USCIRF Spotlight Podcast

Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched a campaign of mass atrocities to achieve the religious and ethnic cleansing of religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria. In 2016, the U.S. State Department determined ISIS’s atrocities against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims constituted crimes against humanity and genocide. Ten years on, survivors face multiple threats to their religious freedom, security, and existence within their homelands.

Today, Ambassador David Saperstein, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and the Hon. Frank Wolf, former U.S. Representative (R-VA 10th) and former Commissioner at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), join USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst Susan Bishai. They share their firsthand insight into the United States’ response to ISIS’s genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as offer recommendations for the U.S. to support religious freedom for the surviving communities, ten years on.

Listen to USCIRF’s first podcast in this series commemorating the tenth anniversary of ISIS’s genocide. Read USCIRF’s 2024 Annual Report Chapter on Iraq and view USCIRF's Hearing on Religious Minorities & Governance in Iraq.

With Contributions from:

Susan Bishai, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched a campaign of mass atrocities to achieve the religious and ethnic cleansing of Yazidis, Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Christians, Shi’a and Sunni Muslim Turkmens, Shabaks, and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. In 2016, the U.S. State Department determined ISIS’s atrocities against Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims constituted crimes against humanity and genocide. In 2019, an international coalition defeated ISIS’s last territorial hold in Iraq and Syria. However, ten years on, survivors face multiple threats to their religious freedom, security, and existence within their homelands.

Jamileh Naso, President, Canadian Yazidi Association; Nadia Cavner, Philanthropist and Advocate for Assyrians; and Dr. Ali Akram Albayati, Co-Founder, Turkmen Rescue Foundation join USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst Susan Bishai to discuss religious minorities’ ongoing struggles to rebuild in the region.

Read USCIRF’s 2024 Annual Report Chapter on Iraq and view USCIRF's Hearing on Religious Minorities & Governance in Iraq.

With Contributions from:

Susan Bishai, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

The French government has prohibited French athletes from wearing religious garb while competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics. As such, French athletes who wish to wear religious garb are forced to choose between adhering to their sincerely held religious beliefs and competing at the highest level of sport. This tight regulation of religious expression is not unusual in France, where the government has enacted similarly strict restrictions on wearing religious garb in public spaces. France has also seen a proliferation of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, as well as governmental anti-cult efforts negatively impacting religious organizations.  

On today’s episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, Supervisory Policy Analyst Scott Weiner and Researcher Luke Wilson discuss the French government’s worrying restrictions on wearing religious garb in the public sphere.

With Contributions from:

Scott Weiner, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Luke Wilson, Researcher, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

In 1998, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the International Religious Freedom Act, creating USCIRF as an independent government Commission led by a bipartisan group of nine Commissioners appointed by both political party leaders in Congress, and by the president. Twenty-five years later, USCIRF’s Commissioners continue to lead the non-partisan staff to monitor egregious religious freedom violations around the world and to make independent policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress.

On today’s episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck and Vice Chair Eric Ueland join us to discuss USCIRF's bipartisan nature and its unique framework to ensure international religious freedom remains a bipartisan issue in U.S. foreign policy.

Read USCIRF’s 2024 Annual Report

With Contributions from:

Stephen Schneck, Chair, USCIRF

Eric Ueland, Vice Chair, USCIRF

Jamie Staley, Acting Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

One of USCIRF’s key functions is to make recommendations to the State Department about which countries we think should be designated as Countries of Particular Concern or CPCs, based on our independent research and analysis. Every year we await the State Department’s announcement of its religious freedom designations to assess how they match up with USCIRF’s recommendations.

On today’s episode of the USCIRF Spotlight Podcast, USCIRF Chair Abraham Cooper and Vice Chair Frederick A. Davie join us to discuss the State Department’s most recent CPC designations—specifically the countries we think should have been added to this list including India, Nigeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Syria. 

