Religious Persecution

With the West on the run, increased activity by terrorists, and the Taliban inexorably exerting control across the country, we need to be aware of what is happening to real people, right now in Afghanistan.

This month the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a new report that documents religious freedom violations occurring in North Korea.

Recent coronavirus outbreaks have led Vietnam to impose harsher restrictions to protect the health of citizens. But COVID-19 has also enabled the socialist government to ramp up its persecution of Christians.

It is time for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the global religious freedom advocacy community to highlight the egregious religious freedom violations that result from Turkey’s restrictions on using the Kurdish language as part of religious services.

The Simele Massacre, which occurred in 1933, is a largely forgotten tragedy that still awaits official recognition from both the Iraqi government and international community.

With the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ideals, Muslims, Christians, and Dalits have been targets of increasing persecution at the hands of both the state and local mobs.

In a recent conversation led by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on the exodus of religious minority communities in Afghanistan, various scholars and leaders spoke on the current and anticipated plight of such groups, especially the Sikh and Hindu communities.

Human rights advocates, when looking at Nigeria’s north and central regions, fear an accelerating disintegration of Nigeria’s society and institutions. We all should be concerned that, if current trends are not arrested, Nigeria may implode, with global economic ramifications. A new wave of Nigerian displacement and emigration would rival those associated with Libya, Syria, and Iraq.

In today’s hyperpolarized environment, Beltway commentators and even think-tank scholars seem unable to resist the temptation to put a partisan twist on the most nonpartisan of causes. While some voices have attempted to politicize the issue of international religious freedom (IRF), the cause itself continues to attract wide bipartisan support.