The state of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

in the

territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

which is controlled by the

Islamic State An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

(ISIL/ISIS) is considered one of the worst states of human rights, if not the worst state of human rights in modern history and it has been harshly criticized by many political and religious organisations, as well as by many individuals. The Islamic State's policies included acts of

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

and

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. The

United Nations Commission on Human Rights The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of ...

(UNCHR) has stated that the Islamic State "seeks to subjugate civilians under its control and dominate every aspect of their lives through terror, indoctrination, and the provision of services to those who obey". ISIS actions of extreme criminality, terror, recruitment and other activities has been documented in the Middle East and several other regions around the world. The territory in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and Syria which was formerly occupied by ISIS (areas which ISIS claimed comprised part of its self-dubbed "

Caliphate A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

") saw the creation of one of the most criminally active, corrupt and violent regimes in modern times, and it ruled that territory until its defeat. The ISIS organization and regime murdered tens of thousands of civilians, kidnapped several thousand people, and forced hundreds of thousands of others to flee. ISIS systematically committed torture, mass rapes,

forced marriage Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later force ...

s, extreme acts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder,

, robbery,

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

, smuggling,

, kidnappings, and the use of child soldiers; in ISIS' implementation of strict interpretations of Sharia law which were based on ancient eighth-century methods, they carried out public "punishments" such as

beheadings Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the au ...

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

s, beatings,

mutilation Mutilation or maiming (from the Latin: ''mutilus'') refers to Bodily harm, severe damage to the body that has a ruinous effect on an individual's quality of life. It can also refer to alterations that render something inferior, ugly, dysfunction ...

and

dismemberment Dismemberment is the act of cutting, ripping, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise disconnecting the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with ...

, the

stoning Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times. The Torah and Ta ...

of both children and adults, and the live burning of people. ISIS committed mass rape against tens of thousands of children, mostly girls and women (mainly members of non- Sunni minority groups and families). Several

organizations and peace organizations, including

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

and Amnesty International, have deemed ISIS guilty of crimes against humanity, and they have also accused the whole ISIS organization of being a criminal organization, one which has committed some of the most severe war crimes since

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

UN's determinations

In November 2014, the UN's

Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic was set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 22 August 2011 to investigate human rights violations during the Syrian Civil War to establish the fact ...

said that the Islamic State was committing crimes against humanity and that it "seeks to subjugate civilians under its control and dominate every aspect of their lives through terror, indoctrination, and the provision of services to those who obey." In October 2015, the UN

Human Rights Council The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...

"strongly condemn dthe terrorist acts and violence committed against civilians by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh), al-Nusrah Front and other extremist groups, and their continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, and reaffirm dthat terrorism, including the actions of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh), cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality or civilization."

Statements of human rights groups

A report by

in November 2014 accused ISIL militants in Libya's Derna of war crimes and

human rights abuses Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and of terrorizing residents. Human Rights Watch documented three apparent incidents in which captives were killed and at least ten public floggings by the Islamic Youth Shura Council, which joined ISIL in November. It also documented the beheading of three Derna residents and dozens of seemingly politically motivated assassinations of judges, public officials, members of the security forces and others. Sarah Leah Watson, Director of HRW Middle East and North Africa, said: "Commanders should understand that they may face domestic or international prosecution for the grave rights abuses their forces are committing." Amnesty International has held ISIL responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ethnic and religious minority groups in northern Iraq on a "historic scale". It issued a special report in late 2014 describing how ISIL has "systematically targeted non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, and forcing more than 830,000 others to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014". Among these people are Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shia, Shabak Shia,

Yazidis Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...

Kaka'i Yarsanism, Ahl-e Haqq or Kaka'i ( ku, یارسان, translit=Yarsan or ; fa, اهل حق, ar, كاكائي), is a syncretic religion founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century in western Iran. The total number of followers of Yarsanism i ...

and

Mandaeans Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. ...

, who have lived together for centuries in Nineveh province, large parts of which are now under ISIL's control.

Genocide and other war crimes

ISIL's crimes of murder, ethnic cleansing, enslavement and

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

against

Shia Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mo ...

, Christian, and

Yazidi Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...

minorities within its territories have been recognized as a

. In 2017, CNN journalists Jomana Karadsheh and Chris Jackson reported exclusively on the efforts by Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) to bring ISIS to justice of war crimes committed against Yazidis. There are also many Sunni Muslim victims of ISIS. One captured ISIS fighter boasted about raping over 200 women from Iraq's minority groups and killing over 500 people and claimed he was encouraged to do so by the leadership. On occasions ISIL executed women who refused to have sex with its fighters.

Religious and minority group massacres, forced conversion, and expulsion

ISIL compels people in the areas that it controls to live according to its interpretation of sharia law. There have been many reports of the group's use of death threats, torture and mutilation to compel conversion to Islam, and of clerics being killed for refusal to pledge allegiance to the so-called "Islamic State". ISIL directs violence against

Muslims,

Alawites The Alawis, Alawites ( ar, علوية ''Alawīyah''), or pejoratively Nusayris ( ar, نصيرية ''Nuṣayrīyah'') are an ethnoreligious group that lives primarily in Levant and follows Alawism, a sect of Islam that originated from Shia Isl ...

