Last week, the U.S. State Department issued its annual International Religious Freedom Report, covering religious freedom around the world during 2017, as mandated by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Two factors accompanying the issuance of the report serve as encouraging signs for a strong religious freedom policy under the current president.
First, the report was announced through a press conference involving the Secretary of State himself, Mike Pompeo, along with the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback. Second, Pompeo announced the first ministerial meeting on religious freedom, in which the U.S. will host ministers from other countries who promote religious freedom in order to develop cooperation and solidarity. This is a proactive, forward step that indicates real interest in a religious freedom policy, which, without support from the top, is liable to become marginalized in the corners of the State Department bureaucracy.
An article in Crux summarizes some of the report’s key findings:
– The plight of the Rohingya and the Kachin people in Myanmar. Brownback noted that he visited several of the refugee camps in Bangladesh about a month ago. “The situation is dire. We must do more to help them, as they continue to be targeted for their faith.”
– In North Korea, up to 120,000 political prisoners in “horrific conditions” in camps across the country, some have been imprisoned for religious reasons. The report said there were 1,304 cases of alleged religious freedom violations in the country last year.
– In Eritrea, the government “reportedly killed, arrested, and tortured religious adherents and coerced individuals into renouncing their faith.”
– Tajikistan continues to prohibit minors from even participating in any religious activities.
– Saudi Arabia does not recognize the right of non-Muslims to practice their religion in public and imprisons, lashes, and fines individuals for apostasy, blasphemy, and insulting the state’s interpretation of Islam.
– In Turkmenistan, individuals who gather for worship without registering with the government face arrest, detention, and harassment.
-In China Falun Gong adherents, Uighur Muslims and members of other religious minorities continue to be imprisoned; with many of them dying in custody.
Many of these trends only became worse during 2017.