his story initially was revealed by Actual Clear Wire
By Susan Crabtree
Actual Clear Wire
The Biden administration has rejected suggestions from dozens of main human rights, non secular freedom, and Christian teams to reverse course and redesignate Nigeria to its blacklist of worst offenders with regards to permitting residents to observe the faith of their selection.
The State Division on Thursday launched a much-anticipated annual index of designations, sustaining all 12 international locations listed on the earlier 12 months’s blacklist on non secular freedom and including just one new nation – Azerbaijan – to a particular watchlist. The transfer so as to add Azerbaijan got here simply months after the nation seized again an ethnic Armenian enclave with a predominantly Christian inhabitants.
The 12 international locations formally designated as “international locations of explicit concern,” the official U.S. time period for the worst non secular liberty offenders, embrace Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
“Important violations of non secular freedom happen in international locations that aren’t designated,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken famous in a press release. “Governments should finish abuses akin to assaults on members of non secular minority communities and their locations of worship, communal violence and prolonged imprisonment for peaceable expression, transnational repression, and calls to violence in opposition to non secular communities, amongst different violations that happen in too many locations world wide.”
The State Division additionally designated eight entities of explicit concern, non-state actors partaking in extreme violations of non secular freedom. These teams embrace al-Shabab, Boko Haram, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Houthis, ISIS-Sahel, ISIS-West Africa, al-Qaida affiliate Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin, and the Taliban. USCIRF beneficial the designation of seven of those terrorist and militant teams in its 2023 annual report.
Blinken’s determination to not designate Nigeria and India earned a right away rebuke from the U.S. Fee on Spiritual Freedom, whose leaders are appointed by Congress and make suggestions to the State Division. The fee, which has repeatedly referred to as for each international locations to be positioned on the official blacklist, expressed “excessive disappointment” with the choice and referred to as on Congress to carry a listening to on the “failure” of the State Division to comply with its suggestions.
“USCIRF rejects the State Division’s determination to omit Nigeria and India as CPCs. We met with the State Division on many events to sound the alarm about these international locations however not all of our suggestions have been adopted,” USCIRF Chair Abraham Cooper and Vice Chair Frederick Davie stated in a press release. “We is not going to be deterred and can proceed our function as a congressionally mandated watchdog to make sure the U.S. authorities prioritizes non secular freedom as a key element of U.S. overseas coverage.”
USCIRF, nevertheless, welcomed the State Division’s inclusion of Azerbaijan on the particular watchlist.
The State Division didn’t clarify its determination in opposition to inserting Nigeria and India on the official blacklist. The Biden administration has beforehand attributed the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria to not non secular persecution however to a battle over sources exacerbated by local weather change.
USCIRF and different main human rights organizations ardently disagree. Leaders of the fee met with Blinken final month and pressed him to designate Nigeria and India as CPCs. Blinken eliminated Nigeria from the listing in 2021, reversing a choice by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in December 2020 to blacklist the West African nation.
Primarily based on the variety of Christian deaths by the hands of terrorists and militant teams alone, the choice must be clear-cut, the advocates have argued. Greater than 5,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed for his or her religion in 2022, in response to a report by Open Doorways, a spiritual freedom watchdog group.
Simply days earlier than Christmas, greater than 100 Christians, together with their pastor, have been killed in Plateau, a religiously numerous state going through elevated tensions between Muslim militant herders and Christian farmers.
“That is simply the most recent instance of lethal violence in opposition to non secular communities in Nigeria that even the State Division has condemned,” Cooper and Davie stated. “The vast majority of commissioners have traveled to Nigeria and famous the threats to freedom of faith or perception and the lethal implications to non secular communities.”
Cooper and Davie additionally referred to as out India’s authorities for growing transnational repression concentrating on non secular minorities overseas and people advocating on their behalf.
Regardless of redesignating Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, the State Division issued waivers on sanctions geared toward bettering non secular liberty in these international locations. USCIRF beneficial the redesignation of all 12 international locations with none waivers and in addition beneficial that Afghanistan, Syria, and Vietnam be positioned on the blacklist, together with Nigeria and India.
Whereas Blinken adopted USCIRF’s steering to put Azerbaijan on the particular watchlist, it rejected the fee’s advice so as to add Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uzbekistan to the identical listing.
“USCIRF formally requests an in depth justification by the State Division as to why our coverage suggestions weren’t totally applied, together with the waivers,” Cooper and Davie added.
In December, greater than two dozen main non secular freedom and Christian advocacy teams urged lawmakers to do extra to press the administration into motion to assist cease the slaughter of harmless Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. The signatories included 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 Spiritual Freedom within the Trump administration; Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Basis for Human Rights & Justice, who co-chairs the annual Worldwide Spiritual Freedom Summit with Brownback; Nina Shea, a senior fellow at, and director of, the Middle for Spiritual Freedom on the Hudson Institute; and plenty of different distinguished 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. non secular freedom advocates to press Washington into motion on behalf of Nigerian Christians. Benue is roughly 90% Christian and below relentless assault by Fulani Muslim militants.
Earlier this 12 months, New Jersey GOP Rep. Chris Smith launched laws 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 watch and fight atrocities there. The measure is co-sponsored by Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat.
This text was initially revealed by RealClearPolitics and made accessible through RealClearWire.
