European Parliament recognizes ISIS killing of religious minorities as Genocide

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, ARMENPRESS. The European Parliament unanimouslypassed a resolution on Thursday recognizing the Islamic State militant group’s (ISIS) systematic killing and persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East as genocide, “Armenpress” reports.

The vote, decided by a show of hands at a European Parliament plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg, was thefirst timethe body has recognized an ongoing conflict situation as genocide. The resolution states that those who intentionally commit atrocities for ethnic or religious reasons should be brought to justice for violations against international law, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

ISIS has systematically persecuted religious minorities in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria,kidnapping hundreds of Assyrian Christiansin Syria, forcingChristians to live under its radical strand of Islamin the central Syrian city of Al-Qaryatain, enslaving and raping Yazidi women and children in northern Iraq, as well as killing Yazidi men and dumping them in mass graves.

Lars Adaktusson, Swedish member of the European Parliament for the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) Group, who tabled the resolution, calls the vote a “historic decision” that representsa further step towards recognition of ISIS crimes against Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities at the United Nations.

“It’s really important that the Parliament passed it, on a political level and a moral level. The significance is the obligations that follow by such a recognition,” he says, speaking toNewsweekby phone. “The collective obligation is to intervene, to stop these atrocities and to stop the persecution in the ongoing discussion about the fight against the Islamic State.”