MOSUL, Iraq — A new video released by the barbaric Islamic group ISIS, which identifies as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, shows the terror organization burning a pile of Bibles and other religious books.
The video is stated to have been recorded this month by the Diwan Al-Hisbah, or ISIS’ “morality police,” and is entitled “Diwan of education destroys Christian instruction books in Mosul.”
Some of the books are in boxes and the others that are visible have a cross on the front with Arabic text.
“This video is the first specifically showing the burning of Christian books,” the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor team for the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) said in a statement.
“It is in line with ISIS’ treatment of Christians, which MEMRI regularly monitors in ISIS publications,” it said. “There is not any particularly new or recent trend in regard to ISIS’s treatment of Christians, which has been consistent in its statements and actions since ISIS declared its caliphate in 2014.”
“It’s another example that ISIS means what they say,” David Curry, CEO of Open Doors USA, also told Fox News. “That’s what makes the debate so powerful. They want elimination and they are very serious.”
Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 393-3 in favor of a resolution to declare that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and other religions and minority groups in the Middle East.
“What is happening in Iraq and Syria is a deliberate, systematic targeting of religious and ethnic minorities. Today, the House unanimously voted to call ISIS’s atrocities what they are: a genocide. We also will continue to offer our prayers for the persecuted,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement.
As previously reported, last October, the U.S. Department of State released its annual International Religious Freedom Report, finding that the greatest persecutors of Christians and other groups worldwide were Islamic terror groups like ISIS and Boko Haram.
“In Mosul, Iraq and nearby towns, shortly after the takeover of the area by militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Christians [and others] who had been given the choice to convert, pay a ruinous tax, or die, gathered their families and what few possessions they could carry, and sought all possible means to escape,” the executive summary of the report reads.
“It has forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands of people, conducted mass executions, and kidnapped, sold, enslaved, raped and/or forcibly converted thousands of women and children—all on the grounds that these people stand in opposition to ISIL’s religious dogma,” it continues.
Open Doors’ 2016 World Watch List also ranked Iraq the second most dangerous place to live as a Christian, next to North Korea.
“Christians are caught here in the crossfire of two different battles: one for a Kurdish autonomous country and one for a religious cleansing of Iraq by Islamic terrorist groups who wish to make the country purely Islamic,” the organization explained. “On the other hand, amidst the current crisis, there are also sparks of hope as opportunities arise for churches to reach out to refugees.”
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