Religious Repression

India’s historic Sunehri mosque is targeted for destruction

To all the women who kept religious freedom alive

Hundreds of pastors protest CCP action to shut down all but government-controlled houses of worship.

Systematic, ongoing violations of religious freedom

Government requires adherence to the sinicisation of Christianity

Hundreds of university students attacked a temporary shelter, demanding asylum-seekers be deported.

Serving 12 years of multiple prison sentences in Iran for her public opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran

China has implemented new repressive guidelines.

From beyond the grave, Eichmann freely admits to masterminding the Holocaust.

A cleric has become the latest victim in Pakistan where laws criminalize speech or actions deemed insulting or disrespectful toward the Prophet.

USCIRF notes a worsening scene internationally in its annual report

Observant Chinese in Henan must register on a government app to attend religious services.

A 416-year-old chapel is at risk of being destroyed.

Heading the list of the top fifty offenders is North Korea.

An appeal to French President Emmanuel Macron to cease France’s support of FECRIS.

The struggle between those who rant “They are not like us“ and those who simply want to be themselves?

A private school network has expelled Ahmadi schoolchildren because of their faith.

High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet issued a report accusing China of violations amounting to crimes against humanity.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya mark Genocide Remembrance Day.

Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison, followed by a 34-year travel ban.

As many as 100 minority Sikhs and Hindus who want to escape Afghanistan are unable to do so.

The denomination’s role in oppressing Indigenous American and Alaskan nations.

More than 100 have seen their homes raided, been arrested, or both in recent weeks.

Honoring those who perished in the deadly attack.

Religious minorities targeted on digital platforms face an ‘Orwellian existence’

Catholic missions should brace for an even grimmer future, as civil liberties continue to crumble in the former British colony.

One dead and seven wounded in an attack on a Sikh temple in Kabul

Report presents a bleak picture but the commitment to change this vital human right.

Catholic priest announces he will fast indefinitely “on water and whey” until persecution ends.

Nearly one in 25 Muslim residents of Konasheher County has been imprisoned on terrorism charges.

When white settlers moved into their territory, it set in motion inequities that robbed the Kaw Nation of their lands and all but ended their existence.

90-year-org cardinal arrested and charged for raising funds for Hong Kong activists.

Government regulations forbid posting religious information on the internet without prior official permission.

In its 2022 report, the USCIRF identified 15 countries where religious violations have raised “particular concern”

One of three Roman Catholic priests kidnapped in March in Nigeria has been released by his abductors.

Report by U.N. Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed on increased risk to Bahá’ís

State Department assessment classifies the Myanmar military’s treatment of the Rohingya as genocide and crimes against humanity.

The number of Sikhs in Afghanistan has dwindled to a fraction of what it used to be in the 1970s, and members of the minority community face an uncertain future in the strife-torn nation they call home.

In December 2021, with the Olympics on the horizon, U.S, Senate approved banning imports from China’s Xinjiang province.

His Holiness Abune Antonios, who spent the last 16 years in prison for refusing to bend to the government’s demands, has died.

The United States and nine diplomatic allies have boycotted the Beijing Winter Olympics protesting China’s repression of human rights. Washington has accused Beijing of detaining more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang detention camps. The U.S.

Egypt has released Coptic Christian activist Ramy Kamel, held for more than two years in pretrial detention for drawing attention to the struggle of his minority community to achieve religious freedom and gain human rights protections.

A human rights organization calls on people to join the campaign to secure the release of a pastor in Cuba jailed for participating in peaceful protests.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top European Union, British and Canadian officials urged to persist in locating nearly 3,000 Yazidi women and children missing since captured seven years ago

A multiethnic humanitarian group that works in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones has a simple answer to what drives its efforts: Love.

Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, acquitted of blasphemy charges after spending seven years on death row in Pakistan, have been granted asylum in Europe.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and Christian and religious freedom advocacy groups call for the release of two pastors detained by authorities in Cuba July 11 for joining widespread antigovernment demonstrations in the Caribbean nation.

