Christian lives under threat in Middle East
ISIS is perpetrating genocide, Carl Anderson and Archbishop Bashar Warda say
Canada should be commended for its leadership in recommending that the United Nations Security Council investigate ISIS’s crimes.
Canada should also lead on the question of genocide by ISIS, rather than following a UN commission’s misguided exclusion of Christians from such a designation.
The idea that some religious groups have been targeted for genocide by ISIS but Christians have not is false and dangerous.
This is all the more obvious since the recent murder of a priest by ISIS in France.
Christians have been included in genocide designations by the European Parliament, U.S. State Department and Congress, parliaments and officials of a number of European governments, as well as the Iraqi cabinet and the Kurdish Regional Government.
The evidence offered to exclude Christians relies on ISIS propaganda that Christians are given the choice of paying “jizya” — a “tax” historically offered in exchange for protection — rather than facing a “convert or die” ultimatum. It’s just not true. ISIS’s former leader Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi publicly revoked special treatment of Christians years ago (he was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi forces mission in 2010).
ISIS has applied the term “jizya” to include kidnapping, rape and confiscation, which are hallmarks of genocide. It has used the handful of Christians left in its domains as human shields.
A priest, Rev. Emanuel Adelkello, negotiated with ISIS as they invaded Nineveh. When interviewed for the nearly 300-page report on genocide that the Knights of Columbus prepared for the U.S. State Department, he said: “(Jizya) was only put forward initially as a ploy from which ISIS could keep the Christians there to further take advantage of them and abuse them.”
Iraq’s Christian population has plummeted by nearly 90 per cent, Syria’s by almost 70 per cent. In the land where it took root, Christianity could be stamped out within our lifetime.
It is time for Canada and the UN to join the international consensus, supported by a majority of Canadians at a rate of two to one in our recent K of C-Leger poll.
When 21 Coptic Christians were beheaded in orange jump suits, it showed ISIS’s genocidal intent against Christians.
Coptic Orthodox Bishop Anba Angaelos warned: “If Christians are excluded from the classification of genocide, my concern, my fear, my expectation is that we will be responsible for a greater and more ruthless campaign of persecution against them. … People will see the international community has supported one group against another and they will see that other as fair game.”