Co-sponsored by In Defense of Christians and the Knights of Columbus, the petition is being promoted by a new nationwide TV ad.
 
The ad includes quotes by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio endorsing a genocide declaration for Christians in the Middle East. That position is supported by 55 percent of Americans, according to a 2015 K of C-Marist poll.
 
Signers of the petition "implore" Secretary Kerry "to speak up on behalf of these brutalized minority populations."
 
They conclude by urging him "to declare that Christians, along with Yazidis and other vulnerable minorities, are targets of ongoing genocide."
 
They argue that such a declaration meets the criteria established by the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
 
Watch religious freedom advocate and former Congressman Frank Wolf explain how declaring what's happening to religious minorities in the Middle East genocide will force the world to take action to help them.
 
Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson testified before a congressional subcommittee in December.
 
"Christians in Iraq and Syria have suffered injustice after injustice by being kidnapped, killed, having their homes and churches confiscated or destroyed, and being forced to flee for their lives," he told the subcommittee.
 
"Because of hit squads, they fear to enter U.N. refugee camps and, as a result, are then often excluded from immigration to the West."
 
"These people deserve to have the U.S. State Department call what has happened to them by its rightful name: genocide—just as the European Parliament, Pope Francis, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and so many other prominent individuals and institutions have already done," he said.
 
The State Department is required by law to make a designation one way or the other on the matter by mid-March.
 
The petition can be signed at StopTheChristianGenocide.org.

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