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(OPINION) On April 25, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom launched its annual report describing events in 2021 — a detailed document focusing on more than two dozen countries that are engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations.

The report also offers suggestions and recommendations, while providing information regarding 15 specific prisoners of conscience for whom USCIRF commissioners have personally advocated. 

Based on the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, the commission identifies countries in two specific categories: “countries of particular concern” in which the government engages in or tolerates “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom and a “special watch list” category in cases where the government engages in or tolerates “severe” violations of religious freedom.

For me, as one of many who have researched and written about religious persecution for decades, it’s unquestionably encouraging to see the American government’s attention focused on various abuses of religious believers, and many of these are specifically cited during the annual U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom event. There are relatively few shocking or graphic reports included in the USCIRF presentation, describing the many ugly abuses that have taken place. Practically speaking, in a relatively brief webinar, such details would be impossible to describe.  

However, the cruelties that lie behind USCIRF’s carefully worded designations are essential to understanding what is happening in today’s increasingly violent world. And as the businesslike presentation unfolded, I immediately recalled some of the nightmare scenarios of bloodshed, rape, mutilation and devastation that I’ve learned from eyewitness accounts and written about.  

One prime example is Nigeria, which was designated as a country of particular concern for less than a year by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in December 2020 — only to be unexplainably removed from the designation by the Biden administration less than a year later. That was a terrible decision to be sure, and Nigeria should be a country of great and, yes, “particular“ concern to us all. The reason for the initial designation was based on massacres, kidnappings and destruction of properties — which have been going on since the early 2000s. Recent reports detail worsening conditions, which carry on without hindrance or recourse from the corrupt and likely complicit Nigerian government.

Another site where the faithful are abused is Iran. Those who do not embrace the state’s form of extreme Shiite Islam experience discrimination, arrest, violent interrogation and at times lengthy imprisonment. Iran’s Baha’is, Sunni Muslims — and particularly Christians — are relentlessly persecuted. Scenes of house church arrests abound. Unjustly jailed believers endure filthy, cramped cells and physical abuse by guards and other prisoners. Some are murdered; others disappear. Yet despite the fact that this has been going on since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Christian population is exploding exponentially, especially among the youth, causing great distress to the elderly ruling ayatollahs.

Meanwhile, for decades we’ve heard about China’s chilling treatment of religious minorities, including groups like Christians, Buddhists and Falun Gong. Most recently and even worse, we’ve learned about deadly concentration camps housing more than 1 million Uighur Muslims. Peaceable Muslim women, men and children are being profoundly abused, enslaved and often killed in nearly unimaginable ways. And although China’s Christians are not yet being specifically imprisoned in concentration camps, in recent state crackdowns on religion, their worship centers are being rapidly being shuttered and torched while their leaders are targeted and abused — and many have simply “disappeared.” Crosses are ripped off churches, Bibles burned, and those who are incarcerated are vulnerable to torture, sterilization and forced organ harvesting.

Most recently we’ve learned about the surprisingly large and secretive underground Christian movement in Afghanistan. We’ve also heard and seen ample evidence of the violence perpetrated against these believers by the Islamist Taliban followers. Christian women and girls are violently discriminated against; those who are not covered according to Isalmic law are often specifically targeted to suffer rape, forced marriage, disfigurement and/or public execution. In August 2021, Catholic News Agency reported:

Afghanistan’s Christian community, which is estimated to be between 10,000 and 12,000 people, is comprised mostly of converts from Islam and is the country’s largest religious minority group. Due to persecution, the Christian community remains largely closeted and hidden from the public eye. Under sharia, including in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban takeover, apostasy from Islam is punishable by death. Converts to Christianity are the frequent target of Islamic extremist groups.

USCIRF’s 2022 event did not detail many of the specific abuses and atrocities that are being inflicted on Christian believers, but they were clearly laid between the lines as the commissioners cited the conclusions they had reached from their carefully researched and analyzed fact-finding assignments. And for 2022, based on religious freedom conditions in 2021, USCIRF offered the following recommendations to the U.S. State Department:

• Redesignate Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as countries of particular concern.

• Designate Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Syria and Vietnam as additional countries of particular concern.

• Maintain Algeria, Cuba and Nicaragua on the special watch list.

• Include Azerbaijan, CAR, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Turkey and Uzbekistan on the special watch list.

• Redesignate the nonstate actors al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Houthis, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Islamic State in West Africa Province — also referred to as ISIS-West Africa — and Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin as “entities of particular concern.”

Most of us can only watch from afar as Christians in increasing numbers face discrimination, violence and death. We can only watch and pray for their protection, relief and rescue. But when we seek to speak out, it is reassuring to know that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom continues to serve as a global watchdog, cataloguing abuses against all religious believers across our increasingly dangerous world. On behalf of our Christian sisters and brothers who suffer, we are thankful for USCIRF’s careful and invaluable work.

Lela Gilbert is senior fellow for international religious freedom at the Family Research Council and fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @lelagilbert.