Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be grilled about why her department has removed the sections on religious freedom from its Country Reports on Human Rights, which are statutorily required.  Pete Winn of CNS News notes:

The new human rights reports–purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered–are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath.

Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role.

American Christians have received a gigantic slap in the face, as their co-religionists in the Arab world are being subjected to what amount to pogroms, and Hillary’s State Department suddenly concludes that religious freedom is no longer a significant human right, never mind what the First Amendment and the very founding of our country tell us about this issue.

The ugly truth is that jihadists — the very people who attacked our country on 9/11 — aim to forcibly convert, exterminate, or reduce to dhimmitude  non-Muslims whenever or wherever they have the political muscle to do so. They have won big victories in the so-called Arab Spring, and are now taking advantage of the power they have to burn churches, behead Christians, and force submission to their faith, whose very name means “submission.”

And now, Sec. Clinton’s State Department has decided this is no human rights issue of note.

Outrageous, and a move that the major media have no interest in, whatsoever. Instead of her happy face toward Muslim countries that oppress Christians, Mrs. Clinton needs to put on her war paint (maybe Elizabeth Warren can loan her some), and pursue religious freedom for Christians as if it were a goal that actually mattered to her. At one time in her past, Methodism mattered a lot to her. Has she completely lost her attachemnt to the Gospels? Does the fate of Christians in the Arab world no longer count to her?

Mrs. Clinton has a reputation for ferocity. What happened to her to make her so indifferent to religious freedom?  Defending Christianity may be a thankless task, but if our State Department refuses to even comment on the persecution of Christians, there ought to be a public debate on why this change has been made. Americans deserve an answer.