are being persecuted.
According to The Christian Post, the ACLJ wrote a letter to Kerry, thanking him for his genocide declaration, but also calling on the U.S. to take several steps to help advance the case of the victims at the United Nations by:
"1) pressing the United Nations to declare that the ongoing atrocities committed by the Islamic State and associate groups constitute genocide; 2) communicating with all appropriate offices of the United Nations to that end; and 3) doing everything in your power to mobilize the international community to take swift and decisive action."
In their letter to Kerry, the ACLJ details how ISIS is targeting both Christian and Yazidi minorities, forcing them to pay the jizya tax, destroying their homes and places of worship, and even brutally putting them to death.
The letter warns that action must be taken because the Christian population in the Middle East is rapidly decreasing, due either to death or to residents fleeing to other countries.
The ACLJ hopes that the letter will influence the discussion at June's U.N. Human Rights Council meeting.
The ACLJ has also launched a petition to defend Christians from genocide which has garnered 125,000 signatures.
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