Yesterday the U.S. State Department released its 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom (full text). The Report describes the status of religious freedom in 196 countries. The Report is submitted annually to Congress in compliance with the International Religious Freedom Act. Secretary of State Blinken, announcing release of the report, said in part:
Over the past year we’ve seen real progress in some parts of the world on expanding religious freedom as people demanded their rights. Civil society groups pushed for change and governments listened.
Unfortunately, the report also documents the continuation and, in some instances, the rise of very troubling trends. Governments in many parts of the world continue to target religious minorities using a host of methods, including torture, beatings, unlawful surveillance, and so-called re-education camps. They also continued to engage in other forms of discrimination on the basis of faith or lack of faith, like excluding religious minorities from certain professions or forcing them to work during times of religious observance.
Governments use anti-conversion, blasphemy, apostasy laws, which ban the act of leaving a faith, to justify harassment against those who don’t follow their particular interpretation of a theology, often weaponizing those laws against humanists, atheists, and LGBTQI+ individuals....
In a press release, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reacted to the State Department's Report.
