Thursday, September 28, 2017
Victims of ISIS want and deserve justice
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen: what is shocking here is not just the brutality of ISIS but how long those who know about it can remain passive. If we do not change course, history will judge us, and there will be no excuse for our failure to act. We cannot say that ISIS’ crimes were not serious enough; we cannot say that the interests of powerful states stood in the way; or that these crimes are too hard to prove. That’s why I am asking you today: to stand up for justice. Every conflict reminds us that there can be no lasting peace without justice. A lack of accountability simply leads to continuing cycles of vengeful violence. So killing ISIS on the battlefield is not enough: we must also kill the idea behind ISIS by exposing its brutality and bringing individual criminals to justice. Justice is also what the victims want – ask the families of the American hostages Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff who were beheaded by the ISIS militant known as Jihadi John. When Jihadi John was reportedly killed by a drone strike in Syria, the hostages’ families said they would have preferred it if he had been arrested instead. Steven’s family said they wanted to “sit in a courtroom, watch him sentenced and see him sent to … prison”. Yazidi women like Nadia say the same: they want the chance to face their abusers in court; they want legal judgments to be published, to prevent their genocide later being denied. And they deserve nothing less. But justice will forever be out of reach if we allow the evidence to disappear: if mass graves are not protected, if medical evidence is lost, if witnesses can no longer be traced.
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