Scottish Catholic Observer

MPs have voted unanimously to declare that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and Yazidis in the Middle East. The vote increases the pressure on the UK Government to take action.

The House of Commons yesterday voted by 278 votes to 0, with backing from all major parties, despite official Government opposition. The Foreign Office directed ministers and Government aides to abstain from the vote. The Government has said that genocide is a legal term not to be used without legal authority.

“The unanimous vote by MPs to declare that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and Yazidis in the Middle East will hopefully bring much needed recognition to the perilous situation faced by Christians and other minorities,” a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said.

The motion calls on the government to refer the matter to the UN Security Council with a view to involving the International Criminal Court, to bring ISIS leaders to justice. In her speech, Fiona Bruce (above), the MP who proposed the motion, said ‘never before during a genocide has the international community had such a full record of what was happening.’ She described instances of ISIS killing and torturing Christians and Yazidis. She mentioned eyewitness testimony including that of a young Yazidi woman.

“At the age of 15, she saw her father and brother killed in front of her, and told of how every girl in her community over the age of eight, including herself, was imprisoned and raped,” she said. “She spoke of witnessing her friends being raped, and of seeing a girl aged nine being raped by so many men that she died. Many young girls had their fragile bodies rendered incapable of pregnancy, and others, far too young to be so, were made pregnant.”

Before the vote Lord David Alton of Liverpool, whose amendment to get the genocide recognised in the Lords last month was narrowly defeated, added: “There is abundant evidence that a genocide is underway and Parliament must recognise it in the name of justice and solidarity with our fellow Christians and others who have been targeted.”

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said: “Lord Alton is to be commended for his work in giving the plight of the persecuted, much wider attention. The British Parliament joins the European Parliament, the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the US Senate in accusing ISIS of genocide.”

Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood, speaking for the Government, condemned ISIS’s actions but did not say the Government would take action. “This ultimately is a matter for courts to decide,” he said. “It is not for governments to be the prosecutor, the judge or indeed jury.”

A statement from the Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need, which advocates for the rights of persecuted Christians, said the British Government could no longer ignore the situation.

“The UK Government is increasingly isolated in its refusal to name Daesh actions as Genocide,” it said. “This term has now been formally used by US Secretary of State, John Kerry and received the backing of the US House of Representatives and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. So our Government needs to stand up and be counted.”

—[email protected]