By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)-- Boko Haram has begun a vicious campaign of forced enslavement and conversion to Islam against Nigeria's Christians.
Aaron Jensen -- spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor -- told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that the United States strongly condemned any acts of forced conversion, or enslavement as they both violate fundamental human rights, especially the right to freedom of conscience.
In an email to the Post, Tiffany Lynch -- senior policy analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom -- wrote that Boko Haram’s stated goal is to impose Sharia on all of Nigeria. To achieve that end it has warned all Christians to either convert to Islam, or leave the country.
Boko Haram not only threatens individual Christians, but it attacks churches during worship services in order to kill as many Christians as possible. In fact, the militant Islamic group even kills its own Muslim critics. From Jan. 2012 to July 31 2013, Boko Haram had killed 60 Islamic clerics; it also bombed 50 churches, killing at least 366 worshippers and launched 31 attacks against Christians -- or anyone it perceived to be Christian -- killing 166.
The U.S. finally designated Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization in November; the United Kingdom had already outlawed the group in October, but neither the EU, orCanada has declared Boko Haram to be an FTO.