Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

December 2015 – Religious leaders are decrying the world’s silence on the genocide being carried out by ISIS against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.

“It is genocide – and the world seems largely silent about it,” said Franklin Graham, “genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities of Syria and Iraq.” Graham, pictured above on Fox News, regularly calls attention to the plight of the persecuted church worldwide.

The extreme violence of ISIS against targeted groups fits the United Nations definition of genocide as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

Declaring ISIS’ acts genocide would require those making the declaration to take steps to stop the violence and bring the perpetuators to justice. However, the U.S. government in particular has remained largely silent on the issue.

breitbart.com, 10/12/15; christiantelegraph.com, 10/8/15