Testimony before the UN Human Rights Council, delivered by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, in debate on report of the UN special rapporteur on racism and discrimination, June 28, 2016.
Mr. Rapporteur, Thank you for your report on xenophobia, which mentions genocide, in paragraphs 29 and 38; the Middle East in paragraphs 57 to 61; and Islamophobia in paragraphs 33, 34, 51, 56, and 63.
Now last week, experts of this council found that the Islamic State is committing genocide, against the Yazidis. Mr. Rapporteur, given that genocide is the ultimate manifestation of racism, is there a reason why the genocide of Yazidis—the only ongoing genocide recognized by this council—was not mentioned anywhere in your report?
I call your attention to the elaborate ideology behind the killings practiced by ISIS. This was brought to light last August in a major New York Times investigative report entitled “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape; Claiming the Quran’s support, the Islamic State codifies sex slavery in conquered regions of Iraq and Syria and uses the practice as a recruiting tool.”
The newspaper interviewed 21 women and girls who escaped the Islamic State, and examined its official communications. It found that the systematic rape of women and girls from Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and radical theology of the Islamic State, one year after the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution.
The article shows how an Islamic State fighter, in the moments before he raped a 12-year-old girl, took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. He insisted that because the girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran, in his view, not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it.
Mr. Raporteur, would you consider examining how this genocidal theology developed, and where it came from? Are there UN member states who bear at least partial responsibility, through their funding of fundamentalist religious and educational institutions?
Mr. Rapporteur, over the past 15 years, as we’ve been discussing racism and discrimination under the Durban Declaration, why was this global scourge, killing innocents from Iraq to Nigeria, Orlando to Paris, never part of the official narrative?
Why, on the contrary, were the few human rights activists, journalists, and intellectuals, who tried to sound the alarm, accused of racism and Islamophobia?
Do you believe we at the UN help create a global culture that made this discussion taboo? Did the Durban process fail Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims now facing genocide?
I thank you.

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• UN Watch hosts UN testimony of Yazidi Member of Iraqi Parliament
• UN Watch gives Geneva Summit Courage Award to Yazidi MP Vian Dakhil
• UN Watch urges UNHRC action to stop Yazidi genocide
• UN Watch leads UN rally and campaign to stop Yazidi killings in 2014
• UN Watch publishes Urgent Appeal from Yazidi leadership, August 2014

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Source: United Nations Office of the High Commission of Human Rights

UN COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON SYRIA: ISIS IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE YAZIDIS

