This story initially was printed by Real Clear Wire
By Susan Crabtree
Actual Clear Wire
Greater than two dozen main human rights, spiritual freedom, and Christian advocacy teams are urgent Congress to take extra motion to steer the Biden administration to reverse course and re-designate Nigeria to its blacklist of worst offenders on the subject of permitting residents to follow their religion of alternative.
The transfer is happening because the State Division is anticipated to launch its annual record of “Nations of Explicit Concern,” these nations the place spiritual freedom is severely restricted or spiritual teams face persecution, within the coming days.
Based mostly on the variety of Christian deaths by the hands of terrorists and militant teams alone, the choice needs to be clear-cut.Greater than 5,000 Nigerian Christians are reported to have been killed for his or her religion in 2022, in line with a report by Open Doorways, a spiritual freedom watchdog group.
Leaders of the U.S. Fee on Worldwide Non secular Freedom, or USCIRF, a government-created unbiased physique that displays spiritual persecution around the globe, met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week in a gathering through which the group’s commissioners pressed Blinken to put Nigeria again on the official U.S. blacklist.
Blinken eliminated Nigeria from the record in 2021, reversing a choice by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in December 2020 to designate the West African nation as a CPC.
Earlier this 12 months, New Jersey GOP Rep. Chris Smith introduced legislation calling on the Biden administration to designate Nigeria as a CPC and appoint a particular envoy to the nation and the Lake Chad area to observe and fight atrocities there. The measure is co-sponsored by Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat.
In a Tuesday letter to all members of Congress, greater than two dozen main spiritual freedom and Christian advocacy teams urged lawmakers to do extra to press the administration into motion to assist cease the mass slaughter of harmless Christians and Muslims in Nigeria.
“We enchantment to you to urgently reply to the Division of State’s failure to adequately tackle egregious, systematic and ongoing spiritual persecution in Nigeria, as required by the Worldwide Non secular Freedom Act of 1998,” they wrote.
The signatories embrace David Curry, president and CEO of World Christian Aid and a present USCIRF commissioner; former Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican and present USCIRF commissioner; former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who previously served because the ambassador-at-large for Worldwide Non secular Freedom within the Trump administration; Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Basis for Human Rights & Justice, who co-chairs the annual Worldwide Non secular Freedom Summit with Brownback; Nina Shea, a senior fellow at and director of the Heart for Non secular Freedom on the Hudson Institute; and plenty of different outstanding voices within the faith-based liberty group.
Moreover, Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, the Catholic bishop who heads the Makurdi Diocese in Nigeria’s Benue state within the nation’s north-central area, instructed RealClearPolitics that he’s deeply heartened by the efforts of U.S. spiritual freedom advocates to press Washington into motion on behalf of Nigerian Christians. Benue is roughly 90% Christian and underneath relentless assault by Fulani Muslim militants.
“The motion of those American Christians to deliver our each day ordeal to the eye of their authorities brings nice comfort to our souls,” he stated. “I’ve had the chance to fulfill them in individual, in the course of the visits a few of us bishops have made within the USA and Europe to current this actuality, usually ignored by the mainstream media.”
“We thank our Lord for them, and we shall be praying for his or her perseverance within the fight for the salvation of harmless Nigerian Lives,” Anagbe wrote.
The advocates urge members of Congress to help and co-sponsor the Smith-Cuellar measure and cited experiences chronicling the ever-expanding risk Christians face in Nigeria. The letter cites a report by Open Doorways that discovered “a staggering 90 % of all Christians killed for his or her religion are killed in Nigeria,” which the group stated was a rise from the 80% it reported in 2021.
The horrific and rising assaults towards Christians and Muslim minorities are happening in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its largest financial system, despite the fact that Christians make up almost half of Nigeria’s inhabitants of 200 million. Islamic radicals, together with terrorist teams comparable to Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and radicalized Fulani tribesmen, usually assault whole Christian communities, torching church buildings and villages and kidnapping and killing pastors and their congregations.
Non secular freedom advocates who’ve documented the atrocities say that many of the assaults are carried out by militants with the Fulani Muslim herder inhabitants who’ve been allowed to behave largely with impunity. Some Muslims even have been killed by the identical forces, however from October 2019 to September 2022, Christians in Nigeria have been 7.6 occasions extra prone to be killed and 6 occasions extra prone to be kidnapped by terrorist and militia teams than Muslims, in line with the Observatory for Non secular Freedom in Africa, a analysis, coaching, and advocacy group.
The letter to lawmakers notes that Catholic clergymen, evangelical pastors, and Methodist bishops have been “particular targets by Fulani and unidentified gunmen, sometimes shouting ‘Allahu Akbar.’” Help to the Church in Want, a global Catholic pastoral assist group, experiences that since early 2022 alone, 100 Nigerian Catholic clergymen have been kidnapped and never but freed, 20 of whom have been murdered, with lots of the assaults occurring on church grounds.
