Report recommends expanding US religious freedom watchlist

By Lisa Zengarini

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called for additional targeted sanctions on Iranian authorities and security officials in light of the increased crackdown on women and girls for defying the country’s mandatory hijab law.

The Commission is a bipartisan federal entity established in 1998 that makes foreign policy recommendations to the U.S. Government and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief abroad.

Its recommendations are contained in a report published every year to help the U.S. Department of State draw up its annual list of governments and non-state actors that engage in, or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations” of religious freedom.

Crackdown over hijab in Iran 

In its recently-released 2024 Annual Report , USCIRF again placed Iran in the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC),  states with the worst record of religious freedom violations, recommending the U.S. Administration to impose targeted sanctions on Iranian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States.

In April this year, Iranian authorities launched a new hijab campaign, Nour (“light” in Persian), violently arresting women and girls who refuse to wear it. This new spate of arrests came only weeks after UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission determined that Iran’s crackdowns on protests against mandatory hijab and other religious freedom violations amount to crimes against humanity. USCIRF called on the U.S. Administration to support those findings.

Five more Countries of Particular Concern

In its annual report the Commission also urged the U.S. Department of State to add Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Nigeria and Vietnam to the existing list of 12 Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) bringing the total to 17. Apart from Iran, these include North Korea, Nicaragua, China, Eritrea, Pakistan, Myanmar, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Countries in the Special Watch List and Entities of Particular Concern 

According to USCIRF, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey and Uzbekistan should be included in the Special Watch List (SWL) of countries whose governments engage in or tolerate “severe” religious freedom violations.

The report also includes recommendations for Entities of Particular Concern (EPCs), or non-state groups that engage in particularly severe religious freedom violations that often includes violence. Among them are the al-Shabaab terrorist organization in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Syrian Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, the Islamic State Sahel Province, the Islamic State in West Africa Province – also referred to as ISIS-West Africa – and jihadist organisation Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) operating in the Maghreb and West Africa region.

USCIRF’s 2024 report is the 25th issued since Commission was established by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) in  1998. The  first one was released in 2000.