FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 25, 2018

USCIRF Releases 2018 Annual Report, Recommends 16 Countries be Designated “Countries of Particular Concern”  

Washington, D.C. –  Today the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2018 Annual Report, documenting religious freedom violations and progress in 28 countries during calendar year 2017 and making recommendations to the U.S. government.

“Sadly, religious freedom conditions deteriorated in many countries in 2017, often due to increasing authoritarianism or under the guise of countering terrorism,” said USCIRF Chairman Daniel Mark. “Yet there is also reason for optimism 20 years after the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act. The importance of this foundational right is appreciated more now than ever, and egregious violations are less likely to go unnoticed.”

A key component of the report is USCIRF’s recommendations of countries for designation as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). CPCs are governments that engage in or tolerate systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.       

In its 2018 report, USCIRF recommends 16 countries for CPC designation: 10 that the State Department so designated in December 2017—Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—and six others—Central African Republic, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam.

The report also includes a second category, USCIRF’s Tier 2, for countries where the violations meet one or two, but not all three, of the elements of the systematic, ongoing, egregious test. In its 2018 report, USCIRF places 12 countries on its Tier 2: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, and Turkey.

In addition, the report contains USCIRF’s recommendations of “entities of particular concern,” or EPCs, a designation created by the 2016 Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act for non-state actors committing systematic, ongoing, egregious violations. The act defines a non-state actor as “a non-sovereign entity that exercises significant political power and territorial control; is outside the control of a sovereign government; and often employs violence in pursuit of its objectives.” Based on their conduct and control of territory in 2017, USCIRF recommends three groups for designation as EPCs in 2018: the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria; the Taliban in Afghanistan; and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

“In its second year, the Trump Administration should build on stated commitments to elevate religious freedom as a priority in our foreign policy and national security strategy by vigorously implementing IRFA, the Frank Wolf Act, and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to pressure egregious violators,” said Chairman Mark. “USCIRF also urges the administration to prioritize seeking the release of religious prisoners of conscience abroad, and to work closely with international partners in efforts to promote freedom of religion or belief for all.”    

To read the full USCIRF 2018 Annual Report visit http://www.uscirf.gov/reports-briefs/annual-report.

To interview a Commissioner please contact [email protected] or Isaac Six, Associate Director of Congressional Affairs ([email protected]  +1-202-786-0606).

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission, the first of its kind in the world. USCIRF reviews the facts and circumstances of religious freedom violations abroad and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the Congressional leadership of both political parties. To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or Isaac Six, Associate Director of Congressional Affairs ([email protected] +1-202-786-0606).

Click here for a Chinese translation of this letter
Click here for a Tibetan translation of this letter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2018

Open Letter from USCIRF Commissioner Tenzin Dorjee to the Panchen Lama on His 29^th Birthday (April 25, 2018)

Washington, D.C. – 

Your Holiness Gedhun Choekyi Nyima:

Tashi Delek. With mixed feelings, I write you again, this year to wish you a happy and healthy 29^th birthday. Unfortunately, you may never read this, but please know that all Commissioners on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Tibetans, and friends around the world are thinking of you on this special day.

Ever since you were abducted as a young child at the age of six, the Chinese government has refused to let international observers visit you and censored even basic information about you and your whereabouts. As much as the Chinese government wants us to forget you, please know that we remember you every day. As each year passes by, our resolve to find you and restore you to your rightful role becomes stronger.

Your Holiness, your Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, located among the Tibetan diaspora in India, and Students for a Free Tibet have joined together to mark your 29^th birthday in a campaign for “The Most Candles Lit on a Birthday Cake” to break a Guinness World Record. The world will know that we will celebrate your birthday in absentia and recite and chant prayers for your long life and wellbeing. While the Chinese government has taken away your religious identity and rights, nobody can change the fact that you are the 11^th Panchen Lama as recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

As a Tibetan-American and USCIRF Commissioner, it is my honor, privilege, and responsibility to advocate on behalf of you and other prisoners of conscience in China and Tibet. U.S. Representative James McGovern has joined me to “adopt” you as our prisoner of conscience and we coordinate our advocacy efforts for your freedom and wellbeing. In fact, last year, we coauthored an op-ed in defense of human rights in Tibet. In the last year alone, I have testified twice before the U.S. Congress about freedom of religion or belief in Tibet, once in July 2017 and again in February 2018. At USCIRF’s event on April 18, 2018 marking the 20^th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act, I advocated for justice to Your Holiness and Gulmira Imin, a Uighur Muslim prisoner of conscience, and others. Also, my USCIRF colleague, Vice Chairwoman Sandra Jolley, and I coauthored an op-ed in November 2017 to advocate on behalf of you and Ms. Imin.

Your Holiness, on behalf of all Tibetans, most respectfully, I offer you traditional mandala for your long and healthy life along with fervent prayer for your freedom and receiving your blessing in person.

May we, or at least you, celebrate your 30^th birthday in freedom.

Most respectfully,

Tenzin Dorjee

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Tenzin Dorjee is a Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a U.S. government body that monitors the universal right to religious freedom. USCIRF reviews the facts and circumstances of religious freedom violations abroad and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the Congressional leadership of both political parties. Commissioner Dorjee is the first Tibetan Buddhist appointed to serve on the Commission. To interview Commissioner Dorjee or another Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or Isaac Six, Associate Director of Congressional Affairs ([email protected] +1-202-786-0606).