Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump administration would stand with persecuted Christians [Tommy Berry-Ron Nickel/World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians]
Critics
are taking Mike Pence to task for associating the word 'genocide' with ISIL
attacks on Christians worldwide.
ishtartv.com - aljazeera.com
By Lyndal Rowlands,
19May 2017
New
York City - Activists are questioning comments by US Vice President Mike Pence
who recently warned that Christians around the world face "genocide"
at the hands of ISIL.
Speaking
at the first-ever World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians in
Washington, DC, last week, Pence described the Christian faith as "under
siege", stating an estimated 215 million Christians face mistreatment in
more than 100 countries.
"The
reality is, across the wider world, the Christian faith is under siege.
Throughout the world, no people of faith today face greater hostility or hatred
than the followers of Christ," Pence told the audience.
Christianity,
the world's largest religion, has an estimated 2.2 billion followers worldwide.
Yet Pence reserved his strongest words at the summit for the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL,
also known as ISIS) group.
"I
believe ISIS is guilty of nothing short of genocide against people of the
Christian faith, and it is time the world called it by name," said Pence.
Simon Adams,
executive director of the Global
Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a New York-based policy
institute, questioned Pence's choice of words.
"You
have to be so careful with the genocide word," said Adams. "This is
not just a word to throw around because it serves political advantage."
Adams
did agree there have been "mass atrocities" committed against
Christians in Iraq, but added in relation to genocide the situation was more
complicated.
"We
were very careful when we came out and said that we thought that there had been
a genocide committed against the Yazidis, that was based on investigation, on
argument, on deliberation," he said.
The
Yazidis are an ethnic and religious minority that has been targeted by ISIL in Iraq. As many as 1,500 Yazidi women and
girls are estimated to be enslaved by the armed group.
"Where
is [Pence's] passionate speech for the Yazidis", or Shia Muslims or
Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar - "one of the most persecuted religious
minority groups in the world?" asked Adams.
Each
of the analysts and Christian faith leaders that Al Jazeera spoke to for this
article agreed that Christians face significant persecution, particularly in
contexts where they are the minority. However, they all also highlighted
persecution suffered by other religious groups and ethnic minorities.
Fadi
Hallisso - a Syrian and former Jesuit whose charity Basmeh & Zaitouneh
helps Syrian refugees in Turkey - told Al Jazeera while he agreed that
Christians in Syria were suffering, he did not think it was particularly
helpful to portray them as "a special category of victims in the Middle
East or in Syria".
"Of
course because Christians are a minority in Syria or in Iraq, they would be hit
harder by the catastrophe," said Hallisso. "But are they the only
ones suffering? I think in the current situation, all of us are
suffering."
The
World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians was useful in that it
helped to raise awareness about the hardships suffered by Christians,
especially Christian minorities, Peter Prove, director of the Commission of the
Churches on International Affairs at the World Council of Churches, told Al
Jazeera.
However,
Prove also said some of the numbers used by Pence "may be
questionable".
"We
know numerically that Muslims have been by far the greater victims of Islamic
extremism," he said.
Influencing
policy?
Last
Saturday, Donald Trump was introduced at Liberty University as the US president who
"bombed those in the Middle East who were persecuting and killing
Christians".
Some
of the Trump administration's policy decisions could be interpreted as
specifically responding to concerns of persecution or discrimination from
Christian supporters.
For
example, the recent presidential religious liberty executive order followed on
from a survey that found 57 percent of white Christian evangelicals said they
believe Christians face "a lot of discrimination" in the United
States, compared to only 44 percent who believe Muslims face "a lot of
discrimination".
The
survey took place in February following the controversial travel ban that
targeted Muslim-majority countries.
Pence
took care at the summit to note that the Trump administration is concerned with
protecting all people who suffer because of their religion. However, Adams
questioned the administration's commitment to these words.
"It's
deeply contradictory and hypocritical for a government that proposes a Muslim
ban to talk about promoting religious freedom and talk about protecting people
from religious persecution in the world," he said.
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