Dear Senator Pat Toomey,
Hello, my name is Jessica Jung and I am from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. I attend Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School, where we are required to take American Studies as a class in ninth grade. Recently we have started discussing the Holocaust, along with genocide and its multitude of negative effects.
Genocide is a process that is established in ten stages that are easy to foretell, but not inexorable. The first stage is classification where people are distinguished into categories based on their ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality. Societies that lack mixed categories are most likely to have genocide. During the Holocaust, groups of people, such as the Jewish, were categorized and formed into negative images. …show more content…
The al-Assad regime is one of the many warring units that are executing genocide. In March of 2011, pro-democracy protests erupted in Syria and quickly increased throughout the country. The Assad regime responded with a brutal suppression on the peaceful protests by mass killing of the protesters. This group has reached the persecution and extermination stages of genocide, with its violent approach towards the victims. Sunni Muslim cities and towns were bombed and shelled by Syrian forces, intentionally targeting schools, hospitals and markets. Muslims were classified and discriminated as the inferior group by the Syrian Arab Republic. Sunni cities were deprived of food and medical services, which also fits under the persecution stage. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the Syrian government continues to use chemical weapons, ballistic missiles, cluster munitions, incendiary weapons, and “barrel bombs” on civilians in residential areas. These weapons were stocked and armies were built in the preparation step of genocide, leading to the violence and murders. Torture and rape is used as Assad regime 's official strategy for submission. Perceived opposition supporters, activists, journalists, lawyers, and doctors are targeted and observed as “terrorists” by the regime. This fits under polarization, as hate groups spreading propaganda are driven apart. This is done to make it easier for the final stage of genocide, which is denial. All evidence is covered up and the witnesses are too intimidated to help or speak up. ISIS is another major group currently committing genocide. ISIS has now extended its control across the northern and eastern regions of Syria. It rules the territory it controls through terror. ISIS publicly beheads Shia Muslims, Christians, Yazidi and other non-Muslim men. Non-Muslim women are systematically
Hello, my name is Jessica Jung and I am from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. I attend Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School, where we are required to take American Studies as a class in ninth grade. Recently we have started discussing the Holocaust, along with genocide and its multitude of negative effects.
Genocide is a process that is established in ten stages that are easy to foretell, but not inexorable. The first stage is classification where people are distinguished into categories based on their ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality. Societies that lack mixed categories are most likely to have genocide. During the Holocaust, groups of people, such as the Jewish, were categorized and formed into negative images. …show more content…
The al-Assad regime is one of the many warring units that are executing genocide. In March of 2011, pro-democracy protests erupted in Syria and quickly increased throughout the country. The Assad regime responded with a brutal suppression on the peaceful protests by mass killing of the protesters. This group has reached the persecution and extermination stages of genocide, with its violent approach towards the victims. Sunni Muslim cities and towns were bombed and shelled by Syrian forces, intentionally targeting schools, hospitals and markets. Muslims were classified and discriminated as the inferior group by the Syrian Arab Republic. Sunni cities were deprived of food and medical services, which also fits under the persecution stage. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the Syrian government continues to use chemical weapons, ballistic missiles, cluster munitions, incendiary weapons, and “barrel bombs” on civilians in residential areas. These weapons were stocked and armies were built in the preparation step of genocide, leading to the violence and murders. Torture and rape is used as Assad regime 's official strategy for submission. Perceived opposition supporters, activists, journalists, lawyers, and doctors are targeted and observed as “terrorists” by the regime. This fits under polarization, as hate groups spreading propaganda are driven apart. This is done to make it easier for the final stage of genocide, which is denial. All evidence is covered up and the witnesses are too intimidated to help or speak up. ISIS is another major group currently committing genocide. ISIS has now extended its control across the northern and eastern regions of Syria. It rules the territory it controls through terror. ISIS publicly beheads Shia Muslims, Christians, Yazidi and other non-Muslim men. Non-Muslim women are systematically