WASHINGTON, D.C 7 December 2022 – In the afternoon of the 2nd December the State Department quietly released its Country of Particular Concern (CPC). While several countries were listed – Nigeria [where InterSociety reported that Islamist militants killed 4 400 unarmed Christians] – was absent.
“How many people have to be slaughtered before Nigeria is placed back on the CPC?” Executive Director of Jubilee Campaign, Ann Buwalda said in response to the news on Friday.
Country of Particular Concern is a designation made by the State Department regarding countries whose governments either engage in or tolerate “particularly severe violations” of religious freedom during the reporting year – this case 2021. “Particularly severe violations” of religious freedom are defined as “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion,” such as torture or degrading treatment or punishment.
“How many people have to be slaughtered before Nigeria is placed back on the CPC?”
Jubilee Campaign, Executive Director, Ann Buwalda
While Jubilee Campaign agrees with the continued inclusion of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Eritrea, China, Burma and others in the list of countries with “particularly severe” violations – the absence of Nigeria among the list of CPCs is glaring.
The State Department also did not place Nigeria among countries included under the Special Watch List (SWL) – which are countries who do not meet all the criteria of CPC but have, “engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom.” USCIRF was quick to condemn the continued absence Nigeria from the CPC list and SWL after it was removed from the CPC list last year with similar outrage. USCIRF Chair Nury Turkel said, “There is no justification for the State Department’s failure to recognise Nigeria or India as egregious violators of religious freedom.”
While the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) reports that Christians are not the majority of the victims of militant violence, they do note that the number of incidents of violence targeting Christians in relation to their religious identity in Nigeria increased by 21% in 2021 [the reporting period of the CPC decision] compared to 2020. In addition a report released by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) takes into account the Christian population per capita and found that Christians were 7.8 times more likely to be attacked.
“Christians are being disproportionately targeted because they are Christians. The ratio is amplified further by the fact that, in the north and central belt where most of the attacks are carried out, Christians are in a minority – with Muslims a significant majority,” Dr David Landrum, director of advocacy at Open Doors UK and Ireland said about the numbers.
The impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of the violence against religious communities – both from Boko Haram but also other militant groups – is also a cause for concern. USCIRF Commissioner Fred Davie commented on this, noting that Nigeria’s excuse of “lack of capacity” for inaction, does not hold: “If Nigeria’s government can launch a speedy campaign against political dissidents in the southeast in a matter of months, why has it not mobilized the same resources to address sectarian violence and religious freedom violations in the country?”
Moreover, State authorities have also been complicit in arresting and badmouthing journalists reporting on the violence and other activists, including faith leaders and UN Special Procedures, compounding concern. During the State Department’s reporting period, authorities in Kaduna state arrested Roman Catholic journalist Luka Binniyat in November 2021 following an article on the Fulani militant killings of predominately Christian farmers. Authorities used its cyberstalking laws to arrest Binniyat for quoting a Nigerian senator which accused the Kaduna government of “cover[ing] up genocide.” In addition the presidency in a statement by presidential spokesperson Garba Gehu accused Catholic Archbishop Kukah of lying for speaking out about the documented kidnappings of schoolchildren during a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission congressional hearing in July 2021. These are only a few examples of the government’s dismissal of, and reprisals towards, individuals raising concern about the violence and impunity. Following her visit to Nigeria 2019 – upon Nigeria’s invitation – the then UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard raised the alarm saying, “the absence of accountability is on such a scale that pretending this is not a crisis will be a major mistake.” During her visit she met with survivors and victim’s families on the ground, regardless, she was still not spared criticism by the government who considered the statements political. Jubilee Campaign submitted rejoinder to counter the Government’s unfounded accusations.
The State Department’s decision to not include Nigeria, defies not only the legal conclusion made by USCIRF, but also the express conviction of the House and Senate.
