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Displaying results 1 - 15 of 15
Feb 4, 2021
As the Biden administration begins to formulate its broader human rights policy, USCIRF highlights several priority countries when it comes to international religious freedom. Condemning and preventing…
Feb 18, 2021
In recent years, northern Iraq has become a battleground for Turkish armed forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In June 2020, Turkey escalated their attacks in the region, announcing military…
Mar 26, 2021
In some countries around the world, religion-based laws are used by governments to impose capital punishment against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons. All of the 10 countries…
Apr 30, 2021
The program to resettle refugees to the United States has existed since 1980, with strong bipartisan support. Earlier this month, President Biden signed an emergency declaration to speed up refugee admissions into…
Aug 19, 2021
We have seen a significant deterioration in religious freedom conditions in South Asia in recent years. Blasphemy cases, forced conversions, attacks on houses of worship, hate speech, and violence targeting…
Sep 17, 2021
When Afghanistan was under Taliban control in 1996-2001, the Taliban discriminated against and violently persecuted the Hazara Shi’a community—which they labeled as “heretical.” Subsequently, the Hazara community…
Jan 28, 2022
The situation for the Christian community in Afghanistan has grown ever more perilous since the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021. There have been accounts of the Taliban going door to door seeking…
Apr 22, 2022
According to the Pew Research Center’s most recent global data, Christianity’s diverse set of traditions comprise the single largest religious group on earth, of some 2.3 billion people—or nearly a third of the…
Apr 26, 2022
On April 25, 2022, USCIRF released its 2022 Annual Report, which documents developments in international religious freedom from 2021. The report provides recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s promotion…
Jul 22, 2022
Several major political events occurred in South Asia over the last year. The Taliban, whom USCIRF has recommended for years as an “Entity of Particular Concern” (EPC), took control of Afghanistan in August 2021.…
Nov 18, 2022
More than a decade after the onset of Syria’s civil war, the conflict continues with multiple state and non-state actors vying for power. Today, one of the most notable non-state actors is the militant Islamist…
Jan 25, 2024
One of USCIRF’s key functions is to make recommendations to the State Department about which countries we think should be designated as Countries of Particular Concern or CPCs, based on our independent research and…
Aug 2, 2024
Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched a campaign of mass atrocities to achieve the religious and ethnic cleansing of Yazidis, Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Christians, Shi’a and Sunni Muslim Turkmens,…
Aug 9, 2024
Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched a campaign of mass atrocities to achieve the religious and ethnic cleansing of religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria. In 2016, the U.S. State Department…
May 23, 2025
At the end of 2024, over thirteen years since the onset of Syria’s protracted civil war, the country’s political landscape dramatically shifted when a rebel coalition toppled the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Religious freedom…