USCIRF Spotlight Podcast
107 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWelcome to a new weekly podcast series called “USCIRF Spotlight” hosted by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal advisory body. During each episode, Director of Outreach and Policy Dwight Bashir features a special guest to dive deeper on various topics and breaking developments that impact the universal right to freedom of religion or belief around the globe.
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Episodes
Shortcomings of the State Department’s CPC Designations
January 25, 2024 12:41 - 31 minutes - 42.9 MBOne 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 ...
Violence Against Tribal Christians in Manipur, India
June 22, 2023 18:50 - 15 minutes - 5 MBIn 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 rece...
The State of Religious Freedom in Algeria
February 10, 2023 22:06 - 16 minutes - 22.7 MBIn 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...
USCIRF’s FoRB Victims List: Background and 2022 Updates
January 19, 2023 21:06 - 13 minutes - 18.9 MBIn 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 the...
State Favored Religions’ Impact on Religious Freedom
January 12, 2023 20:57 - 22 minutes - 30.6 MBGovernments 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 p...
Differences Between Religious Tolerance and Religious Freedom
January 05, 2023 16:38 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MBAuthoritarian 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 Wa...
Breaking Down the State Department’s IRF Designations
December 16, 2022 21:28 - 16 minutes - 15 MBPursuant 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 t...
Reflecting on USCIRF’s Visit to Cox’s Bazar
December 09, 2022 21:10 - 26 minutes - 36 MBIn 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 o...
Preview of the IRF Summit 2023
December 06, 2022 21:23 - 29 minutes - 39.9 MBThe 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...
The Alevi Struggle for Rights in Turkey
November 25, 2022 19:56 - 28 minutes - 39.3 MBAlevis 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 recognit...
The Suffocating Hold of HTS on Northwest Syria
November 18, 2022 21:36 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MBMore 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...
The Persecution of Muslims in Tajikistan
November 10, 2022 21:01 - 24 minutes - 33.5 MBTajikistan’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...
Recovering from Genocide: The Yazidis’ Return to Sinjar
November 04, 2022 19:40 - 41 minutes - 56.5 MBSince 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 no...
Civil Society’s Important Role in Promoting Freedom of Religion or Belief
October 27, 2022 16:49 - 34 minutes - 48 MBTo 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, a...
The Legacy of Blasphemy Laws in Southeast Asia
October 21, 2022 14:56 - 12 minutes - 17 MBSeven 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 v...
Russia’s Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses
October 14, 2022 16:58 - 20 minutes - 28.2 MBIn 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 org...
The Nexus of Religious Freedom & Women’s Rights in Iran
October 11, 2022 21:56 - 30 minutes - 42 MBOn September 16th, Iran’s morality police arrested 22-year old Mahsa Amini for wearing improper hijab. The morality police reportedly beat Amini until she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and a stroke. Upon learning of her death days later at a hospital in Tehran, Iranians across the country took to the streets in protest of the government’s brutal repression. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has mandated the hijab in public spaces for women on religious grounds. These laws have been me...
Turkmenistan’s Tight Grip on Religious Freedom
September 23, 2022 09:15 - 20 minutes - 28.6 MBSince 2014, the U.S. Department of State has designated Turkmenistan as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), for its systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations. After Turkmenistan’s President stepped down in March of 2022, his son, Serdar Berdimuhamedov, came to power. Despite hopes of a loosening of these highly restrictive regulations on religious practice, they have remained in place. The Government of Turkmenistan continues to appoint Muslim clerics while also su...
Religious Prisoners of Conscience in Kazakhstan
September 16, 2022 08:55 - 28 minutes - 39 MBIn 2018, Kazakhstan arrested a group of men for participating in a WhatsApp group chat about Islam and sentenced them to multiple years in prison on fictitious terrorism and incitement-related charges. Last fall, the UN Working Group issued an opinion that their detention was arbitrary and that they should be released. Although the government of Kazakhstan has released a few individuals related to this case, five men still remain imprisoned. Kazakhstan has regularly engaged with the U.S. go...
Deteriorating Religious Freedom Conditions in Nicaragua
September 09, 2022 06:52 - 18 minutes - 24.8 MBSince 2020, USCIRF has recommended that Nicaragua be included on the State Department’s Special Watch List for severe violations of religious freedom. In 2022, the Nicaraguan government has greatly intensified its oppression of the Catholic Church. Last month, USCIRF released a Country Update on Nicaragua, which highlighted the persecution of the clergy and the elimination of Church-affiliated organizations. USCIRF Researcher, Zack Udin, the author of the new report, joins us today to discu...
