A Letter to the U.S. Department of State and Secretary Kerry: Atrocities by ISIS are Genocide

**Press conference to be held at National Press Club in D.C. at 10 am ET on Thursday, March 10

The following letter was sent on March 8, 2016 to United States Secretary of State John Kerry from Andrews Kurth LLP on behalf of The Philos Project, the American Mesopotamian Organization, the Assyrian Aid Society of America and the Iraqi Christian Relief Council regarding the genocide being perpetrated against Christians in Islamic State-controlled territory.

Kerry and the State Department were asked to carefully consider this letter as they anticipate making an imminent decision regarding the question of whether Christians are, along with Yazidis, victims of genocide. This letter has also been sent to the appropriate offices at the White House.

Dear Secretary Kerry:

Andrews Kurth LLP writes on behalf of the Philos Project, the American Mesopotamian Organization, the Assyrian Aid Society of America, and the Iraqi Christian Relief Council (collectively “Interested Organizations”). These organizations have important ties to and vested interests in the current situation in regions in the Middle East currently under the control of, or threatened by, the so- called Islamic State (“IS,” “ISIS,” “ISIL,” or “Daesh”). We understand that the Department of State is currently examining whether ISIS’s treatment of Assyrian and other Iraqi and Syrian Christians (“Assyrian Christians1”) within its territory constitutes genocide.

Interested Organizations submit this letter in support of the Department of State’s current investigation. We commend the State Department for undertaking this grave and important review. As many governments, legislative bodies, non-governmental organizations, and world leaders have already concluded, the available evidence demonstrates that ISIS’s actions rise to the level of genocide. Furthermore, we understand that recent information received from on-the-ground interviews in the region and other sources establishes without question that ISIS is committing genocide and makes clear that claims that it is offering jizya or dhimmi status are a publicity stunt or extortion payments that pervert these classical terms. Nothing akin to the classic jizya discussed herein is being offered to the Assyrian and other Iraqi and Syrian Christians. This newly gathered information will be presented shortly in a letter to be filed by In Defense of Christians and the Knights of Columbus. While the lack of jizya or dhimmi leaves ISIS’s actions without any excuse, this letter focuses on the equally important legal and factual reality, detailed herein, that any so-called dhimmi contract and jizya tax ISIS purportedly offers Christians cannot preclude a finding of genocide.

We are acutely aware of the obligations and implications that attach to an assertion of genocide against ISIS. That concern must not, however, control the analysis. To permit such an approach would produce a results-driven analysis, letting the tail wag the dog. If no action is taken, the United States and other nations now run the risk of becoming, yet again, “bystanders to genocide.”

I. Executive Summary

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“Genocide Convention”) prohibits the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic or religious group by, inter alia, killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, or deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.

Publicly available information strongly suggests that ISIS is subjecting Assyrian and other Iraqi and Syrian Christians living in areas under the control of ISIS to genocidal conditions. ISIS purportedly offers the Assyrian Christians three options: (1) convert to Islam, (2) assume dhimmi status and pay an associated jizya tax, or (3) leave the territory. The facts suggest that, in reality, there is no choice. Those who refuse or are otherwise unable to comply are executed, and in many instances the option of paying the jizya tax is not made available. The evidence therefore suggests that the jizya tax is not a real option and may be just a pretext to justify ISIS’s atrocities. That ISIS purports to permit Assyrian Christians to pay a jizya tax to avoid conversion, execution, or displacement does not preclude a finding that ISIS’s persecution of such Christians violates the Genocide Convention.

II. Interested Organizations

The Philos Project is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote positive Christian engagement in the Middle East by proclaiming friendship with those in the region who support liberty and justice for all peoples; reviving an intellectually rigorous Christian approach to foreign policy, especially as it relates to the Middle East; educating Christians on the theological, historical, and political issues surrounding Israel and the Jewish people; and empowering the church to advocate for real peace in tangible ways.

The American Mesopotamian Organization (“AMO”), through a series of public events and lobbying activities, informs and guides U.S. and international policy on matters of interest to the Assyrian American community. AMO believes that the Assyrian American community can be instrumental in bringing about change to U.S. policy towards the Assyrians of the Middle East. AMO strives to be part of this change and part of the solution in defending Assyrian political, human, and civil rights throughout the Near East. While AMO represents the collective Assyrian American viewpoint on matters of public policy, AMO also serves as liaison between the community and their elected leaders.

The Assyrian Aid Society of America (“AASA”), founded in 1991, is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping Assyrians in need, promoting Assyrian culture and heritage, and focusing American and international attention on the needs and humanitarian concerns of the Assyrian people, particularly in the ancestral homeland of Assyria. Since the ISIS invasion of Mosul in June 2014, the AASA has raised over $2 million in donations and grants to assist families who have been displaced. AASA has provided humanitarian aid to those who are facing unbearable living conditions in their shattered homeland.

The Iraqi Christian Relief Council (“ICRC”) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created to support and protect persecuted Assyrian Christians in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Europe, and the United States. Founded in 2007 by Juliana Taimoorazy, the Iraqi Christian Relief Council focuses on humanitarian efforts, advocacy, prayer support, and education. The group advocates extensively throughout the United States on behalf of the indigenous people of Iraq. During the past year, the Iraqi Christian Relief Council has helped over 150,000 Christians by providing emergency humanitarian aid and prayer support and by raising public awareness.

III. Relevant Factual Background

A. Until ISIS’s Rise, Assyrian Christians and Muslims Coexisted in Relative Peace

One of the oldest ethnicities in the world, Assyrians are a Semitic people from ancient Mesopotamia, one of the cradles of civilization. Assyrians identify as their own unique ethnic group, and they have been identified as a unique group in some of the earliest writings known to history. Many Assyrians first became Christians in the first century after the birth of Christ, making the Assyrian Christian community one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Assyrian Christians therefore have a long-standing ethnic and religious identity. They are a unique religious-ethnic group, indigenous to the Middle East, whose forebearers have continually inhabited the same region for over four millennia.

