Genocide of Religious Minorities

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. GABBARD. Mr. Speaker, there were two votes that occurred earlier this week on House Concurrent Resolution 75 and House Concurrent Resolution 121, which deal with very important and complex issues that I would like to talk about this morning.

I cosponsored and voted for House Concurrent Resolution 75 because of my grave concern about the genocide occurring against Christians, Alawites, Shiites, Druze, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Syria.

However, I was extremely disappointed by amendment language that was later added to this resolution that provides cover or an excuse for ISIS and other terrorist organizations committing this genocide.

This amendment is an obvious attempt to make ISIS look like their cause is legitimate. This is absolutely unacceptable and undermines the very heart and intent of this resolution.

This is very unfortunate because the problem of the genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Syria is very serious.

In fact, the main area in Syria where Christians and other religious minorities have any protection today from being slaughtered and where they can practice their religious faith without fear of prosecution is in the territory that is still controlled by the Syrian Government of Assad.

The reality is that the language added to this resolution, coupled with its sister resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 121, is really aimed at justifying the overthrow of Assad, the result of which would be a complete assault and elimination of Christians and other religious minorities in Syria.

The fact that this resolution, which was originally introduced to increase protection for Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities, has now been hijacked so that it becomes a vehicle to increase the likelihood of an even greater genocide against those religious minorities is an absolute disgrace.

The reality is that, if the Assad regime is overthrown tomorrow, every Christian, every Yazidi, and every other religious minority and ethnic minority in Syria will be in even greater danger than ever before from the genocide being perpetrated by ISIS, al Qaeda, and others who are slaughtering them.

This resolution is no longer a sincere effort to protect religious minorities. It has instead become a resolution to give more legitimacy to ISIS and al Qaeda's genocidal activities and would bring about an even greater genocide of those religious minorities by eliminating the only area where they now have refuge.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source