The Plight of Christians in China
September 02, 2022 14:25 - 24 minutes - 33.2 MBIn its 2022 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended the U.S. Department of State redesignate China as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. While the U.S. government designated the Chinese government’s ongoing atrocities against Uyghurs as genocide, China continues to severely persecute many different religious groups throughout the country, including Catholic and Protestant Christians. Founder and President ...
The 5th Anniversary of the Rohingya Genocide
August 25, 2022 12:37 - 20 minutes - 28 MBAugust 25 marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the Burmese military’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya people. The violence resulted in thousands of Rohingya dead, hundreds of thousands internally displaced, and millions dispersed throughout the region. On March 21, 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. government had determined that the atrocities committed against the Rohingya by Burmese authorities constituted genocide. USCIRF Policy Analys...
Troubling Signs of Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka
August 19, 2022 12:42 - 25 minutes - 35.6 MBSri Lanka is an ethnically and religiously diverse country but has had a history of intercommunal violence, most recently heightened in the decade following the end of a civil war in 2009. Conflict among the various ethnic and religious groups has remained at a heightened level in recent years impacting political, social, and economic life in the country, including freedom of religion or belief. Although Sri Lanka is not currently among the countries designated as a Country of Particular Con...
The Impact of Malaysia’s Dual Legal System on Religious Freedom
August 11, 2022 20:32 - 19 minutes - 26.1 MBMalaysia maintains a unique dual legal system divided into civil and religious courts. In recent decades, the influence of these religious courts, which are based on the Shaf’i school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, have grown, adversely impacting religious freedom. Since 2014, USCIRF has been reporting on Malaysia and most recently in 2022 recommended that the U.S. State Department place Malaysia on its Special Watch List (SWL) for religious freedom violations. USCIRF Policy Analyst Patri...
Russia’s Religious Freedom Violations in Ukraine
August 04, 2022 20:11 - 22 minutes - 30.7 MBIn February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale and unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine, falsely claiming that it aimed to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country. While many people are broadly aware of the terrible toll that Russia’s war has wrought on civilians, there is less awareness about the religious ramifications of the Russian invasion. Ruslan Khalikov and Liliia Pidgorna, two scholars with the Workshop for the Academic Study of Religion in Ukraine, join us today to discuss th...
U.S. Policy Advances for International Religious Freedom Over the Past Year
July 28, 2022 20:23 - 24 minutes - 33.1 MBUSCIRF is mandated by Congress to make independent policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress that would help improve religious freedom around the globe. Each year, USCIRF proposes these recommendations in its annual report, highlighting country conditions and thematic challenges. How often are these recommendations acted upon by the U.S. government? USCIRF Supervisory Policy Advisor Jamie Staley joins us today to discuss some of USCIRF’s policy recommendat...
Deteriorating Religious Freedom Conditions in South Asia
July 22, 2022 13:46 - 18 minutes - 25.8 MBSeveral major political events occurred in South Asia over the last year. The Taliban, whom USCIRF has recommended for years as an “Entity of Particular Concern” (EPC), took control of Afghanistan in August 2021. In April 2022, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed from office following political turmoil. And religious nationalist policies at both the state and national level in India continue to impact religious communities. Senior Policy Analyst Niala Mohammad joins us today to...
Religious Freedom Takeaways on the Ground in Nigeria
July 14, 2022 18:30 - 25 minutes - 34.5 MBLast month, USCIRF traveled to Abuja, Nigeria and met with Nigerian and U.S. government officials, religious communities, civil society representatives, and human rights defenders to assess religious freedom conditions and discuss threats facing Nigerians of a range of faiths and worldviews. The trip came following the U.S. State Department’s November 2021 decision to remove Nigeria’s Country of Particular Concern (CPC) designation for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egre...
Conditions for Religious and Nonbelief Communities in Turkey
July 07, 2022 20:01 - 15 minutes - 21 MBThis past spring, USCIRF staff traveled to Turkey and met with religious and nonbelief communities across the country. Numerous issues continue to negatively impact their freedom of religion or belief, including an inability to train clergy, mandatory religion classes, the threat of blasphemy charges, and other forms of discrimination. USCIRF has monitored and reported on Turkey since the late 2000s, recommending it for placement on the Special Watch List (previously known as Tier 2) every y...
Preview of the 2022 International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief
July 01, 2022 12:48 - 25 minutes - 34.6 MBOn July 5 and 6, the British government will be hosting the 2022 International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) in London. The conference will bring together government, civil society, faith, and belief groups to agree on action to prevent FoRB violations and abuses and offer ways to protect and promote religious freedom around the world. British Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief Fiona Bruce joins us today to preview the activi...
