WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. government should use “peaceful methods” to fight religious persecution in Nigeria, a northeast Nigerian minister and humanitarian said in testimony before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in Washington Jan. 13.

Rebecca Dali, founder of the Center for Caring, Empowering and Peace Initiatives (CCEPI) in northeast Nigeria, spoke at the hearing held weeks after the U.S. fired at least 16 Tomahawk missiles on terrorism targets in northwest Nigeria intended to fight ongoing Christian persecution there.

Rebecca Dali, founder of the Center for Caring, Empowering and Peace Initiatives in northwest Nigeria, encouraged peaceful intervention in Africa to end Christian persecution in testimony Jan. 13 before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF video screengrab)

“You cannot bomb these terrorists,” Dali told USCIRF. “In that forest that the U.S. bombed, there are some communities there that a lot of people are affected and they are scared. … They are really devastated by the violence.

“The bombs scared them to death,” Dali said, “and a lot of them are not in their right senses (minds) after the bomb.”

She encouraged the U.S. government to use its intelligence to help flush out jihadist sympathizers and supporters within the Nigerian government as a better route to peace.

“Violence always begets violence. And I am also a survivor, because I was captured by Boko Haram,” Dali said. “I urge you to only consider peaceful methods, ones that encourage collaboration and strengthen communities. For too long, we have borne the brunt (of the persecution), and mostly women and children. But I know when communities start to stand strongly together, we shall overcome.”

Dali joined five additional witnesses who addressed USCIRF at the hearing that was also attended by several members of Congress, with witnesses testifying of Christian persecution in China, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Eritrea, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Algeria.

USCIRF Chair Vicy Hartzler encouraged advocacy for the freedom of Christians persecuted around the globe.

“The stories you will hear today are not offered simply to inform, but to call us to a sense of urgency about the persecution of Christians. It is imperative that we confront this heart-wrenching reality,” Hartzler said in opening remarks. “Innocent men, women and children are losing their homes, their livelihoods and even their lives simply for being Christians.”

Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) Interim President Gary Hollingsworth affirmed the importance of the individual testimonies and stories of religious persecution.

“Whether here or abroad, the persecution of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is grievous to Southern Baptists. Our hearts break when we hear about the violence and fear they face for simply proclaiming the name of Jesus,” Hollingsworth told Baptist Press. “At the same time, our faith is strengthened as we consider their courage and steadfast faith in the midst of life-and-death circumstances.”

Hollingsworth affirmed USCIRF’s focus on religious liberty and the U.S. government’s gains in fighting persecution.

“International religious persecution highlights the great importance of USCIRF and of positions like the one the State Department just bestowed on Mark Walker,” Hollingsworth said. “I join thousands of my fellow Southern Baptists in praying for wisdom for our leaders as our country defends religious liberty. May the Lord grant freedom to worship, relief from violence, and advance of the Gospel through the unwavering testimony of our fellow Christians overseas.”

Witnesses included Grace Jin Drexel, daughter of detained Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of Zion Church in China; Y Phic H’dok, founder of Montagnards Stand For Justice in Vietnam; Negede Teklemariam, a Jehovah’s Witness and former religious prisoner of conscience in Eritrea, Martha Patricia Molina, a lawyer and Catholic researcher from Nicaragua; and Norredine Benzid, a pastor and former general secretary of the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA) in Algeria.

Hartzler read written comments from an anonymous pastor from the Chin Community of Burma. He spoke of persecution there, and USCIRF said it would upload to its website video testimony from Abdulbaqi Said Abdo, a former Christian religious prisoner of conscience in Egypt.

China

More than three months after Chinese Communist Party officials arrested Drexel’s father and 29 other pastors and church leaders in several cities across China, 17 of them remain jailed along with her father, Drexel said.

Their arrests are part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to exercise total state control over religion there. Xi has targeted Zion Church since 2018 when the congregation refused to install governmental facial recognition cameras, Drexel said.

Grace Jin Drexel, daughter of detained Chinese Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, testified before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in a hearing on Christian persecution Jan. 13. At her right is Rebecca Dali, founder of the Center for Caring, Empowering and Peace Initiatives, a humanitarian group in northeast Nigeria. (USCIRF hearing screengrab)

“When the government demands Sinicization in practice, it means removing crosses and replacing them with portraits of Xi Jinping, replacing hymns with revolutionary party songs, rewriting sermons to align with socialist core values and installing facial recognition cameras in sanctuaries,” Drexel said. “What the Chinese actually mean by Sinicization is a complete subordination of all religious life to Communist Party control.

“This campaign is intensifying. Six people remain detained from police raids on Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu just last week,” she said, referencing its pastor Wang Yi, imprisoned since 2018, and other churches police have raided in recent weeks.

U.S. Representatives Mark Alford (R-MO), John Rose (R-TN), Jim McGovern (D-MA), and Riley Moore (R-WV); and U.S. Senators James Risch (R-ID) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.) also offered remarks at the hearing, as did USCIRF Vice Chair Asif Mahmood and other USCIRF commissioners.

Video of the hearing is available here.