Recently, I posted an article on the failure of the State Department to include persecution of Christians in Islamic countries in their annual human rights report. Creeping Sharia has posted an update on the deliberate effort of the State Department to suppress information on religious persecution of Christians in Islamic countries. It appears that Senator James Webb (D-VA) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are opposed to legislation that would create a special envoy to deal with religious persecution in the Middle East. Much of the below report from Creeping Sharia is largely based on reporting from CNS News.
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/obama-admins-war-on-persecuted-christians/
Hillary in Wonderland
"We don't feel a special envoy would be productive."
Isn't it amazing amid all the talk we hear about religious persecution that most of it is carried out in Islamic countries? Isn't it also amazing that in the wake of the so-called "Arab Spring" that the State Department has chosen to bury reporting about religious persecution around the world since said "Arab Spring" has exacerbated the situation in the Middle East-especially for Christians. (This is not to ignore the plight of the Baha'i in Iran.)
Yet, at the same time, Ms Clinton is playing footsie with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in their effort to get the UN and its member states to pass legislation that would make criticism of Islam virtually illegal. The word of the day is "Islamophobia". This is truly an Alice in Wonderland scenario. Nobody here is calling for Muslims to be persecuted in countries where they are a minority. I cannot think of any country in the world where Muslim minorities are persecuted-and that is good. But at what point can the West stand up and speak out in defense of Christians (and Jews, Baha'is and others) who are, in fact, being persecuted in Islamic countries?
Is it not time for Congress to bring in Ms Clinton under oath and ask her why these reports are being suppressed? While they are at it, they can ask her what is going on behind closed doors with the OIC.
A SPECIAL ENVOY to deal with religious persecution in the middle east??? I thought you were a fiscal conservative who hated to see taxpayers' money squandered supporting ineffectual bureaucrats in preposterous offices!?!?!
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly would this "envoy" do? Tone it down so they would still be welcome in the countries within their purview? Or sit in an air conditioned office in Washington, issuing impotent press releases?
This reminds me of the Communist Party of Northern California voting to send a telegram to the former government of South Africa, protesting the oppression of apartheid. Good cause, but who's listening?
Religious persecution in general, across the board, should be included in any state department human rights reports, and Muslim-majority nations certainly should not get a break. But there should be no specific category on persecution of Christians, rather, the empirical details of whoever is being persecuted on account of their religion should be provided, country by country.
Otherwise it will be sidetracked with accusations of U.S. prejudice against [fill in the blank]. The facts speak for themselves just fine.
And we wouldn't want to be focused with such tunnel vision on Christians that we leave out persecution of Jews, would we? How about persecution of Muslims in the Russian Federation?