The State Department's new annual report on religious freedom, released Wednesday, includes a condemnation of the “genocide” being carried out by the Islamic State against Christians, Shiites, and Yazidis. The report looks at the religious freedom in more than 200 countries every year.
U.S. administrations have historically been reluctant to use the word "genocide" in international conflicts. While not legally binding governments to action, the gravity of the word can amount to putting significant pressure the president and Congress to actively engage with the crisis. Secretary of State John Kerry, more willing to call the Islamic State's actions genocide in recent months, also used the term in March.
The State Department also claims that the Islamic State, Boko Haram, and other non-state actors "continued to rank amongst the most egregious abusers of religious freedom in the world."
According to the International Religion Freedom Report for 2015, the Islamic State,
continued to pursue a brutal strategy of what Secretary Kerry judged to constitute genocide against Yezidis, Christians, Shia, and other vulnerable groups in the territory it controlled, and was responsible for barbarous acts, including killings, torture, enslavement and trafficking, rape and other sexual abuse against religious and ethnic minorities and Sunnis in areas under its control.
Read the full text of the International Religion Freedom Report for 2015.
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