Boko Haram

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Here is a solid news peg for the severely under-covered story of Christian persecution

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Here is a solid news peg for the severely under-covered story of Christian persecution

With all-important developments in the Middle East and Ukraine, it seems off-kilter to state that another major international story is being severely neglected, and has long been so. But such is The Guy’s opinion about mainstream media neglect of the waves of evidence for ongoing global persecution of Christians, on which we now have a Nov. 1 news peg.

A previous GetReligion Memo addressed the plight of Armenian Christians within Islamic Azerbaijan.  That’s just one of many tragedies detailed in the annual “Persecutors of the Year” report for 2023, just issued by International Christian Concern (ICC).

Yes, followers of other world religions also face inexcusable abuse in several nations. The parallel 2023 report produced last May by the federal government’s independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which is also important to check out, emphasizes the plight of both Christians and other minorities in Iran but “sounds the alarm regarding the deterioration of religious freedom conditions in a range of other countries.” Click here for that report (.pdf).

But the scale is distinctive if, as ICC reports, “there are an estimated 200 to 300 million Christians who suffer persecution worldwide.” There’s corroboration of such a vast problem in the latest edition of the “World Christian Encyclopedia.”

The overall global scenario warrants coverage, but many specific situations are newsworthy.

In ICC’s estimation, the world’s five worst individual persecutors today are Yogi Adityanath, the Hindu chief minister of India’s most populous state; Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s dictator; the better-known President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and atheistic Communist dictators Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

Here’s the ICC list of the most bloodthirsty non-governmental organizations: Allied Democratic Forces (Islamic State affiliate operating in Congo and Uganda), Al-Shabab (al-Qaida affiliate in Somalia), ethnic Fulani jihadists in Nigeria, the five terrorist groups jointly disrupting Africa’s Sahel region, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s army) and the famous Taliban who again rule Afghanistan.

The ICC material from 50 researchers, half at Washington headquarters and half working overseas, shows that action against Christians is frequently linked with oppression of ethnic minorities and of political dissenters.


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Reality on bloody ground: That Pentecost massacre in Nigeria wasn't all that unusual

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Reality on bloody ground: That Pentecost massacre in Nigeria wasn't all that unusual

The massacre occurred during a Sunday Mass, but it wasn't an ordinary Sunday -- this was the great feast of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter season.

What's more, the gunmen didn't strike in tense northern Nigeria, where Christian communities are isolated in a majority-Muslim region. This 30-minute attack was inside St. Francis Catholic Church, located in the safer southwestern state of Ondo.

While 40 worshippers were confirmed dead, including five children, the number was almost certainly higher since many families buried their dead privately. Another 100 were wounded.

The scope of this attack was "unique," especially in southern Nigeria, but "this violence … was not unique in its occurrence," stressed Stephen Rasche, senior fellow at the independent Religious Freedom Institute in Washington, D.C. "These types of murders are taking place weekly, almost daily, in Nigeria -- murders of innocent Christians, being gunned down, slaughtered indiscriminately, throughout the north and, increasingly, into the central part of Nigeria and into the south."

Human-rights activists are trying to document the bloodshed. According to the nondenominational watchdog group Open Doors, the 4,650 Christians killed in Nigeria during 2021 accounted for 80% of such deaths worldwide -- nearly 13 per day. Nigeria's Christian death toll has topped 60,000 over the past two decades.

Nevertheless, this year's International Religious Freedom Report from the U.S. State Department said the "Secretary of State determined that Nigeria did not meet the criteria to be designated as a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in or tolerating particularly severe violations of religious freedom or as a Special Watch List country for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom."

It's understandable that news reports about Nigeria have faded, in part because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and pressing global economic issues, said Rasche, who visited Nigerian churches during this Holy Week and Easter.

Also, many Western leaders view atrocities in Nigeria as clashes between Christian farmers and Muslim cattle herders, with climate-change issues erasing safety zones between these groups.


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What's news? Attacks on Christians in Nigeria provide an important case study

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What's news? Attacks on Christians in Nigeria provide an important case study

As an undergrad, The Religion Guy took a valuable course titled “Evaluation and Display of News,” an elemental skill for journalists who cope with difficult choices.

Take the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trash-a-thon. Please. Just as car crashes produce rubbernecking, “human interest” justified vast voyeurism that fed the market and stole print space and air time from more substantive stories.

Editors’ tendentious coverage decisions continually erode public trust in the media. Liberal outlets give scant play to the assassination plot against Brett Kavanaugh, harassment of other Supreme Court justices and their families and related attacks on a couple dozen pro-life agencies. Meanwhile, conservatives downplay the near-miss danger to Vice President Mike Pence and other high officials amid the January 6 attempt to block the Constitution’s election process.

The Guy could list other examples from both sides, and so could you.