Shortly after the founding of Islam, the Assyrian Christians came under Muslim rule. They were relegated to dhimmi status, and were required to pay the jizya. Under the historical Islamic caliphates, the jizya was a tax levied on their non-Muslim subjects, referred to as dhimmis. Historically, dhimmis were “the non-Muslims who live within Islamdom [that] have a regulated and protected status.” In return for protection and the right to continue practicing their religion, and as a mark of their obedience, dhimmis were required to pay the jizya. If the Muslim ruler failed to provide the dhimmis adequate security, he was obliged to return the money, as the Egyptian sultan Saladin did after withdrawing his army from Syria.

Under Islamic Law, a dhimmi is a non-Muslim who has entered into a covenant of protection with the ruling Islamic state. The terms of the covenant require the dhimmi to pay special taxes and agree to various stipulations, and require the Muslim ruler to provide “security of life and property, defense against enemies, communal self-government and freedom of religious practice.” Throughout the history of Islam, the stipulations of the covenant have varied considerably:

Restrictions and regulations in dress, occupation, and residence were often applied to dhimmis. The legal status of dhimmis was in many aspects unequal to that of Muslims. Dhimmis were obliged to comport themselves in a self-effacing and inoffensive manner and were not permitted to publicize or proselytize their faiths.

In principle, dhimmi status may extend to any non-Muslim subjects, including those conquered by Muslim forces. Historically, however, the covenant was usually only made with so-called People of the Book, primarily Jews and Christians.

The jizya has its genesis in the Koran in 630, which instructs Muslims to fight until Jews and Christians pay the jizya.16 The actual amount of the jizya was not set out in the Koran, however, and in practice the amount varied according to the time and place. That there should be a “poll tax” was not, however, an innovation of early Islam.

Greeks, Romans, and Persians levied similar poll taxes, and local pre-Islamic customs “greatly influenced” how the jizya was levied and collected by Muhammed and his immediate successors.

From the earliest days of Islam, Islamic leaders relegated Jewish and Christian tribes to dhimmi status. Jews and Christians were required to pay jizya as tribute to the ruling Islamic state during Muhammad’s lifetime. The practice of Muhammed and the agreements made during his lifetime were viewed as “significant as legal precedents for the treatment of Jews and Christians in the later Islamic state.”

During the first two Caliphates, the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) and the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750), the rate of taxation, method of collection, and rights conferred by payment varied greatly from province to province:

Prior to the Abbasid epoch, the jizya was not strictly defined or applied, which frustrated the efforts of later scholars attempting to understand the early Islamic tax system. The jizya during the early centuries of Islam was used interchangeably with another term for tax, kharaj. Lack of clarity regarding the categories of people to which jizya was applied further convoluted matters. In some instances jizya was applied to individuals; in other cases jizya was applied to entire communities or provinces. Sometimes the jizya meant a land tax.

Despite these early variations, by the beginning of the third caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258, 1261-1517), the jizya had become more or less standard. It assumed the form of a progressive tax payable in cash or in kind and was enforced with relative leniency.24 As an early legal text from the Abbasid caliphate explains:

The jizya is required of all the [dhimmi]. . . . The jizya is incumbent upon all adult males, but not upon women and children. For the wealthy the tax is forty-eight dirhams, for those of medium income twenty-four, and for the poor, the agricultural workers and manual laborers, twelve dirhams. It is to be collected from them each year. It may be paid in kind, for example, beasts of burden, goods, and other such things. The jizya is not to be collected from the indigent who receives alms, nor from a blind man who has no craft and no work, nor from any invalid receiving alms, nor from any cripple. However, it is to be collected from any invalid, cripple, or blind man with means…. No one of the [dhimmi] should be beaten in order to exact payment of the jizya, nor made to stand in the hot sun, nor should hateful things be inflicted upon their bodies, or anything of that sort. Rather, they should be treated with leniency.

During this Islamic Golden Age of the Abbasids, Assyrian Christian religious centers flourished, as the dhimmi agreements conferred relative freedom and self- autonomy to those concerned. With a few exceptions, this trend of toleration for the Assyrian Christians continued up to and through the fourth caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate (1517-1924), which relied on the jizya tax as an important source of revenue. During the Ottoman rule, however, “religious clerics and people of certain provinces, such as Serbia and Bosnia,” were not subjected to the taxation or were subjected at a lower rate. Under the Ottoman caliphate:

The three leading non-Muslim monotheistic religious communities—the Jewish, the Greek Orthodox, and the Armenian—were established as recognized [dhimmi] communities, known as millets . . . and led by their proper religious dignitary. Within each millet communities were responsible for educational and fiscal issues, as well internal personal legal matters (marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc.).

Times changed. The collapse of the Ottoman caliphate, coupled with the rise of the modern nation-state, caused the imposition of dhimmi status and the levying of jizya to go out of practice in the first-half of the twentieth century. In the second-half of the century, the governments of both Iraq and Syria did not impose these limitations on Assyrian Christians. The secular Ba’athist regime in Iraq generally did not engage in the persecution of the Christian community, and at least one Assyrian Christian—Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein’s closest advisors—rose to prominence within the regime. Likewise, in 1973, the Ba’athist government of Syria ratified a constitution guaranteeing religious freedom to Assyrian Christians and other religious minorities. The 1973 constitution remained in effect until 2012, when a new constitution was passed by referendum amidst the protests and civil unrest which led to the current civil war. The 2012 (i.e. current) constitution, like its predecessor, also guarantees religious freedom.

Indeed, in modern times, almost all Muslim countries have rejected the constructs of dhimmi status and jizya tax. Such concepts are foreign to secular human rights—for example the Universal Declaration of Human Rights lists religious freedom as a universal right and declares any discrimination based on religion to be contrary to its precepts. Modern scholars, therefore, have written that the concepts of dhimmi and jizya have no place in modern society. As noted scholar and prominent public intellectual Professor Khaled M. Abou El Fadl has explained, “the overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims reject the dhimma system as ahistorical, in the sense that it is inappropriate for the age of nation- states and democracies.”

B. ISIS Represents a Marked Departure From the Recent Islamic Regimes

The rise of ISIS marks a radical departure from the conditions under which Assyrian Christians residing in Iraq and Syria generally lived during prior Islamic and secular regimes. At the hands of ISIS, non-Muslims, in particular Assyrian Christians, have been subjected to horrific instances of murder, burning, decapitation, torture, rape, slavery, kidnapping, and other depraved acts of wanton violence. ISIS has committed these heinous and inexcusable crimes in the name of ISIS’s brand of Islam.

