Washington, D.C. – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) this week commemorates the tragic tenth anniversary of the onset of the genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Iraqi and Syrian religious minorities by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"USCIRF solemnly marks ten years since ISIS began its campaign of religious and ethnically based crimes against humanity and genocide against Iraqi and Syrian Yazidis, Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Christians, Shi’a Muslims, and other religious and ethnic minorities,” stated USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck. “While the resilience of the survivors is inspiring as they try to rebuild their communities, we remain deeply concerned over ongoing threats to their human rights and religious freedom. As Yazidis around the world memorialize the August 3, 2014 start of the Yazidi Genocide, USCIRF calls on the U.S. government to urge Iraq’s federal government and the KRG to remove systemic legislative and political obstacles to the rights and representation of the religious minorities that survived ISIS’s onslaught.”
In early August 2014, ISIS laid siege to Sinjar, the ancestral region of Iraq’s Yazidis, executing, kidnapping or driving out almost all of Sinjar’s 400,000 Yazidi residents. In March 2016, the U.S. Department of State determined that ISIS had committed genocide and crimes against humanity against multiple religious minority communities, including indigenous Christians, Yazidis, Shi’a Muslims, and other groups. In 2019, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS—including the United States and its local partners—achieved its territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
“In Iraq today, non-state actors and government-affiliated militias continue to perpetrate serious abuses against religious minorities already vulnerable after ISIS’s genocide against them,” said USCIRF Vice Chair Eric Ueland. “The United States must continue to raise religious freedom concerns with Iraq’s federal government, urging it to limit the power of the abusive Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) brigades and to work with the KRG to fulfill the terms of the Sinjar Agreement, in consultation with Yazidi communities. USCIRF also advises the U.S. government to encourage its allied local forces in northeast Syria, the KRG, and the government of Iraq to continue urgently pursuing rescue efforts for abducted Yazidi and Assyrian women and girls.”
USCIRF continues to highlight the aftereffects of ISIS’s genocide against Iraq’s religious minorities, including threats to their administrative autonomy and political representation. Today, USCIRF releases the first in a series of podcasts addressing ongoing religious freedom concerns for Iraqi and Syrian religious minority survivors of the genocide.
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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a commissioner, please contact USCIRF at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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