A recent report on international religious liberty cautioned that
severe threats to freedom of religion exist in diverse communities
through the world and should be discouraged through actions by the U.S.
government.
“The Annual Report ultimately is about people and how their governments
treat them,” said Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the commission that
released the report.
“Religious freedom is both a pivotal human right under international law
and a key factor that helps determine whether a nation experiences
stability or chaos,” she explained.
The U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom gathers
information throughout the year by meeting with government officials,
citizens, analysts and non-governmental organizations across the globe
in order to assess the state of international religious liberty.
The
independent, bipartisan group then advises the president, U.S. Congress
and State Department on recommended actions to be taken.
Issued each year, the commission’s report marks “countries of particular
concern” (CPCs), which are defined as “countries whose governments have
engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of
the universal right to freedom of religion or belief.”
The State
Department has the opportunity to officially label CPCs and decide
whether to impose sanctions or other penalties on each country.
The 2013 document recommended 15 countries to be designated as CPCs:
Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Vietnam.
While all of these countries were also listed as serious offenders in
last year’s report, the State Department has only chosen to designate
eight of them as CPCs.
Examples of offenses in these nations include sectarian violence against
minority Christians and Muslims in Burma, repression of non-state
religious groups in China, and Iran’s imprisonment of Christians,
including U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, on account of their faith.
The commission’s report also lists a number of “Tier 2” nations whose
violations of religious liberty are serious and troubling but do not
meet all the criteria of abuses against religious freedom to be
recommended as a CPC. This designation replaces a previous “Watch List”
category in earlier annual reports.
Countries placed in the second tier in the 2013 report are: Afghanistan,
Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos and Russia.
The document also highlights the status of religious liberty in other
countries that do not fall into either of the two tiers. These nations
and regions include: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Ethiopia, Turkey,
Venezuela and the entirety of Western Europe.
According to Lantos Swett, the commission’s annual report is critical
because effective foreign policy “recognizes the critical role religious
freedom plays in each of these nations.”
In addition, many of these
countries “top the U.S. foreign policy agenda, and religion is a core
component in their makeup.”
Some signs of hope were seen across the globe. The report found that
Turkey is “moving in a positive direction with regard to religious
freedom.”
Due to the reforms it has enacted, the nation was removed from
the recommended list of “countries of particular concern,” although its
status is still being monitored by the commission.
Overall, however, the status of global religious freedom is “increasingly dire,” said Lantos Swett.
She pointed to factors contributing to the instability, which “include
the rise of violent religious extremism coupled with the actions and
inactions of governments.”
“Extremists target religious minorities and dissenters from majority
religious communities for violence, including physical assaults and even
murder,” she added. “Authoritarian governments also repress religious
freedom through intricate webs of discriminatory rules, arbitrary
requirements and draconian edicts.”
Other broad concerns raised in the report include constitutional changes
that fail to adequately protect religious liberty, anti-blasphemy laws,
restrictions of religious freedom in former Communist countries,
imprisonment of conscientious objectors and religious freedom problems
in non-governmental organizations.
Lantos Swett called for swift action by the federal government to
acknowledge and address severe offenders of religious liberty, as well
as the forces that add to instability.
“We recommend that the White House adopt a whole-of-government strategy
to guide U.S. religious freedom promotion and that Secretary of State
Kerry promptly designate CPCs, before currently designated actions
expire later this year,” she said.