, Assyrian, Chaldean,

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

and

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

Christians,

s, Druze,

Shabaks Shabaks ( ar, الشبك; ku, شەبەک, translit=Şebek) are a group with a disputed ethnic origin. Some Shabaks identify themselves as a distinct ethnic group and others as ethnic Kurds. They live east of Mosul in Iraq. However their cultural t ...

and Mandeans in particular. ISIL fighters are targeting Syria's minority Alawite sect. The Islamic State and affiliated jihadist groups reportedly took the lead in an offensive on Alawite villages in

Latakia Governorate Latakia Governorate, also transliterated as Ladhakia Governorate, ( ar, مُحافظة اللاذقية / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat al-Lādhiqīyah'') is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in western Syria, bordering Turkey's Hata ...

of Syria in August 2013. Amnesty International has held ISIL responsible for the ethnic cleansing of ethnic and religious minority groups in northern Iraq on a "historic scale", putting entire communities "at risk of being wiped off the map of Iraq". In a special report released on 2 September 2014, the organization described how ISIL had "systematically targeted non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, of individuals and forcing more than 830,000 others to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014". Among these people were Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shia, Shabak Shia,

, Yazidis and Mandaeans, who have lived together for centuries in Nineveh province, large parts of which have come under ISIL's control. Among the known killings of religious and minority group civilians carried out by ISIL are those in the villages and towns of Quiniyeh (70–90 Yazidis killed), Hardan (60 Yazidis killed),

Sinjar Sinjar ( ar, سنجار, Sinjār; ku, شنگال, translit=Şingal, syr, ܫܝܓܪ, Shingar) is a town in the Sinjar District of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. It is located about five kilometers south of the Sinjar Mountains. Its p ...

(500–2,000 Yazidis killed), Ramadi Jabal (60–70 Yazidis killed), Dhola (50 Yazidis killed), Khana Sor (100 Yazidis killed), Hardan area (250–300 Yazidis killed), al-Shimal (dozens of Yazidis killed), Khocho (400 Yazidis killed and 1,000 abducted), Jadala (14 Yazidis killed) and Beshir (700 Shia Turkmen killed), and others committed near Mosul (670 Shia inmates of the Badush prison killed), and in

Tal Afar Tal Afar ( ar, تَلْعَفَر, Talʿafar, ) is a city in the Nineveh Governorate of northwestern Iraq, located 63 km (39 mi) west of Mosul, 52 km (32 mi) east of Sinjar The UN estimated that 5,000 Yazidis were killed by ISIL during the takeover of parts of northern Iraq in August 2014. In late May 2014, 150 Kurdish boys from Kobani aged 14–16 were abducted and subjected to torture and abuse, according to Human Rights Watch. In the Syrian towns of Ghraneij, Abu Haman and Kashkiyeh 700 members of the Sunni Al-Shaitat tribe were killed for attempting an uprising against ISIL control. The UN reported that in June 2014 ISIL had killed a number of Sunni Islamic clerics who refused to pledge allegiance to it. Christians living in areas under ISIL control face four options: converting to Islam, paying a religious levy called the jizya, leaving the "Caliphate", or death. "We offer them three choices: Islam; the

dhimma ' ( ar, ذمي ', , collectively ''/'' "the people of the covenant") or () is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligatio ...

contract – involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword", ISIL said. ISIL leader

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ( ar, أبو بكر البغدادي, ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai ( ar, إبراهيم عواد إبراهيم علي محمد البدري السامرائي, ʾIb ...

further noted that Christians who do not agree with those terms must "leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate" within a specified deadline. ISIL had already set similar rules for Christians in Raqqa, once one of Syria's more liberal cities. However, on 29 March 2016, ISIL issued a decree preventing Christians and Armenians from leaving Raqqa. On 23 February 2015, in response to a major Kurdish offensive in the

Al-Hasakah Governorate Al-Hasakah Governorate ( ar, محافظة الحسكة, Muḥāfaẓat al-Ḥasakah, ku, Parêzgeha Hesekê}, syc, ܗܘܦܪܟܝܐ ܕܚܣܟܗ, Huparkiyo d'Ḥasake, also known as syc, ܓܙܪܬܐ, Gozarto) is one of the fourteen governorates (pro ...

, ISIL abducted 150 Assyrian Christians from villages near Tal Tamr (

Tell Tamer Tell Tamer ( ar, تَلّ تَمْر, Tall Tamr, ku, گرێ خورما, Girê Xurma or Til Temir, syr, ܬܠ ܬܡܪ) also known as Tal Tamr or Tal Tamir, is a town in western al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. It is the administrative c ...

) in northeastern Syria, after launching a large offensive in the region. Kurdish officials have claimed that ISIL's campaign against Kurdish and

Yezidi Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...

enclaves, such as Sinjar, are part of an organised Arabization plan. According to Iraqi security officials, Islamic State militants targeted a football ground, built near a Shiite shrine in the city of Kirkuk. They shot mortar rounds that killed six civilians and injured nine others, on August 24, 2019. In another attack day before, a bike equipped with explosives blasted near a mosque in Shia-majority area of Mussayyib, killing three people and wounding 34.

