State Department Lawyers Removing References to ISIS ‘Genocide’ Against Christians, Other Religious Minorities

Obama Holdovers in State Department's Legal Office Are Responsible, Critics Say

By Susan Crabtree
Washington Free Beacon

The State Department's top lawyers are systematically removing the word "genocide" to describe the Islamic State's mass slaughter of Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria from speeches before they are delivered and other official documents, according to human rights activists and attorneys familiar with the policies.

Additionally, Democratic senators are delaying confirmation of Mark Green, Trump's pick to head the U.S. Agency for International Development who has broad bipartisan support.

These efforts guarantee that Obama-era policies that worked to exclude Iraq's Christian and other minority religious populations from key U.S. aid programs remain in place, the activists said.

Richard Visek, who was appointed by President Obama as head the State Department's Office of Legal Adviser in October 2016, is behind the decision to remove the word "genocide" from official documents, according to Nina Shea, an international human rights lawyer who directs the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom.

"I don't think for a minute it's a bureaucratic decision—it's ideological," said Shea, who also spent 12 years as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or CIRF, from 1999 to 2012.

A State Department spokesman on Monday said he would look into the matter and respond.

The latest moves from the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser appear aimed at rolling back then-Secretary of State John Kerry's March 2016 genocide determination. Kerry's much-anticipated genocide designation came after months of equivocation and detailed documentation by interested parties that the Islamic State is responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.

It was one of the few times in history that the United States designated ongoing mass murders against ethnic or religious minorities as meeting the legal definition of genocide laid out in a 1948 treaty. That agreement requires signatories, including the United States, to take steps to "prevent and punish" genocide.

A bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers and activists, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Robert Aderholt (R., Ala.) were hoping the designation would help direct millions of dollars in U.S. relief funds to Christian, Yazidi, and other persecuted religious minority communities.

ISIS murders and kidnappings have decimated the Christian population in Iraq, which numbered between 800,000 and 1.4 million in 2002, reducing it to fewer than 250,000 now. Without action, activists and charities say, Christians could disappear completely from Iraq in the near future.

After meeting with Pope Francis in May, President Trump vowed to do everything in his power to defend and protect the "historic Christian communities of the Middle East."

Washington Free Beacon continues

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Iraqi Archbishop: Where Were the Protesters ‘When ISIS Came to Kill Christians’?

“We are an ancient people on the verge of extinction because of our commitment to our faith. Will anybody protest for us?” 

Virgin Mary Statue Beheaded in Iraq

By Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
Breitbart

The Catholic Archbishop of Erbil has denounced the hypocrisy of those protesting President Trump’s recent executive order on immigration, wondering aloud where all of the demonstrators were when Islamic State fighters were slaughtering Christians and other minorities in the Middle East.

In an interview with the online journal Crux, Archbishop Bashar Warda said that from his perspective in Iraq, he couldn’t help but ask “why all of these protesters were not protesting in the streets when ISIS came to kill Christians and Yazidis and other minority groups.”

Warda also criticized the policies of the Obama administration, which offered no financial assistance to displaced Christians in Islamic State territory and instead favored Syrian Muslims when it came to accepting refugees into the United States.

“They were not protesting when the tens of thousands of displaced Christians my archdiocese has cared for since 2014 received no financial assistance from the U.S. government or the U.N.,” he said.

 “There were no protests when Syrian Christians were only let in at a rate that was 20 times less than the percentage of their population in Syria.”

“I do not understand why some Americans are now upset that the many minority communities that faced a horrible genocide will finally get a degree of priority in some manner,” Warda added.

The archbishop also suggested that the inconvenience posed by a three-month moratorium on visas is nothing compared to the suffering of minorities in Iraq and Syria during the past several years, and yet no one seemed to think that was worthy of a protest.

“Most Americans have no concept of what it was like to live as a Yazidi or Christian or other minority as ISIS invaded,” he said. “Our people had the option to flee, to convert, or to be killed, and many were killed in the most brutal ways imaginable."