1. ISIS Has Implemented An Ultraconservative and Ultraviolent Form of Islam

ISIS is a jihadist militant group which follows a fundamentalist, Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam. ISIS adheres to a “hardline” version of “Jihadi-Salafism, . . . a distinct ideological movement in Sunni Islam . . . concerned with purifying the faith.” ISIS’s ideology is influenced in part by the political thought of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which “championed the restoration of the caliphate . . . in the earlier 20th century.” In contrast with other extremist groups, like al-Qaeda, ISIS “is absolutely uncompromising on doctrinal matters, prioritizing the promotion of [its] unforgiving strain of Salafi thought.”

In October 2006, the Islamic State of Iraq, the predecessor of ISIS, embarked on “an ambitious political project: the founding of a state in Iraq—a proto-caliphate—that would ultimately expand across the region, proclaim itself the full- fledged caliphate, and go on to conquer the rest of the world.” In June 2014, ISIS finally declared a worldwide caliphate, naming Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri al- Samarrai (better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) as its caliph.

Among other things, ISIS espouses an apocalyptic eschatology, believing in a final Day of Judgment following the defeat of the army of “Rome.” This emphasis on eschatology is unique, distinguishing ISIS’s theology and worldview from that of other radical forms of Sunni Islam. As Graeme Wood explains:

[ISIS] considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world. . . . [ISIS] follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy . . . All Muslims acknowledge that God is the only one who knows the future. But they also agree that he has offered us a peek at it, in the Koran and in narrations of the Prophet. [ISIS] differs from nearly every other current jihadist movement in believing that it is written into God’s script as a central character. It is in this casting that [ISIS] is most boldly distinctive from its predecessors, and clearest in the religious nature of its mission. . . . [ISIS] has its share of worldly concerns (including, in the places it controls, collecting garbage and keeping the water running), but the End of Days is a leitmotif of its propaganda. . . . Now that it has taken Dabiq, [ISIS] awaits the arrival of an enemy army there, whose defeat will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse.

According to certain Islamic teachings adopted by ISIS, after the Day of Judgment, its caliphate will rule the world, and “there will not be any place left for the camp of kufr [i.e., Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims] to exist on the Earth, not even as humbled dhimmī subjects living amongst the Muslims in the camp of truth.”

ISIS’s actions indicate that ISIS intends to live out the specific intent of destruction of Christians set out in ISIS’s violent ideology. Numerous examples exist of ISIS committing violence against Christians, and on a broad scale, ISIS’s brutality towards humanity is of a magnitude not experienced outside the context of genocide. ISIS has trained children to execute prisoners by gunshot to the head.

ISIS has immolated innocent individuals, including the highly publicized burning of a Jordanian pilot. ISIS has produced numerous propaganda films recording the brutal decapitation of men and women. This conduct defies comprehension on many levels and by itself demonstrates violations of multiple norms of internationals law.

In a particularly unimaginable display, ISIS fighters filmed the drowning death of five caged men:

[In June 2015], ISIS released harrowing footage appearing to show caged prisoners being lowered into a swimming pool to drown alongside other horrific executions.

The vile group claimed that 16 men were killed in Nineveh, Iraq, after being accused of spying in a set of horrifying killings.

In the first round of executions, five terrified men can be seen being lowered into the water while locked in a cage together.

Minutes later, the cage is lifted, which shows the men lying motionless on the cage floor.

The barbaric footage even included underwater scenes from cameras fitted around the swimming pool to capture the view from below water.

2. ISIS Has Attempted to Eliminate Christians From Its Territory

Not only is ISIS explicit in its specific intent to eradicate all Christians living within the caliphate, its actions are consistent with its ideology. According to noted jihadi intellectual, Abu Bakr Naji, for jihadis to cleanse the land of infidels requires a jihad, which Naji describes as “nothing but violence, crudeness, terrorism, [deterrence], and massacring.” ISIS has employed Naji’s work to craft its ideology. To that end, ISIS has murdered, immolated, kidnapped, and raped an untold number of Assyrian and other Iraqi and Syrian Christians. Our short letter can in no way comprehensively summarize the scope of ISIS’s atrocities. It is no understatement to say that ISIS’s crimes are on the scale of what was done by the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge. Nonetheless, the examples provided herein demonstrate the core contention—to determine whether genocide is taking place the State Department must look past any pretext offered by ISIS and examine the actual facts on the ground.

ISIS has specifically targeted Assyrian Christians for death. In October 2015, ISIS publicly executed three Assyrians as part of a demand for ransom payments. In late December 2015, ISIS attacked and “targeted Assyrian businesses in Qamishli, Syria,” killing over 16 people. ISIS’s murders have even included children: ISIS militants beheaded four children when they refused to renounce Christianity on the spot.

Second, ISIS fighters have raped and enslaved Assyrian Christians, leading to horrific trauma for the families. One key, relevant example is a family that could not pay the jizya because the amount demanded was too high. The family therefore did not have a real choice to pay the jizya, and the father had to watch while his wife and daughter were raped in front of him. Ultimately, after exclaiming that he had been put into an impossible situation, the father committed suicide. This is typical of ISIS’s perverted understanding of jizya and does not reflect classical jizya. Likewise, in a combination of murder and rape, ISIS fighters beheaded a group of Assyrian Christian men and proceeded to rape their wives and a twelve-year-old daughter. ISIS boasts how it has driven Assyrian Christian women into sexual slavery, including the publication of a price list for enslaved Yazidi and Christian women as young as one year old.

According to another report based on an interview with a former ISIS member, the rape and enslavement of non-Muslim women is common:

[ISIS members] believe it is permissible to sleep with women prisoners even against their will if they are infidels, non-Muslims and apostate women. This happened to Christian women in Al-Raqqa after their husbands were publically beheaded [an ISIS fighter reported]. . . . [In Al-Raqqa] I saw six jihadists demanding that a Christian wom[a]n and her daughter become their wives. The daughter was about 12-13-years- old.

As if to remove any doubt of ISIS’s intention with regard to the world’s entire Christian community, ISIS has publicly announced its aspiration to open a slave market in “Rome.”

ISIS’s atrocities against the Assyrian Christians include more than just murder and sexual savagery. Abductions have been common. To this day, the whereabouts of many Assyrian Christians abducted by ISIS remain unknown.

