US designates 10 countries of concern over violation of religious freedom

The US has again designated Pakistan and China as “countries of particular concern” for systematic and egregious violations of religious freedom, a move that could lead to the imposition of certain sanctions against them. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the US had designated China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan as “countries of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998”. “The US will continue to work tirelessly to end religiously motivated abuses and persecution around the world, and to help ensure that each person, everywhere, at all times, has the right to live according to the dictates of conscience,” he said.

The action was taken as these countries were “engaging in or tolerating systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”, he said.China, Pakistan, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia have figured in the list of countries of particular concern in recent years, though the state department has granted waivers to these countries from any meaningful action related to the designation because of US security interests. In 2019 alone, the state department issued three such waivers for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan.

Pompeo also said the US had placed the Comoros, Cuba, Nicaragua and Russia on a “special watch list” for governments that have engaged in or tolerated “severe violations of religious freedom”. The US also designated terror groups al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Islamic State and its affiliates in Greater Sahara and West Africa, Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin and the Afghan Taliban as “entities of particular concern” under the Frank R Wolf International Religious Freedom Act of 2016.The US didn’t renew the “entity of particular concern” designations for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Islamic State-Khorasan, which operates in Afghanistan, due to “total loss of territory formerly controlled by these terrorist organisations”, Pompeo said.