Shia Muslims

Despite being the religious majority in Iraq, Shia Muslims who predominantly inhabit the country's south have been killed in large numbers by ISIL. By June 2014, ISIL had already claimed to have killed 1,700 Shia Muslims. ISIL, attempting to create a Sunni Muslim caliphate, has labelled all Shia Muslims infidels. As a result, they have specifically targeted Shia communities. According to witnesses, after the militant group took the city of Mosul, they divided the Sunni prisoners from the Shia prisoners. 650 Shia prisoners were then taken to another location and executed. Kurdish officials in Erbil have reported similar incidents where Sunni and Shia prisoners were separated and Shia prisoners were killed. Shia are sometimes burned alive.

Christians

Iraqi Christians, the majority being the Chaldean Christians of Northern Iraq, have also been targeted by ISIL. The group tells Christians they must either convert to Islam, pay a fine, or face execution. ISIL has also taken Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian city. Christians who fled the city reported summary executions and mass beheadings. Some have also been kidnapped and held for ransom. Others have been publicly whipped for refusing to convert to Islam. Many Christians have been displaced and have fled their villages to escape ISIL. The group has also systematically destroyed Christian churches and shrines. ISIL fighters have destroyed and vandalized many Christian monuments, and they have taken down crosses from the tops of churches, replacing them with ISIL flags. They've marked Christian homes with an Arabic "N" which stands for "Nasrane", a word used by Muslims to describe followers of the Christian faith.

Yazidis

The persecution of Yazidis has been labelled a genocide. This religious sect has been subjected to massacres, forced conversion, forced exile, rape, torture, slavery, sexual slavery, and forced conscription. There have been numerous massacres in attacks on Yazidi villages. In many of the massacres, militants separate the men from the women. Afterward, the men are lined up at checkpoints along the side of the road, shot, and bulldozed into mass graves. Sometimes, men are also given the option of converting to Islam or being executed, so there have been many instances of both forced conversions and killings for refusal to convert to ISIL's version of Islam. Other Yazidi men have been forced into Yazidi temples and blown up inside or taken into captivity. Yazidi women and children captives are often raped by multiple men, typically friends of their captors. They believe that if a woman is raped by ten ISIL fighters, she will become Muslim. Many have also been sold as sex slaves to ISIL fighters. There are also reports that women forced into sex slavery have been subjected to forced abortions. Many of these captives have tried to take their own lives.

=Sinjar Massacre

= The Sinjar massacre was the killing and abduction of thousands of

men in

( ku, شنگال ''Şingal'') city and

Sinjar District The Sinjar District or the Shingal District (, ku, قەزای شنگال ,Qeza Şingal) is a district of the Nineveh Governorate. The district seat is the town of Sinjar. The district has two subdistricts, al-Shemal and al-Qayrawan. The district ...

in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

(ISIL) in August 2014. This event started with ISIL attacking and capturing

and neighboring towns on 3 August, during ISIL's offensive in early August 2014. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' reported on 7 August 2014 that ISIL had executed dozens of Yazidi men in Sinjar city and had taken their wives for unmarried

jihadi Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...

fighters.‘Jihadists Rout Kurds in North and Seize Strategic Iraqi Dam’
. ''New York Times'', 7 August 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2015. It was also reported that ISIL fighters executed over ten caretakers of

Sayeda Zeinab shrine in Sinjar before blowing it up. While the siege of Mount Sinjar was continuing, ISIL killed hundreds of Yazidis in at least six of the nearby villages. 250–300 men were killed in the village of Hardan, 200 between Adnaniya and Jazeera, 70–90 in Qiniyeh, and on the road out of al-Shimal witnesses reported seeing dozens of bodies. Hundreds of others had also been killed for refusing to convert to Islam. On 15 August 2014, in the Yazidi village of Khocho, south of Sinjar, after the whole population had received the jihadist ultimatum to convert or be killed, over 80 men were killed. A witness recounted that the villagers were first converted under duress, but when the village elder refused to convert, all of the men were taken in trucks under the pretext of being led to Sinjar, and gunned down along the way. According to reports from survivors interviewed by

OHCHR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office, is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nat ...

, on 15 August, the entire male population of the Yazidi village of Khocho, up to 400 men, were rounded up and shot by ISIL, and up to 1,000 women and children were abducted. On the same day, up to 200 Yazidi men were reportedly executed for refusing conversion in a Tal Afar prison. The massacres took place at least until 25 August when ISIL executed 14 elderly Yazidi men in

Sheikh Mand Sheikh Mand or Sheikh Mend () was a 13th-century Yazidi saint. He is the son of Şêx Fexredîn and thus belongs to the Şemsanî lineage of sheikhs. His sister was Khatuna Fekhra Khatuna Fekhra () was a 12th-century Yazidi female saint ...

Shrine in Jidala, western Sinjar, and blew up the shrine there. 40,000 or more Yazidis were trapped in the Sinjar Mountains and mostly surrounded by ISIL forces who were firing on them. They were largely without food, water or medical care, facing starvation and dehydration.

Death toll

By 2014, a U.N. Human Rights commission estimated that 9,347 civilians had been murdered by ISIL in Iraq, then however; by 2016 a second report by the United Nations estimated 18,802 deaths. The Sinjar massacre in 2014 resulted in the killings of between 2,000George Packer
"A Friend Flees the Horror of ISIS"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', 6 August 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2015 and 5,000 civilians.

