As our nation commemorated National Religious Freedom Day on Jan. 16, marking Virginia's adoption in 1786 of Thomas Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom, we recalled the billions of people who live in countries where this fundamental right is violated. From onerous religious registration requirements to imprisonment, torture, and mass murder, religious freedom abuses betray the universal values that most nations endorsed in documents such as Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A single, undeniable fact spotlights these dismal conditions:

Nearly every government and entity - from China to ISIS - that poses a major foreign policy challenge to the United States also commits monumental religious freedom abuses.

How should the Trump administration respond? We urge a firm and resolute stand for this liberty.

The abuses of such governments and entities are long-standing and notorious.

For example, China and North Korea are secular tyrannies that consider religious beliefs potential competitors of Communist state ideology.

Chinese officials have torn down churches and crosses, repressed Tibetan Buddhists, cracked down on Uighur Muslims, tortured and sought to "re-educate" the Falun Gong, and jailed and harvested organs from prisoners.

Religious freedom is nonexistent in North Korea. Individuals secretly engaging in religious activity are subject to arrest, torture, imprisonment, and execution. The government often inflicts added punishment by sentencing their entire families to decades in brutal slave labor camps.

In Russia, the Kremlin favors Russia's majority religious organization, the Russian Orthodox Church's Moscow Patriarchate, as a bulwark of state power, while discriminating against religious minority communities. Peaceful religious practitioners often are jailed or fined after being charged with crimes of extremism or terrorism.

Iran is a religious tyranny run by leaders who elevate their own interpretations of Sh'ia Islam above all other beliefs, religious or secular. Authorities have detained, tortured, and even executed Iranians, from Shi'a, Sunni, and Sufi Muslim dissenters to Baha'is and Christians.

Pakistan's government strictly enforces its blasphemy law, with more prisoners sentenced to death or life imprisonment based on blasphemy convictions than anywhere in the world. Pakistan's religious minorities suffer in at least four distinct ways. They bear the brunt of government enforcement of such religiously repressive laws; extremists assault them as perceived transgressors of such statutes; the government fails to protect them against such attacks; and it frequently fails to bring perpetrators to justice, even when the accusations are false.

Syria is another obvious challenge. A civil war triggered by the Assad regime's failure to respect human rights devolved into a sectarian conflict which helped fuel the rise of ISIS and a massive refugee crisis.

ISIS's depredations as a nonstate actor are notorious, including committing genocide through summary executions, rape, sexual enslavement, abduction of children, destruction of houses of worship, and forced conversions of Yazidis, Christians, Shi'a Muslims, and other religious minorities.

Every one of these nations and entities, representing the most critical foreign policy challenges the Trump administration will likely face, is a religious freedom abuser.

What should the new administration do?

Follow the lead of the past three administrations and designate China, North Korea, and Iran as "countries of particular concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act, marking them as among the world's worst religious freedom violators and subject to sanctions.

Take the lead and designate Pakistan and Syria as CPCs as well.

Designate ISIS as an "entity of particular concern," a new category from Congress which holds violent religious extremist groups, including terrorist organizations, as responsible as recognized governments for religious persecution.

Swiftly nominate a well-qualified ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, and make religious freedom for everyone, everywhere, a top priority.

As we remember National Religious Freedom Day and celebrate our own liberty, let us also stand for this pivotal right for others.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 20, 2017 marks the 11-year anniversary of the Eritrean government’s illegal removal of Abune Antonios as the rightful Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the nation’s largest religious community. The Patriarch has been detained since 2007: His “crime” was his refusal to excommunicate 3,000 parishioners who opposed the government.

“The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) calls on the Eritrean government to release Abune Antonios, allow him to return to his position as Patriarch, and cease its interference in the Eritrean Orthodox Church,” said USCIRF Chair Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J. “The government’s persecution of Patriarch Antonios is only one example of the country’s grave religious freedom violations. Eritrea has been called the North Korea of Africa due to its vigorous assault on the rights of its people:  Thousands are imprisoned for their religious beliefs and their real or imagined opposition to the government.”

One year after removing the Patriarch, Eritrean authorities confiscated his personal pontifical insignia. On May 27, 2007, the Eritrean government forcibly removed Patriarch Antonios from his home and placed him under house arrest at an undisclosed location. He remains detained and is denied medical care despite severe heath concerns. 

Chair Reese has taken up the case of Patriarch Antonios as part of USCIRF’s Religious Prisoners of Conscience Project.

The Eritrean government engages in systematic and egregious violations of religious freedom, including torture or other ill treatment of religious prisoners, arbitrary arrests and detentions without charges, a prolonged ban on public religious activities of unregistered religious groups, and interference in the internal affairs of registered religious groups.

President Isaias Afwerki and the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) have ruled Eritrea with absolute authority since the country’s 1993 independence from Ethiopia. Private newspapers, political opposition parties, and independent nongovernmental organizations are not allowed in Eritrea.  The government requires all physically and mentally capable people between the ages of 18 and 70 to perform national service full-time and indefinitely.

In 2016, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea concluded that Eritrean authorities had committed crimes against humanity.

Since 2004, USCIRF has recommended, and the State Department has designated, Eritrea a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for its systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. For more information, please see USCIRF’s chapter on Eritrea in the 2016 Annual Report. 

USCIRF’s Religious Prisoners of Conscience Project highlights the plight of individuals who have been imprisoned for their religious beliefs, practices or identity. To learn more about this project or to interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-523-3258.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today marks the two-year anniversary of the brutal terrorist attacks in Paris on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket.  During these attacks, 17 people were murdered in what was also an assault on the freedom of religion or belief.  The terrorists targeted the staff of Charlie Hebdo, deeming them blasphemers, and the shoppers at the Hyper Cacher market because they were Jewish. 

Since that time, Europe has had to contend with ISIL-inspired terror attacks, a spike in reports of incidents of intolerance against Muslims—both Europeans and foreign refugees and migrants—and the continued persistence of virulent anti-Semitism. 

“In the face of these challenges, educational and other measures are desperately needed to strengthen democracy, counter anti-Muslim bias and anti-Semitism, and support the freedom of religion or belief of each and every peaceful practitioner of this precious freedom.  People must not be excluded from their neighborhoods, cultures, or societies because of who they are and what they believe,” said USCIRF Chair Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J.  “We also must take every opportunity to train religious leaders, educators, and community members to support diverse views and advocate against hate. We have no time to lose.”

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