U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom – 2024 Annual Report

Excerpt:  “USCIRF’s first annual report, issued in May 2000, focused primarily on China, Russia, and Sudan. Today, the governments of China and Russia remain among the world’s worst violators of their people’s religious freedom, as well as among the most active perpetrators of cross-border repression and other malign activities abroad, including in the United States. Indeed, Chinese authorities’ repression of Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims has reached such extremes that the U.S. government recognized it as genocide and crimes against humanity in 2021. The two other recent situations that the United States has recognized as genocide and crimes against humanity also targeted religious minority groups whose persecution USCIRF has long been documenting and decrying—Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and Rohingya Muslims in Burma. In all three cases, regrettably, justice for the survivors and accountability for the perpetrators remain elusive to date. By contrast, Sudan saw real religious freedom improvements during the period of civilian-led transitional rule that began in 2019. However, the 2021 military coup and subsequent civil war in 2023 have jeopardized that progress and resulted in a humanitarian crisis impacting all Sudanese.”