Attacks on members of the press

The

Committee to Protect Journalists The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journ ...

states: "Without a free press, few other human rights are attainable." ISIL has tortured and murdered local journalists, creating what Reporters Without Borders calls "news blackholes" in areas controlled by ISIL. ISIL fighters have reportedly been given written directions to kill or capture journalists. In December 2013, two suicide bombers stormed the headquarters of TV station Salaheddin and killed five journalists, after accusing the station of "distorting the image of Iraq's Sunni community". Reporters Without Borders reported that on 7 September 2014, ISIL seized and on 11 October publicly beheaded Raad al-Azzawi, a TV Salaheddin cameraman from the village of Samra, east of Tikrit. , according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, ISIL is holding nine journalists and has nine others under close observation in Mosul and Salahuddin province. During 2013 and part of 2014, an ISIL unit nicknamed

the Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...

acquired and held 12 Western journalists hostage, along with aid workers and other foreign hostages, totalling 23 or 24 known hostages. A Polish journalist Marcin Suder was captured in July 2013 but escaped four months later. The unit executed American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and released beheading videos. Eight of the other journalists were released for ransom: Danish journalist Daniel Rye Ottosen, French journalists Didier François, Edouard Elias,

Nicolas Hénin Nicolas Hénin (born 7 November 1975 at Le Mans) is a French journalist who publishes in written media, radio and television. As a specialist of the Middle East, he has covered the Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War. He was captured by ISIS in Sy ...

, and Pierre Torres, and Spanish journalists Marc Marginedas, Javier Espinosa, and Ricardo García Vilanova. The unit continues to hold hostage British journalist John Cantlie and a female aid worker. Cyber-security group the

Citizen Lab The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness ...

released a report finding a possible link between ISIL and a digital attack on the Syrian citizen media group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RSS). Supporters of the media group received an emailed link to an image of supposed airstrikes, but clicking on the link introduced malware to the user's computer that sends details of the user's IP address and system each time it restarts. That information has been enough to allow ISIL to locate RSS supporters. "The group has been targeted for kidnappings, house raids, and at least one alleged targeted killing. At the time of that writing, ISIL was allegedly holding several citizen journalists in Raqqa", according to the Citizen Lab report. On 8 January 2015, ISIL members in Libya claimed to have executed Tunisian journalists Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari who disappeared in September 2014. Also in January 2015, Japanese journalist

Kenji Goto was a Japanese freelance video journalist covering wars and conflicts, refugees, poverty, AIDS, and child education around the world. In October 2014, he was captured and held hostage by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants after en ...

was kidnapped and beheaded, after a demand for a $200 million ransom payment was not met.

Beheadings and mass executions

An unknown number of Syrians and Iraqis, several Lebanese soldiers, male and female

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

fighters near Kobanî, two American journalists, one American and two British aid workers, 30 Ethiopian Christians and 21 Egyptian

Coptic Christians Copts ( cop, ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ; ar, الْقِبْط ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts are Co ...

in Libya have been

beheaded Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the ...

by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIL uses beheadings to intimidate local populations and has released a series of propaganda videos aimed at Western countries. ISIL was reported to have beheaded about 100 foreign fighters as deserters who tried to leave Raqqa. They also engage in public and mass executions of Syrian and Iraqi soldiers and civilians, sometimes forcing prisoners to dig their own graves before shooting lines of prisoners and pushing them in. Among the known mass executions of captured soldiers carried out by ISIL are those in Tikrit ( ISIS executed up to 1,700 Shia

Iraqi Air Force The Iraqi Air Force (IQAF or IrAF) ( ar, القوات الجوية العراقية, Al Quwwat al Jawwiyah al Iraqiyyah}) is the aerial warfare service branch of the Iraqi Armed Forces. It is responsible for the defense of Iraqi airspace as well ...

cadets from Camp Speicher near

Tikrit Tikrit ( ar, تِكْرِيت ''Tikrīt'' , Syriac: ܬܲܓܪܝܼܬܼ ''Tagrīṯ'') is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. , it h ...

on 12 June 2014),

Al-Thawrah Al-Thawrah ( ar, ٱلثَّوْرَة, aṯ-Ṯawrah), also known as Al-Tabqah ( ar, ٱلطَّبْقَة, aṭ-Ṭabqah, also ), is a city in Raqqa Governorate, Syria, approximately west of Raqqa. The name "al-Thawrah" literally means "The Revo ...

(ISIS executed 250 Syrian soldiers captured at the Al-Tabqa air base between 27 and 28 August 2014),

Palmyra Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early secon ...

(up to 280 Syrian soldiers and government loyalists were shot in the head or beheaded in a public square on 22 May 2015), and

Deir ez-Zor , population_urban = , population_density_urban_km2 = , population_density_urban_sq_mi = , population_blank1_title = Ethnicities , population_blank1 = , population_blank2_title = Religions , population_blank2 = ...

