Us Congress 2023-2024 Regular Session

Us Congress House Bill HR82 Compare Versions

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Old	New	Differences
1	1	IV
2	2	118THCONGRESS
3	3	1
4	4	STSESSION H. RES. 82
5	5	Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the need to designate Nigeria
6	6	a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in and tolerating system-
7	7	atic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, the need
8	8	to appoint a Special Envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region,
9	9	and for other purposes.
10	10	IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
11	11	JANUARY31, 2023
12	12	Mr. S
13	13	MITHof New Jersey (for himself, Mr. CUELLAR, and Mr. HILL) sub-
14	14	mitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on
15	15	Foreign Affairs
16	16	RESOLUTION
17	17	Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the need to
18	18	designate Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for
19	19	engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egre-
20	20	gious violations of religious freedom, the need to appoint
21	21	a Special Envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region,
22	22	and for other purposes.
23	23	Whereas in 2020, the Department of State designated Nige-
24	24	ria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) pursuant to
25	25	the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22
26	26	U.S.C. 6401 et seq.), finding that it is ‘‘engaging in or
27	27	tolerating’’ ‘‘systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of
28	28	religious freedom’’;
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31	31	•HRES 82 IH
32	32	Whereas, in 2021 and 2022, the Department of State omit-
33	33	ted Nigeria from its CPC list;
34	34	Whereas, in 2022, the U.S. Commission on International Re-
35	35	ligious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that the De-
36	36	partment of State redesignate Nigeria as a CPC and
37	37	found the Department of State’s decision to delist Nige-
38	38	ria ‘‘inexplicable’’, and a result of ‘‘turning a blind eye’’
39	39	to that country’s ‘‘particularly severe religious freedom
40	40	violations’’;
41	41	Whereas USCIRF finds that ‘‘in Nigeria’s Middle Belt,
42	42	nonstate armed groups also conducted attacks on houses
43	43	of worship, religious ceremonies, and religious leaders,
44	44	with Christian communities and their churches hit par-
45	45	ticularly hard’’ and that ‘‘the Nigerian Government has
46	46	often failed to respond sufficiently to violence against re-
47	47	ligious leaders and congregations’’;
48	48	Whereas, in January 2023, Open Doors reported in Nigeria
49	49	there were ‘‘5,014 Christians killed in 2022, nearly 90
50	50	percent of the total number of Christians killed worldwide
51	51	. . . [and] almost 90 percent of kidnappings carried out
52	52	against Christians in 2022’’;
53	53	Whereas according to some experts, the northern-based
54	54	Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, a Fulani
55	55	herdsmen advocacy group, supports reestablishing a
56	56	Fulani empire, modeled upon the caliphate in northern
57	57	Nigeria established by Usman dan Fodio, in the early
58	58	19th century;
59	59	Whereas Nigeria is an ethnically and religiously diverse Fed-
60	60	eral State, and traditionally political power has been bal-
61	61	anced between Muslims and Christians, Northerners and
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64	64	•HRES 82 IH
65	65	Southerners, and among Nigeria’s 371 different ethnic
66	66	groups;
67	67	Whereas President Muhammadu Buhari has favored and pro-
68	68	moted fellow Fulani and other northern Muslim ethnic
69	69	groups, while many of Nigeria’s diverse ethnic and reli-
70	70	gious groups, including Igbo and Yoruba as well as
71	71	Christians and Shia Muslims, report they are denied
72	72	equal rights;
73	73	Whereas, on July 13, 2021, in testimony at a congressional
74	74	hearing before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commis-
75	75	sion by Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto, representing
76	76	the Catholic Church in Nigeria, stated that the ‘‘Muslim
77	77	elite’’ ‘‘us[es] religion as a tool for political mobilisation’’,
78	78	and further stated that President Buhari shows a clear
79	79	preference for appointing ‘‘men and women of his faith’’;
80	80	Whereas departures from past conventions aimed at achieving