GENEVA  (Issued as received)– The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) is committing genocide against Yazidis, according to a report, “They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis”, issued today by the independent international Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. The report by the Commission of Inquiry also determined that ISIS’s abuse of Yazidis amounts to crimes against humanity and war crimes.
“Genocide has occurred and is ongoing”, emphasised Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Commission. “ISIS has subjected every Yazidi woman, child or man that it has captured to the most horrific of atrocities.”
As per the Commission’s mandate, the report focuses on violations committed against Yazidis inside Syria, where thousands of women and girls are still being held captive and abused, often as slaves. The Commission also examines how the terrorist group forcibly transferred Yazidis into Syria after launching its attacks on northern Iraq’s Sinjar region on 3 August 2014. Collected information documents evidence of intent and criminal liability of ISIS’s military commanders, fighters, religious and ideological leaders, wherever they are located.
The Commission’s findings are based on interviews with survivors, religious leaders, smugglers, activists, lawyers, medical personnel, and journalists, as well as extensive documentary material, which corroborate information gathered by the Commission.
ISIS sought – and continues to seek – to destroy the Yazidis in multiple ways, as envisaged by the 1948 Genocide Convention. “ISIS has sought to erase the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions of life that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community”, the report says.
ISIS separated Yazidi men and boys over 12 from the rest of their families, and killed those who refused to convert, in order to destroy their identity as Yazidis. Women and children often witnessed these killings before being forcibly transferred to locations in Iraq, and thereafter to Syria, where the majority of captives remain.
Thousands of women and girls, some as young as nine, have been sold in slave markets, or souk sabaya, in the Syrian governorates of Raqqah, Aleppo, Homs, Hasakah and Dayr Az-Zawr. ISIS and its fighters hold them both in sexual slavery and in slavery, the report says, with Yazidi women and girls being constantly sold, gifted and willed between fighters. One woman, who estimated she had been sold 15 times, told the Commission, “It is hard to remember all those who bought me”.
“Survivors who escaped from ISIS captivity in Syria describe how they endured brutal rapes, often on a daily basis, and were punished if they tried to escape with severe beatings, and sometimes gang rapes,”, said Commissioner Vitit Muntarbhorn.
Treated as chattel, many Yazidi women and girls are forced to perform household tasks, and are denied adequate food and water by their fighter-owners. The Commission also heard accounts of how some Yazidi women and girls committed suicide to escape the cruel torment.
Young children bought and held with their mothers are beaten by their ISIS-owners, and subjected to the same poor living conditions as their mothers, the report states. They are often aware of the abuse that their mothers are suffering. Yazidi boys older than seven are forcibly removed from their mothers’ care and transferred into ISIS camps in Syria where they are indoctrinated and receive military training. One boy, taken for training in Syria, was told by his ISIS commander, “even if you see your father, if he is still Yazidi, you must kill him”.
“ISIS has made no secret of its intent to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, and that is one of the elements that allowed us to conclude their actions amount to genocide”, said Commissioner Carla Del Ponte.
The report noted that ISIS, which considers the Yazidis to be infidels, has publicly cited the Yazidis’ faith as the basis for the attack of 3 August 2014 and its subsequent abuse of them. ISIS has referred to the Yazidi as a “pagan minority [whose] existence […] Muslims should question”, adding that “their women could be enslaved […] as spoils of war”.
Mr. Pinheiro stressed that there must be no impunity for crimes of this nature, recalling States’ obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent and to punish genocide. The Commission repeated its call for the Security Council to refer urgently the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, or to establish an ad hoc tribunal to prosecute the myriad of violations of international law committed during the non-international armed conflict.
The Commission further noted that, with no path to international criminal justice available, it is likely that the first such prosecution of ISIS crimes against the Yazidis will take place in a domestic jurisdiction. It is essential, the Commission stated, that States enact laws against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The Commission urged international recognition of the genocide, and stated that more must be done to assure the protection of this religious minority in the Middle East, and the funding of care, including psycho-social and financial support, for victims of this genocide.

Background
The Commission, which comprises Mr. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (Chair), Ms. Karen Koning AbuZayd, Ms. Carla Del Ponte, and Mr. Vitit Muntarbhorn, has been mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate and record all violations of international law March 2011 in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The full report can be found on the Human Rights Council web page dedicated to the commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic:https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/IICISyria/Pages/IndependentInternationalCommission.aspx
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For further media information:
(Geneva) Rolando Gómez, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Tel: +41-22-917.9711, email: rgomez@ohchr.org, or Cédric Sapey, OHCHR, Tel: +41-22-917.9695, email:csapey@ohchr.org

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GENEVA, September 1, 2014 – A 21-year-old Iraqi Christian woman made an impassioned appeal today before a UN meeting on ISIS atrocities, speaking on behalf of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, which spearheaded this month’s campaign by rights activists, MPs and Iraqi minority leaders calling for the emergency session, with a rally, press conference and diplomatic marathon featuring Iraqi Christian and Yazidi leaders. (See Maryam Wahida’s testimony below.)

“Today’s urgent session on the Islamic State’s butchering of Iraq’s Christians, Yazidis and other minorities is long overdue, but it’s better late than never,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.

