Daesh: Genocide of Minorities

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

That was a very moving speech by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry).

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing the debate.

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”

That is Daesh. For the members of this death cult, the destruction of a way of life, an ideology and a set of beliefs that is not theirs is both their ultimate and sole aim. Daesh is self-defining as a committer of genocide. To achieve that, its members rape, enslave, and decapitate. Their victims are Muslims, Kurds, Yazidis and Christians.

The Syrian Centre for Policy Research estimates that in Syria, approximately 470,000 people have been killed either directly or indirectly as a result of the five years of civil war. What is most shocking is that the United Nations has given up estimating the number, because the numbers are so vast that it cannot provide verifiable statistics. Whatever the number of those killed, millions more have been displaced and lost. Each cowardly act of death and destruction is just that—a cowardly act—but put together, these acts make up a reign of terror, targeted at a specific group of people. This is the systematic murder—genocide—of the people who form these communities, the cultural heritage that has tied them together for generations and the values and beliefs that define them.

I heard first hand what Daesh do. I was lucky—or unlucky—enough to meet a young, brave Yazidi woman called Nadia Murad, in a meeting co-ordinated by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), for which I give him credit. She had been taken by Daesh as a sex slave. Her race was justification enough for the horrific way in which she, her family and her community were mistreated and destroyed.

We failed to prevent genocide in Bosnia. In Germany, the Nazis were appeased while they targeted Jews. The death cult of misfits that we face now cannot be allowed to get away with this any longer. In Iraq and Syria, Daesh’s statements have taken credit for the mass murder and persecution of Christians and have shown its clear intent to purge Christian communities from the area it claims as its own. As a country, we show a weakness by failing to acknowledge the extent of the persecution against Yazidis, Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities. We are failing the victims of deliberate and targeted persecution, where race, faith and gender are all the excuse that Daesh needs to find new and innocent targets for mass murder. If we do not recognise these acts as genocide, we effectively declare that we are not willing to take all action necessary to bring it to an end and to bring the perpetrators to justice, as they deserve.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

A week after the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) brought Nadia Murad to the House of Commons, I was fortunate enough to bring her to the Public Gallery here. In fact, she went up there with my wife who, incidentally, is the daughter of holocaust survivors. Afterwards, as I am sure the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber will agree, Nadia was so grateful. I could not understand why she was so grateful to us, but I think it was because she had faith in this House. She genuinely believed that we would act to help her and her people. She was not one of our jaded constituents. She thought that this House meant something, and that we would do something to help her and her people.

[Nusrat Ghani]

My hon. Friend is right. As the oldest democracy in the world, we have a responsibility to Nadia Murad also.

We would be complicit in overlooking the scale of criminality that is ongoing and largely unpunished. That is not a position that a country steadfast in its commitment to fairness, freedom and justice should be relaxed about. The UN Security Council’s declaring these acts to be genocide is key to preventing the spread of terrorism and radicalisation, and it allows an international criminal tribunal to be set up to try the terrorists who are committing these heinous acts and to bring them to true justice. That is why I support the motion.

On 12 April, when the Minister was challenged on the issue, he said:

“I too believe that acts of genocide have taken place”.—[Official Report, 12 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 165.]

I hope we can move on from that statement today.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Warburton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not only tragic but bizarre and unimaginable that Daesh has taken its own religion and turned it into something so distinctly different from what was intended.

[Robert Jenrick]

Last year I and several other Members persuaded the Government to create a £30 million cultural protection fund, and they are in the process of deciding the criteria for how that will be spent. Does my hon. Friend agree that some of the money should go to the heritage and sites of persecuted religious minorities, such as Christian and Yazidi groups in Syria and Iraq, to protect historic sites, churches and manuscripts for future generations?

[David Warburton]

I could not agree more. The cultural demolition is explicitly linked to the genocidal aims that we are discussing.

To say that Christians and Yazidis are victims of genocide is not to minimise the terrible suffering of others in the region. In a debate held on a similar motion in another place, Lord Bates was entirely right to point out that it is often Muslims who suffer the greatest brutality at the hands of Daesh. Over the past six months, the United States Congress, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the US Secretary of State have all declared that Daesh is committing genocide.