USCIRF Reports Religious Freedom has “Spiraled Further Downward” Across the Globe
ICC NOTE: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released it’s annual report on the state of religious freedom in the world. Each year they provide insight into what they consider to be countries of particular concern (CPC) in which they recommend to the State Department for further punitive measures (economic and diplomatic sanctions). The usual suspects such as Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Burma are considered the worst of the worst. This year they are recommending, along with other nations, the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam to be included as a country of particular concern once again. They were previously listed as a CPC a few years ago but after some progress in religious freedom, they were removed. Unfortunately they have digressed as they follow the international trend of the deterioration of global religious freedom.
5/5/2016 Southeast Asia (Baptist Standard) – Religious freedom remains under “serious and sustained assault” around the globe, a new annual report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom asserts.
“At best, in most of the countries we cover, religious freedom conditions have failed to improve,” said Robert P. George, chair of the commission. “At worst, they have spiraled further downward.”
The independent government advisory body recommended the State Department add the Central African Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria and Vietnam to the U.S. government’s list of the world’s worst abusers of human rights and religious freedom. Of the 17 countries the commission identifies as nations of “particular concern,” the State Department has recognized only 10.
Tajikistan added to list of offenders
The official list remained unchanged nearly a decade until the recent addition of Tajikistan, a Sunni-majority country where a restrictive 2009 law allows the government to crack down on all independent religious activity, particularly by Muslims, Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Officials in Tajikistan use concerns of extremism to justify monitoring and suppressing acts of worship, and police there have forced thousands of women to remove their headscarves and detained hundreds of thousands of bearded men.