British Parliamentarians have called for the slaughter of religious minorities in the Middle East to be recognised by the UN as genocide.
In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron signed by 60 Members of Parliament, Mr Cameron is urged to use his influence to begin a process that would result in the UN declaring the actions of Islamic State (IS) against such groups as Christians and Yazidis as genocide. This, according to the signatories, would send a clear message that those behind the terrible crimes now taking place will ultimately be tried and punished.
Penned by MP Rob Flello and Lord Alton, the letter asserts that there is now clear evidence that IS actively engaged in a range of actions designed to eradicate all communities not in keeping with its fundamentalist tenets. This includes forcible conversions to Islam, the murders of church leaders, mass murder, demolition of churches, cemeteries and monasteries, the kidnapping for ransom of Christians, and “the sexual enslavement and systematic rape of Christian girls and women”.
Article II of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention says: “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
According to the text of the MPs’ letter: “There would be two main benefits from the acceptance by the UN that genocide is being perpetrated.
“First, it would send a very clear message to those organising and undertaking this slaughter that at some point in the future they will be held accountable by the international community for their actions; they will be caught, tried and punished.
“Second, it would encourage the 127 nations that are signatories to the Convention to face up to their duty to take the necessary action to ‘prevent and punish’ the perpetrators of these evil acts.”
Meanwhile, it has emerged that a group of Muslims in Kenya thwarted the slaughter of Christians by militants there when the bus in which they were all travelling was ambushed by gunmen.
The incident was sparked when members of the al Shabab group slipped over the border into Kenya and halted the bus, demanding that Christians and Muslims stand in different groups. However, recognising the militants’ intentions, Muslim passengers refused to obey, demanding that the gunmen kill all or leave. Faced with the unexpected show of defiance, the militants withdrew.
