Human Rights advocates have appealed to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to designate Nigeria as “a country of particular concern” in light of increasing attacks against Christians in the West African country.
The international coalition of religious freedom advocates and organizations are also calling on the Biden administration to appoint a special envoy to evaluate Christian persecution in the country and make recommendations in consultation with local representatives.
The International Coalition made their request in a letter organized by ADF International, a division of the religious liberty advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom. The letter was endorsed by 33 organisations and 35 individuals, and cited statistics from human rights observers indicating an increasingly hostile environment for Nigerian Christians.
“After the still unexplained removal of Nigeria’s CPC designation in November 2021, both the general level of violence and specific targeting of Christians increased. Open Doors found more Christians killed in Nigeria in 2021 — 4,650 — than in all other countries in the world combined,” read the letter.
According to Open Doors, the persecution facing Christians in Nigeria is extreme and often brutally violent. The organization works through church partners to strengthen Christians in Nigeria with discipleship and persecution survival training, trauma care and economic empowerment projects. It noted that the attacks are carried out by Islamic militants and armed bandits.
“This mostly affects believers living in the Muslim-majority north and Middle Belt, but it’s also spreading to the south. Although all civilians are subject to threats and violence, Christians are often specifically targeted because of their faith. Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), for example, want to eliminate the presence of Christianity in Nigeria,” the organization wrote on its website.
In 2020, the State Department designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC)” in the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report, and then removed the West African Country from its annual list in November 2021.
Organizations that supported the letter include the Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, International Christian Concern, the American Humanist Association, the Hudson Institute, the Anglican Persecuted Church Network, In Defense of Christians and the Religious Freedom Institute and Jubilee Campaign USA. The signatories noted that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom viewed the removal of the CPC designation in 2021 as “appalling.”