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Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched a campaign of mass atrocities to achieve the religious and ethnic cleansing of religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria. In 2016, the U.S. State Department determined ISIS’s atrocities against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims constituted crimes against humanity and genocide. Ten years on, survivors face multiple threats to their religious freedom, security, and existence within their homelands.
Today, Ambassador David Saperstein, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and the Hon. Frank Wolf, former U.S. Representative (R-VA 10th) and former Commissioner at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), join USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst Susan Bishai. They share their firsthand insight into the United States’ response to ISIS’s genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as offer recommendations for the U.S. to support religious freedom for the surviving communities, ten years on.
Listen to USCIRF’s first podcast in this series commemorating the tenth anniversary of ISIS’s genocide. Read USCIRF’s 2024 Annual Report Chapter on Iraq and view USCIRF's Hearing on Religious Minorities & Governance in Iraq.
With Contributions from:
Susan Bishai, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched a campaign of mass atrocities to achieve the religious and ethnic cleansing of Yazidis, Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Christians, Shi’a and Sunni Muslim Turkmens, Shabaks, and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. In 2016, the U.S. State Department determined ISIS’s atrocities against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims constituted crimes against humanity and genocide. In 2019, an international coalition defeated ISIS’s last territorial hold in Iraq and Syria. However, ten years on, survivors face multiple threats to their religious freedom, security, and existence within their homelands.
Jamileh Naso, President, Canadian Yazidi Association; Nadia Cavner, Philanthropist and Advocate for Assyrians; and Dr. Ali Akram Albayati, Co-Founder, Turkmen Rescue Foundation join USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst Susan Bishai to discuss religious minorities’ ongoing struggles to rebuild in the region.
Read USCIRF’s 2024 Annual Report Chapter on Iraq and view USCIRF's Hearing on Religious Minorities & Governance in Iraq.
With Contributions from:
Susan Bishai, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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The French government has prohibited French athletes from wearing religious garb while competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics. As such, French athletes who wish to wear religious garb are forced to choose between adhering to their sincerely held religious beliefs and competing at the highest level of sport. This tight regulation of religious expression is not unusual in France, where the government has enacted similarly strict restrictions on wearing religious garb in public spaces. France has also seen a proliferation of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, as well as governmental anti-cult efforts negatively impacting religious organizations.
On today’s episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, Supervisory Policy Analyst Scott Weiner and Researcher Luke Wilson discuss the French government’s worrying restrictions on wearing religious garb in the public sphere.
With Contributions from:
Scott Weiner, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Luke Wilson, Researcher, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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In 1998, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the International Religious Freedom Act, creating USCIRF as an independent government Commission led by a bipartisan group of nine Commissioners appointed by both political party leaders in Congress, and by the president. Twenty-five years later, USCIRF’s Commissioners continue to lead the non-partisan staff to monitor egregious religious freedom violations around the world and to make independent policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress.
On today’s episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck and Vice Chair Eric Ueland join us to discuss USCIRF's bipartisan nature and its unique framework to ensure international religious freedom remains a bipartisan issue in U.S. foreign policy.
Read USCIRF’s 2024 Annual Report
With Contributions from:
Stephen Schneck, Chair, USCIRF
Eric Ueland, Vice Chair, USCIRF
Jamie Staley, Acting Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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One of USCIRF’s key functions is to make recommendations to the State Department about which countries we think should be designated as Countries of Particular Concern or CPCs, based on our independent research and analysis. Every year we await the State Department’s announcement of its religious freedom designations to assess how they match up with USCIRF’s recommendations.
On today’s episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, USCIRF Chair Abraham Cooper and Vice Chair Frederick A. Davie join us to discuss the State Department’s most recent CPC designations—specifically the countries we think should have been added to this list including India, Nigeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Syria.
Read USCIRF’s Press Release on the 2023 State Department IRF Designations
With Contributions from:
Abraham Cooper, Chair, USCIRF
Frederick A. Davie, Vice Chair, USCIRF
Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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In May 2023, violent clashes between two communities erupted in India’s Manipur state, leaving entire villages burned and displacing tens of thousands. The ongoing conflict is between the state’s majority Hindu Meitei community and the Christian Kuki population and has seen the direct targeting of religious symbols and places of worship and refuge. More than 250 churches of different denominations have been burned or damaged across the state.
