Seven countries should be added to religious freedom's worst offenders list, report says
A report released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has named seven countries that should be added to the list of the worst offenders of religious freedom.
The government agency, which serves as an advisory council to the president and to Congress, identified the following countries wherein religious freedom has been seriously violated in the past year: Nigeria, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Central African Republic, and Iraq. It urges the government to consider these places as "countries of particular concern," World Watch Monitor reported.
In these countries, the offenders practice a systematic violation of people's religious freedom through various methods, such as the use of torture, detention, abduction, removal of basic liberties and security, and sometimes taking one's right to life.
The commission's report for the last year included these countries as well, with the addition of Tajikistan, which was already added to the list last month.
"The seven countries that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommends be classified as 'countries of particular concern' also are prominent on the Open Doors World Watch list," World Watch Monitor wrote.
The report cited examples of violence carried out against religious freedom. In Nigeria, for example, Christians and Muslims constantly suffer attacks from Boko Haram, which is responsible for the deaths of thousands in the country and other countries. The group often resorts to bombing of churches and mosques.
Pakistan records the most number of people who are facing death penalty because of blasphemy. The Taliban is largely responsible for inflicting violence on Christians whom the group considers as "transgressors."
The commission recommends that Western Europe be monitored for similar incidents. It says there is rising violence "related to anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish sentiment" in the region, which could have resulted from the increasing number of refugees coming in from North Africa and the Middle East.
