Imam calls for radical reforms to end extremism and safeguard Eastern Christians

appearing to show IS slave market
Sexual slavery practised by Islamic State (IS) jihadists is condoned in literature that is available at Islamic institutions and should be burnt, a leading imam in France has said. Hocine Drouiche, vice president of the Conference of Imams of France and an imam in Nimes, said that the ideology behind the . . . Read More

Netherlands joins UN Security Council to shine light on IS genocide

A church in Karamles, a town near Mosul, after IS was pushed out in October 2016. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
The Netherlands has just joined the UN Security Council as a temporary member for a year. Ten days before, its Foreign Minister, Halbe Zijlstra, published a letter explaining the Dutch government’s response on the use by politicians of the term “genocide”. The Dutch Parliament had had several debates on the . . . Read More

UN ‘overlooked’ IS crime of forced displacement

Iraqi Christians ask the international community for help as they are facing annihilation by Islamic State. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
Campaigners for Christian and Yazidi victims of the Islamic State group welcomed the UN’s decision last month to recognise the Islamic State group’s crimes as “genocide”, but human rights advocate Ewelina Ochab questions why “forced displacement” wasn’t included. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to create an investigative team to . . . Read More

‘Milestone’ as UN votes to create team to collect evidence of IS’s crimes

Desecrated church I in Qaraqosh, Iraq. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
Campaigners for Christian and Yazidi victims of the Islamic State group welcomed a vote at the United Nations yesterday (21 September), hailed as a “milestone” in their efforts to bring perpetrators of atrocities to justice. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to create an investigative team to collect evidence of . . . Read More

Iraqi MPs reject ‘safe areas’ for Christians

A majority of Iraq’s Members of Parliament have rejected any proposals to set aside safe areas for Christians and other indigenous minorities in the country’s Nineveh Plains, once the province is liberated from the “Islamic State” (IS). “The Parliament has voted to keep Nineveh’s provincial boundaries as they were prior . . . Read More