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U.S. Emphasizes Religious Freedom at U.N. Opening

Yesterday,the United States co-sponsored with Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom a panel discussion on “The Human Rights Crisis in Xinjiang” on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.  U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan, UN Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect Karen Smith, and others delivered remarks.  Speakers expressed alarm about China’s ongoing repression campaign against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.  They called attention to the mass detention of more than one million individuals in internment camps since April 2017, and recognized the credible reports of deaths, forced labor, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment taking place in these camps.

U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel D. Brownback moderated the panel, which featured victims of China’s repression campaign, including a survivor of the camps and individuals who are fighting to learn the fate of missing or detained family members. They shared heartbreaking and deeply personal stories of their experiences and the abuses those in Xinjiang endure on a daily basis.

Speakers called on members of the international community to speak up and urge China to change course, release all those in the camps, and demonstrate respect for the human rights of all its people.  They also encouraged the United Nations to demonstrate leadership on this issue and to closely monitor China’s human rights abuses, including the repression of freedom of religion or belief.

The U.S. emphasis was not limited to China.  In conjunction with the opening of the U.N.’s latest session, the White House noted that “President Donald J. Trump is putting religious freedom on center stage at the United Nations.”

Interestingly, the Trump Administration included issues involving domestic American religious freedom disputes in its statement:

  • President Trump is hosting the Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom event, calling on the international community and business leaders to work to protect religious freedom.
  • The President is calling on all nations to act to bring an end to religious persecution and stop crimes against people of faith.
  • The State Department has hosted two Religious Freedom Ministerials, during which more than 100 governments and religious leaders committed to fight religious persecution.
    • The Administration is spearheading the International Religious Freedom Alliance, an alliance of nations dedicated to confronting religious persecution around the world.
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  • The Administration has taken steps to protect victims of all faiths from religious violence.
    • The Administration will dedicate an additional $25 million to protect religious freedom and religious sites and relics.
    • The Department of Justice hosted its Summit on Combating Anti-Semitism in July.
    • The United States has provided humanitarian aid to help Christians and Yazidis who suffered at the hands of ISIS and to help Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing persecution.

SAFEGUARDING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AT HOME: President Trump has made it a priority to support every American’s fundamental right to religious freedom enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

  • In 2017, President Trump signed an executive order to advance religious freedom, restoring the ideals that have undergirded our Nation since its founding.
  • The President took action to ensure Americans and organizations are not forced to violate their religious or moral beliefs by complying with Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) established a new Conscience and Religious Freedom division to help direct the agency’s efforts to protect religious freedom.
  • HHS took action to protect the right of healthcare entities to act according to their conscience.
  • This year, the Administration finalized a rule providing more flexibility for Federal employees whose religious beliefs require them to abstain from work on certain days.
  • The Administration has unequivocally stood for religious freedom in the courts.

COMBATING A GLOBAL CRISIS: The Trump Administration’s efforts to advance religious freedom are vital to combating rising levels of violence around the globe.  

  • Eighty-three percent of the world’s population lives in nations where religious freedom is threatened or banned.
  • The Trump Administration is deeply concerned for the more than 1 million Uighurs interned in Chinese internment camps.
  • Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world.
  • Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Baha’is, humanists, and non-believers alike—almost every group has been increasingly persecuted over the past decade.

Photo: Pixabay

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Religious Persecution Continues to Grow

Largely ignored by most of the media, persecution of religious believers has reached dramatic levels in the past several years.  From genocide against Christians in Africa to concentration camps for Uyghur Moslems in China and Iranian crackdowns on minority faiths in the Middle East, freedom of faith is severely challenged across the globe. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo notes that “Around the world, religious minorities are persecuted and stripped of human rights.”

According to an Open Doors analysis  “215 million Christians experience high levels of persecution in the countries on the World Watch List. This represents 1 in 12 Christians worldwide. North Korea is ranked #1 for the 16th consecutive year (since 2002). During the World Watch List 2018 reporting period: 3,066 Christians were killed; 1,252 were abducted; 1,020 were raped or sexually harassed; and 793 churches were attacked. Islamic Oppression fuels persecution in 8 of the top 10 countries.”

A Gatestone Institute  by Raymond Ibrahim reports that events in Nigeria are particularly dramatic. He cites an analysis from the Christian Association of Nigeria which reveals that “Realistically speaking, Christianity is on the brink of extinction in Nigeria. The ascendancy of Sharia ideology in Nigeria rings the death toll for the Nigerian Church… These nonstop Islamic attacks are causing the Christian population of the West African nation to plummet — to the point of extinction by 2043, warned Bosun Emmanuel, the secretary of National Christian Elders Forum. On June 23 he was reported as saying that the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria ‘is openly pursuing an anti-Christian agenda that has resulted in countless murders of Christians all over the nation and destruction of vulnerable Christian communities.’”

While being a Christian is illegal in North Korea, identifying as one in Afghanistan or Pakistan is extremely dangerous.

In China, according to the U.S. State Department, Christian churches reported that increased monitoring has caused many churches to cease their normal activities. Authorities have arrested and harassed Christians in Zhejiang Province, including requiring Christian churches to install surveillance cameras to enable daily police monitoring of their activities. “An ongoing campaign of cross removals and church demolitions continues…During [2017], the government passed new laws…to govern the activities of religious groups. Religious leaders and groups stated that the…regulations would increase restrictions on their ability to practice their religions, including a new requirement for religious group members to seek approval to travel abroad and a prohibition on ‘accepting domination by external forces.’”

Christians are not alone in their suffering.

