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Author: State Department guilty of ignoring Muslim persecution of Christians

Jun 29, 2015 5:23 pm By Ralph Sidway

John L. Allen, author of the 2013 bestseller The Global War on Christians and Associate Editor of Crux Catholic journal, finds that in general, “religion is undervalued” throughout the State Department 2014 “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” which derives from the administration’s “demotion of religious liberty to a second-class right,” listed only as a sub-heading.

The Obama-Kerry State Department does not merely analyze the data in a secular manner in order to purge religious references or motivations, it actually leaves out of its reporting numerous high-profile, independently-verified instances of religiously-motivated persecution of Christians by Muslims. This in effect makes the Obama administration “accessories after the fact” to the mushrooming genocide committed by Muslims against Christians.

This is the Obama administration’s logic carried to yet another deplorable conclusion: If you are determined to not acknowledge the religious motivations of Islamic jihadist groups, then you likewise have to downplay Muslim persecution of Christians. This is the same reasoning which keeps the Obama administration from interceding on behalf of Christians imprisoned in Iran, such as Pastor Saeed Abedini.

The Obama policy on Muslim persecution of Christians can be stated as follows: “Ignore it, whether it goes away or not.”

“Author Slams State Department for Ignoring Christian Persecution,” by Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart News, June 29, 2015:

A new article by veteran reporter John L. Allen blasts John Kerry and the State Department for radically discounting Christian persecution its recent Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014.

Allen, author of the 2013 bestselling book The Global War on Christians, finds that in general, “religion is undervalued throughout the State Department report” and that part of this undervaluing comes from the administration’s demotion of religious liberty to a second-class right. While listing seven categories of human rights problems, it treats religious freedom “as a mere sub-heading” under respect for civil liberties.

In the light of fierce religious liberty battles in the United States, the State Department’s conscious decision to downgrade religious freedom does not bode well for people of faith in America. Saint John Paul II famously referred to religious liberty as “the source and synthesis” of all human rights, since it means “the right to live in the truth of one’s faith and in conformity with one’s transcendent dignity as a person.” When it is treated as a mere afterthought rather than the foundational right it is, religious liberty will always be trumped by other rights.

As an illustration, Allen takes the egregious example of Egypt, where “Christians are the largest and most embattled minority,” noting that “any account of the human rights situation that fails to feature their hardships is seriously incomplete.” Yet this is exactly what the new State Department report does.

The article, title “John Kerry needs a lesson on anti-Christian persecution in Egypt,” enumerates copious examples of barbarous Christian persecution that somehow escaped the unwatchful eyes of the State Department.

Summing up an entire year of human rights violations in Egypt, the report remarkably “cites only one instance of a Christian suffering discrimination,” involving a man charged under anti-blasphemy laws for “liking” a Facebook page critical of Islam.

Of the multiple abuses absent from the State Department report, Allen cites the case of a Coptic Christian named Nabil Soliman, whose house was burned down by a mob in a small Upper Egyptian town called Nazlet el-Badraman in November 2013. Soliman and his wife Sabah, along with their six children were forced to flee the religiously-motivated persecution and settle in another area completely.

The Muslim government then threw Soliman in jail on a trumped-up murder charge for supposedly killing a ruffian who wasn’t even in the same town as Soliman at the time. Even the family of the dead man has acknowledged that the charge has no merits.

In his analysis, Allen finds the omission of this very public story and others like it from the State Department account “both puzzling and alarming.”

If the suffering of Egyptian Christians isn’t worthy of serious American concern, Allen writes, especially since it comes in a country that’s the second-largest recipient of U.S. military and economic aid in the world, “then it’s hard to know what such an outrage might look like.”

It is illustrative to compare the State Department’s treatment of Egypt with the report released by the independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

As it has done for the last five years, USCIRF places Egypt on its highest tier of religious freedom violations, designating it a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The denomination as a “country of particular concern”—the former “Watch List—refers to those countries “whose government engages in or tolerates particularly severe violations of religious freedom that are systematic, ongoing and egregious.”

In being listed as a CPC, Egypt keeps company with such countries as Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, Pakistan and Vietnam, all notorious for their blatant suppression of religious freedom.