Let’s leap across the Atlantic to assess neglectful news judgment regarding the important plight facing Christians in Nigeria. Their continual conflict with Muslim jihadi factions has left an estimated 37,500 dead since 2011, says the latest annual report (.pdf here) from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (www.uscirf.gov; contact media@uscirf.gov or 202–523–3240).

The nondenominational watchdog group Open Doors USA says that in 2021“more Christians were murdered for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country,” making up nearly 80% of Christian deaths worldwide. Nigeria is the “most dangerous place to be a Christian” in the world, says the Intersociety for Civil Liberty and Rule of Law, a Nigerian human rights monitor. Christian observers speak openly of “genocide.”

In addition to the deaths, it’s all but impossible to count up the maimed victims who’ve survived, the kidnapped schoolchildren and clergy, forced child marriages and forced conversions or the widespread destruction of Christians' churches, homes, shops and even whole villages.

Sounds like compelling news from here.


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Latest massacre of Nigerian Christians? It would help to know this was the Feast of Pentecost

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Latest massacre of Nigerian Christians? It would help to know this was the Feast of Pentecost

In my experience, if you ask most newsroom managers and copy-desk pros to name the most important Christian holy day, the majority will say “Christmas.”

Actually, that’s the biggest holiday, from the perspective of the surrounding culture. The correct answer is Easter, the feast of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, here is a tricky question — one linked to yet another hellish massacre of Christians in the tense land of Nigeria. What holy day would be ranked No. 2 in the calendar of ancient Christianity?

There may some debates about this, but many historians will say it is the joyous Feast of Pentecost (click here for background material), which closes the great season of Easter. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it. Meanwhile, something very important is missing from the top of this Reuters report: “At least 50 killed in massacre at Catholic church in southwest Nigeria.”

LAGOS, June 5 (Reuters) — Gunmen attacked a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria during mass on Sunday, killing at least 50 people including women and children, according to a hospital doctor and media reports.

The gunmen shot at people outside and inside the church building, killing and injuries worshippers, said Funmilayo Ibukun Odunlami, police spokesperson for Ondo state. She did not say how many people were killed or injured at St Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo but added police were investigating the cause of the attack.

Ondo state Governor Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, who visited the scene of the attack and injured persons in hospital, described Sunday's incident as "a great massacre" that should not be allowed to happen again. The identity and motive of the attackers was not immediately clear.

The motive was unclear?


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In Afghanistan, believers in religious minorities have every reason to go underground

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In Afghanistan, believers in religious minorities have every reason to go underground

There's a logical reason that Taliban forces have not been accused of destroying any churches in Afghanistan.

"That's the dirty little secret. There were no churches before the Taliban returned to power," said Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and a human-rights activist for 30 years. "Christians were already underground because of the constant threats to their lives, so they didn't have any church buildings to blow up."

Everyone remembers the shocking videos when desperate Afghans chased a U.S. military plane on a Kabul runway, pleading to be among those evacuated. At least two people fell to their deaths after clinging to a plane during takeoff.

Ever since, there have been reports about the dangers faced by those left behind, especially Afghans with ties to the U.S. military, the fallen government or workers in secular or religious non-profit groups that remained behind to continue humanitarian work.

Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis, Shia Muslims and members of other religious minorities are also living in fear.

"They are all on the run. They are all in hiding," said Shea, reached by telephone. "People are being hunted down and beaten and are threatened with death if they don't betray members of their families who are considered apostates" by the Taliban.

It's impossible not to discuss religious freedom during this crisis, she added. "Everything the Taliban does is about religion. Religion is involved when they hang people for violating their approach to Islamic law or when they attack women and girls who want to go to school. For the Taliban, this is all connected."

The problem is that religious freedom concerns are often drowned out during debates about politics, economics, climate change and other issues in violent flashpoints around the world.


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Prayers and bloodshed during Lent: Catholic bishops cry out for help in Nigeria

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Prayers and bloodshed during Lent: Catholic bishops cry out for help in Nigeria

Another day, with yet another funeral.

Catholics in Nigeria had buried many priests and believers killed in their country's brutal wars over land, cattle, honor and religion. But this was the first time Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Diocese had preached at the funeral of a seminarian.

A suspect in the crime said 18-year-old Michael Nnadi died urging his attackers to repent and forsake their evil ways.

"We are being told that this situation has nothing to do with religion," said Kukah, in remarks distributed across Nigeria in 2020. "Really? … Are we to believe that simply because Boko Haram kills Muslims too, they wear no religious garb? Are we to deny the evidence before us, of kidnappers separating Muslims from infidels or compelling Christians to convert or die?"

The bishop was referring to fierce debates -- in Nigeria and worldwide -- about attacks by Muslim Fulani herders on Christian and Muslim farmers in northern and central Nigeria. The question is whether these gangs have been cooperating with Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The conflict has claimed Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostal Christians and many others, including Muslims opposed to the violence. Prominent Muslim leaders have condemned Boko Haram and church leaders have condemned counterattacks by Christians. In recent years it has become next to impossible to keep track of the number of victims, including mass kidnappings of school children and the murders of clergy and laypeople, including beheadings.

