Please Sign Petition for “Foreign Terrorist” Label for Nigerian Jihadist Killers

on July 12, 2013
A northern Nigerian school attacked by Boko Haram (Photo credit: AFP)
A northern Nigerian school attacked by Boko Haram (Photo credit: AFP)

By Faith J. H. McDonnell (@Cuchulain09)

In a July 11 post here on Juicy Ecumenism and in Front Page Magazine, Ryan Mauro announced that the Clarion Project has launched a petition to designate the Nigerian jihadist killers Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The northern Nigerian group dedicated to eradicating the Christian presence in northern Nigeria and imposing Sharia in the entire country, has been responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Christians.

For several years now, the U.S. State Department has refused the designation for Boko Haram, even though the U.S. House of Representatives and even the Justice Department have urged them to do so. Mauro says, “According to the State Department, if a group is labeled a Foreign Terrorist Organization then it becomes illegal for anyone in the U.S. to provide material support to the group; any financial institution must freeze and report its assets; and members of the group are barred from entering the U.S. and ones that are already here could potentially be deported. It is shocking to think that these measures aren’t already in place.”

Shocking, indeed. But even more shocking is the State Department’s attitude towards Boko Haram as revealed in the Congressional testimony of former Asst. Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson. In addition, the State Department’s human rights and religious freedom reports go so far as to scold Christian leaders for speaking the truth about the Islamic jihad against northern Nigeria’s Christians by Boko Haram.

The most recent atrocity committed by Boko Haram was the murder of some 42 schoolchildren and teachers in Yobe, Nigeria. Mauro notes, “This is the third attack on a school this month, and we’re less than two weeks in.”

Please take the time to sign this petition. We need to let the Obama Administration that we will not sit idly by while Islamic jihadists kills off northern Nigeria’s Christian population week after week.

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