Religious freedom in India has declined in recent years, marked by the promotion and enforcement of discriminatory laws and practices that negatively impact the country’s minority Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Adivasis populations. In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the State Department designate India as a Country of Particular Concern for systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.
USCIRF Policy Analyst Sema Hasan joins Supervisory Policy Advisor Jamie Staley to discuss the current conflict in Manipur and religious freedom conditions in India.
Read USCIRF’s 2023 Annual Report Chapter on India
With Contributions from:
Jamie Staley, Supervisory Policy Advisor, USCIRF
Sema Hasan, Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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In recent years USCIRF has reported that religious freedom conditions in Algeria have continued to deteriorate with the government increasingly enforcing blasphemy laws and restricting worship. These laws particularly impact religious minorities, such as Protestant Christians and Ahmadiyya Muslims. In 2022, the U.S. Department of State placed Algeria on its Special Watch List (SWL), following USCIRF’s recommendation.
USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst, Madeline Vellturo, joins Researcher, Hilary Miller, to discuss the continued decline of religious freedom in Algeria.
Read USCIRF’s Law and Religion in Algeria Factsheet
With Contributions from:
Madeline Vellturo, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Hilary Miller, Researcher, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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In 2016, Congress passed the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act which mandated that USCIRF maintain a list of individuals targeted for their religion or belief. In 2019, USCIRF launched its Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Victims List – an online database that catalogues persons detained, imprisoned, placed under house arrest, disappeared, forced to renounce their faith, and tortured for their religious belief, religious activity, and religious freedom advocacy. Since then, the FoRB Victims List has documented almost 2,000 victims with that number unfortunately continuing to grow.
USCIRF Researcher, Dylan Schexnaydre, joins Research Analyst, Zack Udin, to discuss the database’s background, recent upgrades, and data for 2022.
Read USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Factsheet
View USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List or complete the Victims List Intake Form.
With Contributions from:
Dylan Schexnaydre, Researcher, USCIRF
Zachary Udin, Research Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Governments around the world use many different strategies to control or repress religion, but a common tactic is for the state to elevate a particular religion to a special status in ways that can marginalize different faiths or belief systems. USCIRF’s recently released report, “A Global Overview of Official and Favored Religions and Global Implications for Religious Freedom,” looks at 78 countries that identify an official or favored religion and subsequently enforce that religion, or a particular interpretation of that religion, through the law. While several countries that maintain these relevant laws do not enforce them or even have a legal framework to enforce them, some countries take these laws seriously and are, in fact, some of the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief.
Kurt Werthmuller, Supervisory Policy Analyst and author of this report, joins us today to discuss the findings of this report.
Read the full report on “A Global Overview of Official and Favored Religions and Global Implications for Religious Freedom”
With Contributions from:
Kurt Wertmuller, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Jamie Staley, Supervisory Policy Advisor, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Authoritarian states promote religious tolerance without necessarily ensuring freedom of religion or belief. Last month, USCIRF released a report distinguishing between these two concepts and explains the origins of religious tolerance promotion as a tool of statecraft. The report presents case studies of countries engaged in religious tolerance promotion, such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Russia, and Uzbekistan.
Dr. David Warren, the author of the report and lecturer in the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, join us to today to discuss the important findings and ways the U.S. government can utilize discussions of religious tolerance to set a groundwork for broader rights protections.
Read the full report on “Tolerance, Religious Freedom, and Authoritarianism”
With Contributions from:
Scott Weiner, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the U.S. Department of State designates Countries of Particular Concern, places countries on its Special Watch List, and designates Entities of Particular Concern. As part of this mandate, USCIRF makes recommendations to the administration, including the State Department, regarding which countries and entities deserve designation on these three lists based on systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.
On today’s 100th episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, USCIRF Chair Nury Turkel joins us to discuss the State Department’s most recent designations and assess how they match up with USCIRF’s recommendations.
