Holding countries accountable

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 2nd day of May, 2024.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up first: religious liberty under attack.

Every year, USCIRF, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, publishes a report detailing failures to confront threats to religious freedom around the world.

ABRAHAM COOPER: As the world's greatest democracy, the way in which we deal with hate is we confront it. We don't sweep it under the rug. We don't make believe it isn't there.

BROWN: Yesterday, USCIRF’s commissioners explained their findings and recommendations to the U.S. State Department.

Joining us now to talk about the report is USCIRF Commissioner David Curry. He’s also President and CEO of Global Christian Relief.

REICHARD: David, good morning!

DAVID CURRY: Good morning. A pleasure to be with you.

REICHARD: David, USCIRF recently marked its 25th anniversary…can you tell us a little about how it came into being?

CURRY: Frank Wolf, who's currently a commissioner was a congressman for many decades, and he and others in the Senate in the Congress knew that there was a role to be played, a watchdog was necessary to hold the State Department, the various administrations over the years, accountable for our value of religious freedom. So they created USCIRF to do just that, to look at our interactions with foreign governments and to judge whether or not the people that we're dealing with—both our partners and those we have challenges with—to judge whether or not there are ways in which we can encourage religious freedom, support it, call out violations of religious freedom, and it has become increasingly important. There are other factors that the State Department looks at whether they want to have trade, whether they need a counterbalance of geopolitical strength in various regions, I think we all understand that. But we have to understand if we're going to do business with an India, China, these countries that have some pretty significant human rights issues, this is a sign of things of issues to come. So USCIRF plays a very important role.

REICHARD: During Tuesday’s online event, you drew attention to India, a country USCIRF says should be considered a country of particular concern. Why so?

CURRY: India since 2014 has had some of the largest rise as far as percentages of religious freedom violations of any country, and it's a large democracy, and in fact, is a friend of ours. Yet since Prime Minister Modi took over, he is part of a political party, the BJP party, which has a militia wing and other entities which are Hindu extremists, and they are targeting anybody who is Muslim, Christian, and minority faiths. And essentially what India is saying is if you're not a Hindu, you're really not an Indian citizen. Just for example, last year, there were two major incidents in Chattisgarh, India and in Manipur, India, where you had tens of thousands, about 60,000 in each region, Christians who, because of mob attacks and and the lack of government support, even the encouragement of police force, local police forces, that mobs attacked churches destroyed hundreds of churches, and and these Christians, about 120,000 of them together, have been totally displaced. They can't go back to their homes. This is a concerted attack by the government of India. They are changing their curriculums in the school, doing any number of things, to make minority faiths feel very unwelcome in India.

REICHARD: We know that North Korea and China have been countries of particular concern for years now, but there are some new additions. And let’s start with Azerbaijan. Why does USCIRF think the State Department should call it out as a CPC?

CURRY: When we designate something, we're really talking about what's happening to people within their own territory, and Azerbaijan, in a matter of a few days, expelled 120,000 ethnic minorities. You have Armenian Christians who lived in a certain territory that Azerbaijan has claimed, and they push them out, every last one of them. They then go through and they've been destroying churches, Christian cemeteries. There is a faith cleansing in this region of Azerbaijan, and then you also have a rise of arrests in the other sectors of Azerbaijan of religious minorities. Azerbaijan is playing a political game where they think they can get away with cleansing Armenian Christians from their country, and they need to be called out for it.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about Nigeria, another country USCIRF says should be on the CPC list. It used to be on the State Department’s radar, but as of 2023, it isn’t even on the special watch list. And this is despite ongoing religious violence and repressive blasphemy laws. Why do you think it’s not on the list?

CURRY: Well, it was a, was designated CPC by the Trump administration in they're last year, and then it was pulled off the list by this administration. I cannot understand.There are more Christians who are killed in Nigeria—that we can count anyway, who knows what all the numbers are in North Korea—than anywhere else: 6,500. You know, it's you should go for a period of 10-12 years, you're seeing tens of thousands of Christians who are being executed. I was there just weeks ago, and we met with some of these internet internally displaced people who are Christians living in camps 10-15 minutes away from Boko Haram, from ISIS West Africa camps, and the government is doing absolutely nothing. It certainly needs to be called out. We've made a recommendation that they need to designate a CPC. We believe that at this point, it's severe enough, you have the entire north of the country spinning off into chaos, that you should appoint a special envoy, which can negotiate between the various governments—Niger, Chad, Nigeria—to bring about some kind of cohesive response to stop these terrorist groups from attacking Christians and moderate Muslims in this region.

REICHARD: David, you've been looking at this for a long, long time. Do you have any worries that the United States is inching toward less religious freedom as the nones —the N-O-N-Es—become more dominant?

CURRY: I think what you see in the Western countries, we have issues of anti-Semitism, of anti-Islamic movements, on both sides in Europe. Here in the West, you see a tendency in corporations and maybe a bit in in government shadows, I would say, of what you see around the world, where you can have de-platforming of faith communities, because somebody doesn't like what they're saying, or their their standard of a biblical standard or something like that. So you're gonna see this happening more and more, I think you see banks that de-platform religious organizations, you could see technology groups doing that. I think it's a concern.

REICHARD: Well, lastly, today is the National Day of Prayer in the United States. And, you know, the stories of suffering might leave Christians feeling quite discouraged. So how would you encourage believers to pray for the persecuted church around the world?

CURRY: Whenever I'm with the persecuted church around the world, I see great hope. Because when people have lost everything, and now I'm speaking from my own personal faith, they find that that a relationship with Jesus is enough. And so you have incredible strength. I think the church is strong in the face of pressure. I think there are some places where the church is retreating, certainly, but I would just say get close to the stories, not because they're sad, but because they're inspiring. And when you see courage and a distance, eventually see it up close, and then you practice courage yourself, which is what we're trying to do: have moral courage and boldness.

REICHARD: David Curry is President and CEO of Global Christian Relief, and serves with the United States Commission on International Religious Liberty.

David, thank you for your time, and your service!

CURRY: Thank you.

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