The State Department’s decision to not include Nigeria, defies not only the legal conclusion made by USCIRF, but also the express conviction of the House and Senate visible in two previously passed bi-partisan resolutions, which called on the President and the Secretary of State to designate countries that enforce anti-blasphemy, heresy, or anti-apostasy laws as “countries of particular concern for religious freedom under section 402 (b)(1)(A)(ii) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.” Nigeria not only enforces anti-blasphemy laws, but also maintains the death penalty as a sanction for blasphemy in 12 northern states, with states currently detaining individuals under its laws. As recently as 2020, Kano state authorities sentenced Sufi singer Yahaya Sharif-Aminu to death by hanging for a song which was deemed blasphemous, and while his conviction was overturned on procedural grounds in 2021, the case was still sent back to the sharia court for retrial, where the death penalty is a possible sentence for releasing his worship song. A legal team are currently appealing the decision by the lower courts for retrial as well as the constitutionality of applying sharia criminal laws. Moreover, the UN Secretary General has stated in his annual reports on the death penalty that even where there is a moratorium on the death penalty the mere existence of the death penalty as a sanction for apostasy or blasphemy has a “chilling effect” on the enjoyment of human rights.
The UN General Assembly Third Committee adopted language into the moratorium on the death penalty resolution reaffirming the Secretary General’s remarks, emphasising that the death penalty can never be a sanction for exercising human rights. The resolution received a record number votes – 126, and will be fully adopted on the 15th December 2022.
The State Department did include Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa under its Entities of Particular Concern designation but it fails to see that in the reporting period 2021, ACLED noted that militant violence outside of Boko Haram accounted for nearly one third of all organized violent events, in 2022 the militant groups account for more than one third.
In addition to USCIRF and Jubilee Campaign, numerous international religious freedom organisations and advocates have expressed concern with the absence of Nigeria from the CPC:
“So much work and effort has been done in the past few years to put Nigeria on CPC list and just like that all gone for very known reasons. The suffering of Christians doesn’t matter for some of our leaders in the West, that’s very clear.”
Mariam Ibraheem founder of the NGO Tahrir Al Nisa (free the women) and a survivor of the apostasy law in Sudan
“So much work and effort has been done in the past few years to put Nigeria on CPC list and just like that all gone for very known reasons. The suffering of Christians doesn’t matter for some of our leaders in the West, that’s very clear.” Mariam Ibraheem shared over WhatsApp on receiving the news. Mariam Ibraheem is the founder of the NGO Tahrir Al Nisa (free the women) and is a survivor of the apostasy law in Sudan with a big heart for Nigeria and the Christians who are victims of persecution.
“It is beyond contempt that Nigeria is not on the CPC list.”
Faith McDonnell, Director of Advocacy for Katartismos Global
Faith McDonnell, Director of Advocacy for Katartismos Global and long-term advocate for international religious freedom in DC, who worked with Ann Buwalda Esq in getting Boko Haram designated as a foreign terrorist organisation when the State Department were denying that Boko Haram was targeting religious minority communities shared on Friday, “It is beyond contempt that Nigeria is not on the CPC list.” She sees a repetition of the same mistake – failing to recognise the motivations of the perpetrators. As a long-term advocate for peace and justice in Sudan, Faith also sees similar patterns in the killings perpetrated by the Janjaweed in Sudan and Fulani militants.
The CPC list which should be based on the IRF Act has strayed from those guidelines, many of the organisations fear, for geo-political reasons. India is another country which is missing from the designations. India – under the rule of Narendra Modi – has seen an increase in third party violence towards religious minorities with several instances of state complicity.
The State Department never provided an explanation for its removal of Nigeria from the CPC designation in 2021 – but this year a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Times that the absence of Nigeria from the CPC and SWL was due to the religious freedom violations “not meet[ing] the legal threshold to justify Nigeria’s designation as a CPC or their inclusion on the SWL.” With regard to both USCIRF and the numerous statements made by civil society members, there is concern that geo-political reasons and false promises by the Nigerian government are behind the omission of the country from the CPC list.
“…yet we never lose hope, trusting that God has a plan. He is preparing someone to bring justice for the oppressed, God is watching.”
Mariam Ibraheem, TAF
Despite the bleak news human rights activists are not using this designation to stop acting on the situation in Nigeria. Mariam Ibraheem, who relied on Christ during her time in prison and imminent death sentence in Sudan in 2014 writes, regarding the absence of Nigeria: “yet we never lose hope, trusting that God has a plan, He is preparing someone to bring justice for the oppressed, God is watching.” ICON reiterated the call for the need of a Special Envoy to the Lake Chad region.