Pwint Phyu Latt is a Muslim peace activist in Burma who sought to promote interfaith relations with Buddhists, the nation’s religious majority. She was sentenced this year to two years in prison and two more years of hard labor.

Gulmira Imin is a Uighur Muslim in China who led the 2009 Uighur protests against its communist government. She has been in prison ever since.

Maryam Naghash Zargaran is a Christian in Iran who converted from Islam and worked with pastor Saeed Abedini prior to his incarceration and release. She was released briefly and returned to prison this year after serving three years of a four-year sentence.

Mahvash Sabet, a school principal, and Fariba Kamalabadi, a developmental psychologist, are Baha’is in Iran. Arrested in 2008, they and five other leaders known as the Baha’i Seven were given 20-year sentences based on false charges such as espionage.

Mehrinisso Hamdamova was a teacher of Islam to women in Uzbekistan. She was sentenced in 2010 to a seven-year prison term in a labor camp for the “crime” of private teaching about religion and reportedly suffers from cancer.

As members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, we stand in solidarity with these and other religious prisoners of conscience.

We reaffirm our stand Saturday (Dec. 10) — Human Rights Day — as we commemorate the U.N. General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We stand for the inalienable human right, affirmed in Article 18 of the declaration, of these prisoners, and indeed all people, to freedom of conscience and religion. And we invite others in the human rights community to stand with us, join with us and call for their release.

In highlighting these six prisoners today, our aim is twofold. We want to spotlight their plight and their countries’ appalling religious freedom abuses. And by focusing on these women, we seek to provide real-life examples of how in many parts of the world, the lack of religious freedom disempowers women.

Clearly, all of their countries are serious religious freedom violators.

In Burma, Buddhist state and nonstate actors target ethnic and religious minorities, from Rohingya and other Muslims to Christians.

China’s regime has cracked down on Uighur Muslims observing Ramadan, torn down churches and crosses, targeted the Falun Gong, repressed Tibetan Buddhists and jailed, tortured and harvested organs from prisoners.

Iran’s government has detained, tortured and even executed opponents of its interpretation of Shiite Islam and has targeted religious minorities, from Baha’is to Christians to Sunni Muslims.

And Uzbekistan severely restricts all independent religious activity and imprisons many thousands of individuals it claims to be religious extremists.

USCIRF has recommended and the U.S. State Department has designated all of these nations as “countries of particular concern,” marking them as among the world’s worst religious freedom violators.

It is no secret that these nations reserve their worst abuses not just for the religious groups they harass, but for individuals who either lead these groups or who boldly and publicly live out their teachings as their conscience dictates.

Pwint Phyu Latt, Gulmira Imin, Maryam Naghash Zargaran, Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi and Mehrinisso Hamdamova are such individuals.

These women were acting on their convictions and pursuing their aspirations as human beings. Once authorities intervened, denying them their full exercise of freedom of conscience and religion, that process was abruptly halted.

Human rights supporters, particularly advocates for the rights of women, can advance their cause when they join with supporters of religious liberty. Indeed, religious freedom, rightly understood, affirms women precisely by affirming their right to choose what to believe and how to live. To protect religious freedom is allow women to pursue a path toward fulfilling their deepest potential.

As we mark Human Rights Day, we call on supporters of freedom of religion or belief and advocates for the empowerment of women to recognize the ties that bind us. Let us call for the release of these six female prisoners of conscience and others, and for governments to honor religious freedom and the full panoply of related human rights for the benefit of their people.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) condemns the raid by Pakistan’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) on the publications and audit offices of the Ahmadiyya community in Punjab province.  During this raid, which took place on December 5, police beat and arrested several Ahmadis who later were charged under provisions in Pakistan’s penal code and Anti-Terrorism Act.   

“USCIRF condemns the brutal raid on the Ahmadiyya offices, the first such raid since Pakistan amended its constitution 42 years ago, declaring that Ahmadis are ‘non-Muslims,’” said USCIRF Chair Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J. “These actions flow out of Pakistan’s constitution and penal code, both of which impede religious freedom as they prevent Ahmadis from exercising their faith and even calling themselves Muslim.  Pakistan’s anti-terrorism law should not be applied to the peaceful Ahmadiyya community simply because they are Ahmadis.”

Pakistan’s constitution declares Ahmadis to be “non-Muslims.”  Its penal code subjects Ahmadis to severe legal restrictions and officially-sanctioned discrimination, making it criminal for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims, preach, propagate, or disseminate materials on their faith, or refer to their houses of worship as mosques. The government applies the anti-terrorism law as an unwarranted pretext to arrest members of the Ahmadiyya community.  Ahmadis also continue to be murdered in religiously-motivated attacks that take place with impunity. 

Punjab province, the site of the raid and home to the greatest number of religious minorities, has a deeply troubling religious freedom record. Two-thirds of all blasphemy cases originate there, including that of Abdul Shakoor, an optician and book store owner.  The CTD raided his book store and arrested him. In January 2016, Mr. Shakoor was sentenced to five years in prison on blasphemy charges and three years on terrorism charges, to be served concurrently, for propagating the Ahmadiyya faith by selling copies of the Qur’an and Ahmadiyya publications.

Since 2002, USCIRF has recommended to the State Department that Pakistan be named a “country of particular concern” under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act for its “systematic, ongoing and egregious” violations of religious freedom. For more information on religious freedom conditions in Pakistan and for recommendations for U.S. policy, please see the Pakistan chapter in USCIRF’s 2016 Annual Report (in English and Urdu). 

To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at [email protected] or 202-523-3258

WASHINGTON, DC – At the recommendation of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Dr. Tenzin Dorjee was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on December 8, 2016. 

“USCIRF welcomes Dr. Tenzin Dorjee as our newest Commissioner,” said USCIRF Chair Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J.  “He will be a great asset to our Commission as we work to fulfill our mandate of highlighting serious threats to religious freedom throughout the world and making policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress on behalf of the cherished right of freedom of religion or belief and its fuller integration into U.S. foreign policy.”

Tenzin Dorjee is Associate Professor at the Department of Human Communication Studies, California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). His primary teaching and research interests are in intergroup, intercultural, intergenerational communication, identity issues, peace building, and conflict resolution. He has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed articles and chapters on Tibetan culture, identity, and communication, nonviolence and middle way approaches to Sino-Tibetan conflict, intergenerational communication context, and others. He is also a published author of articles and translated works of Tibetan Buddhism and culture into English. He is a co-author of the forthcoming scholarly book Communicating Across Cultures (2^nd Edition, Guilford Press) with Professor Stella Ting-Toomey. He worked as a translator at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, India, for over 13 years. He is former Member-At-Large in the Executive Council of the Western States Communication Association (WSCA), Chair of WSCA’s Distinguished Teaching Award Committee, Basic Course Director of the Department of Human Communication Studies, CSUF, and President of the Tibetan Association of Southern California. In the summer of 2013, he volunteered over two months at the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and in the summer of 2016, he volunteered teaching intercultural communication and research methodology at the College for Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarah, India, and the Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education, Bengaluru, India.

Comprised of nine commissioners, USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal body that is principally responsible for reviewing the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and making policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. The President and leadership of both political parties in the Senate and House of Representatives appoint USCIRF Commissioners.

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