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An unbiased watchdog on spiritual liberty has advisable Azerbaijan be listed among the many State Department’s “nations of specific concern” which have dedicated probably the most egregious violations of spiritual freedom.
In its annual report, issued Wednesday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom additionally urged the addition of Kyrgyzstan to the division’s second-tier “particular watch listing.”
The report comes months after the twenty fifth anniversary of the enactment of the International Religious Freedom Act was formally marked in October. The legislation created in 1998 the position of ambassador-at-large for worldwide spiritual freedom and the Office of International Religious Freedom throughout the division and the bipartisan fee.
“USCIRF’s first annual report, issued in May 2000, centered totally on China, Russia, and Sudan,” reads the introduction of the fee’s 2024 Annual Report. “Today, the governments of China and Russia stay among the many world’s worst violators of their individuals’s spiritual freedom, in addition to among the many most lively perpetrators of cross-border repression and different malign actions overseas, together with within the United States.”
The 9 commissioners offered the report’s findings in a digital occasion on Wednesday.
Commissioner Stephen Schneck mentioned circumstances in Azerbaijan had lengthy been famous by the fee however had worsened in 2023, the 12 months of focus for the report.
“USCIRF documented a big and alarming enhance within the variety of prisoners arrested on the premise of faith or perception in Azerbaijan throughout the 12 months,” he mentioned of the previous Soviet republic. “In addition, authorities are commonly accused of torturing or threatening sexual violence to elicit false confessions from detainees, with these perpetrating such violence going through no accountability.”
The commissioners advisable that the State Department additionally retain the dozen nations which are presently designated as “nations of specific concern,” which the division decided are committing “systematic, egregious, and ongoing” spiritual freedom violations: Myanmar (which the division refers to as Burma), China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
They additionally continued to hunt the additions of Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Vietnam to the CPC listing.
Schneck mentioned Kyrgyzstan is a first-time nominee by USCIRF for the particular watch listing, partially due to authorities focusing on of Muslims who usually are not aligned with the interpretation of their faith most well-liked by the state and the labeling of peaceable spiritual teams as “extremist.”
“In 2023, Kyrgyz authorities more and more enforced long-standing restrictive laws regulating faith and penalizing peaceable spiritual practices equivalent to on-line spiritual expression and collective worship and possessing unauthorized spiritual supplies,” he mentioned of the Central Asian nation.
The State Department presently has designated Algeria, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic, Comoros and Vietnam as special-watch-list nations.
The commissioners advisable that Algeria be saved on that second-tier listing and that, along with Kyrgyzstan, these different nations be added: Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
Their 102-page report famous international developments, together with USCIRF’s identification of 96 nations with blasphemy legal guidelines, which penalize spiritual expression and acts “deemed insulting or offensive” with the dying penalty, jail sentences and fines. It additionally cited the destruction of spiritual websites in conflict zones and conflicts, together with the oldest mosque and a convent in Gaza and church buildings and monasteries within the Israel-Hamas conflict; homes of worship in Ukraine since Russia invaded that nation; and mosques and church buildings attacked in Sudan.
The report famous “a disturbing international rise in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred throughout 2023,” early within the 12 months and within the wake of the Israel-Hamas battle.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the fee’s outgoing chair, famous that the fee’s work impacts its members personally, with a few of them or their households touched by the spiritual freedom points they’re addressing. He reiterated his due to the Rev. Fred Davie, USCIRF’s vice chair, for becoming a member of him in leaving a delegation journey to Saudi Arabia when the rabbi was requested to take away his kippah, or yarmulke, throughout their go to in March.
Cooper additionally mentioned all of the commissioners face questions of their abroad journeys about how they, as U.S. representatives, can level out others’ spiritual freedom violations when their very own nation has spiritual hatred too.
“It’s a good query,” Cooper mentioned on the conclusion of the occasion saying the report. “It’s one thing that we every will grapple with daily. But we will additionally level to the truth that, because the world’s best democracy, the best way through which we cope with hate is we confront it. We do not sweep it below the rug. We do not make imagine it is not there.”
© Religion News Service
