USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission established in 1998. The legislation creating the Commission charged it with reviewing religious freedom violations internationally and then making policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress.
Under the able leadership of Democrat appointee and Chair Katrina Lantos Swett, the Commission is often a lone voice. USCIRF serves as a watchdog for foreign governments that restrict the basic rights of their own people. But just as importantly, USCIRF is a check on our own Department of State. Unconstrained by diplomatic niceties and the impulse to maintain smooth bilateral relations, USCIRF is free to give a clear-eyed assessment of the worst violators of religious freedom, regardless of whether they are American trading partners or otherwise strategic allies.
The Annual Report covers 33 countries and recommends which ones should be designated “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs. This designation is reserved for those governments that engage in or tolerate particularly severe violations of religious freedom. USCIRF recommended that the Secretary of State re-designate Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as CPCs. Furthermore, it noted that an additional eight countries should be added to the CPC list: Central Africa Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan and Vietnam.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the report “totally unjustifiable,” and said that it had lodged formal complaints with American diplomats, urging them to “stop interfering in China’s domestic affairs under the pretext of the religion issue.”
India, designated in the report as a “tier 2 country” because it doesn’t fully meet the CPC standard but nevertheless has serious governmental violations, also responded forcefully: “The report is nothing but a conspiracy to tarnish the image of the country.”
It is noteworthy that USCIRF’s report draws the ire of such governments. Unlike the State Department, the Commission is in no position to extend consequences for the violation of this most basic human right. But there remains something potent about speaking truth to power. It demands a response. And yet sadly, the current administration has time and again chosen to marginalize religious freedom in U.S. dealings with foreign governments, rhetorically and otherwise.
One of the more noteworthy findings of USCIRF’s report, apart from the annual CPC designations, is the recognition that “non-state actors, such as transnational or local organizations, are some of the most egregious violators of religious freedom.” The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is the embodiment of this reality. USCIRF’s recommendations reflect that the CPC classification should be expanded to allow for the designation of countries, “where particularly severe violations of religious freedom are occurring but a government does not exist or does not control its territory.”
Whatever the manifestation, state or non-state, religious freedom violations around the world are manifold and grave. The realities documented in this new report demand bold, principled leadership from every part of the U.S. government – including those charged with executing U.S. foreign policy.
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Frank R. Wolf is former Congressman and Distinguished Senior Fellow, 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative.
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