ISIS crimes against Assyrians

Assyrians are en ethnic #minority group based on territory of the ancient Assyrian #Empire. Thought their history they have been victims of several persecutions - like Assyrian #genocide during World War II and the latest - #ISIS invasion.

In order to control territories and populations ISIS has been using the most #brutal and #cruel methods we can think about. Not only #deportations, #imprisonments and #murders, but also known for their inhuman and ruthless #tortures, rapes, public persecutions like beheading, stoning civilians (including #women and #children), mutilating or public displaying the bodies.

The Assyrian people were an eye-catching #community for ISIS warriors, mostly because of their Christian character. According to the testimonies before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs:

«These communities (Assyrian) are under mortal threat in their ancestral homelands. And the mass execution of men, the enslavement of women and children, and the destruction of religious sites, is part of the ISIS effort to destroy these communities, to destroy all evidence of the preexistence of these communities. (…) And that battalion (ISIS) is charged with going after art and going after artifacts, religious and historic sites that it considers #heretical or idolatrous, and their job is simply to destroy history».

What #Assyrians faced in #Iraq, undoubtedly can be recognized as war #crime or crime against #humanity. The invasion of ISIS members forced Assyrians to leave their homes and their country, loose relatives, trying to kill their identity and religion…

How do you think we can help them?

Mantilla, Y. (2016). ISIS's Crimes Against Humanity and the Assyrian People: Religious Totalitarianism and the Protection of Fundamental Human Rights. ILSA J. Int'l & Comp. L., 23, 77.