FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 28, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. – UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres participated in a timely conversation yesterday hosted by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).  The conversation focused on the urgent refugee crisis taking place in Syria and across many parts of the world, the role of religious freedom violations in this crisis, and policies that best would address conflicts and their humanitarian consequences.

USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George gave opening comments and USCIRF Vice Chairman Eric Schwartz moderated the conversation with High Commissioner Guterres. 

According to UNHCR, by the end of 2014 almost 60 million people forcibly were displaced from their homes, the highest number since World War II.  Displaced people worldwide are fleeing war, political oppression, and religious persecution.  Syria’s 4 million refugees and 7.5 million internally displaced people makes that nation the largest producer in the world of displaced persons. 

For more information on USCIRF’s refugee recommendations please click here.  The conversation can be accessed here.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact Travis Horne at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.

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October 27, 2015 | Robert P. George and Eric P. Schwartz

The following op-ed appeared in The Hill on October 27, 2015

Today, Oct. 27, is International Religious Freedom Day, which this year marks the 17^th anniversary of the enactment of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA).

IRFA created a first-ever international religious freedom office in the State Department.  It also established the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on which we serve, as an independent, non-partisan entity to monitor religious freedom abroad and make recommendations to the president, secretary of State, and Congress.

Less than two weeks ago, on Oct. 16, President Obama signed a bill -- passed by Congress on Oct. 6 -- reauthorizing USCIRF for another four years. 

We are grateful that Congress and the president have enabled USCIRF to continue its important work at a time of maximum need:

According to several Pew studies, most of the people in the world live in countries that seriously violate this liberty.  

As we indicated in our latest annual report, which was released this past spring, religious freedom conditions worldwide have not improved, and situations remain particularly dismal in countries we cited as perpetrating or tolerating the worst abuses.   Such nations include those our Commission recommended that the State Department designate as “countries of particular concern” (CPC), marking them as the world’s most severe violators.   They also included those we listed as Tier 2 countries due to violations that, while not rising to CPC status, remain serious.

When we reviewed the 16 countries we recommended last year for CPC status, we saw little improvement and in many cases, signs of further deterioration.  In addition to recommending again this year these 16 as the most severe violators, the Commission was compelled to add a 17^th country to our list – Central African Republic. 

Regarding Tier 2 countries, religious freedom conditions likewise remain troubling.  Russia’s continued failure to respect religious minorities at home and in territories it has occupied merits its Tier 2 status.  

This process of publicly designating the worst violators is a valuable tool in the effort to promote religious freedom.  By bearing witness in this public way, we keep faith with victims, rally support for their rights, and bring pressure to bear against government violators by publicly shaming them for abusing basic rights. 

Across the world, religious freedom violators consist of state and non-state actors.

Some state actors, like China and North Korea, are secular tyrannies which suppress religious groups across the board.   Others, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, enthrone a single religion or religious interpretation, while persecuting those embracing alternatives.

These state actors abuse religious freedom in many ways, including imprisoning people due to their religious beliefs, actions, or advocacy.  

China, for example, handed Ilham Tohti, a respected Uighur Muslim scholar, a life sentence for alleged “separatism.”  Iran keeps hundreds of people, from Baha’is to Christians, Sufi and Sunni Muslims to Shi’a Muslim reformers and clerics, imprisoned for reasons relating to religion.  

Not even electoral democracies are immune from holding religious prisoners.  In Pakistan, which a USCIRF delegation visited for the first time in March, more people like Aasia Bibi, a Christian farm hand, are on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy than anywhere else.  

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws not only violate freedom of religion and expression; they embolden extremists to assault perceived transgressors.  These attackers have increasingly victimized Pakistan’s religious minorities, from Shi’a to Christians, Hindus to Ahmadis.

For these reasons, we have urged the State Department to designate Pakistan a CPC. 

Over the past year, non-state actors have been fueling some of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.  Among them is ISIL. From Yazidis to Christians, Shi’a to dissenting Sunnis, no religious group has been free of ISIL’s depredations in Syria and Iraq.   

Beyond Iraq and Syria, non-state actors have been wreaking similar havoc.  

Boko Haram has cut a wide path of terror across Nigeria, which a USCIRF delegation visited in May. 

In Burma, which a USCIRF delegation visited in August 2014, Buddhist extremists have assaulted Rohingya Muslims.   

And in Central African Republic, fighting between Christians and Muslims has destroyed nearly every mosque in the country.

And in many of these countries, governments – by aligning themselves with particular religious groups and discriminating against others in their efforts to sustain their power – have fostered conditions leading to abuses by non-state actors from the Middle East to Asia. 

As we mark International Religious Freedom Day, we believe that in spite of the bleak landscape for liberty, the desire for greater freedom burns brightly in people’s hearts.    

Thanks to timely action by our executive and legislative branches, USCIRF will keep promoting religious freedom, prioritizing the sacred rights and solemn duties of conscience. 

George serves as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).  Schwartz serves as a USCIRF vice chairman.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 21, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) welcomed the October 14 release by the U.S. State Department of its International Religious Freedom Report (IRF Report) for 2014.  The IRF Report is required by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), the same law that established USCIRF.

“The IRF Report is a comprehensive resource documenting religious freedom violations in almost 200 countries and territories and highlighting some of the thousands of prisoners of conscience who languish unjustly in prisons around the world solely because of their religion or belief,” said USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George.  “We commend the State Department, particularly the Office of International Religious Freedom, led by Ambassador-at-Large David Saperstein, for the significant effort that went into compiling this report,” said Chairman George.

IRFA also requires the United States annually to designate as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, those governments that “engage in or tolerate” systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, and to take action to encourage improvements in each CPC country.  IRFA provides a range of options for such action, from bilateral agreements to sanctions. “Now that the IRF Report has been released, the next step is for the State Department to promptly designate the worst violators as CPCs and to leverage those designations to press for much-needed reforms in those countries,” said Chairman George.

In July 2014, the State Department designated nine nations as CPCs under IRFA:   Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.  USCIRF’s 2015 annual report, released in April, recommended that these countries be re-designated as CPCs, and also called for eight additional designations:  Central African Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. 

“USCIRF urges the State Department to continue the current nine CPC designations,” said Chairman George.  “We also urge the State Department to further expand its CPC list to reflect the severe violations occurring in other countries, such as Pakistan, which USCIRF has called the worst situation in the world for religious freedom for countries not currently designated by the U.S. government as CPCs,” said Chairman George.  “The just-released IRF Report leaves no doubt that the egregious nature of the violations in Pakistan warrant a CPC designation,” continued Chairman George.

Read USCIRF’s 2015 Annual Report.  

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.