The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has released its annual report of the state of religious liberty throughout the world. As it did last year, the Commission recommends 13 countries to be designated "countries of particular concern" by the State Department for "egregious violations of religious freedom": Burma, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. (Currently, 8 of those recommended nations have received this most severe designation.)
Clocking in at 382 pages, and chronicling the most horrendous cases of religious persecution around the world, the report (pdf) is not exactly a breezy summer beach read. Still, every concerned American should confront the 3-page introduction, at least, to be aware of the true difficulties many people of faith face around the world. In this report, they emphasize not only direct government action, but also the growing problem of "impunity", in which governments turn a blind eye to widespread violence within their countries against followers of some religions. And the Commission believes, of course, that the cause of international religious freedom should be a bigger part of American foreign policy:
USCIRF’s mandate is to delve into the human rights “hot spots” of the world where freedom of religion is being obstructed and trampled, and to offer policy solutions to improve conditions in that small but critically important point of intersection of foreign policy, national security, and internationalreligious freedom standards. Regrettably, that small point seems to shrink year-after-year for the White House and the State Department. This is a deepening problem despite the fact that religious freedom should be increasingly more important as one of the core considerations in foreign policy and national security. Neither prior Democratic and Republican administrations, nor the current administration, have been sufficiently engaged in promoting the freedom of religion or belief abroad. The United States must redouble its efforts to raise these concerns at the highest levels of the world community. Anything less betrays our history and values, and fails to leverage the extraordinary capacity we have as a nation to promote religious freedom and related human rights for all.