According to the USCIRF report, the Egyptian government has not adequately protected religious minorities, particularly Coptic Christians, from violence. It moreover continues to maintain discriminatory and repressive laws and policies “that restrict freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief,” while Egyptian courts “continue to prosecute, convict, and imprison Egyptian citizens for blasphemy.”

Somehow all of this was lost on the State Department in its treatment of human rights abuses in Egypt.

This situation certainly bodes poorly for Christians in Egypt, but it also sends a grave message to the American people: that the present administration cares little for people of faith, and persecuted Christians in particular.

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Filed Under: Coptic Christians, Egypt, Islamic supremacism, Muslim persecution of Christians, United States Tagged With: John Kerry, U.S. State Department


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Comments

  1. John C. Barile says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    Obama admin to Christians: Get lost.

    • Bamaguje says

      Jun 29, 2015 at 9:20 pm

      Since Obama and other Western leaders insist Jihadist violence has “nothing to do with Islam”, it is no surprise they are unwilling to stand up for persecuted and brutalized Christians in the Muslim world… as that would amount to admitting the religious nature of the global Islamist mayhem. Something their diehard multicultural political correctness won’t let them do.

      The White-guilt West had no problem standing up for Muslims in former Yugoslavia, even though Muslims were the aggressors who started the conflict. NATO bombarded Christian Serbia over several weeks to forcibly establish Muslim states (Bosnia, Kosovo) on Christian Serb territory.
      Similar intervention is now required to establish a safe haven Christian state in the Middle east… preferably side by side with the Jewish state Israel.

    • boakai ngombu says

      Jun 30, 2015 at 11:24 am

      [Imprecatory prayer]
      Great are you, Savior and Lord.
      Although, there are many among us on this earth, who say that is not so.
      Your mission to Redeem mankind from the ravages of sin has been accomplished. You have caused your people to carry this news forth to all humanity.
      Still, there are many among us on this earth who have not heard the news of Your salvation. We confess that many times, despite many opportunities, your people have not carried forth Your mission.
      Great are you, Savior and Lord. You forgive and renew and strengthen Your people. You enable your people, again and again to proclaim Your Mercy with words and action.
      Still, there are those who would demean Your Holy Name and disparage Your amazing work.
      Today, we encounter the Allah god of Islam, which seeks to destroy solace rather than provide it.
      It cannot bring the peace You give. It works against Your mercy and grace by constraining its slaves to acts of violence, like: maiming, defacing, ruining; rape, robbery, slavery, murder. These acts are all encouraged in a false book given to a phantom, grotesque human, full of lust, who its slaves are to follow, thinking this is pleasing to it.
      It purports – through these – that peace is deliberate ruination and joy is acquisition of spoils; ruination due to unbelief; joy through breaking and taking.
      It continues to bring cruelty and untold savagery to anyone, and; cannot reward with certain solace, even grant release from guilt and rescue from Your condemnation.
      It steals peace between peoples.
      And: It makes the blasphemous claim to be both eminent and immanent, but remains unknowable and devious. It does not show forth Your Glory and Majesty.
      It has assistants and partners in its heinous works, all depraved and rebellious, they are … only too eager to control Your Creation and thwart Your Way to Salvation (which the Christ revealed). However, they may not be submitted to anything, although some may claim they serve it’s enslaving law.
      In Your timing bring them to confusion and enable them to note the depravity of their will and mind – their soul. But, please come quickly and do it, for many are impatient and would waste them.
      Allow that your grace and mercy be shown even as You break their stubborn ways, but this before self and others would bring them to dust and we become like them, savage and brutal – against the humanity You would instill.

      • Linde Barrera says

        Jun 30, 2015 at 12:06 pm

        To boakai ngombu- Beautiful and profound prayer. It touched my heart. Thank you.

  2. Angemon says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 6:11 pm

    The article, title “John Kerry needs a lesson on anti-Christian persecution in Egypt

    Add that to the list of things Kerry needs lessons on…

  3. Brian says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    Obama has airlifted countless thousands of Muslims from Somalia, Ethiopia and the Middle East…Christians need not apply as they will not be saved by Obama. He is a closet Muslim.