Terror teams, comparable to Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province, have attacked and killed hundreds of Christians and Muslims who reject their dictates, together with compelled conversions. Unknown numbers of Christian women and girls have been kidnapped into slavery. In 2014, the Obama administration tried to launch a global marketing campaign for the secure return of greater than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Chibok, Borno State. Half of them stay captive, and face continued strain to transform to Islam, whereas Leah Sharibu, a scholar kidnapped from her college in Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018 throughout a terrorist raid, stays enslaved.
The letter notes that Nigerian media retailers additionally reported the kidnapping of two imams from their mosques in 2022.
Since 2009, some 17,000 church buildings have been burned and attacked, whereas a lot of them, comparable to St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Ondo State, which was attacked on Pentecost Sunday final 12 months, have been crammed with worshippers.
“We aren’t conscious of a single case that has been prosecuted,” the letter states.
Thousands and thousands of Nigerians have tried to flee the violence. In Benue State, almost 2 million farming households have been compelled out by Fulani militants.
“A few of them have been hunted down of their locations of refuge and brutally hacked to dying,” the letter states. “Catholic Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Benue’s Makurdi diocese lately shared video documentation of the aftermath of 1 such assault with quite a few members of Congress.”
The Biden administration attributes the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria to not spiritual persecution however to a battle over assets exacerbated by local weather change.
USCIRF and different main human rights organizations ardently disagree.
Final December, USCIRF, which makes suggestions to the State Division, issued a uncommon, sharply worded assertion expressing “outrage” over the company’s omission of Nigeria and India from the CPC blacklist, accusing Secretary of State Blinken of turning “a blind eye” to the nations’ severe spiritual freedom violations.
“There isn’t a justification for the State Division’s failure to acknowledge Nigeria or India as egregious violators of spiritual freedom, as they clearly meet the requirements for designation as CPCs,” the fee wrote.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who chairs USCIRF, has described the escalation of the violence towards Christians in Nigeria in recent times as a “slow-motion genocide.”
Rep. Smith, who chairs the International Affairs subcommittee on world well being, world human rights, and worldwide organizations, didn’t mince phrases, urgent Rashad Hussain, Biden’s ambassador-at-large for Worldwide Non secular Freedom, for a proof.
“Why was Nigeria taken off the lists simply earlier than Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Abuja?” Smith requested Hussain.
“I’m involved that the U.S. State Division isn’t utilizing all of the instruments offered to carry responsible events accountable,” he added.
Hussain appeared to agree with each Smith and Cooper on the nations in query however stated his workplace is simply starting work on its annual report, which supplies detailed details about each nation’s spiritual freedom report. The State Division is anticipated to launch the report within the coming days and didn’t instantly reply to RCP’s inquiry this week.
“I share your considerations,” Hussain instructed Smith. “I don’t assume we’ve a lot disagreement when it comes to the substance of what’s taking place on the bottom.”
Hussain additionally famous that he and different individuals in his workplace have engaged straight with all the prime officers in Nigeria and that he met with former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a army chief who was elected in 2015 on a platform of accelerating safety and curbing corruption.
Many Nigerians say these points worsened underneath Buhari’s watch. Earlier this 12 months, Nigeria elected Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State who fought as a pro-democracy activist within the Nineties, however the election has been deeply disputed.
“I wish to be clear that the CPC designation is among the instruments that we’ve, however there’s a myriad of instruments that we’re utilizing to handle the scenario,” Hussain added. “And we’ll proceed to take action as a result of we proceed to be involved in regards to the spiritual freedom circumstances of all of those nations.”
The Nigerian authorities has accomplished little or no to place an finish to the slayings. In reality, authorities have interaction straight in spiritual persecution by imposing Islamic blasphemy legal guidelines, used within the latest prosecutions of Sufi musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu and two Muslim clerics, leading to dying sentences.
“[The International Religious Freedom Act] requires frank assessments within the face of such grave spiritual violations,” the group wrote. “The Secretary of State ought to acknowledge that Nigeria has ‘engaged and tolerated’ extreme spiritual freedom violations, the statutory standards warranting CPC designation,” the advocates argued of their letter to Congress. “That is notably vital since the USA is a serious companion of Nigeria, having given it over $1 billion in overseas assist in 2022 alone.”
Different outstanding spiritual liberty advocates who signed the letter to Congress embrace: Kristen Waggoner, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom; Tony Perkins, chairman of the Household Analysis Council; Leonard Leo, president of the Federalist Society and former USCIRF chair; George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow on the Ethics and Public Coverage Heart; F. Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics and Non secular Liberty Fee, Southern Baptist Conference; Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See; Eric Patterson, president of the Non secular Freedom Institute; and Randel Everett, president of 21Wilberforce.
This text was initially printed by RealClearPolitics and made obtainable by way of RealClearWire.