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August 6, 2012
"The World Is Sliding Backwards," Hillary Clinton Says Of International Religious Freedom Report
State Department's annual summary indicates that oppression of religious minorities is on the rise.
The U.S. State Department has released its 2011 International Religious Freedom Report, highlighting the abuse of blasphemy and registration laws and the treatment of minority religious groups as security threats.
"The world is sliding backwards," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, noting that "more than a billion people live under governments that systematically suppress religious freedom."
"It’s particularly urgent that we highlight religious freedom," she said, "because when we consider the global picture and ask whether religious freedom is expanding or shrinking, the answer is sobering."
The report contains a list of 14 countries that were individually evaluated, including China, Iran, Russia, and Syria. China and Iran were among eight marked as "countries of particular concern" by the State Department.
"There was a marked deterioration during 2011 in the government’s respect for and protection of religious freedom in China," the report stated. Examples of Tibetan self-immolations and crackdowns on Christian churches were used to support the evaluation.
China disputed the negative evaluation, claiming the report was "full of prejudice, arrogance and ignorance" and dismissing it as "nothing but a political tool used by the U.S. government to exert pressure on other countries, mostly deemed as its rivals."
CT has spotlighted the world's worst persecutors, analyzed the landscape of international religious liberty groups, and mapped the movement of modern-day refugees and asylum seekers.
Comments
I watched part of Clinton's presentation about this on c-span. It was sobering. There should be more news coverage of this issue. She clearly "gets it." Hope she will do some post-SoS work in this area.
Posted By: Julana Schutt | August 7, 2012 10:42 AM
The "world" of religion persecution has been "sliding backward" annually for a long time as any earlier International Religious Freedom Report will show.
Mrs. Clinton like other Secretaries of State have all expressed the same old alarm over the suppression of religious freedom in far off places. However, Mrs. Clinton knows that as "sobering" as the religious scene in several countries is the needs and interests of the USA take precedence every time.
What do you do with China to whom the USA is so heavily indebted? And what do you do with Russia with an autocrat like Putin now in control? And what about Iran whose imminent nuclear power status is obviously of more importance than a few struggling Christians? And who wants to talk about religious freedom in Syria of all places, when both China and Russia believe it is their right to support the regime of Assad?
And what about the USA where to say homosexual "marriage" is against the Bible is to incur the wrath of mayors and government officials, and have your business threatened?
When will Mrs. Clinton tell us what the Religious Freedom Report says about the state of affairs in the USA, and why preference seems now to be given openly to one particular foreign religion ?
Posted By: Steve Skeete | August 7, 2012 11:42 AM
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