USCIRF Issues Annual International Religious Freedom Report With a Peculiar Omission
Engy Abdelkader
Posted: 5/06/2015 1:08 pm EDT
Updated: 1 hour ago
Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued its annual report documenting human rights violations globally. The report suffers from at least one peculiar omission. It left out prior analysis depicting persistent religious freedom abuses in Western Europe. And, by doing so, USCIRF -- perhaps inadvertently -- diminished the suffering of European Muslims, Jews and Christians, rendering them vulnerable to further attack.
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. government advisory group that examines religious freedom around the world. Its functions, pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, includes issuing an annual report documenting abuses and setting forth policy recommendations to high-level government officials, including the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. NGOs, academics and other policy makers also rely on USCIRF's findings to further bolster human rights claims.
Past USCIRF reports have mentioned anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bias in parts of Europe. In 2012, 2013 and 2014, however, USCIRF devoted meaningful analysis to persistent religious freedom violations -- official restrictions as well as social hostilities -- in Western Europe.
Representative is USCIRF's 2012 report examining official restrictions on certain forms of Muslim religious dress including laws banning the full-face veil in France and Belgium and similar legislative initiatives in Italy and Switzerland.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/engy-abdelkader/uscirf-issues-annual-international_b_7209662.html
http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/uscirf-issues-its-2015-annual-report
2015 Annual Report at link.