(ISIS killed at least 300 Syrian soldiers, pro-government militiamen and their families on 16 January 2016). ISIL executed 600 Shia prisoners in

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

in June 2014. In November 2014, there were reports that ISIL fighters massacred more than 630 members of the Albu Nimr tribe in Iraq. Albu Nimr was one of the Sunni Arab tribes that fiercely opposed ISIL. On 17 December 2014, it was reported by Turkish media, that ISIL had executed at least 150 women from the Albu Nimr tribe in Falluja for refusing to marry ISIL militants.

Use of chemical weapons

In 2014, the Islamic State launched a program to manufacture chemical weapons with chlorine and a

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

-era toxin which is known as sulfur mustard. Kurds in northern Iraq reported that ISIL attacked them with chemical weapons in August 2015, which was later confirmed to be mustard gas. At Kobanî, it is highly likely that ISIL used

chlorine Chlorine is a chemical element with the symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between them. Chlorine i ...

gas. These chemical weapons may have been from a chemical weapons storage site at Al-Muthanna, which contained 2,500 chemical rockets. Although the rockets' chemical contents were deteriorated, ISIL may have used them in a concentrated manner.

Destruction of cultural and religious heritage

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

's Director-General Irina Bokova has warned that ISIL is destroying Iraq's cultural heritage, in what she has called " cultural cleansing". "We don't have time to lose because extremists are trying to erase the identity, because they know that if there is no identity, there is no memory, there is no history", she said. Referring to the ancient cultures of Christians, Yazidis and other minorities, she said, "This is a way to destroy identity. You deprive them of their culture, you deprive them of their history, their heritage, and that is why it goes hand in hand with genocide. Along with the physical persecution they want to eliminate – to delete – the memory of these different cultures ... we think this is appalling, and this is not acceptable." Saad Eskander, head of Iraq's National Archives said, "For the first time you have cultural cleansing... For the Yazidis, religion is oral, nothing is written. By destroying their places of worship... you are killing cultural memory. It is the same with the Christians – it really is a threat beyond belief." Temple of Bel, Palmyra 02

To finance its activities, ISIL is stealing artefacts from Syria and Iraq and sending them to Europe to be sold. UNESCO has asked for

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

controls on the sale of antiquities, similar to those imposed after the 2003

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...

. UNESCO is working with

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...

, national customs authorities, museums, and major auction houses in attempts to prevent looted items from being sold. ISIL occupied

Mosul Museum The Mosul Museum ( ar, متحف الموصل) is the second largest museum in Iraq after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It was heavily looted during the 2003 Iraq War. Founded in 1952, the museum consisted of a small hall until a new bu ...

, the second most important museum in Iraq, as it was about to reopen after years of rebuilding following the Iraq War, saying that the statues were against Islam and threatening to destroy the museum's contents. ISIL considers worshipping at graves tantamount to idolatry, and seeks to purify the community of unbelievers. It has used bulldozers to crush buildings and archaeological sites. Bernard Haykel has described al-Baghdadi's creed as "a kind of untamed

Wahhabism Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

", saying, "For Al Qaeda, violence is a means to an ends; for ISIS, it is an end in itself". The destruction by ISIL in July 2014 of the tomb and shrine of the prophet Yunus –

Jonah Jonah or Jonas, ''Yōnā'', "dove"; gr, Ἰωνᾶς ''Iōnâs''; ar, يونس ' or '; Latin: ''Ionas'' Ben (Hebrew), son of Amittai, is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, from Gath-hepher of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria ...

in Christianity – the 13th-century mosque of Imam Yahya Abu al-Qassimin, the 14th-century shrine of prophet Jerjis – St George to Christians – and the attempted destruction of the Hadba minaret at the 12th-century Great Mosque of Al-Nuri have been described as "an unchecked outburst of extreme Wahhabism". "There were explosions that destroyed buildings dating back to the

Assyria Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...

n era", said National Museum of Iraq director Qais Rashid, referring to the destruction of the shrine of Yunus. He cited another case where "Daesh (ISIL) gathered over 1,500 manuscripts from convents and other holy places and burnt all of them in the middle of the city square". In March 2015, ISIL reportedly bulldozed the 13th-century BC Assyrian city of

Nimrud Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...

, believing its sculptures to be idolatrous.

head, Irina Bokova, deemed this to be a war crime. ISIL has burned or stolen collections of books and papers from the various locations including the Central Library of Mosul (which they rigged with explosives and burned down), the library at the

University of Mosul The University of Mosul is a public university located in Mosul. It is one of the largest educational and research centers in the Middle East, and the second largest in Iraq, behind the University of Baghdad. The University of Mosul was closed b ...

, a Sunni Muslim library, a 265-year-old Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers, and the Mosul Museum Library. Some destroyed or stolen works date back to 5000 BCE and include "Iraq newspapers dating to the early 20th century, maps and books from the Ottoman Empire, and book collections contributed by about 100 of Mosul's establishment families." The stated goal is to destroy all non-Islamic books. An investigation led by the

disclosed that Al-Hota gorge that was once a beautiful natural site in northeastern Syria is used by the

ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...

as a disposal ground for the bodies of people killed by them. The HRW investigation involved analysis of evidence such as, ISIS videos, interviews with locals, along with satellite images and drone footages of the gorge.

