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The US added Nigeria on Monday (December 8) to its record of nations “of explicit curiosity” when it comes to spiritual freedom, thought-about “the primary freedom” by the pinnacle of US diplomacy Mike Pompeo.
“US assist for spiritual freedom is unwavering,” he mentioned on Twitter. “The annual blacklist exhibits that when spiritual freedom is threatened, we act,” he warned. The opposite international locations on the record are the identical as in 2019: Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Right this moment, america designates Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as international locations involved beneath the 1998 Worldwide Non secular Freedom Act to have interaction in systematic, ongoing, critical violations of spiritual freedom.
– Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) December 7, 2020
Mike Pompeo didn’t specify the explanations for blacklisting Nigeria, which had already been positioned “beneath surveillance” in 2019.
In its newest report on world spiritual freedom launched in June, the US State Division famous tensions between authorities and the group Radical Shiite Islamic motion in Nigeriawhose manifestations are commonly suppressed within the blood. He famous that the ban on this group final 12 months was condemned by the Nigerian Catholic Church, which sees it as a risk to non secular freedom typically.
The report additionally cites arrests of Muslims for consuming in public in Kano State throughout Ramadan.
Attainable US sanctions in opposition to Nigeria
Blacklisting might pave the best way for sanctions, together with the withdrawal of US authorities monetary assist, if designated international locations don’t take steps to appropriate the restrictions on spiritual freedom claimed by Washington. .
Mike Pompeo, a religious evangelical Christian, has made the protection of spiritual freedom his precedence in human rights, an space that’s in any other case little emphasised by the Donald Trump administration.
Nevertheless, Mike Pompeo didn’t add India to this record, regardless of the advice on this route from an advisory fee on worldwide spiritual freedom which within the spring condemned a “drastic deterioration” beneath the federal government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra. Modi, an in depth ally of Donald Trump.
(With AFP)
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