In Iran, according to Secretary Pompeo, Hundreds of Sufi Muslims are jailed for their beliefs. In a USA Today op-ed, he noted that “The religious intolerance of the regime…applies to the Sufi dervish community, Christians, Jews, Sunnis, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, and other minority religious groups simply trying to practice their faiths.”
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As a major power, China’s actions must be seen at the forefront of any discussion of the global acceptance of religious persecution. According to the U.S. State Department, in 2018

“There continued to be reports the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, detained, sentenced to prison, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices, including members of unregistered Christian churches (also known as “house churches”). Falun Gong reported dozens of its members died in detention.

“Although Chinese authorities continued to block information about the number of self-immolations of Tibetan Buddhists, including Buddhist monks, media reported on six self-immolations and one instance in which a man in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) committed suicide by slitting his throat…

“Multiple media outlets reported an increase in control over religious activities in advance of the 19th Party Congres …The government continued to cite concerns over the “three evils” of “ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism” as grounds to enact and enforce restrictions on religious practices of Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), including Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui, and Tajiks. In addition to the national Counterterrorism Law that addressed “religious extremism,” Xinjiang enacted a separate counterextremism law, effective April 1, which spelled out many of the behaviors deemed “extremist.”

“Authorities in Xinjiang punished university students for praying and barred them from participating in religious activities, including fasting during Ramadan. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims have been forcibly sent to re-education centers, and extensive and invasive security and surveillance practices have been instituted. The government sought the forcible repatriation of Uighur Muslims from foreign countries and detained some of those who returned, leading many to seek asylum overseas on the grounds of religious persecution. In several cases, there are reports that returnees died while in detention or disappeared.”

Illustration: Pixabay

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Obama Ignoring Persecution of Christians

The reality of the persecution of Christians is an issue that continues to be neglected.

The U.S. State Department has outlined an example of the persecution of Christians in its International Religious Freedom Report:

“In Mosul, Iraq and nearby towns, shortly after the takeover of the area by militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Christians who had been given the choice to convert, pay a ruinous tax, or die, gathered their families and what few possessions they could carry, and sought all possible means to escape. Their community, having been a part of the rich culture and history of this city for more than a thousand years, was being threatened…[by] ISIL’s brutal persecution, which has targeted all those, including religious and ethnic minorities, who oppose or do not fit in with ISIL’s ideological vision and its categorical and violent opposition to religious freedom.”

The Open Doors organization notes that:

  • “The most rapidly growing areas of persecution are in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia.
  • Islamic extremist self-styled caliphates have expanded their sphere of operation across international borders.
  • Governments became more fearful of Islamic extremism and responded by either (a) boosting nationalism as a counter-force or (b) tightening regulations and increasing surveillance over all religious expression.
  • Muslims throughout the world are becoming more Islamic out of fear that extremism may take over their areas and that sleeper cells may awake.
  • More states are lawless, with minorities suffering at the hands of violent groups.”

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A Pew study found that there has been a “rise in religion-related terrorism…Of the 198 countries included in the study, 24% had high or very high levels of government restriction in 2014…Although only about a quarter of the countries included in the study fall into the most religiously restrictive categories, some of the most restrictive countries (such as Indonesia and Pakistan) are very populous. As a result, roughly three-quarters of the world’s 7.2 billion people (74%) were living in countries with high or very high restrictions or hostilities in 2014….” The Report found that there was a “marked increase in the number of countries that experienced religion-related terrorist activities carried out by such groups as Boko Haram, al-Qaida and the Islamic State. Of the nearly 200 countries and territories included in the study, 82 (41%) had religion-related terrorist activities in 2014, up from 73 (37%) in 2013… in 60 countries, religion-related terrorism led to injuries or deaths, including at least 50 casualties in each of 28 countries. Casualties from religion-related terrorist activities have been rising in recent years…Looking at the overall level of restrictions in 2014 – whether resulting from government policies and actions or from hostile acts by private individuals, organizations or social groups – the new study finds that restrictions were high or very high in 34% of countries…Christians were harassed in 108 countries in 2014, up from 102 in 2013.”

Christians are extremely endangered throughout the Islamic world.  The Obama Administration’s bizarre refusal to admit them while disproportionately welcoming Islamic refugees raises numerous questions.

According to National Review “The gross underrepresentation of the non-Muslim communities in the numbers of Syrian refugees into the U.S. is reflected year after year in the State Department’s public records. They show, for example, that while Syria’s largest non-Muslim group — Christians of the various Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions — constituted 10 percent of Syria’s population before the war, they are only 2.6 percent of the 2,003 Syrian refugees that the United States has accepted since then. Syria’s Christian population, which before the war numbered 2 million, has since 2011 been decimated in what Pope Francis described as religious “genocide.”

The percent of Christian Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. is dwindling even further. A CNS study report found that  “The number of Syrian refugees admitted into the United States jumped to 1,037 during May – an increase of 130 percent over the previous month – but the proportion of Christians among them remains miniscule: two Christians (0.19 percent) compared to 1,035 Muslims.  May’s figure of 1,037 Syrian refugees brings the total number since the beginning of 2016 to 2,099 – compared to 2,192 for the whole of 2015, according to State Department Refugee Processing Center data…Of the 2,099 Syrian refugees admitted so far this year, six (0.28 percent) are Christians, 2,043 (97.3 percent) are Sunni Muslims. The remaining 50 are 17 (0.8 percent) Shi’a, 30 (1.4 percent) other Muslims and 10 (0.47 percent) Yazidis.”

The facts raise serious questions for the Obama Administration. It has not been favorable towards the current al-Sisi government in Egypt, for example that has sought to stop oppressive acts against Christians, but the White House was supportive of the former regime of Mohamed Morsi, a member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which increased anti-Christian persecution.