Gender: Male
Perpetrator: Saudi Arabia
Religion or Belief: Muslim – Sunni
Date of Detainment: September//2017
Current Status: Not Released
Most Recent Type of Abuse: Imprisonment
Awad al-Qarni
Extra Bio Info:
Awad al-Qarni is imprisoned and sentenced to death for his religious belief and leadership role.
In September 2017, authorities arrested Qarni, a renowned Sunni preacher and scholar, amid a wave of arrests of religious leaders and intellectuals. Authorities confined him at Dhahban Central Prison, Jeddah, and charged him with inciting insults to the heads of State, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and joining a terrorist entity.
In September 2018, judicial authorities sentenced him to death. During detention, authorities kept al-Qarni in solitary confinement.
Apr 3, 2026
North Korea remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for individuals from all religious backgrounds, particularly for Christians. Organized religion in North Korea has reportedly been almost entirely eliminated. North Korean escapee testimony is the primary and the most important source of information on the Kim regime’s violations of freedom of religion or belief in North Korea, yet fewer North Koreans than ever have been able to escape North Korea since the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, China has become increasingly complicit in the North Korean government’s persecution of religious adherents and practitioners while repatriating North Korean escapees back to North Korea.
On this episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, Commissioner Rachel Laser speaks with Peter Oh, a journalist with Radio Free Asia, and Illyong Ju, Chair of Tong-il Majoong, a nonprofit faith-based organization dedicated to North Korean human rights.
In 2025, nonstate actors posed significant threats to religious freedom abroad. Among these, USCIRF identified some groups that met the criteria of an Entity of Particular Concern (EPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998, as amended. IRFA calls for USCIRF to recommend that the U.S. Department of State designate certain nonstate actors as EPCs. That statute defines an EPC as a nonstate group that engages in particularly severe violations of religious freedom and is also “a nonsovereign entity that exercises significant political power and territorial control; is outside the control of a sovereign government; and often employs violence in pursuit of its objectives.”