{"id":211226,"date":"2019-04-24T05:21:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T09:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=211226"},"modified":"2019-04-24T05:21:42","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T09:21:42","slug":"amal-clooney-prosecute-islamic-state-extremists-for-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/24\/amal-clooney-prosecute-islamic-state-extremists-for-rape\/","title":{"rendered":"Amal Clooney: Prosecute Islamic State extremists for rape"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney on Tuesday demanded justice for victims of an \u201cepidemic of sexual violence\u201d in conflicts, especially rapes and other abuses perpetrated by Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria. (File Photo By UK Mission to the UN Ne\/Wikimedia commons, CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney on Tuesday demanded justice for victims of an \u201cepidemic of sexual violence\u201d\u00a0in\u00a0conflicts, especially rapes and other abuses perpetrated by Islamic State extremists\u00a0in\u00a0Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n

The rights activist told the Security Council that if the U.N.’s most powerful body cannot prevent the prevalence of sexual violence\u00a0in\u00a0wars all over the world, \u201cthen at least it must punish it\u201d and make justice a priority.<\/p>\n

Clooney, who is married to actor George Clooney, addressed the council along with Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege to spotlight the need to prosecute perpetrators and help survivors.<\/p>\n

But the resolution adopted by the council after they spoke was watered down to win approval, and while it made some advances it failed to take the significant actions they urged.<\/p>\n

The resolution eliminated long-used language on providing \u201csexual and reproductive health care\u201d to survivors of\u00a0rape\u00a0and abuse to avert a veto from the Trump administration. And it eliminated a positive reference to the International Criminal Court’s work\u00a0in\u00a0prosecuting alleged perpetrators of sexual violence\u00a0in\u00a0conflict.<\/p>\n

French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council after the vote that eliminating the reference to sexual and reproductive health of victims of sexual violence \u201cis unacceptable and undermines the dignity of women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are worried that the threat of veto was used to question 25 years of advances\u00a0in\u00a0this area,\u201d Delattre said. \u201cIt is intolerable and incomprehensible that the Security Council is incapable of acknowledging that these women and girls who suffer from sexual violence\u00a0in\u00a0conflict, and who obviously didn’t choose to become pregnant, should have the rights to terminate their pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vote on the German-drafted resolution was 13-0, with Russia and China abstaining.<\/p>\n

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow opposes sexual violence and demands \u201cthe elimination of this loathsome\u00a0war\u00a0crime.\u201d But Russia abstained because the resolution gives new powers to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other U.N. officials and bodies, he said.<\/p>\n

The resolution expresses the council’s deep concern at \u201cthe slow progress\u201d\u00a0in\u00a0addressing and eliminating sexual violence\u00a0in\u00a0conflicts, declaring that these acts often occur with impunity, \u201cand\u00a0in\u00a0some situations have become systematic and widespread, reaching appalling levels of brutality.\u201d<\/p>\n

It calls for governments to ensure that survivors of sexual violence \u201creceive the care required by their specific needs and without any discrimination.\u201d It says victims should have access \u201cto national relief and reparations programs, as well as health care, psycho-social care, safe shelter, livelihood support and legal aid.\u201d<\/p>\n

German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen said the resolution his nation introduced makes \u201cconsiderable progress\u201d by concentrating on accountability and survivors and by \u201cputting sanctions much more\u00a0in\u00a0the centre of actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, he added, \u201cwe didn’t achieve everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heusgen said Amal Clooney and the two Nobel laureates told him to \u201cpush ahead\u201d with the resolution without a reference to \u201csexual and reproductive rights.\u201d He noted the resolution does refer to a 2013 resolution\u00a0in\u00a0which those rights are mentioned \u2014 and because of that the rights remain international law.<\/p>\n

Clooney called the resolution \u201ca welcome step forward\u201d but said \u201cwe must go further.\u201d<\/p>\n

She challenged the Security Council to prosecute Islamic State militants just as the victorious Allies prosecuted Nazi criminals after World\u00a0War\u00a0II at the Nuremberg trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is your Nuremberg moment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Clooney is the legal counsel to Murad and other members of Syria’s Yazidi minority who were sexually abused by IS extremists. She said Murad has spoken of only one fear \u2014 that IS militants \u201cwill just shave off their beards and go back to their lives; that there will be no justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNadia has been given many honours … but she would trade her Nobel Peace Prize\u00a0in\u00a0a heartbeat for what she really wants: the chance to face,\u00a0in\u00a0a court of law, those who murdered her mother and her brothers, and those who brutally and repeatedly raped her,\u201d Clooney said.<\/p>\n

Murad told the council that \u201cso far not a single person was tried for sexual enslavement crimes against Yazidis\u201d and that more than 350,000 Yazidis \u2014 80 per cent of the Yazidi population\u00a0in\u00a0Iraq \u2014 are still\u00a0indisplacement camps.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe come to the U.N.,\u201d she said. \u201cWe deliver statements, but no practical steps are taken that include reconstruction or bringing the perpetrators to justice, or returning the victims and displaced to their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mukwege, a Congolese doctor who has worked to end the use of\u00a0rape\u00a0and sexual violence as weapons of\u00a0war, said that \u201cvictims not only have the right to quality care but also to truth and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvivors’ testimonies are living proof we cannot remain indifferent to their cries,\u201d Mukwege said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney on Tuesday demanded justice for victims of an \u201cepidemic of sexual violence\u201d\u00a0in\u00a0conflicts, especially rapes and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":211230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-edith-m-lederer","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211233,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211226\/revisions\/211233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}