USCIRF Urges for a Path Forward for Victims of Rohingya Genocide

Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) marks two years since the U.S. Department of State’s designation of genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya in Burma. In August 2017, the Burmese military, known as the Tatmadaw, committed atrocities against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya community. USCIRF urges the U.S. government to work with the international community to ensure any support for a post-coup Burma is contingent on the voluntary return and full repatriation of the Rohingya people.

“While the 2022 determination was a milestone in international recognition for the Rohingya people, it was only the first step. This week, we visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s exhibit on Burma’s Path to Genocide. The exhibit is a painful reminder that the dehumanization of the Rohingya people was a process that took decades, but started when the military revoked their citizenship,” said USCIRF Commissioner Mohamed Magid. “USCIRF welcomes the U.S. government’s efforts to aid Rohingya genocide survivors and the nations that have hosted these refugees, in particular Bangladesh. Even so, the United States needs to act as a beacon of hope by expanding options for Rohingya refugees to resettle in the United States.”

The Burmese military’s 2021 coup prevented efforts toward accountability and a pathway for the voluntary repatriation of over a million Rohingya refugees residing throughout the region. It has also further exposed the 500,000 Rohingya that remain in internally displaced camps within Burma to violence and abuse. Earlier this year, the military’s State Administration Council (SAC) began attempting to enlist Rohingya into military service, beating and abducting relatives of those who escaped conscription. Opposition groups such as the Nation Unity Government have pledged, if in power, to abolish the 1982 citizenship law excluding Rohingya from citizenship, and to repatriate and integrate those Rohingya who wish to return to Rakhine State. The United States has provided over $2.4 billion to assist the survivors of the genocide, including those who fled to Bangladesh. It has also imposed sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for the ongoing violence.

“The very military that perpetrated genocide against the Rohingya is now attempting to draft them into service, even without a path forward for citizenship after serving,” added USCIRF Commissioner Eric Ueland. “The Tatmadaw is running the country unchecked and chaotically. As outlined in the BURMA Act of 2022, the U.S. government must encourage the National Unity Government to incorporate accountability mechanisms for atrocities committed by the Burmese military against Rohingya.”

In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State redesignate Burma as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for its systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations. In January 2024, USCIRF held a hearing to discuss the use of technology and transnational influences affecting religious freedom in Southeast Asia. During this hearing, Commissioners and witnesses discussed the use of social media and digital surveillance by the Burmese military to target the Rohingya.

In 2022, USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck led a delegation to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. In an episode of USCIRF’s Spotlight Podcast, he shared his first-hand account of the Rohingya’s current conditions at the Bangladeshi refugee camps. On this trip, the delegation met with refugees, international organization officials, and members of the government of Bangladesh.

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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected].

USCIRF Calls for U.S. Government to Support Iraq’s Religious Communities on Anniversary of Genocide Determination

Washington, D.C. – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) solemnly marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S. Department of State’s determination in 2016 that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) perpetrated a genocide against northern Iraq’s Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims. The State Department also determined that ISIS carried out crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed toward these same groups and, in some cases, Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities. USCIRF reiterates its call for the U.S. government to give greater support to Iraq’s diverse religious communities still suffering from the aftereffects of ISIS’s genocidal campaigns.

“ISIS’s atrocities against Iraq’s religious and ethnic minorities were part of a deliberate campaign of genocide and crimes against humanity. Although ISIS’s threat has diminished, militant non-state actors and government-affiliated militias continue to perpetrate abuses against Yazidis, Christians, Shabaks, Shi’a and Sunni Muslim Turkmen, and other religious and ethnic minorities,” stated USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck. “USCIRF urges the United States to encourage the Iraqi government to curb the power of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and other state-affiliated forces who subject religious minorities to checkpoint harassment, interrogation, detention, torture, and efforts to usurp their political representation and leadership.”

