NEWS SCAN

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Husseinon condemned Sunday’ssuicide bombing in Baghdad, Iraq. Stating that “the sheer unrestrained viciousness of these people defies belief,” Zeid spoke strongly against the taking of innocent lives by terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State .Zeid, however, advised those fighting against the terrorist organization to avoid “hasty” acts of revenge. He warned that such responses “will enablto tap into resentments about heavy-handed or unlawful responses to recruit more followers, create more fanatics and suicide bombers.”

IS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has been accused of war crimes on a massive scale in Iraq and Syria. Last month a UN-mandated human rights inquiry reported that IS had been committing genocide against the Yazidi people, in addition to a carrying out a variety of other war crimes and human rights violations. In March US Secretary of State John Kerry said that IS was “responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.” Also in March the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution denouncing the actions of IS as “genocide” and calling for the establishment of international and domestic tribunals by UN member states. In December Amnesty International said that IS was in possession of a “large and lethal” arsenal due to decades of reckless arms trading and the poorly regulated international flow of weapons into Iraq. In November ISclaimed responsibility for a series of coordinated attacks in Paristhat killed more than 120 individuals. In September members of Iraq’s Yazidi community met with International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and urged the court to open a genocide investigation into IS actions in Northern Iraq.

As carried in JURIST on 7.7.16