“However, we are deeply concerned that the council refused to create a full-fledged, independent commission of inquiry into the Islamic State’s atrocities — as it has done previously on Syria, Libya, Cote d’Ivoire and Gaza — but instead only a low-level mission by staffers of the UN rights office,” said Neuer. “This sends the wrong message.”

“Moreover, the resolution completely fails to hold the Baghdad government accountable for its own well-documented violations of international humanitarian law. It’s wrong for the UN’s highest human rights body to turn a blind eye to the Iraqi government’s mass executions of Sunni prisoners, kidnappings and summary executions by security forces and government-backed Shia militias, and indiscriminate air strikes, including barrel bombs, that have killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul and other heavily-populated areas.”

“Instead, we have the farce today whereby the Human Rights Council actually praises the Shiite government’s ‘efforts to foster religious freedom and pluralism’.”

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UN WATCH STATEMENT TO UNHRC EMERGENCY SESSION ON ISIS

1 September 2014

Thank you, Mr. President.

My name is Maryam Wahida, and I am a Christian born and raised in Iraq, where most of my family remains. I am privileged to speak on behalf of UN Watch.

I have come here today, with my family, to bear witness before the world about the horrific crimes perpetrated by the Islamic State against my relatives, against the Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq.

For many weeks now, the terrorists have invaded our villages, destroyed ancient churches, and burned historical archives dating back many centuries.

Mr. President, I welcome today’s meeting. But given the extreme life-and-death urgency, we must ask: Why has the UN waited so long?

The victims of Iraq want to know: What could be more urgent than stopping the terrorists of the Islamic State from persecuting, attacking, enslaving, raping and beheading our men, women and children?

Mr. President,

Those who survived were forced to flee their homes. As displaced persons, they now live in horrible conditions, without basic hygiene and sanitation. They sleep in the streets, on the floor, inside and outside of churches. Children and the elderly suffer the most, and there are many illnesses that quickly spread among the victims.

I speak on the telephone to my relatives in Iraq. I learned about how my cousin Nawar, a 25-year-old pharmacist in Erbil, started collecting money to buy medical supplies for the sick. He managed to buy a wheelchair for one refugee, a 90-year-old woman, who was very happy to receive the help.

I wish to thank all of the governments that have helped so far. But the international community must do more—whatever it can—to help the victims, such as by creating a safe region for displaced persons within Iraq, and to facilitate asylum and migration.

Mr. President, I hope that I can call my relatives in Iraq tonight with news of strong and effective action from the UN, to save the victims who are in such desperate need of the world’s help.

Thank you, Mr. President

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GENEVA, August 25, 2014 –  The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, which spearheaded this month’s campaign by rights activists, MPs and Iraqi minority leaders for an emergency UN Human Rights Council session on Iraq, welcomed the news that a meeting will likely be held next Monday, but demanded an outcome with “concrete actions to help the desperate people on the ground.”
The announcement came today at a meeting of the 47-nation body in Geneva, one week after UN Watch launched its global appeal with a rally, press conference and diplomatic marathon featuring Iraqi Christian and Yazidi leaders.
“An urgent session on the Islamic State’s butchering of Iraq’s Christians, Yazidis and other minorities is long overdue, but it’s better late than never,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
“Our international coalition wants to see three concrete outcomes from the UN meeting: a resolution that strongly condemns the atrocities committed by ISIS; the establishment of a commission of inquiry to document those atrocities; and a revival of the UNHRC’s mandate of a Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iraq, which was wrongly canceled 10 years ago, to ensure that we have an early warning system in place over both the near and long term,” said Neuer.
“With so many lives at stake — men being slaughtered like animals, and women being terribly abused — the UN human rights council must act immediately. We must have deeds, not only words,” said Neuer.
“To date, the silence has been deafening. How can it be that for an entire summer Islamic State terrorists have been beheading children, crucifying Christians, raping and enslaving women and girls, and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes, only to face starvation and dehydration on remote mountain-tops, and yet the world’s top human rights body is out on vacation?”
During the emergency session next week, UN Watch plans to bring a young Iraqi Christian to testify before the council of the horrors suffered by her community.
 

