Muslim Persecution of Christians: September, 2011
17th October 2011
An especially busy month in the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world, September also witnessed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton release the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. Ironically, aside from Iran and Sudan, none of the countries that habitually appear in this series were designated as “countries of particular concern,” defined by the State Department as countries that are “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
Egypt, for instance—which this year alone has seen nearly 80 Christians killed, their many churches burned or bombed, and their daughters kidnapped and forcibly converted—was not listed as a “country of particular concern,” this despite the fact that the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal government commission, had recommended that the State Department designate it so.
Neither was Pakistan cited as a “country of particular concern.” According to CNS news, “Clinton did not designate Pakistan even though the State Department’s own report stated that Pakistani law calls for the death penalty for people who commit ‘blasphemy’ against Islam or who convert from Islam to another religion—and even though the report listed multiple instances of the Pakistani government using the law to persecute Christians.”