Authoritarian rule is the “common denominator” in the worsening of religious persecution around the world, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its 2025 annual report.
Last year, totalitarian regimes widened the direct oppression of minority faiths in their countries, while others chose to look the other way when mobs or other third-party actors conducted violent attacks against unwelcomed religious groups, USCIRF said in the newly released study.
Established by the International Freedom Act of 1998, the bipartisan, independent religious freedom watchdog implored Congress and the White House to continue the fight for global religious liberty: “Now more than ever, U.S. support for the right to freedom of religion or belief must remain a priority as both a strategic national interest and a reflection of our national identity.”
Congress is urged in the report to prioritize the bipartisan advancement of religious freedom through legislation that aids communities, families and individuals facing religious persecution around the world. Federal legislators also are encouraged not to participate in meetings with representatives or lobbyists of the offending nations.
“Confirming this commitment to advancing freedom of religion or belief will require calibration and joint action with like-minded governments.”
And President Donald Trump should quickly appoint a new ambassador-at-large for religious freedom to replace Rashad Hussain, whose term concluded with Joe Biden’s presidency, the report says.
“The administration of President Donald J. Trump faces a complex international environment in which to build on its previous success of centering religious freedom as a cornerstone of foreign policy and global leadership,” the report states. “Confirming this commitment to advancing freedom of religion or belief will require calibration and joint action with like-minded governments.”
For its part, the commission continued its role in recommending lists of bad actors to the U.S. State Department.
The worst offenders of religious freedom are Countries of Particular Concern, nations that tolerate or engage in “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom.
The report calls for redesignating a dozen nations as CPCs: Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It also recommends adding Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Vietnam to the list.
The next grouping consists of governments participating in or tolerant of “severe” violations of religious liberty. The report recommends keeping Algeria and Azerbaijan in that category and adding Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
Entities of Particular Concern are nonstate actors, such as terror organizations, that engage in violence against religious groups. The report recommends redesignating al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the Houthis, Islamic State-Sahel Province, Islamic State in West Africa Province and Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin in that category.
Because the State Department did not make designations in these categories by the end of the Biden administration, the 2023 designations remain in effect, USCIRF explains.
The report opens with accounts of religious persecution by the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua.
The report opens with accounts of religious persecution by the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua, where some of the world’s most severe religious freedom violations are occurring.
It explains: The government “has harassed, arrested, tried and deported numerous members of the Catholic clergy — leaders of the country’s largest religious community. It has used intimidation and manipulation to force into exile leaders of the indigenous Moravian Church” and it has “arrested members of the Mountain Gateway ministry, including U.S. citizens — despite that community’s historically positive relationship with the government. The regime has permitted violent attacks on houses of worship, including an arson attack that destroyed the 400-year-old crucifix inside the Chapel of the Blood of Christ in Managua.”
Afghanistan last year boosted its oppression of religious groups outside its narrow version of Islam. The nation enacted dozens of edicts restricting the religious liberty of girls and women, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Ahmadiyya Muslims.
China continues efforts to force Buddhists, Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims and others to adhere to communist ideology in all faith practices.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has continued his government’s oppression of minority faith groups, the report continues. “Russia continued to deploy antisemitism and Holocaust distortion, ban Jehovah’s Witnesses, target and harass vulnerable communities, and persecute groups such as the Protestant Word of Life Church and the Church of Scientology.”
Such violations, together with armed conflicts, are the causes for waves of refugees either internally displaced or seeking safety internationally, the report adds. “Many faced immense restrictions on their freedoms, even after fleeing intolerable conditions in their places of origin. While some governments made efforts to house and temporarily provide for these refugees, they also threatened to refoul them back to their home countries at grave risk to their personal safety.”