Just as devastating has been ISIS’s actions in driving Assyrian Christians from their homes. The Christians in Mosul, for example, were not given the option of staying in their ancestral home. ISIS fighters stripped the Christians of all their belongings before expelling them, leaving them with only the clothes on their backs.

The situation is so bad that many Assyrian Christians believe “it is no longer possible for Christians to live in Iraq.” One refugee reported, for example, that there “is not a single Christian family left in Mosul” and that the last Christian who had stayed—a disabled woman—was told “if you don’t [get out] we will cut off your head with a sword.” Similar to how the Nazis forced Jews to wear the Star of ? David, ISIS has marked Christian homes and businesses with the red (transliterated as ‘noon’ or ‘nun’) of the Arabic alphabet (the equivalent of the Roman letter N) standing for “Nasara” or ‘Nazarenes’—a pejorative Arabic word for Christians.

Again, the above represents just a small sampling of the transpiring events. Together, these and other actions constitute reprehensible behavior completely distinct from that which came before.

3. ISIS’s Unique and Perverted “Application” of Dhimmi Status and the Jizya

In no uncertain terms, ISIS’s conduct towards Christians is nothing less than savagery. Some Muslim scholars have denounced ISIS for its actions as contrary to traditional Muslim teaching. For example, recently 120 Sunni scholars penned an open letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi criticizing how ISIS interprets Islam.

Incredibly, despite these criticisms coming from throughout the Muslim community worldwide, some in the United States have contended, and ISIS purports, that ISIS is simply reinstating traditional dhimmi status and jizya taxes. The evidence, however, indicates that ISIS’s application of those historical Islamic practices is unique, at best, and is contrary to traditional practice.

First, the evidence strongly suggests that dhimmi status is not offered to all Christians. To the contrary, Christians are regularly murdered or enslaved without ever having the opportunity to assume dhimmi status. Indeed, ISIS’s stated aims of enslaving Christians in the city of “Rome” indicates that ISIS does not intend an honorable co-existence for Christian communities. This could not be more contrary to much of historical Islamic practice. Rather than enslave conquered populations, historically Muslims generally “abolished such cruel practice by awarding all non- Muslim subjects the significant dhimmi status,” a “special and significant” status derived from Muhammed’s teachings that any Muslim who wrongs a dhimmi will be against God on the Day of Resurrection. In this regard, dhimmi status during the beginning of Islam could be viewed as being progressive for its time. But ISIS fails to offer dhimmi status to “all” (or, perhaps, any) Assyrian Christians, and ISIS has restored sexual slavery and other “cruel practices” that dhimmi status, historically, was designed to replace.

Second, the dhimmi contracts which ISIS has offered are illusory. On September 3, 2015, ISIS published a dhimmi contract that Christians in Al- Qaryaten were forced to sign. ISIS purports to protect the Christians and their property if they abide by the contract, but “anyone [who] violat[es] any of the articles will be treated as a combatant.” Among the contract’s eleven articles are that Christians may not “make Muslims hear” any recitation of Christian scripture, must “respect Muslims,” and must “abide by ISIS[’s] dress code[.]” The contract also sets out the amount of jizya—ranging from one to four gold dinars84—but there is no provision for a Christian who cannot pay the amount demanded. Under the plain terms of the contract, something as minor as reciting a Christian scripture loud enough for a Muslim to hear could lead to a Christian being declared a combatant, which in the middle of an ISIS-controlled town is a certain death sentence.

Third, even where it is offered, the jizya is frequently too expensive for Assyrian Christians. Consider again the example of the father who could not afford to pay the jizya, had to watch his wife and daughter be raped before his eyes, and ultimately committed suicide. As one observer noted, “The Christians have told me that they cannot pay this tax[,] . . . and they say ‘what am I to do, shall I kill myself?’” This too is generally contrary to historical practice. In the past, the jizya was “so light that it did not constitute a burden . . . especially when we observe that [paying the jizya] exempted [the dhimmi] from compulsory military service.” In many respects, the traditional jizya “was in number and amount far less than taxes on the Muslims of that state,” and it was “not to be forcefully collected.” At a minimum, charging a Christian man more than he can pay is not “so light [as to] not constitute a burden[;]” nor can it be said that ISIS does not “forcefully collect” the jizya when it makes a man watch his wife and daughter be raped in front of him if he is unable to pay. These actions violate basic human rights and are an affront to the traditional Islamic practice.

Finally, ISIS has explicitly stated that it applies the jizya in large measure to degrade, humiliate, and destroy subject populations. For example, upon bombing a Russian plane and killing 224 civilians, ISIS announced that it would continue its war with Russia until Russia “pays the jizya in humiliation.” This also is against the general Islamic practice. Although there is some debate on the subject, as the recent letter to Baghdadi illustrates, most scholars agree that “non-Muslims who were to pay the jizya were [not] burdened with any humiliating provisions.”

To recapitulate, dhimmi status and the jizya are typically not offered to Assyrian Christians, even though it is supposed to be offered to all. Where it is offered, the jizya is too high for many Assyrian Christians to pay, meaning it is not actually a choice, when in fact the jizya is supposed to be less than what Muslims pay. And to the extent the jizya option is offered, ISIS intends for jizya to be a humiliation rather than a peaceful co-existence acknowledging Islam’s traditional tolerance for the dhimmi.

4. ISIS Has Systematically Destroyed Christian Symbols, Buildings, and Other Aspects of Christian Culture

ISIS has not limited its actions to killing or imposing exorbitant taxes. ISIS has also undertaken a comprehensive effort to eradicate Assyrian Christians from its territory through a full-scale destruction of archeological and historical objects of the utmost importance to the Assyrian Christians. ISIS’s actions again contrast sharply with historical Islamic regimes, which generally tolerated and even took steps to preserve and protect the heritage of Christians and other religious minorities. ISIS’s destruction of the Assyrian Christians’ cultural patrimony demonstrates its intent is to eliminate them from its territory, rather than merely enforce the collection of a jizya.

ISIS’s campaign against Iraq and Syria’s ancient Christian heritage has included the widespread destruction of churches, monasteries, iconography, relics, and historical artifacts. Furthermore, the systematic destruction of Assyrian Christians’ unique culture is permanent, and it is compelling evidence of an effort to eliminate the religious-ethnic group itself.

