[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 12, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1207-E1208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    DESIGNATE NIGERIA A COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN UNDER THE IRFA

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 12, 2023

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the 
following letter, drafted by respected experts--including former 
members of Congress--in the field of religious freedom, and sent to 
members on Capitol Hill today, underscoring the dire state of religious 
freedom in Nigeria, and calling for that country to be designated a 
Country of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom 
Act of 1998. Their stark appraisal of the situation, and the immediate 
threat to the lives of thousands of Nigerians, merits immediate action 
by the Biden Administration.
                                                December 12, 2023.
       Dear Members of Congress: As religious freedom advocates 
     and proponents, and leaders of grassroots organizations with 
     millions of American members, we appeal to you to urgently 
     respond to the Department of State's failure to adequately 
     address egregious, systematic, and ongoing religious 
     persecution in Nigeria, as required by the International 
     Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998.
       We specifically urge Nigeria's designation as a Country of 
     Particular Concern (CPC) under the IRFA and the appointment 
     of a special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region. 
     Additionally, we urge you to support and cosponsor the bi-
     partisan legislation authored by Rep. Chris Smith and Rep. 
     Henry Cuellar House Resolution 82, which calls for the State 
     Department to carry out these two steps.
       A staggering 90 percent of all the Christians killed for 
     their faith worldwide last

[[Page E1208]]

