{"id":743,"date":"2025-11-01T00:36:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=743"},"modified":"2025-11-01T00:36:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:36:49","slug":"trump-places-nigeria-on-watch-list-over-claims-of-anti-christian-violence-donald-trump-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=743","title":{"rendered":"Trump places Nigeria on watch list over claims of anti-Christian violence | Donald Trump News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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United States President Donald Trump has announced that Nigeria will be placed on a watchlist for religious freedom, based on vague claims that Christians in the country are being \u201cslaughtered\u201d by Muslims.<\/p>\n

In a social media post<\/a> on Friday, Trump explained that the African nation would be added to a Department of State list of \u201cCountries of Particular Concern\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cChristianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cThousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a \u2018COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nigerian government has denied such allegations in the past. But critics warn that designating Nigeria a \u201ccountry of particular concern\u201d could pave the way for future sanctions.<\/p>\n

Trump also appears to have bypassed the normal procedure for such matters.<\/p>\n

The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act created the category of \u201ccountry of particular concern\u201d in order to help monitor religious persecution and advocate for its end.<\/p>\n

But that label is usually assigned at the recommendation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom \u2013 a bipartisan group established by Congress \u2013 and specialists in the State Department.<\/p>\n

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In Friday\u2019s post, Trump explained that he had asked the House Appropriations Committee and two congressmen, Representatives Riley Moore and Tom Cole, to \u201cimmediately look into this matter\u201d. Both are Republican.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s claims appear to mirror language pushed by right-wing lawmakers, which frames fractious and sometimes violent disputes in Nigeria as a case of radical Islamists attacking Christians.<\/p>\n

Experts, however, have called that framing largely inaccurate, explaining that strife in the country is not explained simply by religious differences.<\/p>\n

Nigeria is divided between a majority-Muslim north and a largely Christian south. The country has struggled with violent attacks from the group Boko Haram, which has created turmoil and displacement for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Disputes over resources such as water have also exacerbated tensions and sometimes led to violent clashes between largely Christian farmers and largely Muslim shepherds. Nigeria has denied, however, that such clashes are primarily motivated by religious affiliation.<\/p>\n

Still, Representative Moore echoed Trump\u2019s assessment in a statement after Friday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been calling for this designation since my first floor speech in April, where I highlighted the plight of Christians in Muslim majority countries,\u201d Moore said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He added that he planned to \u201censure that Nigeria receives the international attention, pressure, and accountability it urgently needs\u201d.<\/p>\n

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican, also applauded Trump\u2019s decision. \u201cI am deeply gratified to President Trump for making this determination,\u201d he said in a news release. \u201cI have fought for years to counter the slaughter and persecution of Christians in Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since returning to office for a second term in January, Trump has sought to bolster his base among the Christian right in the US.<\/p>\n

At a prayer breakfast in February, he announced his administration was establishing a task force to root out anti-Christian bias in the federal government.<\/p>\n

Later, in July, his administration issued a memo allowing federal employees to evangelise in their workplaces.<\/p>\n

While Trump denounced alleged anti-Christian violence in Friday\u2019s post, his administration has also been recently criticised for its policy towards refugees: people fleeing persecution or violence in their homelands.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Trump announced the lowest-ever cap on refugee admissions in the US, limiting entry to just 7,500 people for all of fiscal year 2026.<\/p>\n

In a notice posted to the Federal Register\u2019s website, he explained that most of those spots would \u201cprimarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa\u201d and \u201cother victims of illegal or unjust discrimination\u201d.<\/p>\n

Critics were quick to point out that refugee status is awarded for fear of systematic persecution, not discrimination.<\/p>\n

Still, Trump has continued to ratchet up diplomatic tensions with South Africa, falsely claiming that white Afrikaners are subjected to a \u201cgenocide\u201d, an allegation frequently pushed by figures on the far right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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United States President Donald Trump has announced that Nigeria will be placed on a watchlist for religious freedom, based on vague claims that Christians in the country are being \u201cslaughtered\u201d by Muslims. In a social media post on Friday, Trump explained that the African nation would be added to a Department of State list of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}