Indifference to a Christian Genocide

Jan 23, 2022 by

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute:

A recent and ostensibly insignificant “label change” by the U.S. Department of State sheds light on both President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama, as well as on a potential presidential candidate for 2024, Hillary Clinton.

On November 17, 2021, the State Department removed Nigeria from its list of Countries of Particular Concern, that is, nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. It did this despite several human rights organizations characterizing the persecution meted out to Nigeria’s Christians as a “genocide.”

According to an August 2021 report, since the Islamic insurgency began in earnest in July 2009 — first at the hands of Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist organization, and later by the Fulani, Muslim herdsmen also motivated by jihadist ideology — more than 60,000 Christians have either been murdered or abducted during raids. The kidnapped Christians have never returned to their homes, and their loved ones believe them to be dead. During the same time, approximately 20,000 churches and Christian schools have been torched and destroyed. Nigeria was also the nation with the most Christians murdered (3,530) for their faith in 2020. According to another tally, at least 17 Christians were murdered every day in the first half of 2021 alone. As for those Christians who survive the jihadist raids, millions of them are currently internally displaced people.

Irrespective of these abysmal statistics, the U.S. State Department does not believe that Nigeria should be categorized as a Country of Particular Concern; and that nations such as Russia, which was included on the list, is a worse violator of religious freedom than Nigeria. In removing Nigeria from the list, the Biden administration has demonstrated a sheepish continuity with a previous administration. Despite jihadists having slaughtered and terrorized Nigeria’s Christians all during President Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure (2009-2017), and despite the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom having repeatedly urged that Nigeria be designated as a Country of Particular Concern, the Obama administration obstinately refused to acquiesce. It was only in 2020, under the Trump administration, that Nigeria was placed on that list — only to be removed again just recently.

To his credit, President Donald Trump also forthrightly asked the current Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari (whom many Nigerian officials insist Obama helped bring to power), “Why are you killing Christians?”

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