In Syria, ISIS’s destruction of Assyrian Christianity’s architecture has included the well-documented demolition of the fifth-century Monastery of Saint Elian. Dedicated to a fourth-century saint, the Monastery was an important pilgrimage site and sheltered hundreds of Syrian Christians. ISIS reportedly used bulldozers to topple its walls and posted pictures of the destruction on Twitter. ISIS also likely destroyed the third-century Dura-Europos Church, which was one of the world’s earliest known Christian churches. Satellite imagery shows a cratered landscape inside the city’s mud-brick walls, evidence of widespread destruction by looters.

In Iraq, the devastation has been even more extensive, and the intent to eliminate Christianity equally clear. In June 2014, ISIS fighters were reported to have been instructed to destroy all churches in Mosul. In July 2014, ISIS captured the Chaldean Catholic archdiocese in Mosul and stole or destroyed every Christian symbol in the building. To make clear their relationship with and view of the Assyrian Christians, ISIS militants then proclaimed, “There is no bishop nor Church in the Islamic State.” ISIS also destroyed the Monastery of Benham and the Monastery of St. Elijah, respectively founded in the fourth and sixth centuries. As a result, as the Rev. Emanuel Youkhana, the head of Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq, commented last year, “For the first time in 2,000 years, there are no church services in Mosul.”

Finally, ISIS is even systematically destroying ancient Assyrian cities, monuments, and artifacts that predate Christianity, a destruction that attests to Assyrian indigeneity in Nineveh. ISIS is denying Assyrians their future and their past. On January 28, 2015, ISIS demolished a large portion of the ancient wall of Nineveh in Mosul considered one of the most treasured archeological sites in the Middle East. On March 6, 2015, ISIS literally bulldozed the 3,300-year-old city of Nimrod. Mr. Qassim al-Sudani, an Iraqi ministry spokesman said “What ISIS did in Nimrud city is considered as a big loss to humanity in general. It is the loss of a national treasure.” On March 11, 2015, ISIS destroyed the ancient city of Khorsabad, an Assyrian Capital where one of the best preserved architectural treasures was located since 700 BCE. All of this illustrates ISIS’s decision to annihilate the culture of an entire people in their land.

The list goes on.

IV. Analysis

Our analysis focuses on two salient points. First, under the law of genocide, one must look past any stated pretext and examine the actual facts. The question of whether there is intent to commit genocide cannot be answered simply by accepting at face-value statements of the accused perpetrators. This is a simple but crucial point, particularly in the context of genocide where history shows that those who commit genocide almost always offer some sort of pretext for their behavior.

Second, ISIS’s purported practice of dhimmi and jizya—to the extent they are in fact offered to Assyrians—cannot by themselves preclude a finding that ISIS has the specific intent necessary to commit genocide. ISIS’s specific intent is clear, for ISIS has stated its intent in its publications and ideology. Moreover, ISIS has made that intent manifest by the repeated actions it has taken to destroy the Assyrian Christian community.

 A. The Applicable Law of Genocide

The world has recognized genocide as a crime against humanity since the adoption by the United Nations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“Genocide Convention”) on December 9, 1948. The Genocide Convention prohibits the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Article 2 of the Genocide Convention defines a series of actions as genocide if those actions are “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Genocidal conduct includes:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 3 states that the Convention is violated if a perpetrator commits genocide, conspires to commit genocide, directly and publicly incites others to commit genocide, attempts to commit genocide, or is complicit in genocide. Notably, the Genocide Convention does not list any circumstances under which genocidal conduct is excused.

Under Article 2, one must consider the intent of the actor in order to determine whether genocide has occurred. The proscribed conduct must be “committed with intent to destroy.” This intent is “an ulterior intent” beyond just the immediate intent of the exact action being taken; thus, killing a person may be murder, if the killer intends to kill, but it is also genocide if the murder is committed as part of an intent to destroy a group.

The various international criminal courts have offered similar definitions of the intent necessary to prove genocide. In the leading case, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda understood “intent to destroy” as “the specific intention, required as a constitutive element of the crime, which demands that the perpetrator clearly seeks to produce the act charged” or “the clear intent to cause the offense.” Notably, that there is an intent to kill present in ISIS’s murders is beyond question. To find the “intent to destroy” one need only refer to ISIS’s publications and ideology that set out just such a specific intent.

Because intent is an issue in establishing genocide, the issue of pretext is a necessary consideration. Pretext is “a purpose or motive alleged or an appearance assumed in order to cloak the real intention or state of affairs.” Pretextual statements and conduct, therefore, are designed to obscure an actor’s true intent.

In the case of genocide, if a stated policy or position is mere pretext, the actor’s real intent differs from his purportedly justifiable stated intent. Moreover, proof that a stated intent is pretextual necessarily means that there is another, true intent. When that pretext is exposed for what it is, the law then looks to the actual conduct taking place to infer intent. “A criminal intent is generally an element of crime, but every man is presumed to intend the necessary and legitimate consequences of what he knowingly does.”

Furthermore, the issue of true intent can be illuminated by conduct amounting to “cultural genocide.” Accepted interpretations of the Genocide Convention conclude that “cultural genocide” is not included within the scope of proscribed actions. Cultural genocide is contemplated to cover conduct that prohibits the use of local languages and schools, bans or restricts cultural and artistic activities relating to the particular culture, and destroys or confiscates “national treasures, libraries, archives, museums, artifacts, and art galleries.”

Cultural genocide extends beyond attacks upon the physical and/or biological elements of a group and seeks to eliminate its wider institutions. This is done in a variety of ways, and often includes the abolition of a group’s language, restrictions upon its traditional practices and ways, the destruction of religious institutions and objects, the persecution of clergy members, and attacks on academics and intellectuals. Elements of cultural genocide are manifested when artistic, literary, and cultural activities are restricted or outlawed and when national treasures, libraries, archives, museums, artifacts, and art galleries are destroyed or confiscated.

