Greg Daly
The Government has accused the United Nations of failing to implement its own rules to protect vulnerable minorities, including Christians, in the Middle East.
Dara Murphy, the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the Seanad that “the Government believes the UN and the Security Council, in particular, have not fulfilled their obligations to uphold the UN charter or international law in Syria to date”.
In answering a January 21 question from Fianna Fáil senator Jim Walsh, the Fine Gael junior minister highlighted how Russia and China in 2014 vetoed a resolution calling for the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.
Genocide
Senator Walsh urged the Government to use whatever influence it had, both in the UN and the EU, to obtain an agreement that the word ‘genocide’ be used to describe the brutal and systematic persecution of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa.
“The time has come for governments and ministers to step up on this issue,” he said, expressing the hope that “the Government will deny some of the reports that this Government is reluctant to classify it as genocide”.
Stressing that the Government has “repeatedly condemned crimes that have been committed against many religious minority communities, including Christians”, Minister Murphy said “proving the crime of genocide requires a comprehensive investigation of the evidence and having that established by a competent international court”.
The Government believes such proof will “ultimately” bring about an end to violence against Christians, Muslims, and others, he said.