Treatment of civilians

During the Iraqi conflict in 2014, ISIL released dozens of videos showing its ill treatment of civilians, many of whom had apparently been targeted on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. Navi Pillay,

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office, is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nati ...

, warned of war crimes being committed in the Iraqi war zone, and disclosed a UN report of ISIL militants murdering Iraqi Army soldiers and 17 civilians in a single street in Mosul. The UN reported that in the 17 days from 5 to 22 June, ISIL killed more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians and injured more than 1,000. After ISIL released photographs of its fighters shooting scores of young men, the UN declared that cold-blooded "executions" by militants in northern Iraq almost certainly amounted to war crimes. ISIL's advance in Iraq in mid-2014 was accompanied by continuing violence in Syria. On 29 May, ISIL raided a village in Syria and at least 15 civilians were killed, including, according to Human Rights Watch, at least six children. A hospital in the area confirmed that it had received 15 bodies on the same day. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that on 1 June, a 102-year-old man was killed along with his whole family in a village in Hama province. According to

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

, 1,878 people were killed in Syria by ISIL during the last six months of 2014, most of them civilians. During its occupation of Mosul, ISIL implemented a sharia school curriculum which banned the teaching of art, music, national history, literature and

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

. Although Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has never been taught in Iraqi schools, that subject was also banned from the school curriculum. Patriotic songs were declared blasphemous, and orders were given to remove certain pictures from school textbooks. Iraqi parents largely boycotted schools in which the new curriculum was introduced. After capturing cities in Iraq, ISIL issued guidelines on how to wear clothes and veils. ISIL warned women in the city of Mosul to wear full-face veils or face severe punishment. A cleric told Reuters in Mosul that ISIL gunmen had ordered him to read out the warning in his mosque when worshippers gathered. ISIL ordered the faces of both male and female mannequins to be covered, in an order which also banned the use of naked mannequins. In Raqqa the group used its two battalions of female fighters in the city to enforce compliance by women with its strict laws on individual conduct. ISIL released 16 notes labelled "Contract of the City", a set of rules aimed at civilians in Nineveh. One rule stipulated that women should stay at home and not go outside unless necessary. Another rule said that stealing would be punished by amputation. In addition to banning the sale and use of alcohol, ISIL banned the sale and use of cigarettes and hookah pipes. It also banned "music and songs in cars, at parties, in shops and in public, as well as photographs of people in shop windows". According to ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'', the group also adopted certain practices seen in Saudi Arabia, including the establishment of

religious police Religious police are any police force responsible for the enforcement of religious norms and associated religious laws. Most religious police in modern society are Islamic and can be found in countries with large Muslim population, such as Saudi ...

to root out "vice" and enforce attendance at daily prayers, the widespread use of

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, and the destruction of Christian churches and non-Sunni mosques or their conversion to other uses. ISIL carried out executions on both men and women who were accused of various acts and found guilty of crimes against Islam such as

sodomy Sodomy () or buggery (British English) is generally anal or oral sex between people, or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal ( bestiality), but it may also mean any non- procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term ''sod ...

adultery Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal ...

, usage and possession of contraband,

, blasphemy,

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...

, renouncing Islam and murder. Before the accused are executed their charges are read to them and the spectators. Executions take various forms, including

to death,

s, beheadings, burning people alive, and throwing people from tall buildings. The Islamic State in Iraq frequently carried out mass executions in Mosul and Hawija. The Islamic State militants were accused of using civilian residents of towns as human shields. The ''Telegraph'' reported that "Extremist fighters are deliberately hiding among civilian buildings and residents to try to prevent strikes." Civil rights activist told ARA News that "ISIS militants prevent the people of Manbij and Jarablus from leaving their hometowns despite the fierce airstrikes by Russian warplanes". The use of human shields and executions of civilians who tried to flee continued in Iraq right through until the group lost is final major urban territory there after its defeat in the Battle for Mosul in July 2017. In August 2019, the terror group claimed responsibility of the suicide bomb attack in a crowded wedding hall in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

. It marked one of the most devastating attacks on civilians in years of conflict and terror, where nearly 63 people died and more than 180 were wounded.

Child soldiers

According to a report by the magazine '' Foreign Policy'', children as young as six are recruited or kidnapped and sent to military and religious training camps, where they practice beheading with dolls and are indoctrinated with the religious views of ISIL. Children are used as human shields on front lines and to provide blood transfusions for Islamic State soldiers, according to Shelly Whitman of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. The second instalment of a

Vice News Vice News (stylized as VICE News) is Vice Media's current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and video through its website and YouTube channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of "under-reported stories". Vice News was create ...

documentary about ISIL focused on how the group is specifically grooming children for the future. A spokesman told VICE News that those under the age of 15 go to sharia camp to learn about religion, while those older than 16 can go to military training camp. Children are also used for propaganda. According to a UN report, "In mid-August, ISIL entered a cancer hospital in

, forced at least two sick children to hold the ISIL flag and posted the pictures on the internet." Misty Buswell, a

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

representative working with refugees in Jordan, said, "It's not an exaggeration to say we could lose a whole generation of children to trauma." A UN report indicated that at least 89 children, mostly from the ages of 12 to 16 had been killed fighting for the Islamic State in 2015, 39% of which died in suicide bombing attacks. Der Spiegel estimated in 2016 that 1,500 boys were serving as child soldiers for ISIL. It was reported that on 12 March 2017, ISIL used 6 child suicide bombers against the Syrian Army soldiers besieged in Deir ez-Zor.