Accepted interpretations of the Genocide Convention conclude that “cultural genocide” is not included within the scope of proscribed actions. “[C]ustomary international law limits the definition of genocide to those acts seeking the physical or biological destruction of all or part of a group. [A]n enterprise attacking only the cultural or sociological characteristics of a human group in order to annihilate these elements which give to that group its own identity distinct from the rest of the community would not fall under the definition of genocide.” Early drafts of the Genocide Convention prohibited cultural genocide, but those provisions were dropped in the text of the final Convention. Thus, cultural genocide by itself is not a violation of the Genocide Convention. Nevertheless, acts relating to cultural genocide can evince the intent of a genocide perpetrator to destroy the protected group. For example, the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia concluded that the Serbian destruction of mosques and Muslim libraries and the attacks on cultural leaders was evidence of genocidal intent against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

B. ISIS’s Perverted Application of the Dhimmi Contract and Jizya Tax Appears to Be a Pretext for Genocide

There can be little doubt that ISIS is committing genocide against certain religious minority groups within its territory. The most apparent is ISIS’s attempt to exterminate the Yazidis. The Holocaust Museum’s report concluded that ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidis. Furthermore, the report concluded that ISIS committed crimes against humanity against all Christians in ISIS-controlled territory.

At the same time, there has been some suggestion that ISIS’s actions against Assyrian Christians cannot constitute genocide because ISIS offers dhimmi status and jizya tax as an alternative to execution. Possibly due in part to this contention, “administration officials and State Department lawyers have weighed labeling [ISIS’s] acts ‘crimes against humanity.’” Our review of the law and facts identifies the flaws in the argument that ISIS’s institution of dhimmi and jizya can preclude a finding of genocide.

ISIS’s purported practice of offering a dhimmi contract and jizya tax does not preclude a finding that ISIS’s persecution of Assyrian Christians constitutes genocide. The most reasonable conclusion, based on the totality of facts available for review, is that ISIS’s implementation of dhimmi and jizya is mere pretext. Interested Organizations assert that the State Department, too, must determine if ISIS’s policies are a pretext and, if so, look past them to determine the true facts and intent behind ISIS’s activities. When critically reviewed, the facts and law reveal a number of clear observations that warrant, at a minimum, an investigation into ISIS’s likely genocidal conduct.

First, the imposition of jizya and dhimmi in their classic sense violates some of the most basic, fundamental tenets of international human rights. In the century that followed the Ottoman Turks’ abolition of dhimmi and jizya, the entire world recognized the right to practice one’s religious faith in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That substantive right, moreover, is protected by the procedural right in Article 7 which grants all “equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.” Many countries, including Arab countries, therefore enshrine freedom of religion in their constitutions. The imposition of the jizya is “at odds with modern secular conceptions in the nation-state, which entail the equality of citizens who adhere to different religions.” Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that any modern regime respectful of basic human rights would permit the subjugation of a class of people simply because that class did not believe in a particular religion.

For good reason, concepts such as jizya and dhimmi have no place in civilized modern nations. Jizya and dhimmi were last employed by a recognized state when the Ottomans enforced them prior to the First World War. Jizya is basically extinct. In the 21st century, only the Taliban and ISIS have attempted to levy it.

If classical jizya contravenes human rights, then ISIS’s perverted application, in which even children are forced to choose between conversion and death, is a complete abomination. ISIS has no respect for the Assyrian Christians’ freedom of religion and certainly does not recognize their “right . . . to change [their] religion or belief[s]”—unless that change is a forced conversion to Islam. There is no freedom at all when the only alternative for most is death or, in the best of cases, an onerous tax. Thus, a so-called alternative to death that grossly violates international norms cannot excuse ISIS’s genocidal activities.

Second, there have been reports that, in certain areas of ISIS-controlled territories, it is no longer the policy of ISIS to offer the jizya as an alternative to death or forced-conversion to Islam. For instance, one editorial by The San Diego Union-Tribune stated that, in June 2014, “little more than a day before the deadline, ISIS revoked the option of paying the jizya.”138 After the revocation, “[t]he only options were convert, flee or be killed.”

Third, ISIS’s professed ideology and goals state a specific intent of ultimately destroying the Assyrian Christian community in Iraq and Syria. ISIS seeks to establish a global Islamic Caliphate from which all religious minorities—including Assyrian Christians—are eliminated. There is no reason or evidence to dispute that ISIS’s stated intent accurately reflects its true intent. ISIS has the intent of destroying the Assyrian Christian community. That stated intent runs contrary to both classical and ISIS’s perverted views of jizya and dhimmi. It is necessarily true that jizya cannot be a possibility if those who would take dhimmi status are eliminated.

Fourth, ISIS’s stated policy towards non-Muslim women again reveals its true intent towards Assyrian Christians. In a pamphlet issued by the Research and Fatwa Department of the Islamic State (ISIS), ISIS explained its philosophy towards capturing and raping non-Muslim captured women.

Question 3: Can all unbelieving women be taken captive?
There is no dispute among the scholars that it is permissible to capture unbelieving women [who are characterized by] original unbelief [kufr asli], such as the kitabiyat [women from among the People of the Book, i.e. Jews and Christians] and polytheists. However, [the scholars] are disputed over [the issue of] capturing apostate women. The consensus leans towards forbidding it, though some people of knowledge think it permissible. We [ISIS] lean towards accepting the consensus…

Question 4: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female captive?
It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with the female captive. Allah the almighty said: “[Successful are the believers] who guard their chastity, except from their wives or (the captives and slaves) that their right hands possess, for then they are free from blame [Koran 23:5- 6]”…

Question 13: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who has not reached puberty?
It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however if she is not fit for intercourse, then it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse.

Question 17: What is al-‘azl?
Al-‘azl is refraining from ejaculating on a woman’s pudendum [i.e. coitus interruptus].

Question 18: May a man use the al-‘azl [technique] with his female slave?
A man is allowed [to use] al-‘azl during intercourse with his female slave with or without her consent.

Question 19: Is it permissible to beat a female slave?
It is permissible to beat the female slave as a [form of] darb ta’deeb [disciplinary beating], [but] it is forbidden to [use] darb al-takseer [literally, breaking beating], [darb] al-tashaffi [beating for the purpose of achieving gratification], or [darb] al-ta’dheeb [torture beating]. Further, it is forbidden to hit the face.

ISIS’s apparently detailed and twisted rules for treating captured women directly contradict any purported tolerance that is allegedly embodied by dhimmi status and the jizya tax. All of these so-called “unbelieving women” should be offered the respite of dhimmi and jizya, yet ISIS has expressly stated that it is permissible for ISIS militants to rape captured Assyrian Christian women.

