Human rights violations committed by IS [news archive] continue to escalate throughout 2014, raising concern in the international community. Critics state [PDF],

Armed operations and insurgency tactics are bound to produce casualties; it is when the perpetrators of these actions do not execute certain precautions to minimize its impacts on civilians, especially at-risk groups such as women and children, that these operations become magnified under the scrutiny of the international community.

Since the 2013 insurgence of IS into Iraq and Syria, international organizations have continuously received reports alleging serious human rights abuses perpetrated by IS. Such violations include threats of execution, targeted killing, abductions, rape, sexual and physical violence, forced recruitment of children and denial of fundamental rights.

In September 2014, the United Nations (UN) Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] released a report [PDF] detailing the extensive human rights violations in Iraq that occurred during a nine-week period:

According to information corroborated by different sources, ISIL and associated armed groups carried out attacks deliberately and systematically targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, with the intention of killing and wounding civilians. ISIL and associated armed groups also continued to systematically perpetrate targeted assassinations and abductions, including community, political, and religious leaders, government employees, education professionals, journalists, and health workers.

This report highlights the kinds of concerns the international community has about the impact of IS.

Women have repeatedly been targets in IS controlled areas provoking an outcry [JURIST report] from Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad al-Hussein [professional profile], UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. IS has abducted, tortured and sexually exploited women in areas captured by IS. After the September 2014 public execution of Sameera Salih Ali Al-Nuaimy, an Iraqi lawyer and human rights defender, by firing squad, Prince Zeid warns that prominent, professional and educated women are at high-risk of becoming IS targets. Humans Rights Watch (HRW) reports that during the capture and detainment of hundreds of Yezidi peoples, a minority group in Iraq, IS “systematically separated young women and teenage girls from their families and has forced some of them to marry its fighters, according to dozens of relatives of the detainees.” According to Dabiq [text, PDF], an online magazine published by IS, IS believes that the Qur’an establishes the practice of capturing the enemy’s women and children and enslaving them.

Another at-risk group targeted by IS are children. HRW released a report [http://www.hrw.org/reports/2014/06/22/maybe-we-live-and-maybe-we-die] [PDF] in June covering the experiences of children in Syria’s armed conflict. In the press release [http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/22/syria-armed-groups-send-children-battle] [HRW press release], HRW states:

Extremist Islamist groups including the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham have specifically recruited children through free schooling campaigns that include weapons training, and have given them dangerous tasks, including suicide bombing missions.

These tactics were evident in the May 29th, 2014 abduction of 153 Kurdish boys and the accounts of human rights abuses by the released boys. The Report states that the Kurdish boys were tortured and repeatedly beaten by their captures for the purpose of religious trainings. Targeting children for recruitment violates international humanitarian law and causes gross concerns among human rights organizations.

The actions of IS since its insurgence have amounted to crimes against humanity, along with war crimes. Reports claim that ISIS has systematically targeted its victims based on their ethnic, religious or sectarian affiliation. Following the execution of up to 670 in Mosul, Iraq on August 25, 2014, the then UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stated that the actions of IS in Iraq amounted to war crimes. Human rights abuses perpetrated by IS continue to be reported in Iraq and Syria.