Posted by Tina
The State Department is compelled by a law passed in 1998 to issue a report each year on the state of human rights in nations across the globe. This year, for the first time, the report does not include the section on religious freedom. It deferred instead to an international report which lags behind by two years. The result is that the period of the “Arab Spring” which has been marked by religious attacks has been left out of the annual report. What is the administration attempting to push into the shadows by sidestepping religious freedom in its rights report?
Leonard Leo, a recent past chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), finds this troubling:
“The commission that I served on has some real concerns about that bifurcation, because the human rights reports receive a lot of attention, and to have pulled religious freedom out of it means that fewer people will obtain information about what’s going on with that particular freedom or right. So you don’t have the whole picture because they split it up now.”
According to the same CNS News article linked above the following high profile incidents are not included in Hillary Clintons report:
— In 2011, in Egypt, Coptic Christians were among 25 people massacred during a demonstration over an Islamist attack on a church.
In the month of January 2012 alone, the Islamist group Boko Haram was responsible for 54 deaths in Nigeria – 42 of them Catholics killed at church on Christmas Day. In 2011, it killed more than 500 people and burned down or destroyed more than 350 churches in 10 northern states of Nigeria.
In the past three years the Obama administration has shown significant deference and admiration regarding the Muslim religion while waging a subtle but pointed war with the Christian religion. This is a troubling outcome for a President who campaigned on uniting the American people and working toward peace in the Middle East.
Hmmm…could it be the President and his Secretary of State think that if they ignore the problem of religious oppression it will just go away?
This is unacceptable. More than ever our country and the world need strong leadership. Ignoring religious rights and failing to meet legal obligations make it more likely that this pair will be invited to just go away…next November.