ACLJ calls on new UN secretary-general to recognize ISIS' genocide against Christians

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has called on the new secretary-general of the United Nations to formally recognize the genocide committed by the Islamic State against Christians in the Middle East.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the ACLJ highlighted some of the atrocities committed by the terror group against Christians living under its rule.

"In Syria, the Islamic State has beheaded and stoned men, women, and children for blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy. One Christian Syrian woman described 'Christians being killed and tortured, and ... children being beheaded in front of their parents,'" part of the letter read.

Other cruelties listed in the letter include the mass kidnapping of Assyrian Christians in February 2015; the public torture and execution of 12 Syrian Christians in a village near Aleppo, Syria in August that same year; the rape and beheading of eight women who refused to renounce Christianity; and the destruction of Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, St. Elijah's.

The ACLJ noted that ISIS is expanding its attack against Christians outside of Iraq and Syria.

The group mentioned the attack at a church in Normandy, France, where two men who were said to be ISIS "soldiers" slit the throat of an 85-year-old Catholic priest during Mass.

The ACLJ has previously sent several legal letters to former U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, the U.N. Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, the former U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N., Ambassador Samantha Power, as well as the current Permanent Representative of the U.S. to the U.N., Ambassador Nikki Haley.

The law group also launched a petition to call on the U.N. to recognize the atrocities against Christians as genocide and take action to help persecuted minorities.

The ACLJ told Guterres, who was appointed as the secretary-general earlier this year, that the international community has a responsibility to stand up to genocide.

"The Holocaust stands as a stark and poignant reminder of immense and inexcusable loss of human lives that occurs when nations fail to act quickly — fail to timely intervene and prevent further barbaric acts of genocide," the group stated in the letter.

"With each day that passes, more and more lives are lost in this genocide. The International Community cannot again fail to act quickly; rather it must learn from history and act swiftly and decisively," it continued.

Guterres, a practicing Roman Catholic, had previously served as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 to 2015, where he was confronted with the sweeping migrant crisis that resulted from the war with ISIS, according to The Christian Post.

In March, he expressed hope that ISIS will soon be eliminated in Iraq with the anticipated liberation of the group's stronghold in Mosul.