Below is an excerpt from my recent article, "Convert or Die," analyzing the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR).  The full article can be read here, at the Al Jazeera English site - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/convert-die-ethnic-cleansing-car-150811130050880.html. 

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Muslims are only newsworthy when behind the gun, not in front of it.

Modern journalism continually reaffirms this baseline with regards to domestic crises and, perhaps even more so, international human rights calamities.

The systematic targeting of Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR), a nation ravaged by strife since March of 2013, has devolved into massive scale ethnic cleansing.

However, few outside of the African nation and beyond the human rights community are even minimally aware of this humanitarian crisis.

In the past several weeks, armed militias have roved through the western part of the nation,intimidating and brutalising Muslims.

Anti-Balaka, a fundamentalist group comprised of animists and Christians, is forcing Muslims to worship in private, remove religious garb, and convert at gunpoint.

Brandishing religious fervour

While the term fundamentalism seems reserved exclusively for Muslim actors, Christian and animist militias in CAR have brandished religious fervour in one hand, and endless rounds of ammunition in the other to terrorise the nation's 750,000 Muslims – which make up 15 percent of the nation's population. 

Anti-Balaka's aim is as plain as it is gruesome: rid the nation of its Muslim population. At any cost.

While the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) remains in the headlines and at the tip of everyone's tongue, the mere mention of anti-Muslim terrorism in CAR – which has claimed at least 6,000 lives, pushed 30,000 Muslims to live in UN protected enclaves, and left scores of mosques destroyed – remains a largely unknown menace.

This would not be the case if Muslims were the villains of the human rights atrocities in CAR, instead of victims.

Mainstream media outlets have long neglected the humanitarian plight of black victims, particularly on the African continent. 

This is most vividly highlighted by the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi in the 1990s, which was brought to the attention of the masses too late, and only garnered international sympathy a decade later with the popular film, Hotel Rwanda.