A US religious freedom watchdog is urging the State Department to name four additional countries to its list of the worst religious liberty offenders.
In its 2021 annual report, released Wednesday (April 21), the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said India, Russia, Syria and Vietnam should be considered “countries of particular concern.” Those nations have been found to have engaged in or permitted ongoing, systematic and egregious religious freedom violations, The Washington Post reported.
USCIRF also recommended 12 countries for the State Department’s Special Watch List (SWL) for religious freedom, including nations like Azerbaijan and Turkey. The report acknowledged serious concerns about “the preservation and protection of Armenian places of worship and other religious sites” in Nagorno-Karabakh, following Azerbaijan’s aggressions against Armenia last Fall. USCIRF connected this conflict to concerns regarding anti-Armenian Christian rhetoric used by Turkish officials and throughout Turkish society, in a pattern of persecution against Christians living in the country. However, USCIRF failed to mention the severe religious freedom violations of the Grey Wolves, a harmful Turkic nationalist group that targets Christians.
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