USCIRF Releases New Report on Religious Freedom Challenges in Iraq 10 Years After ISIS’s Genocide

Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released the following new report:

Religious Freedom Challenges in Iraq 10 Years after ISIS’s Genocide – This report provides an overview of ISIS’s genocide and other crimes against Iraq’s religious minorities beginning in the summer 2014. ISIS used mass execution, forced conversion to Islam, abduction, rape, and slavery against Iraqi and Syrian Yazidis; Assyrian-Syriac-Chaldean and other Christians; Shi’a Muslims of a variety of ethnic backgrounds, such as Shabaks, Turkmens, Arabs, and Kurds; and other religious groups. The report highlights ongoing religious freedom challenges facing these communities 10 years later and identifies ways the United States can encourage Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to improve religious minority groups’ security and freedom of religion or belief today.

In its 2024 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State include Iraq on its Special Watch List (SWL) for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act. USCIRF has consistently highlighted the ongoing aftereffects of ISIS’s genocide. In December 2023, the Commission held a hearing on Religious Minorities and Governance in Iraq. In August 2024, on the tenth anniversary of ISIS’s launch of the genocide, a USCIRF Spotlight podcast series featured religious minority genocide survivors and former U.S. officials.

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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 Releases Report on State-Controlled Religion and Religious Freedom in Vietnam

Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released the following new report:

State-Controlled Religion and Religious Freedom in Vietnam – The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) uses state-controlled religious organizations to control religious life and to intimidate and pressure independent religious communities into submission. A state-controlled religious organization is a religious group or institution that operates under the direct influence, supervision, or control of the government. The government exercises significant authority over these organizations, including leadership appointments, property matters, religious practices, and even doctrinal interpretation. This report examines six state-controlled religious organizations. It also documents how the CPV and the Vietnamese government utilize three key Party and government organizations, several laws, and three overarching strategies—substitution, co-opting, and infiltration—to control religious life through state-controlled religious organizations.

In its 2024 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State redesignate Vietnam as a “Country of Particular Concern,” or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. In September 2023, USCIRF released a report documenting religious freedom conditions in Vietnam, after a May 2023 USCIRF commissioner-led delegation to the country.

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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 Releases New Report on China’s Sinicization of Religion Policy

Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released the following new report:

Sinicization of Religion: China’s Coercive Religious Policy – Under Xi Jinping’s rule as the paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government has implemented the coercive “sinicization of religion” policy, which has fundamentally transformed China’s religious environment. Sinicization, or the complete subordination of religious groups to the CCP’s political agenda and Marxist vision for religion, has become the core driving principle of the government’s management of religious affairs. Through regulations and state-controlled religious organizations, authorities incorporate CCP ideology into every facet of religious life for Buddhists, Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims, and Taoists. They also forcibly eradicate religious elements considered contradictory to the CCP’s political and policy agenda with ultranationalist overtones. Government officials have installed CCP loyalists as leading religious figures, altered houses of worship with CCP-approved architecture, integrated CCP propaganda into religious doctrines, and otherwise criminalized non-CCP-backed religious activities, all with the goal to ensure the stability of CCP rule. These government measures have routinely violated the internationally protected right to freedom of religion or belief.

In its 2024 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. Department of State redesignate China as a “Country of Particular Concern,” or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. In January, USCIRF released a report analyzing the U.S. government’s technology policy amid China’s technology-enabled religious freedom violations, transitional repression, and malign political influence in the United States. Similarly, USCIRF authored an op-ed in October 2023 highlighting China’s political interference through lobbying in the U.S. Congress.

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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].