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Welby backs future war crimes prosecutions over Iraq atrocities

Welby backs future war crimes prosecutions over Iraq atrocities
Archbishop of Canterbury urges international community to document atrocities now for future prosecutions

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
August 14, 2014

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, has signalled his support for future war crimes prosecutions over atrocities taking place in Iraq.

He called on governments to ensure that evidence for human rights abuses is properly gathered, while still helping the victims.

He said the slaughter in northern Iraq where Christians and other minorities are feared to be suffering genocide at the hands of Islamic State militants was “off the scale of human horror”.

His intervention came during a meeting in Melbourne, Australia, where he took part in the inauguration service for the country’s new Anglican primate, the Most Rev Philip Freier.

Last week Archbishop Welby called on ministers to offer asylum to Christians driven from their homes by Islamic jihadists in Iraq.

He said: "Ever since the war to end all wars ended in 1918, humankind have been saying ‘never again’, then we wring our hands as genocide unfolds in some distant corner.

“But what is happening right now in northern Iraq is off the scale of human horror.

"In a globalised world where even distant nations are our ‘neighbour’, we cannot allow these atrocities to be unleashed with impunity.

“And while the behaviour of the Isis jihadis in Syria and northern Iraq is particularly savage, it is also part of rising and increasingly serious persecution of Christians and other groups in many countries.

"These groups are, rightly, rejected by the vast majority of Muslims.

“The struggle being faced is one for a world that can cope with diversity, and disagree without destruction - Isis, Boko Haram and their equivalents seek only destruction for their own ends.

"The international community must document the human rights abuses in northern Iraq so that the perpetrators can later be prosecuted.

"As Anglican leaders, we cry to God for peace and justice and security throughout the world, and especially for Christians and other minority groups suffering so deeply in northern Iraq."

Archbishop Freier disclosed that he had also written to the written to the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott urging him to follow the example of France which is offering asylum to Iraqi Christians.

END

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