House Passes Upgraded International Religious Freedom Law

2015 Saw Less Religious Freedom Around The World

by Lauretta Brown (CNSNews): The House of Representatives unanimously passed the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act Monday afternoon, which upgrades the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 giving the administration and the State Department new resources to help combat the worldwide escalation in persecution of religious minorities.

The bill’s author Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said upon the bill’s passage that “the world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of international religious freedom, a crisis that continues to create millions of victims.”

The legislation would amend the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) to “locate the Office on International Religious Freedom in the Office of the Secretary of State” and include “mandatory training on religious freedom for all Foreign Service officers.”

The bill would also create “a Designated Persons List of individuals sanctioned for participating or directing religious freedom abuses,” and would create a “tier system” for International Religious Freedom reports on countries of particular concern (CPC) and a special watch list to identify countries with religious freedom violations that do not yet meet the criteria to receive a CPC designation.

Under the new legislation, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom would be required “to compile and make publicly available regularly updated lists of persons imprisoned, detained, disappeared, placed under house arrest, tortured, or subject to forced renunciations of faith by: (1) a foreign government recommended for designation as a country of particular concern for religious freedom, or (2) a violent nonstate actor.”

The president is also directed by the bill to appoint to the National Security Council a “Special Adviser for Global Religion Engagement and International Religious Freedom (in lieu of the Special Adviser to the President on International Religious Freedom)” to “coordinate executive branch international religious freedom policies and global religion engagement strategies.” . . . [Read More]

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