Sexual violence and slavery

The sexual violence which was perpetrated by ISIL included ISIL's use of

as a weapon of war; instituting

s to its fighters; and trading women and girls as sex slaves. There are many reports of sexual abuse and enslavement in ISIL-controlled areas of women and girls, predominantly from the minority Christian and Yazidi communities. Fighters are told that they are free to have sex with or rape non-Muslim captive women. Haleh Esfandiari from the

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Wash ...

has highlighted the abuse of local women by ISIL militants after they have captured an area. "They usually take the older women to a makeshift slave market and try to sell them. The younger girls ... are raped or married off to fighters", she said, adding, "It's based on temporary marriages, and once these fighters have had sex with these young girls, they just pass them on to other fighters." The three winners of a June 2015 Quran-memorization contest in

were given sex slaves as prizes. The capture of Iraqi cities by the group in June 2014 was accompanied by an upsurge in crimes against women, including kidnap and rape. According to Martin Williams in '' The Citizen'', some hard-line

Salafist The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generati ...

s apparently regard extramarital sex with multiple partners as a legitimate form of

holy war A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war ( la, sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to wh ...

and it is "difficult to reconcile this with a religion where some adherents insist that women must be covered from head to toe, with only a narrow slit for the eyes". , the trade in sex slaves appeared to remain restricted to Yazidi women and girls. It has reportedly become a recruiting technique to attract men from conservative Muslim societies, where dating and casual sex are not allowed. Nazand Begikhani said of the Yazidi victims, "These women have been treated like cattle ... They have been subjected to physical and sexual violence, including systematic rape and sex slavery. They've been exposed in markets in Mosul and in Raqqa, Syria, carrying price tags." According to UN Reports the price list for IS sex slaves range from 40 to 160 US dollars. The younger the slave the more expensive. Girls and boys between the age 1–9 are referred to as the most expensive, with the cheapest being women between 40 and 50 years old. According to another source the price of a slave equals the price of an AK-47. A United Nations report issued on 2 October 2014, based on 500 interviews with witnesses, said that ISIL took 450–500 women and girls to Iraq's Nineveh region in August, where "150 unmarried girls and women, predominantly from the Yazidi and Christian communities, were reportedly transported to Syria, either to be given to ISIL fighters as a reward or to be sold as sex slaves". In mid-October, the UN confirmed that 5,000–7,000 Yazidi women and children had been abducted by ISIL and sold into slavery. In November 2014 ''

'' reported on the accounts given by five who escaped ISIL of their captivity and abuse. In December 2014, the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights announced that ISIL had killed over 150 women and girls in Fallujah who refused to participate in sexual jihad. Non-Muslim women have reportedly been married off to fighters against their will. ISIL claims the women provide the new converts and children necessary to spread ISIL's control. Shortly after the death of US hostage Kayla Mueller was confirmed on 10 February 2015, several media outlets reported that the US intelligence community believed she may have been given as a wife to an ISIL fighter. In August 2015 it was confirmed that she had been forced into marriage to

, who

d her repeatedly. The Mueller family was informed by the US

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI) that

had

sexually abused Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assau ...

Ms. Mueller, and that Ms. Mueller had also been

Abu Sayyaf Abu Sayyaf (; ar, جماعة أبو سياف; ', ASG), officially known by the Islamic State as the Islamic State – East Asia Province, is a Jihadist militant and pirate group that follows the Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. It is base ...

's widow,

Umm Sayyaf Nasrin As'ad Ibrahim, better known by the ''nom de guerre'' Umm Sayyaf, is the widow of Abu Sayyaf. She was captured in May 2015 by US Delta Force soldiers on the mission where they killed her husband, a suspected leader of the Islamic State. Dur ...

, confirmed that it was her husband who had been Mueller's primary abuser. In its digital magazine '' Dabiq'', ISIL explicitly claimed religious justification for enslaving Yazidi women. According to ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ISIL appeals to apocalyptic beliefs and claims "justification by a Hadith that they interpret as portraying the revival of slavery as a precursor to the end of the world". ISIL appeals to the

hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...

and

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

when claiming the right to enslave and rape captive non-Muslim women. According to ''Dabiq,'' "enslaving the families of the

kuffar Kafir ( ar, كافر '; plural ', ' or '; feminine '; feminine plural ' or ') is an Arabic and Islamic term which, in the Islamic tradition, refers to a person who disbelieves in God as per Islam, or denies his authority, or rejects ...

