UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- The spread of the Islamic State is a precursor of genocide, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Thursday.
Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein referred to IS as the "antithesis of human rights. It kills, it tortures, it rapes, its idea of justice is to commit murder. It spares no one, not women, not children, nor the elderly, the sick or the wounded... No religion is safe, no ethnic group. It is a diabolical, potentially genocidal movement."
"The way it has spread its tentacles into other countries, employing social media and the internet to brainwash and recruit people from across the globe, reveals it to be the product of a perverse and lethal marriage of a new form of nihilism with the digital age."
During his news briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, he compared IS to the Ebola virus, noting each has turned into a major international challenge.
A U.S.-led coalition of 60 countries is currently conducting airstrikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. State Department estimated 12,000 foreigners, from over 50 countries, have joined IS militants.
Al-Hussein was sworn in as the U.N. human rights commissioner on Sept. 4, succeeding Navi Pillay.
