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US Places Nigeria on Special Watch List

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo holds a press conference at the State Department in Washington, DC, December 11, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States of America has placed Nigeria on a special watch list of countries that have engaged in or tolerated “severe violations of religious freedom.”

A statement on Friday by the Secretary of State Michael Pompeo explained Nigeria was added to the list alongside Cuba, Nicaragua and Sudan.

The United States of America also designated Boko Haram as an Entity of Particular Concern alongside al-Nusra Front, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qa’ida, al-Shabab, the Houthis, ISIS, ISIS-Khorasan and the Taliban.

Other countries that have been on the list under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 include Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

The US Department of State also renewed the placement of Comoros, Russia and Uzbekistan on the Special Watch List (SWL).

Nigeria may have joined the list because of the clampdown on Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) popularly known as Shiite Muslims as well as the killing of Christians in the north.

“No country, entity, or individual will be able to persecute people of faith with impunity,” United States’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo said. “These religious freedom designations show that when faith is attacked, we will act.”

There is no official response from the Nigerian government yet.

The West African country may be designated Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 if religious persecutions continue, the State Department said.

Although the State Department said in a statement that Nigeria is on the SWL list, a report published by the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom showed the country is already classified as a CPC.

USCIRF said “continued systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief” in Nigeria should have earned the country a place on the official CPC list since 2009.

The US accused the Nigerian government of tolerating violence and discrimination based on religion or belief, and suppression of the freedom to manifest religion or belief.

It said religious sectarian violence increased in 2018, with Muslims and Christians attacked based on their religious and ethnic identity.

“The Nigerian federal government failed to implement effective strategies to prevent or stop such violence or to hold perpetrators accountable,” USCIRF said.

It is not the only the American government that has accused Nigeria of systemic religious intolerance and persecution.

Amnesty International earlier in December accused Nigerian troops of forcibly removing of headscarves of female members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a Shia group popularly in northern Nigeria. AI said the soldiers also beat and insulted the religious conservative women.

IMN Ibrahim El Zakzaky has been in detention since 2015 after a violent faceoff with troops during a religious procession in Zaria.

Amnesty said about 350 members of the group were killed in the violence and were buried in mass graves. But the official toll was far lower.

The group has had several violent clashes with Nigerian security authorities in subsequent years.

“More than 150 more IMN members were subsequently killed in Kaduna, Jos, Bauchi Sokoto, Funtua and Abuja,” Amnesty International said.

Apart from the official crackdown against the Nigerian Shiite group, USCIRF said scores of Christians and Muslims were killed in different parts of northern Nigeria, especially in Plateau State allegedly by “Muslim Youth Militia”.

Despite the damning report, USCIRF said the American government is committed to continuing its humanitarian support to Nigeria and for the fight against Boko Haram insurgency.

However, Pompeo said the United States will continue to challenge Nigeria and other entities that seek to infringe upon those fundamental rights and to ensure they are held to account for their actions.

 

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Copyright 2019 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant source.

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