US Report Finds Religious Freedom Threated Worldwide

“We need to redouble our efforts to serve as a beacon for religious freedom around the world and press countries to implement policies that protect religious expression and worship”, Senator Marco Rubio said in a statement after the State Department released its annual report on global Religious Freedom for the year 2014.

The rise of global terrorist groups, including Islamic State and Boko Haram, has been the most harmful development to freedom of religion around the world, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday. The North was last redesignated as a CPC in July, the report said.

“Some government bodies are tasked with encouraging religious harmony and protecting the rights of minority religious groups, but none enjoy the power or influence of those that regulate Islamic religious affairs”, said the report.

“The United States Government is always working, day in and day out, to ensure that its citizens who are imprisoned unjustly without due process and for the exercise of fundamental internationally protected rights are allowed to go free, and/or encounter a judicial system that does provide due process and fairness”, he said. “We are going to encourage the Prime Minister and the government to take those ideals and turn them into reality all across the country”, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for global Religious Freedom, David Saperstein, said.

The report further noted that the Islamic religious authorities to be among the most powerful and influential of religious institutions.

It also said members of these and other groups reported convictions, assaults, excessive use of force, detentions, monitoring, hindering of movement, denials of registrations and other permissions, and other harassment.

The department noted in the report that Islamic authorities’ actions have increasingly affected non-Muslims.

The State Department designated North Korea a Country of Particular Concern in 2001 for severe violations of religious freedom, and most recently redesignated it in July.

“Even when the central government officials acknowledged certain actions, they often said the actions taken by local officials were not based on religion, but on local officials’ duty to maintain order”.