Many, including ADF and the USCIRF, were shocked and outraged by the State Department’s decision to leave Nigeria off the list. “Removing Nigeria from the CPC list has led to the emboldening of Islamic terrorists, radical militants, and other extremists who kill, torture, and abduct Christians, as well as Muslims who reject extremism,” an ADF petition to include Nigeria on the CPC list stated.
In a Dec. 2 statement, USCIRF announced it is “tremendously disappointed that the Secretary of State did not implement our recommendations and recognize the severity of the religious freedom violations that both USCIRF and the State Department have documented in (Nigeria).” Making its position very clear, USCIRF stated that “there is no justification for the State Department’s failure to recognize Nigeria.”
According to a September policy update on violence in Nigeria by USCIRF, the violence perpetuated by “militant Islamist groups” in Nigeria has resulted in “devastating humanitarian and religious freedom consequences.”
Previously reported on by CNA, Reuters exposed an ongoing rape as a weapon of war campaign by Islamist jihadists against Nigerian women in minority religious communities as well as a massive, forced abortion program by the Nigerian military.
This year’s “Pentecost massacre,” in which dozens of Catholics attending Mass in Owo were killed, is just one example of the mounting religious violence being perpetuated by Islamist extremists, according to ADF. While jihadist groups such as the Islamic State West Africa Province, an ISIS caliphate, and Boko Haram spread a reign of terror on the Nigerian population, mob violence and acts of hate against Christians are largely left unchecked by the Nigerian government.
According to Nelson, “Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian.” In a statement to CNA, Nelson said that “we know that thousands of Christians in Nigeria are slaughtered every year for their faith, and people are silenced, imprisoned, and face deadly mob violence based on blasphemy accusations.”
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