A Revolutionary Court in Iran has sentenced six citizens of the minority Bahá’í faith to a total of 73 years and six months in prison for engaging in activities related to children’s education and promoting their religion on social media.

“This country was founded on freedom of speech, religion and worship, which has been given away to a foreign mining company,” wrote Wendsler Nosie Sr., leader of Apache Stronghold, a Native American nonprofit.

International organization that lists North Korea as the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian provides vital support to Christians fleeing the nation.

Open Doors USA’s annual report on the global persecution of Christians spotlights 50 countries where Christians are targeted for their faith.

The French bill to combat religious practice deemed “contrary to the country’s republican values” is a constitutional minefield, according to a white paper issued by European scholars

Acting under court orders, police in Pakistan rescued 12-year-old Farah Shaheen, a Christian girl, five months after she was kidnapped.

A report released by Pew Research Center last month shows that government restrictions on religion have been on the rise since the Center began tracking these statistics in 2007.

Across much of the Muslim world, the Ahmadiyya have long been persecuted for their theological beliefs.

Eight members of Iran’s banned Bahá’í community convicted of disrupting national security by practicing their faith have lost their judicial appeal to delay imprisonment.

Nigeria is in danger of becoming one of the world’s deadliest places to live according to a new report.

House of Representatives approves legislation to ban imports from Xinjiang, based on reports of more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs and other minority Muslim ethnic groups being detained and subjected to forced labor.

The European Office of the Church of Scientology for Public Affairs and Human Rights calls on the UN to investigate Germany for its continuous and egregious violation of the rights of Scientologists.

“Although our nation professes to cherish its first amendment enshrined religious liberty, our society persistently denies this right to America’s original inhabitants. Historically, the religious persecution of American Indians is undisputed.“—John Rhodes, Montana Law Review

An Islamic scholar has urged the government of Nigeria to take “decisive action” against the activities of the terrorist group Boko Haram.

A July 17 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) calls for the U.S. government to publicly censure Alexander Dvorkin for ongoing disinformation campaign against religious minorities.

Security officials have arrested eight converts to Christianity in Iran, bringing to 34 the total number of Christians arrested in the country so far this year.

Prisoners of conscience of Iran’s banned Baháʼí faith, recently furloughed to alleviate overcrowding in the nation’s unsanitary jails facing COVID-19 outbreaks, are being summoned back behind bars.

Bitter Winter, a cooperative enterprise by scholars, human rights activists, and members of religious organizations persecuted in China.

As financial and food insecurity ravages much of the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam and Pakistan governments and aid agencies are denying food aid to disadvantaged minority Christians because of their faith.

Religious freedom violations in Burma (Myanmar) are highlighted in the USCIRF 2020 Annual Report.

USCIRF Annual Report calls for China to be once again be designated on the State Department’s list of “Countries of Particular Concern,” citing crimes against the Uygar, Kazakh and Kyrgyz Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners.

War’s insecurities render the world’s poor, marginalized and displaced disproportionately vulnerable to the pandemic, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who has urged warring countries across the world to lay down their weapons in support of the biggest battle humanity has faced in the 21st century.

A Syrian-Catholic monk kidnapped and held hostage for nearly five months by Islamic State militants believes he is still alive because of the humanitarian work he did among Muslims displaced during the war in Syria in the years before he was abducted.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari joins Nigerians of all faiths and beliefs who are mourning the recent killing of the Rev. Lawan Andimi, a Christian pastor, by members of the Islamist military group Boko Haram.

North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are among the top 10 countries where the persecution of Christians is likely to recur this year, according to a leading Christian charity group’s World Watch List for 2020.

A university lecturer has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for blaspheming against Islam, drawing international attention to a verdict that independent United Nations human rights monitors have criticized as a “travesty of justice.”

