WASHINGTON (BP) — The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) continues to call for Nigeria, Afghanistan, India and Vietnam to be added to the U.S. list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious liberty violations.
Conditions in Afghanistan and India continued to deteriorate and remained poor in Nigeria and Vietnam, USCIRF commissioners said March 25 in its 2025 Report on International Religious Freedom, calling out countries where Christian minorities face murder, torture and other ills either sanctioned by the government or with little governmental intervention.
Commissioners recommended the addition of 10 nations to the Special Watch List (SWL) of countries where the government engages in or tolerates “severe” violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. Those nations are Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
USCIRF dropped Azerbaijan from its CPC recommendations this year after recommending the country in 2024, instead saying the country should remain on the Special Watch List (SWL), along with Algeria. CPC indicates “particularly severe” religious freedom violations that are also “systemic, ongoing and egregious,” as defined by IRFA.
In Afghanistan, religious minorities including a few Christians comprise about 0.3 percent of the 39.2 million people, USCIRF said, and face extreme persecution under Taliban-imposed Sharia law, which also disproportionately persecutes women and girls. “Non-Islamic” religious ceremonies are banned. USCIRF noted the Taliban’s “widespread and systematic” use of physical and sexual violence especially against females, arbitrary detention, torture, corporal punishment, and other egregious abuses.
In Nigeria, federal and state governments continue to inadequately respond to attacks from nonstate insurgent groups based on religion, enforce blasphemy laws, and restrict indigenous religious practices.
In Vietnam, the Communist government increasingly regulates and controls religious affairs, implementing a new decree under the 2018 Law on Belief and Religion that grants authorities broader power to demand financial records and suspend religious activities for unspecified “serious violations.” More than 80 Vietnamese prisoners are included on USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List of those punished for their religious activities or advocacy. Persecution has included detention, arrest, imprisonment, torture, extradition, and forced renunciation of faith. Others have been killed by assailants or found dead after being summoned by police, USCIRF said.
In India, discrimination against religious minorities continued to rise, with government leaders spreading hateful rhetoric against Muslims and other religious minorities that fueled attacks on the victims, including vigilante violence, targeted and arbitrary killings, and demolition of property and places of worship, USCIRF said. The government also used laws that favored non-Muslims, offering certain refugees fast-tracks to citizenship, criminalizing religious conversions, bulldozing mosques in violation of laws protecting such property, and sought to repress religious minorities abroad.
The report, based on conditions in the countries in 2024, highlights actions under former President Joe Biden and recommends policy for the new administration.
“As repressive governments and violent entities attack and drastically erode freedom of religion or belief, USCIRF’s independent reporting and bipartisan recommendations have never been more critical to U.S. foreign policy,” USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck said in releasing the report. “The U.S. government must continue to stand firm against these threats to the universal right of religious freedom.”
U.S. support for global religious freedom must remain a priority not only as a strategic national interest, commissioners said in the report, but also as a reflection on America’s national identity.
“The administration of President Donald J. Trump faces a complex international environment in which to build on its previous success of centering religious freedom as a cornerstone of foreign policy and global leadership,” commissioners said.
Among recommendations are the appointment of an ambassador at large for international religious freedom, bipartisan congressional legislation “to fully resource and fund programming to help individuals, families, and communities around the world who face persecution and other threats because of their religion or belief,” and numerous other measures.
“Despite the escalating threats to freedom of religion or belief, there is real opportunity to stave off any retreat of this fundamental freedom and, if pursued with energy and determination, to advance it,” USCIRF Vice Chair Meir Soloveichik said at the report’s release.
USCIRF also recommended that seven terrorist organizations be redesignated as Entities of Particular Concern (EPCs), namely al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Houthis, Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP), Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) (also referred to as ISIS-West Africa), and Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM). There were no EPC recommendations that are not currently on the list maintained by the U.S. State Department, last updated in 2023.
Completing USCIRF’s recommendations are countries recommended to be redesignated as CPCs, namely Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan; Maintain on the SWL the following two countries: Algeria and Azerbaijan.
USCIRF’s full report is available here.
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