Report: rising number of people being displaced because of religion

Report: rising number of people being displaced because of religion July 30, 2014

Syrian refugees flee to Iraq

From CNS: 

The displacement of people around the globe because of their religious beliefs in 2013 rose to levels unseen in years, the State Department reported.

Millions of Christians, Muslim and Hindus as well as people of other faiths were displaced by violence or threats because of their religious practice or for not holding any religious belief, said the 2013 Report on International Religious Freedom released July 28.

It cited the civil war in Syria and sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims in the Central African Republic for displacing millions of people.

Throughout the Middle East, according to the report, the presence of Christians is “becoming a shadow of its former self.”

The report found little improvement in the countries described as most likely to restrict religious rights, particularly North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan. In Bahrain, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Egypt, Eritrea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkmenistan minority religious communities faced sporadic incidents of sectarian violence, the report said.

“I emphasize we are not arrogantly telling people what to believe,” said Secretary of State John Kerry in introducing the report. “We’re not telling people how they have to live every day. We’re asking for the universal value of tolerance, of the ability of people to have a respect for their own individuality and their own choices.”

Calling religious freedom a “universal value,” Kerry equated religious practice with human freedom.

Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, joined Kerry at the podium, saying that in most cases restrictions on religious practice rarely resulted from religious differences among ordinary people.

“There is usually the additional factor of cynical calculations by political forces seeking to maintain power or exploit religious differences for political ends,” Malinowski said. “Authoritarian governments, for example, often cannot tolerate independent communities of conscience beyond state control.”

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