The USCIRF 2013 annual report on religious freedom is out. Here’s a link to the 400 page analysis with a detailed ‘blow by blow’ country by country summary of violations in the past year.

The 15 worst countries when it comes to intolerance and religious persecution are:

Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tasjikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Note that ten of the 15 are Muslim dominated countries. Also note that among the worst of the worst are three Communist countries that are long time occupiers on this list:

China, North Korea, and Vietnam

Egypt gets a special place on this year’s list as a country that is getting to be far worse in their treatment of religious minorities than they use to be. Especially of the Coptic Christians who make up 10% of the population. The former regime use to offer at least a moderate amount of protection for the Copts but the current government is far more radical and dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Now the authorities in Egypt seem to be encouraging the attacks against the churches and Christian communities in the country and the police and courts no longer offer any protection.

So much for the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ which was supposed to bring greater ‘Western style’ democracy but has ended with bringing on a more radical ‘sharia winter’ instead with even less rights and protections for religious minorities.

Also note that the Obama administration along with their supporters in the Senate almost succeeded in defunding and shutting down the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom last fiscal year. Fortunately too many Christians complained and it was an election year after all so the funding was latter re-instated so we have another yearly report from the commission. I really do expect them to try and shut it down again this year while folks are not looking.             *Top

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