US government watchdog calls out Syria for religious freedom abuses
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also recommended Egypt, Iraq and Turkey be added to the State Department's special watchlist for religious freedom offenders.
Religious groups remain under threat across Syria, a US watchdog group said Wednesday, calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate the war-torn country as one of the world’s worst religious freedom offenders.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan federal government commission, has for the eighth year in a row recommended that the State Department categorize Syria as a “country of particular concern” for particularly severe violations of religious freedom in the past year. The department's list is currently comprised of 10 countries, including Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea and Iran.
Under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, the executive branch must consider USCIRF's recommendations, which this year included calls for the Biden administration to step up the use of human rights-related sanctions in response to significant religious freedom violations.
In its annual report released on Wednesday, the congressionally appointed body said that religious freedom in Syria continued to deteriorate in 2020, due in part to repression from jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in northwestern Idlib province and Turkey’s support for extremist rebel factions in the northeast.
