Blinken Rejects Calls To Add Nigeria to Blacklist
Jan 7, 2024 12:10:21 GMT -5
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Post by kriss on Jan 7, 2024 12:10:21 GMT -5
Blinken Rejects Calls To Add Nigeria to Blacklist
The 12 countries officially designated as “countries of particular concern,” the official U.S. term for the worst religious liberty offenders, include Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
“Significant violations of religious freedom occur in countries that are not designated,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted in a statement. “Governments must end abuses such as attacks on members of religious minority communities and their places of worship, communal violence and lengthy imprisonment for peaceful expression, transnational repression, and calls to violence against religious communities, among other violations that occur in too many places around the world.”
The State Department also designated eight entities of particular concern, non-state actors engaging in severe violations of religious freedom. Those groups include 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 recommended the designation of seven of these terrorist and militant groups in its 2023 annual report.
Blinken’s decision not to designate Nigeria and India earned an immediate rebuke from the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, whose leaders are appointed by Congress and make recommendations to the State Department. The commission, which has repeatedly called for both countries to be placed on the official blacklist, expressed “extreme disappointment” with the decision and called on Congress to hold a hearing on the “failure” of the State Department to follow its recommendations.
Based on the number of Christian deaths at the hands of terrorists and militant groups alone, the decision should be clear-cut, the advocates have argued. More than 5,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed for their faith in 2022, according to a report by Open Doors, a religious freedom watchdog group.
Just days before Christmas, more than 100 Christians, along with their pastor, were killed in Plateau, a religiously diverse state facing increased tensions between Muslim militant herders and Christian farmers.
“This is just the latest example of deadly violence against religious communities in Nigeria that even the State Department has condemned,” Cooper and Davie said. “The majority of commissioners have traveled to Nigeria and noted the threats to freedom of religion or belief and the deadly implications to religious communities.”
Cooper and Davie also called out India’s government for increasing transnational repression targeting religious minorities abroad and those advocating on their behalf.
Despite redesignating Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, the State Department issued waivers on sanctions aimed at improving religious liberty in those countries. USCIRF recommended the redesignation of all 12 countries without any waivers and also recommended that Afghanistan, Syria, and Vietnam be placed on the blacklist, along with Nigeria and India.
read full article: www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/01/blinken-rejects-calls-add-nigeria-blacklist/
The 12 countries officially designated as “countries of particular concern,” the official U.S. term for the worst religious liberty offenders, include Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
“Significant violations of religious freedom occur in countries that are not designated,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted in a statement. “Governments must end abuses such as attacks on members of religious minority communities and their places of worship, communal violence and lengthy imprisonment for peaceful expression, transnational repression, and calls to violence against religious communities, among other violations that occur in too many places around the world.”
The State Department also designated eight entities of particular concern, non-state actors engaging in severe violations of religious freedom. Those groups include 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 recommended the designation of seven of these terrorist and militant groups in its 2023 annual report.
Blinken’s decision not to designate Nigeria and India earned an immediate rebuke from the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, whose leaders are appointed by Congress and make recommendations to the State Department. The commission, which has repeatedly called for both countries to be placed on the official blacklist, expressed “extreme disappointment” with the decision and called on Congress to hold a hearing on the “failure” of the State Department to follow its recommendations.
Based on the number of Christian deaths at the hands of terrorists and militant groups alone, the decision should be clear-cut, the advocates have argued. More than 5,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed for their faith in 2022, according to a report by Open Doors, a religious freedom watchdog group.
Just days before Christmas, more than 100 Christians, along with their pastor, were killed in Plateau, a religiously diverse state facing increased tensions between Muslim militant herders and Christian farmers.
“This is just the latest example of deadly violence against religious communities in Nigeria that even the State Department has condemned,” Cooper and Davie said. “The majority of commissioners have traveled to Nigeria and noted the threats to freedom of religion or belief and the deadly implications to religious communities.”
Cooper and Davie also called out India’s government for increasing transnational repression targeting religious minorities abroad and those advocating on their behalf.
Despite redesignating Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, the State Department issued waivers on sanctions aimed at improving religious liberty in those countries. USCIRF recommended the redesignation of all 12 countries without any waivers and also recommended that Afghanistan, Syria, and Vietnam be placed on the blacklist, along with Nigeria and India.
read full article: www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/01/blinken-rejects-calls-add-nigeria-blacklist/