“But there were none of these protests then of ISIS’s religious test,” he said.

In his lengthy interview, Warda underscored the hypocrisy of protesters who are willing to side with Muslims but won’t lift a finger to aid Christians facing genocide in the Middle East. 

Breitbart story continues 

Blogger's note: 

Since 2014, Persecution Unveiled has been posting stories concerning religious persecution. We have garnered stories from various internet sources. These reports document the unspeakable tortures, rapes, and murders committed by ISIS and radical Islamists against men, women and children.  

The main stream media and cable news networks rarely report on this genocide. The United Nations, the Obama administration and the Church in the West have been apathetic at best and complicit at worst by their inaction.

With thousands picketing and protesting for their questionable causes, why do these protesters refuse to speak out against the extermination of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities? Your silence is telling and shameful.

Click on Open Doors link to become an advocate for Christians being persecuted

Obama Facing Federal Lawsuit Over Failure to Address ISIS' Horrific Christian Genocide

Persecuted Church
American Center for Law & Justice

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which is active in defending persecuted Christians around the globe, today filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama Administration’s State Department for failing to provide information about actions the Obama Administration is taking to stop the genocide of Christians by ISIS – the Islamic State.

In July, the ACLJ sent the State Department a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests all aimed at uncovering government records that would show any action by the State Department to respond to or stop the genocide. The State Department has ignored those requests and today the ACLJ filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C. to force the State Department to show what it has done to confront the ISIS genocide and protect the Christian victims and other religious minorities, or confirm that it hasn’t really done anything at all.

“This Administration continues to refuse to acknowledge the enemy and won’t engage and eliminate ISIS – which continues its unabated genocide of Christians,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “We participated in a concerted effort to pressure the Obama Administration to finally recognize this slaughter and publicly recognize this eradication as ‘genocide.’ But what is the Obama Administration doing to stop the genocide? 

The United States should be a leader in defending and protecting Christians. The world is watching as Christians are put to death simply because of their religious beliefs. That’s why it is so important to hold the Obama Administration accountable and to find out exactly what is being done to bring an end to this horrific practice. And that is why we have gone to court to unearth the truth.”

In the complaint filed today, the ACLJ notes: “Defendant has a reputation for flaunting and disregarding its public accountability and FOIA obligations.”

The lawsuit argues that the State Department failed to comply with the FOIA within 20 business days of receiving the requests as required by the statute.

“Defendant has failed to produce any records responsive to the request, indicate when any responsive records will be produced, or demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from production,” the complaint contends.

 “Through its continued delay in responding to Plaintiff’s lawful request for records, and its improper withholding of such requested records, Defendant has failed to comply with FOIA’s prescribed deadlines for responding to a request for records and has violated Plaintiff’s statutory rights.”

The ACLJ has been advocating for the protection of Christians and other religious minorities and the end of genocide for years. We have sent key legal letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon and other U.N. bodies, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, the 47 Member States of the U.N. Human Rights Council, and two letters to Secretary of State John Kerry. 

Read more at aclj.org



Persecution Unveiled has been called by God to prick the consciences of this nation and all free people to speak up and act on behalf of those who have no voice.  Follow us on  Pinterest, like us on Facebook, and visit our website using this link.  

President Barack Obama's administration is facing a federal lawsuit from the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative law group, over its failure to properly address the ongoing genocide of the Islamic State terror group against Christians and other religious minorities.
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/obama-facing-federal-lawsuit-over-failure-to-address-isis-horrific-christian-genocide-168923/#ShShAxTXPMO1WvAB.99

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/obama-facing-federal-lawsuit-over-failure-to-address-isis-horrific-christian-genocide-168923/#cRht7IK8124OcoLb.99Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/obama-facing-federal-lawsuit-over-failure-to-address-isis-horrific-christian-genocide-168923/#RsOVRzCby8PwopPM.99