The new human rights chief of the United Nations urged world powers on Monday to protect women and minorities targeted by the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), saying the fighters were trying to create a "house of blood".
Jordan's Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, the first Muslim to hold the position, who succeeded Navi Pillay, called for the international community to focus on ending the "increasingly conjoined" conflict in the two countries, and abuses in other hotspots from Ukraine to Gaza. Islamic State's Sunni Muslim fighters have over-run large parts of Syria and Iraq since June, declaring a cross-border caliphate. The Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council last week agreed to send a team to investigate killings and other abuses carried out by the group on "an unimaginable scale".
Zeid, Jordan's former U.N. ambassador and a Jordanian prince, described Islamic State in his maiden speech to the Council as "takfiris" - people who justify killing others by branding them as apostates. "It would be a harsh, mean-spirited, house of blood, where no shade would be offered, nor shelter given, to any non-Takfiri in their midst," Zeid added. He called on Iraq's new government and prime minister to consider joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure accountability for crimes committed there. The UN’s Human Rights Council has an independent investigation into war crimes by all sides in Syria, where more than 190,000 documented killings have occurred during the conflict that began in March 2011, according to a report by Pillay last month. (Source: Reuters)
(From archive of Vatican Radio)
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