[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 75 Engrossed in House (EH)]
<DOC>
114th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. CON. RES. 75
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Whereas Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities have been an
integral part of the cultural fabric of the Middle East for millennia;
Whereas the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated
extremists are committing egregious atrocities against ethnic and
religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, including Christians
(including Assyrian Chaldean Syriac, Armenian, and Melkite communities,
among others), Yezidis, Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandeans, and Kaka`i,
among others;
Whereas ISIL specifically targets these religious and ethnic minorities,
intending to kill them or force their submission, conversion, or
expulsion;
Whereas religious and ethnic minorities have been murdered, subjugated, forced
to emigrate, and subjected to grievous bodily and psychological harm,
kidnapping, human trafficking, torture, and rape;
Whereas ISIL engages in, and publicly argues in favor of, the sexual enslavement
of non-Muslim women, including pre-pubescent girls;
Whereas ISIL atrocities against Christians, Yezidis, and other minorities have
included mass murder, crucifixions, beheadings, rape, torture,
enslavement, the kidnaping of children, and other violence deliberately
calculated to eliminate their communities from the so-called Islamic
State;
Whereas ISIL has deliberately destroyed and looted numerous cultural sites,
religious shrines, churches, monasteries, and museums in order to
eradicate the cultures of ethnic and religious minorities from the
territory it attempts to control;
Whereas these atrocities have been undertaken with the specific intent to bring
about the eradication of those communities and the destruction of their
cultural heritage;
Whereas ISIL operations have in fact driven minority religious and ethnic
communities from their ancestral homelands;
Whereas under applicable international law referenced in section 2441 of Title
18 of the United States Code, murder, torture, mutilation, rape, cruel
treatment, and hostage-taking of non-combatants constitute war crimes;
Whereas crimes against humanity, as defined by the International Military
Tribunal convened at Nuremberg in 1945, and in various international
instruments since then, include murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian
population, as well as persecution on political, racial, or religious
grounds in connection with such crimes;
Whereas the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide, signed and ratified by the United States, defines
genocide as ``any of the following acts committed with the intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious
bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended
to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children
of the group to another group'';
Whereas on August 7, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ``ISIL's
campaign of terror against the innocent, including Yezidi and Christian
minorities, and its grotesque and targeted acts of violence bear all the
warning signs and hallmarks of genocide'';
Whereas in August 2014, the United States conducted targeted airstrikes and
humanitarian assistance operations to help break the siege of Mount
Sinjar, saving the lives of thousands of Yezidi men, women, and
children;
Whereas His Holiness, Pope Francis, has noted that ``entire communities,
especially--but not only--Christians and Yezidis have suffered and are
still suffering inhuman violence because of their ethnic and religious
identity'' and that, for Christians being killed for their faith in the
Middle East, ``a form of genocide--I insist on the word--is taking
place, and it must end'';
Whereas a March 13, 2015, report by the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights detailed ``acts of violence perpetrated
[by ISIL] against civilians because of their affiliation or perceived
affiliation to an ethnic or religious group'' and stated that ``[i]t is
reasonable to conclude that some of these incidents, considering the
overall information, may constitute genocide'';
Whereas in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 13, 2015,
Dominican Sister Diana Momeka, whose convent was driven from Mosul,
Iraq, described the ISIL offensive as ``cultural and human genocide''
and stated that today ``[t]he only Christians that remain in the Plain
of Nineveh are those who are held as hostages'';
Whereas in December 2015, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-
Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide issued a report focused on
the treatment of minorities in Nineveh from June to August 2014, which
found that ISIL had ``targeted civilians based on group identity,
committing mass atrocities to control, expel, and exterminate ethnic and
religious minorities'' and, in that context, ``committed crimes against
humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing against [Christian, Yezidi,
Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandean, and Kaka'i] communities in Nineva''
and ``perpetrated genocide against the Yezidi people'';
Whereas on December 7, 2015, the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom called on the United States Government ``to designate
the Christian, Yezidi, Shi'a, Turkmen, and Shabak communities of Iraq
and Syria as victims of genocide by ISIL'' and urged world leaders ``to
condemn the genocidal actions and crimes against humanity of ISIL that
have been directed at these groups and other ethnic and religious
groups'';
Whereas on February 3, 2016, the European Parliament expressed the view that
ISIL ``is committing genocide against Christians and Yezidis, and other
religious and ethnic minorities'';
Whereas Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's violence against the Syrian people
has attracted foreign fighters from around the world, who have supported
and committed ISIL atrocities; and
Whereas according to some estimates, the conflict among all parties to the
Syrian civil war has killed 470,000 and displaced 11 million people:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That--
(1) the atrocities perpetrated by ISIL against Christians,
Yezidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and
Syria constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
genocide;
(2) all governments, including the United States, and
international organizations, including the United Nations and
the Office of the Secretary-General, should call ISIL
atrocities by their rightful names: war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and genocide;
(3) the member states of the United Nations should
coordinate urgently on measures to prevent further war crimes,
crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq and Syria, and to
punish those responsible for these ongoing crimes, including by
the collection and preservation of evidence and, if necessary,
the establishment and operation of appropriate tribunals;
(4) the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Lebanese Republic,
the Republic of Turkey, and the Kurdistan Regional Government
in Iraq are to be commended for, and supported in, their
efforts to shelter and protect those fleeing the violence of
ISIL and other combatants until they can safely return to their
homes in Iraq and Syria; and
(5) the protracted Syrian civil war and the indiscriminate
violence of the Assad regime have contributed to the growth of
ISIL and will continue to do so as long as this conflict
continues.
Passed the House of Representatives March 14, 2016.
Attest:
Clerk.
114th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. CON. RES. 75
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the atrocities perpetrated by
ISIL against religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria include
war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.