Middle East without Christians? Contemporary genocide of the followers of Jesus Christ in Iraq and Syria

Abstract

Christians inhabited territories of todays Iraq and Syria, laying on what was anciently Mesopotamia from the very time of Jesus Christ. The persecution of Christianity had begun when Islam arose and lasts to this day. In contemporary times persecution became especially regular, bloody and intolerable since 2003 when American forces invaded Iraq, toppling not only the bloody dictator but also local status quo that kept the country and it’s society in one piece. When jihadist fighters announced the creation of an Islamic State across Iraq and Syria in June 2014, persecution turned into genocide. Christians, along with other religious minorities, but also Shia Muslims (being in the opposition to IS) are facing mass killings in most brutal of possible ways, but also they face deliberate infliction on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical and psychological destruction. Christian children are forcibly transferred to Islamic locations. Those terms are the core of the so­‑called „Genocide convention“. Along with trying to answer two major questions in this article – whether ISIS’ actions are to be called genocide and whether the Middle East is being wiped out of christianity, I am trying to focus on the presentation of life conditions of Christians in Iraq and Syria and consequences of the deadly march of ISIS fighters through the Middle East.