81	81	ethnic, religious, and geographic balance include the
82	82	forced replacement of then-Chief Justice of the Supreme
83	83	Court Walter Onnoghen with a Muslim jurist, and the se-
84	84	lection of Muslims as leaders of both houses of the na-
85	85	tional legislature;
86	86	Whereas President Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Con-
87	87	gress, in a departure from customary practice, nominated
88	88	two Muslims to its 2023 Presidential ticket, selecting as
89	89	vice presidential candidate Kashim Shettima, whose past
90	90	tenure as governor of Borno State was criticized for fail-
91	91	ing to adequately address jihadi violence perpetrated by
92	92	Boko Haram;
93	93	Whereas the Aid to the Church in Need reports that, since
94	94	early 2022 alone, 20 Nigerian Catholic priests have been
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97	97	•HRES 82 IH
98	98	kidnapped, 5 of whom were murdered, with many of
99	99	these attacks occurring on church grounds;
100	100	Whereas, on January 11, 2023, Bishop Lucius Iwejuru
101	101	Ugorji, president of the Nigerian Catholic Bishops’ Con-
102	102	ference, and four other bishops on the conference’s ad-
103	103	ministrative board met with President Buhari to appeal
104	104	for civil protections in Nigeria, stating, ‘‘[o]ur Church
105	105	personnel have been frequent victims in terms of kidnap-
106	106	ping or outright murder’’;
107	107	Whereas the Methodist Church reported on May 29, 2022,
108	108	that eight Fulani militants abducted and tortured its
109	109	head, Prelate Samuel Kanu-Uche, a chaplain, and Bishop
110	110	Dennis Mark of Owerri, who were released after paying
111	111	a $240,000 ransom, while the militants warned, ‘‘We will
112	112	finish you people and take over this land’’, according to
113	113	Bishop Kanu, who added, ‘‘They claimed that Nigeria be-
114	114	longed to Fulani’’;
115	115	Whereas imams were also abducted in 2022, according to Ni-
116	116	gerian media reports, with the chief imam of Masama-
117	117	Mudi village, Zamfara, being abducted from his mosque
118	118	on December 29, 2022, by unknown assailants, and an
119	119	imam being abducted in Zugu, Zamfara State, in a
120	120	mosque attack on September 2, 2022, reportedly by ‘‘ter-
121	121	rorists’’;
122	122	Whereas in northern and central Nigeria, near-weekly, violent
123	123	assaults on churches and their congregations are report-
124	124	edly carried out by designated terror groups, Fulani mili-
125	125	tants and other nonstate actors, who act with impunity;
126	126	Whereas northern Nigeria has seen the destruction of ‘‘over
127	127	17,000 churches since 2009’’ in attacks by Boko Haram
128	128	militants, Fulani herdsmen, and others, according to a
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131	131	•HRES 82 IH
132	132	2020 Vatican report of its interview of a Nigerian Catho-
133	133	lic civil rights expert, and in 2021, the Department of
134	134	State reported five attacks on mosques by unidentified
135	135	gunmen, bandits, and Boko Haram;
136	136	Whereas, for over a decade, Islamic terror organizations have
137	137	carried out mass murder, rape, kidnappings, and other
138	138	atrocities on Nigerians of various ethnic and religious
139	139	backgrounds, causing unspeakable suffering and displace-
140	140	ment, and the United Nations High Commissioner for
141	141	Refugees (UNHCR) reports that this has resulted in over
142	142	3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in north-
143	143	eastern Nigeria, and 343,000 registered refugee Nige-
144	144	rians in the Lake Chad region;
145	145	Whereas terrorist group Boko Haram, whose name means
146	146	‘‘Western education is forbidden’’, kidnapped over 200
147	147	mostly Christian schoolgirls in 2014 in Chibok, Borno
148	148	State; 100 remain captive and are sexually abused and
149	149	pressured to convert to Islam, and Leah Sharibu, a
150	150	Christian, remains captive and enslaved following a ter-
151	151	rorist raid of her school, in Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018;
152	152	Whereas the British All Party Parliament Group (APPG) re-
153	153	port of 2020 finds that some Fulani herders ‘‘dem-
154	154	onstrated a clear intent to target Christians and symbols
155	155	of Christian identity such as churches’’, and, during at-
156	156	tacks, shouted ‘‘Allah u Akbar’’, ‘‘destroy the infidels’’,
