[UPDATE: Dec. 12, 2018] President Donald Trump signed legislation on Tuesday to help ensure humanitarian relief reaches the members of religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria who have been targeted for genocide by Islamic State militants.
“In recent years, IS has committed horrifying atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq, including Christians, Yazidis, Shia and other groups,” Trump said.
[Dec. 4, 2018] The House of Representatives unanimously approved H.R. 390, the Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act, on Nov. 27. Because the bill was approved with amendments by the Senate in October, and has now cleared both chambers of Congress, it is just one step away from becoming law. It was presented to President Donald Trump on Thursday for his approval and signature.
Thank you to all of our supporters who used our Actions page to advocate for the adoption of this crucial piece of legislation. We applaud our local lawmakers, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA-28), Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA-39), and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA-30) for co-sponsoring the Act. JWW visited all of their offices and pushed for H.R. 390’s adoption.
The Act, which was introduced back in 2017 by Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), promotes accountability for crimes committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and provides for the urgent humanitarian and stabilization needs of persecuted religious and ethnic minorities. JWW has been strongly advocating for the passage of this piece of legislation, especially as it applies to the Yazidi population of Iraq, who are internationally recognized as survivors of de jure genocide.
ISIS has perpetrated myriad atrocities against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria over the past four years, including: mass killings, rape as a weapon of war, enslavement, assassination of religious leaders and destruction and desecration of cultural and religious sites. The Yazidis were the only religious minority singled out for annihilation. Ethnically Kurds, the Yazidis’ faith combines elements of Zoroastrianism, Sufi Islam, Judaism and Christianity as well as beliefs from ancient Mesopotamia. In 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor to the Islamic State, issued a religious proclamation calling for the killing of Yazidis. “Unlike Christians, who [were] told they must either pay a religious tax or convert to Islam to avoid death, the Yazidis [were] considered by Sunni militants to be infidels who deserve extermination.”
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria found that “genocide has occurred and is ongoing … ISIS has subjected every Yazidi woman, child or man that it has captured to the most horrific of atrocities.” According to the Commission’s report, ISIS forcibly transferred Yazidis into Syria after launching its attacks on northern Iraq’s Sinjar region in August 2014. Evidence collected by the Commission demonstrated that ISIS “sought to erase the Yazidis,” by perpetrating all of the acts in the Genocide Convention which can amount to genocide in the presence of the intent to destroy a population, in whole or in part. These acts included killings, sexual slavery, torture, forcible transfer, imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families to ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from the beliefs and practices of their own religious community. Yazidi women and girls, some as young as nine, were sold into sexual slavery, endured brutal rapes and severe beatings, were forced to have abortions when impregnated by their captors, and were essentially treated as chattel. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Yazidi rape survivor Nadia Murad, was honored for shining the spotlight on this unconscionable violence against women.
H.R. 390 calls for the provision of humanitarian and stabilization aid to Yazidis, Christians, Shia Muslims and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria. It also supports criminal investigations and prosecutions of the terrorists responsible for genocidal acts and mass atrocities against these populations. The measure directs the State Department to use already appropriated funds to provide assistance to minority ethnic and faith communities targeted by the Islamic State. The measure also directs the State Department to support criminal investigations and judicial actions against individuals suspected of committing genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The Act further directs the Secretary of State to encourage other countries to help in the identification and prosecution of suspected perpetrators, and calls upon the Justice Department to determine the extent to which U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the above-mentioned atrocities.
“As survivors return to their homes and begin rebuilding their communities, the United States government must make it a priority to help families in need of assistance while ensuring the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity are held to account,” said Rep. Eshoo, one of the original drafters. While JWW is thrilled that religious minorities in Iraq and Syria are finally getting the support and attention they deserve, we will be monitoring the implementation of this legislation, once it becomes law, to ensure that it is not applied disproportionately to one religious minority over others.
JWW has expressed concerns in the past about the classification of Iraqi Christians as victims of genocide, when the Yazidis were unique in being targeted for extermination. We hope that the implementation of humanitarian and stabilization assistance will be guided by the degree of destruction and need of each discrete minority group rather than wielded as a political tool.