Religion IN BRIEF : Curbs on Religious Freedom Criticized

The United States released a report on religious freedom worldwide Thursday, concluding that much of the world’s population lives in countries in which religious freedoms are restricted.

Many of the countries faulted, including China, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, regularly show up on the annual U.S. list of overall human rights abusers.

But the report also criticized some U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for intolerance.

“Freedom of religion does not exist” in Saudi Arabia, the report determined, in an unusually blunt and sweeping finding about that major U.S. ally in the Gulf.

Although 144 countries are parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “there remains in some countries a substantial difference between promise and practice,” according to the State Department report covering January 1998 to June 1999.

China is cited for persecuting Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim Uighurs and Protestants and Roman Catholics who do not belong to official churches.

Iran was faulted for trying to eradicate the Baha’i faith, while Iraq was criticized for conducting a campaign of murder, execution and arrests against the Shi’a Muslim population.

In Russia, the report said, there was concern about an October 1997 law on religious groups that the report called “restrictive and potentially discriminatory.”