200+ Human Rights Groups Call on Military to Refuse Lawful Orders After Trump’s Genocidal Iran Threat

Defending Rights & Dissent joins a coalition of over 200 human rights and humanitarian groups, led by Amnesty International and joined by Oxfam America, Human Rights Watch, and Refugees International, in cosigning an open letter condemning President Trump’s genocidal threats this morning, when he said “a whole civilization will die tonight” in Iran if his demands aren’t met by 8pm ET.  The Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court define genocide as committing acts “with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.”

The coalition reminds military servicemembers of their “obligation to refuse any unlawful order” and commits to supporting “legal accountability for anyone who orders, carries out or is otherwise complicit in these abhorrent threats by President Trump.”

Read the letter here. 

Defending Rights & Dissent issued a statement in response to Trump’s threats earlier today:

“Trump’s claim this morning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” in Iran is an unequivocal threat of genocide. This threat alone is a monstrous crime — if carried out it will constitute the worst attack we’ve ever seen.

Trump is far beyond unfit for office and must be impeached and tried in the Hague. Those in power must do everything they can to stop him.”

Yesterday, we called for Trump’s impeachment over Trump’s threats to bomb energy plants and other key civilian infrastructure, following the bombing of a leading Iranian technology university:

“The intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure, such as power plants or bridges, is a clear-cut war crime under international law. Even if Trump’s war of choice in Iran was not unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral, such actions would be serious crimes warranting legal sanction. The U.S. cannot have a president who causally plots war crimes over social media, threatening a country of 93 million with “living in Hell” due to the destruction of civilian infrastructure that makes daily life for ordinary people livable. Congress must not only block funding for these severe breaches of international law or invoke the War Powers Act to end Trump’s unconstitutional war, they need to impeach Donald Trump and remove him from office.”