Ramy Kamel, an Egyptian citizen noted for his work in documenting attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christian churches and defending the human rights of the minority faith, is in pretrial detention in Cairo on a charge of belonging to a terrorist group.

Violent unrest has erupted across India over a contentious new citizenship law that offers immunity to undocumented immigrants from half a dozen religious faiths but excludes Muslims.

The release of Asia Bibi on May 8, 2019, has brought hope to the international religious community for greater tolerance of religious minorities in Pakistan.

Throughout the Islamic world, Ramadan is a time of contemplation and renewal. But in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, its observance has been outlawed.

An alarming 74 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in France has focused the efforts of political and religious leaders to find a solution.

A coalition of religious and civic organizations dedicated to protecting religious freedom and human rights have sent a joint letter to United Nations special rapporteurs and government officials.

Parallel between the events leading to Hitler’s Final Solution and today’s destructive force of anti-religious propaganda.

For nearly a decade “Free Asia Bibi” has been the rallying cry of human rights activists around the world protesting anti-religious extremism in Pakistan. Her case was finally heard by the Supreme Court in October 2018, where she was acquitted for lack of evidence.

A special report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom focuses on anti-conversion laws in South Asia.

Through 60 years of occupation by China, Tibet has continued to assert its unique culture and Buddhist religion.

Iranian Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani is serving 10 years in Iran’s notorious Ervin Prison. He and three members of his congregation were arrested in July.

On Sunday, August 19, the White House refused to negotiate with Turkey over fines until pastor Andrew Brunson is returned home to the U.S.

Pakistani extremist, leaders accused of spreading religious hatred and instigating sectarian violence, are among those running for seats 25 July in the Pakistani general elections.

The Trump administration is calling on Russia to release more than 150 political or religious prisoners and to cease suppressing dissent and peaceful religious practice.

U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in the CAR Najat Rochdi says an upsurge of violence in April and May has sent many returning refugees fleeing to neighboring Cameroon and Chad. She says one in four people in the country is now displaced.

Interview on CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) with U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback on the government’s views on the imprisonment of Rev. Andrew Brunson.

In response to continued harassment of Hindu leader Shri Prakash Ji, his family and the Shri Prakash Dham Spiritual & Cultural Centre in Russia, the Hindu American Foundation is taking action.

German government’s new commissioner for anti-Semitism voices concerns about current trends in his country.

Some 10,000 men and women belonging to indigenous faiths joined forces April 24 in the town of Gumla in Jharkhand to demand recognition of their traditional religions.

An article in the Washington Post brings to light a brand of extremism running rampant through Facebook in India, driven by the catchphrase “love jihad.“

More than 2,000 wore skull caps at a rally in Berlin April 25 to show their support of the German Jewish community following last week’s attack on two Jewish men. Similar rallies took place in cities across Germany.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2018 Annual Report April 25, documenting violations and progress in 2017 on religious freedom issues in 28 countries.

Muslim and non-Muslim Iranians took to social media to express their disagreement when Zoroastrian Sepanta Niknam was suspended from his city council seat because of his religion. Niknam defeated a Muslim candidate in the election last year in Yazd, a historic city in central Iran.

A video and the text of a paper by lawyer Dr. Patricia Duval titled “Anti-sect movements and State neutrality: FECRIS and its member associations in France” was presented at an international convention of held in Florence—Law and Freedom of Belief in Europe, an arduous journey.

An article by the United Church of Christ's media justice ministry published on Medium.com explores online hate speech, how it is spread and what can be done to stop it.

An article in the Daily Caller titled “Russia is Waging War on Religious Minorities and Hindus are Their Next Target,” calls attention to FECRIS and especially Alexander Dvorkin as the force driving this repression forward.

A Presbyterian pastor from North Carolina faces up to 35 years in Turkish prison for charges he asserts are untrue. Rev. Andrew Brunson, who has led a small congregation in Izmir, Turkey, for the past two decades, was arrested in October 2016 and held without charges.

