report<\/a> for 2023.<\/p>\nThe Commission named 12 countries whose governments commit or allow \u201csystematic, ongoing, and egregious violations\u201d of the right to freedom of religion or belief.<\/p>\n
The list includes Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and other countries.<\/p>\n
Regarding the situation of Ukraine, the report states that after the invasion of the Russian Federation, \u00a0\u201cUkrainian authorities increasingly scrutinized the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)\u2014which is historically and ecclesiastically linked to the Moscow Patriarchate\u2014 despite the UOC declaring in May its \u2018full independence and autonomy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The report also states that \u201cthe Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) searched hundreds of UOC churches and other religious facilities and opened criminal proceedings against dozens of UOC clergy for collaborating with Russian authorities, spreading pro-Russian propaganda, or justifying Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn December, President\u00a0Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered his Cabinet of Ministers to also submit a bill to parliament that would make it \u2018impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine.\u2019 While the Ukrainian parliament had not passed any such legislation banning religious groups by the end of 2022, its potential to still do so remained a serious concern,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US State Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) did not see any serious violations of the rights of believers in Ukraine. That\u2019s according to the Commission\u2019s report for 2023. The Commission named 12 countries whose governments commit or allow \u201csystematic, ongoing, and egregious violations\u201d of the right to freedom of religion or belief. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":159664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"telegram_tosend":false,"telegram_tosend_message":"","telegram_tosend_target":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5142,5143,5153],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-159737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-security","9":"category-top-en"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/df.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/86045968045698409.png?fit=1059%2C595&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159739,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159737\/revisions\/159739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/df.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}