(Washington, D.C.) On December 30, 2015, IDC President Toufic Baaklini made the following statement:
“Yesterday evening at a town hall meeting, IDC New Hampshire supporter Father Andrew Nelson asked Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ‘Tonight, with all of us here, will you join those leaders, faith leaders and secular leaders and political leaders from both the right and the left, in calling what is happening by its proper name: Genocide?’
“Secretary Clinton responded, ‘I will because we now have enough evidence.’ She added, ‘What is happening is genocide. Deliberately aimed at destroying not only the lives but wiping out the existence of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East in territories controlled by ISIS, and so I agree with you.’
“When asked a similar question in November, Secretary Clinton said, ‘It’s not yet formally a genocide, it is ethnic or in this case religious cleansing that targets people because of their religion.’
“IDC welcomes Secretary Clinton’s willingness to now call the intentional targeting of Christian communities for destruction because of their faith what it is—genocide.
“IDC commends other presidential candidates who have also clearly decried the genocide.
“Senator Marco Rubio is a leading co-sponsor on Senate resolution 340, introduced last week, that expresses the sense of Congress that the atrocities committed against Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities targeted specifically for religious reasons are crimes against humanity and genocide, and calls upon the United Nations to do the same.
“The companion House resolution, H. Con. Res. 75, was introduced by Congressman Jeff Fortenberry in September and now has close to 170 co-sponsors. In light of recent reports that the State Department is planning a genocide designation that includes only Yazidis, not Christians, IDC calls on House leadership to bring the resolution to a vote as soon as possible.
“At another town hall meeting last week in New Hampshire, Governor Bush said he supports calling ISIS’ targeting of religious minorities ‘genocide.’
“IDC calls on the Obama administration to formally recognize the genocide against Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, and thanks President Obama for his recent Christmas statement in which he expressed solidarity with persecuted Christians in the Middle East.”