In a public forum March 21 at the Church of Scientology Berlin, former sect commissioner Dr. Peter Schulte, author of Dei Akte Scientology (The Scientology File), described German government collusion to violate the rights of Scientologists and the Scientology religion.

Saeed Rezaei, 61, spent time with his family for the first time in a decade on being released from Iran’s Rajaei Shahr Prison after serving 10 years of a 20-year sentence.

Leonardo Rodríguez Alonso, a prominent Cuban advocate for freedom of religion or belief, was released from detention March 2.

In a Newsweek article February 6, staff writer Cristina Maza reports on a concerted campaign of harassment against popular Hindu religious leader Shri Prakash Ji that he claims is the work of anti-cultist Alexander Dvorkin.

As reported in Forum 18, there were 279 known administrative prosecutions in Kazakhstan to punish the exercising of freedom of religion or belief in 2017.

Praying in a private home is customary for members of the Baha’i faith. That is because in their native Iran, practicing their religion in any visible place of worship could lead to their death.

Mohammad Mansha (58) is a happy man today. The Punjab resident is home after serving the last nine years in prison on a life sentence blasphemy conviction on a charge that Mansha had desecrated a copy of the Quran. In late December 2017, a two-judge panel ruled that Mansha was falsely accused.

Two attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt December 29 have taken the lives of at least nine. Egypt’s Interior Ministry reported six civilians and a policeman died when a gunman tried to storm a Coptic church after carrying out an attack at a Coptic-owned shop in the same area, killing two.

The United Nations human rights investigator assigned to look into the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar claims she has been barred from entering the country.

When Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, it marked the beginning of intense persecution of the indigenous Muslim Tartar population of Tartars in that land.

According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), more than one-third of the world’s countries criminalize blasphemy—speaking ill of things sacred to indigenous religions. In some countries, blasphemy carries a death sentence.

On November 15, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Myanmar to meet with Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian head of the country, to discuss “credible reports of widespread atrocities” by the country’s security forces against the minority Muslim Rohingya population.

The U.S. Department of State International Religious Freedom Report for 2016 includes a summary of the 2011 Hungary religion law and an overview of the country’s practices in violation of the freedom of religion or belief, which includes the following key information.

Muslim Rohingya militants, responding to the religious persecution of their people in Myanmar (the former Burma) August 25, attacked police in that country’s strife-torn northern state of Rakhine.

One day, Roxana Saberi may show off the pink-and-rose colored bracelet she’s cherished for years to the woman who wove it. The bracelet had to travel through many hands and halfway across the world for four years just to get to its recipient—the most precious gift Roxana has ever received.

Human Rights Without Frontiers covers the release lasts month of Baha’i leader Mahvash Sabet from prison in Iran, where she served 10 years behind bars because of her faith. She is the first of seven imprisoned Baha’i leaders to be released.

Article republished courtesy of the European Interreligious Forum for Religious Freedom Today in Budapest, several hundreds of Scientologists gathered peacefully with candles before their Church in Budapest to protest what they called an outrageous and wholesale violation of the human rights of all

Elizabeth Cassidy and Andrew Kornbluth from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) presented the Commission’s findings on the world’s blasphemy laws October 17 at a conference held at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center in Washington D.C.

Kristina Arriaga, Vice Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), testified before the National Security Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee October 18 on the “government’s role in protecting international religious freedom.

Warsaw, Poland • Oral presentation at the OSCE - ODIHR Meeting of 2017, Working session 9 — discussions concerning tolerance and nondiscrimination.

Warsaw, Poland • Oral presentation at the OSCE - ODIHR Meeting of 2017, Working session 6.

China’s cabinet has passed new rules to regulate religion to bolster national security, “fight extremism” and restrict faith practiced outside organizations approved by the State.

Last year India was listed at number 15 on the World Watch List of the 50 most difficult countries for Christians to live in. In 2017, the country has seen nearly as many attacks against Christians so far as in all of 2016.

