World: eight added
All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2015 Annual Report in April.
This report, the 16th since the commission’s creation in 1998, documents religious freedom violations in 33 countries, makes country-specific recommendations, and assesses the US Government’s implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). USCIRF recommends that the State Department add eight more nations to its list of ‘countries of particular concern’, where particularly severe violations of religious freedom are perpetrated or tolerated: Central African Republic (first time recommendation), Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Vietnam.