157	157	and ‘‘wipe out the infidels’’, and on January 15, 2023,
158	158	assailants reportedly attacked New Life for All Church in
159	159	Katsina, shooting and wounding the pastor and kidnap-
160	160	ping up to 25 in the congregation, including 5 women
161	161	and girls;
162	162	Whereas, on June 5, 2022, for the first time in southern Ni-
163	163	geria, a church was attacked during a Pentecost Sunday
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166	166	•HRES 82 IH
167	167	Mass, when terrorists massacred 40 worshippers and
168	168	wounded scores more in a shooting attack on St. Francis
169	169	Xavier Catholic Church in Owo City, in Ondo State, and
170	170	none of the suspects have been convicted and sentenced;
171	171	Whereas the Department of State mischaracterizes or incom-
172	172	pletely characterizes the increasing incidents of large
173	173	scale violence in Nigeria’s northern and central rural re-
174	174	gions as ‘‘communal clashes’’ between Muslim herders
175	175	and Christian farmers, solely attributable to competition
176	176	for scarce natural resources resulting from climate
177	177	change;
178	178	Whereas USCIRF reports that ‘‘Fulani-affiliated armed
179	179	groups used religious rhetoric while conducting myriad
180	180	attacks on predominantly Christian villages in Kaduna
181	181	State’’, and that ‘‘[k]idnappers also reportedly delib-
182	182	erately targeted Christians for abduction and execution’’;
183	183	Whereas USCIRF concludes that the Nigerian Government
184	184	has ‘‘routinely failed to investigate these attacks [on
185	185	Christian communities] and prosecute those responsible,
186	186	demonstrating a problematic level of apathy on the part
187	187	of state officials’’;
188	188	Whereas the UNHCR reports that there are over 2.1 million
189	189	IDPs in northeastern Nigeria, and 304,562 registered
190	190	refugee Nigerians in the Lake Chad region;
191	191	Whereas USCIRF cites Nigeria’s Islamic blasphemy laws
192	192	among the reasons it lists Nigeria as worthy of CPC des-
193	193	ignation, given that Nigeria is one of only 7 countries
194	194	with criminal blasphemy laws that carry the death pen-
195	195	alty, with such laws existing in the 12 majority-Muslim
196	196	northern Nigerian States;
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199	199	•HRES 82 IH
200	200	Whereas, in 2020, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi musician,
201	201	was convicted of blasphemy after sharing lyrics on
202	202	WhatsApp and sentenced to death without legal represen-
203	203	tation in Kano; Muslim clerics, Abdul and Sheikh
204	204	Abduljabbar Nasiru-Kabara, are now on death row for
205	205	blasphemy in Kano; and Nigeria’s Humanist Association
206	206	and former Muslim Mubarak Bala received a 24-year
207	207	sentence for apostasy in 2022; and
208	208	Whereas, on May 12, 2022, Deborah Yakubu, a Christian
209	209	student, was beaten to death by a mob on her school’s
210	210	campus in Sokoto for alleged blasphemy against Islam on
211	211	WhatsApp, only two suspects were arrested on minor
212	212	charges, and for criticizing Yakubu’s murder, the Sultan
213	213	of Sokoto and Sokoto’s Catholic Bishop Matthew Kukah
214	214	faced serious death threats from others who acted with
215	215	impunity: Now, therefore, be it
216	216	Resolved, That— 1
217	217	(1) the Secretary of State should immediately 2
218	218	designate Nigeria a ‘‘country of particular concern’’ 3
219	219	for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, 4
220	220	and egregious violations of religious freedom, as 5
221	221	mandated by the International Religious Freedom 6
222	222	Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.); and 7
223	223	(2) in order to ensure that the Secretary of 8
224	224	State receives more complete and accurate reporting 9
225	225	and analysis, the President should promptly appoint 10
226	226	a person of recognized distinction in the fields of re-11
227	227	ligious freedom and human rights as ‘‘Special Envoy 12
228	228	for Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region’’ with the 13
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231	231	•HRES 82 IH
232	232	rank of Ambassador, who reports directly to the Sec-1
233	233	retary of State and coordinates United States Gov-2
234	234	ernment efforts to monitor and combat atrocities 3
235	235	there. 4
236	236	Æ
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