Preview of the IRF Summit 2022
June 23, 2022 19:51 - 18 minutes - 25.7 MBNext week, from June 28 to June 30, the second annual International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit will be held in Washington, DC. The IRF Summit brings together a diverse coalition of NGOs and individuals from all over the world committed to the fundamental right to freedom of religion or belief and aims to increase public awareness and political support for the international religious freedom movement. Former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, co-chair...
Religious Freedom Backslides in Central African Republic
June 16, 2022 17:40 - 19 minutes - 17.8 MBUSCIRF began monitoring religious freedom conditions in Central African Republic (CAR) in 2013 when the country descended into civil conflict. After seven years of recommending that CAR be designated a country of particular concern, in 2020 USCIRF recommended CAR for Special Watchlist status due to improvements in the situation on the ground—and the next year, in 2021, we no longer recommended CAR for even the Special Watchlist. However, religious freedom conditions in CAR deteriorated in 20...
Religious Prisoners of Conscience in Iran
June 10, 2022 06:18 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBIran has gone to great lengths to arrest and detain religious minorities, including Christians, Baha’is, Sunni Muslims, Sufis, and spiritualists. The Iranian government has taken it a step further and also targeted those who peacefully dissent from the government’s preferred religious views, particularly women, nontheists, and members of the LGBTI community. Amid country-wide protests in Iran over the past several weeks over food subsidies, as well as ongoing multilateral talks in Vienna, Ir...
Uzbekistan: Gaps in Principles and Practice
June 03, 2022 19:20 - 17 minutes - 16 MBUzbekistan is one of a handful of countries that has seen dramatic improvements for religious freedom in recent years; however, religious communities are still experiencing high levels of government regulation and repression that is continuing to impact their ability to exercise their freedom of religion or belief. In April 2022, USCIRF sent a delegation to Uzbekistan. Senior Policy Analyst Keely Bakken, who was part of that USCIRF delegation to Uzbekistan, joins us today to discuss the out...
Treatment of Asylum Seekers in the Expedited Removal Process
May 20, 2022 20:11 - 22 minutes - 20.6 MBExpedited Removal is the U.S. immigration law process that allows officers in the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, to quickly deport noncitizens who arrive at U.S. ports of entry or cross the border without proper documents, unless the noncitizen can establish a “credible fear” of persecution or torture. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. government has expelled most migrants and asylum seekers who try to enter the United States under a public health authority,...
Content Moderation Online and its Impact on Religious Freedom
May 16, 2022 19:27 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBTo combat the human rights and religious freedom violations that have occurred as a result of online hate speech, some social media companies now regulate speech on their platforms. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms often have rules that ban certain types of speech—including hate speech directed at religious communities. However, the excess removal of speech can also impact the right to religious freedom and religious expression of users. Lou Ann Sabatier, Princip...
Anti-Conversion Laws and Growing Intolerance in India
May 06, 2022 19:43 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBSince 2020, USCIRF has recommended that India be designated a Country of Particular of Concern, or CPC, due to the Indian government’s promotion of Hindu nationalism, and engagement and facilitation of systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. The othering of those that are non-Hindu through the misuse of national and state-level legislation has turned India’s diverse and pluralistic society into more of a hostile state for many religious communities, particularly M...
USCIRF Releases 2022 Annual Report with Recommendations for U.S. Policy
April 26, 2022 19:34 - 17 minutes - 16.2 MBOn April 25, 2022, USCIRF released its 2022 Annual Report, which documents developments in international religious freedom from 2021. The report provides recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s promotion of freedom of religion or belief abroad. This year’s report highlights significant regress in countries such as Afghanistan and the Central African Republic (CAR). The report also notes USCIRF recommendations implemented by the U.S. government—including the designation of Russia as ...
Persecuted Christians Around the World
April 22, 2022 20:15 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBAccording to the Pew Research Center’s most recent global data, Christianity’s diverse set of traditions comprise the single largest religious group on earth, of some 2.3 billion people—or nearly a third of the world’s population. Yet, it has been plainly evident throughout our reporting at USCIRF that many Christian communities around the world face a wide range of hardships for practicing their faith: from social marginalization to governmental harassment to imprisonment to mob violence an...
Nontheists Facing Challenges to Freedom of Belief
April 08, 2022 19:21 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBArticle 18 of both the United Nations Human Rights Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protects not only the right to believe in and practice a religion and to change religion, but also the right to hold nontheistic beliefs. Despite these protections, many members of nonreligious communities’ face government repression, social intolerance, restrictions on freedom of thought, belief and expression, and pervasive discrimination because of their lack of religi...