     year were killed in Nigeria, according to Open Doors, an 
     increase from the 80 percent it reported in 2021. Over 5,000 
     Nigerian Christians are reported to have been killed for 
     their faith in 2022.
       Most of this slaughter is now carried out by militants 
     within the Fulani Muslim herder population, who have been 
     allowed to act largely with impunity. While some Muslims have 
     also been killed by the same forces, the Observatory for 
     Religious Freedom in Africa found that, from October 2019 to 
     September 2022, Christians in Nigeria were 7.6 times more 
     likely to be killed and 6 times more likely to be abducted 
     than Muslims by terrorist and militia groups, when taking 
     into account their population's proportions in Nigeria's 
     states.
       Catholic priests, evangelical pastors, and Methodist 
     bishops have been special targets of kidnapping by Fulani and 
     unidentified gunmen, typically shouting ``Allahu Akbar.'' The 
     pontifical organization, Aid to the Church in Need, reports 
     that, since early 2022 alone, 100 Nigerian Catholic priests 
     have been kidnapped and not yet freed, 20 of whom were 
     murdered, with many of these attacks occurring on church 
     grounds. Nigerian media also reports the kidnapping of two 
     imams from their mosques in 2022. Since 2009, some 17,000 
     churches have been burned and attacked, while many of them--
     such as St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Ondo State that 
     was attacked on Pentecost Sunday last year--were filled with 
     worshippers. We are not aware of a single case that has been 
     prosecuted.
       The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom 
     reports that in ``northcentral Nigeria, ethnonationalists 
     fighting to promote Fulani interests target Christian 
     civilians based on ethnoreligious identity.'' In recommending 
     CPC designation, it concludes that the Nigerian Government 
     has ``routinely failed to investigate these attacks and 
     prosecute those responsible, demonstrating a problematic 
     level of apathy on the part of state officials.''
       In addition, terror groups such as Boko Haram and the 
     Islamic State West Africa Province have attacked and killed 
     thousands of Christians and Muslims who reject their 
     dictates. Unknown numbers of Christian girls and women have 
     been kidnapped into sexual slavery. Boko Haram kidnapped over 
     200 schoolgirls in 2014 in Chibok, Borno State, half of whom 
     remain captive and are pressured to convert to Islam, while 
     Leah Sharibu remains enslaved following a terrorist raid of 
     her school in Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018.
       Lawlessness has resulted in millions of internally 
     displaced Nigerians and hundreds of thousands of refugees. 
     Just this year, in Nigeria's north central Benue State, whose 
     population is overwhelmingly Christian, nearly two million 
     farming families were displaced by Fulani militants. Some of 
     them were then hunted down in their places of refuge and 
     brutally hacked to death. Catholic Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of 
     Benue's Makurdi diocese recently shared video documentation 
     of the aftermath of one such attack with numerous Members of 
     Congress.
       Authorities also engage directly in religious persecution 
     by enforcing Islamic blasphemy laws that have resulted in 
     recent death sentences for Sufi musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu 
     and two Muslim clerics, and ``religious insult'' laws that 
     led to a 24-year sentence for Nigeria's Humanist Association 
     head, Mubarak Bala. Moreover, these laws have been 
     accompanied by a routine grant of impunity for extrajudicial 
     attacks against their perceived violators. Last year, there 
     was the unprosecuted mob killing of student Deborah Emmanuel 
     Yakubu after she was accused of blasphemy and the 
     unprosecuted serious death threats against the Sultan of 
     Sokoto, Sokoto's Catholic bishop, and Rhoda Jatau, a 
     Christian woman, all three of whom were targeted for 
     expressing disapproval of Yakubu's murder.
       IRFA requires frank assessments in the face of such grave 
     religious freedom violations. The Secretary of State should 
     acknowledge that Nigeria has ``engaged in or tolerated'' 
     severe religious freedom violations, the statutory criteria 
     warranting CPC designation. This is particularly important 
     since the United States is a major partner of Nigeria, having 
     given it over $1 billion in foreign aid in 2022, alone.
       As Africa's most populous country and its largest economy, 
     Nigeria wields significant influence in Sub-Saharan Africa. 
     By allowing religious persecution to proliferate within its 
     borders, Nigeria is compounding already heightened regional 
     insecurity. Both American interests and the International 
     Religious Freedom Act require a response. We view the passage 
     of the bi-partisan House Resolution 82 as an essential first 
     step.
           Sincerely,
       David Curry President and CEO, Global Christian Relief; 
     Governor Sam Brownback, Former Ambassador for International 
     Religious Freedom Co-Chair, International Religious Freedom 
     Summit; Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President, Lantos 
     Foundation for Human Rights & Justice Co-Chair, International 
     Religious Freedom Summit;
       Nina Shea, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Religious 
     Freedom, Hudson Institute; Kristen Waggoner, President and 
     CEO, Alliance Defending Freedom; Tony Perkins, Chairman, 
     Family Research Council; Leonard Leo, Former Chair, US 
     Commission on International Religious Freedom.
       F. Brent Leatherwood, President, Ethics & Religious Liberty 
     Commission Southern Baptist Convention; Congressman Frank 
     Wolf, Former Member of Congress 1981-2015, Retired; George 
     Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy 
     Center; Mary Ann Glendon, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy 
     See, Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita Harvard 
     University; Eric Patterson, President, Religious Freedom 
     Institute; Jane Adolphe, Founder & Executive Director, 
     International Catholic Jurists Forum; Jeff King, President, 
     International Christian Concern (ICC).
       The Rt. Rev. Julian Dobbs, Diocesan Bishop The Anglican 
     Diocese of the Living Word Anglican Church in North America; 
     Timothy R. Head, Executive Director, Faith and Freedom 
     Coalition; Dr. Randel Everett, President, 21Wilberforce; 
     Stephen S. Enada, Executive President, International 
     Committee on Nigeria; Faith McDonnell, Director, Katartismos 
     Global; John Stonestreet, President, Colson Center for 
     Christian Worldview.
       Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Director, American Association of 
     Evangelicals (AAE); Robert Nicholson, President and Founder 
     Philos Project; Amanda Bowman, Chair, The Catholic Herald 
     Institute; Gregory H. Stanton, Founding President, Genocide 
     Watch; Kathryn Jean Lopez, Senior Fellow, National Review 
     Institute; Alejandro Chafuen, Founder, International Freedom 
     Educational Foundation; Mark Tooley, President, Institute on 
     Religion and Democracy; Dede Laugesen, Executive Director, 
     Save the Persecuted Christians; Richard Ghazal, In Defense of 
     Christians.

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