Some 100 Syriac Christian properties including monasteries, churches and cemeteries have been liquidated and transferred to the Treasury: Two functioning monasteries and lands adjacent to the 4th-century Mor Gabriel Monastery belonging to Turkey’s oldest indigenous culture.

Human Rights Without Frontiers reports that Donald Jay Ossewaarde, an American national who has lived in Oryol, Russia, since 2005, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights March 30, 2017, based on his arrest and conviction of violating Article 5.

In opening the Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in June 2015, a convocation held every three years in Astana, Kazakhstan, the country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev presented his nation as “a successful model of coexistence between 18 religions living in peace, harmony and mutual understanding.

In a statement issued July 19, the U.S. State Department called on Russia to end its persecution of minority religions. This was prompted by the Russia Supreme Court’s decision upholding an April ruling labeling Jehovah’s Witnesses “extremist.”

In the first of a video series titled "FoRB in Five"—Freedom of Religion or Belief in Five Minutes or Less—Human Rights Without Frontiers executive director Willy Fautré speaks out on Russia’s criminalizing of a peaceful religion under the 2002 Extremism Law.

Vietnam’s Catholic Bishops Criticize Law on Belief and Religion Set to Go Into Effect January 1, 2018.

We need to wake up, all of us, and realize that every time we allow someone’s religious rights to be kicked aside, we are putting our own at risk. If a group as large and established as the Christian church can be discriminated against and criminalized, what is safe?

Sunni Muslim Nariman Seytzhanov was convicted in Almaty, Kazakhstan, of “inciting religious hatred or discord” under the broadly framed Criminal Code Article 174, Part 1.

Victoria Arnold, Moscow Correspondent for Forum 18 News Service, a human rights organization based in Oslo, Norway, filed this report on actions against Jehovah’s Witnesses since the Russian government liquidated the religion across Russia in April 2017.

Some 1,000 gathered in Delhi to protest Russian anti-cultist Alexander Dvorkin and his denigration of Hinduism.

Western church leaders have not been outspoken enough about religious persecution and human rights violations around the world, said U.S. Congressman Frank R. Wolf (Ret.) at a recent luncheon in McLean, Virginia.

Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok, has withdrawn his request for appeal of a two-year sentence for blasphemy. His wife, Veronica Tan, read his handwritten announcement May 23.

Chinese authorities are carrying out a campaign to dismantle dwellings in Larung Gar, a mountainside settlement in southwestern Sichuan province that is home to some 10,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. Some estimate the population at 20,000.

The U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom has added Russia to its list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) for the first time in two decades, prompted by the country’s recent repression of the rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

A Tel Aviv University study covering data from 40 countries found violent anti-Semitic incidents, including attacks with and without weapons, arson, and vandalism or desecration, have been on a downward trend in the past few years.

Former Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, was jailed May 9 after being found guilty of blasphemy. He was sentenced to two years in prison despite prosecutors recommending two years’ probation on a lesser charge.

When the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2017 Annual Report April 26 on the state of religious freedom in selected countries, USCIRF Chair Thomas Reese, S.J., said “the state of affairs for international religious freedom is worsening in both the depth and breadth of violations.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony May 2 from representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the Sikh community, and the Justice Department. The subject was the dramatic increase in religion-based hate crimes, up 23 percent from 2014 to 2015.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was born April 25, 1989, in Lhari County, Tibet. Six years later, shortly after the Dalai Lama named him the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama, the boy was abducted and has not been heard from again.

Armenian communities around the world march in remembrance April 24 of the Armenian Genocide and in protest that Turkey still denies genocide in the killing by the Ottoman Empire of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915‑1923.

New York Times Moscow correspondent Andrew Higgins wrote about today’s action by the Russian Supreme Court labeling the Jehovah’s Witnesses an Extremist Group: “Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination that rejects violence, an extremist organization.“