Religious Freedom Group Sees Rise In Persecution

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

A new report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warns that religious freedom across the globe is increasingly being threatened and oppressed by governments in human rights "hot spots."

In 2009, the group -- an independent U.S. government commission that monitors religious freedom worldwide -- surveyed 28 such countries and found evidence that freedom of religion was "being obstructed and trampled."

This year's list includes 13 "countries of particular concern," including all eight named last year (Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan) plus Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.

The commission makes policy recommendations to the U.S. president, secretary of state, and Congress that are aimed at improving conditions in what it calls "that small but critically important point of intersection of foreign policy, national security, and international religious freedom standards."

After researchers and analysts document the laws, practices, and policies in places that prevent people from worshiping freely and without fear of persecution, the group issues an annual report aimed at "exposing, countering, and correcting religious freedom abuses."

Cathy Cosman, a senior policy analyst at the commission, says the findings show that restricting religious worship has become an important tool for repressive governments to hold onto power.

"If one assumes that the governments are primarily concerned with retaining their power and remaining in office, then they have engaged in systematically restricting the public influence of civil society in various ways, and then of course also [restricting] the media," Cosman says. "If one thinks of other potential groups that [have] the ability to mobilize large numbers of people, it [is] religious communities that are more or less the only groups that are left."

The report identifies what it calls "disturbing" trends in threats to freedom of religion around the world.

It cites evidence of the "exportation of extremist ideology," as in Saudi Arabia's dissemination of educational materials that the group says "instill hate and incite violence throughout the world."

It also finds states that are persecuting political opponents in the name of religion under blasphemy and apostasy laws, such as in Iran.

And it documents several examples of state-sponsored repression of religion.

According to the report, in Vietnam, people are imprisoned for reasons directly related to their exercise or advocacy of freedom of belief or religion; the government of "Egypt denies Baha'is, Coptic Christians, and other religious minorities basic rights; North Korea bans virtually all worship and imprisons in its labor camps even the grandchildren of people caught praying; and China seriously restricts religious activities, church governance, and places of worship."

For the first time in its 11 years of reporting on religious freedom around the world, the group has called on the U.S. government to impose a visa ban on and freeze the U.S. assets of one individual: Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya.

The group says the action is justified by Kadyrov's "leadership the Chechen armed forces, which the European Court of Human Rights has found [to be] involved in severe human rights abuses."

Cosman says in former communist Europe and Central Asia, governments seem increasingly willing to try and gain influence over citizens' very thoughts.

"I think that this is an expression of the most Soviet impulses of the government of [this] part of the world, where they want to control what people think, and how they think," Cosman says. "And increasingly, they're acting on it."

She adds that, along with Russia, some Central Asian countries have recently widened the category of religious activities they feel justified in persecuting people for.

"The Uzbeks keep changing and expanding their definition of so-called religious extremism, so that now people who read the materials of a Turkish theologian called Said Nursi are viewed as engaging in extremist activities and unfortunately, that trend is also seen in Tajikistan and Russia," Cosman says.

The commission says it works closely with President Barack Obama's administration to make policy recommendations on how Washington can promote religious freedom through U.S. foreign policy channels.

But the White House did not officially accept the 2009 findings or named the specified countries as violators of religious rights. Neither did the administration of President George W. Bush between November 2006 and January 2009.

Iran
"The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused. During the past year, and particularly since the June 2009 elections, the Iranian government's poor religious freedom record deteriorated, especially for religious minorities, in particular Baha'is as well as Christians and Sufi Muslims, including intensified physical attacks, harassment, detention, arrests, and imprisonment. Dissident Muslims were increasingly subject to abuse and several were sentenced to death and even executed for the capital crime of moharebeh, or 'waging war against God.' A revised penal code that would codify serious punishments, including the death penalty, on converts from Islam remains under consideration by the Iranian parliament. Heightened anti-Semitism and repeated Holocaust denial by senior government officials have increased fear among Iran's Jewish community. Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, members of minority religious communities have fled Iran in significant numbers for fear of persecution."