Indeed, precedent from the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal suggests the detailed, almost bureaucratic, guidelines on the rape and abuse of Assyrian Christian women, and its widespread practice among ISIS militants, can and should be viewed as evidence of genocidal intent. For example, in the judgment entered in the prosecution of Jean-Paul Akayesu, which found the Hutu Rwandan guilty of nine counts of genocide and other crimes against humanity, the tribunal explained that rape and other types of sexual assault constitute genocide when committed with intent to destroy the targeted group as such.

[T]he Chamber holds that the measures intended to prevent births within the group, should be construed as sexual mutilation, the practice of sterilization, forced birth control, separation of the sexes and prohibition of marriages. In patriarchal societies, where membership of a group is determined by the identity of the father, an example of a measure intended to prevent births within a group is the case where, during rape, a woman of the said group is deliberately impregnated by a man of another group, with the intent to have her give birth to a child who will consequently not belong to its mother’s group. Furthermore, . . . rape can be a measure intended to prevent births when the person raped refuses subsequently to procreate, in the same way that members of a group can be led, through threats or trauma, not to procreate.

At the very least, it shows ISIS’s imposition of dhimmi and levying of jizya is pretextual, as its faithful application would require ISIS to protect, rather than abuse, Christian minorities.

Fourth, ISIS is implementing its stated goals by, inter alia, destroying all of the Christian churches and monasteries within its territory. The deliberate “destruction of religious institutions” is a form of “cultural genocide.” Although “cultural genocide” is not among the conduct proscribed by the Genocide Convention, it may nevertheless show an “intent to destroy” the targeted group “as such.”

It was precisely this type of cultural genocide that supported a finding of genocide in Srebrenica. In 2001, the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia concluded that Bosnian Serbs’ destruction of “the principal mosque in Srebrenica” was evidence of their genocidal intent. The International Tribunal explained that “[i]ntent by the Bosnian Serb forces to target the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica as a group is further evidenced by their destroying homes of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and Potoari and the principal mosque in Srebrenica soon after the attack.” The International Tribunal also noted that, “where there is physical or biological destruction there are often simultaneous attacks on the cultural and religious property and symbols of the targeted group as well, attacks which may legitimately be considered as evidence of an intent to physically destroy the group.” The Tribunal thus expressly considered “as evidence of intent to destroy the group the deliberate destruction of mosques and houses belonging to members of the group.”

Fifth, even if traditional dhimmi and jizya were acceptable practices in modern societies, ISIS does not impose dhimmi status and levy jizya as written or as generally practiced in historical Islam. To the contrary, ISIS imposes a perverted type of dhimmi status and levies jizya in an arbitrary and capricious manner; furthermore, it does not make those options available to many Assyrian Christians.

Nor is there any evidence that ISIS applies jizya and dhimmi as they are supposed to applied. There is no evidence that ISIS abides by traditional limitations on jizya. If, for example, “The jizya is not to be collected from the indigent who receives alms, nor from a blind man who has no craft and no work, nor from any invalid receiving alms, nor from any cripple,” then how does one explain ISIS’s action in forcing the last Christian in Mosul, a disabled woman, from her home? Likewise, there is no evidence that ISIS is able to or intends to protect Christians from attackers; to the contrary, the evidence thus far suggests ISIS is the group that is attacking Christians.

News reports show that the jizya is often excessive, such that Assyrian Christians do not in fact have the choice to pay it. If the average Assyrian Christian cannot pay the tax, it is reasonable to believe the tax is intended to “inflict on [Assyrian Christians] conditions of life calculated to bring about [their] physical destruction in whole or in part” or that the tax is part of a broader strategy “inten[ded] to destroy, in whole or in part,” the Assyrian Christian community in Iraq and Syria.

C. Similar to ISIS’s Conduct, Many Past Perpetrators of Genocide Have Employed Pretexts to Obscure the True Intent

It should come as no surprise that ISIS’s application of dhimmi and jizya are mere pretexts to ISIS’s true intention of annihilating Christians within its territory. Those who commit such horrendous crimes often, for various reasons, attempt to offer justifications for their actions. Indeed, pretextual justifications are a recurring feature seen throughout previous genocides. As scholar René Lemarchand has noted, “[e]very genocide is unique . . . but the deliberate concealment or manipulation of the facts by the perpetrators is more often the rule than the exception.”

History confirms Lemarchand’s pronouncement, as illustrated by the following brief examples. The objective here is not to provide detailed accounts of prior genocide. Rather, the brief discussion underscores the common approach of those who commit genocide and how every group oppressor will offer a justification for its conduct which turns out to be mere pretext for the oppressor’s true intent. Pretexts have been at the core of past genocides; the State Department must scrutinize ISIS’s current pretext or risk a repeat of the tragedies of history.

In 1972, the Hutus started an insurgency against the Tutsi-controlled government of Burundi. It was, without question, a violent insurgency in which the Hutus killed two to three thousand Tutsis.160 But the ruling Tutsi party took the opportunity of putting down the insurgency as a pretext to kill about 150,000 Hutus. The ruling officials “used the ‘clear and present danger’ posed by the Hutu insurgency as a pretext to go far beyond the immediate exigency of restoring peace and order.” “[T]he ultimate objective was to systematically kill all educated Hutu elements, including civil servants, university students, and school children, and in doing so eliminate for the foreseeable future any serious threat of Hutu rebellion.”

Moreover, the Burundi genocide against the Hutus—and the fact that nothing was done to punish the perpetrators—had stark consequences: “[T]he long-term effects of the genocide have enormously complicated the quest for a peaceful solution of the Hutu-Tutsi question.” That complication became a tangible reality twenty-two years later in neighboring Rwanda when the Hutu majority in that country began a much-larger genocide against the Tutsis. The event that triggered the genocide was the shooting down of Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane. To this day, no one knows precisely who shot the plane down, but some scholars claim it was Hutus that did it to give them a pretext for the slaughter than ensued. Regardless, like the Hutu insurgency in Burundi, the incident offered a pretext for genocide.

