President Obama has indicated that his administration will label what the Islamic State is perpetrating against Yazidis in Iraq and Syria as genocide. Unfortunately, he seems intent on denying the same designation for the Christians of the region.
This matters for a couple of reasons. First, the genocide designation would give Christians and Yazidis priority in resettlement in the United States. Many non-Muslims avoid UN camps because they fear for their safety at the hands of Muslims.
Second, as Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch told the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations in his Dec. 9 testimony on Capitol Hill, “It is striking what a difference that word makes…Our conclusion as genocide scholars is that when lesser terms, weaker terms are used, it is a sure indicator of an unwillingness to act.”
This summer, I traveled in Syria and Iraq, filming a documentary about the situation that Christians there face and how they have reacted. And despite whatever President Obama has to say on the matter, the Islamic State is clearly committing genocide against both Yazidis and Christians.
The United Nations defines “genocide” as certain actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical (sic), racial or religious group.” Among the actions that constitute genocide when combined with that intention are “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The Islamic State has made clear its intentions in this regard. Some religious killings of Christians have even been performed on video. This could be considered part of a broader campaign of intimidation by which the group seeks to remove all traces of the ancient Christian communities in Syria and Iraq.
That Christians feel forced to flee under threat of death became obvious from the conversations I had with Christian refugees.
“We were kicked out of our houses,” one boy told me. “We got out of the house at 5 am, and when we got to Erbil it was 6pm…When ISIS started attacking, the first bomb hit right in front of our house,” he said, crying as he added his belief that his mother had developed cancer and later died from the fright.
“I had everything there,” he went on, describing the home he had been forced to flee. “I had a bicycle and I used to play football everyday and now we don’t have anything.”
He was, of course, one of the lucky ones. In the best-case scenario, Islamic State authorities force Christians to pay a special tax (jizya) on conquered non-Muslims to fund their evil rule, in exchange for the privilege of living under it as second-class citizens. For poorer Christians, the Islamic State sets this Koranic tax at a minimum of more than the average Syrian’s monthly income, without regard for their ability to pay. Thus, many must choose between conversion or death.
Many Christians are thus kidnapped or murdered. Sometimes they are held for ransom. I spoke to the mother and brother of one Christian woman for whom an Islamic State member had demanded a ransom of $30,000, which the family paid. “From that day we have not heard from her,” the brother said.
This all serves to create mental anguish and conditions under which Christian communities cannot survive in their homeland — again, both acts that constitute genocide by the United Nations definition.
Janee, a refugee in Erbil for a year now whose son was kidnapped and beaten by Islamic State radicals for a month, said that not even international humanitarian efforts can make up for the loss of hope and dignity that afflicts Christian refugees.
“Many organizations visited us here, but they never found a solution for us,” she said. “They bring us lentils and bulgur to eat but that’s not what we need. We need dignity and we need someone to stand for us and help us — not only for us Christians but for all the young people in danger here in Iraq. They just eat the food they give us and take the jeans they provide and go to hang out without any job or any dignity. Everything is gone, work is gone, the house is gone, the whole country is gone.”
Father Douglas Bazi, a Catholic priest who runs a refugee camp in Erbil, was so grim in his assessment that he told me that he withholds it from his parishioners when they ask about the situation, lest they despair.
“I don’t think this crisis will finish,” he said. “It will need time, at least 10 years, and that’s why I don’t share that with my people.”
Christians living in the shadow of the black flag are clearly being subjected to a genocide that meets the United Nations definition by any measure. For the sake of justice and as acknowledgement of the truth on the ground, it is critical for the State Department to recognize this genocide and proceed accordingly.
Jordan Allott is executive producer of In Altum Productions, and creator of Our Last Stand, a film about how Christians in Syria and Iraq are coping with the Islamic State invasion of 2014 and 2015. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
