Religious leaders and human rights advocates are urging US President Barack Obama to formally declare the killing and displacement of Middle Eastern religious minorities by the Islamic State militants as genocide.
The appeal is contained in a letter dated Oct. 5 signed by more than 100 religious leaders, scholars and human rights, according to the Catholic News Agency (CNA).
"We humbly request that your office publicly acknowledge and denounce the Islamic State's actions as genocide and act with all due haste to ensure that this ongoing, abominable crime is halted, prevented and punished and that religious freedom and human dignity of all people currently suffering under the Islamic State are allowed to flourish," the letter said.
The letter stated that the ISIS has consequently displaced myriads of Christians, Yazidi and Shia Muslims, inflicting countless atrocities upon those populations since it established a caliphate in Syria and Iraq two years ago. The list of grievances includes "displacement, forced conversion, kidnapping rape and death," CNA reported.
Local religious minorities have reportedly been under pain of death to leave their homes, convert to Islam or remain and pay a special tax. In the Nineveh Plain alone in Northern Iraq, over 100,000 Christians have been displaced from their homes, according to CNA.
''The atrocities meet the United Nations' definition of 'genocide,' the religious leaders stated in their letter.
Moreover, the Islamic militants reportedly "desecrated, looted, and destroyed monasteries, shrines, and other ancient relics and artifacts of the region."
The letter to President Obama was signed by numerous religious and civic leaders, including Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; Professor Robert Destro of the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law; and Dr. Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
Genocide is defined under the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide as an "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. The actions in question can range from murder to torture, kidnappings, prevention of births, and withholding of critical resources like food and water from a group of people."
Meanwhile, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Nebraska) said a bipartisan resolution calling the atrocities genocide has already been introduced in the US House of Representatives. It reportedly has 96 co-sponsors.
