British legislators voted on Wednesday to urge the government to recognise ISIS’ attacks on minorities in Iraq and Syria as genocide.
British legislators voted on Wednesday to urge the government to recognise ISIS’ attacks on minorities in Iraq and Syria as genocide.
Members of Parliament unanimously approved the motion — which is not binding on the government — by 278 votes to zero.
The vote in the 650-seat Lower House of Commons calls on ministers to accept formally that ISIS’ actions against Christian, Yazidi and other religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq constitute genocide.
But foreign office junior minister Tobias Ellwood, who has specific responsibility for the Middle East, said it was up to the courts rather than the government to make such a judgement.
“I believe genocide has taken place, but as the Prime Minister (David Cameron) has said, genocide is a matter of legal rather than political opinion,” Mr Ellwood said.
MPs from all parties urged Britain to use its position as one of the five permanent members of the UNSC to get the situation referred to the International Criminal Court.
Mr Ellwood said any referral to the ICC by the UNSC “will only be possible with a united council and ideally with the cooperation of countries in which alleged crimes have been committed.
“But I draw the house’s attention when efforts were made to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC in 2014 it was vetoed by Russia and China and we expect any Security Council resolution seeking to refer the situations in Iraq or Syria to the ICC against these countries could very well be blocked again.”
Previously, media reports in London said that ISIS, notorious for its brutality, has executed 250 girls in northern Iraq for refusing to become sex slaves.
The girls had been ordered to accept temporary marriages to the terrorists and were murdered, sometimes alongside their families, for their refusal to be sex slaves in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul.
ISIS began selecting women of Mosul and forced them into marrying its militants, calling it temporary marriage since it has taken control over Mosul, and the women who refused to submit to this practice would be executed, said Kurdish Democratic Party spokesman Said Mamuzini.
“At least 250 girls have so far been executed by IS for refusing to accept the practice of sexual jihad, and sometimes the families of the girls were also executed for rejecting to submit to IS’s request,” Mr Mamuzini told London-based Kurdish news agency AhlulBayt.
US President Barack Obama said on Monday that he expected Mosul to be retaken from the ISIS “eventually”.
“My expectation is that by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall,” Mr Obama had said.
US defence secretary As-hton Carter on Wednesday said that Denmark is a steadfast partner in global coalition efforts against ISIS and its contributions have been significant. A day after Danish Parliament approved the country’s expanded role in the fight against the dreaded terror group, Mr Carter said, “This week’s decision by the Danish Parliament to approve an expanded role in the fight against ISIL is a welcome contribution from a valued partner in the counter-ISIL coalition and another sign of the growing momentum for the campaign to defeat ISIL.”
French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian meanwhile was voicing cautious optimism about the defeat of ISIS, suggesting the possibility that it can be eradicated. Mr le Drian said on Thursday on France-Info radio that the extremist organisation has lost 30-40 per cent of its territory in Syria and Iraq and “conditions are coming together to eradicate Daesh”.
Meanwhile, almost 500 people have managed to escape from ISIS near the northern city of Mosul, Kurdish broadcaster NRT cited Peshmerga officials as saying on Thursday.
NRT said the Iraqi Army backed by Peshmerga and coalition forces rescued the refugees late Wedne-sday after they fled from the villages of Mahana and Haj Ali to the town of Makhmour, 60 kms southeast of ISIS-held Mosul.
