My bipartisan resolution condemning the persecution of Christians around the globe passed the House unanimously yesterday.
H. Res. 407 condemns governments and religious extremist groups that target Christians and other religious minorities. Additionally, the resolution calls on discriminatory countries to cease their persecution of Christians and other religious minorities and urges the president and other world leaders to uphold the universal human right to religious freedom and condemn the global persecution of Christians.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), wrote about my resolution, mentioning how critical it is for Congress to denounce the persecution of Christians worldwide and the importance of the freedom to practice religion. Read more here.
Examples of persecution mentioned in my resolution include:
- The 51 Coptic Christians who were killed by ISIS in Libya in February and March of 2015;
- Christian migrants from northern Africa who have been abducted, trafficked and forced to convert to Islam at the hands of ISIS while traveling through Libya;
- The prohibition on practicing Christianity in North Korea. Christians who are caught practicing their religion are sent to forced labor camps;
- In China, members of Christian churches that are not registered with the government risk imprisonment and torture. Additionally, in the Zhejiang Province, more than 1500 churches have been removed as part of an anti-cross campaign;
- The 600 Christian churches in Pakistan that were attacked in 2016;
- The 44 Coptic Christians who were killed by ISIS bomb attacks in Egypt on Palm Sunday of this year;
- The decline in the Christian population of Iraq from approximately 1.4 million in 2003 to approximately 275,000 in 2016.
Additionally, my resolution falls within the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes the right of all people to have freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and U.S. law outlined in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which found that religious persecution is not confined to a particular regime or region and reaffirmed the commitment of the U.S. to religious freedom.
To read more about my resolution, please click here.
|
