III
114TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION H. CON. RES. 75
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
MARCH 15, 2016
Received and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the atrocities per-
petrated by ISIL against religious and ethnic minorities
in Iraq and Syria include war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and genocide.
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 egre-
gious atrocities against ethnic and religious minorities in
Iraq
and
Syria,
including
Christians
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(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 submis-
sion, 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 traf-
ficking, 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 numer-
ous cultural sites, religious shrines, churches, mon-
asteries, and museums in order to eradicate the cultures
of ethnic and religious minorities from the territory it at-
tempts to control;
Whereas these atrocities have been undertaken with the spe-
cific intent to bring about the eradication of those com-
munities and the destruction of their cultural heritage;
Whereas ISIL operations have in fact driven minority reli-
gious and ethnic communities from their ancestral home-
lands;
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Whereas under applicable international law referenced in sec-
tion 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 Inter-
national Military Tribunal convened at Nuremberg in
1945, and in various international instruments since
then, include murder, extermination, enslavement, depor-
tation, and other inhumane acts committed against any
civilian population, as well as persecution on political, ra-
cial, 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 de-
stroy, 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 in-
nocent, including Yezidi and Christian minorities, and its
grotesque and targeted acts of violence bear all the warn-
ing signs and hallmarks of genocide'';
Whereas in August 2014, the United States conducted tar-
geted airstrikes and humanitarian assistance operations
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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, especiallybut not onlyChristians and
Yezidis have suffered and are still suffering inhuman vio-
lence because of their ethnic and religious identity'' and
that, for Christians being killed for their faith in the
Middle East, ''a form of genocideI 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 affili-
ation to an ethnic or religious group'' and stated that
''[i]t is reasonable to conclude that some of these inci-
dents, considering the overall information, may constitute
genocide'';
Whereas in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Com-
mittee on May 13, 2015, Dominican Sister Diana
Momeka, whose convent was driven from Mosul, Iraq, de-
scribed the ISIL offensive as ''cultural and human geno-
cide'' 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 Me-
morial 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
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crimes, and ethnic cleansing against [Christian, Yezidi,
Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandean, and Kaka'i] com-
munities in Nineva'' and ''perpetrated genocide against
the Yezidi people'';
Whereas on December 7, 2015, the United States Commis-
sion 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 ex-
pressed 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 dis-
placed 11 million people: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
1
concurring), That
2
(1) the atrocities perpetrated by ISIL against
3
Christians, Yezidis, and other religious and ethnic
4
minorities in Iraq and Syria constitute war crimes,
5
crimes against humanity, and genocide;
6
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(2) all governments, including the United
1
States, and international organizations, including
2
the United Nations and the Office of the Secretary-
3
General, should call ISIL atrocities by their rightful
4
names: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
5
genocide;
6
(3) the member states of the United Nations
7
should coordinate urgently on measures to prevent
8
further war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
9
genocide in Iraq and Syria, and to punish those re-
10
sponsible for these ongoing crimes, including by the
11
collection and preservation of evidence and, if nec-
12
essary, the establishment and operation of appro-
13
priate tribunals;
14
(4) the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the
15
Lebanese Republic, the Republic of Turkey, and the
16
Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq are to be
17
commended for, and supported in, their efforts to
18
shelter and protect those fleeing the violence of ISIL
19
and other combatants until they can safely return to
20
their homes in Iraq and Syria; and
21
(5) the protracted Syrian civil war and the in-
22
discriminate violence of the Assad regime have con-
23
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tributed to the growth of ISIL and will continue to
1
do so as long as this conflict continues.
2
Passed the House of Representatives March 14,
2016.
Attest:
KAREN L. HAAS,
Clerk.
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