UK Parliament to Debate Labeling ISIS Atrocities 'Genocide,' May Vote After Motion

Islamic State

UK members of parliament may soon vote on whether to recognize ISIS' atrocities in Middle East as genocide or not, according to Christian Today.

The UK parliament has been divided on the issue of labeling ISIS-perpetrated violence against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Middle East as acts of genocide.

Conservative MP Fiona Bruce will introduce the motion in the House of Commons next Wednesday, in which the MP has asked the government to put pressure on UN and International Criminal Court (ICC) to intervene. Though the outcome of the debate may not suffice to make the government declare ISIS' activities genocidal, it is expected that Bruce will ask for a vote at the end of the motion, which will force the government to take a stand on the issue.

The motion declares that "this House believes that Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria are suffering genocide at the hands of Daesh; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to make an immediate referral to the United Nations Security Council with a view to conferring jurisdiction upon the International Criminal Court so that perpetrators can be brought to justice."

The government was treading cautiously on the issue of ISIS actions genocide, as that will put moral obligations on the state to accept more refugees. However, the parliament is now coming under increasing pressure to label the atrocities as genocide, because the European Parliament already affirmed ISIS' genocidal stats in February, even as US Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated the same position in March.

"Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions, in what it says, what it believes and what it does," Kerry said in a televised address.

In many parts of Syria and Iraq, no Christians are left as the ISIS ordered them to leave, pay a tax or be executed. In many other places though, several thousand Christians and Yazidis were killed as ISIS sought to capture large territories of land.

The government approached the issue with a balanced approach during last week's debate in Parliament. Tobias Ellwood said that he believed acts of genocide have taken place, and that the minorities had suffered "systematic and horrific attacks" at the hands of ISIS. In spite of the that, he maintained, "genocide should be a matter of legal rather than political opinion... it is right for any assessment of matters of international law to remain in the hands of the appropriate judicial authorities."

A month ago, House of Lords rejected the amendment to label ISIS violence against minorities as genocide by 148-111. If it were approved, the decision would have passed to High Court to give its final verdict on ISIS' crimes.