Read USCIRF’s Press Release on the 2023 State Department IRF Designations

With Contributions from:

Abraham Cooper, Chair, USCIRF

Frederick A. Davie, Vice Chair, USCIRF

Elizabeth Cassidy, Director of Research & Policy, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

In May 2023, violent clashes between two communities erupted in India’s Manipur state, leaving entire villages burned and displacing tens of thousands. The ongoing conflict is between the state’s majority Hindu Meitei community and the Christian Kuki population and has seen the direct targeting of religious symbols and places of worship and refuge. More than 250 churches of different denominations have been burned or damaged across the state.

Religious freedom in India has declined in recent years, marked by the promotion and enforcement of discriminatory laws and practices that negatively impact the country’s minority Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Adivasis populations. In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the State Department designate India as a Country of Particular Concern for systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.

USCIRF Policy Analyst Sema Hasan joins Supervisory Policy Advisor Jamie Staley to discuss the current conflict in Manipur and religious freedom conditions in India.

Read USCIRF’s 2023 Annual Report Chapter on India

With Contributions from:

Jamie Staley, Supervisory Policy Advisor, USCIRF

Sema Hasan, Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

In recent years USCIRF has reported that religious freedom conditions in Algeria have continued to deteriorate with the government increasingly enforcing blasphemy laws and restricting worship. These laws particularly impact religious minorities, such as Protestant Christians and Ahmadiyya Muslims. In 2022, the U.S. Department of State placed Algeria on its Special Watch List (SWL), following USCIRF’s recommendation.

USCIRF Senior Policy Analyst, Madeline Vellturo, joins Researcher, Hilary Miller, to discuss the continued decline of religious freedom in Algeria.

Read USCIRF’s Law and Religion in Algeria Factsheet

With Contributions from:

Madeline Vellturo, Senior Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Hilary Miller, Researcher, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

In 2016, Congress passed the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act which mandated that USCIRF maintain a list of individuals targeted for their religion or belief. In 2019, USCIRF launched its Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Victims List – an online database that catalogues persons detained, imprisoned, placed under house arrest, disappeared, forced to renounce their faith, and tortured for their religious belief, religious activity, and religious freedom advocacy. Since then, the FoRB Victims List has documented almost 2,000 victims with that number unfortunately continuing to grow.

USCIRF Researcher, Dylan Schexnaydre, joins Research Analyst, Zack Udin, to discuss the database’s background, recent upgrades, and data for 2022.

Read USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Factsheet

View USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List or complete the Victims List Intake Form. 

With Contributions from:

Dylan Schexnaydre, Researcher, USCIRF

Zachary Udin, Research Analyst, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

Governments around the world use many different strategies to control or repress religion, but a common tactic is for the state to elevate a particular religion to a special status in ways that can marginalize different faiths or belief systems. USCIRF’s recently released report, “A Global Overview of Official and Favored Religions and Global Implications for Religious Freedom,” looks at 78 countries that identify an official or favored religion and subsequently enforce that religion, or a particular interpretation of that religion, through the law. While several countries that maintain these relevant laws do not enforce them or even have a legal framework to enforce them, some countries take these laws seriously and are, in fact, some of the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief. 

Kurt Werthmuller, Supervisory Policy Analyst and author of this report, joins us today to discuss the findings of this report.

Read the full report on “A Global Overview of Official and Favored Religions and Global Implications for Religious Freedom”

With Contributions from:

Kurt Wertmuller, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Jamie Staley, Supervisory Policy Advisor, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF

Authoritarian states promote religious tolerance without necessarily ensuring freedom of religion or belief. Last month, USCIRF released a report distinguishing between these two concepts and explains the origins of religious tolerance promotion as a tool of statecraft. The report presents case studies of countries engaged in religious tolerance promotion, such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Russia, and Uzbekistan. 

Dr. David Warren, the author of the report and lecturer in the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, join us to today to discuss the important findings and ways the U.S. government can utilize discussions of religious tolerance to set a groundwork for broader rights protections.

Read the full report on “Tolerance, Religious Freedom, and Authoritarianism”

With Contributions from:

Scott Weiner, Supervisory Policy Analyst, USCIRF

Veronica McCarthy, Public Affairs Associate, USCIRF