December 03, 2022
Washington:
The US on Friday designated China, Iran and Russia, amongst others, as nations of specific concern beneath the Non secular Freedom Act over extreme violations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned.
Blinken in a press release mentioned these designated as nations of specific concern - which additionally embody North Korea and Myanmar - engaged in or tolerated extreme violations of non secular freedom.
Algeria, the Central African Republic, Comoros and Vietnam have been positioned on the watch record.
A number of teams, together with the Kremlin-aligned Wagner Group, a non-public paramilitary group that's lively in Syria, Africa and Ukraine, have been additionally designated as entities of specific concern. The Wagner group was designated over its actions within the Central African Republic, Blinken mentioned.
"All over the world, governments and non-state actors harass, threaten, jail, and even kill people on account of their beliefs," Blinken mentioned within the assertion.
"The US is not going to stand by within the face of those abuses."
He added that Washington would welcome the chance to satisfy with all governments to stipulate concrete steps for elimination from the lists.
Washington has elevated stress on Iran over the brutal crackdown on protesters. Girls have waved and burned headscarves - obligatory beneath Iran's conservative costume codes - through the demonstrations that mark one of many boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic because the 1979 revolution.
The United Nations says greater than 300 folks have been killed thus far and 14,000 arrested in protests that started after the Sept. 16 dying in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini after she was detained for "inappropriate apparel."
United Nations consultants have additionally known as on majority Shi'ite Muslim Iran to cease persecution and harassment of non secular minorities and finish the usage of faith to curtail the train of elementary rights.
The Baha'i neighborhood is among the many most severely persecuted non secular minorities in Iran, with a marked improve in arrests and concentrating on this yr, a part of what the UN consultants known as broader coverage of concentrating on dissenting beliefs or non secular practices, together with Christian converts and atheists.
The US has expressed grave considerations about human rights within the western Chinese language area of Xinjiang, which is house to 10 million Uyghurs.
Rights teams and Western governments have lengthy accused Beijing of abuses towards the primarily Muslim ethnic minority, together with pressured labor in internment camps.
The US has accused China of genocide. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.
The opposite nations designated as nations of specific concern have been Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
The US Non secular Freedom Act of 1998 requires the president – who assigns the operate to the secretary of State – to designate as nations of specific concern states which might be deemed to violate non secular freedom on a scientific and ongoing foundation.
The act offers Blinken a spread of coverage responses, together with sanctions or waivers, however they don't seem to be computerized.