With Contributions from:
Nury Turkel, Chair, USCIRF
Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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In November 2022, USCIRF visited Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, to assess the current conditions and issues that Burmese Rohingya refugees are facing. The Rohingya community, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority from Burma, have long fled religious persecution to neighboring Bangladesh. However, the most recent waves of refugees came in August 2017 following wide-scale atrocities that the Burmese authorities and military, known as the Tatmadaw, committed against them. These atrocities forced over a million Rohingya to flee the country, with a majority now temporarily residing in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. In March 2022, the Biden administration designated these atrocities as genocide and crimes against humanity, which USCIRF had been calling for since 2017.
USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck, who led this delegation, joins us today to discuss his first-hand account of the Rohingya’s current conditions at the Bangladeshi refugee camps. On this trip, the delegation met with refugees, international organization officials, and members of the government of Bangladesh.
With Contributions from:
Stephen Schneck, Commissioner, USCIRF
Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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The third annual International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit will be held in Washington, DC on January 31-February 1, 2023. The IRF Summit is an annual civil society conference that seeks to create a coalition of organizations to work together to advance international religious freedom, raise public awareness about IRF issues, and increase the political strength of the IRF movement. This year’s IRF Summit will coincide with the National Prayer Breakfast and highlight four distinctive tracks: defending, documenting, developing, and denying. The defending track will focus on the legal, justice, and accountability aspects of freedom of religion or belief; the documenting track will highlight the importance of journalism and gathering evidence; the developing track will examine and develop advocacy efforts and highlight country-level achievements; lastly, the denying track will highlight victims who have been persecuted on the basis of their religion or belief.
Peter Burns, Executive Director of the IRF Summit since its inception in 2021, joins us today to provide some insight into the upcoming IRF Summit.
With Contributions from:
Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Alevis constitute the largest religious minority in Turkey and have faced persistent obstacles to the exercise of their religious freedom. In October 2022, the Turkish government announced its plan to create a new state-run Alevi institution—the Alevi Bektashi Culture and Cemevi Directorate—which officials say will oversee and address issues faced by Turkey’s Alevi community. The decision, however, has sparked controversy as the government itself has long refused to grant Alevis the recognition and rights that it has granted to other communities. Many observers view the decision as a politically motivated move intended to win over voters ahead of 2023 elections.
In its 2022 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the State Department place Turkey on its Special Watch List for the Turkish government’s severe violations of religious freedom. In March 2022, USCIRF staff visited Turkey and met with several religious and nonbelief communities, including Alevis, to learn more about ongoing challenges for religious freedom.
Aykan Erdemir, the Anti-Defamation League’s Director for International Affairs Research and a former member of the Turkish parliament, joins us today to discuss the Turkish government’s creation of an official Alevi agency, the range of issues Alevis continue to face, and broader challenges for religious minorities throughout the country.
With Contributions from:
Keely Bakken, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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More than a decade after the onset of Syria’s civil war, the conflict continues with multiple state and non-state actors vying for power. Today, one of the most notable non-state actors is the militant Islamist rebel group and former al-Qaeda affiliate Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Although President Bashar al-Assad has regained control of about 70% of Syrian territory, HTS has maintained a strong resistance in the northwest, setting itself up as the civic authority in areas including the strategically important province of Idlib. Despite HTS’s recent efforts to rehabilitate its militant jihadist image and rebrand itself as a legitimate governing force, it continues to pose serious threats to religious freedom. USCIRF recommended in its 2022 Annual Report that the U.S. Department of State redesignate HTS—a U.S. designated terrorist group since 2018—as an “entity of particular concern,” or “EPC,” for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act.
Dr. Aaron Zelin, the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a visiting research scholar at Brandeis University, joins us today to analyze religious freedom conditions in 2022 under the governance of HTS.
With Contributions from:
Susan Bishai, Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Tajikistan’s population is majority Sunni Muslim, with a small Shi’a Muslim community which primarily consists of ethnic Pamiris located in the mountainous eastern part of the country known as the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO). The latest crackdown on civil society in the GBAO followed protests initially sparked in mid-May of this year. Since then, over 200 residents in the GBAO have been arrested and detained, including at least 90 activists. Journalists have been rounded up and Pamiris have been forcibly repatriated from Russia and given lengthy prison sentences.