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Related:

• Urgent Appeal to UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay to Stop Genocide in Iraq 
  Signed by an international coalition of Members of Parliament and Human Rights Activists

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GENEVA, Aug. 20, 2014 – The following statement was issued today by Mr. Breen Tahseen, the son and spokesman of Prince Tahseen, leader of the Yazidi people, at the conclusion of Geneva diplomatic meetings:
Today I conducted valuable meetings in Geneva, on behalf of the Yazidi people, with UN representatives of the United States and the European Union, and with the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights.
We are grateful for the extensive, in-depth and productive discussions concerning the desperate plight of the Yazidi people.
We reached important consensus about the need for the international community to act. We appreciate their efforts and trust that concrete and effective action will follow.
On behalf of Prince Tahseen and the Yazidi people, we appeal to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to lead the call for the UN Human Rights Council to hold an emergency session in order to focus world attention on the desperate plight of the Yazidi people.
The outcome of the session should focus on the following key objectives:

• Release of the approximately 5,000 Yazidi people kidnapped by ISIS.
• Resettlement of Yazidi refugees in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia, with priority to the victims of genocide and their families.
• Creation of a safe zone in Iraq for displaced persons, supervised by the UN and administered by Christians and Yazidis.
• Compensation to victims for material and moral damages, and an allocation to them under the Iraqi budget.

We also request that negotiations by the international community with Iraq should include direct consultation with the Yazidi people.
Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to the human rights group UN Watch for successfully organizing my visit to Geneva, along with an inspiring solidarity rally, UN press conference and diplomatic meetings.
Links to videos, photos and audio of UN rally and press conference

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Left to right: Iraqi Christians Ramzi Wahida & Maryam Wahida, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, Iraqi Christian representative, and Yazidi spokesman Breen Tahseen

 
GENEVA, Aug. 20, 2014 – The following statement was issued today by Mr. Breen Tahseen, the son and spokesman of Prince Tahseen, leader of the Yazidi people, at the conclusion of Geneva diplomatic meetings:
Today I conducted valuable meetings in Geneva, on behalf of the Yazidi people, with UN representatives of the United States and the European Union, and with the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights.
We are grateful for the extensive, in-depth and productive discussions concerning the desperate plight of the Yazidi people.
We reached important consensus about the need for the international community to act. We appreciate their efforts and trust that concrete and effective action will follow.
On behalf of Prince Tahseen and the Yazidi people, we appeal to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to lead the call for the UN Human Rights Council to hold an emergency session in order to focus world attention on the desperate plight of the Yazidi people.
The outcome of the session should focus on the following key objectives:

• Release of the approximately 5,000 Yazidi people kidnapped by ISIS.
• Resettlement of Yazidi refugees in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia, with priority to the victims of genocide and their families.
• Creation of a safe zone in Iraq for displaced persons, supervised by the UN and administered by Christians and Yazidis.
• Compensation to victims for material and moral damages, and an allocation to them under the Iraqi budget.

We also request that negotiations by the international community with Iraq should include direct consultation with the Yazidi people.
Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to the human rights group UN Watch for successfully organizing my visit to Geneva, along with an inspiring solidarity rally, UN press conference and diplomatic meetings.
Links to videos, photos and audio of UN rally and press conference

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What: Demonstration in support of Christians and Yazidis in Iraq
When: Tuesday, August 19, 2014, at 1:00 pm
Where: Place des Nations, in front of the UN European headquarters in Geneva

The post Yazidi and Christian Leaders to Unite in Geneva, Demand UNHRC Action appeared first on UN Watch.

