WEDNESDAY, 21 MARCH 2012 00:00MIZZIMA NEWS<\/p>\n
Burma has been prominently listed as one of the world\u2019s worst abusers of religious freedom. China and Vietnam were also named to the \u201cworst list.\u201d Laos and India were on its \u201cwatch list.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a federal government commission that monitors global religious freedom, released its 2012 Annual Report on Wednesday and recommended that the Secretary of State name the following nations \u201ccountries of particular concern (CPCs)\u201d: Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no coincidence that many of the nations we recommend to be designated as CPCs are among the most dangerous and destabilizing places on earth,\u201d said USCIRF chair Leonard Leo. \u201cNations that trample upon basic rights, including freedom of religion, provide fertile ground for poverty and insecurity, war and terror, and violent, radical movements and activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) requires that the United States designate annually as CPCs countries whose governments have engaged in or tolerated systematic and egregious violations of the universal right to freedom of religion or belief. IRFA also tasked USCIRF with assessing conditions in these and other nations and providing policy prescriptions for ways the U.S. government can constructively engage the countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, some of the countries we recommend for CPC designation maintain intricate webs of discriminatory rules, requirements and edicts that can impose tremendous burdens for members of religious minority communities, making it difficult for them to function and grow from one generation to the next, potentially threatening their existence,\u201d Leo said.<\/p>\n
In Egypt, the transitional government has failed to protect religious minorities, especially Coptic Christians, from violent attacks at a time when minority communities have been increasingly vulnerable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese governments too often stand idly by in the face of violent attacks against religious minorities and dissenting members of majority faiths,\u201d said Leo. \u201cInseparable from freedom of expression and association, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief often is the first human right threatened by tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran and China remain gross abusers of human rights and among the world\u2019s worst religious freedom violators. Iran continues to detain, torture, and execute its citizens, and in the past year, Baha\u2019is, Christians, and Sufi Muslims have been subjected to intensified attacks, harassment, detention, and imprisonment.<\/p>\n
In China \u2014 the only CPC designee with a seat on the United Nations Security Council \u2013 conditions for Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims are the worst in decades and in the past year, Beijing has stepped up its crackdown on Protestants and Catholics. Dozens of unregistered Catholic clergy, for example, remain in detention or have disappeared.<\/p>\n
USCIRF\u2019s Annual Report highlights the mistreatment of Ahmadis, Hindus and Christians in Pakistan, Buddhists in Vietnam and China, and Baha\u2019is in Iran and Egypt. The report repeatedly notes the brutal assaults endured by Christians seeking to practice their faith peacefully. Muslims, too, suffer in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, and non-Muslim nations like Russia and Burma. The Annual Report also calls attention to the promotion of anti-Semitic bigotry in countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.<\/p>\n
USCIRF also announced that the following countries are on its 2012 Watch List: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, and Venezuela. While not rising to the statutory level set forth in the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) requiring CPC designation, Watch List countries require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of religious freedom violations these governments have engaged in or tolerated.<\/p>\n