By Anthony Akaeze
In the last two months, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released two major reports, each of which features an overview of the state of religion in two African countries — Eritrea and Nigeria. The reports reveal the role of state actors in perpetuating religious intolerance in both nations.
Research for the Eritrea report was conducted by the Religious Freedom Institute, with Jeremy P. Barker and Ryan Zoellner as authors, while the Nigeria report was written by Michael Ardovino.
According to USCIRF, “inherent in religious freedom is the right to believe or not believe as one’s conscience leads and to live out one’s beliefs openly, peacefully and without fear. Freedom of religion or belief is an expansive right that includes the freedoms of thought, conscience, expression, association and assembly.”
Such principles, however, are not as they appear on paper in these two African countries located in the Eastern and Western parts of the continent.
Eritrea
In Eritrea, USCIRF found conditions among the most repressive in Africa.
“Since gaining independence in 1993, under President Isaias Afewerki, the Eritrean state has exercised strict control over religious practice and institutions and sought to impose national values through compulsory military service,” the report states, pointing out that the government regularly violates both individual and institutional expressions of religious freedom.
“A 1995 proclamation to standardize religious activities and institutions and separate religion and politics has instead been the basis for state control of and intervention in religious life,” it adds, noting “the government formally recognizes only four officially registered religious groups: the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea.”
A 2002 order requiring re-registration, the report further states, amounted to nothing as the authorities effectively closed all other organizations. Since then, the government has not granted any new registrations, thus “providing the pretext for the arrests of thousands of individuals for unsanctioned religious activities.”
It’s not just religious organizations that have faced government backlash, the report adds. “In 2005, the Eritrean government ordered USAID and many other bilateral donors and international nongovernmental organizations to leave the country. The Eritrean state frequently shows hostility toward external intervention in the country, viewing it as a threat to national sovereignty and pride. In this context, there has been minimal space for direct engagement and limited success in addressing religious freedom concerns in Eritrea.”
“As of 2023, Eritrea still retains the distinction of being the only country sanctioned explicitly for its violations of religious freedom.”
With such a situation, the U.S. State Department in 2004 designated Eritrea as a Country of Particular Concern and has reclassified it as such every year since then. The announcement of the initial designation cited the 2002 closure of all activities outside of the recognized four religious bodies.
Also noted were more than 200 religious prisoners, including people who had faced severe torture and pressure to renounce their faith: “As of 2023, Eritrea still retains the distinction of being the only country sanctioned explicitly for its violations of religious freedom.”
The efforts of U.S. government and embassy officials to intervene have met with little success, the report adds: “The ability to engage substantively with Eritrea on religious freedom has been relatively limited. The annual IRF report notes that embassy officials regularly attempted to meet with religious leaders and government officials responsible for religious affairs to raise religious freedom concerns — but with mixed results, as these efforts were often blocked.”
Nigeria
In the case of the Nigerian government, the rhetoric of top officials in public meetings may be much different from what prevails behind closed doors and when the cameras are off.
“Nigeria’s government at both the federal and state level continues to tolerate attacks by nonstate actors who justify their violence on religious grounds. Islamist and some Fulani militant groups have expressed a goal of overthrowing secular governance with the intention of enforcing a singular interpretation of Islam,” the report emphasizes.
Apart from Nigeria’s military not being able, despite their effort to degrade or defeat terrorists that have continued to operate with impunity in the northern part of the country, thus making life a living hell for many residents in swaths of the vast territory, some Nigerian state governments employ blasphemy laws to persecute those they consider unreligious or whose worldview does not conform with that of the majority.
“The government uses blasphemy laws to prosecute and imprison individuals perceived to have insulted religion, including Christians, Muslims and humanists,” the report explains. “It also continues to tolerate egregious violence by nonstate actors, including JAS/Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province and other extremist groups. This violence affects large numbers of Christians and Muslims in several states across Nigeria and targets both religious sites and individuals from religious minority communities.”
“The government uses blasphemy laws to prosecute and imprison individuals perceived to have insulted religion, including Christians, Muslims and humanists.”
This is in spite of the fact that Nigeria’s 1999 constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from adopting an official religion in a country where Muslims and Christians each make up about half the population. Curiously though, the constitution allows the use of Shari’a and traditional law courts for noncriminal proceedings at the state level but does not compel all citizens to abide by them.
This enables 12 states in the country’s north, along with the Federal Capital Territory, to implement Shari’a legal frameworks with some applying Shari’a in criminal cases.
The report explains: “Shari’a codes prohibit blasphemy and other offenses based on Islamic law as interpreted by each state’s high court. Shari’a courts utilize a religiously grounded penal code, including for serious criminal offenses, and specify punishments such as caning, amputation, and stoning.”
The cost of this is that a number of people have paid a price for behavior or actions adjudged by government officials and courts to fall outside the tenet of Islam. Among the victims is Mubarak Bala, a humanist who in 2020 was arrested and tried in a Kano State High Court over a Facebook post considered insulting to Islam. He was subsequently sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2022. Two years after a court of appeals granted Bala’s request, the court reduced the sentence to five years.
There’s also Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi Muslim who, since 2022, has remained imprisoned for sharing audio messages deemed “insulting to the religious creed.” BNG published a story on Sharif-Aminu in December 2020 after his arrest. Incensed mobs burned down his family house.
Other victims of blasphemy include Sufi Sheikh Abduljabar Nasiru Kabara, who was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to death in 2022. Kabara parted ways with his lawyer this year and remains in prison.
There’s also Isma’ila Sani Isah, who was taken on blasphemy charges in 2021 and remains in prison, as well as Sufi cleric Abdulazeez Inyass, whose ordeal started in 2015 after he was arrested and slammed with blasphemy charges and faces a death sentence.
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