USCIRF Chairman Dr. Robert P. George. Message from the chair.
USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George and Commissioner Katrina Lantos Swett speak at the 4th Annual International Religious Freedom Event on Capitol Hill, March 22, 2016.
Dwight Bashir, USCIRF Co-Director for Policy and Research, speaks at a Senate Human Rights Caucus event titled "Countering Extremism in Predominantly Muslim Countries," March 17, 2016.
USCIRF Commissioner Thomas J. Reese and staff met with Ambassador Andrew Bennett, the Canadian Ambassador for Religious Freedom, February 22, 2016.
USCIRF Commissioner Katrina Lantos Swett spoke at the Asia Pacific Religious Freedom Forum (APRFF) in Taiwan, February 18, 2016.
USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst, Catherine Cosman, speaks at a Freedom House panel on the human rights crisis in Tajikistan, December 16, 2015.
USCIRF Commissioner Fr. Tom Reese with Sr. Denise Coghlan, Jesuit Refugee Service Cambodia Director, and Katrine Camilleri, JRS Malta Director, accompanied by USCIRF Policy Analyst Tina Mufford, December 7, 2015
Sahar Chaudhry, Senior Policy Analyst, at a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission briefing on Human Rights in Bangladesh with the Commission’s Co-Chair Representative Jim McGovern, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, writer and activist and widow of Avijit Roy, and other panelists. December 1, 2015
USCIRF Commissioner Katrina Lantos Swett speaks with Yevgeniy Zhovtis, Board Chairman of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights And Rule of Law, after a USCIRF Capitol Hill briefing on human rights in Kazakhstan, November 20, 2015.
Dwight Bashir, USCIRF Acting Co-Director for Policy and Research, speaks at a Capitol Hill event titled "Bahrain's Stalled Path to Reform," November 16, 2015.
In December 2012, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, in conjunction with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and Amnesty International USA, launched the Defending Freedoms Project with the aim of supporting human rights and religious freedom throughout the world with a particular focus on prisoners of conscience.
Specifically, Members of Congress “adopt” prisoners of conscience, standing in solidarity with these brave men and women, while committing to advocate publicly for their release.
Click the interactive map below to view the status of prisoners of conscience highlighted in the Defending Freedoms Project
In light of alarming levels of anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish bias in Europe, please join USCIRF for a conversation that will examine efforts by grassroots, student, and faith leaders to prevent and combat religious hatred, counter extremism, and improve religious freedom and equality for all, taking into account recent terrorist attacks.
Please join the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for the release of Teaching Intolerance in Pakistan: Religious Bias in Public School Textbooks, a comprehensive report analyzing Pakistan’s public school textbooks.
WASHINGTON, DC – At the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Ambassador Jackie Wolcott was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on March 14. Ambassador Wolcott will serve a two-year term and succeeds Commissioner Mary Ann Glendon whose term expires on May 14.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Indian government today failed to issue visas to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in time for a long planned trip to India. The goal of the Commission’s trip was to discuss and assess religious freedom conditions in that nation.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) solemnly marks the one-year anniversary on February 26 of the brutal murder of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American secular blogger. Attackers wielding machetes killed Roy after he left a book fair during a visit to Dhaka. His wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, survived the attack with serious wounds.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sent the following letter to Secretary Kerry on January 25, 2016.
Dear Secretary Kerry:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) strongly condemns the arrest, detention, and sentencing of Abul Shakoor, an 80-year-old optician, for propagating the Ahmadiyya Muslim faith, which is banned in Pakistan.
Who We Are
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission, the first of its kind in the world, that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad.
What We're About
Inherent in religious freedom is the right to think as we please, believe or not believe as our conscience leads, and live out our beliefs openly, peacefully, and without fear.
We are about freedom…
Thomas Bill Search