[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 43 (Thursday, March 17, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1452-H1453]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IS GENOCIDE

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, facing persecution, murder, and 
torture each day, Christians overseas are persecuted for their 
religious beliefs. These individuals are being slaughtered, raped, and 
sold into slavery and forced to watch as their churches are burned 
down.
  This morning, the State Department labeled these atrocities as 
genocide. This is mass genocide by ISIS and other radical jihadist 
groups that is taking place throughout the world.
  Less than a year ago, 30 Ethiopian Christian men were marched to a 
beach, beheaded, and shot by radical Islamist terrorists because of 
their religion. These killers proudly put the video of the executions 
on YouTube.
  In total, over 1,000 Christians have been killed by the radical 
Islamic State. These atrocious, cold-blooded massacres are an attack on 
the very nature of human existence: the right to practice one's 
religion.
  Declaring the torture, crucifixion, and murder of Christians and 
certain religious groups genocide is now the official position of the 
United States. Genocide in any form is a grave injustice to those who 
are persecuted for their beliefs. Those people who murder Christians 
and other minorities because of their religion must be brought to 
justice because, Mr. Speaker, justice is what we do.
  And that is just the way it is.

                           International law

       Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the 
     Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as 
     ``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; 
     causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the 
     group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of 
     life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in 
     whole or in part1; imposing measures intended to prevent 
     births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children 
     of the group to another group.''
       The definition of Genocide is codified in 18 U.S. Code Sec. 
     1091:
       (a) Basic Offense.--Whoever, whether in time of peace or in 
     time of war and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole 
     or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or 
     religious group as such--
       (1) kills members of that group;
       (2) causes serious bodily injury to members of that group;

[[Page H1453]]

       (3) causes the permanent impairment of the mental faculties 
     of members of the group through drugs, torture, or similar 
     techniques;
       (4) subjects the group to conditions of life that are 
     intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in 
     whole or in part;
       (5) imposes measures intended to prevent births within the 
     group; or
       (6) transfers by force children of the group to another 
     group;

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