2024 Recommendations

2024 Annual Report

Click here to view the 2024 Annual Report

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2024 Annual Report assesses religious freedom violations and progress during calendar year 2023 in 28 countries and makes independent recommendations to the president, the secretary of state and Congress for U.S. policy.

In addition to country chapters with key findings and U.S. policy recommendations, the 2024 Annual Report describes and assesses U.S. international religious freedom policy overall. The report also highlights important global developments and trends related to religious freedom during 2023, including in countries that do not meet the criteria for CPC or SWL. These include transnational repression by religious freedom violators, laws restricting religious freedom, attacks against religious sites in armed conflict, risks to religious minorities during elections, rising of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, religious freedom concerns in Europe, and religious freedom issues for refugees.

USCIRF bases these recommendations on its statutory mandate and the standards in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international documents. USCIRF’s mandate and annual reports are different from, and complementary to, the mandate and annual reports of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom.

The key findings, recommendations and analyses in this report are based on research by USCIRF, including travel, hearings, meetings and briefings, and are approved by a majority vote of Commissioners, with each Commissioner, under the statute, having the option to include a statement with his or her own individual views.

Standards for CPC and SWL Recommendations

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) defines Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) as countries where the government engages in or tolerates “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom. The statute, as amended by the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act of 2016 (Frank Wolf Act), defines the State Department’s Special Watch List (SWL) for countries where the government engages in or tolerates “severe” violations of religious freedom.

Under IRFA, particularly severe violations of religious freedom means “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations,” including violations such as: (A) torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; (B) prolonged detention without charges; (C) causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction or clandestine detention of those persons; or (D) other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons. Although the statute does not specifically define “severe” violations of religious freedom, in making SWL recommendations, USCIRF interprets it to mean violations that meet two of the elements of IRFA’s “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious” standard.

The fact that a country is not covered in this report does not mean that religious freedom issues do not exist there, or that concerns discussed in previous annual reports have improved. It indicates only that USCIRF did not conclude that the conditions in the particular reporting year meet the statutory CPC or SWL standards.

In its 2024 Annual Report, USCIRF recommends 17 countries to the U.S. Department of State for designation as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs) based on their governments engaging in or tolerating particularly severe violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief. These include 12 that the State Department designated as CPCs in December 2023: Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—as well as five additional recommendations: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Nigeria, and Vietnam.

The 2024 Annual Report also recommends 11 countries for placement on the State Department’s Special Watch List (SWL) based on their governments’ perpetration or toleration of severe violations of religious freedom. These include one that the State Department placed on that list in December 2023: Algeria—as well as 10 additional recommendations: Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. While the State Department included Vietnam on its SWL in December 2023, USCIRF believes the government of Vietnam’s violations rise to the level of CPC status. Additionally, USCIRF recommends the State Department add Kyrgyzstan to the SWL for the first time due to the Kyrgyz government’s heightened religious repression in 2023.

Entities of Particular Concern (EPC)

The Frank Wolf Act requires the U.S. government to identify nonstate actors engaging in particularly severe violations of religious freedom and designate them as EPCs. The law defines a nonstate actor as “a nonsovereign entity that exercises significant political power and territorial control; is outside the control of a sovereign government; and often employs violence in pursuit of its objectives.”

The 2023 Annual Report further recommends to the State Department seven non-state actors for redesignation as Entities of Particular Concern (EPCs) for particularly severe religious freedom violations. The State Department designated all seven of these groups as EPCs in December 2023: al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Houthis, Islamic State Sahel Province (IS Sahel), Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) (also referred to as ISIS-West Africa), and Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM).

The fact that a nonstate group is not recommended for EPC designation does not mean that it does not engage in religious freedom violations. There are numerous nonstate groups that commit particularly severe religious freedom violations but do not meet the Frank Wolf Act’s standard for designation as EPCs because, for example, they do not exercise significant political power and territorial control.