Three self-styled religious reformers were jailed for a year in Bahrain on Thursday after being found guilty of violating the foundations of Islam, in a case that was condemned by rights campaigners and exposed divisions in the Gulf state s Shiite community.
DUBAI: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia congratulated moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani on winning Iran s presidential election, hailing what he described a.
April 21, 2021
Religious groups remain under threat across Syria, a US watchdog group said Wednesday, calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate the war-torn country as one of the world’s worst religious freedom offenders.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan federal government commission, has for the eighth year in a row recommended that the State Department categorize Syria as a “country of particular concern” for particularly severe violations of religious freedom in the past year. The department s list is currently comprised of 10 countries, including Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea and Iran.
Under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, the executive branch must consider USCIRF s recommendations, which this year included calls for the Biden administration to step up the use of human rights-related sanctions in response to significant religious freedom violations.