The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has just issued its new annual report, dated April 2016. See here. Its first six pages are a colorful and stark account of the vast endangerment of religious freedom around the world. It covers repression against people of a wide variety of religions committed by governments and non-state actors of a wide variety of religions. One of the pernicious myths that the report puts to rest is that religious freedom is little more than a manifestation of the new “cold war” aka “clash of civilizations” between the Christian West and a stylized Muslim enemy. Violations of the religious freedom of Muslims themselves are widespread, the report shows, sometimes at the hands of other Muslims, sometimes at the hands of secular governments, sometimes at the hands of governments of other religions.
By Daniel Philpott