  4. abad says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 6:35 pm

    It is not just the State Department.

    The UN has kept their mouths completely shut about the issue but they release their hot air over the Rohingya Muslims being oppressed, displaced, and disenfranchised – I am really sick of the UN and the USA should not be a member.

  5. Jack Holan says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 6:51 pm

    When Obama & Kerry slept dreaming deals and legacies w/murderers building a Nuke in Tehran, Churches burn, Christians burn, are beheaded, enslaved, sold for sex, converted. There are no mass riots in Europe or the US amongst the Christians, the Pope recognizes the Palestinians including all terrorists BUT when Pamela promotes a Cartoon Contest to demonstrate the importance of affirming our Freedom of Speech and Expression that so many boys died for in so many places who is blamed as cause and effect when 2Jihadist show up guns blazing but meeting a Texan? The President, CAIR, The Leftists, “Journalists” Media (people you would think would defend her) all blame Pamela as some Evil wench for offending these poor hapless Muslims who have no control over their impulses even though their Kin back home are murdering Christians by the 10s 0f 1000s and if they could 7mm Jews and me, Pamela. I predict that the Muslims will over play their hand. I don’t know what it could possibly be at this point but there will be something that tip the hornets nest over and they will come out stinging Muslims. As GWBush said you are either with us or not.

  6. somehistory says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 7:12 pm

    The ignoring in other places comes first; then doing its own version at home. The nuns who refused to buy abortion pills; the people with Christian values and had a business, Hobby Lobby; the recent suits against Christians who own bakeries, photo shops, florists and that have been ordered to pay fines and do business they have values against doing or close up. It has only just begun.
    Jesus warned those who follow Him that there would be similar treatment to what He received, due to the hatred the world has for Him. (John 15)

  7. mortimer says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 8:09 pm

    The US State Department QUIETLY CONDONES THE PERSECUTION AND GENOCIDE OF CHRISTIANS.

    • Jack Holan says

      Jun 29, 2015 at 8:46 pm

      Mortimer sadly you may be on to something. I believe it’s more any Non-Muslim. How can one have a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood when their entire raison de etre World islamic Domination through conversion and all Land ruled by Sharia Law. Obama still covertly support Morsi in Egypt. He has MB civil servant who have high ranking, classified positions and Executive Advisers. The MB believe in a two prong take over by stealth infiltrating all facets of life and aging positions of authority as well as to be positioned to take over by Force. This is the same Plan for All Western countries. Obama, Jarrett, Rice and a Cadre of Leftists seem to be poised to for the Foundation. Little noticed, to my surprise, a few months back a new Political Party was formed in Chicago The Muslim Brotherhood they have some formula for so many %GOP & % Democratic hedging their relationships.

    • Larry A. Singleton says

      Jun 30, 2015 at 4:31 am

      Actually it’s been every administration since Reagan who has screwed Israel and ignored Muslim genocide. Read Caroline Glick’s The Israeli Solution. I was stunned at how we have screwed Israel one administration after the other. We even SAVED Hamas from extinction! I’m learning more about the Israeli government from Caroline Glick who illustrates how the government and police act like Kapos when it comes to the Temple Mount and read a great article about how they screwed the Druse in Syria. Here it is….Column One: Israel’s great opportunity 6-18-15 “The plight of the Druse grows more dire from day to day”.

      And another plug; Read Until Proven Innocent. Which I thought was just another book on prosecutorial misconduct like the brilliant “Mean Justice” by Edward Humes. But it turned out to be much, MUCH more along the lines of Horowitz’ Indoctrination U. and the total takeover of our universities by liberal fascists and the lynch mob mentality when it comes to “whitey”. Don’t assume I’m being racist when I say this.

      Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case by Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson (Another book explaining how our universities are totally out of control and taken over by liberal fascists. This is a mix of Edward Humes book about Prosecutorial Misconduct, Mean Justice and Horowitz’s Indoctrination U. and how our universities have purged all signs of conservatism and common decency.) From the chapter on The Assault on Excellence: “The modern university is the culmination of a 20-year trend of irrationalism, marked by an increasingly totalitarian approach to highly politicized issues. Students are subjected to mandatory gender and racial-sensitivity, (diversity), training akin to thought reform. Faculty members and administrators are made to understand that their careers are at risk if they deviate from the accepted viewpoint….Meanwhile, professorships increasingly look like self-perpetrating sinecures and university presidents and boards, (not unlike corporate boards), look increasingly like fearful faculty puppets.” There has been a total downsizing in academic standards; to make way for unqualified liberals totally lacking in the traditional academic disciplines which they have made no secret of ultimately wanting to eradicate. “The over-riding goal: do whatever it takes to choose diverse or feminist candidates regardless of qualifications.”

      The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers (Go to Amazon and read the Preface to this and the Introduction to “Taken Into Custody” by Stephen Baskerville; Your days of believing you live in a free country will disappear when you finish this book.)

      Ivory Towers On Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America by Martin Kramer

      Indoctrination U: The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom and The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America by David Horowitz

      • Jack Holan says

        Jun 30, 2015 at 12:25 pm

        Larry Singleton I didn’t want to demoralize you but it goes back further than Reagan. Eisenhower FORCED Israel to withdraw after the 56’ War though Ben Gurion had wanted to hold a few strategic positions. Ironically Nixon who was no friend to American Jews had great Admiration for Israel and Israeli Jews their toughness and as fighters. He stood by Israel more the any other US President at her greatest time of need. If you don’t believe or doubt this check both the Israel and American Archives and General Officers from the Yom Kippur War. He stared down the Russians when push came to shove. The Russians threaten to move troops and ships when Israel started to win back real estate and Nixon warned them that he would answer it by confronting with troops and ship +Jets from Aviano and the 6th Fleet.

  8. Myxlplik says

    Jun 29, 2015 at 8:26 pm

    The truth is that it doesn’t matter what our State Department does, because Muslims could care less. Muslims, if not oppressed through autocracies will enforce oppression otherwise known as Sharia over non-Muslims.

    So, our State Department will endorse oppressive regimes who prevent the full implementation of Islamic culture, or we endorse democracy, which looks a lot like the Islamic State (ISIL).

    The truth is, this is the same reason why everyone is so mad at Robert and Pamela for telling the truth, because they know there is no way to control an Islamic population from enforcing Sharia other than some form of oppression, so it’s much easier to target/put down folks like Robert/Pamela for breaking Islamic Law rather than point fingers at the real culprit, which is Islam and its populous Muslim enforcers.

    It’s a demographic problem, which makes people very uncomfortable.

  9. Januk36 says

    Jun 30, 2015 at 2:03 am

    “demotion of religious liberty to a second-class right,”

    I’m fine with that applied strictly.

    I’m even finer if demotion correlates with written, perceived and evidence based aggressivnes of the religion.

  10. Kepha says

    Jun 30, 2015 at 8:18 am

    For a very long time, I have always felt like counting the silver twice whenever a Leftist loftily tells me, “I disagree with what yo say, but will fight to the death for your right to say it.” The people now running the USA got their start sitting in on university campuses, using mob intimidation of people who disagreed with them, and encouraging riot and arson in our inner cities. They have chosen Christians as an enemy; hence the use of lawfare at home and of ignoring persecution abroad.

    For the people now running the USA, the right of a confused male transvestite to use the Ladies’ Room is far more important than free exercise of religion and free speech. Elena Kagan, a justice of our SCOTUS, came out openly in one of her journal articles in favor of hate speech codes (which will almost certainly never be used on a Muslim who calls Jews the relatives of apes and pigs and Christians “polytheists”), but will almost certainly be used on Christians who call homosexuality a sin or researchers who call attention to the correlations between abuse and perversion or race and crime.

    I fear that many of the people now in power are still fixated on such figures as Malcolm X and the Algerian struggle for independence, so they have a very hard time seeing Islam as a negative force in the world. Given as well that they see only the Christian West as guilty of colonialism, racism, and sexism, they cannot admit that Christians anywhere can be victims of the exotic “other” doing wrong.

  11. Linde Barrera says

    Jun 30, 2015 at 12:00 pm

    “The only entitlement I expect from my government is freedom.” (From: The Political Insider) I am quoting this magazine, but really anyone here at JW who values freedom could have uttered this statement.

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