and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Sharia's that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran and the narration of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam." Captured Yazidi women and children are divided among the fighters who captured them, with one-fifth taken as a tax. ISIL has received widespread criticism from Muslim scholars and others in the Muslim world for using part of the Quran to derive a ruling in isolation, rather than considering the entire Quran and hadith. According to Mona Siddiqui, ISIL's "narrative may well be wrapped up in the familiar language of jihad and 'fighting in the cause of Allah', but it amounts to little more than destruction of anything and anyone who doesn't agree with them"; she describes ISIL as reflecting a "lethal mix of violence and sexual power" and a "deeply flawed view of manhood". ''Dabiq'' describes "this large-scale enslavement" of non-Muslims as "probably the first since the abandonment of Shariah law". In an article in a 2015 issue of the Islamic State magazine ''Dabiq'', (quoted by author Graeme Wood) someone calling herself Umm Summayah al Muhajirah indignantly berated supporters of the Islamic State who had denied the use of slavery by Islamic State:

The pponents of the Islamic Statedare to extend their tongues with false rumours and accusations so as to disfigure the great Shariah ruling and pure prophetic Sunnah titled "''saby''" nslavement of girls After all this, ''saby'' becomes fornication and ''tasarri'' oncubinagebecomes rape? If only we'd heard these falsehoods from the ''
kuffar Kafir ( ar, كافر '; plural ', ' or '; feminine '; feminine plural ' or ') is an Arabic and Islamic term which, in the Islamic tradition, refers to a person who disbelieves in God as per Islam, or denies his authority, or rejects ...
'' nfidelswho are ignorant of our religion. Instead we hear it from those associated with our Ummah! So I say in astonishment: Are our people awake or asleep? But what really alarmed me was that some of the Islamic State supporters (may Allah forgive them) rushed to defend the Islamic State ydenying the matter as if the soldiers of the
Khilafah A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
had committed a mistake or evil.

In late 2014, ISIL released a pamphlet that focused on the treatment of female slaves. It claims that the

allows fighters to have sex with captives, including adolescent girls, and to beat slaves as discipline. The pamphlet's guidelines also allow fighters to trade slaves, including for sex, as long as they have not been impregnated by their owners. Charlie Winter, a researcher at the counter-extremist

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

Quilliam, described the pamphlet as "abhorrent". In response to this document Abbas Barzegar, a religion professor at

Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the largest institution of hig ...

, said Muslims around the world find ISIL's "alien interpretation of Islam grotesque and abhorrent". Muslim leaders and scholars from around the world have rejected the validity of ISIL's claims, claiming that the reintroduction of slavery is un-Islamic, that they are required to protect "People of the Scripture" including Christians, Jews, Muslims and Yazidis, and that ISIL's fatwas are invalid due to their lack of religious authority and the fatwas' inconsistency with Islam. ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' reported in 2015 that the usage of Yazidi sex slaves had created ongoing friction among fighters within ISIL. Sajad Jiyad, a Research Fellow and Associate Member at the Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform, told the newspaper that many ISIL supporters and fighters had been in denial about the trafficking of kidnapped Yazidi women until a '' Dabiq'' article justifying the practice was published. ''

'' said in August 2015 that " e systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution." The article claims that ISIL is not merely exonerating but sacralising rape, and illustrated this with the testimony of escapees. One 15-year-old victim said that, while she was being assaulted, her rapist "kept telling me this is

ibadah ''Ibadah'' ( ar, , ''‘ibādah'', also spelled ''ibada'') is an Arabic word meaning service or servitude. In Islam, ''ibadah'' is usually translated as "worship", and ''ibadat''—the plural form of ''ibadah''—refers to Islamic jurispru ...

"; a 12-year-old victim related how her assailant claimed that, "by raping me, he is drawing closer to Allah"; and one adult prisoner told how, when she challenged her captor about repeatedly raping a 12 year old, she was met with the retort, "No, she's not a little girl, she's a slave and she knows exactly how to have sex and having sex with her pleases Allah." In July 2016 it was reported by an AP investigation that ISIL was using mobile apps like Telegram to sell their sex slaves and identify the slaves of other ISIL members at checkpoints. In 2016, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability said they had identified 34 senior ISIL members who were instrumental in the systematic sex slave trade and planned to prosecute them after the end of hostilities.

Slave trade

ISIL announced the revival of

as an institution. In 2015, the official prices for slaves which were set by ISIL were the following: *Children aged 1 to 9 were sold for 200,000 dinars ($169). *Women and children 10 to 20 years old for 150,000 dinars ($127). *Women 20 to 30 years old for 100,000 dinar ($85). *Women 30 to 40 years old are 75,000 dinar ($63). *Women 40 to 50 years old for 50,000 dinar ($42). However, some slaves have been sold for as little as a pack of cigarettes. Sex slaves were sold to Saudi Arabia, other

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...

countries and Turkey.

LGBT rights

Allegations of organ trafficking

The group released a fatwa in which it permitted the removal of organs from non-Muslim captives. The document says that "The apostate's life and organs don't have to be respected and may be taken with impunity." The document seems to define apostate as non-Muslim though Shia Muslim captives may also be endangered by the fatwa due to ISIL's extreme interpretation of Islam. The document also claims ISIL authorizes the removal of organs from captives even when it may kill them. Iraq has accused the group of harvesting human organs for profit.

References

{{Iraq topics Human rights under the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Human rights under territory-controlling groups Persecution of Christians by ISIL Persecution of LGBT people Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL Terrorism in Iraq Terrorism in Lebanon Terrorism in Syria Terrorism in Turkey Violence against Shia Muslims Violence against Shia Muslims in Iraq Violence against LGBT people