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CV NEWS FEED // Christian students at two public universities in Nigeria have filed challenges against the schools for violating their religious freedom rights and discriminating against Christianity.
According to a March 18 news release from Alliance Defending Freedom International, a nonprofit law firm, two universities in Katsina State banned the use of the school facilities for Christian religious activities in recent years. However, Muslim student groups did not face a similar ban.
“We only want to be able to freely gather and worship as Christians on equal terms with other religious faiths,” one student said, according to ADF International. “It is wrong that our universities are preventing us from exercising our most basic, fundamental rights.”
Sean Nelson, the law firm’s lead attorney on the case, said in the release that the universities’ actions are “plainly unjust.”
“The world continues to watch as Nigerian authorities regularly violate the religious freedom rights of their citizens,” he said. “This kind of discrimination against Christian students cannot be allowed to spread. These two universities should immediately revoke these discriminatory policies and allow Christians on their campuses to gather and worship freely.”
The Christian Association of Nigeria, Katsina Branch, filed the lawsuits on the students’ behalf, the release said.
“The discrimination shown by these universities restricting Christian worship has been condemned by the local Christian community in Katsina as well as throughout Nigeria,” the association said in the release. “It is worrisome to see such discrimination against Christians getting stronger. No government-run educational institution should be discriminating based on religion. We ask the rest of the world to condemn this discrimination as well and to join us in praying that the right to worship freely, on campus and elsewhere, will be fully restored.”
As CatholicVote reported, persecution and kidnapping of Nigerian Christians have risen significantly in recent years. According to ADF International, over 5,500 Christians were martyred worldwide in 2022. At least 90% of those people were Nigerian.