Religious freedom has declined in Tajikistan since 2009 after the adoption of several highly restrictive laws. In 2011 and 2012, administrative and penal code amendments set new penalties, including large fines and prison terms, for religion-related charges such as organizing or participating in “unapproved” religious meetings. A 2011 law on parental responsibility banned minors from any organized religious activity except for funerals. Since 2012, USCIRF has recommended that the State Department designate Tajikistan as a “Country of Particular Concern,” or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, which the State Department has done every year since 2016.
Visiting Scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and retired Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, Suzanne Levi-Sanchez, joins us today to discuss the persecution of Muslims in Tajikistan and specifically highlights the increasing crackdown on Shi’a Muslims.
With Contributions from:
Jamie Staley, Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Since 2014, when ISIS launched its genocidal campaign against the Yazidis—a minority ethno-religious group within the Kurdish-majority areas of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, as well as in Armenia–hundreds of thousands of Yazidis have been displaced from their native home in the Sinjar region of Iraq.
The U.S. government remains deeply invested in helping stabilize the Sinjar region and making it a viable home again for the displaced Yazidis. As USCIRF has consistently reported, Sinjar is not yet a hospitable environment for the Yazidi people. The United States and wider international community have a role to play in encouraging all stakeholders—including Yazidis and authorities in both the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Iraqi federal government—to help this vulnerable religious minority to safely return to Sinjar.
Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Zovighian Partnership, Lynn Zovighian, joins us today to discuss the challenges the Yazidi community and the Sinjar region continue to face as new stages of the genocide unfold.
With Contributions from:
Susan Bishai, Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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To commemorate this year’s International Religious Freedom Day and the 24th Anniversary of the enactment of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, USCIRF reflects on the important role civil society plays in promoting freedom of religion or belief abroad.
Greg Mitchell, Co-Chair of the IRF Roundtable, joins Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research and Policy at USCIRF, to assess the U.S. government’s efforts to promote freedom of religion or belief abroad over the past 24 years, and to discuss the IRF Roundtable’s establishment and civil society advocacy.
Read the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
With Contributions from:
Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research and Policy, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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Seven out of ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations have blasphemy laws currently enshrined in their legal codes. USCIRF’s recent issue update reviews these blasphemy laws and their enforcement within this region and highlights recent cases and provides analysis on related laws. Blasphemy is defined as “the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God or sacred things.” In particular, blasphemy laws remain an ongoing religious freedom violation in Indonesia and Malaysia as well as a potent tool for authoritarian and right-wing forces in Burma and Thailand. While many such laws are a legacy of colonialism, some countries in the region have expanded their legal restrictions in the subsequent decades since independence.
USCIRF Policy Analyst, Patrick Greenwalt, joins Director of Research and Policy, Elizabeth Cassidy, to discuss this recent report and take a deeper dive into the background and present context of these blasphemy laws.
Read USCIRF's report on Blasphemy and Related Laws in ASEAN Member Countries.
With Contributions from:
Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research and Policy, USCIRF
Patrick Greenwalt, Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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In April 2017, the Russian Federation banned Jehovah’s Witnesses as an “extremist” organization. In the five years since that designation, law enforcement authorities across Russia have made it a regular practice to raid, detain, and arrest Jehovah’s Witnesses on “extremism” charges directly related to their peaceful religious activities. According to statistics published by Jehovah’s Witnesses, approximately 643 Witnesses have been charged with “organizing the activities of an extremist organization,” and nearly 350 individuals have been detained or arrested at some point in time. As of early October, 100 Witnesses are imprisoned in Russia for their beliefs.
David Williams, Deputy Director of the Office of Public Information, and Jarrod Lopes, Senior Communications Officer, from the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York join us today to discuss the ongoing persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.
Read USCIRF's 2022 Backgrounder on Russia and Issue Update on The Global Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Listen USCIRF's Spotlight Podcast on Abuses of Traditional Religion in Russia.
With Contributions from:
Keely Bakken, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF
Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF
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