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Urgent Appeal to UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay
to Stop Genocide in Iraq 

Excellency,
Faced with shocking reports of mass slaughter threatened by the Islamic State in Iraq (ISIS) against numerous minority groups, possibly amounting to genocide, we, an international coalition of parliamentarians, dissidents, and human rights activists, urge you—in the name of humanity—to call for and take immediate action to convene an emergency special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, to protect the right to life of these vulnerable populations who are now in very grave danger.
As reported by the Washington Post, besieged Yazidis stranded on an isolated mountaintop are beginning to die of thirst. Ten of thousands of men, women and children fled their homes in northern Iraq, after Islamic State militants attacked the towns of Sinjar and Zunmar. “Children have died because of dehydration and lack of food,” Vian Dakheel, a Yazidi parliamentarian from Sinjar, said to the Iraqi parliament through tears. “My people are being slaughtered.”
Consider the past month alone:

• Islamic State militants destroyed a half dozen of places of worship, including a 14^th century mosque in Mosul. Desperate to save their holy sites, residents of one town formed a human chain around an 840-year-old minaret to save it from the Islamic State militants.

• The UN Special Rapporteur on minorities expressed grave concern for the safety of Christians, Shia, Shabaks, Turkmen, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq facing persecution on the grounds of their religion and ethnicity.

• The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons stressed that the ongoing conflict has already displaced some 1.2 million people, mostly minority members who have fled the northwest of Iraq.

It is unconscionable for the world’s highest  human rights body—which is pledged, under UNGA Resolution 60/251, to prevent human rights violations and respond promptly to human rights emergencies—to continue turning a blind eye to the massacre, abuse, and intimidation of Iraqi civilians.
Accordingly, we urge you to end the silence and take action to convene a UNHRC Special Session that will:

1. Mobilize world action to protect vulnerable populations in Iraq from mass killing, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other gross and systematic violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to life;
2. Establish an urgent, international and independent Fact Finding Mission to investigate the Islamic State for acts committed to destroy, in whole or in part, various national, ethnic, racial and religious groups in Iraq, constituting genocide as defined in the Genocide Convention, and to recommend urgent action to the UN Security Council, as well as to ensure individual accountability before the International Criminal Court; and
3. End the unacceptable protection gap of the past decade by reviving the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iraq which was terminated by the UNHRC without justification in 2004, thereby ensuring an early warning mechanism for the international community, with regular reporting to both the Council and the General Assembly.

We respectfully request that this joint NGO appeal be circulated among the 47 member states of the UNHRC, as well as among all observer states and other stake-holders.
Sincerely,
Sir John Randall, Member of Parliament, UK 
Roger Godsiff, Member of Parliament, UK 
Irwin Cotler, Member of Parliament, Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Liberal Critic for Rights & Freedom and International Justice, Canada 
Michael Danby, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Opposition, Member of Parliament, Australia
Alan Griffin, Member of Parliament, Australia
Tunne Kelam, Member of the European Parliament, Estonia
Erik Meijer, Senator, The Netherlands
Gert Weisskirchen, former Member of Parliament, Germany
Matyas Eorsi, former Member of Parliament, Hungary
Hillel C. Neuer, Executive Director, UN Watch, Switzerland 
Rev. John Pellowe, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council of Christian Charities
Ulrich Delius, Society for Threatened Peoples 
Ann Buwalda, Executive Director, Jubilee Campaign 
Francois Ullmann, President, Ingenieurs du Monde
Basil Oezkaya, Main UN Representative, World Council of Arameans 
Adel Alfetory, Horiyat Group for Development and Human Rights 
Yang Jianli, President, Initiatives for China/Citizen Power for China 
Christina Fu, President, New Hope Foundation
Regis Iglesias Ramirez, Movimiento Cristiano Liberación, Cuba 
John J. Suarez, International Secretary, Cuban Democratic Directorate 
Amardeo Sarma, GWUP – Wissenschaft und kritisches Denken 
Maria Giovanna Ruggieri, President, World Union of Catholic Women’s Organisations

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