"Religion is not the only driver of the mass atrocities," said Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, in December testimony before members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "Not all 40 million members of the Fulani ethnic group in the region are Islamic extremists. However, there is evidence that some fraction of the Fulani have an explicit jihadist agenda. …

"A mounting number of attacks in this region also evidence deep religious hatred, an implacable intolerance of Christians, and an intent to eradicate their presence by violently driving them out, killing them or forcing them to convert."

In a sobering Feb. 23 statement (.pdf here), the Catholic Bishop's Conference of Nigeria warned that the "nation is falling apart."


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Despite the return of kidnapped boys, it's time to cover Nigeria like the failed state it is

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Nigeria has been a religious, economic and political disaster for many years, which is why it took the kidnapping of some 300 boys on Dec. 11, supposedly by Islamic militants, to raise the outrage threshold about how unlivable the entire northern half of that country has become.

Then — miraculously — the boys were returned within a week. It’s not clear as to whether all the boys were returned or what happened to those who may have been killed during the kidnapping or a whole host of other questions. As always, there are so many questions and, in major media, so little coverage seeking answers.

Chief among the missing angles is the religious component (the religion “ghost” in GetReligion language). For instance, when 276 girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014, we knew these were Islamic militants doing the job. What we weren’t told is that the Chibok girls were Christian, not Muslim (even though northern Nigeria is majority Muslim) and how that made a huge difference as to whether they’d be released or not.

To this day, more than 100 of those girls remain missing. Imagine if that was your teen-aged daughter.

Four years later, mostly Muslim girls were kidnapped from Dapchi , 170 miles northwest of Chibok, but later returned. The lone Christian girl among them, Leah Sharibu, was held back because she refused to convert to Islam. She has never been released and reportedly was forcibly “married” to a Boko Haram commander and delivered a baby boy earlier this year.

Thus, if the victims are Muslim, they stand a good chance of being returned. If they’re Christian, not so much.

The Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall unfortunately) gave this account about the return of the boys:

KATSINA, Nigeria—More than 300 Nigerian boys were reunited with their parents Friday, a week after militants stormed their dormitories in one of the largest kidnappings of schoolchildren in history.


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That question I keep hearing: Why isn't slaughter of Nigerian Christians a news story?

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GetReligion readers: It’s time for a poll about a subject that I keep hearing about over and over in emails and in social media. Raise your cyber hands if you have:

* Seen headlines such as this one — “Days Before Attack, Nigerian Bishop Warned of Poor Protection for Christians” — in religious-market publications.

* Seen the same kind of headlines in mainstream news publications that you read, either at the local or national levels.

* Wondered why these headlines rarely, if ever, appear in the news sources that drive most mainstream coverage.

* Sent GetReligion an email on this topic in the past year or two.

Here’s the basic question that I keep hearing from readers: Why would it take to get mainstream coverage of the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria? The assumption, of course, is that journalists are biased on this topic for some reason. Hold that thought.

Meanwhile, here are a few examples of the kinds of stories we are talking about, starting with that Catholic News Agency headline mentioned earlier. Here’s the overture there:

JOS, Nigeria — Just days before a suspected Islamist militant attack killed 30 people in Nigeria, a prominent bishop in the country lamented what he saw as a lack of adequate protection from the Nigerian government for the country’s nearly 100 million Christians.

Suspected Islamist militants set sleeping travelers on fire in Borno state, Nigeria, on Feb. 11, burning 18 vehicles filled with food supplies and killing at least 30, including a pregnant woman and her baby.

In a Feb. 7 interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, warned that “The current situation in Nigeria reflects an unnecessary, unwarranted and self-inflicted tension. A politically polarized nation.”


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BBC tells us where the next clash with radicalized Islam will be: In the Sahel

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It was a small news article about Niger, a country almost no one has heard of.

There’s been an attack on a base there that leaves 71 soldiers dead, BBC wrote. This area of the world has been heating up in a major way as a brew of toxic Islam mixed with the possibility of yet another caliphate being declared in the area at some point.

All this is taking place in the Sahel, the southern edge of the Saharan Desert.

How many news readers could find that on a map?

Militants have killed at least 71 soldiers in an attack on a military base in western Niger - the deadliest in several years.

Twelve soldiers were also injured in the attack in Inates, the army says.

No group has yet said it was behind the killings. But militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group (IS) have staged attacks in the Sahel region this year despite the presence of thousands of regional and foreign troops.

Security analysts say the insurgency in Niger is escalating at an alarming rate.

Is the word “militants” these days so clear that everyone automatically knows that the adjective “Muslim” or “Islamic” goes with it? And what happens to those they attack?


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