In 2014, ISIS surged to dominance in northern Iraq. ISIS has systemically subjected the region’s diverse array of ethnic and religious minorities, including several indigenous groups, to atrocities such as mass execution, mass rape, systematic sexual slavery and forced labor, and forced religious conversion. On March 15, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution finding that ISIS’s crimes against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. On March 17, 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ISIS had committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Yazidis, Christians, Shi’a Muslims, and others. In 2019, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS—including the United States and its local partners—achieved its territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

“Today, minorities in Iraq continue to suffer for their religious and ethnic identity,” said USCIRF Commissioner Frank Wolf. “USCIRF calls on the U.S. government to support the governments of Iraq and its Kurdistan Region in their missions to rescue the 2,700 missing and enslaved Yazidi women and girls. The U.S. must also emphasize to the Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional governments the urgency of fully implementing the 2020 Sinjar Agreement and making the region safe for the return of genocide survivors, so that hundreds of thousands of Yazidis and others among the 1 million-plus Iraqis languishing in internal displacement can go home.” 

USCIRF has consistently highlighted the long aftermath of ISIS’s genocide against Iraq’s religious minorities, including threats to their administrative autonomy and political representation. USCIRF recently held a hearing identifying ways the U.S. government can work with the Iraqi federal government (IFG) and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to address religious freedom concerns, especially for the country’s vulnerable religious minorities. In September 2023, USCIRF also published a report examining recent developments as well as ongoing factors affecting religious freedom in Iraq.  

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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected]. 

USCIRF Calls Attention to Prevalence of Anti-Muslim Hate Around the World

Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is alarmed at the proliferation of incidents and expressions of anti-Muslim hatred around the world.

“Today marks five years since the terrorist attack on the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. This devastating attack initiated the creation of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Given that the perpetrator broadcast these murders live over social media, USCIRF calls for better mechanisms to prevent widespread disinformation, hate speech, and incitement of violence toward religious minorities on all social media platforms,” said USCIRF Chair Abraham Cooper. “USCIRF also strongly urges the United States to call out foreign governments who fail to protect their Muslim communities from acts of anti-Muslim hatred wherever they occur. The scourge of anti-Muslim hatred must come to an end.”

Muslims experience bias, discrimination, and violence in many parts of the world. In Burma, the junta resists international efforts toward accountability for its genocidal campaign against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya community in Rakhine State, while also attempting to actively draft Rohingya into the military.

In China, Muslim communities are treated as an existential threat, culminating in the government’s perpetration of genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. In India, the government maintains discriminatory policies that disproportionately target Muslims. These policies fuel hate speech, the demolition of mosques and houses in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, and vigilante violence including rape. The implementation of India's Citizenship Amendment Act will explicitly exclude Muslim refugees fleeing persecution in neighboring countries, including Shi'a and Ahmadiyya Muslims from Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Algeria, Malaysia, and Pakistan, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community continues to be systematically denied the right to worship, targeted by vigilante violence with insufficient government response, and wrongfully detained under blasphemy laws.

Many countries in the European Union, such as Austria and France, retain legislation that impermissibly prohibits Muslim women and girls from wearing religious garb in public spaces. Throughout Europe, anti-Muslim bias also manifests through discrimination in public institutions, prejudice in the immigration process, online harassment, and violent attacks. Additionally, some European countries have passed or are considering legislation that would impact core religious traditions of Islam and Judaism, such as ritual slaughter and circumcision.   

“This week is the start of Ramadan, the most holy month in the Islamic calendar. Given all that is happening in today’s world, Ramadan provides an especially important inflection point this year. USCIRF is particularly disturbed that Muslims and non-Muslims alike continue to have their right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion violated by governments, religious extremists, and non-state actors,” said USCIRF Commissioner Mohamed Magid. “All Muslims have the right to live in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, free from discrimination and acts of violence. USCIRF applauds the U.S. government for strongly condemning all forms of intolerance against Muslims, and supports its efforts to combat hatred and discrimination against members of Muslim communities.”

In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF identifies incidents and expressions of anti-Muslim hatred around the world. USCIRF also documents selected cases of Muslim religious prisoners of conscience in its Frank R. Wolf Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List. 

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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected].