International Christian Concern (ICC), an organization dedicated to combatting religious persecution around the world, issued a statement on Monday declaring that President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 American presidential race sparks “hope for a renaissance in religious freedom.”
The president of ICC, Jeff King, noted in a statement responding to Biden’s withdrawal from the race that the president’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump, “became a focused and effective champion pushing for religious freedom around the world,” suggesting that Trump’s potential return to the White House could reprioritize the fight against religious persecution at the highest levels of the American government.
ICC issued its remarks in an emailed statement Monday.
Biden announced that he would no longer seek a second term as president in a letter published to social media on Sunday.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” the letter reportedly written by Biden read, “and while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and my country for me to stand down and to focus solely on my duties as President for the rest of my term.”
The tone of the letter contrasted starkly with Biden’s repeated insistences in the past month that he would reject pressure to leave the race, which reached its apex following Biden’s debate against former President Trump in late June. Biden’s debate performance was marked by answers that were difficult to follow and on some occasions did not appear relevant to the question. Many observers, including in the Democrat Party, questioned the elderly Biden’s cognitive abilities following the debate performance, while news reports citing anonymous sources explained the debate by stating that Biden was mostly lucid between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., but White House aides could not guarantee that he would be able to perform outside of that window.
Biden has not been seen in public since Friday and has not made a public statement outside of written text since Sunday. He did subsequently announce on social media that he would endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic Party nominee for president.
Over 14 million people voted for Biden to be the Democrat nominee in the 2024 presidential primary elections.
“Many in the human rights sector see this development and are beginning to hope for a return to the U.S. leading the charge for religious freedom around the world,” ICC said in its statement, alluding to Biden’s poor record on religious persecution.
ICC President King noted that Biden’s “private deliberations were undoubtedly, extremely difficult personally and professionally,” and did not directly address Biden’s policies. Instead, King highlighted the emphasis that Trump placed on opposing religious persecution during his presidency.
“While President Trump is a very polarizing figure, during his presidency, the U.S. became a focused and effective champion pushing for religious freedom around the world,” King said. “This effort was led by a team of savvy and seasoned government veterans. Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Ambassador at Large Sam Brownback together, oversaw what many consider to be the golden age for religious freedom.”
“Their effectiveness in promoting religious freedom around the world was unmatched in decades (if ever),” King continued. “Should President Trump be re-elected, I hope to see a similar effort to advance religious freedom globally. That’s not a political statement or electioneering but comes from the viewpoint of an educated observer deeply concerned about religious freedom around the world and in our own country.”
King concluded noting that religious freedom is “the cornerstone of democracy” and urging Americans to work together to “navigate these challenging times and uphold the principles that have defined and strengthened our nation from the beginning.”
Biden received significant condemnation from religious freedom advocates during his presidency, particularly for his foreign policy on Nigeria and India. ICC ranks Nigeria the world’s most dangerous place to be Christian, home to multiple radical Islamist terrorist groups who routinely raid Christian communities and conduct mass abductions of women and girls, forced into sex slavery and suicide bombings. In the northeast of the country, the Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram regularly attacks Christian communities, while in the nation’s Middle Belt, ethnic Fulani jihadists are conducting a genocide of indigenous Christian groups.
The Nigerian government does little to protect Christians, despite the religion constituting nearly half of the national population. Nigerian presidents have dismissed religious persecution as a “climate change” problem not driven by religion.
In 2021, the Biden State Department removed Nigeria from its list of countries of particular concern for religious freedom, a move that human rights experts called a “baffling error” that did not appear to coincide with any changes to the reality on the ground in that country. Like the Nigerian government, the State Department has hesitated to describe the mass killing of Christians by Islamic radicals as a religiously driven conflict.
“I am educated enough to know that America needs allies in the world … but our appeal would be that it shouldn’t be at the expense of Christian lives and the blood of innocent people,” Father Remigius Ihyula, a Catholic priest serving the besieged Middle Belt, told Breitbart News in July 2023.
Biden has similarly embraced the government of India, a nation where law enforcement does little to prevent targeted Hindu nationalist violence against Christian minorities. One of the most harrowing episodes of Christian persecution in recent memory, the northern state of Manipur erupted in mob violence in July 2023, resulting in members of the majority Hindu Meitei tribe attacking members of the mostly Christian Kuki-Zo tribe, displacing thousands from their homes. The attacks committed multiple gang rapes of Christian women, filming the act and parading the women naked through the streets.
Less than a month before the gang-rape incidents, India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi told reporters at the White House, standing feet from Biden, that religious persecution did not exist in his country.
“I’m actually really surprised that people say so. And so, people don’t say it. Indeed, India is a democracy,” Modi said at the time. “We have always proved that democracy can deliver. And when I say deliver, this is regardless of caste, creed, religion, gender. There’s absolutely no space for discrimination.”