The recent and widespread murders, rapes, displacements and other violence and assaults on the religious freedoms of people in Syria and Iraq and the U.S. effort to address them were the topics of a congressional hearing Wednesday held jointly by the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.

    The hearing “Genocidal Attacks Against Christian and Other Religious Minorities in Syria and Iraq,” was chaired by Rep. Chris Smith, and attended other members of the House subcommittees.

    “As images of beheaded American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff are seared into our consciousness, we would do well to honor their memories by recalling that they saw it as their mission to alert the world to the horrors committed by the fanatical Islamist terrorist group ISIS in Syria and Iraq:  Children forced to view crucifixions and beheadings, women bartered, sold and raped, prisoners lined up on their knees to be shot – this is ISIS’ legacy,” Smith said. “Today Christians and other religious minorities, such as Yezidis, Shabaks, and Turkmen Shiites are not just facing a long winter without homes.  They are not just hungry and thirsty and wandering from village to village in Northern Iraq and Kurdistan.  They are facing annihilation—genocide—by fanatics who see anyone who does not subscribe to its draconian and violent interpretation of Islam as fair game for enslavement, forced conversion or death,” Smith said. Click here to read Cong. Smith’s opening statement.

    Assistant Secretary Tom Malinowski, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, testified that he alarmed by the violence waged by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against Iraqis of all sects, ethnicities, and religions.

     “The U.S. government is very focused on ending ISIL’s reign of terror and ensuring protection and access to humanitarian assistance for all its victims,” Malinowski said. “We are particularly appalled by ISIL’s targeted and systematic efforts to drive out and potentially eradicate entire religious communities from their historic homelands in the Ninewa plains area and Sinjar district. Among ISIL’s clear ambitions is the destruction of Iraq’s rich religious heritage and ethnic diversity and absolute subjugation of all people within its reach. The Iraqi people need and deserve a government that not only represents all of their voices but also provides basic government services and security.”

    Assistant Secretary Anne Richard, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State said that prior to the 2014 conflict, there were an estimated 500,000 Christians and 500,000 Yezidis living throughout Iraq, with large communities living in Ninewa.

    “Now, most members of religious minority communities have fled Ninewa,” Richard said. “In the Kurdish region, they joined hundreds of thousands other displaced Iraqis, including approximately 100,000 Christians, who escaped the brutal occupation of Mosul and nearby communities. UNHCR estimates that the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq now host more than one million people, a mix of displaced Iraqis (850,000) and Syrian refugees (215,000).”

    In special peril are “the Christians, Yezidis, Shabak, Turkmen, and other minorities who are being targeted by ISIL forces,” she said. “ISIL has demonstrated unbounded bigotry and brutality toward ethnic and religious minorities. Its atrocities include mass killings, beheadings, abductions, forced conversions, forced marriages, and rape.”

    Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator Thomas Staal, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development said Christians and other vulnerable populations “are suffering unimaginable horrors from the systematic violence carried out against them by the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).” The daily atrocities committed by ISIL against the Iraqi people – including the violence targeting ethnic minorities and religious groups – is claiming and destroying countless lives, tearing at the fabric of society, and further enflaming sectarian violence. Furthermore, ISIL’s abhorrent treatment of women and children is unconscionable.”

    Also testifying were: Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce of California President Johnny Oram in lieu of Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim, Bishop Emeritus, Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle; Peter Galbraith, former advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government; Pascale Esho Warda, President, Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, (Former Minister of Immigration and Refugees in the Iraqi Government), and Dr. Thomas Farr, Ph.D., Director, Religious Freedom Project, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs Georgetown University. Click here to read the testimony of the witnesses.

    “In the past perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity have tried to cover up their crimes. ISIS advertises its atrocities in slickly produced videos,” Galbraith said. “We know what is happening. The question is what will the United States and its allies do about it.” He urged that the West recognize that ISIS is committing genocide against Iraq’s Christians and the Yazidis, and is killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting intolerable physical conditions “with the announced intent of destroying the Christian and Yazidi religious groups in their entirety.”

    Warda said that refugees are living in streets, open fields, schools, and church halls and courtyards, abandoned, condemned and unfinished buildings and in large tent camps.

    “Winter is approaching, and many of the old, young and weak will not survive the cold weather,” Warda said. “The displaced children will miss their school year. The local children will also miss their school year because schools are overfilled with refugees. Minorities are threatened with death and executed, they are kidnapped and raped, they are robbed and pillaged. They are denied water and electric service. Women are kidnapped and sold and forced to marry ISIS members.”

    Farr said the violence and the root cause of the genocide and threats to religious minorities in Iraq and Syria is Islamist terrorism of the kind that hit the U.S. on 9/11. That phenomenon finds its origins in a radical, and spreading, interpretation of Islam -- nourished and subsidized by secular and religious Middle Eastern tyrants, he said.

    “Tomorrow we mark the 13th anniversary of the Islamist terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” Farr said. “What we are facing in Iraq and Syria today has deeply troubling similarities to 9/11, both in its origins and its threat to American national security. There is, of course, at least one major difference between now and then. While Christians in the Middle East were under mounting pressure in 2001, today their very existence is at risk. We are witnessing the disappearance of Christians and Christianity from Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere in the Middle East – a religious/cultural genocide with terrible humanitarian, moral, and strategic consequences for Christians, for the region, and for us all.”