Zeid: IS May Be More Open to Diversity Than Some States

[flowers]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=29953365

The U.N. human rights chief told the Security Council on Friday that in a "most terrible irony," the Islamic State group may be more accepting of the ethnic diversity of its members than some states are about ethnic differences among their own citizens.

Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the first human rights chief from the Muslim and Arab worlds, spoke as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius chaired a special meeting on the abuses in the Middle East on ethnic and religious grounds. Both said the Security Council should refer the situations in Iraq and Syria to the International Criminal Court, and Zeid said the council should take unanimous action to end both conflicts.

Zeid called the Islamic State group "an abomination" but also criticized states in the Middle East and elsewhere for overlooking abuses, attacking civil society and letting fanaticism flourish. "If we attend to minority rights only after the slaughter has begun, then we have already failed," he said.

The rights chief, who is from Jordan, did not name any governments in his criticism. He said the Islamic State may be more accepting of ethnic diversity of its members so long as they adhere to the group's world view, even while the "intricately interwoven social fabric in Syria and Iraq is giving way to the demented obliteration of any difference" from IS ideology.