Christian groups, a U.S. government panel and former senior U.S. diplomats are furious over US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision to take Nigeria off a list of countries accused of engaging in or tolerating religious persecution.

State Department officials gave no reason for the move other than saying Blinken, upon the advice of various department sections, decided Nigeria didn’t meet the legal threshold to be named as a “country of particular concern” in an annual religious freedom list released by the US Govt.

Critics, however, are calling Blinken’s move political, designed to appease an important African partner. One former diplomat called it the “revenge of the bureaucracy” at the State Department. Others questioned how it fits with the Biden administration’s claim that human rights lies at the centre of its foreign policy.

The decision is likely to enhance worries among conservatives, including many evangelical Christians, that the Biden administration — unlike the Trump administration — will de-emphasise the plight of Christians persecuted overseas.

“It’s a victory for the terrorists — it’s a defeat for anyone concerned with human rights and religious freedom,” Frank Wolf, a former GOP congressman, said about Blinken’s decision. Wolf spearheaded some of the key legislation requiring administrations to name religious freedom violators; one of the laws is named after him.