Rohingya Genocide Determination and Accountability
April 01, 2022 19:06 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MBThe Rohingya community in Burma have been targeted by the Burmese military (known as the Tatmadaw) with mass killings and rape since 2017, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee the country. Since the military coup in February 2021, the Tatmadaw have employed similar tactics used on the Rohingya against all ethnic and religious communities, as we have noted in past Spotlight episodes. The coup has increased concern among the international community to pursue efforts of justice and accountabil...
The Status of Religious Freedom for the Baha’i Community
March 18, 2022 07:15 - 22 minutes - 21.1 MBFounded in 19th century Persia—present day Iran—the Baha’i faith is the second most widespread religion in the world and has communities in most territories and countries across the globe. However, several governments in the Middle East and North Africa region engage in systematic oppression of Baha’is. Iran, Yemen, Qatar, and Tunisia are some of the countries where the situation for the Baha’i community is particularly challenging. Anthony Vance, Director of the Office of Public Affairs fo...
Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Part 2: The Religious Regulation Framework
March 10, 2022 09:58 - 29 minutes - 26.5 MB*Special note: This podcast was recorded on March 8, 2022 and only reflects the events that have occurred up to this date* The Russian government has long used religious freedom violations in its efforts to discourage non-conformity and facilitate its brutal occupation of Crimea and the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. In 2016, the government adopted a series of legal reforms that enhanced the scope and penalties of religion and anti-extremism laws. These legal reforms also increased Stat...
Religious Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Part 1: The “Denazification” Narrative
March 04, 2022 20:17 - 19 minutes - 18.2 MB*Special note: This podcast was recorded on March 3, 2022 and only reflects the events that have occurred up to this date* The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has shocked the world and created a humanitarian crisis with profound effects for the region and beyond. Among the reasons Russian President Vladimir Putin has listed to justify this invasion is that the operation will “seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” Putin’s accusation that there is evidence of modern Nazism in th...
Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Part 1: The “Denazification” Narrative
March 04, 2022 08:17 - 19 minutes - 18.2 MB*Special note: This podcast was recorded on March 3, 2022 and only reflects the events that have occurred up to this date* The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has shocked the world and created a humanitarian crisis with profound effects for the region and beyond. Among the reasons Russian President Vladimir Putin has listed to justify this invasion is that the operation will “seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” Putin’s accusation that there is evidence of modern Nazism in th...
Iraq’s Beleaguered Religious Minority Communities
February 25, 2022 20:00 - 15 minutes - 14.7 MBMany of the religious communities that call Iraq home have suffered from conflict and displacement in recent decades. The civil war in Iraq in the 2000s led large numbers of Christians and other small religious groups to flee the country. Between 2014 and 2019, many religious communities in the north suffered horrifying atrocities under ISIS—including what the United States in 2016 formally declared as a genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims. Today we are joined by USCIRF ...
The Grim Backdrop to the Beijing Olympics
February 11, 2022 19:06 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBSeveral Western governments joined the U.S. in diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics amid the outcry over China’s human rights and religious freedom abuses. Nevertheless, the lack of international solidarity on this issue is apparent. The International Olympics Committee (IOC) has been noticeably muted on the issue. Several U.S. companies like Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Visa, and Procter & Gamble that are major sponsors of the Winter Games have refused to acknowledge the atrocities against Uygh...
Nicaragua’s Assault on Religious Freedom
February 04, 2022 13:33 - 20 minutes - 18.4 MBThe government of Nicaragua, under the leadership of President Daniel Ortega, has a history of persecuting Catholic clergy, worshipers, and organizations as well as Protestant institutions especially since religious leaders provided sanctuary and support to civic protesters in 2018. The runup to Nicaragua’s general elections in November 2021 provided yet another backdrop for religious freedom violations committed by the government. The State Department has placed Nicaragua on its Special W...
Christians in Extreme Danger in Afghanistan
January 28, 2022 21:12 - 19 minutes - 17.7 MBThe situation for the Christian community in Afghanistan has grown ever more perilous since the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021. There have been accounts of the Taliban going door to door seeking out Afghans who practice other faiths and beliefs than the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Sunni Islam. Christian converts in Afghanistan also report receiving threatening phone calls. Now forced to practice their faith in hiding, Christians in Afghanistan face regular threats ...
Worrying Trends for Religious Freedom in Central and Eastern Africa
January 21, 2022 17:59 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBAcross central and eastern Africa there are many dynamics at play, including political crises and violent insurgencies, both of which pose challenges to freedom of religion or belief. These trends and developments are especially concerning in countries such as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, and Kenya. USCIRF Policy Analysts Mohy Omer and Madeline Vellturo join us to elaborate on increasing problematic government actions towards religious leaders and several relig...