State Department Releases 2011 International Religious Freedom Report

As reported by CNN, yesterday the State Department released its International Religious Freedom Report for 2011. Ambassador -at-Large for International Religious Freedom Suzan Johnson Cook provided a press briefing (full text) on the report. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also spoke about the report at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (full text of remarks). The State Department presents the report in an interactive format on its website-- setting out the Executive Summary and providing links to either go to the full report for a specific country or build a report by individual topics across countries chosen by the online user. The Executive Summary says in part:

Governments restricted religious freedom in a variety of ways, including registration laws that favored state-sanctioned groups, blasphemy laws, and treatment of religious groups as security threats. The report focuses special attention on key trends such as the impact of political and demographic transitions on religious minorities, who tended to suffer the most in 2011; the effects of conflict on religious freedom; and the rising tide of anti-Semitism. Impacted groups, to name just a few, included Baha’is and Sufis in Iran; Christians in Egypt; Ahmadis in Indonesia and Pakistan; Muslims in a range of countries, including in Europe; Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, and Uighur Muslims in China; and Jews in many parts of the world.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a release welcoming the State Department's report and urging it to move promptly to designate "countries of particular concern" for this year pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act. It also urged the State Department to follow up its designation with "vigorous U.S. diplomatic activity."