The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) solemnly marks the 10 year anniversary tomorrow of the illegal removal and detention of Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch Abune Antonios as head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church. 

“USCIRF calls on the Eritrean government to immediately release Patriarch Antonios and allow him to return to his rightful position as head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church,” said USCIRF Chairman Dr. Robert P. George.

Eritrean authorities informed Patriarch Antonios on January 20, 2006 that he would no longer lead the country’s largest religious denomination. The government took this action after Patriarch Antonios called for the release of political prisoners and refused to excommunicate 3,000 parishioners who opposed the government.  On May 27, 2007, the Eritrean government replaced Patriarch Antonios with Bishop Dioscoros of Mendefera, forcefully removed the Patriarch from his home, and placed him under house arrest at an undisclosed location.  Patriarch Antonios continues to be held incommunicado and reportedly is being denied medical care despite suffering from severe diabetes.

“This anniversary should remind us all that the Eritrean people are denied the fundamental, universal human right of religious freedom.  The Eritrean government sends those whom they imprison for their religious beliefs to the harshest prisons and subjects them to the cruelest punishments.  We must continue to shine the light on these prisoners of conscience until they are free,” said Chairman George.

President Isaias Afwerki has ruled Eritrea since 1993.  His regime is among the most repressive in the world, with thousands of Eritreans imprisoned for their real or imagined opposition to the government and torture and forced labor are extensive. Between 1,300 and 2,000 people are imprisoned because of their religious beliefs, with the government torturing and beating religious prisoners, confining many in 20-foot metal shipping containers or underground barracks where some have been subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations. Since 2002, the Eritrean government has registered only four religious communities - the (Coptic) Orthodox Church of Eritrea, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Church of Eritrea – and maintains tight control over their internal operations and activities.  No other religious group has been approved. Without such approval, no group legally can hold public religious activities. 

Since 2004, USCIRF has recommended, and the State Department has designated, Eritrea as a “country of particular concern” (CPC), for its “systematic, ongoing and egregious” violations of religious freedom.   For more information, please see USCIRF’s chapter on Eritrea in the 2015 Annual Report.

To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615. 

On Saturday (Jan. 16), our nation will observe National Religious Freedom Day. This day commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom back in 1786.

As Jefferson’s statute proclaimed, religious freedom is among the “natural rights of mankind.” Yet to this day, billions of people abroad routinely are denied this liberty. From forbidding the construction of places of worship to perpetrating mass torture and murder, abusers continue to operate with impunity.

For both humanitarian and practical reasons, the United States must stand with the persecuted and weave the concern to protect religious freedom more tightly into U.S. foreign policy.

To these ends, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended that the State Department designate as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs, those nations the commission has found to be the world’s most severe abusers. Although meant to be an annual designation, the State Department last designated CPCs in July 2014. So we urge swift action.

Among State Department-designated CPC nations, China and North Korea exemplify secular tyrannies that suppress religious groups across the board. Others, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, enthrone one religion or religious interpretation while often brutalizing those embracing alternatives, from dissenting Muslims to Christians to Baha’is.

Pakistan is an example of an electoral democracy that both perpetrates and tolerates religious freedom violations. More Pakistanis are on death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy than anywhere else. The government’s enforcement of blasphemy statutes, in turn, emboldens extremists to assault perceived transgressors. From the Pakistani Taliban to individual vigilantes, these attackers victimize religious minorities, from Shia to Christians, Hindus to Ahmadis, with impunity and rarely are brought to justice.

Pakistan is one of several nations experiencing a dramatic rise in violent religious extremist groups committing mass violence based on religion. In some of these countries, such behavior meets the legal criteria for genocide.

Among the most horrifying examples are in Syria and Iraq, where the so-called Islamic State has unleashed waves of terror against Yazidis, Christians, and Shia, as well as Sunnis who oppose its extremist views. In Syria, other extremist groups replicate those horrors.

Yazidis and Christians have borne the brunt of the Islamic State’s depredations and for a chilling reason. The summary executions, rape, sexual enslavement, abducted children, destroyed houses of worship, and forced conversions all are part of a systematic effort to erase their presence from the Middle East.

Beyond the Middle East, Buddhist extremists in Burma have ferociously assaulted Rohingya Muslims, a religious and ethnic minority that has long suffered discrimination and persecution.

In the Central African Republic, an explosion in strife between Christian and Muslim militias has destroyed nearly every mosque in the country.

And in Nigeria, Boko Haram continues to attack both Christians and many Muslims who oppose them. From mass murders at churches and mosques to mass kidnappings of children from schools, Boko Haram has cut a wide path of terror across vast swaths of Nigeria.

We should care deeply about this surge in religious freedom abuses and other human rights violations for humanitarian reasons and because of the tremendous instability these abuses unleash.

But there is still another reason to prioritize religious freedom. In 2014, the Latin Rite archbishop of Baghdad said: “I do not think Europe will be calm. This … does not stop at territorial boundaries.”  His words proved tragically prophetic, as the same forces of violent religious extremism plaguing his own country struck a kosher supermarket and a satirical magazine in Paris a year ago. The supermarket victims were murdered simply because they were Jews and the victims of the assault on the newspaper were killed because their attackers considered them as blasphemers deserving punishment.

Thus, standing for the persecuted is not just a moral imperative; it is a practical necessity for any country seeking to enhance stability and protect its security and that of its citizens.

As we celebrate National Religious Freedom Day, let us honor our own heritage by reaffirming religious freedom as a vital component in our relations with the rest of the world.

(Robert P. George is chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Thomas J. Reese is a USCIRF commissioner.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 7, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – One year later, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) solemnly remembers the 17 victims of the January 7 and 9, 2015 attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris. 

“These attacks were egregious assaults on the freedom of religion or belief.  The victims at Charlie Hebdo were killed because their attackers deemed them blasphemers, and those at the Hyper Cacher market were killed because they were Jews,” said USCIRF Chairman Robert P. George.

The January 2015 attacks occurred against the backdrop of a sharp increase in reports of violent anti-Semitic incidents in France, the home of Europe’s largest Jewish community, and other European countries in 2014.  Following these attacks, there also has been a spike in reports of incidents of intolerance against Muslims – both European Muslims and Muslim refugees and migrants. 

“As we mourn the victims of the more recent horrific terrorist attacks in Paris, we also remember those who were murdered one year ago.  We remember these victims, condemn the attackers, and call on all Europeans of good will to unite against both the violent extremism and anti-Semitism that motivated these attacks and the backlash that has occurred in their wake against Muslims living or seeking refuge in Europe,” said Chairman George. “Ensuring religious freedom for all is a necessary predicate to secure and stable societies and an important bulwark against violent religious extremism.”

For more information, please see these USCIRF op-eds:  An Unsafe Place for Jews and Nations Must Repeal Blasphemy Laws.

To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-786-0615.