Religious Freedom in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate
Every year the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an advisory body to the State Department and US Congress, publishes a report about the state of international religious freedom with recommendations for US policy.
In its 2022 Annual Report, released on Monday 25 April, USCIRF said the overall human rights situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated significantly after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 but that it was particularly “calamitous” for, among others, religious minorities. They “faced harassment, detention and even death due to their faith or beliefs,” it said, highlighting how Christian converts were forced “to practice their faith in hiding due to fear of reprisal and threats from the Taliban.
The situation regressed so much that the country should be added again to the list of “Countries of Particular Concern,” defined as engaging in “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”, USCIRF said. It also recommended that the Taliban should be re-designated as an “entity of particular concern”. If the US government decides to follow the advice, these designations give it legal authority to impose sanctions.
The last time USCIRF advised the US State Department to nominate Afghanistan as a ‘Country of Particular Concern” was in 2001, just before the Taliban was ousted.
The recommendation is in line with findings of Open Doors researchers that led to Afghanistan taking over North Korea as No. 1 on the 2022 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.
India – hostility to religious minorities
Like last year, the Commission also recommended classifying India as a Country of Particular Concern, as religious freedom conditions had further deteriorated in 2021. “The government continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu state at both the national and state levels through the use of both existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s religious minorities,” it said.
Last month Haryana became India’s 11th state to pass an anti-conversion law that criminalises religious conversion when forced by, for example, fraud, inducement, misrepresentation or by marriage. Hindu nationalists perceive religious conversions to be a threat to India’s overwhelmingly Hindu composition and they have used the anti-conversion laws to harass and attack religious minorities.
Afghanistan refugee camp
An OD report has found that violence is more frequent in states that have passed such laws than in those that have not.
India is 10th on the 2022 Open Doors World Watch List.
Please Pray:
Its impossible to live openly as a Christian in Afghanistan. Pray the despite believers’ isolation, they would be strengthened and encouraged, and that God would make “seeing eyes blind” so that their faith would not be discovered. Also pray the God will soften the hearts of the community around our family. Pray there are gospel opportunities, and a safe community for them.