Pretext then was used to hide what was happening on the ground. Media reports described the events in Rwanda as “tribal bloodlust” or a reflection of “age-old animosity,” and the U.S. ambassador initially agreed with this assessment. “The Hutu government itself fostered this image of spontaneous mob violence in an effort to allay international concern.” But this was only a pretext, as Hutu hardliners heading various militia groups led, organized, and encouraged the genocide itself. “[T]he Rwandan genocide is another example of a planned and deliberate attempt to exterminate a population[.]” Senior U.S. officials believed that a genocide was taking place but unfortunately took no action, quite possibly due to the pretextual obfuscation.

Another example is the first recognized genocide of the 20th century against the Herero people in Southwest Africa.” In 1904, the German authorities in present-day Namibia killed an estimated 81 percent of the Herero tribe, totaling tens of thousands of people. The slaughter began after a Herero uprising, following years of tension over cattle and grazing lands; but from the very outset, local commentators recognized that the uprising would give the German authorities the pretext needed to eradicate the Herero. “[A] number of settlers voiced the opinion that the uprising was a positive advantage because it gave the Germans the chance to annihilate the natives.” As one missionary reported, “The Germans are consumed with inexpiable hatred and a terrible thirst for revenge, one might even say they are thirsting for the blood of the Herero. All you hear these days is . . . ‘make a clean sweep, hang them, shoot them all to the last man, give no quarter.’”

Using the uprising as a pretext for reprisals, German general Lothar von Trotha set out to destroy the Herero people. And here another pretext arose. After a battlefield victory, von Trotha forced the Herero into the desert then prevented the Herero from accessing any of the water wells in the region. Notably, von Trotha defended his actions to the German press, saying he could not give water to women and children for fear of his own men lacking water. This was a pretext; in fact the Germans did not need the wells and had poisoned them, forcing the Herero into an impossible choice.

Even after the rebellion was put down further pretexts emerged. From 1905 to 1908, on the pretext of placing the Herero into work camps, the Germans forced the Herero into one of the earliest historical instances of concentration camps. As with von Trotha’s earlier actions, the punitive “work camps” were a pretext for genocide; over 70 percent of the Herero in the camps died within three years.

Perhaps the most salient and directly relevant historical example of all, however, is a series of genocides that scholars recognize, even though the U.S. government has declined to do so. The death of one and a half million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923 has been recognized by scholars as “one of the largest [genocides] in world history” and, along with the Holocaust, as one of the “quintessential instances of total genocide in the modern era.”

The Armenian Genocide is important to consider in the present circumstances for several reasons. First, it took place in the same general region that ISIS is operating in and also involved a Muslim government committing atrocities against a Christian minority during a time of war. Second, and of particular relevance, a second genocide against the Assyrian Christians occurred concomitantly and as part of the same overall Turkish strategy. The Assyrian Genocide of 1915 to 1918 involved the same ethnic and religious group being slaughtered by ISIS today. Unfortunately, there has been very little historical research into or international recognition of the prior Assyrian Genocide. But Interested Organizations write in the hope that the Assyrian Christians of today will not be forgotten or ignored as their forefathers were. If “history repeats itself,” then the strongest historical analogy to ISIS’s current actions is the genocides committed during the First World War.

Pretext was again at the foundation and root of the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides. Following a defeat in the Caucasus at the hands of the Russians in the winter of 1914-15, Turkish general Ismail Enver put the blame on the Armenians and charged the entire population with treason. The genocide therefore had its origin in the pretext that the Armenians were disloyal. Then, pretext was central to the operation of the genocide as many Armenians and Assyrians starved or died of thirst (or were massacred by marauding bands) under the pretext that they were being deported and resettled. For example, the Ottoman government set up the Commission on Immigrants to facilitate the “resettlement” process, when in fact the Commission “served as an on-site committee to report on the progress of the disposal of the Armenians as they were further and further removed from the inhabitable regions[.]”

U.S. and other international officials recognized the pretexts and the reality of the situation immediately. For example, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau wrote a letter on July 16, 1915 noting “that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion.” Likewise, Russia, Britain, and France issued a formal warning to Turkey on May 24, 1915 regarding the “crimes against humanity” that were taking place. Ultimately, however, the international community never held the perpetrators to account.

The failure of the international community to stop the genocide or punish the perpetrators had severe repercussions. On the eve of World War II, Adolf Hitler declared, “Who today, after all, speaks about the annihilation of the Armenians?” Indeed, Hitler may have believed he could get away with mass killing precisely because others had done so before. That must not be allowed to happen here. Interested Organizations urge the State Department to stop a repeat of history. Once again, the Assyrian community is facing genocide, this time at the hands of an organization that has an explicit, stated intent of destroying the Assyrian Christians. Once again, the worldwide community has evidence that the justifications given are false or mere pretexts for genocidal conduct. This time, the State Department should hold the perpetrators to account for their crimes against humanity.

V. Conclusion

Once again, the United States is at a crossroads of history. The Philos Project, AMO, ICRC, and AASA entreat the State Department to look past ISIS’s pretext and recognize the genocide occurring in Iraq The U.S. should not allow history to repeat itself when by all accounts another genocide appears to be happening. At the very least, the State Department must not accept ISIS’s purported justification at face value. International and domestic law commands authorities to look past pretexts, and history demonstrates that pretexts are at the foundation of almost every genocide that has ever taken place. The State Department should closely examine the evidence of what is actually happening on the ground and ignore every sort of pretext offered by ISIS. The current administration has done a great deal of good in this world; it would be a shame for that legacy to be stained in the eyes of history by inaction here.

Our review and analysis of the available facts and applicable law strongly suggest that ISIS’s alleged tolerance in the form of dhimmi status and the jizya tax is simply a pretext to commit genocide. Numerous other governments and world leaders have concluded that the Assyrian Christians are suffering a genocide. Interested Organizations urge the State Department to reach the same conclusion and join the chorus calling for an end to ISIS’s crimes against humanity.

Respectfully submitted,

Hon. Scott Brister
Richard Deutsch
Matthew J. Dowd
Ryan McBrearty
Eric G. Osborne
Austin Priddy
Jared Weir
Patrick Yarborough

Andrews Kurth LLP
1350 I Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 662-2700

Counsel for
The Philos Project
The American Mesopotamian Organization The Assyrian Aid Society of America
The Iraqi Christian Relief Council

cc: Ambassador David N. Saperstein