29 May 2015: reports, uscirf

USCIRF publishes annual report on religious freedom 2015

This year’s edition, covering events from 31 January 2014 to 31 January 2015, provides individual files for the country chapters, which are now available on ecoi.net.

From the press release:

“The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2015 Annual Report on April 30, 2015. In the report, USCIRF recommends that the State Department add these eight countries to its list of “countries of particular concern,” defined under law as countries where particularly severe violations of religious freedom are tolerated or perpetrated: Central African Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, and Vietnam.

USCIRF also recommends that the following eight countries be re-designated as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

In addition, USCIRF also recommends ten countries as Tier 2 Countries, those countries whose governments engages in or tolerates at least one of the elements of the “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” standard, but do not fully meet the CPC standard: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Russia, and Turkey. Other Countries Monitored include: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, and Sri Lanka.” (USCIRF press release)