On the first International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, on August 22, 2019, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights calls on all governments to take concrete action to protect members of religious minority communities from harm. UN experts recently have warned that religious minorities in a number of countries around the world continue to face violent persecution, at the hands not only of non-State actors, but also of government authorities.
UN General Assembly resolution 73/296, adopted unanimously by UN member states, established August 22 as the International Day. This action was approved after the heinous massacres of members of religious minority communities by private individuals – the attacks on of Muslim worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand and of Christian worshippers at churches in Sri Lanka – in March and April 2019.
As they adopted the resolution, diplomats from Member States expressed alarm about these and other examples of violence against individuals on the basis of their religion or belief worldwide, including:
- the attack by a private individual on Jewish congregants at the Poway synagogue in San Diego, California in the U.S., coming just months after the deadly attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;
- the commission of crimes against humanity and genocide by members of the Islamic State in Iraq against Yezidis;
- the commission of crimes against humanity and genocide by military and other forces in Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims;
- the execution of Sunni Kurds by authorities in Iran; and
- the arbitrary detention of over one million members of minority Muslim groups, predominately Uighurs, by the Chinese authorities.