An annual U.S. government report finds religious freedom under assault throughout the world, notably in what the State Department calls Countries of Particular Concern — China, Iran, North Korea among others.
“In China, state-sponsored repression against all religions continues to intensify. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now ordering religious organizations to obey CCP leadership and infuse communist dogma into their teachings and practice of their faith,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a Wednesday press briefing on the release of the State Department’s .
The report comes after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an on June 2 to advance international religious freedom, instructing the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to “develop a plan to prioritize international religious freedom” and to “budget at least $50 million per fiscal year for programs that advance international religious freedom.”
Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can to view it offline.
On December 18, 2019, the State Department Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as Countries of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for having engaged in or tolerated “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom.”
In China, Wednesday’s report says, the CCP continues “to exercise control over religion and restrict the activities and personal freedom of religious adherents that it perceived as threatening state.” China has been designated as a Country of Particular Concern since 1999.
China has long denied the U.S. criticism, calling the accusations "wrong words and deeds" that slander China's religious policies and the state of freedom of religious beliefs.
In past years after the U.S. released its reports, Chinese officials often asked the U.S. to abandon "prejudices” and “stop politicizing religious issues.”
U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said Wednesday that the mass detentions of Uighurs in Xinjiang continues.
“We have no evidence that they’ve been released, and even if they were released, they’re released into a virtual police state that China has created,” said Brownback, when asked during the press briefing if some Muslim Uighur leaders were released during the coronavirus outbreak.
Brownback added that the U.S. is sanctioning companies whose products are produced by forced labor and "they cannot be received into the U.S. marketplace.”
U.S. officials on Wednesday noted positive steps are being taken to improve religious freedom in countries such as Gambia, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
“We documented no police raids of unregistered religious group meetings during 2019, compared with 114 such raids in 2018, and 240 the year before that. These are great strides, real progress,” said Pompeo in Wednesday’s briefing, referring to improvement in Uzbekistan.
The top U.S. diplomat said Muslim-majority UAE “has become the first country in the Middle East to permit the construction of a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
On Iran, human rights nongovernmental organizations continued to report the disproportionately large number of executions of Sunni prisoners, particularly Kurds, Baluchis and Arabs. Human rights groups also raised concerns regarding the use of torture, beatings in custody, forced confessions, poor prison conditions and denials of access to legal counsel, said the State Department report. Iran has been designated as a CPC since 1999. The U.S. has existing ongoing travel restrictions on Iran based on its serious human rights abuses.
In North Korea, the report said defector accounts indicated religious practitioners often concealed their activities from neighbors, co-workers and other members of society for fear of being branded as disloyal and concerns their activities would be reported to authorities. Some defector and NGO reports confirmed unapproved religious materials were available clandestinely.
While North Korea's constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, the State Department report said multiple sources indicated the situation had not changed, including “an almost complete denial by the government of the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion,” since the findings of the