ISIS committing genocide in Iraq, religious liberty activists assert

FRISCO—Oppressed religious minorities in Iraq deserve for the world to identify their plight accurately, leaders of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative told a Texas Baptist gathering. 

“We have come to believe what is happening at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq is genocide and constitutes crimes against humanity,” said Elijah Brown, executive vice president of the religious liberty and human rights organization.

Elijah BrownBrown, a former professor at East Texas Baptist University, participated in a panel discussion on religious persecution, held prior to the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. 

Although national and international officials apply the term “genocide” sparingly, “the atrocious acts perpetrated by the Islamic State”—also known as ISIS or ISIL—against Christians, Yezidis and other minorities fit the definition as determined by the United Nations, he insisted. 

“Using that language honors the victims,” he said. Furthermore, a declaration by the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly recognizing the existence of genocide in Iraq “unlocks the doors” for a range of sanctions and prosecution of offenders by the International Criminal Court, he added.

Member nations should urge the U.N. Permanent Council to call for a commission of inquiry to investigate conditions in Iraq. If they do, Brown added, they will discover what the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative uncovered when its representatives traveled to Iraq—people “on the edge of extinction.”

Randel Everett“There were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq before 2003. There are about 250,000 now, and most are in IDP (internally displaced people) camps,” said Randel Everett, founding president of the Virginia-based human rights and religious liberty group and former executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“Last Christmas was the first time that bells did not ring out in the city of Mosul in 2,000 years,” Brown said.

Fifty years ago, about 10,000 Jews lived in Iraq.

“Today, we’ve been able to identify four,” Everett said.

Anti-Semitism frequently serves as the first indicator of future oppression of other religious minorities, Brown noted.

“There is a saying in the Middle East: ‘First the Saturday people. Then the Sunday people,’” he said.

Brown recounted first-person testimony from people he interviewed in Iraq. As the advancing army of the Islamic State moved into one area, Christians and others fled with nothing except their clothes on their backs, he said.

One group of nuns who escaped in a van told how mothers handed over their infant children, begging the nuns to take them to safety, Brown said.

Although the situation in Iraq bears all the marks of crimes against humanity, few in the international community have used that language to describe it. However, reluctance by U.S. officials to acknowledge genocide did not originate with the Obama administration, he noted.

“The U.S. government historically has been reluctant to call anything ‘genocide,’” Brown said, pointing to earlier examples in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia. 

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