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<\/p>\nWASHINGTON (RNS)\u00e2\u20ac\u201dThe State Department should add Russia to its list of the worst violators of religious freedom, a U.S. commission declared in its annual report.<\/p>\n
The\u00c2\u00a0U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfounded to advise the federal government\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcomes out with its list of shame each year, citing the most abusive countries in a lineup\u00c2\u00a0consistently longer than the State Department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.<\/p>\n
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This year, the commission report included\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0dissenting report from its vice chair criticizing the commission for failing to investigate Israel.<\/p>\n
Designated Russia a country of particular concern<\/span><\/p>\n The commission recommended the United States should designate\u00c2\u00a0Russia as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153country of particular concern,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0for\u00c2\u00a0wielding an anti-extremist law to violate the religious freedom of Muslims and other minorities.<\/p>\n Most recently, Russia banned\u00c2\u00a0Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, labeling them \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and ordering the state to seize their properties.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re treating these people like they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re terrorists,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest who chairs the commission, referring to Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treatment of the Witnesses. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re pacifists, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be involved in politics and they just want to be left alone. The (Russian) Supreme Court has basically said they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re illegal.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Globally, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the commission has concluded that the state of affairs for international religious freedom is worsening in both the depth and breadth of violations,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Reese said.<\/p>\n Iraq and Egypt not included on list<\/span><\/p>\n The commission\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s list this year differs from its\u00c2\u00a02016 list with the addition of Russia, but also dropping Egypt and Iraq, a move that may surprise some, given continuing deadly attacks on Christians in those countries.<\/p>\n But while violence against Christians in those nations\u00c2\u00a0remains a horrific\u00c2\u00a0problem, Reese said, the commission wanted to highlight the concrete steps both the Egyptian and Iraqi governments have taken to protect religious minorities.<\/p>\n Inn Egypt, for example, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi \u00e2\u20ac\u0153consistently has made noteworthy public statements and gestures encouraging religious tolerance and moderation, has condemned sectarian\u00c2\u00a0attacks and assisted victims, and has urged reform of textbooks and religious discourse in society, an important shift in tone and rhetoric from his predecessors,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d according to the report.<\/p>\n Still, Egypt and Iraq are on the commission\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s list of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tier 2\u00e2\u20ac\u009d countries, which are considered\u00c2\u00a0violators of religious freedom, but not as problematic as the countries of particular concern.<\/p>\n Commissioner faults group for not critiquing Israel<\/span><\/p>\n On the same day of the report\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s release,\u00c2\u00a0one commissioner, Arab-American and Democratic Party activist James Zogby, held a news\u00c2\u00a0conference to discuss his dissent to the report, in which he criticizes the commission\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refusal to investigate Israel.<\/p>\n Zogby, flanked by sympathetic Christians in a Lutheran church on Capitol Hill, said Israel discriminates against Muslims, Christians and non-Orthodox Jews but gets a free pass from the commission.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I did not look for this issue; it came to us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Zogby, who cited a lengthy study from young lawyers in the West Bank\u00e2\u20ac\u201doccupied by Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat\u00c2\u00a0concluded Israel fails to meet international standards on religious freedom on which other nations are judged.<\/p>\n Other commissioners, Zogby said, were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bullied\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to oppose an investigation. Those\u00c2\u00a0petitioning for an investigation were dismissed as anti-Semites, and some commissioners feared the commission would lose congressional support for investigating Israel, he\u00c2\u00a0said.<\/p>\n Joining\u00c2\u00a0Zogby were Aundreia Alexander, associate\u00c2\u00a0general secretary of the National Council of Churches; Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary emeritus of the Reformed Church in America; and Drew Christiansen of\u00c2\u00a0Georgetown University\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.<\/p>\n Many groups and individuals, including Zogby, propose the commission launch investigations, Reese said, but without a majority vote of commissioners, those investigations don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go forward.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jim proposed it, but he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a majority,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Reese, who added the commission reports often include dissents.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2<\/p>\n Worst offenders identified<\/span><\/p>\n Sixteen countries are on the 2017 list of countries of particular concern: Burma, Central African Republic, China, Eritrea, Iran,\u00c2\u00a0Nigeria,\u00c2\u00a0North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,\u00c2\u00a0Syria,\u00c2\u00a0Tajikistan,\u00c2\u00a0Turkmenistan,\u00c2\u00a0Uzbekistan and\u00c2\u00a0Vietnam.<\/p>\n The\u00c2\u00a010 countries on the State Department\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s list of prime religious freedom offenders, designated in 2016, are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.baptiststandard.com\/news\/world\/20220\u00c2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON (RNS)\u00e2\u20ac\u201dThe State Department should add Russia to its list of the worst violators of religious freedom, a U.S. commission declared in its annual report. The\u00c2\u00a0U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfounded to advise the federal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tajikistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2886"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5869,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886\/revisions\/5869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/jCNXLEe.jpg\")
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